Chapter Sixteen
So strange. So curious. Breathing again. Feeling a heart beat in his chest, but he couldn't feel his fingers. Or his toes.
Mingo's body had stopped shivering. The Indian was beginning to feel a kind of false warmth, that promised – not relief from the frigid white nightmare he found himself trapped within – but release.
Where they had come from there was no horizon. No day. No night. Nothing but white. White trees. White land. White sky. White water.
White death for the mortal he now was.
Henry Pitcairn had no idea how long ago they had found the shallow cave, or when it had embraced the Cherokee's nearly frozen form. He couldn't remember what had happened. He only knew that the animal had lost his red coat, that the borrowed clothes that covered him were soaking wet; that Mingo's movements were slow and labored and, not surprisingly, he was confused. What surprised him was the fact that he too had been affected. Henry Pitcairn had no idea what day it was, when the storm had started or why they had been out in it alone.
And they were alone.
They would die alone.
Henry Pitcairn glanced at his borrowed hands where they showed beneath the cuffs of a linen shirt. The Cherokee's usual golden tan had turned a sickly blue. Their fingers would not open. Their speech was distorted, if even possible. The Indian's mind was fast shutting down. As an army officer he recognized the signs. They were freezing to death. In the spring, someone would find their bones. They would shake their heads and murmur sympathetic words, and then bury them in an unmarked grave.
Something in that thought roused him. No, he shouted. No! He would not die and leave no mark that he had been. Struggling against the lethargy that sought to claim them, he lifted their arm and reached for a nearby rock. The savage jerked spasmodically and he missed it. Pitcairn fought to lend him strength, wondering what it was they would accomplish. Once, twice, they tried. Then they forced their frozen fingers to close on the rock and, strengthening one hand with the other, began to rake the jagged edge of the stone across the cave floor, to write a name.
What was their name?
The stone shook in his borrowed fingers. It dropped.
And then so did he.
Too late Henry Pitcairn realized what was happening. Too late he understood that that he was hoist by his own petard. The Indian was going to die and so was he, finally welcomed – and trapped in the body he so longed to possess.
A deep silence descended on the cave. A silence deep as the snow.
A moment later Henry Pitcairn watched as a strong breeze blew through the shallow cave, lifting their black hair and dusting it with white; crystallizing on the surface of the dark leather boots they wore and settling on their buff breeches.
They did not have many heartbeats remaining. A dozen of those passed before the white wind coalesced and assumed the shape of a man. He was clothed in a suit of the palest blue. His honey blond hair was tousled, the curls restive as the spirit that shone out of his pale blue eyes. He was slender. Well made. And young.
And very, very old.
The man knelt by them, his fingers finding their throat, checking for the pulse of life that should be there. Locating it, but barely, he turned them over and took one pallid blue hand in his own.
"I came to save you, my friend," he said, his voice soft as the fall of white flakes that dusted his great coat and iced his pale hair. "Now it is too late. Now," he pushed the fabric back from their wrist and studied the thin thread of life beating there, 'now, this is only way."
The young man's face grew sober, and then blank. His blue eyes turned a sickly green. Full lips stretched taut over razor sharp teeth that grew in length until they were twin portents – not of death, but of immortal damnation.
The vampire howled and with deep regret, bent to the task at hand.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
"What is this, Nicholas?" Lucien LaCroix roared. "Betrayal heaped upon betrayal?"
Nicholas stopped with his face near Mingo's throat. He had broken the skin and drained enough of his friend's blood to slow his pulse to nothing. His lips held an enticing taste of it. As he fought the sinful urge to take more than was needed, he breathed in Mingo's ear, "Hold on my friend. Stay with me." Then he rose to face his master.
"Can it be you mean to bring this one across on your own?" LaCroix asked. "Tsk. Tsk, Nicholas. You know how poorly that has gone before."
"I mean no such thing," he answered, standing tall. "Mingo is dead. You can no longer harm him."
