Shaman's Blood (20 page)

“Have a seat,” he said, gesturing to his mattress. It sat in the center of the bedroom, flat on the floor with no bedstead. A tangle of sheets suggested it was the most-used element of the room. “Ah, sorry, it’s a mess. I wasn’t expecting company.”

Ned was just standing there, hands in his pockets, looking at her in a very unnerving way.

“What?” She sat down on the edge of the bed, shoving a pile of Zap Comix out of the way.

“Something I never expected to see,” he said.

He stepped out of the room, and Suzanne took a closer look at his surroundings. Ned’s bedroom was mostly empty of any real furniture, the main pieces being the mattress and a precarious set of bookshelves against one wall. Albums by the Doors, Cream, and Miles Davis littered the floor among discarded pizza boxes, random shoes, socks, and whatever he’d apparently worn and peeled off. At least, she noted, there didn’t seem to be any women’s clothing in evidence. The room had no seating except for a small folding chair next to a card table where all his art supplies were spread out.

A full-sized black-light poster of Jimi Hendrix took up most of one wall and an Indian mandala print covered the one opposite. But on the wall with the single window, she saw nearly a dozen drawings and watercolors pinned or taped in a mosaic of color

“Toke?” he said, returning with a lighted joint between his fingers. He inhaled deeply and sat down beside her, and then held the joint to her lips.

Suzanne inhaled slightly, just enough to be polite. She wasn’t a total novice where pot was concerned, but she wasn’t a pothead, which this Ned person clearly was. 

“Just so you know, I didn’t come up here to get high and have sex with you,” she said, blushing.

Ned let out a laugh and fell back on the bed. “Well, I’m glad we got that sorted out.” He continued to laugh, watching her with an expression she found more than disturbing.

Then he sat up, the laughter in his eyes gone. “I didn’t bring you here for that, groovy as I’m sure it would be. I wanted to show you something.”

He got up and went to a packing crate that held a jumble of books and file folders. He opened a folder and pulled out a piece of paper torn from a spiral sketch pad. 

Suzanne caught her breath as she took it from him. It was an amazing likeness of her own face, with this very hotel sketched in behind her. Her face went slack-jawed.

“How …?”

“Yeah, that’s my question, too. I drew that picture a couple of years ago, before I even knew where Miami was on the map. I’ve been looking for you, Suzanne Blacksburg, ever since.” He sat down on the floor beside her feet.

“I don’t believe this.” She stared at the drawing, trying to make it look like somebody else.

“I would never have known where to look if it hadn’t been for the hotel in the background,” he said. “Took me a couple of years bumming up and down the Florida coast, but as soon as I saw it, I knew this was the place. Since then I’ve just been waiting, and hoping, for you to show up.”

She put the paper down beside her and looked at him carefully for the first time. He was older than she’d thought, with creases around his mouth that gave his face character. Suzanne realized her palms were sweaty. “Well, now that you’ve found me, what happens?”

“Right on, now we’re getting somewhere.” He smiled again, and the stress lines went away. “You asked me if I was psychic.” He paused, and she waited. “I get … visions, sometimes, when I draw or paint. I channel images of places and things that make no sense to me.”

“Well, yeah, mind-expanding drugs’ll do that for you.”

“No. I’m straight when this kind of thing happens, with one exception.”  

Suddenly Ned grunted, apparently in pain. Suzanne was shocked to see that he was trembling.

“Um, Ned, what’s the matter? Are you sick?” It couldn’t have been the grass, because she’d taken a decent hit and felt fine. She knelt down on the floor beside him.

“What’s wrong?” And then she screamed out loud, falling backward away from him. He had looked up at her with reddish-yellow cat’s eyes and a hideously contorted face that resembled something vaguely serpentine. She blinked and looked again, but now he seemed normal, although his attractive features were bathed in sweat. He was shaking all over.

“Help me, Suzanne,” he said hoarsely. “I think you’re the only one who can.”

Against her better judgment, she knelt beside him again and put her arms around him, the urge to protect stronger than her urge to flee. 

“If I can, I will,” she said, wondering what door she had just opened.

