Hallowed Ground (28 page)

"Who are you?" he asked.

The grip on his shoulder released and he turned hesitantly, not sure what he expected.
 
Standing very close behind him was the most strikingly beautiful woman he'd ever seen.
 
Her hair and eyes were black as obsidian.
 
She was tall and slender, dressed in a long flowing gown that clung to her curves and should have looked odd and out of place, but looked, instead, as natural as the shadows – and darker.

"Who are you?" The Deacon repeated.
 
The question was the same but the need to know driving it couldn't have been more different.

"I am whoever you need me to be.
 
I have had many names, and none of them are important.
 
You do not need to know.
 
Take this."

She held out her hand.
 
He had no idea why he took what she offered, why he hadn't at least tried to pull his gun and get the better of her.
 
Or more disturbingly, why it never occurred to him.
 
She spoke, and he acted.

She gave him a long, slender leather pouch.
 
It was strung on a leather tie.
 
He stared down at it.
 
It was utterly unremarkable.
 
It wasn't heavy, so there were no coins in it, but it wasn't empty either.
 
He weighed it in his hand and felt something move inside it.
 
He lurched back from the unexpected motion and flung his arm out, trying to cast the thing aside but his fingers were tangled in the leather tie.

"You would spurn my gift?" she laughed.
 
It was a warm rich sound and all the more chilling for it.
 
"Too late.
 
Too late many things.
 
Wear it.
 
Take it to the preacher's wagon and hold it to his heart.
 
Speak any holy words that come to mind.
 
One day, you will get the opportunity to thank me."

"For what?" he said.

The only answer was laughter and a sudden, impossible rush of wind.
 
He held his hands before his face and fell to his knees.
 
A huge dark form rose through the trees and the stormy clouds above with a banshee scream.

The Deacon felt his legs buckle and barely avoided voiding his bladder.
 
He stared upward after the shadow.
 
The rain pelted his face.
 
He shook his head and staggered to his feet.
 
In his hand, the small leather bundle squirmed.
 
He stared at it, and tried again to untangle his fingers.
 
He could not do it.
 
He shrugged, slid the thong over his neck, and tucked the charm up under the soaked collar of his shirt.
 
Something – a feeling deep in his bones – told him it was the right thing to do.

The wagon wasn't far away, but the walk from the trees seemed to last an eternity.
 
He saw the fire, like a beacon, drawing him on.
 
There would be warmth near the flame.
 
There would be food.
 
He would kill for a decent mug of coffee.
 
He chuckled to himself at the thought.
 
He had intended to kill them all, coffee or not, but now his certainty was gone.
 
A peculiar sensation had taken root at the base of his spine.
 
Though he'd intended to kill them, he knew he would not.

When he was within a few yards of the wagon, he called out: "Hello!"

At first nothing happened.
 
He wondered if whoever – whatever – he'd met in the trees might have swept in and spirited them away, or more probably frightened them into flight.

"Hello!" he called again.

The cover on the back of the wagon rustled and a slender wrist poked out, drawing it aside.
 
A moment later a woman stuck her head out the hole.
 
She was thin with a scarecrow's unkempt straw-blonde hair and deep-set haunted eyes that said in a single glance she'd seen all the suffering the world had to show.
 
Not quite all, he thought, scratching at his neck with a dirty finger.
 
She glared at him as though reading his mind.

"Who are you?" she asked.
 
"What do you want?"

The Deacon heard the tremble in her voice and smiled.
 
His strength was returning, and with it, his resolve.

"To answer your first question, I'm a traveler," he said, "to answer your second, nothing more than a warm spot by the fire.
 
I wouldn't say no to food if you have it…and it has been a lifetime since I tasted coffee?"
 
He looked up at the sky, hoping it would help her make up her mind to trust him.
 
People fell for little innocent gestures.
 
"It's cold and wet."

She chewed hard at her lower lip as she mulled over the rain and the bedraggled man who'd shown up uninvited on her doorstep.
 
"We don't have much," the woman said.
 
"But what we have you're welcome to share."

The canvas fell closed.
 
A moment later she climbed slowly out.
 
The woman was too thin, but her bones still gave her flattering curves.
 
The Deacon liked a woman with curves, but a bit of meat on the bones was a must for lust.
 
She was maybe thirty years of age.
 
He stepped closer.
 
An awning stretched nearly to the campfire.
 
The fire was walled in with a small circle of stones to keep out the worst of the wind and the rain.
 
It was a neat, tidy camp.
 
He sniffed the air.
 
A pall hung over the place.
 
He smelled it all the more potently in every intake of breath.

"Seat yourself," the woman said, pointing to an almost dry stone near one of the wagon's wheels, "I'll get you what I can.
 
There's coffee.
 
It ain't fresh, but it's strong.
 
That counts for plenty in my book."

"I appreciate it," The Deacon said.
 
He dropped onto the stone and stretched his long legs.
 
His muscles ached.
 
It wasn't exactly warm where he sat, but it was considerably less cold than it had been out in the rain, and it was still plenty better than the trees.
 
He massaged his forearms to get the blood flowing again, and rubbed at his cheeks, feeling the heat against his hands.
 
Slowly he felt his wits returning.

