Chapter Ten

The time had come.

Nicholas Knightsford drew a steadying breath as he placed his pale fingers against the rough grain of the door and pushed in, and then preceded the light from the hall into the room. Mingo lay on the bed, his face turned toward the window and the white world outside. Nicholas could not tell if his old friend was awake or sleeping. Turning slightly, he pushed the door to and then gently called his name.

"CaraMingo. Are you awake?"

His answer was a moan, and a slight shift of the Cherokee's long lean body on the rough linen sheets.

Crossing to the window Nicholas lifted the curtain and stared out, noting – as was his habit – that only a few hours of darkness remained. All too soon he would have to hide again.

But this time, he would not hide alone.

Pivoting, he walked to the bed and sat in the chair beside it. Employing the power of his supernatural voice he said, clearly, "My friend, you must wake. We need to talk."

Mingo shifted again. His tongue darted between his teeth, wetting his lips, and then his near black eyes blinked. He turned his head and looked up at him. "Nicholas? How long have you been there?"

"Just a moment." Nicholas leaned back in the chair and steepled his fingers beneath his chin. As he watched his old friend painfully draw his body up into a seated position, his thoughts flew to the frightened woman downstairs. Rebecca Boone was remarkable. What he was – a creature of the night, the walking dead, a vampire – was well beyond her comprehension, and yet she had not panicked. In fact, at the moment Daniel Boone's wife was preparing a kit for them to take along when they departed.

Which must be soon.

Mingo blinked again and frowned as his dark eyes darted about the room. When he looked back, surprise had awakened in his face. "Where am I?" he asked.

"The tavern in Boonesborough."

"How did I get here?"
"You remember nothing of the journey?"

"No. I was somewhere…in a cabin." Mingo's frown deepened, and then erupted into astonishment. "With Jeanne DuCharme! Nicholas, did you know Jeanne was here?"

"Yes." He paused before adding. "As is Lucien LaCroix."

His old friend could not know what that meant. Mingo knew LaCroix only as his surrogate father, not as his master – or the monster he was.

"You all came together to the Colonies?" Mingo asked.

Unable to take root anywhere for long, Nicholas rose to his feet and began to pace, crossing the small room in several strides. "We traveled together, yes. Our destination was Williamsburg." He paused and turned back to look at his old friend. "You surprise me, my friend. You do not ask after your father, the governor general? Are you not curious? About his health…."

"I do not care."

Nicholas smiled wearily. In spite of his great fatigue and all he had been through, Mingo still had the energy to hate – well, perhaps not to hate, but to rebel.

He understood that all too well.

"You had a letter recently, did you not?" Nicholas asked without preamble. "A disturbing letter?"

Mingo's expression grew wary. He nodded. Once.

"I sent it to you," Nicholas admitted.

"You! How?"

"Yes. I discovered its existence when I was still with LaCroix. He intercepted the courier who bore it. It…amused him to aid his old friend, Lord Dunsmore, in his quest to bring his errant son to heel. LaCroix means to have you, Mingo. And to turn you over to your father. In you," Nicholas paused, ashamed, "Lucien sees a chance to avenge himself on me."

His friend's fingers gripped the linen sheet, closing them in a fist. "My father has placed a bounty on my head, not LaCroix!"

"The bounty is a ruse. You know that. Your father does not want your head –

he wants you. He wants you at his side. He wants you to want what he wants. To desire to be him."

Mingo's dark eyes were set in shadows. His usually golden skin had grown pallid. He was weak from ill use and far too many days exposure to extreme temperatures. His voice, once strong, was a whisper now – bare branches scraping stone. But his will was undaunted.

"That will never happen!" he vowed.

Sitting once again, Nicholas held his friend's gaze. "No. It will not. Not if I can do anything about it. Do you trust me?" he asked, a slight tremble in his voice, almost as if he was afraid.

Mingo did not hesitate. "Yes. You were a good friend to me in England. I have no reason to believe you would be otherwise now."

The smile appeared again – chagrinned this time. "I wish that were true."

"What do you mean?"

"Friends are honest, are they not? Completely honest with one another."

"Yes. Have you not been honest with me, Nicholas?"

His pale lips pursed as he shook his head. "No."

"Does this have to do with…." Mingo shuddered. His fingers tightened on the sheets. "…with Henry Pitcairn, and what is happening to me?"

"Indirectly." Now they came to it. Nicholas wondered, when the moment arrived – could he tell him? "The old shaman, he warned you, did he not? He told you that I am not what I seem?"

In his friend's eyes he saw the first inkling of fear. "I did not believe him," Mingo answered.

He did not flinch, but continued to hold his friend's gaze. "Believe him."

"I don't understand…."

Nicholas stood. He held out his hand. "Are you strong enough to rise?"

