Southern Gods (29 page)

They found the library easily. Andrez
tsked
at the stacks of books littering the floor, but followed Ingram to the desk. There they stopped and looked.

Two books and a sword lay there, waiting for them. Andrez reached forward and touched the cover of the larger book. He picked it up and opened it. He caught his breath.

Ingram peered at the book over Andrez’s shoulder. An illustration glared back at him. A grotesquely fat man sat naked in the middle of a floor marked with designs, a knife in his hand. Blood pooled around him, from the wound at his crotch. He’d severed his own testicles. In the next panel, the man crouched over a bowl and defecated into it, blood spilling onto the feces from the wound in his groin. In the last panel, the man, with a look that could be pain or joy, sculpted a creature from the shit, pushing his severed testicle inside his creation, into its chest.

Realizing Ingram looked over his shoulder, Andrez closed the book. “The
Necronomicon
. An evil work.”

“What the hell was that guy doing?”

“Golem. Making a golem from his own waste and giving it power through blood.”

Andrez gave Ingram a sick smile. “All power comes from sacrifice. So, in some sense we are gods too. We can create things as well. If you’re willing to sacrifice, you can create. This set of illustrations shows a very foul way to sacrifice. That is all that magic is. The willingness to sacrifice, to negate yourself.”

“Damn,” Ingram said, resting his hand on the smaller man’s shoulder. “I think I understand now what Sarah meant when she said she nearly lost her mind.”

“Damned, indeed,” Andrez said. “And look. The sword. Wilhelm’s sword.”

Ingram reached forward and took it in his uninjured hand. When he raised it high, he felt as if invisible gears locked into place. It felt good in his hand. Perfect.

Chapter 16

S
arah’s mother glared at her.

“You sleeping with him?” Her black eyes shone bright, inquisitive, like polished buttons. Her tone of voice made the question light, as if she inquired about the mail, or whether Sarah had remembered to get milk at the store.

“Of course not, Momma,” she said. “He’s been hurt, that’s all. He woke up last night.”

“He’s a big one, isn’t he? I’ll bet he’d fill you up.” She chuckled. “Bull, you say? He looks it. A hoss.”

Sarah gasped, a hand coming to her mouth. She felt the blood rushing to her cheeks, her neck.

“Oh, girl,” her mother chuckled, a dry, rasping sound. “You can lie to me, but don’t lie to yourself. If you haven’t thought about it you’re either dumber than ditchwater or so well practiced at self-deceit you don’t even know you’re doing it.”

Ingram coughed nervously from the door. The old woman looked at the man, grinning.

“How big are you, Bull?” She glanced at Sarah. “Sarah here wants to know. Are you a big old hoss?”

He entered the room, padding softly on his bare feet, and placed the port on the bedside table, scowling. He looked like someone held a gun on him, shoulders high and tense. He shut the door behind him as he left.

“Don’t think he likes me too much, girl.” She pointed at the port. “I want my sip. Pour it for me.”

Sarah brought the tray to her mother’s vanity and poured a glass. The old woman slammed it back, rocking her head like a sailor on leave. She swallowed loudly, smacked her lips, and held out the small glass for another. Sarah filled it again.

Sarah looked down at the yard. Two workers, coming from the direction of the field shop, walked through the cornfield with a large drum between them. Handles of rakes and shovels poked out of the barrel. She looked back at the yard.

What would do something like that? Was slaughtering not good enough? Why make a bloody arrangement of everything?

The sign in the grass stopped the breath in her chest.

In the center of the arrangement glared the severed head of Ole Phemus, that cantankerous peacock. Up and away from the center lay a curl of wings and the torso of another bird—denuded of feathers and flayed of skin so that it glistened red and white in the morning sun—looking for all the world like a question mark. Two other lines of flesh and feathers ran away from Phemus’ head; one curled around like a tentacle and the other shot straight away, ending in a flourish of tail-feathers. It was indecipherable and full of meaning all at once. She clenched her fists.

