by Kay Hooper
Which pretty much explained both why the church had been built up here and why it had been allowed to fall into ruins so long ago.
But right now, tonight, the mountain slope brought them up to a flat area, probably no more than sixty feet across, before the mountain began to climb again. In that clearing was a single standing stone wall that rose to a point, with the other walls that had once risen there to join it now only a tumble of stones. The original building had probably been no more than twenty-five feet from entrance to that still-standing wall.
Now, in the semicleared space of the interior, someone had constructed a rough altar stone. Obviously hacked from a single larger slab of rock, the oblong was about two feet wide and at least six feet long, and laid across two big boulders beneath that brought the altar nearly to Nellie’s waist.
That was a guess; they were careful not to go into the old church, because the clearing had allowed the snow to dust the inside of the space, and footprints would have been obvious. In fact, they stayed well outside the clearing as they circled warily, allowing the forest floor to mask their path.
They picked their spots, but then both Grayson and Geneva left their companions once again, scouting the entire area as soldiers would have, both of them moving soundlessly, and soon were lost to sight as well.
It was still, and bone-chillingly cold, but as she stood beside Finn just outside the clearing on the upward slope where they could see the tumbled interior of the church, Nellie tore her gaze from that and pulled her hands from her pockets, staring at the gloves.
“They’re only a symbol of control,” Finn said softly. “A reminder of weaving walls of protection and containment out of pure energy. They were never meant to stop your Talents, Nellie, just meant to be a symbol of your own control.”
After a long moment, Nellie removed the gloves and put them into her pockets, though she kept her hands in the pockets and held the gloves for now, maybe for as long as possible.
“I hope I know enough,” she whispered. “I hope I’ve learned enough.”
“Trust your instincts.”
Trust your instincts, my daughter. Listen to your heart.
Nellie caught her breath, suddenly aware that beyond her pounding heart, that door had opened once more. She could feel the warmth and light that poured out. Into her.
“Nellie?”
For the first time she could remember, Nellie felt a strong and certain sense of utter control. She turned her head to look at Finn, his face clear to her in the odd light in the forest.
“I think I can trust my instincts,” she said slowly. “Now I can.”
He didn’t question that. “Just remember, you have to command the crows when they come, because he’ll try to use them to attack and distract us. Touch their minds. Let them know you can set them free of him.”
It didn’t seem strange to her now that he would say that, expect that of her. She knew she could do it. All she had to do was listen to what had always been inside her.
Finn said nothing more, and in the silence she felt the warmth spreading all through her, gloried in that sense of control, the feeling that she was this, this person she was meant to be. There was no need to struggle, no need to fight who and what she was.
Time passed, and Nellie calmly waited, vaguely surprised to realize that Grayson and Geneva were back. There were faint lights, they reported, coming straight across this slope from the east, obviously following the path Grayson had found now, and from whatever place they had kept and hidden Bethany.
“Where are the crows?” Nellie whispered, thinking of Finn’s certainty that Duncan would have ordered them ahead as his scouts, his sentries.
The whisper was barely out of her mouth when a very large crow alighted soundlessly on part of the tumbled wall on this side of the ruins. It was no more than twenty feet away, staring straight at them.
At Nellie.
Oddly, she didn’t hesitate, but took a step toward the crow, listening to her instincts without question. Another step, then another, until she stood just above the clearing, her gaze locked with the bird’s bright, shining black eyes.
A faint stirring in her mind. Muffled at first, but then clearing, as if she had always been meant to hear it. A question asked, tentative, but more out of caution than uncertainty. She felt . . . bindings. Unwanted bindings. No freedom with the bindings.
No freedom . . . There was great, overwhelming grief in that.
Somehow, without quite understanding how she knew, Nellie promised the bird freedom. All of them would be free. No bindings, no more bondage, ever.
She would set them free.
TWENTY-TWO
The crow raised both wings, beating them almost silently in the air, almost like a salute, something even brighter than before in those black, shiny eyes, then it lifted off with hardly more sound and vanished into the woods.
Nellie retraced her steps to join the others, feeling . . . very peculiar. And yet absolutely certain. The door now open in her mind was allowing her to see everything she had hidden from herself all these years. All her life.
How stupid she had been! Just as with the crows, this was freedom; that other had been bondage.
“She’ll tell the others,” she whispered. “They’ll be nearby, but they won’t obey if he tries to command them. Don’t worry if they seem to come if he calls them. They won’t be coming to him.”
She thought she saw Finn smile slightly, saw Grayson and Geneva exchange looks, and then they spread out to their previously chosen spots.
Finn remained with Nellie because, he’d said, he was armed. But she didn’t think that was his reason. He was there to urge her on if necessary.
She didn’t think it would be. And she was sure Finn was no longer worried about that.
How strange. I know what you’re feeling, she told him in her mind. And she was again not surprised when he answered.
You always could. You just had to believe.
Nellie believed.
