Touch of Lightning

by Carin Rafferty

  She started to tell Wanága he’d lost his mind, but she suddenly noticed the wicáhmunga’s triangle was turning red again. Warily, she glanced from it to his face and gulped. Not only was the triangle changing color, but his eyes took on that strange, inner light.

  Suddenly, a strong wind swirled around the cave, and Sarah trembled in terror. According to legend, Seamus had used a wind against anyone who angered him, and it had been forceful enough to slam them into walls and trees, breaking their bones. Then, when they lay there, crippled and helpless, he’d—

  The thought was interrupted by a familiar and frightening rustling sound. Sarah jerked her head toward the roof of the cave, and her blood ran cold. Circling above the wicáhmunga was the lightning wreath.

  She quickly glanced down at him and gasped in horror. The triangle glowed red hot, and she could see thin wisps of smoke rising from where it rested against his chest. As the smell of burning flesh reached her nose, he suddenly raised his hand toward the triangle.

  “No! Don’t touch it!” she yelled at him, sensing that he didn’t even know what he was doing, but she was too late.

  As his fingers closed around the triangle, lightning shot from the wreath and struck the back of his hand. When it did, Sarah saw a flash of light fly toward her, and her mind filled with a vision so horrible, so bloody, that she started screaming and couldn’t stop.

  Chapter 5

  Evil Confronted

  SARAH’S MIND WAS filled with the image of an unfamiliar bedroom, but it was the body on the bed that held her attention. Although she didn’t know the dead woman, it didn’t make the gruesome details of her death any easier.

  As she continued to scream, Wanága ordered, Calm yourself, Sarah. You have been brought here for a reason, and you cannot learn that reason if you are not calm.

  If Sarah hadn’t already been hysterical, she would have burst into frantic laughter at his words. How could she possibly be calm when faced with such butchery? It was impossible!

  You are the guardian, Sarah. For you, nothing is impossible. Now find out what is going on. If you don’t, your people will die, and their deaths will be worse than this.

  Sarah shook her head in disbelief. Nothing could be worse than this, and she wanted to close her mind down completely, crawl into the black hole of oblivion forever, rather than look at this scene a moment longer.

  But even as she considered a mental escape, she knew she couldn’t do it. If she closed down now, she’d not only forsake her people, she’d let Leonard down. He’d trusted her to carry out her duties as guardian with the same dedication he had carried them out for more than fifty years. Leonard would have been sickened by this carnage, but he would have never sought to escape from it.

  She drew in a deep breath, forcing her hysteria to subside, although it still rested dangerously close to the surface. Then she made herself examine the scene analytically.

  A woman sat on top of a bed. Her legs stretched out in front of her, and her back rested against an ornately carved, wooden headboard. The hem of her black skirt was smoothed down over her knees, and her hands were folded in her lap. The primness of her posture made the inhumanity of her death that much worse.

  The white lace coverlet beneath her was drenched in blood, and Sarah drew in another deep breath before raising her gaze from the woman’s lap to her face. When she did, she tasted bile. The woman’s throat had been cut, but more horrifying for Sarah, her eyes had been gouged out.

  It’s the same type of torture Seamus performed on my people! Her hysteria was threatening to overwhelm her again. How will that poor woman find her way to the spirit world without her eyes?

  I will guide her, Wanága said.

  Soothed by his words, Sarah managed to curb her rising hysteria. Then she looked around the room. Until now, she’d been so focused on the body, she hadn’t noticed anything else. When she saw John Butler, she caught her breath in horror. He stood at the woman’s mirrored dresser, pawing through her jewelry box, his hands dripping blood. Sarah watched him lift necklace after necklace, gazing at each for a moment before tossing it to the floor.

  Normally, sound didn’t accompany her visions, and Sarah started when she suddenly heard him whistling. The tune was off key, and it took her a moment to identify it. When she did, she again tasted bile. It was “Whistle While You Work.”

