Sacred Ground

by Mercedes Lackey

  -then decided that maybe he really didn't want to know, after all. It would only make him madder. And he might lose his temper, go down to Calligan's construction site, and beat the bastard's face in. He was only heartbeats from doing that as it was; only his promise to Jennie had kept him from dashing out to kill the man when he realized Calligan had sent those goons to drown her.

  But David had promised. She would not respect him for breaking a promise. She would neyer forgive him for messing up the case by breaking Calligan's head. Logically, he knew that. Emotionally, though, countless generations of warrior ancestry told him to go collect some blood.

  He hustled all three of his charges into the backseat of Mooncrow's car and threw their luggage into the trunk; the sooner they got out of this neighborhood, the less chance there was of getting caught. Mrs. Nebles waved good-bye from her front window, and gave Toni the high-sign as they pulled away. Toni smiled weakly and returned it.

  Everything was ready and waiting at the office; a small and private room, the Shelter lawyer, the papers, the ride to a safe-house. The lawyer coached Toni through the procedure with sublime disregard for Mooncrow, who smudged Toni, the kids, the lawyer, and the papers impartially, chanting and drumming with his other hand.

  Then again, this probably wasn't the strangest ceremony these offices had ever seen. Hadn't Jennie said something about being part of the dedication ceremonies?

  Yes, she had told him about it. She'd offered an Osage purification and blessing, along with a female rabbi, a female Episcopalian priest, a female minister, a voodoo priestess, and some kind of witch. ...

  No wonder the lawyer wasn't fazed. On the other hand, given what they 're doing here, they probably figured they needed all the blessings they could get, he decided.

  Mooncrow and the lawyer were equally efficient; they finished at about the same time, and both stood aside to let Maria herd up Toni and her kids like a faithful sheepdog and whisk them off to somewhere a lot safer.

  "Wait," Toni said, just before Maria herded them out the door. Maria paused, and Toni looked back at David. "Before we go off-I didn't get a chance to tell you this. I want you to get hold of the cops that are investigating the bombing," she said, firmly. "Tell them that I have things they need to know, things I found out over the past couple of days. I want to testify against Rod. And I found a lot of papers and tapes in the safe in his office when I got in there this morning. He had them in a box marked 'Insurance.' I guess he thought that was clever; they're all in my suitcase."

  David nodded, and looked at Maria, who grimaced. "Actually, Toni, if you have things you think might put you in danger, I'll take you downtown before I take you to the shelter. You might qualify for the witness protection program, and that would free up a little more space for another woman who doesn't."

  "I thought about that," Toni replied, and licked her lips nervously. "With what I overheard on the phone-I think I would qualify, and I'd feel a lot safer with the cops watching us. No insult meant, Maria, but your people don't know Rod, and I do. I-think he might try something really drastic when he realizes we're gone."

  "You're on." Maria waved her out the door, and David relaxed a little, then joined the lawyer in opening windows and fanning smoke out of the room.

  "Sorry about this-" he began, apologetically. The lawyer laughed.

  "Don't worry about it," she assured him. "I've seen weirder, believe me. The worst was the time we got some poor little Haitian girl in here who was so terrified of a curse that she wouldn't even pick up a pen until we brought in the woman that helped at the dedication. A little smoke is nothing-the obeah brought in chickens, a goat-I thought we were never going to get the goat smell out, and we're still finding feathers in odd corners!"

  David laughed as they chased the last of the smoke out the windows and opened the door to the rest of the office. Then he borrowed the office phone long enough to call in a progress report to Sleighbow and Romulus Insurance. And Mr. Sleighbow was very interested in what Toni Calligan had said before she left. Very interested.

  "Thank you, Mr. Horse," he said, gravely. "I'll get in touch with the Tulsa P.D. and have them call me as soon as they've taken Mrs. Calligan's statement. If she is that concerned-" he hesitated for a moment"-please remind Ms. Talldeer that she told me she was not Nancy Drew. Urge her to take extreme caution."

