Praise for
HEATHER GRAHAM
Mystery, sex, paranormal events. Whats not to love?
Kirkus Reviews on The Death Dealer
[A] sinister tale sure to appeal to fans across multiple genre lines.
Publishers Weekly on The Death Dealer
Heather Graham will keep you in suspense until the very end.
Literary Times
[A] solid trilogy openerDream messages and premonitions, ghostly sightings, capable detective work and fascinating characters blend to make a satisfying chiller.
Publishers Weekly on Deadly Night
There are good reasons for Grahams steady standing as a best-selling author. Here her perfect pacing keeps readers riveted as they learn fascinating tidbits of New Orleans history. The paranormal elements are integral to the unrelentingly suspenseful plot, the characters are likable, the romance convincing, and, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Grahams atmospheric depiction of a lost city is especially poignant.
Booklist on Ghost Walk
Graham peoples her novel with genuine, endearing characters.
Publishers Weekly on The Séance
An incredible storyteller.
Los Angeles Daily News
Heather Graham
Unhallowed Ground
To the city of St. Augustine, and especially to Derek and Pablo-the-cat and our road trip.
To the carriage and tour companiesand everyone whos fascinated by the unique legends of our nations oldest European-founded city.
Its a remarkable place to visit.
Thanks, also, to the Inn on Charlotte, Victoria House, and Casa de Suenos (where they welcomed Pablo as well as the rest of us!)
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Prologue
Then, during the War of Northern Aggression
St. Augustine, in northern Florida, was beautiful, especially by night. It was the image of everything graceful and lovely in the Deep South and, when seen by the gentle glow of the moon, as serene a place as one might ever hope to see. Spanish moss dripped from old oaks like the sweep of a gentle lace blanket, and a low ground fog swirled in a faint breeze that seemed to carry with it the whisper of a moan. The silver mist curled around the mournful beauty of the cemetery, caressing the cheeks of stone angels and cherubs standing atop newly dug graves, as well as those that had been there for centuries.
The moon that night had a haze promising rain the following day. The misty halo around the full orb cast an eerie glow over the earth, turning the cemetery into a magical vision with its praying virgins, weeping guardians and majestic display of marble statuary, all bathed in the pale and eerie light.
Two women came with a lantern, one with purpose, and one carefully picking her way around the gravestones and funerary art.
This way, Martha Tyler said, lifting her lantern higher.
How much farther? Susan Madison asked nervously as the moon slipped behind a cloud and the shadows deepened.
Martha paused to stare back at her, contempt in her eyes. If you are afraid, there is no reason to go any farther at all.
Well, of course, Im afraid, Susan longed to shout. She hadnt been afraid before; it had all seemed like a lark, and why not? Life was a mess right now, and maybe Martha did have some kind of wonderful power to make everything better.
But now she was afraid. The beauty was gone from the night.
Only death seemed to remain.
Yes, she was afraid. She was walking in a shadowy graveyard by night, hearing nothing but the rustle of the leaves and the moan of the wind in the branches, and she was a fool ever to have thought that this would be an adventure.
She had convinced herself that she had to play this game, had to skirt the edge of social and moral insanity. The news in her life was always terrible, all about the war, death, advancing armies, defeats.
There was no guarantee that Thomas Smithfield would be alive in a matter of months, much less have anything left of his home, finances or wits. A love ritual might well be useless.
Were here now, anyway, Martha said.
Were here? Where is here? Susan demanded, looking around. They had passed the MacTavish mausoleum, the giant sculpted dogs that guarded the eighteenth-century entrance to the section containing the graves of children, and even the oldest and most chipped and broken stones in the cemetery. They were standing by a small broken wall, where trees grew tall and broad, breaking through the stones of the dead, and the moss dripped almost to the ground. The earth itself didnt seem as if it belonged in any place created by man at all. It was more like a pit of churned dirt and broken pottery.
Right here, Martha said, pointing. Her voice dropped to a whisper, so soft that Susan could barely hear it. Were outside hallowed ground here. This wallor whats left of itmarks the boundary beyond which they buried the indigents and thethe unhallowed.
