The Otherworld

by Mercedes Lackey

  A brilliant mission. Brilliantly planned and brilliantly executed, just . . . brilliant, gloated Brother Joseph. He looked up from the swirling waters, just in time to see the young guard bring a snack in on a silver tray. Cheese, crackers, caviar. A kind of salad he didn't immediately recognize. And the police in this county still don't suspect a thing.

  He knew this was primarily because of their lawyer, Claudius Williams III. The old man came down with the Detroit flock three years ago, a true believer in God, Country and AK-47s. In his collection of assault weapons he had fifteen of the Russian-made rifles, all of which he has cheerfully donated to the Sacred Heart armory. As a citizen of Detroit, Williams had practiced law during the week, favoring the male side of divorce proceedings. On Saturday, he had participated in a white supremacists' organization. On Sunday, he had been a church preacher, teaching the Israel Identity to hungover auto workers. All in all, Brother Joseph thought, a well-rounded individual. Even though he wanted to continue preaching. He saw, with God's help, the light of wisdom. After all, we needed his expertise in the legal field. And his performance in that capacity has been exemplary.

  Once the underground lair of the Sacred Heart was discovered by the county's law enforcement, Claudius Williams III went into action. For months prior to moving to Oklahoma, he had studied the local laws in books acquired by Guard agents, finding loopholes, exploiting weaknesses. Pawnee County turned out to be ideal for their purposes. Since the building permits had already been granted, it was a simple matter to keep the sheriff off their property. What the law didn't cover, court injunctions did. In Pawnee County, it was difficult to obtain a search warrant.

  And it didn't hurt that the district judge was an old college buddy of Claudius. The judge had been battling with the DA and sheriff for years now, over run-ins with his own friends and relatives, so naturally the granting of injunctions was a simple matter, reduced to a rubber-stamped formality. The judge and lawyer smiled and shook hands, the DA and sheriff fumed and scratched their heads, and the Sacred Heart of the Chosen Ones existed, more or less, as a sovereign state.

  Brother Joseph chuckled at the sheer perversity of it all; his young servant looked up quizzically from the Bible. Their eyes locked for a brief instant before the boy looked away, apparently embarrassed.

  "I must awe you," Brother Joseph said. "I know that service in my private quarters is a rotational thing, but you must feel a chill of excitement to be here. Am I correct?"

  "Of c-course, sir," the boy stammered. "Is there anything I can get you?"

  "My bathrobe, my boy," the preacher said. The boy scrambled for the robe, lying on a chair on the other side of the immense bathroom. "And a towel. I'm through here for the night. Secure the area and report to your CO. You will be commended."

  The boy blushed when he handed the preacher the robe. Such a young face. And such dedication to one he worships. What, Oh Lord, have I done to deserve such favor?

  * * *

  Jamie was only vaguely aware of the two beefy fists gripping his arms as he was led away from the Praise Meeting. Behind him he could hear Brother Joseph talking some icky stuff to his father, none of which really made much sense. It was just more gobbledygook. More of the same.

  When the man grabbed his arm he realized that his arm had gotten smaller, and that he felt lighter. These facts didn't register immediately, but somewhere along the way he saw what it meant, and wondered if he would go away if they didn't feed him. His body, he reasoned, must be feeding on itself, and pretty soon he would be all gone. Would his real body fade away like the ghost-one had during the Praise Meeting, going all see-through, until there was nothing at all? Or would he turn into a stick-figure, like the pictures of Ethiopian kids?

  Then Jamie was dimly aware that he was going someplace different, that he wasn't going back to the old room. In a way that made him glad. He wouldn't have to worry about being rolled over on, and he wouldn't be using a blanket full of little white bugs. He didn't really care where he was going, though he was fully aware that it could be far worse than his room, if Brother Joseph was taking him there. His consciousness was fading, and he wondered if you could walk and sleep at the same time.

