Footsteps of Angels (Marietta Book 2)

by M. L. Bullock

  What was the meaning of all this?

  Not far away I heard the tapping of a single drum. A small one, like the kind his grandfather would use when he summoned his ancestors. And then came the yipping. Not the yipping of coyotes or wolves, but the distinctive sounds of men bent on war.

  Or revenge. Could his own ancient blood but the reason for the beast within him?

  “Damn you!”

  A creaking sound to the left of him caught his attention. The sound of poles clattering to the ground, the tearing of cloth, footsteps thumping on the ground. It was as if the place had come alive.

  No, not alive. It was full of the dead. I swung the glowing stick around in fast circles. It did not provide much in the way of light. In fact, my dim torch grew dimmer by the second. Soon, I would be completely extinguished, and I would be here, in this horrible place with God knows what. I raced towards my crooked wagon hoping to find some sort of weapon. Instead, I fell to the ground, a tremendous slap caused blood to fill my mouth. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. I could do nothing but wait for the nightmare to end.

  You are the nightmare! Go from here!

  That’s when the ground beneath me began to move. As if something buried would emerge. More of the dead? More of the angry natives who sought revenge for my earlier desecration. My mind stung with the shock of it all. This couldn’t be happening. This must be a nightmare. I should wake up!

  Yes, wake up, Crossley!

  But before I put two thoughts together, the ground shook again only it wasn’t a corpse climbing out of a grave but rather an animal. A big black animal with paws as big as my head. It rose from the black dirt and shook the soil off its back with a mighty roar. The dead scampered away but their whispers continued. No, not whispers. They were chanting. Chanting for my death.

  What of Jemima and Kitty? What of my family?

  Glowing red eyes stared at me and the creature, a dog, a cat, some hellish combination of the two snarled at me. My voice found my tongue and I began to scream.

  I screamed because hell was coming for me and I deserved it.

  I deserved this ending and so did the Beast inside me.

  Chapter Ten—Carrie Jo

  Even though I was dead tired I managed to dream. I hadn’t expected that. I really hadn’t. Those first few minutes, the honey hued color stuck with me, it was so thick it wouldn’t allow me to see clearly. But then a magnificent ocean breeze blew in off the coast, the sepia cloud vanished, and I realized I was not alone.

  Ashland laid on the ground, his face staring up at the heavens wide eyed and unmoving. Luckily, I could see that he was breathing. Yes, breathing normally but mesmerized by whatever it was he saw from his vantage point. I glanced up at the night sky but there wasn’t a hint of anything remotely strange or unusual. Just glittering southern skies.

  But the boneyard had become a lively place, a place of deathly celebration. Men and women wailed, grief-stricken faces were covered in paint and mud. The ground rumbled beneath my feet as if too were grieving for the dead. These people were not just here to bury their dead. They too were suffering and sickly. Even in this strange light I could see that their skin was marked with boils and bleeding ulcers. Yes, a sickly lot who would have no one to bury them. They honored those they could but who would honor them?

  Oh yes, smallpox. That’s right. This was part of the history. The Biloxi were nearly wiped out by this horrid plague. Thanks to the white man. What cruel gifts we brought these people. What a horrible sight!

  None of the dead spoke a word but they shared the language of grief. One by one they fell, women holding babies. Men carrying children, old men leaning on the younger ones. All were skinny, so thin that they must have been starving.

  This had been their place.

  Their burial ground.

  A place they would always honor and expect to be honored. Until the first desecration and then the one to come. Oh God! I heard their voices in my ear and it was too much. Too many voices speaking all at once, crying, begging. I could not decipher the language, but it pulled sorrow out of me. Deep, horrible sorrow and something else. Fear! They were afraid but of what? Us? The Crossley family?

  No, that wasn’t right. My skin crawled as I began to understand exactly what it was they were afraid of. They were afraid of the creature, the one that took Portia and stalked the Lancaster family. No, these unfortunate dead had nothing to do with that. Nothing at all. They were trapped here, not resting in peace but resting in fear.

  Oh God! Ashland! We must get out of this dream!

