Usher's Passing (23 page)

"Thass damn fine," Harry mumbled, and grinned stupidly.

The tarpaulins were being whipped back. Nora saw the men from the trucks straining to pivot the objects around. It took Nora a moment to make out what the tarpaulins had uncovered.

Guns. Usher field howitzers, similar to one in a battlefield photograph Erik had once proudly shown her.

"Fireworks," Erik said, smiling. People were already starting to leave their seats. The guns were being aimed right at the crowd.

"Ready, Mr. Usher!" one of the gun crewmen called out.

"Erik," Nora began, stunned. "My God, you can't—"

"Hope you like the show, Harry." Erik turned regally toward the trucks and shouted, "Fire!"

The first howitzer went off. Its shell streaked over the tables with a noise like a freight train, up into the air above the Lodge, and toward Briartop Mountain.

There was a roar such as might be made by the damned souls of Hades as party guests scrambled wildly away, crashing into each other, knocking over tables, food, and champagne. The other cannons began to fire, each blast shaking the earth, the concussion knocking scores of people to their knees. Mr. and Mrs. Sanderson flew out of their chairs like ragdolls, and Nora went down clinging to Mr. Conyers. Champagne bottles exploded in their cases. The Japanese lanterns swung wildly back and forth. As the shells continued to flash overhead, the sky was lit up with an eerie, pulsating red glow.

Still the blasts went on. Her head ringing, Nora sat dazedly on her knees, watching people in tuxedos and evening dresses running for the safety of the woods, being knocked down by the shockwaves, getting up and fleeing again. The air reeked of gunpowder. The band had left their instruments behind when the entire bandstand collapsed like cardboard. Some of the shells had been coated with phosphorus, and Nora watched one of them flare over the Lodge and into the night like a shooting star—and then she saw the red explosion on Briartop Mountain.

My God, she thought in horror. The cannons are aimed toward the mountain! He's firing toward people's houses!

And then she found her voice, and though she couldn't hear herself over the noise, she screamed, "Stop it you bastard stop it you murderer stop it!"

The artillery pieces were razing the mountainside. She saw leaping tongues of fire where the shells hit. Standing up, she groped through the descending pall of smoke, bumping into people, tripping over dazed bodies. A shape approached through the haze, and only when she was right in front of him did she realize it was Erik. "Why?" she screamed.
"Why?"

He stopped, blinked at her. His smile was hanging lopsided from his mouth. "Because," he said, and it was then that Nora realized the cannonfire had ended,
"I can."

Then he brushed past her, like a sleepwalker, into the thickening whorls and eddies of smoke.

She stood watching the fires burn on Briartop Mountain, and she began to sob. At her feet, tiny American flags blew across the ground in the scorched turbulence that the howitzers had created.

Someone knocked at Rix's door.

"What is it?" he snapped, looking up from the diary.

The door opened with no warning.

"You don't have to bite my head off," Kattrina Usher said with a pout.

"TELL US MORE ABOUT THAT PARTY ON THE YACHT," MARGARET
urged Katt. In her voice was a girlish excitement. "That sounds so wonderful!"

Katt shrugged, quickly glancing across the dining room table at Rix. "Well, it was just a party. There were about a hundred people aboard, I suppose. Most of them work in the fashion industry, and there were other models there, too. We sailed around the islands in the moonlight. There were little twinkling lamps all up in the rigging. The breeze was fresh and clean, and when you looked out at the water you could see fish swimming around the boat, because they leave these beautiful blue-green trails behind them. It has something to do with the microscopic life in the water. Anyway, we had a great time. The next day we finished the shoot, and I came home."

"But didn't you meet any exciting men?" Margaret looked disappointed. "Surely there were all kinds of wealthy bachelors at that party."

"Mom," Katt said, smiling gently, "I've told you a hundred times I don't need to get involved with any wealthy bachelors. Anyway, I was in Barbados to work."

"Sounds like you were really breakin' your back, too," Boone commented. His eyes were still puffy from sleep, but he was dressed for lunch in a pinstriped suit and silk tie. He plunged his fork into his salad and filled his mouth with lettuce. "Could have got yourself killed, too. Sailin' around at night like that. Ever heard of reefs? Boat runs up on a reef, tears the whole bottom out of it."

"Don't talk with your mouth full," Margaret said. When she looked at her daughter again, her eyes sparkled. "Where will you be going next, Katt?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe Sweden in November for a shoot in the icebergs. I promised I'd do something for Stephano's coats."

"Freeze your ass up there," Boone said. "You get frostbite, you can wave that modeling career of yours good-bye."

Rix smiled as Katt rolled her eyes. He was, as always, stunned by her beauty. She had the finely sculpted face of a Celtic queen; her skin—now only lightly tanned from the Caribbean sun—was silken and free of all but the most gossamer of lines. They surfaced in the corners of her eyes when she smiled. Her hair, cut short and layered, was pale blond with hints of strawberry in it, and her brows were thick and blond as well. As striking as her bone structure was, her eyes were the feature that the cameras fell in love with: they were large and expressive, but slightly almond-shaped and mysterious, as if with a trace of Oriental blood. Boreal lights—green, amber, pewter—sparkled in her eyes. Today she wore very little makeup, just a trace of pale lip gloss, but her beauty had never relied on artifice, anyway.

Though she was thirty-one years old, she could easily pass for twenty.

