The bird speaks.
Of course it does.
"Before Julius Caesar died," the crow says, voice booming loud and rippling over the water and the land like the report from a rifle, "he had a dream. A dream of flight. A dream in which he was a bird soaring high in the sky above the seven white hills of Rome. His soothsayer, Titus Vestricius Spurinna, warned him of his coming death and said that it would be presaged by a king-bird flying into the halls of power with a sprig of laurel in its mouth, but the bird would be pursued by a flock of blackbirds and those blackbirds would attack the smaller king-bird and tear it pieces then and there – and it came to pass as the haruspex suggested."
"I'm done with the fuckin' bird thing," Miriam says. "Seriously. Don't you have any other symbols in that bag of tricks?"
The bird clacks its beak together.
Clack clack clack
. "Poor Miriam. Railing against that which she understands but does not want to admit. Like Caesar. Even after the signs and portents, old Julius told the haruspex that her words were lies and he could not die, oh no, not him."
"I'm tired. And in pain. Just go away."
"You die today. Here and now." The bird adjusts its wings. "This is the moment fate has marked for your death. Which would be something of a failure, don't you think? Those girls. Not just Wren. Nor Tavena. But so many others. The Caldecotts continue. They'll have children of their own. The snake eats its own tail. An endless parade of pain, a procession of misery."
"Someone else will have to step in. I'm done."
"If not you, then who?"
"Fuck you. Fly away."
"You called me a symbol," the bird says. "Who said I'm a symbol? I'm as real as you. Real as the gun at your head. Here. Look."
It feels like Miriam's consciousness is dragged swiftly from her body and run through a gauntlet of thorns–
And suddenly she can see herself.
Kneeling at the pond's edge. The stocky cop behind her, gun frozen.
Miriam tries to move. She hears the rustle of wings.
Her wings.
She's out of her body. And into the crow's.
And then–
Whoosh.
She's back. Staring at the gazebo and the dark raven atop it.
"Just tell me what to do," the crow says, "and thy will be done, poor Miriam."
Time unsticks itself.
The rain once more hammers the pond.
Thunder rumbles.
The cop clears his throat.
She feels the gun press tighter.
Miriam looks to the crow atop the gazebo. Whispers, "Please."
Feels a part of herself slip away.
The bird takes flight.
"Now the Devil take you," Earl growls.
A dark shape moves fast. A flurry and flutter of wings.
The pressure of the gun barrel is gone. Earl screams. Miriam cranes her neck to see just as the gun goes off by her ear – another ringing, this time so loud it drowns out even the sound of the rain.
All Miriam can see of Earl's face is the bird – black oily wings flapping. He cries out. Bashes at the bird with the gun.
The beak pecks.
Stabs.
Into his mouth again and again as he screams.
The bird pulls away, talons leaving claw marks on Earl's chin.
His mouth is a red crater, a blood-slick gopher hole–
The bird has bits of his tongue in its mouth. Like strips of stir-fry beef.
A spring robin with a wriggling
worm in its mouth.
The crow flies.
Miriam seizes her opportunity. She awkwardly buries the fronts of her feet into the mud and pushes off like a swimmer, barreling forward into Earl's knees. He tumbles over her, splashing into the pond.
On her side, she tries inching her way up the bank but the grass is smeared with mud and she can manage no purchase.
A hand grabs her ankle.
Earl rises back out of the water.
And begins dragging her toward it.
She kicks her legs. He turns her over so that she's facing him.
He scowls, his teeth filthy with blood-black clots. Grabs her by the shirt. Points the gun at her face. And she thinks,
Why? You stupid bird, what good did any of that do? He has no tongue but he's still got the gun and I'm dead either way.
In her mind, she hears an answer.
Because it bought
you just enough time.
But just enough time for what?
A gunshot.
Earl's head jerks hard to the right.
He falls across her legs. Dead weight. Rolling into the water.
