The Warrior Heir

  An ancient wooden staircase provided access to the main floor of the building. Boxes of records were stacked on nearly every step, leaving only a narrow path to the top. Linda found a light switch on the wall by the steps, and the room was suddenly flooded with light.

  “What are we looking for?” Jack asked his aunt. “And why can’t we come back tomorrow?”

  Linda was already lifting a ledger from the wall. She was surprisingly strong, considering her size, and manhandled the huge book onto the sloping reading table in the center of the room. She had a smudge of dirt across the bridge of her nose.

  “We’re looking for death records,” she explained. “We need to find one for your great-great grandmother Downey. I estimate she died between 1900 and 1920. The courthouse won’t be open tomorrow, so we’d better do this tonight.”

  The book on the table was labeled Death Book A. Jack looked over Linda’s shoulder. The pages were covered with long columns of spidery writing. Name. Date of Death. Place of Death. Where Born. The dates at the front of the book were all in the late 1860s. Linda quickly turned over the yellowing pages, scanning them from top to bottom until she reached the back of the book. It ended about 1875. Too early.

  “Couldn’t you just write to Columbus to get this information?” Fitch asked, sneezing again. “Or look it up online?”

  “They don’t have electronic records back this far,” Linda replied, lifting the book with Jack’s help and replacing it in its slot. “Besides, I’m in a hurry. Now we need to look for Death Book B or C.”

  The ledgers on the shelves seemed to be in no particular order. The volume next to Book A was labeled BB and was dated 1950s. They split up to scan the spines of the books on all sides of the room. It was a real mixture. Common Pleas Court proceedings. Will books. Land records.

  Jack’s eyes kept straying to the staircase that led to the main floor. That was the police station he’d seen across the parking lot; he was sure of it. Would a passion for genealogy be considered justification for breaking and entering? Aunt Linda had always seemed to make up rules as she went along, but he’d never known her to break the law.

  Then again, perhaps he didn’t know her very well.

  Will was methodically working his way through a stack of ledgers, no doubt motivated by the fading prospect of a late dinner. “Hey!” he said suddenly. “What dates were you looking for?”

  “Early 1900s,” Linda replied, moving to look over the book he was examining. “This might be it.” She ran her finger down the page, then flipped several pages back. “This is the right time frame.” These later entries included information about cause of death, mostly ailments Jack had never heard of: scrofula, dropsy, brain fever. Some he had seen only in history books: consumption, typhoid fever, smallpox. Some deaths were accidental, the descriptions flat: Drowned. Fell from roof. Kicked by a horse.

  Linda’s lips moved silently as she turned the brittle pages over. “Here it is!” she said tersely. “‘Susannah Downey born 1868; farmer’s wife; died 12 May 1900; cause of death: accident.’”

  They all gathered around so they could read the scrawled entry.

  “She was pretty young,” Jack observed. “Any idea how she died?” He was interested in spite of himself.

  “No,” Linda replied, transcribing the entry into a notebook she had pulled out of her backpack. “It doesn’t say where she lived or where she was buried.” She sounded disappointed.

  “None of them do,” Fitch said. “Is that important?”

  “I need to find her grave,” Aunt Linda said. “So we have to figure out what cemetery she’s buried in. Unless they buried her on their own property. In which case we’d need to check the land records.”

  They were all concentrating so hard on their find that it took Jack a few seconds to process what he was hearing. He held up his hand for silence, then jerked his head toward the ceiling. There was the unmistakable sound of footsteps on the floor above.

  They all froze. There was a bitter, metallic taste in the back of Jack’s mouth, and his heart felt like a desperate fish flopping about in his chest. Linda tilted her head back as if she could look through the rough planking into the room above. She let out her breath, a small, animal sound of fear. Then she quickly shut the ledger book and lifted it back into its niche. Almost simultaneously, a door opened at the top of the stairs and a pale rectangle of light appeared in the dark stairwell.

