SIX
Tammy had come into the house cautiously, not at all certain what she was going to find. In fact what she found was Jerry Brahms. He was standing in the hallway, looking down the stairwell, his face ashen-except where it was bloody from his fall-his hands trembling. Before he could get a word out of his mouth there came a din of shrieks from below.
“Who’s down there?” Tammy asked Jerry.
“Some boy we came up here with from Maxine’s party. A waiter. And Eppstadt. And God knows what else.”
“Where’s Maxine?
“She’s outside. She fled into the backyard when the earthquake hit.”
There were more noises from below, and then a rush of wind, coming up the stairwell. Tammy peered down into the darkness. There was somebody down at the very bottom, lying on the floor. She studied the figure. It moved.
“Wait a minute,” she said, half to herself, “That’s Zeffer!”
It was. It was Zeffer. And he was alive. There was blood all over him, but he was definitely alive. She went to the top of the stairs. He’d heard her calling his name, and his shining eyes had found her; were fixed on her. She started down the stairs.”
“I wouldn’t go down there … ” Brahms warned her.
“I know,” she replied. “But that’s a friend of mine.”
She glanced up at Brahms as she took her second step. There was a look of mild astonishment on his face, she wasn’t sure why. Was it because people didn’t have friends in this God-forsaken house; or because she was going down the stairs despite the cold, dead smell on the wind?
Zeffer was doing his best to push himself up off his stomach, but he didn’t have the strength to do it.
“Wait,” she called to him, “I’m coming.”
She picked up her speed to get to him. Once she reached the bottom she tried not to look towards the door through which he’d crawled, but she could feel the wind gusting through it. There was a spatter of rain in that wind. It pricked her face.
“Listen to me … ” Zeffer murmured.
She knelt beside him. “Wait. Let me turn you over.”
She did her best to roll him over, so he wouldn’t be face to the ground and managed to lift him so that his head was on her lap, though his lower body was still half-twisted around. He didn’t seem to notice. He seemed, in fact, to be beyond comfort or discomfort; in a dreamy state which was surely the prelude to death. It was astonishing that he’d survived this long, given the wounding he’d sustained. But then perhaps he had the power of the Devil’s Country to thank for that.
“Now,” she said. “What do you want to tell me?”
“The horsemen,” he said. “They’re coming for the Devil’s child … ”
“Horsemen?”
“Yes. The Duke’s men. Goga’s men.”
Tammy listened. Zeffer was right. She could hear hooves on the wind, or in the ground; or both. They sounded uncomfortably close.
“Can they get out?” she asked Zeffer.
“I don’t know. Probably.” His eyes closed lazily, and for a terrible moment she feared she’d lost him. But they opened again, after a time, and his gaze fixed on her. His hands reached up and took hold of Tammy’s arm, though his grip was feeble. “I think it’s time the dead came in, don’t you?” he said to her. His voice was so softened by weakness she was not sure she’d heard it right at first.
“The dead?” she said.
He nodded. “Yes. All the ghosts, outside in the Canyon. They want to come into the house, and we’ve kept them out all these years.”
“Yes, but — ”
He shook his head, as if to say: don’t interrupt me, I don’t have time.
“You have to let them in.” he told her.
“But they’re afraid of something,” Tammy said.
“I know. The threshold. Remember how I told you I went back to Romania?”
“Of course.”
“I found one of the Brotherhood there. A friend of Father Sandru’s. He taught me a method of keeping the dead from coming into your house. What you have to do is undo what I did. And in they’ll come. Believe me. In they’ll come.