Chapter Eleven

Daniel Boone paused to wipe his forehead. It never ceased to amaze him that a man could face freezing to death and sweat at one and the same time. His lone trek through a world of endless white had been a hard one. The wilderness he loved should be a place of high hopes, of great expectations, not a place for backwards glances and regrets. And yet here he was, retracing his steps. Another six hours, maybe seven, would find him at the Place of 1000 Spirits.

And, hopefully, find his friend.

Of course, finding Mingo most likely meant he would find Nicholas Knightsford as well, and be forced to confront the puzzle that was the man.

Thinking back over the last year or so, since he had met Mingo, Dan realized his friendship with the Cherokee warrior had taken him places he was not always comfortable with. Before Mingo there had been no witches, magical animals, or Indian spirits haunting caves. Oh, to the settlers he was sure he appeared as unflappable as ever. But Mingo knew. And Becky. What he had seen had changed him. His faith was still strong, grounded in the land, in the rich green forests and bright blue lakes of the wilderness he loved, but he had been forced to admit there was more than just day and night. Black and white.

Now he knew there were shadows.

With a shake of his head, Dan reached up and adjusted his coonskin cap. His fingers lingered on the supple fur for just a moment longer than was necessary, and then dropped to touch, and then caress the polished wooden handle of his rifle. These things were real. They had substance. He could hold onto them.

He needed to hold onto them.

Turning his face to the horizon, Dan watched the rising sun set fire to the ice and snow. A cold, chilling breeze slapped his wind chaffed cheeks as flakes began to fall once again. Back home Becky was standing by the window, watching the same snow, waiting for his return. His children were asleep, tucked safe and snug beneath their woolen coverlet. Yes, the shadows were real, but the bright white light dispelled them at the dawn of each new day.

This was his faith, his reality

And what he must cling to when facing the nightmare to come.

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"Mingo? You have not said a word since our arrival."

Nicholas paused as he turned his face from the rising sun to look at his friend. They were not in the Place of 1000 Spirits, not yet, but in another cave close by. So close, in fact, that he could feel the heartbeat of fear that emanated from the place. But before they entered that den of shadow, Nicholas needed to know just who it was accompanied him there. Mingo, or the displaced spirit of Henry Pitcairn.

Perhaps, it was both.

Nicholas approached his friend. Mingo had said little on their journey and even less since they had arrived. He sat huddled in a corner of the cave, wrapped tightly, looking like a lost child.

"Mingo?" he tried again.

His friend's chin rested on his chest. Mingo lifted it and looked at him. What Nicholas saw in his eyes was not good. They were wide. Totally black. And terrified. They were not the eyes of his old friend, the son of an English peer educated at Oxford, nor yet were they those of Henry Pitcairn. They were instead the eyes of a little boy raised in the superstition filled world of the Cherokee.

"Who…what are you?" Mingo asked.

Nicholas shrugged. "Does it surprise you, my friend, to find those ancient myths we studied as boys with such intensity suddenly sprung to life?"

Mingo's chest rose and fell several times as the man fought to master the boy's unmastered fear. "But Nicholas – you flew!"

Nicholas' lips curled in a smile. "As did you," he said.

His friend's dark eyes were fixed on him. Nicholas could see the keen mind working behind them. "Your inability to withstand daylight," Mingo began. "You have always said that it could kill you. The strange absences at school…."

"Yes." Nicholas pivoted and looked toward the sunlit opening. The light was slowly creeping into the cave, advancing on him. "All that is good and pure. The light, the life it brings…." He swung back. "These are my enemies of old."

"You always had such knowledge at your command. You knew the ancient texts so well – "

Nicholas' laugh was bitter. "I knew the ancients!"

Mingo shifted and rose shakily to his feet. After a moment's hesitation, he moved toward him. Mingo was still wearing the Redcoat uniform LaCroix had clothed him in. Nicholas frowned at the thought of his mentor, and the danger his own selfish quest had placed this good man in. The light was rising; still they must soon risk traveling to the cave where all of this began. Tonight LaCroix would strike.