"I don't understand," she says to the sky, rain washing away her vision and filling her mouth as she speaks.
Big hands find her. Haul her back up the bank.
And a one-eyed truck driver stares down.
"Louis," she says.
"I told you I'd protect you."
"Maybe next time show up a little earlier. This fashionably late shit is for the birds." But then he's gone again. Pulling the cop's body up out of the water. She sees the black hole in the side of Earl's dead face. Sees that Louis has a gun – a fucking hand-cannon, actually – as Louis comes back to her, the handcuff keys swallowed by his massive mitts.
Louis stares down at the body. "Should've shot him when I had the chance. I had him, Miriam. Had him laying there. But I turned chickenshit. Shot the ground beside his head… and, and, and I ran away."
"It's okay," she says. A few moments pass between them as the rain falls. "Louis, I think I telepathically commanded a bird to do my bidding."
"Oh." He gets her hands free and the blood rushes back to her limbs.
"That cop. He's not the only one," she says, gasping.
"I know."
"They've got the girl. Wren."
"I know."
"Will you help me save her?"
"I will."
"Then get me that fucker's gun. We're going to need it."
FIFTY-EIGHT
Chooser of the Slain
"I'm happy you're here," she says as they creep back into the house. They slip in through a side-door: the laundry. Shelves of towels and front-loading machines stand silent.
The whole house is silent.
"Shhh," he says.
They enter back into the hall. Pass by an old gilded mirror. Miriam sees her face. She looks like hot microwaved death. Bruises and scabs and swollen protrusions. First from her encounter with Keener. Then from the brothers Caldecott: Beckett and Earl. She can even see the crusty scar where the gunman's bullet dug a ditch in her head – but that wound is nothing compared to all the others.
"How'd you get here?" she whispers as they creep toward the foyer.
"I saw it was the headmaster's car that brought you here, so I put a gun to his head and made him drive me. Then I shoved his ass into the trunk."
"Edwin's
here
?"
Louis nods, Colt Python in hand.
"Bring him in," she says.
"I don't want to leave you."
"I'll be okay."
"Wait for me," he says, and she nods.
It's a lie. She's not waiting for him. This is on her, not him.
Louis hesitates. But he finally nods, buying what she's selling. They reach the foyer, and he heads out the front door.
Leaving Miriam alone in the house.
Alone with a pair of monsters.
"Earl's dead!" she yells out. Voice echoing. "But I guess you know that. That's why you're hiding."
Still nothing.
She thinks she hears something upstairs, a creak of a floorboard.
Beck's dangerous. He's like a coiled viper. Hard to see. Fast to strike.
"You wouldn't believe it, Eleanor," Miriam calls. "I cut out his tongue before he died." Not a lie. Not exactly. "He got what was coming. He's been the one covering up all your dirty business, isn't that right? Edwin helps case the girls. Carl did the killing. And Earl made sure the girls were just
missing
, not murder victims. But Beck… he's your baby. With Daddy dead, he's the one who picks up the axe. Who sings the Mockingbird song."
Eleanor appears.
The old woman is upstairs, walking along the balcony's edge, one hand running along the banister. Miriam tracks her with the pistol.
"They're good boys," Eleanor says. Rattled. Trembling.
"Why is it that you hate girls?" Miriam asks. "You don't look for trouble in boys. You don't kill anybody with a dick. Just young girls. Bad girls."
"Because girls are poison. Whores if you let them be that."
"Like you? Harridans and whores like little Ellie Caldecott?"
"I went by Ella, if you must know."
"Send Beckett out," Miriam says.
Eleanor smiles.
It's then Miriam realizes she's been played. Played by her own damn game: Eleanor's been distracting her.
A flash of movement comes from Miriam's left–
Beck.
She pivots her hip, raises the .380–
But she's slow. And he's got a fireplace poker.