Nicholas held his breath as LaCroix reached out, searching for the slightest beat of the human's heart.
Leaving him open for what was to come.
Nicholas stepped away. He wiped his lips clean with the back of his hand and then said, his command a hoarse whisper of hope. "Now, Waapa! Now!"
From the cavern walls two hundred souls bled to surround LaCroix. Two hundred souls whose voices blended with the others the baneful creature had killed and used and left like carrion for the beasts to feed on for two thousand years. He saw LaCroix start with surprise. His ice blue eyes flew open and, if possible, showed fear.
"Nicholas, what is this?" he hissed.
Fatigue nearly unmanned him. He tried to speak, but couldn't. Then, tears filling his eyes, Nicholas answered.
"Justice."
It was at that moment she appeared, separating from the shadows that masked the cavern's domed ceiling; a ragged gathering of the void armed with claws and a great sucking mouth. Like the ravening bird she was, the Raven Mocker spread her wings wide and then dropped –
Engulfing Lucien LaCroix.
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
"Dan!" Deep within the passageway Becky stopped and gripped her husband's arm. There had been a scream – hideous, hollow. And now gone. "What was that?"
Dan's knuckles were white on Ticklicker's brown butt. "Sounded like a cornered bear."
Or a cornered demon, she thought, cast shrieking back into the fires of Hell.
"It sounded close," she whispered as she slipped into the safety of his arms.
Dan nodded. "You feel that breeze? I think the Place of 1000 Spirits is just ahead. It came from there."
"What do you think we'll find?"
Her husband pulled her close. "I don't rightly know, Rebecca, but it's time this was over. Come on."
###
He couldn't believe it. It didn't seem possible.
It was over.
Nicholas was trembling from fear and relief. The Raven Mocker had descended, enveloping his ancient master and when she rose, opening her arms, he was gone. There was nothing. LaCroix was no more. He didn't know how she had done it, but the Cherokee witch's magic had proven more powerful than twenty centuries of LaCroix's evil.
"Where is he?" he asked, breathless.
The mocker cackled. "Back where he belongs. But not for long, young sir. Not for long."
Nicholas nodded. He had hoped, but knew better. He had seen this before. Lucien LaCroix defeated, but not for long. Never for long. La Croix was too strong. He would return all too soon – uglier and angrier than before.
"Thank you anyway," he said softly.
She nodded and then raised a withered hand to point. "Your friend is dying."
Dear God! He had forgotten Mingo! Pivoting sharply, Nicholas dashed to his friend's side. He took Mingo's wrist in his hand and felt for a pulse. It was practically non-existent and, this time, it was for real. "What have I done?" he cried. "I have killed him!"
"No. You have saved him," the Raven Mocker rasped as she hobbled to his side.
"That is a lie I told myself and LaCroix. I meant for him to live. Not to – "
"Step aside."
At first he thought to refuse, but then Nicholas saw that Waapa and her son had joined them and that, behind them, were the other two hundred souls of Wi-sha-sho. Waapa met his despairing gaze and nodded, as if to say, this too was meant to be. It took everything that was in him, but he released Mingo's hand and left his fate to the spirits of the cave.
The Raven Mocker stood over Mingo for more heartbeats than Nicholas was comfortable with, then she called out in a strong voice, "Henry Pitcairn, you will leave this man."
Nicholas waited, but nothing happened. "Mother…."
She raised a hand to silence him. "Henry Pitcairn, you owe me. Now obey me. Leave this man."
A breeze rose, rustling Nicholas' honey blond hair. It played with the tattered ends of Mingo's linen shirt and dusted the snow from his shoulders. And then something happened which Nicholas would never forget – Henry Pitcairn's spirit rose up slowly out of Mingo and hovered just above him. The two remained one where Pitcairn's booted feet disappeared into the Cherokee's prone form
The Raven Mocker remained still for a moment, waiting for the disembodied spirit to look at her. Then she said, "The time has come."