  Racing toward my husband I fell beside him and reached for his hands and immediately began shaking him. His hands were as cold as ice, as if he too were dead but he was not dead, merely dreaming. He’d planned to find ghosts, obviously but the power of this place drew him into the dream world. Maybe it was because I slept. I had pulled him into mine. I couldn’t be sure but at least he was alive. Just seeing. Only looking and observing at what others could not. Except me.

  Ashland, I’m here! I’m right here! We have to go! Please wake up!

  He wasn’t moving at all. What was happening here? Why couldn’t he shake this dream? If I couldn’t wake him at least I would protect him. I lifted his head and placed it in my lap. I would protect him with my last breath, in this realm or the one we came from

  My heart raced as time sped up around us. Bodies were pitched high on poles, wrapped in sacred garments. The blasting sea breeze, the screeching of the predators who did their job without mercy. Birds, coyotes, and all sorts of animals cleaned the bones and kindly left them behind.

  The screams grew louder, the absolute exultation of agony reached a fever pitch and then the air grew stagnant. The dead, the many, many dead had left.

  Except Adam Crossley. The color of the sky shifted again, it became a dark purple, a glittering of stars shown down on us. Instead of structures laden with the precious dead, the poles were in heaps on the ground. Time had passed, much time. This place had been left for many years, or so was the sense I got.

  “Ashland, we need to go. Ashland, babe?” I decided to try again. Ashland and I needed to get out of here. The worst was about to happen. The absolute worst. I could feel it in my bones. The ground rumbled again. There was a wagon not far away--the Crossleys’ wagon. The broken wheel evidence of the accident. I glanced around as I waited for my husband to respond. He was breathing normally, and his eyes were blinking. How had this happened? It was as if he too were dream walking. Or something like it. I would have to figure it out but after we got out of here.

  There he was—Adam Crossley! On his back, not far from the wagon. His face bleeding, his eyes wide with fear. His dark skin glistened with sweat, the kind of sweat caused by fear. Deep and abiding fear.

  And I saw the creature. Black, so black it was almost blue. It was the largest dog I’d ever seen. Like something from a previous ice age. It’s menacing growl pulled a scream from Adam as he began to try and crawl away. He was on his stomach, crawling away from the hole left by the Beast. This must be the Lancaster Beast! The one that fed on children and women, the one that demanded sacrifice! I watched in horror as Adam attempted to escape quickly ended. His struggle did not last long.

  Ashland begged to get up. I wanted to help him, but my eyes were transfixed on the horrible scene that played out before me. Was the Beast going to kill Adam? Is that what happened to the pioneer? What about his family?

  Just as I thought that I watched the Beast place his massive paw on the back of the black man. He didn’t kill him; I could hear him scream but others were screaming too now. Not just the ghosts of the natives who’d been trying to warn him. They began to fade; they knew it was too late. I watched in horror as Adam and the Beast became one horrible being.

  But even as the Adam screamed and roared, another scream rose. The screams of Adam’s wife and daughter. They had seen Adam pinned to the ground, seen him struggle to get away.

  “Adam! Adam!” Jemima cried fear
fully. “Adam, no!”

  “Run, Jemima! Take Kitty and run! Please!” Adam pleaded as he struggled to breath. His transformation was almost complete. I could see the tears streaming down his cheek. He could do nothing but watch and wait. What a terrible sight! A terrible situation! “Run, Jemima! Don’t come here! Stay off the land!”

  But Jemima had a gun, a long, black gun and although she was screaming and crying, with Kitty tugging on the back of her skirt she was brave. So brave that she clearly had every intention of killing the Beast.

  Ashland sat beside me, his eyes were damp, his face flushed. “She has to stay off the property, Carrie Jo. It cannot get her if she stays out of the boneyard. We must warn her. We have to stop this.” He was dead serious even though he himself knew exactly what could happen if we were to interfere with history. Bad things happened when you interfered with past lives. Bad things.

  “No, Ash. You know we can’t.” I whispered to him as together we rose to our feet. “We can only observe. Not interact. That’s rule number one.”

  “But,” he began to argue with me in a broken voice.

