Page 89 of The Children of Eve

“I have my methods, just as you do yours,” he said. “If enemies come, they should discover only an empty house. Outright confrontation would be better avoided.”

What happened next would haunt Seeley’s dreams. He caught a blur of motion, like the leap of a predatory insect or spider. One moment, la Señora was seated, the next, she was inches from him, so close that he could glimpse the staining at the exposed roots of her teeth and inspect for himself the reddish purple of her gums. He noticed for the first time that the teeth, which he had taken to be gapped and uneven, were regularly spaced but filed down almost to points. Her eyeballs were yellowed and without visible blood vessels, so they might have been made of glass, and her pupils, which he had thought to be a deep brown, nowlooked closer to red. Her skin had the texture of paper crumpled and unfolded before being pasted over a skull. Seeley felt breath on his face, but only barely. It smelled musty, like a room that had not been opened in many years.

La Señora’s hand caressed his cheek—once, twice—before freezing. She glanced down at the gun in Seeley’s hand, its muzzle a hairsbreadth from her belly. It was a little two-shot Bond Arms Roughneck .357 Mag that never left his person. Seeley had only ever fired it once in self-defense. He’d been shocked by the mess it made.

“Old habit,” said Seeley. “Comes without thinking. Now, back away.”

She tilted her head, reassessing him, but gave no sign of being frightened by the gun.

“Remember who you work for,” she said.

“I can’t work for anyone if I’m dead.”

“Why not? I can.”

Seeley waited for her to smile. She didn’t.

“You have an odd sense of humor,” he told her.

“I have no sense of humor at all,” she replied.

“We’ll soon have that in common, because mine is rapidly running out. I’ll tell you once more: back away.”

“Your weapon won’t do any good,” she said. “It’s been tried before.”

Seeley cocked the hammer on the Roughneck.

“Not like this,” he said, “and not by me.”

Slowly, La Señora retreated until she came to a standstill against the bedroom wall. She wore the same dress she’d had on since her arrival: a shapeless shift of tan linen, buttoned down the front and falling to her shins. Over it was a green wool cardigan, hand-knitted. Her plain brown sandals had been set aside, and her feet were bare. The toes curled in on themselves, as if from lengthy constriction. She touched the fingers of her right hand to her groin.

“Do you want to see where they came from?” she asked. “My children, all my children?”

There was nothing lascivious about the gesture or the offer. She might have been asking him if he wished to look at a photograph of her in the cradle.

“I do not.”

“I think you should. I think you need to understand.”

La Señora began unfastening the buttons of the dress. Seeley tried to tell her to stop, but no words would come, just as he could not make himself look away. She had fixed him with her eyes as assuredly as she had silenced him. When all the buttons were undone, she put a hand to each side of the dress and exposed herself to him. A scar ran from her vulva to just below her neck, as though she had been opened from her groin to where her breasts formerly were, even if all that remained of them was a second scar running perpendicular to the first, carving a cross in her flesh. The incisions, though partly open, were completely dry.

Seeley found his tongue.

“My god.”

“If you wish,” said la Señora.

CHAPTERLXV

Bern and Doak arrived in Blountville with the sky burning crimson and orange, the last of the clouds like smoke drifting above the conflagration, the trees against it reduced to their lineaments so that they appeared to Bern already charred, lifeless.

Bern had spoken with Devin Vaughn on the ride east, but only after the latter texted Bern to advise that he and Doak ditch their cell phones in favor of fresh burners. The new numbers were to be shared the old way, which meant calling an electrical repair store in Richmond’s Jackson Ward and relaying them to the owner. Doak bought the cheap phones at a gas station, along with some jerky and a couple of energy drinks that tasted vile to Bern but did perk him up some.

“What’s with the extra precautions?” Bern asked, once he and Vaughn were in voice contact again.

“There’s a problem with an apartment near the house. We think it’s federal. A delivery guy spotted activity and made a call. If it is the feds, they’ll have been listening to calls, picking up emails, who knows what else.”

“We don’t put anything in emails,” said Bern, “and we change phones more often than my wife changes her mind.”

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