  The staircase was between them and the door to the outside. “Go!” Aunt Linda hissed as she made a leap for the light switch. The room was plunged into darkness. Jack stumbled against the center table as he desperately felt his way to the outline of the outside door. Aunt Linda was crashing around behind him, making an unholy racket. What the hell was she doing? He could hear Will and Fitch somewhere ahead of him. He stole a quick look over his shoulder and saw a tall black silhouette at the top of the stairs, framed in the dirty yellow of the mercury vapor lights. He could make out no face or feature. As he watched, it turned to him.

  Jack felt the touch of its attention like a physical blow. He staggered, grabbing a filing cabinet for support.

  Suddenly Linda was beside him, fiercely pushing him forward. “You! Get moving! I’ll meet you at the Bluebird Cafe in half an hour!”

  Behind them, Jack heard a muffled exclamation, the sound of something heavy falling, then a string of curses. Will and Fitch must have reached the outside door, because gray light poured in from the stairwell. He scrambled after his friends. Just as he reached the doorway, he heard an explosion. There was a blinding flash of light, then something hit him square in the back, knocking him sprawling onto the concrete pad just outside the door. He came down on his hands and knees, and bit his tongue, hard. Blood tasted salty in his mouth. Then Will and Fitch each grabbed an arm and dragged him up the stairs and down the alleyway. When he finally found his feet, Jack twisted around to see if Linda was behind them, but the alley was empty.

  The alley led back to the main square at the front of the courthouse. The street was still deserted. They sprinted across the green and squeezed between the bushes planted around the gazebo. There were three or four feet of space between the evergreens and the cinder block foundation of the building. They crouched there, breathing hard, looking back toward the courthouse, then wide-eyed at each other.

  Finally Will spoke. “What the hell was that?”

  “What was what?” Jack snapped. He had too many questions of his own to be answering theirs.

  “That spooky dude on the stairs, for a start,” Fitch replied. “The one with the cool light saber.”

  “Light saber? Be serious.” Jack peered out at the courthouse again.

  “Light saber. Flame thrower. Phaser. Electromagnetic de-atomizer. What he shot you with, dude.” Fitch swiped at the blood on his face with the back of his hand and attempted a smile.

  “Why aren’t you dead?” Will demanded. “It should have killed you, so I don’t understand why you aren’t dead. You’re sure you’re not hurt?”

  “No,” Jack said slowly. “A little bruised, maybe.” There was a painful area between his shoulder blades, like he’d been hit in the back by a fast pitch. The only other sensation was a kind of tingling all over his body.

  Fitch reached around behind Jack and tugged at his hoodie. It disintegrated in his hand. “Nice shirt,” he said, handing the charred shards of cloth to Jack. They had a gunpowder smell, like bottle rockets after a launch. Jack pulled the remains of the sweatshirt off over his head. The entire back was gone. Underneath, his new vest seemed to be in one piece. As a matter of fact, it didn’t seem to be damaged at all.

  “Good thing you wore your bulletproof vest,” Will observed dryly. “Guess me and Fitch didn’t get the memo.”

  Jack looked back at the courthouse, still lit only by the sallow glow of the security light. If an alarm had been raised, why hadn’t anyone turned on the lights? And why hadn’t the man at the top of the stairs said anything, identified himself?

/>   There was no sign of pursuit. The square and the courthouse were quiet.

  “Look,” Jack said, swallowing hard. “I’m really sorry. When I asked you to come along on this trip, I never thought . . . I don’t know who that was or what Aunt Linda is up to, but—”

  Fitch interrupted him. “Where is she?”

  No one had an answer for that. Jack imagined explaining to his mother that they’d lost her sister during the commission of a burglary, and shoved the image away.

  Fitch leaned wearily back against the stone foundation of the gazebo and closed his eyes. His pale hair lifted off his forehead as a breeze sprang up. “It’s funny that he didn’t set off an alarm.”

  Jack shrugged. He’d heard of pitched battles over archaeological sites. But genealogy? What had they gotten into? Nervously, he checked his watch.

  “Aunt Linda said to meet her at the Bluebird in a half hour. It’s about time.” He prayed she would show up as promised. He wasn’t sure what he would do if she didn’t.

