Hallowed Ground

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Creed felt the life seep out of him by slow degrees. The snake bites burned like fire, and his grip on reality slipped. He knew what it meant. He was as good as dead. He had pierced the barrier, whatever it might be, but his bullets had fallen short, and then – like traitorous partners, had rebounded on him with lethal accuracy. He thought back to the dark woman and the crow men. He felt the locket burning like a shard of ice into the flesh of his chest.

The Deacon said something - something unexpected. It shifted the ring of power and shot threads of light out into the tent, illuminating the faces of the crowd. An arrow-slim shaft of light slammed into Creed’s chest. It drove the locket back into him so hard it felt as though the circle of metal was embedded in his chest. He raised his head, saw the look of exultation and triumph on the Deacon’s face, and felt a surge of power – bright, intense power – flood his being.

Something grappled with his thoughts, fighting for control, or to break free, but Creed seized the moment. He lifted both guns with reflexes like trapped lightning, snapped both triggers at the same time, and this time he drove his hands forward, drawing on the new strength that filled him. The barrels pressed into the Deacon’s belly and when the hammers fell, there was sound.

Creed couldn’t remember how long it had been since he’d last heard sound of any sort. The twin reports brought a grin to curl the corners of his mouth. The Deacon stared at him in shock. Colleen gasped and staggered back with the child. Creed felt another flash of light sear his soul. It went beyond the flesh. The locket and the bright golden light combined and in that instant Creed felt something snatched from the child -- something dark and squirming and vital. It drove into him, sucked from the tiny form and pounded through the bright silver and the graven images.

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.