Free Hallowed Ground by David Niall Wilson, Steven & Wilson Savile

long silence between heartbeats the wagon was surrounded by cavorting flames.   Balthazar rose and strode forward, seemingly oblivious to the battering heat and scorching flame, and stepped directly into the center of the broken campfire circle.   Mariah tried to cry out, but the air was hot and acrid and she clamped her mouth shut, biting her lip painfully, tasting blood and something else.
    Balthazar turned back to face her.   The flames gathered around him as though his to command.   They did not touch him.   He cast his arms wide and the jacket he wore, a jacket that seemed suddenly far too heavy and warm for the desert, ignited.   It burst into flames.   The raging fire spread, shrouding him, enveloping him.   It hung in the air behind him like fiery wings, and he laughed.
    The laughter rolled over Mariah like pounding thunder.   It buffeted her with such heat she felt her skin drying and shrivelling over her bones.   Still Balthazar laughed.   She closed her eyes and tried again to scream, but now, when she needed her anger there was only fear and no sound would come.   The laughter blew her words, and her breath back down her throat.
    Then he fell silent.   He reached down into the burning coals at his feet.   His hand slipped beneath the surface and returned with a long glowing tube gripped tightly.   Balthazar unscrewed the end of that tube with a deft flick of his wrist.   He upended it and dropped something into his hands.   Another flick of his wrist, and a scroll unfurled.   The paper was bright, and the letters seemed to have been penned in flame.   Mariah tried to read, but it was impossible.   If she kept her eyes open, they felt as though they would melt on the anvil of his fire.
    She closed them as tightly as she could, but it didn't matter.   The images burned through her eyelids and into her brain.   Her head shook from side to side, and she raised her hands to her eyes.   Tears spilled out and steamed through her fingers.
    And then it was gone.   A warm wind brushed across her skin, turning chill as it touched her.   She heard a crow's cry in the distance.   She didn't want to see, but she opened her eyes.   The stones were all in place, the fire in the pit smouldering low.   She turned slowly, not trusting her eyes.
    Balthazar sat in the chair across the old crate from her.   In his hands he held a scroll. He turned and showed it to her.   The script was beautiful and archaic, each flowing line of letters carefully inscribed.   Balthazar unrolled it to the end.   There was a large fragment torn from the bottom right corner, splitting the signature and ruining the perfect symmetry of the document.
    Mariah reached for her coffee.   In its place, a tall, clear glass stood.   The glass was filled with water so cold that condensation peppered the surface.   She gripped it in one shaking hand, and then brought her other hand to steady it as she raised it to her lips and gulped it down.   There was no gentle sipping, no careful swallowing, she inhaled it and almost gagged on the icy water.   What she couldn’t drink dribbled down her chin.
    "It is a long story," Balthazar said.   "It is a story of betrayal and loss, of love and death.   In a way, it could so easily be your story, couldn’t it, Mariah?   Love lost, great treachery, the spectre of death; none of these things are strangers to you, are they?"
    She met his gaze, and though the spark of defiance was not dead, it was – for the moment at least – cowed.
    "Tell me," she said, knowing that she didn’t want to hear it and knowing that she didn’t have any choice but to.
    With a wink, Balthazar began. . .

Chapter Thirteen
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    Benjamin stood over Elizabeth's coffin and stared out through the stained glass windows far above into the dying rays of the sun.   He was alone in the church.   The funeral was