Rix had seen her face dozens of times on magazine covers. When he'd gone to Wales, Katt's face had adorned the cover of the airline magazine stuck in the seat pocket in front of him. She'd smiled at him across the Atlantic. Rix recalled seeing her on the cover of
Sports Illustrated,
modeling a zebra-striped swimsuit, in the supermarket checkout line an hour or so before he'd found Sandra dead in the bathtub.

Katt had come in from the airport by way of the Jetcopter. Her white suitcases and traveling bags had just been delivered, and the family had sat down for lunch. Again, Rix noticed, there was no place set for Puddin'. The room had been misted with Lysol, but every so often Rix could smell his father. If Katt did, she wouldn't show it.

Rix loved her very much, but they'd seen little of each other in the past seven years. Whenever Rix had come to Usherland for a short visit, Katt was usually off for a few days on an assignment in some foreign country. Though she was a wealthy woman, she took jobs now as favors for designer friends and simply to keep her face before the public. Katt called Rix regularly, though, and she'd read all his books. She thought of herself, Rix knew, as the president of his fan club—as if there were such a thing—and she was always encouraging him to come to Usherland for an extended stay.

Her youthfulness was amazing. Rix knew she played tennis, swam, jogged, rode horses, fenced, skied, worked out with weights, and sky-dived. He hoped her troubles with drugs were over; the clarity of her eyes seemed to indicate that they might be.

"That's enough about me," she said. Her voice was low and quiet, a genteel Southern accent. "I want to hear about you, Rix. How was New York?"

"Full of surprises." He glanced at Boone, who was stuffing his face. "But fairly productive, I guess."

"Did they buy your new book? What's the title of it?
Bedlam?"

"That's the one. Well . . . they're still considering it."

"What?"
Margaret put down her fork. "Do you mean to say it's uncertain whether your next work is going to be purchased or not?"

"They'll buy it," Rix said defensively. "Publishers just take their time about things."

"Ought to write a spy book," Boone told him. "That horror crap is too unrealistic."

"But it's fun to read," Katt offered quickly. "Especially on airplanes. Rix's books make the time pass. I mean . . . that's not the only reason I read them, Rix. Your best one was
Congregation.
I liked the idea of a witch coven in a Southern town, and you made it so real you'd believe it could really happen."

"Right," Boone laughed harshly, "and the Pumpkin Man's out in the woods, too."

Katt looked at him and lifted her eyebrows. "He might be. You never know."

"Rixy thinks he's got somethin' to prove," Boone glanced quickly at his mother. "He probably couldn't write real books, could he, Momma?"

The repeated sarcastic use of his childhood nickname, particularly in front of Katt, finally snapped Rix's temper. He felt his face reddening, and he stared across the table at Boone. "Why don't you grow up, you dumbass? If you say something, be man enough to say it without getting Mom to agree with you!"

Boone grinned, his eyes cunning and cold. It was the same grin Rix had feared as a child, but now it only made him want to smash his brother in the face. "I'll say what I please, any way I please, Rixy. You're a goddamned failure and a disgrace to this family. Is that clear enough for you?"

"Don't talk about failures, Boone. Puddin' can tell us about failures, can't she?"

Boone froze. Slowly his lower jaw dropped, and he blinked as if slapped.

"Boys," Margaret chided softly. "Let's be friends at the dinner ta—"

"What did you say?"
Boone's voice was choked with anger, and he half rose from his seat.

Rix almost stood up as well, his blood boiling. One punch, he thought. Just let me get in one good punch.

But then he saw the blood bleach from his brother's cheeks, and Boone let out a soft, small gasp. He was staring over Rix's shoulder. Rix twisted around to look.

"Hi, y'all," Puddin' Usher said in a slurred voice.

She was standing in the doorway, dressed in a floor-length, pearl-studded white evening gown with a bright red sash wrapped around her neck. Her posture, as she supported herself against the doorframe, was insolent and whorish, her hips thrust out to one side, her breasts about to overflow the plunging neckline.

Thick makeup covered her face, and her hair had been sprayed into a brass helmet, decorated with bits of gold glitter. It was immediately obvious that she had on not a stitch of underwear, because the gown stuck to her body like white paint. She wore bright red cowboy boots adorned with rhinestones.

When Boone stood up, he almost knocked his chair over. At the head of the table, Margaret's mouth was an O of surprise. "What are you doin' down here?" Boone snapped.

"Why, Boone, honey, I live in this house, too. I got tired of eatin' in my room, and I wanted to come say hello to Katt." Puddin' smiled tightly. " 'Lo, Katt."

"Hi."

She sashayed into the dining room, swinging her hips as if she were onstage in Atlantic City. She was reliving her finest hour for an audience of three. "Looky here," Puddin' said. "Ain't no place set for me, is there?"

When Margaret Usher spoke, the room became a deep freeze. "Young woman," she said, almost strangling, "you have overslept luncheon by twenty minutes. Luncheon in this house is served at twelve-thirty, and not a moment afterward. You may eat in your room or you may go hungry, but you shall not eat at this table."

Puddin' leaned closer to Margaret. The older woman blanched and put a lace napkin to her face. Puddin' whispered in her best Southern-belle imitation, "Bull . . . fuckin' . . .
shit."

"Boone!" Margaret shrieked, trying to turn her head away from the fumes. "Do something with this woman!"

He moved as if he'd started the hundred-yard dash, and caught her arm from behind. "You're drunk. Go back to your room."

She jerked free. "No. I'm stayin' right here."

"You heard what I said! Get back to that room or I'll strop the whine out of you!"