“Another, girl.”

Sarah turned away from the window, back to her mother. Elizabeth held out the filigreed cup and shook it in Sarah’s face. Before she realized what she was doing, Sarah slapped the cup from her mother’s hand, sending it flying across the room to shatter on the crown-molding.

“Pour your own,” she said, grinding her teeth. She squatted down on her haunches so that her face was even with her mother’s.

“I don’t know what’s happened with you, Momma, but you look fairly spry to me. I don’t see why you can’t start taking care of yourself.”

Elizabeth Rheinhart’s nostrils flared. Her eyes widened. Then she smiled.

She chuckled again, sounding like sandpaper blocks rubbing together.

“Goddamn it. I knew it. I knew you weren’t just Ware’s girl.” She reached out a liver-spotted hand and jabbed a yellow fingernail into the flesh of Sarah’s breast. Deep. Sarah yelped with pain and jerked away from the old woman.

“I’ve waited years for you to show a little backbone. I knew there had to be a bit of me in there, little girl. Not just the weak-willed thing you’ve shown yourself to be ever since you left with Jim.” She laughed from deep in her throat. “Jim. You picked a winner there, didn’t you. Eh?”

Again, Sarah’s hand lashed out, striking her mother on the cheek. She remembered her mother doing the same thing to Uncle Gregor.

Elizabeth stood, uncoiling herself from the vanity bench. She drew her robes around her as she rose, straightening her back.

Spry is an understatement
, Sarah thought.
I haven’t seen her move like that since I was a girl
.

“I’ll tolerate quite a bit from you, child, but not that,” her mother said, each word clear. “Go. You’re not fit for conversation. Have Alice bring me my dinner. When you’ve calmed down, we’ll talk.”

Once in the hall, door firmly closed behind her, Sarah began to shake uncontrollably. Her breath came in gasps and—even though she tried to press them back—tears sprang in her eyes. Her hands shook as if palsied. She leaned heavily on the wall.

“Sarah?” His soft, deep voice. She felt his hand touch her on the shoulder, warm and powerful. She didn’t want him to see her tears and think her weak, but his hand turned her inexorably toward him, like the movement of the earth. She gave in, something inside her relinquishing, and she hugged his chest, pushing into the circle of his arms. Like a circle round the sun, bright and warm and massive, blotting out everything else.

“You OK?”

She held him for a long time, trying to bury herself in his body, pressing her face into his chest and breathing, taking in his scent. He smelled like horses, cigarettes, and bourbon. Arms around him, she could feel just the edges of the wide, muscular expanse of his back. And she thought about what her mother had said. Yes… he could fill her to brimming. God, now she wanted that more than anything, this giant of a man pushing himself into her.

“Sarah?”

Andrez’s voice.

She released Ingram. Andrez watched from the doorway of Ingram’s bedroom, a worried expression on his face. Ingram reached forward, taking her hand.

“It’s gonna be okay. Right? She’s got her juice. She’ll simmer down.”

She turned from the men, pulling her hand away, and walked back across the gallery and downstairs. She could hear them following. She didn’t know where she was heading until she found herself in the library.

She sat at the desk. Opening the drawer, she looked inside, then slammed it.

“Do either of you have—”

Andrez stepped forward and handed her a cigarette, cupping his hand around the tip. He lit it from a wooden match.

Ingram removed a crystal tumbler from the disarray of glasses, the remains of Sarah’s search for the sword. She looked at the desk. The
Quanoon
and
Opusculis
glared at her.

The whiskey Ingram handed her burned its way down her throat, into her stomach. She chased it with a hard drag on the cigarette.

Andrez stood in front of the desk, looking down at her. “I am, quite frankly, frightened of your mother. She’s quite… how do you say… fierce. Formidable.”

“She’s a goddamned bitch,” Sarah said, the words popping out of her mouth of their own volition. “She always has been. She’ll tolerate you, let you go along with your life, until what you want and what she wants don’t…jibe.” She took another swallow from her glass. “Then she’ll rip you apart like a damned—”

“A wolf?” Andrez inquired, looking at her strangely.