  A moment later, he lifted a necklace and said, “This will do. A little dainty, but what the hell.” He opened the clasp and slipped a small, silver ball off the chain. When Sarah heard the tinkling sound, she recognized it as a harmony ball, which was supposed to bring harmony into the pos­sessor’s life.

  Obviously, John Butler also knew what it was, because he let out a low, maniacal laugh and turned toward the bed, tossing the ball toward the dead woman. As it landed in her lap with a discordant clamor, he said, “Well, Bitch, you thought it was a harmony ball, but it was really a disharmony ball.” He looked at the body, cocking his head as though listening intently, before continuing, “What’s wrong? You don’t find my little joke funny? That was always your problem. No sense of humor. Unless, of course, it was directed at me. But I had the last laugh, didn’t I? You stole the Middle East project away from me, but you gave me a better opportunity without even knowing it. I am going to be rich and famous beyond belief.”

  He swiveled to face the dresser and lifted the circle. After threading the chain through the eye on the circle, he put the chain around his neck and fastened it.

  When he turned back around, he lifted the circle, as though showing it to the woman. “This is my power, Bitch. With it, I can do anything. Be anything. And if anyone gets in my way . . .”

  He stopped speaking and swiveled his head toward Sarah. She told herself that he couldn’t see her, but a slow, sinister smile stretched across his face as he drawled, “Why, Sarah, you’ve come to view my handiwork.”

  Leave, Sarah. Now! Wanága commanded.

  Sarah barely heard him. John Butler stared at her so compellingly that she found herself drawn into the depths of his ice-blue eyes against her will. As had happened the first time she connected with him, she perceived the evil inside him. It was pulsing, growing, and it mesmerized her. She again wanted to give in to it. Be consumed by it.

  Sarah, leave! Wanága repeated urgently.

  “Stay, Sarah,” John Butler whispered, his voice low and alluring. “Let me show you the future.” She heard the rustling sound of the lightning wreath. At the sound, terror writhed inside her, screaming at her to end the vision. But she was trapped by his gaze.

  Bolts shot from the wreath, striking the circle in a hypnotic, strobe- like rhythm. He seemed unaware that his fingers smoked, that the tips were becoming charred flesh.

  “Look at the future, Sarah,” he whispered.

  The room whirled at a dizzying speed, and when it finally stopped, Sarah let out a keening wail. She was back in the Black Hills, standing in the very spot where she’d captured the wicáhmunga—the spot where Seamus had tortured her people—and everywhere she looked, there was carnage. Old men. Young men. Women. Children. Even swaddled babies. And all of them were the people she knew and loved, the people she’d been tasked to protect. They had been brutally slaughtered, but worst of all, their eyes were gouged out.

  “This is the future, Sarah. This is what the wicáhmunga will do if he gets all three pieces of the talisman. But I will help you, Sarah. Together we will stop him,” John Butler said.

  “You don’t want to help me. You’re evil. I must destroy you. I must!” she cried frantically.

  “But you can’t destroy me, because I have the circle, and that is the true power. I know everything you think, Sarah,” he whispered, his voice low and insidious. “I know everything you do. I even know where you buried the triangle, and you will never be able to hide it from me.

  “Help me des
troy the wicáhmunga, and we’ll rule together, Sarah. Fight me, and not only will your people die, I’ll make you the instrument of their destruction. You’ll be the one to gouge their eyes and mangle their bodies. And you’ll love every moment of it, because you are just like me.”

  “I am not like you,” she said, clapping her hands over her ears to shut out his voice. It didn’t work.

  “Of course you are,” he crooned. “That’s why you aren’t afraid of me, because what you see inside me is what is inside yourself.”

  “No! It’s not true. I am not like you!” she screamed.

  “I’ll be there soon, and I’ll prove to you that I speak the truth. I’ll be inside you, Sarah, and you’ll welcome me, because we share the lust.”

  The word lust hit Sarah with a staggering force, and she gave a frenzied shake of her head. She felt horror and disgust toward John Butler, not lust!