They must be ready.

As Mingo came to rest beside him, he deliberately sought his gaze. The man had taken hold of the boy at last, overcoming his fear, but Nicholas could tell from the way his old friend trembled that the child was still there, bare moments away from clawing to the surface.

"I remember there was one myth in particular that you dismissed," Mingo said, his voice breaking as it came to the word, "of all the strange creatures we studied, this one you would not name. The vampiri."

Nicholas nodded. "We both agreed no such creature could exist."

"Yes. But we were wrong, were we not? I have learned much since I have returned to my mother's people. Seen much. Witches. Animals possessed. I have seen the spirits of Wi-sha-sho." Mingo paused. "Is that what you are, Nicholas? A… vampire?"

He drew a deep breath. The he nodded.

What little color his friend had, drained from his face. "And LaCroix?"

Another nod. "Jeanne as well," he added.

"All three?"

Mingo raised a hand to his forehead and staggered back a step as if he had received a blow. Nicholas reached out to steady him. His friend flinched, but allowed the touch. For a second he hesitated, but then Nicholas' boyish grin broke through in spite of his best efforts at solemnity. "Now do you understand why I discouraged you when you thought of taking Jeanne out for a bite to eat?"

Mingo laughed in spite of himself. Then he sobered quickly. "Rebecca! Is she in danger? And the children? I heard you tell her to go to a holy place for safety. Does LaCroix threaten her?"

"LaCroix threatens everything that is innocent, pure, and lovely in your mortal world. He would see it all ruined – crushed and destroyed. Even your symbols of faith are not enough to stop him, though they cause him pain. His evil is more than ancient – it is primal. He belongs to the dark heart of the void."

"But Rebecca…."

"Mrs. Boone is strong. She will do what she must to save her children and herself. You and I cannot help her." Nicholas paused. What he said pained him, but he felt it had to be made clear. "Mingo, you must understand, LaCroix is far stronger than I. I cannot honestly say that I have ever won a battle with him. He has either retreated of his own perverse accord, or I have triumphed through trickery."

For a moment Mingo said nothing, then a slight smile parted his parched and pallid lips. "You might as well speak of me, Nicholas, and my father." He was silent for a moment. Then Mingo lifted a hand and placed it over his. "Is there nothing that can be done, Nicholas, to free you from this curse?"

Since it was his old friend who gazed at him, Nicholas did nothing to hide the tears that flooded his eyes. "For more than a hundred years I have sought the answer to that question. Would that I could have been like you, my friend, untouched by desire. What you were born to, I sought and thought I must find. Wealth. Fame. Power. LaCroix offered them all."

"But for a price."

Nicholas nodded. "An eternal price."

"And you have found no answer, in those hundred years?"

Nicholas broke away. "I am ashamed to admit it, but that is what brought me here. You know your people's legend of the Raven Mocker well. You are living it."

Mingo swallowed hard. "Yes."

"I came here seeking you, and the living knowledge of your people's tales. There is, in an obscure monastery in France, a scrap of parchment upon which the Mocker's tale is told. The story is the usual one – of a man or woman who has chosen the path of evil, who becomes a Raven Mocker, and at the time of a man's death moves in to steal his remaining days. They fly through the air in fiery shape, with arms outstretched like wings, and sparks trailing behind, and a rushing sound like the noise of a strong wind. Every little while as they fly they make a cry like the a raven – and those who hear are afraid."

"Unless there is a holy man on guard who knows how to drive them away."

Nicholas nodded. "But did you know the tale goes on?"

Mingo shook his head.

"The Raven Mocker can assume other shapes as well. There is reference once to…a bat." Nicholas watched as the light of what he hoped dawned in his friend's weary eyes. "And, there is more. It is said that the Raven Mocker can change back to a mortal, if they choose to do good."

"So you think, if you can find this creature, that they may be able to tell you how to come back – "

He breathed in all his hopes and let them out in one long sigh. "…from the land of the undead."

