Hallowed Ground (37 page)

Memories he'd never lived cascaded through his mind.  He saw the girl, Elizabeth.  He saw a town he'd never known, and a mountainside.  He saw a crossroads, and the dark woman, the woman who seemed to become an owl on a whim and whose servants were sometimes crows, sometimes men, sometimes neither.  He fought to control his mind, but another voice - a third consciousness - screamed and screamed and screamed and Creed staggered back beneath the onslaught of it.

Behind him, breaking the sudden silence like the sound of a thousand shards of shattered glass striking the earth, a voice spoke into the void.

"Well, well, well, what have we here?  Oh my, this is new."

Creed turned.

He saw a tall man in a dark suit.  There was a watch chain dangling from his pocket, and his eyes were as dark as night.  Beside him, a woman stood.  She was dressed in leather, very much alive, and her eyes blazed with the manic intensity of a soul that had seen too much.  Creed felt the power in that gaze, the weight of her hatred.  He raised a hand to ward it off - forgetting he held the guns.

She drew and fired, and Creed closed his eyes in resignation.

Creed heard the duel roar of the woman's guns.
 
He felt the whisper of air across his cheeks, so wrong after the thunder of the shots, but it wasn't until he heard a pair of unearthly screeching screams that he finally shook free of the moment and moved.

He whirled around.
 
The crow men had crept up directly behind him and had been reaching out to grab him with their jet-black talons when her bullets struck – now they stood very still, stupid emotionless expressions on their predatory avian faces.
 
As Creed watched, the two staggered back, almost as one, their balance awkward as their knees buckled beneath them.

Creed didn't trust the reprieve.
 
He'd personally plugged at least one of the creatures full of enough lead to sink a boat, and they'd walked away – not to mention falling two stories to the street before taking wing.
 
This was different.
 
The girl fired again, and part of the nearest crow men's head exploded.
 
It screeched, turned, and tried to leap into flight but only managed to rise a few yards, before it veered crazily first one way and then the other, caught on the torn fabric of the tent's roof, and swung back toward the ground.
 
It hit with such force the ground shivered.
 
It did not so much as twitch.

The second crow man made it into the air, but the girl was unnervingly quick.
 
She dropped one gun into her holster with a slick spin around her palm and gripped the hilt of one of a series of wicked knives sheathed on her belt.
 
She whipped her arm forward and released the knife in one smooth motion.
 
The blade flashed end over end after its target.
 
It drove through the side of the thing's head, slamming into the bone with enough force to send it veering to the side, and ended its short flight in a desperate dive into the camp.

"Christ," Creed said.

He spun back.
 
The Deacon still stood, lurching back and forth.
 
He clutched something at his chest, but somehow Creed knew instinctively it wasn't his heart.
 
Without thinking Creed holstered his gun, unconsciously mirroring the girl's motions, and lashed out.
 
He struck the Deacon hard in the chest, and at the same time he drove his hand down, parting the man's hands, and snatched the thing he held from his grasp.
 
As he yanked his arm back he felt resistance, so he pulled all the harder.
 
The thong around the Deacon's neck snapped, and the pouch tore free.
 

Creed's hand snapped back, moving of its own volition.
 
His hand moved of its own volition and slammed the pouch into the spot where the icy cold locket still rested.
 
The sudden surge of energy that came with the contact rattled his teeth and sent him staggering back.

The pouch, suddenly limp and empty, fell through his fingers and hit the ground.
 
Out of the corner of his eye Creed saw the Deacon fall.
 
He felt his own balance begin to slip away from him, and he tried to turn, thinking that he could roll with it and break at least part of the fall.
 
A strong hand fastened onto the neck of his shirt and hauled him back up straight.
 

Creed turned to see the dark-haired woman looking back at him.

More than half the candles in the tent had gone out.
 
The moon shone down bright and silver.
 
Its light played along the length of her hair and glittered in her eyes.
 
In that instant, Creed thought she might have been the most beautiful creature he'd ever seen.
 
He didn't think woman, he thought creature.
 
That difference sent a shiver down the ladder of his spine.

He turned back to the tall man who'd last spoken.
 
He knew it had been only seconds since those words had
rung
out, but it seemed like years.
 
The woman, Elizabeth, spun on the darker woman and raised her gun, but the man beside her – moving with incredible speed, and yet managing to make the motion appear casual – pressed the barrel down and shook his head.

"No sense wasting good ammunition, girl," he said.
 
He turned to the woman.
 
"It's been a few years, Lilith, though not so long as our last separation.
 
It looks as though time has treated you well enough."

Lilith inclined her head.
 
Creed stared first at one, and then the other of them.

"What the hell?" he said, trying to follow the twists and turns of the last few minutes.

"Very apt," the man said, turning to him and actually tipping his hat.
 
"Very close to the mark, young man.
 
Most perceptive.
 
Now, don't take this the wrong way, but shouldn't you be dead?"

Creed glanced down.
 
His shirt was soaked with blood.
 
He knew he'd been bitten at least a half dozen times by the snakes.
 
His chest burned like wild fire.
 