  “I know,” I answered him as we watched in horror the slaughter of Jemima and Kitty. The animal taunted Jemima by circling the edge of the boneyard. She fired the gun but did not strike the Beast, only the wagon. “Adam? Where are you?”

  To get a better shot she would have to get closer. That was her reasoning. I didn’t need to hear it, I knew it. I would have done the same thing. Jemima had no idea that the boundary she was about to cross was going to doom her.

  Jemima shot the gun again but to no avail. Jemima sunk to her knees and began to scream. Scream like her soul was on fire. Kitty staggered behind her, the child was confused and, in that moment, as quick as a lightning strike. She was dead. The Beast landed on her and ripped her to pieces. An eruption of blood and bones fell on Jemima who continued to run to the wagon. “Adam!”

  Her face was the epitome of regret, horror, and grief. She did not make it to his side but fell on the ground, the Beast was on top of her, and I could watch no more. I even said, “NO MORE!” as loudly as I could to break the spell, the break the dream.

  Together, Ashland and I were standing in the boneyard, both crying, glancing around for fear that the Beast would somehow return and finish its bloody work. It wasn’t done. That was for sure although it did not have the power it once did. It did not have the power to rise yet but it wanted to. Oh yes, I could feel the evil permeating from the ground.

  It needed a new sacrifice. It needed a Lancaster. The Beast wanted Heather.

  “Do you see him?” Ashland whispered as he pointed to the center of the boneyard. I had to confess I did not.

  “Adam is the Beast!”

  “Stay here, CJ. Please, stay right here.”

  I didn’t argue with him, but the horrible memories sickened me. I could easily throw up thinking about the slaughter. The death of that child, she had to be only slightly younger than our Lily. Her death would forever be burned into my memory.

  “Ashland,” I whispered as he continued to walk to where the wagon would have been those hundreds of years ago. As I stared into the darkness, I began to discern a figure. The Watcher! The old man who we’d seen before. Ashland stood before the bare-chested native but as far as I could tell, no words were exchanged.

  The old man gave Ashland a painted stick. Worn feathers fluttered from the end, it was wrapped in painted rope and embellished with symbols. The man turned and walked away, disappearing from the clearing.

  It was then that I understood. What we’d seen, what we’d witnessed. The Biloxi were abandoning this holy land forever. The weeping, the burials we’d seen, they would be no more. Those that were buried here were gone forever. Moved on to the light or wherever it is that they were destined to go. Where do we go when we die? Our destiny isn’t to be ghosts, that much I was sure of yet some of us remained behind.

  Some of us rested in our burial grounds.

  Some of us did not.

  Ashland returned to me, the stick in his hand, a gift from a man older than any we’d ever met. I couldn’t wrap my mind around what all that this meant. Especially for Ashland. Why did he carry the stick? To the Biloxi, it had been a cherished and sacred item, a symbol of authority in death and life.

  “What did he say? What are we supposed to do?” I asked fearfully. I had another question to ask but decided against it. Would the Beast come back again? Did I really need to ask that?

  “He said it was time to go to war. This was not his battle anymore. It is ours.”

  “Ours?” I asked as I stared at the stick and touched it gingerly. As soon as my finger touched the pole I felt a shock, like static electricity. No doubt this item had a bit of magic to it but what did we know about banished a hell hound, or whatever this thing might be!

  “Yes, ours. It’s not a coincidence we’re here. We have to help these people rest, Carrie Jo. They deserve to have their land back. They can’t rest here; he won’t allow that. The Beast wants to kill the vulnerable, children especially.”

  Instinctively my hand flew to my tiny baby bump. Ashland didn’t notice as he was surveying the boneyard, stick in hand. “Let’s go, Ash. We need to talk to Rachel and tell her what we’ve seen. We need a plan, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, you’re right. Let’s go, Carrie Jo. Stay close, okay?”

  “Don’t worry. I’m sticking to you like glue. I don’t like this place. Not at all. I hate this place, Ashland. I hate it.”

  We walked back to Marietta in silence, hand in hand.