  “There are different kinds of lust, Sarah, but in the end, we’ll share the lust of the flesh, too,” he said with a lecherous chuckle.

  What he said was too horrible to contemplate, and Sarah yanked her mind from his and fled into the dark abyss of oblivion. She knew it was the coward’s way out, but it was the only way she could save her sanity.

  AS AWARENESS returned, Sebastian felt as if he were caught in a whirling vortex. When he felt himself teetering on the edge of unconsciousness, he struggled frantically to keep himself anchored to the present.

  It seemed to take forever, but he finally stopped whirling. When he did, an agonizing pain shot through his chest and hand. He groaned. Why did he hurt like this? He tried to look at his hand to see what was wrong with it, but his vision blurred. He blinked a few times, but when his eyes remained unfocused, panic mushroomed inside him. Why couldn’t he see?

  I have to remain calm, he told himself, forcing back the panic. There has to be an explanation for this. What’s the last thing I remember?

  Closing his eyes, he tried to think, but it was an effort. He felt drained, as if he’d undergone some extreme physical exertion. If he hadn’t been in such pain, he would have just lain down and gone to sleep.

  Forcing himself to concentrate, he remembered sitting down beside the fire and giving Sarah a sketchy story about the talisman. She’d told him Seamus had killed hundreds of people, and then she’d made some reference to the circle, but what had she said? The remainder of their conversation was as fuzzy as his eyesight, and he still had no idea how he’d gotten hurt.

  Slowly he opened his eyes, relieved that his vision was clearing. He immediately looked at his hand, and he gasped when it came into focus. There was a quarter-size burn on the back of it, and from the blackened edges, he knew it had to be a second-or third-degree burn. How in hell had that happened?

  The triangle.

  As the statement reverberated in his mind, dread crept through him. Still staring at his wound, he tentatively raised the other hand and touched the aching spot on his chest. It lay beneath the cool metal of the triangle.

  But how had it happened? More importantly, why had it happened? he wondered in bewilderment.

  Sarah.

  He pivoted his head toward the spot where Sarah had been standing, and he gasped again. She lay sprawled on her back on the ground and, to his horror, the rattler lay curled in the center of her chest. Dammit! While he’d been out of it, the stunning spell had worn off, and Sarah must have given the snake another order to kill her!

  Surging to his feet he started toward her, but froze when a man said behind him, “Don’t touch her, or I’ll have to harm you.”

  Warily, Sebastian turned to face the man, and his jaw dropped. The man’s face was painted in yellow and red stripes, but he didn’t look comical. He looked damned ferocious.

  Sebastian’s gaze flicked over him, taking in his attire, which was almost as bizarre as the face paint. A feather headdress wrapped around his head like a bonnet. His hair was long and split to hang over his shoulders like braids, but instead of being braided, it was wrapped in some type of furry animal skin. His chest was covered with a bone breastplate, and his hips with an unadorned breechclout. Leather armbands and leggings, quilled with triangular symbols, covered his arms and legs. Buckskin moccasins disappeared beneath the leggings.

  Sebastian didn’t see a weapon, but that didn’t ease his wariness. Instinct told him this man wouldn’t make a threat unless he felt he could carry it out.

  “Look, I don’t know who you are, but all I want to do is check on Sarah. I think the snake has bitten her.”

  “The snake has not harmed her.”

  “And how do you know that?”

  “Because I know.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, but that isn’t good enough for me,” Sebastian stated impatiently. “I’m going to check on her.”

  “You have already put your mark on her, wicáhmunga. If you touch her before she wakes up, you may kill her.”

  Sebastian blinked at him. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Look at her right hand.”

  Not about to turn his back on the man, Sebastian risked a glance over his shoulder. Sarah’s right arm stretched out on the cave’s rock floor, and he let his gaze follow it down to her hand. When he reached it, he stared at it in disbelief. She had a burn identical to his own. Did she also have one on her chest?