  Somewhere in his schooling he had heard about the place they took bad boys who ran away from home, played hooky or used drugs, the place called "juvie detention." If that was where he was being taken, he now knew that you didn't have to do something bad to get there. But he wasn't scared about it, and he wondered why.

  Finally they put him into a little room that had a little bed in it, but no carpet or other furniture. The blankets on the bed smelled clean, something he had barely noticed when they put him down on the bed; all he could do then was lie there and pant, and look at the stars that sparkled in his vision.

  The darkness became absolute when they slammed the door on him. Jamie let out a little whimper before falling asleep, into a world of nightmares he was too tired to wake up from.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Al climbed a little higher in the tree, further away from the chain-link fence. The added distance he'd put between himself and the steel decreased the interference that disrupted his senses, and made it easier to get around the metal barriers, but it didn't make him feel any better about what was taking place down there at the "Praise Meeting."

  In fact, the impromptu fine-tuning made what was happening down there all the clearer, and it took every ounce of his willpower to keep from dashing to the boy's rescue.

  No heroics, he lectured himself. I can't do Jamie any good if I'm shot full of holes. Lots of holes, by the look of those automatic weapons they're lugging around. But anxiety knotted his stomach, and the urge to get over there and do something kept him in a state of nervous tension.

  When he remembered what he looked like, in black clothing, boots and mask, he couldn't help but grimace; he looked either like a Ninja or a black-power commando. With this group, who hated black and Oriental people as much any other scapegoat, he wouldn't last very long. In the bright lights he would make an easy target. He didn't think he could dodge that many bullets, even with Andur's help. The elvensteed could run fast, but not that fast.

  When the gathering began, and his brief glimpses into the humans' minds gave him more and more information, Alinor quickly identified this as the same kind of "Praise Meeting" that Cindy had told him about. Everything matched what she'd described, including the peculiar flag in the stage's background. What he hadn't expected was the evil thing that Brother Joseph summoned as soon as Jamie arrived. Al had not expected ritual magic, not here. He had assumed that the dark power he'd touched had been something the cultists didn't know about, or something that was using them without their knowledge. It seemed he was wrong—terribly wrong.

  Given the magical power of the entity, he was still afraid that it might have detected him, there at the beginning of the ritual. He couldn't shake a sense of familiarity, a haunting foreboding that he had, indeed, seen this thing, or something like it, in the past. Alinor had to admit that it wasn't often these days that he ran across such things. One was more likely to encounter such things in the halfworld, beyond the borders of Underhill, not in the technological environment of the "real world." But here it was.

  And it threatened Jamie's very survival. It would have to be dealt with, destroyed. At the moment, Alinor was most likely to be the one to face the beast.

  Provided it didn't find and devour him first.

  After he'd withdrawn his probes from the immediate vicinity of the entity, he studied its reactions. Soon he was satisfied that it hadn't sensed him, and that the humans who had gathered were responsible for its waking. And then the creature saw the tiny life-spark that had to be Jamie, and reached. . . .

  But instead of devouring the boy, the child's soul switched with the dark thing. Alinor did a double take; suddenly, outside the boy's body, stood the boy—or rather, the boy's spirit. And speaking through the body was the evil force, in full control of mouth, tongue and vo
cal cords.

  The elf's first reaction was awe at the expertise this human, Brother Joseph, had with the magics of the halfworld. But as Alinor surreptitiously explored this "expertise" he found the preacher wasn't responsible for the shift at all. In fact, the switch took place in spite of the preacher and all he did. He saw the interference the emotional energies were creating: strong, gusty waves of hate and fear, intermingled with the human excitement of the Praise Meeting. Brother Joseph didn't engineer the switch, the evil force did, deftly sidestepping the waves of psionic energy the meeting generated, shunting them off.

  Alinor narrowed his eyes and frowned, gathering his thoughts. His perch in the tree was getting uncomfortable, but he dared not move. If that thing didn't notice him, the guards down there might. The entity might even see him then, a complication he quite easily could live without.