Mingo studied him for a moment and then asked, "What really happened, Nicholas? That night you found me in the Place of 1000 Spirits?"

"I don't know. I entered the cave, following the sound of your failing heartbeat. But there was something else there. I saw it move and take flight as I pushed farther into the cave. Then I found you, with Pitcairn dangling above." He hesitated. "I am sorry, my friend, but I think your healer is right. I think my evil somehow acted as a bridge, allowing Pitcairn's dying soul to pass into you, rather than the Mocker who was trying to steal it."

Mingo's fingers gripped his shoulder tightly. "I wonder if he is here even now. Even when I am unaware of him. At times, he struggles to take control, and then, there are moments of rest. Pitcairn is desperate and I am weary, Nicholas. So weary. I do not know how long I can hold on…."

Nicholas took Mingo's shoulders in his hands. "I will save you. And your friends. I will not allow LaCroix to triumph, even if it means the loss of my quest. Even if it means my own destruction!" He turned and looked at the stone floor near his feet, bathed now in the daylight's glow. "We must go to the Place of 1000 Spirits. We must find the Raven Mocker."

"To save me?" Mingo asked.

Nicholas' blond head nodded. "To save us all!"

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Daniel Boone had walked most the night and so it was, as the day dawned, that he sat down under a frozen tree to rest. His makeshift bed was a cold one, formed of a mat of needles and frozen leaves, but it would do. Again, he thought of Becky and his young ones. They would have the fire roaring by now. The cabin would be filled with sweet scents – coffee brewing, bread on the hearth, eggs frying in the pan. Becky might have even made a pie. Cherry maybe, or berry. The dried fruit would have been soaking overnight. His fingers were usually the first ones in the bowl to sample the reborn sweets. And the first to be smacked by the cook's ever watchful hand. His arms would then slide through hers; his hands anchor on her waist. Becky would smell of flour and wood-smoke, with the slight spice of vanilla, sweeter than any expensive perfume. He would breathe deep, and then he would kiss her.

And she, his love, his hope, his life, would kiss him back.

Dan sighed as he leaned his head back against frozen bark. He didn't let himself sigh very often, but at the moment it seemed the proper thing to do.

What was he doing out here in this frozen wilderness? What had Mingo been thinking? Had the Englishman in him feared the holy men of Chota couldn't help him? Had he believed his presence would bring death to the place of his mother's people, and so he fled the healer's tent?

Or had he simply run into the white night hoping to die?

Closing his eyes Dan sought a few minutes sleep, sensing he would need every ounce of strength he could muster before the day ended. He had just slipped into sleep when a sound, like the cry of a bird high above his head, awakened him. He opened his eyes and looked up, and for just a moment thought he saw a large black shape shooting across the dawning sky. Dan shot to his feet, wiping sleep from his eyes, and looked again. But whatever it had been, it was gone.

Frowning, he turned in the direction from which it had come.

The Place of 1000 Spirits.

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"You said the Mocker could save us all earlier," Mingo said as they readied to leave the cave behind. His friend Nicholas had finished preparing his kit a few minutes before and stood now, at the edge of the light – the light that could kill him. Mingo walked to the blond man's side. "The Raven Mocker is evil."

Nicholas did not look at him. His eyes were fixed on the world beyond. "Yes, it is evil. Perhaps more evil than LaCroix."

"Why do you think that?"

"The Raven Mocker does not steal men's blood," he answered, turning toward him, "but men's souls. LaCroix can only do that if one willingly surrenders. I am counting on that, and on the fact that it may also be more powerful than he."

"You think the Raven Mocker may be able to stop LaCroix?" Mingo knew he sounded skeptical.

"What other hope do have we?" Nicholas reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder. "If we can get this creature to understand, to choose the good, then perhaps we can all be free."

"You are such an eternal child!" a woman's voice snapped from just without the cave. As they both fell back, a cloaked form appeared, framed within its mouth.

It was smoking.

"Move out of my way!" the woman declared, her imperious voice marked by a French accent. "Do you wish me to burst into flames?"