  Still wary of the courthouse, they slipped straight back from the gazebo to the far side of the square, then cut between the buildings to the next street. They traced a wide circle around to the Bluebird. It was a few minutes after nine when they walked into the bar.

  Loud music overwhelmed them as they stepped inside, followed by the scent of stale tobacco and beer. It took a few minutes for their eyes to adjust to the light. The only illumination came from neon beer signs. The place was crowded and there was a mix of patrons, young people, older people, those who were dressed up a bit and those who had obviously come straight from working a shift. It was, after all, a Friday night. Jack had the feeling that everyone in the place knew each other, and he and his friends were clearly outsiders. And they were underage, which was pointed out immediately.

  “Can I help you boys?” The girl wore an air of authority, although she didn’t look much older than they were. A grinning, toothy bluebird hoisting a beer was embroidered on the pocket of her shirt. “I need to see some ID.”

  “We’re not drinking,” Will explained. “Couldn’t we just sit back in the restaurant part?” he asked. “We’re waiting for someone.”

  The waitress studied them for a moment, her gaze lingering longest on Will. Then she shrugged. “Sure, why not?” She nodded at an empty table in the back. “Seat yourselves. I’ll bring you some menus if you like.”

  “That’d be great,” Will replied.

  “You look like you have a good appetite,” the waitress replied, smiling at Will and fixing her ponytail. “Do you work out?”

  It turned out the waitress was into bodybuilding. She and Will quickly progressed to flexing and feeling each other’s biceps before she finally left to fetch their sodas.

  Jack glared at Will. “You can’t possibly be hungry.” A great hard stone of apprehension at his center made it impossible for him to think of eating. Or of anything else.

  “Well, why not?” Will said, unperturbed, scanning the menu. “They aren’t going to serve us beer, and we can’t just sit here.”

  “How do we know that guy isn’t in here?” Fitch was hunched over, as if to make his lanky frame smaller.

  Jack looked around. He saw no tall men in long coats, felt no cold, threatening presence, but it wouldn’t be hard to hide in this crowd.

  “Do you mind if I join you?”

  Jack looked up, startled, into blue and gold eyes. Aunt Linda’s spiky gold-and-silver hair was disheveled, and there was the shadow of a bruise over one cheekbone. Her blue jean jacket looked like it had been used to wipe up the floor.

  All three of them started talking at once. Linda shook her head, her lips pressed tightly together. The waitress had returned.

  “I see you found your friend,” she said, clunking glasses down in front of them, eying Linda jealously. “You all ready to order?”

  Jack ordered something at random, watching Linda. She sat, facing the door, looking up each time it opened.

  She’s scared to death, Jack thought.

  Linda leaned forward. “Are you three all right?” She studied each of them in turn as if she feared there might be parts missing, looking so guilty and miserable that Jack found himself wishing he could make her feel better somehow. “Jack, I saw you fall—”

  “I’m okay,” Jack said quickly. He looked around at the others. “You guys are all right, aren’t you?”

  “Well . . .” Will shrugged. “I about wet my pants when that freak opened the door.”

  “Why would he shoot at us?” Fitch asked. “If it wasn’t the police, or a night watchman, why would he be sneaking around in there at night? There’s nothing but a bunch of old court records.” He swirled the ice in his glass and looked at Linda. “Unless he was looking for the same thing we are. Like in Tomb Raider.”

  Linda said nothing. The waitress circled the table, setting their plates before them.

  “All he had to do was ask,” Will said. “I would’ve given him Death Book A, for sure.”

  Jack studied his steak sandwich as if it were something unfamiliar and inedible. Fitch picked at his food, and Linda ignored what was on her plate and drank her second beer straight from the bottle. Will was the only one who seemed hungry.

  “Do you think he was just trying to scare us off?” Jack asked, conscious of the bruised spot in the middle of his back. “Or would he come after us in here?”

  “He won’t come in here,” Linda said, picking absently at a broken nail. “He knows we haven’t found anything yet. And now he knows all he has to do is follow me.” With that, she shut her mouth, as if she realized she had already said too much.