Susan felt a sudden chill. It was summer, and even the nights could be sweltering here in the humid lowlands, with only the occasional breeze off the ocean to alleviate the wet heat. But tonight she was suddenly cold with a bone-deep sensation that came from far more than just the temperature.
Of course she was cold, she told herself. Martha was frightening her. That whisper she was using, the cemetery itself, bathed once again in the unearthly glow of shimmering moonlight filtered through haze and fog.
You still have it? You didnt drop the sacrifice?
Susan told herself that the ominous tone was all part of Marthas act, but even so, she shuddered as she reassured herself that she still had the little vial of blood, wrapped so tightly in her hand that she had practically forgotten she was carrying it.
Yes.
You killed the creature yourself? Martha asked.
Yes.
Martha approved her answer with a solemn nod as she took the vial of blood from her. Now the black drink.
Martha held up a small bottle filled with an inky liquid.
Susan stared at her.
Its herbs, child, just herbs. But they create magic.
Susan wanted to refuse.
What was the matter with her? she wondered. All her friends had gone to Martha for potions and palm readings. Martha did have a talent for knowing what was going to happen. Not only could she foretell the future, but sometimes she could also actually make things happen. And always she was an amazing show-woman.
This was an adventure, Susan told herself, and maybejust maybethe potion would work.
Martha was standing in front of her, smiling, looking as gentle as a kitten, as well-meaning as a doting grandmother. She pressed the small bottle into Susans hand and helped her lift it to her lips. The concoction was sweet, not bad tasting, but it carried an aftermath of fire that sent slivers of steel running through her blood.
Suddenly crimson darkness descended, making a stygian pit of the cemetery, a fiery globe of the moon.
I dont want to do this anymore, Susan said. Her voice sounded like a whimper, appalling her. Im sorry, I just want to leave.
Martha laughed, but the sound was husky and taunting, frightening her further. Such a terrified little girl. Were here now, youve had the black drink, the worst is over. Its time.
The darkness lifted, and once again Susan found herself standing in the moonlight in the old cemetery she had walked through dozens of times before. There was nothing dark or terrifying or eerie about it; it was just a field of the dead.
And still, she wished she had never come.
But she didnt want to run away and leave Martha to tell the tale of her cowardice. It would be mortifying if everyone knew what a silly coward she had been. The things that were said about her already were bad enough.
But what were her choices.
Stay and dig up a grave? Or run out of the cemetery alone? Tamper with the dead, or flee through a haunted world of shadow and decomposition, with no companion other than her own thundering heart?
In seconds, my pet, you will be on the road to all that your heart desires. A passion and a tempest unlike anything even you have imagined. You came to me for help. You wanted magic. Youve come this far, dont stop now. Not before you secure all that you hope for on behalf of your babe and for your own life. Its time, Martha said. She sprinkled the blood across the disturbed earth of an antique grave, then lifted her arms to the night sky, the very image of a Druid priestess in a field of ancient stones or one of the voodoo queens of Jamaica, from where she had come long ago. She was not a colored woman, but neither was she white. She had no definitive color, really. She was a pasty shade, like the moon behind the haze, and her eyes were a strange and watery blue.
She didnt give Susan a chance to respond. She began to chant, her face lifted toward the sky, her arms still upraised. The words were unintelligible, a mix of English, French, Spanish and something more ancient. As Susan watched her, she felt herself becoming almost hypnotized by the magic lilt of the words. It was as if her limbs grew leaden, and any desire to be anywhere else left her. The tombstones and vaults, cherubs and angels, even the great guardian dogs, began to appear as natural a setting as the cozy parlor of her home, welcoming her.
The low-lying fog, caught in the amber glow of the moon, seemed to dance around her, wrapping her in an exciting warmth, fanning an ember deep inside her. She watched, she waited, she heard the music of the words and felt strength in the growing heaviness of her form. When she could move, she told herself, she would do so with passion and vitality. She would be vibrant and alive, filled with magic herself.
