Hallowed Ground (35 page)

Creed turned his back on her.
 
She was on the other side of the barrier and as much effort as it had taken her to open that one crack, he was pretty sure there was nothing she or her bird men could do to hurt him through it.
 
He crouched low and started into the Deacon's camp.
 
Heart pounding, he started out around a row of camp wagons and headed for the back of the great tent.
 
Whatever was going down in there, he didn't think it was going to be long before things started to get interesting.
 

He wanted a good seat.

Lilith strode to the fire and pushed the nearest of the crow men aside contemptuously.
 
She stared down at the wretched, struggling carcass that was all that remained of their prisoner.
 
She pulled a small pouch from the folds of her long, dark dress and teased it open.
 
She took a pinch of powder and – blowing on it once – she sprinkled it over the fire.

The thing in the pit stiffened.
 
Its skin crackled, grew as red as the coal feeding the flames that tormented it, and blackened.
 
As the undead, pleading eyes stared up at her from the fire, the earthly remains of Benjamin Jamieson fell away to ash.

Seconds later, the pit was cold and dead – nothing but blackened soot remained.
 
The woman pulled out a larger pouch, leaned down, and very carefully scooped the cinders from the pit.
 
She let them fall through her fingers and into the pouch.
 
When she was done, she sealed the drawstrings and touched the leather to her lips before handing it to the nearest of the crow men.
 
It nodded, taking the pouch from her.
 
The feathers had reformed around the wound in its face, leaving no trace of the damage caused by Creed's lead.

"When the time is right, you will know," she told it.
 
"You know where the weakness lies."

The bird man turned, and with a harsh cry took to the air, losing his human form in a flurry of wing beats as it blurred into the shape of a very large, very dark crow.
 
The others followed.
 
The woman stood for a moment, watching them depart, and then stepped back to the barrier and stared at it as though she might penetrate the shield with the force of her gaze alone.

"Soon," she said softly.
 
"Soon all debts are paid."

Then, with a soft whisper of silk, she melted to shadow and was gone.

Nothing moved.
 
He heard the music from the main tent, and he heard The Deacon's booming voice.
 
It carried clearly but for some reason he couldn't make out the words. The sermon was oddly rhythmic.
 
Creed listened to the roll of the preacher's voice.
 
It wasn't like any sermon he'd ever heard, but given the Deacon was about as far from any preacher he'd ever come across it didn't surprise him.
 
Walking away from the invisible barrier and all of the hells he'd seen on the other side of it, Creed doubted if much could surprise him anymore.

He kept to the shadows.
 
Just because he couldn't see anyone outside the main tent didn't mean there was no-one out there.
 
He didn't trust appearances where the Deacon was concerned.
 
The man was almost certainly paranoid when it came to his own safety, which meant he'd be pretty much aware of every shadow worth jumping at and would have set one of his weird flock to watching them.
 
Creed didn't want anyone getting in his way before he at least figured out what in hell was going on.
 
Actually just knowing half of what the hell was going on would have been nice.

His mind raced, thoughts like blind horses stampeding: what had happened to Brady?
 
The thought of the sheriff in that tent listening to the odd, chanting sermon with the flickering candlelight didn't seem right.
 
Scratch that, it seemed damned wrong.
 
Creed had known Moonshine a long time, and he'd figured to find the man outside rolling a smoke and waiting for the rest of Rookwood to come back to their senses.
 
There was no sign of the sheriff.
 
Creed sniffed the air but there were too many peculiar fragrances mixed up in it to pick out Brady's smokes.

The front of the main tent beckoned.
 
It wasn't exactly inviting, but there was something about it that gnawed at Creed's curiosity.
 
He stood and watched the shadows play against the canvas walls, trying to harness a few more of those stampeding thoughts.
 
He could just step inside and take his chances, but that wasn't much of a plan.
 
Either everything was fine for those inside, or something very wrong was happening.
 
Given the way the last few days had rolled, Creed was inclined to expect the worst.
 
So, assuming that worst, then something had almost certainly prevented Stick from getting out.
 
Creed's skin itched; every damned inch of him.
 
It wasn't exactly a great idea to waltz into the revival all guns blazing.

There was a smaller entrance in the rear.
 
He knew it was there, the Deacon had come in through it that first day when he'd ridden into the camp.
 
If he came in at the back of the main stage, maybe he'd get lucky.
 
At the very least he ought to be able to creep close enough to gauge the temperature in the revival, and if it turned out to be hell-hot, figure out what to do.
 
It wasn't much of a plan, but it was what he had.

He slipped past the wagons to the left of the central tent, keeping low and moving quickly.
 
There was the sense of something imminent in the air – something wrong on levels he could barely understand.
 
Everything felt strange.
 
But feelings were just that, feelings.
 
He needed something more concrete than a ghost dancing on his grave.
 
He had the distinct sensation that there was very little time to spare.

He came alongside a long wooden framed wagon just before he passed behind the tent.
 
The walls were painted with wild designs.
 
He couldn't make out colors in the moonlight, it all washed to shades of black and gray, but he stopped, just for a moment, and stared at an image of a man, his feet tied in a noose and hung from a branch, but the head to the sky – as if he were falling upward. He'd seen images like it before.
 
