Christopher Buehlman - Between Two Fires

The girl wasn’t here, and even if she had been, Jacquot didn’t want to find her badly enough to stay in that hot, godless room.

He would have preferred to go back to the barn then, but his failure would only put Godefroy in a worse humor. So he went around the back of the house, thankful for the cooler air, and whistled for her. He stood very still and looked around carefully. His patience was soon rewarded; he noticed her white leg up in a tree. Ten minutes later and it would have been dark enough to hide her.

She was up in her tree, whispering for the angel and asking it to come back; but then she wasn’t sure anyone else could see them, or that they could do anything or lift anything. Or even that they were real. She had only started seeing them since the Great Death came on.

She thought that the ones she was seeing were lesser ones; that the famous ones like Gabriel were preparing for Judgment Day, which must be soon. Gabriel would blow his horn and all the Dead in Christ would get out of their graves; she knew this was supposed to be a good thing, but the idea of dead bodies moving again was the worst thing she could imagine; it frightened her so much she couldn’t sleep sometimes.

If the angels were real, why had she been abandoned now?

And why weren’t they helping anybody when they got sick?

Why had they let her father die so horribly?

And now the man with the drooping eye had seen her.

Why did her angel not strike this man blind, as they had done to the sinners of Sodom and Gomorrah?

“Come down, little bird,” Jacquot said. “We won’t hurt you.”

“Yes you will,” she said, gathering her leg up under her gown as well as she could.

“All right, we will. But not much and not for long. Maybe just a night and a morning. Then we’ll be on our way. Or, better yet! We might take you with us. Would you like that? Four strong husbands and passage out of town?”

“No, thank you.”

He leapt up onto a strong, low branch, almost high enough now to reach her foot, but she climbed higher. She was much lighter than he. He would lose this game.

“Don’t be trouble,” he said.

“Don’t rape me,” she said.

“It won’t be rape if you agree.”

“Yes it will. Because I’ll only agree to avoid being hurt.”

“So there we have it. You’ll agree to avoid being hurt. Very well. Come down or I’ll hurt you.”

He dropped back down to the ground now.

“You don’t mean it,” she said.

“I do.”

“You’re not a bad man. I don’t believe you are.”

“I’m afraid I am.”

“But you don’t have to be!”

“Sorry. Already am. Now I see a bunch of lovely stones by the stream. What say I go get them and throw them at you until you come down?”

The foliage wouldn’t allow for much stone-throwing, and he wasn’t sure he could make himself throw a stone at her in any case, but he said it as if he meant it. He sensed he had to get her to the barn quickly.

“Please don’t.”

“Then come down.”

“It’s the other one. He’s the bad one. Tell him you couldn’t find me.”

“He has a temper.”

“So does my father.”

“He’s dead.”

“No, he’s not.”

“Enough games. Come down or I knock you down with stones.”

She was crying now. He thought she would call his bluff, but soon she probed for a lower branch with her long, ungainly foot. He helped her down and felt her trembling. He felt sick about what he was doing, but hardened his heart. He decided to talk to her about it while he hoisted her up on his shoulder and walked back toward the barn.

“I know this seems awful, but it really isn’t. If God wanted order and goodness in the world, He shouldn’t have made things quite so hard on us. We’re all dead men, and women. He wants chaos and death? He gets them, and what say do we have in it? All we can do is try to have a little fun before the mower comes for us, eh? And he will come for us. If you relax, you might not have such a bad time.”

“You’re just saying these things to make yourself feel better,” she said, breathing hard in fear for what was about to happen.

“You’re a smart girl. Too smart. This world’s not made for smart girls. Here we are.”

So saying, he used his free hand to open the barn door.

“Mary, Mother of God,” he said.

Godefroy was breathing his last, rough breaths facedown in the dirt with a hole in his head that was pouring an arc of blood like a hole in a tight wineskin. His hands were shaking. The fat one was slumped against the wall and looked like a sleepy child with his chin on his chest, except he was drenched in blood and the head sat wrong because it was barely attached. His hand was off just below where the chain mail ended. It was nearby, still clutching his wicked hammer. His killer had put the sword exactly where he wanted it, and with great strength.

“Put her down,” Thomas said.

“I will.”

The sword’s point poked Jacquot’s woolen hood and settled just behind his ear. He knew the man wielding it could drive it through both hood and skull as easily as into a squash.

“Please don’t kill me,” Jacquot said.

“I have to, or I can’t sleep here.”

“I’ll leave.”

“You’ll come back and cut my throat at night out of love for Godefroy. He is your cousin.”

“On my mother’s side. And I didn’t like my mother.”

“Sorry, Jacquot.”

“You could leave.”

“I’m too tired. And you would find me.”

“No.”

“Put her down so she doesn’t get hurt.”

“No.”

“Do you really want your last earthly act to be trying to hide behind a girl you nearly raped?”

He put her down, then put his hands over his eyes. But while Thomas was trying to work up the will to strike, the girl stood in front of the smaller man.

“Don’t kill him,” she said.

She looked up at Thomas, and he noticed how very light and gray her eyes were. Like the flint in the walls of the barn, but luminous. Like an overcast sky on the verge of turning blue.

Thomas lowered his sword.

The rain stopped.

“Don’t kill anybody else again.”

Thomas and the girl slept in the barn on separate piles of rotten hay with the droopy-eyed man tied up in the donkey’s old stall. He didn’t make trouble in the evening because he knew how close to dying he had been, but near morning he forgot and woke Thomas up.

“What?” Thomas growled.

“My undershirt. Would you help me so I don’t soil it? I have to shit.”

“Just shit yourself.”

“You only have to move the shirt a little.”

“I don’t care if you shit yourself. You don’t deserve any better.”

“This is my only shirt.”

“There’s a stream. Jesus, you’re a woman. Shut your hole.”

“So you’ll cut me loose when you leave? So I can wash my shirt?”

“Not if you don’t be quiet.”

The droopy-eyed man was quiet for a minute.

Then he wasn’t.

“How can you sleep with all the birds going? And with those two lying there dead. Did you close their eyes, at least?”

“No. They’ll want to see Jesus coming.”

“At least the rooster’s dead. There’s one happy thing. Will you leave me my sword and crossbow?”

“I don’t know.”

“Because if you don’t, it’s just like killing me.”

“No, Jacquot, it’s not. Killing you would be just like killing you, and I’m still tempted.”