Four Summoners Tales Part 52

proceeded to shoot both men in their respective heads.

A few minutes later, I revived Sir Albert. He lay on the floor, and when I was finished, he hopped to his feet with astonis.h.i.+ng vigor.

"How dare you!" he cried.

My father stabbed him in the heart. I shan't bore the reader by rehearsing each separate murder. My father bludgeoned, asphyxiated, and beat Sir Albert to his death. He smashed his face into the fireplace stones until his head was a b.l.o.o.d.y pulp. He gouged out his eyes. He stuck a burning poker down his throat. In short, he died and was revived perhaps a dozen times. I lost count. He might have been garroted twice, though the details are hazy. I can a.s.sure my readers that my father rather enjoys garroting.

I noticed, and this detail was not lost on my father, that after the sixth revival, Sir Albert appeared to have a marked decrease in energy. I did not know if that was a temporary effect or if a person can only be revived a certain number of times before his life energy begins to dissipate. The truth of it hardly mattered, because my father meant to make good use of this fact.

When I revived Sir Albert after my father had killed him for the final time, I first propped him into a sitting position, and my father placed Hubert's severed head in his lap, for he had decapitated that worthy, and had made clear that I would, under no circ.u.mstances, revive him. Sir Albert opened his eyes and stared in horror. He tried to get up, but he was apparently woozy. He rose and fell down to the floor twice, finally clawing at the wall to gain purchase. He slipped in Hubert's blood, or perhaps it was his own, but did not fall over.

"You ain't what you were," said my father. His face, his hands, and his clothes were now stained with Sir Albert's and Hubert's blood. All of this endless murder had filled him with a manic energy. His eyes were wide, his cheeks flushed, and he breathed heavily. He looked like the embodiment of terror that he, in fact, was. "The effects nibble at you. You don't feel it the first time, and maybe not the second neither, but as many as we done you, you begin to feel it. Next it will be worse. Might be you don't have the use of your mind rightly, or your legs don't work. Can't put you down for another go neither, since you might well come out the worse for it."

"This is preposterous," said Sir Albert, his voice now slow and somewhat slurred. "How . . . dare you treat me so. Are you in the queen's service? I demand . . . you tell me."

"You don't demand nothing," my father said. "Though I'll tell you because it pleases me to do so that I don't give a t.u.r.d for Tory or Whig, Protestant or Papist. I'd take the queen's coin if she were offering, but it's too hard to get to at the moment, so I'll take yours instead.Tell me where you put your wife's body, and then tell me where you got your valuables, and in exchange, I'll let you live."

"Do you . . . think you can use violence . . . to force my hand?" Sir Albert demanded.

"You burned down my son's house and killed your own wife, so I'd say violence is the order of the day."

"Your son," Sir Albert sputtered with contempt. "He can't . . . he can't even fight his own battles. He needs . . . his papa to save his precious book."

My father laughed. "That's true enough, but because he needed me, it ain't his book no more, it's mine.You have to deal with me now, my popinjay, and you've already wished you hadn't forced my son's hand, I'll wager. So now, here's how it is going to transpire.You will tell us where you put your wife, and if you then run as fast as your legs will carry you, and I never see you more, I shall let you live out your days as best you can without name or money or influence. That's all there is.You ain't going to get a better offer. Say no if you like. I'll just keep on killing you until you say yes. I haven't yet tried to kill you by cutting off what little you got between your legs. Now that sounds like a right good time."

Sir Albert stared at him, and he seemed to know he had been bested. "She's upstairs . . . upon her bed."

"Now, that wasn't so hard, was it?" my father said, and he cracked Sir Albert over the head with a fire iron.

"I thought you weren't going to kill him again," I said.

"I don't think I did. I just put him to sleep while we make certain everything is as he says."

We went upstairs and searched through the various rooms until we found Lady Caroline, upon a bed, cold and still in the grip of death. Her skin was pale and waxy, her lips blue. Her eyes, which were open, looked like clouded marbles.Around her neck, a ring of black bruises told the tale of her brutal murder. I stood in the doorway staring at her, full of hatred for the monster who could have done this to her. There she was, dead, but within my power to restore. And yet, might she be different? Might she be vile? Would the Lady Caroline who came back be the same as the one who died?

My father appeared behind me. "Now's your chance," he told me. "Lift her skirts and have yourself a little taste."

I chose to ignore this bit of advice. Instead, I went to work upon her at once, bending over her and beginning the procedure. I had only just started when I felt my father's rough hand on my shoulder, yanking me back.

"If you won't take your fill, I'll do it for you." He grinned at me. "Let's just say there's one more payment to be made for my services.You can have a go at her or I can. But she ain't coming back to life until one of us does."

I stared at him. "Why?"

He laughed. "Because that is how I like it."

I shook my head. "Why must you be like this? For what possible reason do you wish to torture and crush your own son? Have you no capacity for love or joy or sentiment?"

He snorted. "This from the boy who struck me in the face with a hammer and stole my money."

"You had it coming, as you most certainly know.And, as you say, I might have stabbed you. Will you punish me for showing you that mercy?"

"For being a coward, you mean," he said with a derisive laugh. "Don't pretend to be a saint when all you are is a boy who can't ever be a man. That's all there is to it.You're afraid of me, and I have nothing but contempt for a coward. If you can't do things as you like, then you'll d.a.m.n well do them as I like. Now, will you have a tumble with this dead woman or no?"

"I will not," I said with a n.o.ble dignity certain to fill him with disgust. "What would Mrs. Tyler say of you if she were here?"

"Don't you speak of her," my father said, jabbing a finger into my chest. "Besides, once I break her neck and bring her back, she'll be the first to cheer me on. Now, if you are not going to have at her, you shall see it done." So saying, he began to unb.u.t.ton his breeches.

"No," I said, my voice hardly more than a whisper.

He continued to unb.u.t.ton, but he looked at me with a wolfish grin. "What are you going to do about it, boy?"

I said nothing.

"That's what I thought." He turned away from me, having pulled down his breeches, laughing, no doubt, at the juvenile delight of thrusting his bare b.u.t.tocks at me. He grabbed Lady Caroline's skirts and began to lift. Then his eyes went wide, in surprise. He staggered backward, one hand straight out, the other reaching frantically for the waist of his breeches, that he might pull them up. He could not grab them, however, and he tripped over his own clothing, falling facedown onto the cold floor.

After inserting it into his neck, I had pulled out my hanger at once, and now there was a gaping hole in the flesh, which bled copiously. My father, still lying facedown, raised one hand to the wound, but blood flowed freely past his fingers.

"You wouldn't dare," he said. "You don't have the courage to take a blade to me."

"Apparently, I do," I observed.

"You'll . . . bring me back," he muttered.