He slid his arms around her waist and held tight. She squeezed him back and wondered what the hell was that look she’d just seen, a pot hallucination? Suzanne considered herself a rational, fairly self-confident person who was independent and not afraid to go places and do things on her own, but this was nothing she had any experience with.

“Promise you won’t leave me,” he said, his face buried in her hair.

“I promise.” A shiver skittered over her shoulders and up her neck as she held him. The grass must have been stronger than she’d judged, making his touch seem both warm and cold at the same time. Was he fevered?

Suzanne gently rubbed the muscles of his back, which did not give an inch. There was no extra fat on him, no pliant cushioning. He seemed hard traveled, with few possessions, if this room was an accurate indication. And here she was, cradling him in her arms, as if they had been together forever.

Bailey and Paula would have had their minds blown if they could’ve seen. Hal certainly wouldn’t approve, and she supposed her parents wouldn’t either, but she knew instinctively this was not a moment that would be shared with anyone. Maybe not ever. For better or worse, she had stepped off a cliff with a complete stranger, without even looking to see what lay at the bottom. 

Chapter 16

August 5, Friday—Present Day

The lights in the Hardison Museum’s Learning Center auditorium came up a bit too abruptly. Alice yawned and rubbed her eyes.

“Hey there, wake up.” Hannah nudged her shoulder.

“Thanks, I was losing it.” She stood up and yawned again. “I hope I didn’t snore.” She’d been anticipating Fjodor’s presentation all week and couldn’t believe she’d zoned out through most of it.    

Fjodor Kamensky, paleozoologist and the museum’s Natural Sciences Curator, was newly returned from his sabbatical, during which he’d been researching mammoths in Iceland and Siberia, and it was his slide show that had put Alice to sleep.

Hanna poked her in the ribs. “Here comes your friend.”

Milton Crouch was headed down the aisle toward them, waving.

“Hey, Alice, I got something for you.”

“What would that be?” She gave him a half-smile. He was dressed in his usual baggy khakis, rundown deck shoes, and polo shirt. This one was red.

“I know you’re interested in that old church, so I xeroxed some stuff for you from my personal clippings file. Folder’s on my desk … wanna come get it?”

In spite of her renewed resolve to never, ever, get sucked into anything having to do with the First Church of the Heavenly Powers or whatever the hell it had been called, Alice found herself saying, “Thanks, I will.”

“Super!” He lumbered off in the direction of the elevators and she followed, determined to take a quick look at his stuff and go back up to her office without it.

In the basement, Alice followed Milton through the Conservation lab double doors and back to his desk. He was still situated against the wall behind the receptionist.

“When’s Shelton going to find you a proper office?”

Milton laughed like a dog barking. “Oh, he’s been trying to get me to move upstairs, but I told him I like it down here where the real action is.” He indicated the tank room where shipwreck cannons lay submerged in water, waiting to be cleaned and preserved. Then he picked up a manila folder from his desk and handed it to her.

“So, whattaya think?”

Big old sloppy dog, trying his best to please. If he’d had a tail it would have been wagging in huge loops around his backside. Alice took the folder. Opening it, she caught her breath. The headline on the first page read, “Rural Church Hit Twice by Lightning.”

She skimmed the brief article for details, reading that the empty building had been struck along its tin roof on two separate days during a spate of thunderstorms in April of 1965. Firemen had arrived just in time to make sure the flames did not eat further into the structure. There was also mention of the property being owned by St. Christopher’s A.M.E. church. Alice turned to the next page.

The second clipping was from early 1945. Its headline was more disturbing: “Pastor Killed in Construction Site Accident.” Two small photos accompanied the story; one showed the partially finished stone façade of the present-day St. Christopher’s church, and the other was a studio portrait of a grim-faced black minister. The article described how Antoine Rider, pastor of the church in the photo, had been standing under a scaffold that held a large quantity of bricks and building stone. Although no one had directly witnessed the event, it was surmised that one end of the scaffolding had given way, dumping the load of building material down onto his head, crushing his skull. Alice put her hand to her mouth.

“Pretty strong stuff, huh? And there’s more,” said Milton, his eyes watching her a little too eagerly.