  Well, it's a little too late for that, David thought, with heavy irony. But Sleighbow didn't know about the past three days; the attack was the one thing that Jennie had insisted on keeping from him. She had pointed out that she could not prove that her attackers had been sent by Calligan. If, however, she could get the thugs picked up, they would very probably sing some fascinating tunes.

  At least Sleighbbw was concerned for Jennie's safety. David had to respect that and the man himself. Sleighbow didn't know Jennie personally; she was just a "hired hand."

  So David made sure to thank the man, and promised him another update as soon as they had any information at all.

  The rest of the Shelter volunteers were clustered around a television set as he came out of the little office, and it did not look as if they were watching soaps. Not with the expressions of shock on their faces. "My God!" said one.

  "Isn't that Jennie Talldeer?"

  "What?" he exclaimed, sudden images of Jennie lying hurt or worse flashing into his mind. He practically leapt the desk to try and get a look at the screen himself.

  He got a brief glimpse of Jennie-Alive, all right, oh thank god!-before the station went to a commercial. The woman who had made the exclamation spotted him crowding in, and said, "Aren't you Jennie's boyfriend?" Then, before he could answer, she reached for the channel changer. "Hang on, I'll bet they'll have this on another channel!"

  This time they apparently came in right at the beginning of the newsbreak; a different reporter was on the scene of some kind of accident. ...

  He recognized the spot immediately; near the top of the bluff above the Verdigris River on Highway 20. The camera panned down the bluff to the smoking remains of some kind of vehicle far below, before turning to the road, and showing a bus and Jennie's Brat, practically nose-to-nose.

  A different reporter was interviewing Jennie, who looked remarkably composed. Unless you knew her, and knew that it was nothing but a mask.

  The woman turned up the sound.

  "-acted like they'd been drinking, and tried to pass me just in front of the blind curve," Jennie was saying. "I slammed on the brakes just as the bus came around the other side. That poor bus driver didn't have a prayer of missing them, and the only reason I didn't end up in the wreck was because I had already stopped. The driver should get a medal for keeping that bus under control and on the road!"

  The reporter thanked her, and went on to interview one of the passengers on the bus. The cameraman panned down on the wrecked car again.

  Was it a Lincoln? It sure could have been.

  David looked over at Mooncrow, who only nodded.

  Nodded? Wait a minute-Mooncrow looked a lot more tired than he should be for the simple ceremony he'd just completed. Unless, of course, he had been doing Other Things at the same time!

  David got the old man aside while the attention of the women was still on the television, and hissed, "You knew about this, didn't you? You knew she was in trouble!"

  Mooncrow shrugged. "What good would it have done to tell you? I did what I could, and you could have done nothing."

  David scowled and gritted his teeth. The old man might be right about that-but still!

  When Jennie came in about an hour later, the entire volunteer staff had cycled through and no one knew of her involvement in the bus accident. David got to her first.

  "I don't know whether to hold you or hit you," he said under his breath, as he caught her in a tight embrace.

  "Hold me," she advised. "I have enough people trying to hit me."

  She looked as gray as Mooncrow, and about as tired. The old man came up beside them, and David w
atched them trade significant looks with a sense of frustration.

  I hope to hell they get around to telling me about what's been going on, he thought, grinding his teeth a little. But there was no point in taking out his frustration on her. Did those close to all Medicine People feel left out like this?

  "Toni's in police custody," he told her, instead of snapping at her. "She found something out, something big enough that she wants to testify."

  Jennie's head came up at that, alertly. "Damn!" she swore softly. "In that case-we'd better get those papers served on Rod Calligan, before he gets wind of that and goes into hiding. If we can't serve the protective order and the divorce papers on him, that's only going to complicate the state's case. Did you call Sleighbow for me?"

  "Already taken care of; I figured he'd want to hear that," David said, pleased that he'd thought of it. "My only question is, are you up to this paper thing?"