  I'm assuming too much, he decided. I don't know that it perceives magics and energies the same way I do. In fact, it probably doesn't see it the same way. It seems quite alien—and it's not like an Unseleighe creature, either. The emotion-driven psychic force that Brother Joseph is raising may be acting as food to it, not a loud distraction. I wish I had someone with more experience here with me. . . .

  As the darkness enveloped the boy, Alinor became aware of yet another creature, creeping quietly out of the halfworld.

  Who is she? Alinor wondered, suddenly aware of the being's gender. This was not something cut from the same fabric as the present occupant of Jamie's body.

  She was quiet, yet strong. And the fact that she retained a sex, and a vaguely human semblance, finally gave him the clue he needed to identify what she was, if not who.

  A human ghost.

  Al sighed. A ghost tied to this place could only mean that it was bound somehow to Brother Joseph or the cult. Such bindings were rarely anything other than tragic. So much unhappiness in this place, invoked by a crazed human preacher who doesn't even know what he's done!

  And now there was another complication to what had seemed straightforward last night. That this was a ghost with Jamie told him a great deal. The woman, no, girl, had evidently died a violent death. Spirits with that kind of ending frequently lingered near the earth-plane, still not convinced that they had died; wandering about aimlessly, knocking things over and making a general nuisance of themselves. The very tragedy of their death acted as a burden, an anchor weighing them down until the conflict surrounding their demise was resolved.

  Yet even as he thought that, he knew that wasn't the case here; he could sense it. This spirit had a purpose, and the purpose involved Jamie.

  Was this her way of dealing with her own death? Al wondered as he watched the flicker of light take form. The girl sent Jamie's spirit a thin tendril of energy, which began blocking the boy's pain.

  Well done! Alinor complimented silently. I hope that before this is all over and done with I'll get to meet this little one, and perhaps help her leave this plane. . . .

  But this was getting more complicated by the moment; not the simple "snatch and grab" of the usual elven rescue. His premonition had been correct. There had been death, sadism and violence here, and there was more to come.

  He resisted a particularly strong urge to contact the ghost-child. Allies in this situation could only help to tip the odds in his, and Jamie's, favor. But to reach out to her could alert the beast to his presence and, conceivably, to hers. How she had managed to aid Jamie was something he would have to ask later.

  Alinor listened, and watched.

  The thing began to speak through Jamie, and the reaction from the audience was dramatic and varied. The thing fed on the roiling emotions of the preacher's flock. A true parasitic spirit, Al thought. Parasites in any world were disgusting things to him, especially when they attacked children. This one seemed particularly insidious, in view of the total possession the thing had of the boy's body. He wondered what would happen if it weakened Jamie to the point where it could make that possession permanent.

  The entity spoke, ranting in the same vein as Brother Joseph, an outpouring of racial hate and convoluted biblical theory that was enough to make him ill. It made even less sense than Brother Joseph, something Alinor had to hear to believe.

  And he could not shake the nagging sense of familiarity.

  Where else have I seen this thing? Al asked himself, now certain he'd encountered it, or perhaps a relative of it, before.

  It began saying things, things the preacher seemed unprepared for. The man stood back, apparently trying to form some kind of rebuttal to what was coming out of the boy's mouth. You, Brother Joseph, you are the instrument of the Prophecy. You will be the Bringer of the Flame. . . . The boy's distorted voice ranted on, while the preacher just stood there, open-mouthed, slack-jawed, for once at a loss for words.

  Alinor took note of how the preacher reacted to this unexpected tirade. Brother Joseph did not like what he heard—but more importantly, the words disturbed the audience as well. The congregation shifted nervously, and the deep wrinkle between Brother Joseph's eyebrows deepened.

  But like the professional orator he was, he bounced back from the uncomfortable moment as soon as the entity gave him the chance to speak, replying with a rambling continuation of his previous sermon.