They stood, again, just outside the clearing, still above it so that they could see the doorway that had been cleared, and the area around the altar. There were several thick-limbed pine trees at their back, keeping them in shadow.
Sooner than Nellie had expected there were faint lights in the woods, dim glows that didn’t really brighten but grew a bit larger as the people carrying the lights approached.
It wasn’t until they came into the clearing that she could see, with a start of surprise, that they wore hooded cloaks like those she had seen in her nightmare. Though she wondered why she was surprised; at least one among those in the hoods had, after all, given her the nightmare. Trying to frighten her.
Nellie looked at the figures as they approached, not afraid. The hoods shadowed some faces, but not those who were carrying odd, round lanterns.
Duncan Cavendish was first, and as soon as she could make out his features, she felt a distant pang of relief. He did not look like the father she remembered mostly from a handful of pictures. There was a faint resemblance, and might have been more in the unforgiving light of day, but the features she studied intently were heavier, older, somehow more coarse than those that were more clear in her mind than she had realized.
And his eyes were burning.
Behind him, two hooded figures carried a sort of stretcher between them, and Nellie felt another pang, this one of stark sickness and a growing fury, when she saw a small, limp body, wearing some shapeless garment but with her wrists clearly bound as they lay on her thin middle.
Behind the two carrying the stretcher, perhaps a dozen or so followed in two lines, only the ones at the beginning and the ones at the end of the lines carrying the globe lanterns. There seemed to be a roughly even number of men and women, but Nellie wasn’t sure of that. It was a smaller group than she had expected, and she wondered vaguely if only the most devo
ted of Duncan’s followers were allowed to participate in this . . . ceremony.
She didn’t hear them move but saw Grayson and Geneva close in on the last two in line. They moved with utterly silent efficiency and in perfect timing, and within seconds they were the last in the two lines, carrying the globe lanterns, shrugging into the robes they had removed from the two of Duncan’s followers who lay unconscious, at the very least, on the cold ground back along the tracks.
Nellie had no idea how the two agents had managed to move like that, to do what they had done, but she was very, very glad she was on the same side they were.
She didn’t waste much time thinking about that, though, because the stretcher-bearers were carrying Bethany into the ruins of the church, almost marching in a slow, stately manner, and she could hear a low murmur that might have been chanting.
As the angle changed slightly, the glow from one of the lanterns fell on Bethany’s face, and Nellie felt the fury inside her burn hotter until it was a pure blue flame when she saw those thin, pinched features and the faint darkening here and there that looked like bruises.
What have they done to you already, poor baby?
Thunder boomed and rolled suddenly, directly overhead, causing the entire group below to start in surprise, some of them even stumbling.
Nellie didn’t flinch, but remained motionless.
Duncan moved to the head of the altar, and she could see that he was frowning, saw those burning eyes dart upward as if he were questioning what he had heard.
The stretcher came even with the altar, and the two lines of people who had been behind separated, with two on the other side of the altar reaching to pull Bethany off the stretcher and onto the cold, snow-dusted rock.
Grayson and Geneva, Nellie saw with an automatic glance, were standing just a bit back, at the doorway, and she could tell both had their hands inside the robes and on their weapons.
Thunder boomed again, and a sudden flash lit the gloomy sky, lightning skittering along the clouds, bright fingers probing in different directions as though looking for something. And the lightning was strange.
It was in colors. Blue. Green. Red. And blazing white. And it was continuous, pulsing as though it was being fed by some hidden energy source.
Nellie managed to tear her eyes from the motionless child as the stretcher-bearers moved away and discarded the stretcher, fixing her gaze on the uncle she had never met. He raised the globe lantern high for a long moment, then held it before him, looking over it at the child lying so still on his bloodstained stone altar.
Nellie knew the plan. She knew that three guns were trained on the group below, principally on Duncan, and that Finn would be searching what faces he could see to look for any of Duncan’s militia members since they would be armed.
Geneva and Grayson were perfectly positioned at the rear of the group, their borrowed hoods allowing them to blend in, their training allowing them to mark targets before there was the need to even aim.
At the first sign of a threat against Bethany, Grayson and Geneva would act without hesitation, Finn would act as well, moving out of the shadows, aiming for any militia who could prove troublesome, making certain no one near the little girl could touch her, let alone hurt her.
And if this ended even close to the way they expected, Finn’s authority coupled with that of the agents would stop this insanity.
The whole group was still murmuring, perhaps chanting, but Duncan’s voice was louder, calling out words that were not English but perhaps Latin, or some made-up chant to impress his followers. He was summoning . . . demanding . . . calling on power to help him remove the evil from this seeming innocent . . .
He stretched out his arms slowly so that the lantern hung above her still body, and as he summoned, demanded, called, Nellie saw the light in the lantern change, its golden glow swirling suddenly with something darker, as though a black snake had somehow crawled inside and was now writhing in torment.
A gasp from the followers as they saw that apparent evil drawn from the child’s body by their prophet.