"I don't mean to be rude, but seems to me there's something … amiss," he said.

The woman turned.

"We travel with Pastor
Ochse
," she said.
 
"He's an evangelist…a man of God.
 
He fell ill two nights ago.
 
Nothing we've been able to do has helped."

Her voice broke then.
 
The Deacon watched her – the world, it seemed, was presenting him with an opportunity he'd be a fool to pass up.
 
Even as he thought this the small pouch grew suddenly hot against his chest and he had to stifle a cry of shock and pain.
 
He winced and scratched at it.
 
He knew all that rooting around with his fingers made it look as though he had fleas.
 
It didn't matter.
 
His skin burned.
 
As he bit back the pain, words sprang to his lips: "Perhaps I can help," he said.
 
"I have something of…a gift…for these things."

"Healing?" she said, turning to stare at him.
 
"Oh praise the Lord for his mercy! You're a healer?"

The Deacon rose.

"Take me to him," he said, sounding much calmer than he felt.

The woman brought her hand to her mouth and gasped.

"He said you would come," she said.
 
"He said the Lord would provide and that he would be spared.
 
We thought he was fevered.
 
We believed…"

"Take me to him," The Deacon repeated.
 
It didn't feel like a charade anymore.
 
He pressed his hand to his chest.
 
The woman stared at him.
 
She believed in him.

The woman turned away from the fire.
 
She disappeared into the wagon quickly, and a moment later, the canvas was pulled back fully.
 
Inside the Deacon saw three wretched figures huddled up against the inner wall.
 
There was an old, gray-bearded man with wild, bulging eyes.
 
He had the body of a brawler who'd been beaten one time too many.
 
There was a boy, fifteen at best, bum-fluff just starting to sprout from his cheeks, and another woman, older than the first and heavier.
 
They watched him warily as he swung up into the wagon.

Against the other side of the wagon a narrow cot had been raised.
 
The Deacon saw that a man lay across it.
 
Blankets were pulled up to his chin.
 
He was pale and jaundiced.
 
A stench clung to him.
 
Rot.
 
The lamplight shone off glistening beads of sweat that peppered his skin.

The Deacon knelt beside the man.
 
He didn't want to touch him.
 
Instead, he studied the tortured, fevered face looking for any sign of fight behind the eyes.
 
He'd seen men in similar condition too many times.
 
None of them had survived.
 
The pouch burned against his skin with steady heat.
 
He knew he wouldn't be able to control his voice much longer, or to bite back the scream as it continued to lacerate his chest.

He reached into his shirt and gripped the talisman, trying to pull it away.
 
His efforts only pressed the leather tighter against his skin.
 
He wanted to scream but behind the agony he heard something else.
 
He suddenly felt the weight of the woman's hand on his shoulder once more, the dark woman from the trees.
 
He heard her voice in his mind.
 
He tried to hold on to it, laying his hand flat against his heart despite the searing pain.

Speak any holy words that come to mind.

He reached down and pulled back the blankets.
 
As he worked, he spoke softly.
 
Now and again he tossed out the few lines of scripture he knew and most of those he garbled.
 
He unbuttoned Pastor Ochse's shirt with trembling fingers and then, with a quick almost desperate motion, he drew out the talisman.
 
This time, as if sensing his intent, it came away from his flesh easily.
 
He held it in his the palm of his hand and was shocked to find that it was cool.
 
No trace of the heat that had so tormented him remained.
 
He touched his chest and felt the blistered skin beneath his fingers.
 
He didn't try to understand what was happening.

The Deacon leaned close and pressed the leather to the Pastor's chest, not knowing what to expect.

The man's eyes snapped open.
 
He coughed, and a black cloud of … something … a wisp… smoke… ash?… curled from his mouth.
 
The Deacon barely ducked back in time to avoid it as it lashed through the air in front of his face.
 
The Pastor's fevered body arched up off the sweat-stained sheets of the cot.
 
The Deacon pressed him back down.
 
He began to call out the words of The Lord's Prayer, words he'd memorized as a boy and not spoken in years, in a deep, powerful voice.

"Our Father," he cried, "Who art in Heaven."

He never finished.
 
The cloud of darkness bled through the canvas walls.
 
At first it held that curious smoky quality but as his lips shaped around the word ‘Heaven' it coalesced into something blacker and thicker until it looked like jags of black lightning tearing out through the canvas and into the night on the other side.
 
There was a rush of wind, and the flaps of the wagon's sides slapped out and back so hard it cracked like thunder.
 
The Deacon reeled up and back, the talisman suddenly alive and squirming in his hand.
 
In that moment he sensed it – it wasn't just alive, it wasn't just hungry; it was malevolent.

He caught himself with one hand on the wall of the wagon and tucked the pouch back into his shirt.
 
It was cool and still, the magic burned out.
 
No one was looking at him.
 
The woman he'd first met had rushed past him to kneel at the pastor's side.

Then The Deacon realized his first perception was wrong.
 
One person was looking at him.
 
The Pastor was awake, and staring up through blurred, reddened eyes.
 
The corners of those eyes sparkled with tears.
 
When he broke the silence his voice was pitifully weak: "Praise the lord."