“But this happened on the new church property, not the old,” said Alice, trying to connect the dots in her head.

Milton shrugged. “Yeah, but it’s the same congregation, right?”

Alice looked back to the last sheet of paper.

“That one there’s the clipping I told you about. Remember? The whacked-out guy who built the old church in the first place? A bad luck customer from the get-go, if you ask me.”

Alice felt a familiar shiver of fear running under her skin. The clipping from the Massalina Countian was dated Monday, February 19, 1900. Her brain was telling her to stop right now, but her eyes were scanning the page, looking for the name of the demon, and there it was: “… the Reverend Cadjer Harrow, founder of the small church on Old Sawgrass Road, was found dead on Sunday evening inside the church.” Hopelessly hooked, she read on.

This was not his obituary, which she’d already found in the library folder material that had once belonged to Cecil Rider, but rather an article written the day after his death. “… Harrow was found dead on Sunday evening inside the church along with his deacon, Jefferson Rodney Lathe, of Massalina County. According to witnesses who found the bodies lying in the church belfry, they appeared to have been hit directly by the lightning strike that entered the bell tower and split the bell during thunderstorms that rumbled through the area on Sunday. Burial plans for Rev. Harrow will be announced by the Tanner family, with arrangements through Patterson Undertakers.”

“Who’s the Tanner family?” Alice asked, looking up.

Milton shrugged. “Dunno. How are they mentioned?”

“They made the funeral arrangements for this Reverend Harrow. Were they relatives or something?”

“Easy enough to find out, I betcha,” said Milton. “I can look, if you want.”

Alice felt prickles along her scalp. “Would you? Just as a matter of curiosity.”

“Sure!” Milton’s tail was wagging again. “I got friends in the Historical Society who could probably show me which county records to pick through.”

“Really? I’d be curious to see what you can dig up.” Alice was kicking herself. “Well, I have to go. I promised Fjodor I’d stop by and discuss mammoth hunting.”

“He’s amazing, isn’t he? That must have been a fun adventure he went on.”

“Fun. You bet. Thanks for these.” She waved the folder toward him.

“No prob. I’ll get back to you on the Tanners.”

Alice nodded and was out the door in a dozen steps.

Holy hell, what was she doing? This was insane, mucking around in Harrow’s past again. She’d hoped he was gone forever, swept away to wherever by Namarrkun in that mind-numbing act of retribution that had sent her out of body and out of her mind. It had taken weeks afterward to pull herself together, with the support of Margaret and Nik. Bless Shelton for giving her a leave of absence. As the museum boss, he knew she was having emotional problems of some kind, but that was all.

Going out of the country with Nik and away from anything connected to Massalina County or Aboriginal Australians had been the best medicine of all, as it turned out. Nik’s parents knew nothing of Alice’s difficulties, but they were friendly and more than a little curious to meet this divorced woman who’d snared their unmarried son. The only downside of the trip had been leaving Margaret behind with Alice’s sister-in-law, so her schooling wouldn’t be disrupted.

So what was she doing, prying into old secrets again? She tucked the manila folder under her arm and caught the elevator going up.

Back in her office, she shut the door and sat at her computer, thinking. Her mind drifted to her mother’s funeral, and then to the briefcase of Suzanne’s letters, and back to the funeral. And finally, reluctantly, to the hotel dream. Even days afterward she couldn’t shake off the dread that filled her whenever she thought of it. Logically, she supposed it was a suppressed reaction to Suzanne’s death after the reality of the funeral. The landscape was already in her subconscious from having seen Ned’s paintings a few days before. But it didn’t feel like only that. It felt real.

Alice closed her eyes and massaged the back of her neck. She was getting a tension headache. Her thoughts were drifting down a dangerous path, beginning to accept the possibility that those places existed, and that Ned had gone there or seen them in a dream state, just the way she had. Alice rubbed her temples. She was losing it again, starting to think the Dreamtime world was real. But how else had the apparition of Harrow gotten into this world and confronted her in a physical body? Accepting that episode as real also meant admitting the Dreamtime Ancestors could come out of Sky Home to retrieve him.