The iron bar
whangs
against the gun and knocks it out of her hand, leaving her palm and fingers stinging with the reverberation. The pistol spirals across the floor and lands under a stocked art deco sidebar.
Beck starts bobbing erratically – it's hard to get a bead on him. He drives a heel punch into her solar plexus. The wind sucks out of her lungs. He grabs her head, goes to slam it into his knee–
Miriam's not having any of that. She forms her hand into a point and jams it high up into his armpit, right where she scored the blow with the fork.
He grunts but is otherwise unmoved.
Fuck.
Two hard punches to her side. He stomps down on her foot. Throws her to the ground. Her shoulder cracks against the floor.
On her hands and knees, she scrambles toward the sidebar – the gun sits beneath it, still wet from the rain.
But Beck has other ideas. He grabs her by the waistband of her pants, and as he pulls her toward him he drives wide-elbowed hammerblows into her kidneys. Again and again. He's better than her. In every way.
She's dead.
Unless–
What is it that Beck teachers? Sensei Beck. Ninja Warrior Beck.
He teaches girls how to fight back.
To fight dirty.
Repeat after me: Eyes nose throat groin knees and feet–
Miriam rolls over. One hard kick with her boot lands square against his knee. The pain is evident on his face – eyes wide, epic jaw in a rigor-mortis flinch.
He growls, hauls her back to her feet–
"Eyes," she says, and then spits in his eye.
"Nose." She slams her head against it, feels it give way. He grabs her by the chin but she's wet from the rain and squirms out of his grip.
"Throat." Again she forms her hand into a sharp point and jabs hard against his throat. His breath is a keening wheeze.
"My favorite," she says. "Groin."
Knee up into his junk drawer. A gleeful strike.
He gasps and she shoves him backward.
He staggers. Tries to get his bearing. Bangs his butt against the wall. Rebounds and comes at Miriam–
–time collapses into staccato moments, a ragged drum beat–
–the door opens, Louis hauling Edwin inside–
–she reaches under the sidebar, finds the prize–
–Louis calls, "Miriam!"–
–the gun is small but heavy in her hand–
–
bang
–
–a red rose blooms on Beck's chest–
–Edwin screams for his brother–
–the swallow on Beck's chest bleeds out, shot through the eye–
–and he falls, face forward, onto the foyer floor.
Smoke drifts lazily from the barrel.
Edwin crawls over to his brother. Sobbing into the man's hair. Holding him. Hugging him. Miriam storms over.
She levels the gun at Edwin. "Give me your hand."
"Go to hell, wretch," the headmaster gasps.
She clocks him across the top of the head with the gun. "Fuck it," she mutters, and she grabs his face with her hand–
She sees.
Sees the tableau of his death play out in front of her.
That sonofabitch.
"It figures," she says.
"Leave him," Louis says. "Let's call the police."
"The police?" She laughs, but it's a mirthless, acid bark. "Do you know how he dies? He dies at a fucking
ski chalet
. I don't know where. Colorado. The Swiss Alps. It doesn't matter. He dies an old man by a crackling fire as two grandchildren play at his feet.
This
evil prick, who helped his monster mother and fiend-fuck father hunt and torture and kill young women, gets away with it. And keeps on killing, for all I know."
Louis eases closer. He's holding up those enormous hands of his in a gesture of peace and calm. It isn't working.
"Miriam, he's defenseless."
"Tell that to the dead girls. You didn't see their tongues. Jars upon jars of them. Five dozen dead girls."
Edwin swallows a hard knot, wrings his hands together. "I'll do better. I'll be better. Your friend is right. Let me live. Please – "His lips connect by a slick string of saliva. His nose runs. His eyes glisten.
The gun wavers in her hand.
Louis says, "This isn't justice. This is revenge. This is murder."
"It… is what it is."
"Miriam, this isn't you–"
"You have no idea who I am."
She pulls the trigger. She shoots Edwin through the heart. Just like his brother. He collapses atop Beck.