Hallowed Ground (22 page)

She found the trail and started down.
 
It was more overgrown than she remembered.
 
She moved as quickly she could, wriggling between the trailing branches and trying not to cry out as limbs slapped at her and roots cut into her feet.

The voices seemed more distant now, disembodied, as though she were gaining ground.
 
She forced herself on, stumbling down and down the narrow track.

Something cried out above her.
 
She spun and stared up through the trees, trying to see what had made the sound, but could make out nothing through the thatch of branches overhead.
 
As she turned back to the trail, the strap of Benjamin's pack snagged on the stub of a branch.
 
She tried to yank it free, but the branch refused to surrender its prize.
 
She pulled hard again, so hard she lost her balance and started to fall.
 
She waved her arms wildly, trying to find her balance, and the pack tore free.
 
She stumbled back, almost made it upright, and then lost her footing completely and plunged over the edge of the gorge.

She heard the inhuman scream of a great bird, and her mind went blank.

On the cliff above, Reverend Criscione and the others watched as a great dark shape rose, silhouetted against the failing sun, and then – without warning – disappeared.

The ground beneath her back was cold and hard.
 
Stones dug into her side.
 
Her head spun.
 
Somewhere inside she lost herself, who she was.
 
Her eyes were gummed shut with the grit of dust and sleep.
 
She rubbed at them with her knuckles and opened them.

She screamed.

A man stood over her, a strange man with coal black, furtive eyes that glared at her with such inhuman intensity it stole her breath and stilled her scream.
 
His nose was oddly narrow, his eyes set close to the prominent ridge.
 
A dark tangle of hair sprouted from his head in a wild tumble, glossy and blue-black.
 
He wore a hat, and a long dark coat that fluttered up and created strange shadows around him.
 
It wasn't like any coat she'd ever seen.

Elizabeth tried to back away.
 
The cotton gown hung off her in tatters.
 
Somehow the ragged clothing made her feel more naked than if she'd been wearing nothing.
 
She tried to wrap it around herself, but the man leaned down and, with one powerful yank, stripped the remnant from her body.
 
It fell about her feet in tatters.
 
He stared at her.
 
His glare was hideous and uncomfortable but there was no lust in it.
 
Still, she tried to cover herself.

That was when she noticed.

She didn't understand.
 
It was wrong.

Horrified, she looked down and instead of seeing her bruised and bloodied feet, saw her belly.
 
It was round and full.
 
She clutched at it, trying to make sense out of what she saw.
 
Elizabeth shook her head, working up a scream, but the man leaned in, tangled his fingers in her hair, and shook his head.
 
She stifled the cry.
 
Her eyes swam with the madness that threatened to take her.

She's fallen.
 
Surely it couldn't have been more than a few moments since then?
 
She'd lost her grip, slipped and fallen from the narrow cliff edge into the gulch.
 
Images and memories warred for control of her mind.
 
Mariah and Elizabeth grasped the frayed ends of her memories, each trying to weave a different picture and both falling short of their shared reality.
 
She heard trailing wisps of Balthazar's insidious whisper echoing through her brain, and the visions he'd shown her complicated what her mind told her had to be true.
 
She had been pregnant, and her child had been taken.
 
She had been Elizabeth.
 
Her name was Mariah.

She had fallen but she hadn't struck the ground – she had been snatched out of the air and borne up by something huge, and dark.
 
She was pregnant.
 
Her name was Elizabeth, and she had been dead.
 
When Balthazar found her she'd been on that doorstep a second time.
 
Was she alive at all?
 
Was this hell?

She sat up, groaned at the sudden pressure this put on her swollen belly, and tried to rise.
 
She didn't have the strength.
 
She ached all over.
 
A sharp pain on her forearm caught her attention.
 
She glanced over and saw long, deep welts scored into her soft flesh, as though she'd been gripped too tightly in gigantic hands.
 
Or talons?
 
A wave of dizziness swept over her.
 
She saw the ground falling away with sickening speed, felt the darkness swallow her and the wind suddenly lash against her face.
 
Whatever had taken her had gripped her arms and its grip had not been gentle.

The flap of the tent opened and a second man entered.
 
He was so absolutely physically identical to the first that she had to blink and shake her head to be sure she wasn't seeing double.
 
The newcomer threw something at her and she raised her hands to catch it.
 
She realized her mistake, and lowered them in confused misery.
 
What struck her was a rolled bundle.
 
The double men turned and left the tent.
 
The flap dropped closed behind them.
 
Elizabeth glanced down at what she held.

Draped across her impossibly swollen belly were pants and a threadbare shirt.
 
She sat up quickly.
 
Her head swum alarmingly as she fumbled with the roll of clothes.
 
She struggled into them.
 
The shirt was several sizes too large, but given the sudden swelling of her belly that was a good thing.
 
She buttoned it quickly and squirmed on her backside, wriggling into the unfamiliar pants.
 
Ladies did not wear pants, but she didn't hesitate.

She had trouble finding a place for them to ride her hips that wouldn't cause undue pressure.
 
She reached for Benjamin's pack and pulled it closer.
 
Even the buttons on the pants seemed beyond her. She couldn't think, or concentrate.

