Ravens’ Cry: Secrets of the Black Book, pt ii
The masked Axeman pulled his weapon from the dead man’s back with a merciless noise, Shwonk. I hugged Annie Jump-Cannon to me in an helpless embrace.
“Come on now, you two,” he whispered. “Up outtah the snow. How many are in there?”
“Just one,” Annie spouted. “But if he’s opened that book, he’s already dead.” The masked man jumped up the steps to the door and threw it open. Seated there at the table, head lolling in death’s ugly grimace, was the brother of the man now dead in the snow. With both her kidnappers expired, Annie crept to the dead man outside and picked up his cold pistol.
The Axeman froze in the doorway, then slowly turned around. Suddenly, he jumped the railing and fled back into the woods.
“Wait,” called Annie, “when will I ever see you again?”
“When the moon is full,” he called over his shoulder, “when the hurricanes howl and the odd equals the even, when the ravens cry. Look for me, then.”
She turned and slowly returned to the door of the house on the mountain. I closed the door after her. “Lady,” I said with some disbelief, “you have yourself some explaining to do.”
“An old friend,” she nodded back towards the forested mountain.
“You don’t say.”
She slipped past me and crouched below the table, quickly reaching up to close the cover of the black book. She fastened the thick, leather straps just as quickly. “Hummhemmhummmm” she replied in a sigh. “It began, not too long ago, on the other side of the world…”
(continued)
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