  Chapter Eleven—Rachel

  I should have already set the cameras, it was dark already, but I couldn’t shake my disappointment. My time with the Brotherhood was coming to an end because this was a line I wasn’t going to cross. Imagine asking me to spy on my friends. Nate didn’t really want a report on Marietta. I didn’t believe that for a second. What they wanted was more info on Ashland and Carrie Jo Stuart. And of course, by extension Lily and AJ. Give me a break. Like I’d do that. I told them from the beginning I would never spy on my friends, and they pretended to be okay with it.

  Now what was I going to do with my life? All that work and for what?

  I walked back outside carrying my backpack and two tripods. I darn near walked into the Stuarts who were emerging from the woods that led to the Boneyard. “Sorry I’m late getting these set up. Hey, what do you have there? Did you find it in the burial ground?”

  Ashland and CJ exchanged a worried glance and nodded. “Yes, but that’s not all we found.” Mosquitos circled us but they didn’t seem to mind. I swatted away as they told me what they’d seen. Strange how Ashland’s ghost walk, and Carrie Jo’s dream walk combined like that. I wonder what that meant? Were their powers growing fueled by one another’s gifts? We’ve seen that before. I mean, the Brotherhood had seen that before. I read about it; it was a topic of much discussion in our study groups. And here I had evidence of just that. When gifted people work together, their gifts become stronger or in some cases, one or both will wane. Definitely not the latter for Carrie Jo and Ashland.

  The old stab of jealousy struck me, but I reminded myself it was wrong to feel jealous of the people I loved. Sure, I wanted the same thing, someone to love me in all my weirdness but that did not justify being jealous of two people who’d only been good to me.

  “Good Lord, you mean the Beast is Adam Crossley? Ugh, why didn’t I have these cameras up? Man, I’m sorry about that.”

  “It’s fine. I don’t think you would have captured much anyway. What we saw was in another realm, for the most part. Do you have any idea how long we were gone? What time is it?” Carrie Jo asked me as I shuffled my equipment to glance at my watch.

  “Only about an hour. But wow, it got dark kind of early. I still can’t believe that Adam and the Beast are one in the same. And that medicine stick, the Watcher actually handed it to you?” I put all my equipment down except my camera. I immediately began snapping
photos. I was no expert on Native American artifacts, but it had interesting markings and colorful paint.

  “Touch the stick, Rachel. Tell me what you sense.” After taking a few more photos, I reached out to touch the wooden stick. So old, such craftsmanship. There was no telling how many hands held this magical item before Ashland received it from the hands of a Watcher, the ghost that abandoned this place. My fingers rubbed across the wood, but I did not sense or experience anything. Only sadness but that was probably because of the story they told me. It sounded incredible, from the Beast to the ghosts of the Biloxi but this was the world the three of us lived in. The paranormal world.

  “Nothing but you can’t go by me. Any gifts I have come and go. They aren’t like yours. I’m the weirdo that smells things. I better get these cameras set up.”

  Ashland shook his head. “Change of plans. We don’t need footage. We know what’s here and what we’re up against. We don’t need the gear. We need salt, and lots of it. We may not can stop this Beast but let’s make sure it can’t leave the boneyard.”

  “Why would it leave the boneyard?” I asked surprised at the fear I heard in my voice. I didn’t mean for that question to come out like that. “It hasn’t left it before.”

  Ashland’s answer made my skin crawl. “The Beast has no opposition now. There’s no Watcher to keep it in check. The Beast had grown stronger and the Watcher weaker. He’s abdicated his responsibility, maybe because he knows he no longer has the strength. I don’t know. But we need a barrier so when we banish this thing it doesn’t escape the land.”

  Carrie Jo bit her lip. “Wow, I haven’t thought that far ahead but I’d say you’re right. This stick isn’t going to be enough, Ash. You don’t have the authority to use it. Not really. I need to go back to Marietta Lancaster’s time. I need to see how it ends for Mary and maybe figure out why Marietta fed this thing to begin with.”

  “I don’t know, Carrie Jo. Is it safe to dream walk again so soon after a dream?” I asked with genuine concern.