In saloons back east there were gypsy women with gaudy, brightly colored cards.
 
They claimed to read the future, to gaze into tea leaves and trace the lines of a man's palm – and to read the world in decks of multi-colored cards.
 
He had no idea what it meant, or why it was there.

What stunned him about this hanged man was the poor wretch's face, or rather the familiarity of it.
 
Creed could have been looking into a mirror so perfect was the likeness.

He tore his gaze from the disturbing gallery and continued.

He slipped around the back corner of the tent and stopped dead in his tracks.
 
Without a sound, he pressed against the outer wall of the tent.
 
Ahead, two figures stood just outside the rear entrance.
 
One was a man, about Creed's own height.
 
The other was either a small woman, or a child.
 
They stood in the shadows by the door, not hidden, but too close to allow Creed to slip past easily.

He stood still for a moment, trying to decide what to do.
 
Creeping dread stole into him then, everything culminating in the single sure notion that if he didn't move, and move fast, he wasn't going to move ever again.
 
It was as ludicrous as it was irrational but he knew the truth of it down bone deep.
 
If he didn't do something right then, nothing else was going to matter.
 
Ever.
 
He had no idea who those two behind the tent were, but they worked for the Deacon.
 
Why else would they be there? So if they saw him trying to sneak into the back of the stage, they'd raise the alarm, that, or try to stop him themselves.
 
Either way, the outcome was hardly likely to be quiet.
 
That meant Creed had to make a choice, and he had to make it quickly.

"Oh hell," he said softly.

He pulled his gun and moved toward the tent.
 
As he drew nearer he saw that the taller of the pair was an older man, possibly Mexican.
 
A young boy stood by his side.
 
They stared into the interior of the tent, mesmerized.
 
Creed thanked his stars and decided to push his luck.
 
Even as he drew very close, they didn't look up.
 
If they heard him approaching, they gave no sign of it.

"What the hell is going on in there," Creed said.

He kept his voice low.
 
He knew he was going to startle them, but he hoped he could contain it.
 
If they looked up and saw his gun, maybe they wouldn't cry out.
 
Maybe they'd hold their silence long enough that he could make the decision whether to try and silence them, or just kill them and be done with it.
 
He didn't like the idea of shooting an unarmed man, and the thought of killing a boy ate at his gut, but there were a lot of people in that tent.
 
Some of them he'd been saying howdy to for years, others had cooked him dinner and shared his whiskey.
 
A few less he'd bedded, either with coin or a smile, depending on the woman in question.
 
It all boiled down to the same thing.
 
He couldn't let it go, and so he had no choice.

In the end, it didn't really matter.

The old Mexican glanced over at him.
 
He didn't look surprised, and he didn't make any kind of move to stop Creed, or to pull a weapon.
 
Instead, he grabbed the boy by his thin shoulders and drew him away from the door.
 
Creed watched until the two were far enough back that he could slip past them.

He caught the old man's expression, and in that moment he understood.
 
They served the Deacon, but it wasn't a service they'd chosen.
 
Apparently they'd had no orders to guard the entrance, and so – they wouldn't do it.
 
Whatever Creed was going to see or do inside, he was on his own.
 
The two of them backed out of it.

He tipped his hat very quickly, not holstering his gun, and slipped into the tent.
 
The old man didn't so much as twitch a muscle never mind move, and within seconds Creed was sucked into a world of light, sound, and energy such as he'd never experienced.
  

As he moved cautiously up behind where the Deacon stood, Creed jerked to the side and cursed very softly.
 
He bit off the sound even as it tried to escape his lips.
 

He barely avoided the strike of the first snake.

The Deacon was aware that something had changed behind him, but he ignored it. He sensed Colleen and the child at his side.
 
They'd entered from the rear earlier.
 
He closed his eyes, breathing in the heady rush of sound and scent permeating the tent.
 
He opened his eyes, turned, and smiled at Colleen.
 
The serpents twined in and around her legs and slithered off into the crowd.
 
They'd been released in the tent some time earlier by Longman, but had remained dormant.
 
All of this fit the pattern nicely.
 
Then something changed.
 
It was as simple and absolute as that.
 
Something rippled through the steady rhythms and sent rings of energy running against the grain of his will.

It wasn't enough to stop what he'd set in motion – he was sure of that.
 
The ritual was too far along.
 
The disturbance, though, was sufficient for him to be aware of, and enough to change the way things felt.
 
After the initial surprise, he welcomed it.
 
He felt the inevitability of the power he controlled.
 
It flowed through his veins.
 
He was connected to it in ways that went beyond flesh, blood and bone.
 
He was part of something bigger, something ancient.
 
Whatever else happened in the tent, or in the world surrounding it – didn't matter at all.
 

In fact, it made him smile.

‡‡‡

Behind the Deacon, Creed danced to the side, barely avoiding the first striking serpent.
 
He looked down at his feet.
 
The floor was alive with diamondbacks.
 
Not one or two or even a dozen.
 
The floor was a writhing mass of them.
 
Most slithered away from him toward the pews at the far side of the tent, but a couple, as though aware of his presence among them came together determined to prevent his advance.