None of it was possible.
 
She couldn't button her pants because the pants and the tent could not exist.
 
She was not pregnant.
 
She believed she might be dead.
 
She believed she might have fallen from the cliff, broken something that could not be repaired, and ended up lying in a heap at the bottom of the gorge spending her last moments of life trapped in a nightmare.

The tent she did not believe.
 
The men with faces like predatory birds were not possible.
 
The only thing that she could see that made any sense was the pack – but even that took her back to the events leading up to her fall.
 
She'd woken up in a casket.
 
She'd been stoned by the minister who had baptized her as a child.

She managed to fasten the pants and felt slightly better.
 
She rolled to her knees, rested for a moment, and then brought one leg up.
 
In a moment she had both feet beneath her.
 
She stood on weak and trembling legs.

Beyond the tent, she heard the crackling of a small fire.
 
She stumbled toward the sound.
 
She reached out to pull back the tent flap, but before she touched it, she glanced back at the pack lying on the ground.
 
She felt as though she should pick it up – that it was important to keep it with her.
 
She half-turned, taking the first step to go back for it, but a sudden sharp twinge in her belly – the baby kicking? – stopped her.
 
Wincing, she pulled back the tent flap and stepped into the clearing.

She didn't find a campfire.
 
The dark men in their eerie coats and peculiar hats were nowhere to be seen.
 
Four feet from the front of the tent where she stood, a pillar of flame poured into the air.
 
The flame had a soft phosphorescent glow; the light radiating from the heart of it was almost subdued.
 
It pulsed and writhed in a harlot's dance.
 
She thought, more than once, that she saw a face pass over the surface, or hands clutch at the edges of the flame and then, as quickly as they surfaced, they were gone.

Elizabeth stepped out from the safety of the tent.
 
Only a single step forward at first.
 
But then she took another, and then another.
 
As she walked, she felt her weight shifting, and suddenly there was an imbalance caused by her compensating for her pregnant belly that Elizabeth didn't understand.
 
She laid her hands on her stomach, panic flaring in her mind.
 
All she could think was that something was wrong.
 
Her belly was flat and smooth.
 
Her baby was gone.
 
Her hands were thin to the point of emaciation.
 
The bones stuck out against sallow skin.
 
She stumbled forward one more step, coming closer to the flickering flames.
 
She felt the heat on her skin.
 
She heard voices.
 
They were screaming and crying out but she couldn't understand them.
 
She reached out a tentative hand, expecting the flame to burn. She wanted desperately to touch it, to purge herself.

A hand clawed out from the fire, raking the air.
 
Before she could pull away strong fingers wrapped around her wrist and heaved her off her feet.
 
She fell forward, screaming, face first into the flames.
 
She felt her skin sear, shrivel and crack, and the liquid in her eyes and mouth boil, then parch as all the moisture was burned out of her.
 
Her skin flaked and charred – and then the overwhelming agony, the screaming, the fire beneath her skin, was gone.

She blinked; tears stung her eyes.
 
She sat in the chair beside the low softly crackling fire.
 
The storm still raged in the distance, forks of lightning flashing across the sky.
 
She trembled violently.

"Ah, I see you have returned to me," Balthazar said.
 
He sounded almost amused.
 
He rose, and reached for her hand.
 
"Come," he said.
 
"We have work to do."

She stood shakily, unable to pull her gaze from the dancing flames.

"God in heaven," she said softly.
 
"What am I?"

"You are my blade," Balthazar replied.
 
"The hotter the fire's flame, the sharper the edge."

He led her past the campfire to the back of the wagon and helped her up the steps and inside.

This time as she lay on the hard wooden floor, she felt the wheels turn, and the steady bump of ground passing beneath them.
 
She dropped into deep, cleansing sleep.

There were no dreams.

The moon had risen bright and nearly full.
 
The streets of Rookwood were empty.
 
Only the light from Silas' saloon, and the eerie, haunting strains of McGraw's piano offered any sign of life.
 
Most folks retired to their own places when the sun failed.
 
That was the story of Rookwood night after night.
 
A few – panhandlers, trappers and drunks – would inevitably make their way to the saloon for one of three things: the conversation, the bourbon, or the chance of Mae's attentions.
 
Money was scarce, conversation terse, and with Mae's sociability dependent heavily on the almighty dollar, the holy trinity was a washout.
 
Silas spat and polished his pitchers in a perennial foul mood.

Since, The Deacon's folks had started spreading word of the coming revival, business had perked up noticeably.
 
Hell, it was positively booming.
 
When the three strangers entered town on foot, dark hats tipped over their eyes and darker coats floating behind them in the breeze, the whispers spread like wildfire.
 
By the time the three reached the saloon, a boy had been kicked out onto the dusty streets with the express orders to fetch Moonshine Brady.
 
He ran as though his life depended upon it.
 
Both of the saloon's windows filled with curious faces.

The strangers didn't enter the saloon.
 
They stood in the middle of the street and stared first one way and then the other, as though looking for something.
 
The tallest of the three tilted his head back and sniffed the air like a wolf trying to catch a scent.
 
He cocked his head to one side and gazed at the upper story of the saloon.
 
The other two turned, following the direction of his gaze.