Despite all of that, he felt surprisingly strong.
 
He glanced up, and was about to speak, when something shot up through him – something bright and cool, terrifying and powerful.
 
He felt it rise from deep inside, lancing up through him as though it would shatter his skull, burst free, and slice into the sky beyond.

Creed staggered, a long, broken wail escaping from his lips.
 
The rush of energy drove through him again, tearing him apart from the inside – or trying.
 
This time he reached out – with his mind – and tried to force the thing out of his head.
 
It was all he could do to focus on the gun in his left hand.
 
He gripped the butt until his knuckles blanched white.
 
It felt as though the bones would splinter and the flesh split, but whatever had gotten inside of him gave up the fight, though it did not depart.
 
Then it spoke with Creed's voice.

"I am forsaken."

Creed realized half a beat too late that the thought had voiced itself, and it was not his own.

A third voice spoke up, taking advantage of Creed's moment of confusion.

"Elizabeth?" it said.

Creed clamped his mouth shut.

"Oh my," Lilith said.
 
She began to laugh, and the sound of that laughter was like water rushing down a mountainside, or the breeze through soft green grass.
 
It was as though the Earth itself had laughed, and that moment of unfettered joy eased Creed's struggle in some strange way.
 
The inner turmoil lessened, then grew stronger, just for a moment, and then – while he was distracted, Lilith stepped forward and touched his arm.

Creed screamed.
 
It was only the slightest of contacts, but it dropped him to his knees.
 
He hit the dirt and gripped the sides of his head.
 
He collapsed face first into the dust and writhed in agony.
 
Things inside blended and knitted, lashed and bound and though he fought it with every ounce of will remaining to him, it was a useless struggle.

"Most unexpected," the man said, looking down at Creed.

Creed grew still, and then raised his head.
 
He pressed his hands into the ground and rose shakily.
 
He turned to Lilith.
 

"What have you done?" he said.

The voice, and the words were his, and yet they were not.
 
He knew things he could not have known.
 
He knew who she was.
 
He knew who the girl was.
 
He knew who he was – all the things and creatures he had become.
 
His voice was sad and melancholy and beautiful as spun gold.

"I have made you whole," she said.

‡‡‡

"Well now, isn't this interesting." The tall man stepped forward and Creed turned to meet his gaze.

"I had just finished telling the moon lady here it had been a long time since we'd talked … but you?
 
It is beyond an age.
 
Almost beyond time itself.
 
Well, well, well."

"I have nothing to say to you," Creed said.
 
"You gave up that right."

"Did I?
 
And when might that have been?" the dark man asked smoothly,
 
"The fall?
 
I mean, are you telling me that since I have lost grace, that I am no longer worthy of your notice, brother mine?
 
Am I so low as to be beneath even your words?
 
Let me see…what is it about this that bothers me?
 
Oh yes," he snapped his fingers as though hitting upon a revelation that had been avoiding him,
 
"I know.
 
You are
here
.
 
Now what does that mean, eh?
 
I wonder.
 
I would hazard that your fall could well be a match for my own, realm to realm, except of course that when I was banished, we were legion.
 
You, Remliel, appear to have been singled out.
 
You must have made someone angry, old friend."

"We were never friends."

"Yes we were.
 
They call me Balthazar on this plane, but you know my name.
 
You've spoken it in light and love.
 
Whatever brought you here, whether you are fallen, simply corrupted by that puny flesh bag that's holding you, or by the bit of my stolen property that got swallowed in the bargain, it seems you have mastered the first lesson of humanity: how to lie."

Creed ignored Balthazar.
 
There was too much inside him, too many thoughts and fears and memories for him to harness them, and too many wills.
 
He turned to the woman with the guns, seeing her, knowing her in ways he hadn't even a moment before.
 
An overpowering sense of loss and sadness engulfed him.
 
It was someone else's loss, and then it was his.
 
All of it.
 
And it was such a burden he nearly staggered beneath it.
 
In that moment of earthly epiphany, Remliel learned the single most powerful need, ache, hope he had ever felt: love.

"Elizabeth," he said, his voice catching on her name.
 
"It's been…a lifetime.'

"My name is Mariah," she said.
 
"Elizabeth died.
 
I rose.
 
It was not a pleasant experience."

Lilith stepped forward and laid her hand on Creed's shoulder again.
 
This time there was no pain.
 
He turned and met her gaze.

"I believe," she said, "That our bargain is complete."

"While ours remains – questionable at best," Balthazar said.

He reached beneath his jacket and pulled out the cylinder.
 
He cracked the seal and opened the tube.
 
The torn parchment slid out, and he let the empty container drop.
 
It vanished before it hit the ground.
 
Balthazar paid it no heed.
 
He unfurled the parchment, studied it for a moment, and shook his head sadly.

"I don't suppose you'd consider honoring the bargain?" he asked, turning to Creed.
 
"I suppose that you are aware?"

"I am aware of the treacherous bargain," Creed said.
 
"I am aware that you used a man's love to trick him out of his soul, and that despite using all of your cunning, you failed.
 
Would that be a fair summation of your predicament, old
friend
?"