  Jack dropped his silverware onto his plate with a clatter. “So you know who that guy is?” More and more he was asking questions he already knew the answers to.

  “Yes,” she said. “I know who he is. I just never expected to meet up with him here.” She looked at Fitch and Will. “If I had, I never would have brought you two along.”

  What about me? Am I, like, expendable, then? Jack thought, careening between anger and bewilderment.

  Rock music pounded from the speakers as people crowded into the Bluebird Cafe. Someone propped the front door open as the room heated up. Linda’s gaze flickered to the open door.

  “Is he out there?” Jack asked.

  Linda nodded. “Not far away, anyway. The thing is,” she said as if continuing their earlier conversation. “I’m looking for a . . . a family heirloom. I was hoping to find it this weekend. He must be looking for it, too. Either he traced it to Coal Grove through Susannah’s genealogy or he followed me down here. And if he followed me here . . .” Her voice trailed off. She was looking at Jack. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

  Will scarfed down the last of his sandwich. “So what was that weapon he used?”

  “I don’t know,” Linda said. “I . . . I didn’t really see anything.”

  She’s lying, Jack thought.

  “Why don’t we just go back home?” Fitch suggested. “He can’t hang around here forever. We can always come back another time.”

  Linda shook her head. “The fact that he’s here may mean it’s already too late. We can’t take the chance that he might find it before we do.” She looked at each of them in turn. “I’m going to have to find it this weekend or risk losing everything.”

  “Then, what’s our next step?” Fitch asked.

  “There’s no next step for you two boys,” Linda said. “I’m going to take you to the hotel and leave you there until this is over. I . . . I don’t always think things through, I’m afraid.” She looked down at her hands. “It was a mistake to get you involved. I’m not putting you at risk again.”

  “What about me?” Jack asked, realizing that once again he’d been intentionally excluded.

  She wouldn’t look at him. “If I can find it, I’ll need your help to retrieve it, Jack. I have some inside information that will help us. Only . . . I don’t know how we’ll manage to lose him. And if he see
s us together . . .”

  Fitch rested his chin on his hands. “Maybe we can help.”

  Linda leaned into the center of the table. “You don’t know them,” she whispered. “This is not a game.” Jack had never seen his irreverent aunt look so serious.

  “Just listen,” Fitch persisted. “You said this guy would be following you. You’re not going to find anything without his knowing it.” Aunt Linda nodded warily. “But he probably didn’t get a good look at us at the courthouse,” he went on. “And there’s only one of him. I’ll bet if he has to make a choice, he’ll follow you. I would,” he admitted, blushing a little.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “What if you lead him away from here while the three of us look for the ...thing,” Will said. “If he’s following you, we won’t be in danger.”

  “Well, maybe we should split up now anyway,” Linda said, wavering. “If I take you to the motel, we might be followed. The next place we need to go is the library. That should be safe enough.”

  Jack didn’t like it. Linda knew the man in the courthouse, and she was frightened of him. “I don’t want that guy following you around. I think we should stick together.”

  She shrugged. “He’ll be following me anyway. There’s nothing I can do about that. And if you’re with me, you’ll be in danger.” It was plain that she didn’t consider them much protection against whatever waited outside.

  “How important is it that you . . . win?” Jack asked.

  “Winning is everything.” She looked up at him and said again, “Everything.” Something in the way she said it made Jack wonder if this desperate quest had something to do with him.

  The plan was hatched over the battered table in the back of the Bluebird Cafe. Aunt Linda handed Jack a wad of bills and a credit card, along with the confirmation number for the hotel reservation. The hotel was back by the highway, and they would have to get there on their own. Linda didn’t think it wise for the boys to return to the Land Rover if they wanted to avoid the attention of the stranger outside. Will put Aunt Linda’s cell phone and her notebook in the inside pocket of his jacket. She had scrawled some instructions inside. Fitch carried two of the flashlights. When all was set, she called the bartender over. Her voice took on a distinctly local accent.