  "You need me along," she replied, staunchly. "Or actually, to be completely truthful, we need each other. If he's going to try anything, we'll be two against one. I don't think that he'll try anything with a witness around."

  David grimaced, but she was right. And given Rod Calligan's recent history, he wasn't going to bet on the man reacting sanely to the papers being served.

  "All right," he said. "Let's rock."

  "I will come," Mooncrow said suddenly. They both turned to look at him. The old man had regained most of his color, but he still looked exhausted. Nevertheless, he was adamant, David could tell from his expression of stubborn will. "I will come," he repeated. "I will stay in the car, but I will come."

  Jennie nodded, slowly. "I think he's right," she said. "I think he'd better."

  David shrugged. "The more the merrier," he replied philosophically, and gathered up the papers he was going to serve on Calligan. "Shall we?"

  Jennie remained very quiet all the way to the mall site, but her hand crept into David's and she settled her head on his shoulder with a sigh. He squeezed the hand, and turned his head just enough to kiss the top of her hair, but kept his attention on traffic. This was not the time to get into an accident.

  Mooncrow did stay in the car when they reached the site; it was just past quitting time, but Calligan's Beemer was still there, and there was a light on in the office.

  "Bingo," David said, softly. Jennie nodded, and let go of his hand; they climbed out of the car and headed for the portable building housing Calligan's remote office.

  The door wasn't locked; David simply walked right in. The secretary's desk just inside was unoccupied, but David spotted Rod Calligan sitting at a second desk just inside a door on the left, at the back of a larger office. Calligan looked up as they both entered, frowning, but he either didn't see Jennie or simply dismissed her as unimportant.

  "I'm not hiring," he began, but Jennie wasn't paying any attention to him. She was concentrating on the artifacts on Calligan's blotter.

  They were all old, earth-stained, fragile-looking. A medicine bag of some kind, a pipe, a fetish-bundle wrapped in ancient, handwoven grass-cloth-

  "I'm not here for a job, Mr. Calligan," David said, formally. "You are Rod Calligan, aren't you?"

  Calligan nodded, looking annoyed.

  "Good." David held out the papers, and Calligan took them, reflexively. "This is a protective order forbidding you to come within one hundred yards of Antonia Calligan, Ryan Calligan, and Jill Calligan, and a preliminary divorce decree. Thank you for accepting them."

  He stepped back from the desk; Rod Calligan stared at him for a moment in stunned shock. Then his face began to turn purple-red with anger.

  "By the way, Mr. Calligan," Jennie said, from behind David, "I'm Jennifer Talldeer, an investigator hired by Mark Sleighbow at Romulus Insurance. I've got a few questions I'd like to ask you. About your three friends who drove the black Lincoln-"

  Jennie realized as soon as she entered the office that Calligan didn't recognize her. In fact, he probably had no idea who she was or what she looked like. So even though she was certain the hit men had told him she was dead, he showed no surprise as she followed David in through the door.

  Until she told him who she was, that is.

  It had been hard to concentrate on quick strategy-hard to concentrate on much of anything, once she saw what was spread out across his desk.

  Calligan had an entire array of stolen artifacts from Watches-Over-The-Land's gravegoods, and others. Jennie could not imagine how he had managed to keep their presence hidden from her; she should have been able to sense them the moment they got near the site!

  Unless whatever had been protecting Calligan was also hiding his stolen treasures. . . .

  He had been about to launch into some kind of display of anger, verbally or possibly physically, against David, and men who were angry didn't think about what they were saying.

  She knew he had hired those three thugs, but she didn't know if he had actually seen or met them. But he had to know that there were three of them, and he might assume whatever car they drove was dark.

  The minute she spoke her own name, he went white.

  But when she said the words "black Lincoln," he went berserk.

  He leapt up out of his chair, his face suffused with rage-

  And his hand clenched around something, something that pulsed with an evil dark power, power that oozed thick and blackly poisonous as crude oil. A power she had sensed before.