  He winced at the thought. He had a higher pain threshold than mortals, and even though he’d forced most of the pain to the back of his mind, he’d almost passed out before he’d gotten it under control. If she’d suffered the same agony, no wonder she was unconscious.

  “What did you do to her? To us?” he demanded, swinging his head back around and glaring at the man.

  The man arched a brow. “I have done nothing. It is your mark.”

  “I’d never do something like this to myself, let alone anyone else.”

  “When rage becomes us, we become rage.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “If you are meant to know all, you will understand. Do not touch her before she wakes up.”

  The man disappeared. As Sebastian gaped at the spot, he felt the hair on the back of his neck bristle.

  “I must be hallucinating,” he mumbled. “Men do not just disappear. Even if he were a warlock, an invisibility spell takes longer than that.”

  But Sebastian knew he wasn’t hallucinating. The man’s presence had been too real. He also knew he hadn’t been dealing with a warlock. He instinctively balked at the only other answer he could come up with, but he knew there was only one thing that could disappear that fast. A spirit.

  But if he were a spirit, why didn’t I pick up on the energy displacement that a spirit causes? he asked himself. And for a spirit to take such a solid form, it would have had to be one hell of a displacement.

  He could think of only one reason for him not to have recognized what the man was. His magic was malfunctioning again.

  With a feeling of trepidation, he murmured a short, nonsensical spell and flicked his fingers. When nothing happened, he cursed.

  Suddenly, he heard an ominous rattle behind him, and he felt the blood drain out of his face. If his magic were gone, so was the protective spell. That meant he was trapped on the mountain with the rattlesnakes, and as long as Sarah was unconscious, she couldn’t control them.

  He slowly turned to confront the rattler. It still lay coiled on Sarah’s chest, with both the tip of its tail and its head raised. As he and the beast stared at each other, it rattled again.

  Sebastian automatically took a step back. “Nice snake,” he said.

  At his words, the snake flicked its tongue and, to Sebastian’s surprise, lowered its tail. When he took another step back, it lowered its head. Sebastian understood it wasn’t threatening him, but warning him to stay away from Sarah
.

  “No problem,” he told it. “I have no intention of bothering you or your mistress. I’m just going to go sit by the fire until she wakes up.”

  Cautiously, he walked to the fire. The snake never took its eyes off him, but it didn’t move.

  When he sat down, he stared at Sarah. He couldn’t hear her breathing over the fire’s crackling, but he could see the gentle rise and fall of her chest. That reassured him that she was alive.

  Now that he was sitting here with nothing to do, he again became aware of his throbbing wounds, and his gaze drifted to Sarah’s hand. As he stared at her burn, the spirit’s words reverberated in his mind. “It is your mark.”

  That was impossible. He would never burn someone! But he knew a spirit never lied.

  Unless he’s an evil spirit.

  He frowned. He hadn’t sensed evil. Of course, his magic wasn’t work­ing, and that could have distorted his instincts. Then again, he’d con­fronted enough evil as the troubleshooter that he was sure he would recognize it even without his magic. But if the spirit weren’t evil, why was he here? Spirits didn’t just pop up for no reason. They always had an agenda.

  Since the spirit had materialized to protect Sarah, she had to be the connection, and it was probably her involvement with the talisman that had brought the spirit here. Was he one of Seamus’s victims, and with the resurfacing of the talisman’s evil, would he come back?

  It’s the most logical explanation I can come up with, so why do I feel as if I’m missing something important? Impulsively, he closed his eyes and recreated the spirit’s image in his mind.

  “That’s it! The quilling on the spirit’s armbands and leggings was triangles! But it has to be a coincidence,” he said, opening his eyes and frowning at the fire. “The talisman originated in Europe. There is no way it could be connected to a Native American. He has to be one of Seamus’s victims, and he either has a strong need for revenge, or he feels responsible for what happened and has a karmic need to make amends.”