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Dark Victory
Brenda Joyce
Ruthless Highlander Black Macleod has refused his destiny. His life is revenge for the massacre of his family. But fate is impatient and, when a woman from another time summons him, he cannot resist her powers – or her…A schoolteacher by day, Tabitha Rose uses her magic to protect others at night. When the vision of a Highlander appears to her, she knows she must help. What she doesn’t expect is to be taken against her will to his dark, violent time.And when evil begins to stalk her, Tabby realises she must fight for more than his destiny – she must fight for her love…
Praise for New York Times bestselling author
and the Masters of Time
series
Dark Embrace “A Perfect 10. Brenda Joyce has created a tale that is full to overflowing with emotion. Passionate, heartbreaking, hopeful, and entertaining, Dark Embrace is a novel you do not want to miss. I recommend it highly.” —Romance Reviews Today
“Known for her intensity of emotion and superlative storytelling, Joyce draws you into a new Masters of Time
novel that will blow you away with its unforgettable alpha hero and a willful heroine who feels his pain across the centuries.” —RT Book Reviews (Top Pick)
Dark Rival “The supporting characters are excellent, the sex scenes are plentiful … and the plot thick, making this sophomore series entry a fine entertainment, sure to gratify fans of the bestselling kickoff.” —Publishers Weekly
Dark Seduction “Bestselling author Joyce kicks off her Masters of Time
series with a master’s skill, instantly elevating her to the top ranks of the ever-growing list of paranormal romance authors … Steeped in action and sensuality, populated by sexy warriors and strong women, graced with lush details and a captivating story … superlative.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Sexual tension crackles between Claire and Malcolm as he struggles with his desire for Claire and his protective duty in this sizzling, action-packed adventure.”
—Library Journal
Also by Brenda Joyce
The Masters of Time
DARK EMBRACE (Rose Trilogy)
DARK RIVAL
DARK SEDUCTION
The de Warenne Dynasty
A DANGEROUS LOVE
THE PERFECT BRIDE
A LADY AT LAST
THE STOLEN BRIDE
THE MASQUERADE
THE PRIZE
Watch for Book Three of the Rose trilogy
DARK LOVER
Coming January 2014
Dark Victory
Brenda Joyce
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Sydney Chrismon and Michelle Dykes—for twenty-five years of support, love and friendship; love you guys!
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
EPILOGUE
ALL FILES CLASSIFIED
LEVEL 5 CLEARANCE ONLY
H.C.U.
AIDAN THE WOLF OF AWE
Born 1398, Dunroch, Scotland. Six foot three, fair complexion, blue eyes, dark hair, approximately two hundred and ten pounds.
Age: unknown, presumed dead.
Father—the Earl of Moray***. He is believed to be alive despite reports of a vanquishing. Mother—sequestered or deceased. Half-brother—Malcolm of Dunroch**. Wife—deceased 1427. Son, Ian—born 1427, presumed deceased 1436.
Current status—NA. He is believed to have taken the vows of the unnamed and clandestine Brotherhood. ***His loyalty to the Brotherhood has been compromised.***
His Mission—NA
Last seen—September 8, 2008, 26 Moore Street, NYC, 8:12 pm.
Brianna (Brie) Rose
Born: 1982 in upstate NY. Five foot five inches tall, 138 pounds, dark hair, green eyes.
Age—26.
Family History: Father—Frank Billings, realtor. Mother—Anna Rose, deceased.
Personal History: Status—single. Active Relationships—the sisters Tabitha and Sam Rose*, her cousins, and a best friend Alison Monroe, MIT.
Occupation: Brianna Rose* is employed at HCU in Research and Support.
Current status—Missing. Priority Level—1.
Last seen—September 8, 2008, 26 Moore Street, NYC, at 8:15 pm.
Last Updated-September 6, 2007
Aidan
All historical evidence states that the Wolf of Awe was hanged by his political enemies in December, 1502. However, prior to his death his activities were extensive and there have been numerous Sightings of him, as recently as September 8, 2008 in New York City.
Note—Proceed with the assumption that the Wolf may reappear at any time, in any place, and that he has forsaken his vows.
Warning—The Wolf of Awe is unpredictable and extremely dangerous.
*CDA agent or employee ** a Master or otherwise affiliated with the Brotherhood ***evil in any form
Last UPDATED-SEPTEMBER 10th, 2008
Brie
Ms. Rose is believed to have been abducted by the Wolf of Awe and she could be anywhere, in anytime. She has had no PES training. Ms. Rose was recently hospitalised and may be suffering from extreme empathy to her abductor, making her extremely vulnerable. It is believed she does not have the resources to survive in a past era. Her recovery is Priority Level 1.
Tabitha Rose is a practicing witch with some powers; no criminal record. Sam Rose is a classified level 5 CDA agent. Alison Monroe is MIT (missing in time).
*CDA agent or employee **A Master or otherwise affiliated with the Brotherhood ***evil in any form
Last Updated-September 10th, 2008
GUY MACLEOD/THE BLACK MACLEOD
Born approximately in 1190 at Blayde, Scotland. Six foot two inches tall, dark complexion, blue eyes, dark hair.