  The Evil One!

  Now it all made sense; the grave-robbing, the bomb, and her visions! Now the pieces all fell together and she saw the shape of what she had been facing!

  She had only just enough time to recognize the fetish-bundle for what it was, and to make that sudden realization, when Calligan lunged at her.

  She backpedaled, frantic to avoid the touch of that bundle; he came up over the desk at her, equally determined to touch her with it. There was no room to escape; he body-slammed her into the filing cabinets behind her, and as she flailed to avoid further contact, she did the very last thing she wanted to do-

  She accidentally touched the hand holding the spirit-bundle.

  This time, there was no gradual transition; something seized her, shook her like a dog shook a rag, and flung her away.

  She was-not in the Waking World.

  Not any longer.

  _CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  kestrel stood in the heart of the Spirit World, but in a part of it she did not recognize, at least, not at first. This was a bleak and barren landscape, where nothing grew and nothing lived. The sky was the color of ashes, the ground under her feet cracked and lifeless. Nothing broke the arid horizon but the occasional dead stick of what had once been a tree, now withered and sere. A thin and bitter wind sighed mournfully across this land, full of acrid, burning stenches and the sick-sweet smell of decay.

  She wore her human form, in her full regalia as Hunkah and Tzi-sho, as Warrior and Medicine Person.

  Before her stood another human; someone she did not recognize at all. By his costume, he was Osage of long ago; his hair was cut in the Warrior's roach, and he wore the deerskin leggings of a hunter, but he had no eagle feathers in his hair, and no shell torque about his neck. Instead, he had the feathers of some sooty black bird braided into his hair; a soft down plume on the right side, and the hard tail-feather on the left. The very opposite positioning of the two eagle plumes she wore. Around his neck, he had a collar of hard black talons, of no bird or animal that she could recognize, centered with a disk of shiny black flint. And his face was painted, not with war-paint, nor with bluff-paint, but with jagged lightning bolts of ebony-black.

  And he was one with this terrible landscape she found herself in. He stood here with the full confidence and comfort of one who belonged to this place, was familiar with it. The predator in the heart of his territory. . . .

  That was when she recognized it as the place of her dream, before this all began. The terrible place where the eagles died.

  The man before her was neither
old nor young, and his expression was so completely blank that he might have been a department-store mannequin. But his eyes held an evil and a hatred so intense that she instinctively stepped back a pace or two from him.

  He reached toward her, and she backed up again; she sensed that if she let him touch her-

  He'll drain me, she thought with growing horror. He'll take everything worth having from me. I'll still be alive, but there -won't be anything left of what makes me what I am. No spirit, no heart, no energy, no laughter, no creativity, no hope. No love. That's what he did here. . . .

  And that was what made him so horrifying. This was why Watches-Over-The-Land had to stop him! He devoured people, things, from within, and left nothing behind but the dregs.

  He makes them into something worse than nothing, worse than killing them outright, because they know what he's done to them, and he's left them despair. Despair is all his victims have left.

  And now, with no physical body to limit him, nothing to confine him, and all the protections that had been put around his spirit-bundle gone, he was more dangerous than he had ever been in her ancestor's time.

  He reached toward her again; slowly, as if he was toying with her. She evaded him, but not easily. It felt as if she were moving through mud; was he mustering the resources of this place against her? She tried to summon up some sort of protection, and failed.

  He laughed at her, his voice ringing with scorn.

  "You may have conquered my Black Birds, Little Hawk," he told her, sneering, "but now you meet the Devourer. I am Hunger, and you cannot escape me."

  She didn't reply; she could only wish, desperately and profoundly, that there was some way to invoke Watches-Over-The-Land, to bring him back from the Summerlands. He defeated this Evil One before; her ancestor Moh-shon-ah-ke-ta was the one who knew how to deal with him, what worked against him the first time-