But even as the sense of well-being warmed her like a cup of cocoa on a cold night, something else was growing, as well. An inner voice warning her that she needed to shake off the leaden sensation. That she needed to run.
Because the ground was moving, erupting as if from a force deep inside, shifting the old stones that lay askew nearby. A shower of dust rose as something solid and large emerged from the ground, like a tree growing at a fantastic rate. Particles of dirt and dust and marble were caught in the faint glow of the tainted moon, gleaming like the snowflakes she had read about in books.
That inner voice screamed at her to run, but it was too late.
She saw what had risen, and a scream rose in her throat, but she couldnt move, and no sound issued from her lips. She could still see Martha, standing there now with a satisfied smile, and she knew that she was no more to the woman than a rung in a ladder, a stepping stone toward power over the darkness. She saw it all so clearly now.
And then she saw what was rising from the ground.
Saw that all Marthas promises had been no more than a ruse to get her there.
The horror approached her, malignant, evil, and she was paralyzed. She knew that whatever had been in the black drink was paralyzing her, saw everything so clearly now that it was too lateoh, God, far too lateto know and see and understand, to know that this had nothing to do with wonder and fantasy and magic.
She saw and felt the essence of evil, heard the rasp of its fetid breath, smelled flesh and blood and bone and the pungence of the earth as her fate stepped closer and closer still, drawing pleasure from her terror and her newfound knowledge
She had not come to make a sacrifice.
She had come to be the sacrifice.
1
Now
The area near the nature preserve was overgrown. Salt flats and marsh met Matanzas Bay and the Intra-coastal, and the water went from shallow to deep, from sloping sand to a sudden drop-off leading to a misty and strange world of fish, tangled plant growth and, despite the best efforts of local and federal lawmakers, de facto garbage dumps.
Caleb Anderson had been drawn to a shopping cart down at about twenty feet, then on to a tire rim beneath a tangle of seaweed at thirty-five, but neither one turned out to be hiding what they were looking for.
The problem was, the authorities were searching blindly. A girl named Winona Hart had disappeared. She had been at a party, but none of her underage drunken friendshalf of them potheads to bootseemed to know when she had left, where she had gone, or with whom.
He looked at his compass, then up through the filter of light to the cable from the police cruiser serving as their dive boat. In his mind, if anything was going to be found, it was going to be closer to the shore. Unless, of course, shed been kidnapped by a boater and dumped somewhere beyond the bay and out in the Atlantic. If that was the case, their chances of finding her were almost nonexistent. The ocean was huge. True, if caught in a current or an undertow, a body might wash up on land. And if they came up with a suspect who regularly followed a certain route, even a weighted body might somehow be discovered.
But at the moment they were searching blindly. Still, he hadnt wanted to miss the opportunity to be in on the search, not when he had promised he would do everything humanly possible to find Jennie Lawson. Admittedly, this grim attempt was not to find Jennie but a local teen who had now been missing for nearly forty-eight hours, a case that might or might not be connected to Jennies. No one knew if Jennie Lawson had actually made it to the beach in St. Augustine, her intended destination. They only knew that she had landed in Jacksonville, gotten off the plane and picked up a rental car. Neither she nor the car had been seen since.
He didnt have much hope of finding Jennie alive. Her mother had told him that she knew Jennie was gone, because her daughter had come to her in a dream the night before her disappearance was reported and said goodbye. Caleb wasnt sure what to believe, because Mr. Lawson seemed to think that Mrs. Lawson had lost her mind when their daughter had disappeared, and he had, in fact, made a motion behind his wifes back to indicate as much.
Caleb had heard of stranger things than ghostly midnight visits, however, so he had simply smiled and vowed to Jennies mother that he would do everything he could to find out the truth, even if he couldnt return her daughter to her. That had comforted her. Closure was something people needed. Perhaps it was too painful to live with eternal hope.
So Caleb was also looking for Jennie, or any sign of her, even if he was officially on the trail of another young woman for whom many were still holding out hope. But this dive was important for other reasons, too; it was giving him a chance to get to know the local authorities and the local expert on the surrounding waters.