Mingo nodded. "Yes."

"Strong enough to go with me? And to see what I will show you?"

With effort, his old friend swung his long legs over the side of the bed. Mingo refused his hand as he rose, but was forced to take it when his knees buckled and he stumbled.

"What is it you mean to show me?" he asked, leaning into his strength.

Nicholas placed an arm about his friend's waist as they walked toward the door.

"Something you have never seen, my friend. And something you will pray to your God that you shall never see again."

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Janette hesitated outside the cave opening. Employing all of her extraordinary senses, she sought its living occupant and found none.

And yet she knew the cave was inhabited.

With a scowl furrowing her otherwise pale and perfect brow, Janette entered the musty dust ridden space. She touched a spear thrust curiously into the stone floor as she passed it and then, lifting her sapphire skirts, stepped over a scattering of brittle bones. As she cleared the human remains a little smile of triumph lifted the corner of one ruby painted lip. She would never know death. Never know such decay. She would remain as she was –

Forever.

Janette released the smile in a laugh as she bent and picked up one of the bones to examine it. It was small and delicate. Most likely it belonged to a young girl barely into her maturity. As she fingered the ivory remnant of a life cut short years before its time, she noted the bone was curved. A rib, no doubt. Its outer surface was slashed as if with cats' claws.

Or a man's knife.

"Her name was Waapa. White. White as the snow which saw her birth. White as the enemy who brought about her untimely death."

Jeannette yelped and dropped the bone. She pivoted, but there was no one there. "Where are you?" she demanded. "Show yourself!"

"Beside her lies Dancing Dog, her son. He had not yet seen twenty moons."

Shadows flitted about the cave – the one called the Place of 1000 Spirits – and it grew dark and cold, as if the false night had chased away the dawning day outside. As Janette hugged her arms about her corseted waist, she reminded herself that this was what she had come here for – an encounter with the malevolent spirit that had appeared in the cabin where she had secreted Mingo. After LaCroix departed with the handsome man in tow, she had gone outside to search for prints. Finding none, she decided to get to the bottom of what was happening. In his delirium the man she had known as Kerr Murray had spoken of this place, of Henry Pitcairn, and of the spirit of evil whose intervention had somehow caused them to become one – a Cherokee Raven Mocker.

Janette was certain that was what she had seen.

"So many souls. So many years…."

"Why do you not show yourself! Are you afraid?" Janette snapped a challenge.

"Are you?" a withered voice answered directly behind her.

Janette's skirts whispered on the rough stone as she turned. A shadow – the absence of light – was there, but it slipped away quickly becoming one with a darkened corridor cut into the hillside. Undaunted Janette followed, determined to unmask this human charlatan – whoever it was. The tunnel was black as pitch, but that meant nothing to her. With her supernatural senses she was able to see the walls, the floor, the ceiling strung with stalactites –

Everything but the one who had spoken.

Janette halted. "I will go no farther until you show yourself," she pouted, stamping her silk-slippered foot. "Face me, whoever you are!"

"Whoever I am. Whoever I was…." A breath rustled the hairs on the back of her delicate neck. "Whoever I will be…."

"You will be dead!" Janette growled, swinging and striking out, but catching only air. "You will not toy with me!"

"As you have toyed with so many others?" The shadow crouched in the center of the chamber she had entered, just below a dangling rope. "I know what you are…."

"What am I then?" Janette asked, her tone was defiant.

"A dead thing."

With that the shadow unfolded; a cold malfeasance manifested in black. Janette shuddered, unexpectedly unnerved, and took a step back. Fingers bent as claws appeared beneath sleeves hung slack as raven's wings. A hood cloaked its head, but within the hood was the memory of a face – and within that memory, a pair of obsidian eyes that looked on her with hate. Noting her disgust, the Raven Mocker cackled like a crow in corn.

Janette trembled but stood her ground. "Who are you?" she demanded.

"No one," the creature answered.

"Why are you here?"

Again the laugh. "There is nowhere else."

"What do you want with Mingo?"

The Raven Mocker cackled low. "Nothing."

"Nothing? Liar! I saw you in the cabin. Why were you there if it was not for Mingo?"

The creature hobbled toward her. As it drew close Janette noted its exposed skin was reddened, and both pitted and scarred, as if it had been through a fire. "You ask Pitcairn," the Raven Mocker answered. "Ask Henry Pitcairn when you see him."

"I cannot see him," Janette snapped. "He is dead!"

The creature's ancient eyes were black as the pit of Hell and lit with unholy mirth. "So are you," it replied.