Nicholas had expected the Englishman to struggle, to fight for this last vestige of survival, but instead his ghostly shoulders slumped in defeat. "I am more than ready," he said at last, his voice hoarse with fatigue. "Send me to Hell."
The Raven Mocker turned to the spirit of her granddaughter and held out her hand. As Waapa took it, she said, "Look upon one you killed, white man. Do you see hate in her eyes?"
It took a moment, but he looked. "What is this?"
"How could my grandchild hate the one who saved me?"
Surprise registered on the sallow face. "What? Saved you?"
The Raven Mocker released Waapa who knelt and gathered her son in her arms. "You thought I had died in the fires, but I did not. I survived. I became what I am in order to claim your damned soul and, in doing so, became just as damned." She raised a hand and lowered her hood, revealing an ancient face, still scarred, but entirely human. "If you had not returned here to die, Henry Pitcairn, calling me back, I would never have found out that the spirits of Wi-sha-sho did not condemn an old woman for her weakness, and were only waiting to forgive."
Nicholas was as astonished as Henry Pitcairn. The Raven Mocker had regained her humanity.
Was there hope then, that he too might be forgiven and restored?
"Do you want to be at peace, Henry Pitcairn?" the old woman asked.
Pitcairn let out his hope in a sigh. "Yes…."
"Are you sorry for what you did?"
"Dear God, I am sorry…." Nicholas watched as the spirit's gaze moved among the ghostly Indians assembled in the cave. "I could see nothing but my duty, and I was wrong."
For a moment there was silence. Then Waapa, with her small son on her hip, approached him. Dancing Dog reached out and took the Englishman's hand.
"Come with us," the Raven Mocker said. "We will all find peace."
Nicholas realized suddenly that Pitcairn and the others were growing transparent. "No!" he cried, taking a step forward. "No! You must tell me what to do. Your good deed has made you human again. How can I be the same?"
The spirits of Wi-sha-sho were gone; Waapa and Dancing Dog among them. Only the old woman remained. She hobbled slowly toward him, halting within arm's reach. Then she laid one wrinkled hand on his arm. "Continue to do good, Nicholas Knightsford. Many are your sins, and many are the deeds needed to overcome them." At his look she added gently, "Do not despair. There is good in you and one day, it will be triumphant."
And with that, she was gone.
The silence that descended on the cave was broken only by a startled gasp. And then a familiar voice. "Dear God, Mingo! What has happened?"
Nicholas pivoted to find Daniel Boone and his wife emerging from what appeared to be a solid wall. The tall frontiersman held back as his wife dropped to her knees beside their friend's prone form. She placed her hand on Mingo's chest and then turned her face toward him. "Nicholas, is he…?"
He shook his head. "I don't know."
Daniel Boone's appraising gaze went from his friend's prone form to Nicholas' coat and hands which were coated with blood. "There something you want to tell me, Mr. Knightsford?" he asked as he raised his rifle.
"It is a long story, Mr. Boone. Best saved for a mug of ale by the fire." Suddenly weary, he sank onto a nearby boulder and called out, "Rebecca? How is Mingo?" Dare he hope the Raven Mocker had worked a second miracle?
"Weak, but alive," she answered. Then she turned to her husband. "Dan, we have to do something to warm him."
"There's dry kindling in the back," he answered with one final disapproving glance in Nicholas' direction. Then the frontiersman left to gather it.
As the stuff of life took over, supplanting the threat of death and the white night they had just passed through, Nicholas Knightsford smiled. All he had put these people through had not proved in vain. The world was free of Lucien LaCroix's evil, at least for a time. The spirits of Wi-sha-sho, of the Raven Mocker and her grandchild, and of Henry Pitcairn were finally at peace. And last of all he had seen great evil overcome by a simple choice to do good. The Raven Mocker had been redeemed.
Which meant, he could be redeemed.