“The disease makes her face look like that. It’s a minor symptom of the lupus.”

Andrez shook his head sadly. “Maybe she got this disease because she resembles a wolf on the inside. Eh?”

Sarah shook her head. “No. It’s just a disease. And wolves aren’t as vicious as she is, anyway.”

The little man smiled, then looked to the door. Reuben stood there, in his overalls, holding two large boots.

“Sorry to bust in on you like this, Miss Sarah, but nobody answered the door. I got some shoes here for Mr.…”

“Ingram,” the big man said. “Why’re they all dirty?”

“Big Jim was a farmer, Mr. Bull. Spent his days knee deep in mud, may he rest in peace.”

“A dead man’s boots.”

“That’s right, Mr. Ingram.”

Ingram laughed and took them, and Reuben nodded at Sarah as he left.

They were quiet for a moment as Ingram sat down on the window banquet and rolled up the cuffs of his pants.

“I saw something strange from Mama’s window.” Sarah opened the desk drawer again and withdrew a piece of paper and the nub of a well-chewed pencil. She scratched on the paper for a moment and then turned the paper around so that Ingram and Andrez might see.

“Andrez,” she asked, placing one finger on the paper. “Do you recognize this?”

He nodded. “It’s Hastur’s sign. The yellow sign, but in this case, not yellow but bloody. The question is why? The sign usually appears at a place where there’s a covenant in effect. Or, more likely, a territorial marker to let any other entities know that he has possession of this place or person. But I don’t understand how it could be either in this case.”

Andrez looked at the
Quanoon
and
Opusculus
on the desk. “Unless…” The little man’s hand went to his chin, as if he had a beard there to stroke. He sat like that for a long time, then shook his head.

“I don’t know, but we must be on our guard. It’s no small matter when gods—even this one that Bull has faced down—start meddling in the affairs of men.”

There was nothing Ingram could say to that. He refreshed their drinks, pouring the whiskey with a large, unsteady hand. He took Sarah’s glass, and she turned her head from staring at the
Quanoon
to smile at him. He set the bottle back down.

“Don’t scratch, Bull. You’re gonna make them worse.”

“What?” He looked down, realizing that his good hand fretted at the wound on his chest. “Oh.” He dropped his arm and took up a tumbler.

He raised it up to the light coming from the window. “Well, here’s to weird shit and dead birds.”

Andrez
tsked
. “No, Bull, don’t toast to the bad.” He took up his own glass. “Here’s to the strength of new friends.”

They raised their glasses, and drank.

Chapter 17

I
n the late afternoon, when the yellow light slanted into the library, the children returned from swimming at Old River Lake with far less noise than their departure.

Franny went to her mother, her bare feet making soft slaps on the hardwood. She leaned into Sarah’s chest and looked at Ingram. The exhaustion showed on her face, her body. Sunburnt across the nose, she held her index and middle fingers in her mouth and sucked at them busily, an old habit Sarah thought she’d broken her of.

Franny popped her fingers out of her mouth and asked, “Is he staying here, Mommy?”

She smiled and said, “Yes, baby. For a little while.”

“Good,” the girl said.

From the door, Alice said, “Sarah, I’m gonna take Lenora and Fisk on to the kitchen, get ’em some dinner. Send lil Fran in when she’s ready.”

Franny turned to Ingram.

“How tall are you?”

“Tall.”

“How tall is that?”

He held a hand flat on top of his head.

“This tall.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I don’t know really. Pretty tall. I gotta duck going into most rooms.”

“I wanna be that tall when I grow up.”

He thought about what she said. Sarah and Andrez watched him. The awkwardness he showed around others disappeared as he spoke with the girl.

“Why would you want to be as tall as me? People look at me funny. People make fun of me for being so big. They call me animal names. It’s not that swell, believe me.”