  Within moments he had reconciled everything the creature had said with his own words, exerting a powerful charisma to charm the flock and lull them back into their feeling of comfortable belonging. Apparently relieved that what the Sacred Fire had to say was no real surprise, they responded with mindless shouts of "Praise the Lord," resolutely erasing any lingering doubts from their own minds.

  A guard passed by the tree Al was sitting in, startling him and catching him unawares. He pulled his attention back to his immediate surroundings. Need to watch that, he thought, as his stomach lurched in alarm. I am, after all, sitting in a tree in hostile territory.

  But the guard continued his patrol around one of the buildings. Apparently he had not noticed Alinor perched above him. This time he'd been lucky, but luck could only stretch so far.

  Al checked cautiously for other guards, found none, and eventually sent his mental sight back to the Praise Meeting. But now the hall had been cleared of all spectators, except for a handful of men gathered at the foot of the stage. The boy continued speaking, but what he was saying . . .

  Alinor smiled sardonically. Now we get to the practical part of this evening's programming, he thought, making mental notes on the kinds of information the entity produced for Brother Joseph. Bingo. Horse racing. Gambling. What else? he wondered. And then he heard what else—

  Drugs. Information on the police. Great Danaa, this thing has a lead on just about everything. It knows more about the humans and their world than they do. Not only that, but it's engineering the sale of drugs . . . to children!

  Now he was not only sickened, he was outraged. The man is a monster. He has the ability to manipulate whoever listens to him—and he uses it for this. And beneath it all, he's still a puppet, a tool. The thing that controls him, that's the culprit, the blackness behind this entire charade masquerading as faith . . . some Christian, he hasn't got a clue. . . .

  Then, with a cold shock of recognition, Alinor finally remembered where he'd seen this thing before. The church and all its esoteric trappings, he chided himself angrily. Brother Joseph, and all his blithering religious lunacy, should have been a dead giveaway. Of course—of course. I know where this thing came from—what it is. It's been nearly a thousand years, but I shouldn't have forgotten, no matter how long ago it happened. This dark creature, this blackness, this thing, this blot of evil, this . . .

  Salamander.

  It shouldn't be happening again. But it was.

  Only this time, the Christian soldiers weren't toting shields, swords and arrows. They were armed with the latest in automatic weaponry, killing tools designed to exterminate humans by the hundreds.

  Yet how could it be happening here, now? When he had witnessed the c
reation of the United States, Alinor had thought that the Constitution would prevent religious crusades from destroying lives and souls ever again. The Constitution was, after all, designed to protect all religions, not just the Christian one. At its inception the new nation was easily the freest place in the world. It still was, though the Folk still needed to remain concealed.

  The Salamander is behind it. Blessed Danaa—he thought angrily; wishing, as he had so many times before, that he had found a way to do away with the creature, or to at least send it back from where it came.

  And nothing has really changed since the last time.

  The last time, ten centuries ago.

  I was only a child. . . .

  * * *

  It was his first excursion outside Scotland, to the home of his mother's people. He'd looked, at the time, like a teenaged human boy, and although he was considerably older than he appeared, he acted and thought like the sheltered youngster he was.

  His father, Liam Silverbranch, had taken him to meet his mother Melisande's kin in Elfhame Joyeaux Garde in France.

  His mother's mother had been Elaine du Lac, who had fostered the famous Lancelot du Lac, and both parents had deemed it high time that he meet his celebrated relatives and learn the Gallic side of his heritage. But there had been no one near his age there, not even human fosterlings, and the older elves had gotten involved in hunts and Court gossip and politics. Eventually they had left him to his own devices. He had run off on an exploration of his own as soon as the idea occurred to him.

  It was his first chance to see mortals in any numbers, humans other than the fosterlings. The humans were so—bewildering. He had wanted to see them up close, to see the way they really lived; their capacity for violence astonished and intrigued him with morbid fascination. They seemed to throw their short lives away on a whim, to court injury and death for the strangest of reasons or no reason at all. He had to learn more.