"It seemed so simple at first, so very, very simple," a man's voice remarked softly. Janette turned toward it with a frown. The sound came from back along the corridor. Scowling at the ancient creature which had retreated into the shadows, she gathered her skirts and returned to the main chamber of the cave. The man was still speaking, his tones hushed, his accent an educated English one. "…take them at night when they are unawares," he said. "Kill them all – men, women, children. The animals breed like rats! Leave any alive, and there will only be more and more…and more."

Janette had noticed a cairn of stones stacked near one of the cave walls when she passed through earlier. She stopped as she exited the corridor to stare at it. Above the gray stones a disembodied spirit hung. It was a man, lanky and raw-boned, dark-haired, with a scrub of a beard on his face. He was dressed as an English officer in a scarlet uniform.

Just above the stones his stockinged feet melted away into nothing.

"But how to do it? How? We didn't know the lay of the land. We didn't know which lodges held supplies and which, the Shawnee animals." The man paused. He looked up and pinned her with his pale blue eyes. "We needed a guide. We needed – her!"

One bony arm was raised. He pointed toward the corridor behind her.

"The old Cherokee woman, she led us to the Shawnee for a price I promised to pay." The pale spirit sneered. "Well, everyone knows, promises are cheap. This was war! A good soldier employs every means he must to emerge from the battle victorious." His voice fell, growing dark in tone. "She knew too much. I couldn't let her live. Jenkins! Bind the witch. Burn her! Burn her, and leave her with the others!"

"Henri Pitcairn," Janette breathed. "Why are you here?"

The eyes he turned on her were anguished. "I don't know. I don't know why," he whispered. "I meant to end it all, but now it is unending. I cannot rest…."

He had grown insubstantial; his lean form starting to fade. Janette stepped closer. "Henri Pitcairn! Answer me! Who were those people outside the cabin? Why do they follow Mingo? What have they to do with him – or with you?"

"The spirits of Wi-sha-sho are awake again," he answered, his voice breaking on the wind that whistled through the cave even as he faded from view. "They too cannot rest."

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Mingo knew the moment he saw Rebecca that something was terribly wrong. Daniel's wife was a handsome woman, strong and resilient – a woman who had weathered hard, lean years, who had survived every weapon in the arsenal of the Kentucky wilderness – contagion, attack, drought and disaster –

And she was plainly terrified.

As he leaned on Nicholas Knightsford's arm and worked his way down Cincinnatus' stair, Rebecca dropped the kit she was busy packing and rushed to meet them. Mingo noticed that her eyes went to Nicholas first, and that she quickly looked away.

"Mingo! How are you?" she asked.

He managed a grin. Albeit a weak one. "I am fine, Rebecca."

"Is the pack ready?" Nicholas asked without preamble.

Rebecca jumped at his voice. "Yes. I was just fastening it."

"There is no time to waste. You remember what I told you?" he asked her.

Mingo watched her nod. Her hand went to the chain she wore around her neck. He noticed that her cross was not displayed as usual, but was hidden behind a modesty scarf. "Yes."

"You will be safe until nightfall. Then you must do as I told you. Fire is your only ally if he returns." Nicholas reached out and caught Rebecca's hand. "Dear lady, I would not have anything happen to you. Your kindness to me…knows no equal. You must believe me when I tell you that LaCroix is not easily stopped. He is ancient and evil. And that evil does no more than draw a breath and press on when confronted by the relic you wear. Do you understand?"

As Rebecca nodded Nicholas broke away from him and went to the counter to grab the kit she had prepared. "Rebecca?" Mingo asked her as he swayed and found his balance by leaning on a chair-back. "What is Nicholas talking about?"

Daniel's wife suppressed a shudder and then pulled the shawl she wore tightly about her shoulders. "Mingo," she said, "I believe Nicholas to be one of God's creatures. You must trust him." She stepped forward and placed her hand on his arm. She was trembling. "In spite of what you see."

Before he could answer her, Nicholas came to his side. "There is no time for this!" he declared. "See to your children's safety during the day, and that of the old man upstairs. Then barricade yourself in a holy place and wait for our return. If LaCroix comes first…." He let the sentence fade into nothing.

"God go with you," she answered, her voice a soft whisper of hope.

"It is more likely he will stay with you," he replied. Then Nicholas turned to him. "Well, my friend, it is time."

"Time?" Mingo asked, confused. "Time for what?"

Nicholas' boyish smile returned. "For the truth!"

Seconds later the pair stepped out of the tavern, reentering the white world outside. The wind had risen during the night and a strong fall of snow had begun. The white waves butted up against Cincinnatus' establishment were tinted rose like a young girl's cheeks.

The sun was rising. Another day had begun.

Mingo gazed out across the frozen landscape for a moment and then turned to his friend. "You promised me the truth," he said.

"And you shall have it!" Nicholas declared with a nod. Then, stepping behind him, he circled his friend's waist with his arms and pushed off and rose with him into the air.