A trick. A magician’s trick, and he’s convinced them it’s real.
They began swaying back and forth, still murmuring as he began to raise the lantern and continued to chant hoarsely, his voice rising and rising—
Until it was abruptly overwhelmed by a tremendous boom of thunder and crackle of lightning over the clearing, the multicolored flash so brilliant it lit everyone within the ruins as though it were daylight.
In that light, the gleam of steel was visible, knives in the hands of those followers standing on either side of Bethany, while other hands froze in the act of reaching toward her, probably to tear open the garment they had dressed her in and bare her body to their gaze and their knives.
No.
Dimly, she was aware of Grayson and Geneva dealing with the next pair in line ahead of them, and now shouting, coming into the ancient ruins, the light of the entire clearing that still seemed as bright as day. They held wicked guns in their hands now, and Nellie saw that two more of Duncan’s followers fell to powerful, trained blows from both the man and woman.
Then their hands extended, guns pointed at those whose knives would have hurt Bethany, as they shouted for those frozen figures to drop their weapons. Nellie was dimly aware of Finn stepping past her, his gun extended steadily in expert hands. He fired twice, the sound oddly muted to Nellie, and she saw two followers stumble back away from the altar, hands clapped to bleeding shoulders.
She stared at her uncle.
No. I won’t let you hurt anyone ever again.
And Duncan Cavendish seemed frozen in place, except that his face writhed like that snake of black in the lantern, something dark and ugly and evil twisting his features.
No.
His chant became a command, bursting from the thunderous sounds that had been overhead, and Nellie felt rather than saw some of the robed figures clawing the material that covered them, even then reaching for weapons despite the agents’ and Finn’s shouted warnings. Two more shots rang out, oddly muffled to Nellie’s ears. Two more of Duncan’s followers stumbled back, one falling heavily to the ground.
Those left still standing and unharmed cowered back away from the altar, their uplifted faces lit weirdly by the multicolored lightning still lacing the sky above the clearing, as if it hunted.
Duncan howled like some animal.
“No!”
She walked the few steps down the slope into the clearing, pulling her hands free of her pockets, her gaze still fixed on Duncan. She didn’t even glance up when the sounds of what seemed a hundred wings beat the air and a shadow fell suddenly over Duncan. Only over him.
He looked up, mouth open, staring at the spiral of crows above him, the lowest one just out of reach, the highest one seeming to touch the clouds high above. Circling and circling in a tight black formation above Duncan, and then, with an eerily howling screech, the spiral burst apart and the birds were gone.
“You’ll never command them again.”
Nellie hadn’t realized how silent the clearing had been in the moments after the crows flew away until her own voice sounded.
Duncan turned his head slowly, his gaze sliding past Finn and fixing on her. With studied calm, he said, “I’ve been waiting for you, Nellie.”
“Have you? Well, here I am, Duncan.” In that moment, she felt absolutely no fear. But thunder rumbled in the clouds above, like an echo of the earlier blast. Or like a reminder. And the lightning continued to lace the sky, still pulsing, as if fed constantly by a power no one could see. Perhaps the beating of a heart.
His eyes narrowed. “Do you really believe you can challenge me, girl?” His voice boomed.
Nellie felt herself smile. “Why would I challenge you, Duncan? I’ve already won.”
His mouth twisted, opened—and froze.
&nbs
p; “No, I can’t let you say what you want to say. Or do what you want to do. It’s over, Duncan. I won’t let you hurt anyone else.”
With what was clearly a tremendous effort, he began to slowly lift the globe, his mouth closing in a terrible snarl. It was clear he meant not to hurl it at her or away from himself, but to crash it down on Bethany’s helpless body.
“No,” Nellie said softly.
She raised one bare hand above her head, fingers reaching for the sky. Her other hand stretched out, pointing at Duncan.
Afterward, some of Duncan’s former followers swore they had seen a bolt of lightning strike Nellie’s raised hand, seen her entire body glow with all the colors of the rainbow, and then a bolt of pure white shot out from the fingers she pointed at Duncan, the flash so bright it nearly blinded those who dared to watch as it struck Duncan in the center of his chest and sent him hurtling backward to lie still among the tumbled stone of the ruins.
The lamp he had meant to use to kill Bethany Hicks had simply vanished.
Of course, the federal agents and Deputy Finn Deverell, in their official reports, said merely that Duncan Cavendish had been struck by lightning while attempting to murder what would have been his fifth victim. And when the coroner agreed he died that way, there really wasn’t much anyone could say to deny it.
But there were whispers.
EPILOGUE
SUNDAY, AFTER MIDNIGHT
“I don’t know about the rest of you,” Geneva said, half hiding a huge yawn with one hand. “But I’m beat.”
They were all seated in the front parlor of Hales, where they had retreated after all the shouting was over. Well, most of it. The wounded had been taken under guard to the town’s hospital, Finn’s loyalists in charge of both them and the others, who had been marched to the jail, all to be met by a swarm of federal agents.