Before Mingo could react, Nicholas declared, "Janette!"

The petite brunette pushed past them into the shadows and then swung about. As she reached up to lower her hood, Mingo noted the smoke rose, not from the garments she wore, but from her pale skin. Even more than his night flight with Nicholas, this was proof of the tale his friend told. The woman he knew as 'Jeanne' scowled at the red marks on her usually pristine white flesh and then looked from one of them to the other. In the end she stopped, her attention focused on him.

"You are afraid of me," she announced, her voice its usual sultry whisper.

He did not deny it. "Yes."

"Am I not the same woman you knew in England those few short years ago?"

"That is the problem, Janette," Nicholas said, coming close to her. "You are."

She pouted. "What a boor you are, Nichola."

"Better that than a beast!" he snapped. Nicholas caught her hand and drew her away. Janette fought him at first, then she sneered and, bending her head, bit his hand before rising up to kiss him on the lips. Nicholas returned the kiss with relish and then thrust her away.

Mingo watched the exchange with horror. Even with his revelation, his old friend had seemed little different. He could almost pretend he had never been told. In Janette's company, it was different. Another Nicholas was revealed.

One he did not know at all.

Janette straightened her gown and primped where a lock of her deep brown hair had broken free of its upsweep. She smirked at Nicholas and then turned to look at him again.

"You have told him," she said at last.

"There was no choice," Nicholas answered, "if I was to save him."

"Save him! You idiot! You cannot save him. You cannot even save yourself!"

"But I shall die trying to do both," came Nicholas' quiet answer.

Janette snorted. "You cannot do that either!"

"Why have you come, Janette? Is it only to insult me?"

Her lovely face grew dark. She actually shivered and drew her cloak close about her slender form. "I have come to warn you. Do not go to that place, Nicholas. Do not go anywhere near that creature!"

"Creature?" Mingo watched the truth dawn in his friend's light blue eyes. "You have seen the Raven Mocker?"

"I have seen something – something of a greater evil than us," she admitted. Pivoting, Janette pointed her finger at him. "But it is not our problem, Nichola, it is his!"

"Mingo is innocent in this."

"The creature thinks so too. It is Pitcairn it wants. Still, so long as they share one body, it does not care if it must go through Mingo to get him. Nor if it destroys us in the process." Janette folded her arms and pursed her petulant lips. "It is time for us to go, Nichola. Leave the mortals to their fate."

"No."

She stamped her foot. "You care nothing for them! It is yourself you think of. And that is sheer folly. You cannot ever cross back."

Nicholas' words were still and quiet in the face of her fury. "I will never know unless I try."

"And what of LaCroix?"

"What of him?"

"The Cherokee witch is not the only one who seeks this one's soul. If we leave, LaCroix will follow. That is, perhaps, the only way you can save Kerr."

Mingo had listened at first with interest, and then with horror. But he grew weary of being spoken of as if he was not in the room. "What is this, Nicholas? What does Jeanne…Janette mean?" He paused, and then added, his heart plunging, "Does this have something to do with my father's scheme?"

Janette looked triumphant. "Tell him, Nichola. Tell him of LaCroix's plans for his future."

Nicholas' head hung. "There will be no future with LaCroix. Not for Mingo. Not for me."

One of Janette's dark brows peaked. "You are right there will not be, for you both will be dead if you seek to cross him! Allow LaCroix to bring him across, and then you both will live forever!"

At first he was not certain he had understood her but then, as Janette turned back and eyed him hungrily, Mingo realized he had. "My father has agreed to make me one of you?" he asked, disbelieving.

Nicholas looked up at him. "No. No, not your father. It is LaCroix's scheme, to take one of the peerage for his own, to use them to influence events, people… To play his eternal games!" His voice fell to a whisper as he raised his hands and drew his fingers into fists. "I will not allow it!"

"Not even to save him from oblivion?" Janette countered.

Nicholas' eyes were filled with pain.

"Not even then."