Age: unknown.
Father, “William the Lion”, the Baron of Blayde, deceased. Mother—Elasaid**, presumed dead, missing since 1201. Mother was a High Priestess of the Brotherhood with great healing powers.
Current status—Unknown. He is believed to have been summoned to Iona to be inducted into the unnamed and clandestine Brotherhood. His status is uncertain.
His mission—NA.
Last seen—December 9, 2008, 4:10 pm, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, NYC.
Tabitha (Tabby) Rose
Born 1979 in upstate NY. Five foot six inches tall, 115 pounds, blond hair, hazel eyes.
Age—29.
Family History: Father—James Comines, deceased. Mother—Laura Rose, deceased. Sister, Sam Rose*, b. 1981. Cousin, Brianna Rose*, MIT, presumed alive.
Personal History: Status—divorced. Active Relationships—sister Sam Rose*, her cousin, Brianna Rose* and a best friend Alison Monroe**.
Occupation: Ms. Rose teaches first grade at PS 106.
Current status—Missing In Time. Priority Level—3.
Last seen—December 9, 2008, 4:10 pm, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, NYC.
Guy
William of Blayde was murdered at Blayde in 1201 along with dozens of his kin; contemporary sources claim political motivations (a clan war). HCU investigators believe Elasaid escaped the massacre, but her whereabouts remain unknown. One daughter survived, Alison (Allie) Monroe**, currently the earl of Morvern’s wife, and a valuable Healer.
Note—It is uncertain if Guy Macleod has taken the holy vows required of the brethren and his appearance in the city remains unexplained. HCU currently believes that Macleod is bent on revenge for the massacre of his family in 1202. +He absconded from the Met with an artefact from the exhibition The Wisdom of the Celts. HCU believes there is vast power in the artefact. Also, on December 8, witnesses claim he was present at the PS 106 hostage crisis.
*CDA agent or employee **A Master or otherwise affiliated with the Brotherhood ***evil in any form +Open investigation.
Last Updated—October 1, 2008.
Tabby
Tabitha Rose is a practicing witch with some powers, the extent of which is uncertain. Her sister, Sam Rose, is employed by CDA, and Brianna Rose was employed at HCU before her disappearance last year. Tabitha Rose is believed to have hidden Guy Macleod from the authorities on December 8; Macleod is believed to have been at the scene of the PS 106 hostage crisis. She has not been seen or heard from since December 9. She is believed to be alive. Witnesses at the Met claim she was abducted against her will. A second Highlander might have been present.
Dangerous demonic entities, possibly deceased or from past times, seem to have followed Macleod to New York City, or, to be hunting Ms. Rose.
ALERT: Agents are instructed to apprehend Macleod and detain him for further questioning. Proceed with caution.
*CDA agent or employee **A Master or otherwise affiliated with the Brotherhood ***evil in any form
Last Updated-October 10th, 2008
IAN MACLEAN, THE BARON OF AWE
Born 1427 in the Highlands of Scotland. Six foot three, fair complexion, gray eyes, dark hair, approximately two hundred and ten pounds. Abducted in 1436 and initially presumed dead.
Age: Unknown.
Father—Aidan of Awe**. A nephew of Malcolm of Dunroch**. Mother—unknown. Status—Single. Occupation—private investments. Primary residence—Loch Awe, Scotland.
Current status—On the Most Wanted Lists of Scotland Yard and Interpol for the theft of various works of art around the world.
Last seen—he is currently residing at 1101 Park Avenue, New York, NY, and was last seen on July 19, 2008, leaving One Hemmer House.***
Alert—He is not one of the Brethren and can be sacrificed for recovery of the page.
Samantha (Sam) Rose*
Born: 1981 in upstate NY. Five foot five inches tall, 138 pounds, dark hair, blue eyes.
Age—28.
Family History: Father—James Comines, deceased. Mother—Laura Rose, deceased. Sister, Tabitha Rose**, b. 1979, MIT. Cousin, Brianna Rose*, MIT. Both women are known to be alive.
Personal History: Status—single. Active Relationships—none.
Occupation: Sam Rose* is employed by HCU as a field agent.
Mission—maintain surveillance on Ian Maclean 24/7 and if possible, recover the page.
Alert-Under all circumstances the page cannot fall into demonic hands.
Last Updated-July 19, 2009
Ian
Ian Maclean was abducted by the demon Moray in 1436, and he was held in demonic captivity for 66 years. All records indicate that he has been highly compromised by six decades of torture and abuse. He is not one of the Brethren. His loyalties remain suspicious. He currently has stolen the page of illusion (from the Duisean) and will sell it to the highest bidder if not stopped by Friday at midnight.
Warning 1—Maclean is unpredictable and extremely dangerous. He has no loyalties and no friends. He has not ties to his family. He has proven many times that he has nothing to lose, not even his own life.
Warning 2—Proceed with the assumption that Maclean has every possible power and will use them against all forces of good and evil to attain his own ends.
*CDA agent or employee ** a Master or otherwise affiliated with the Brotherhood ***evil in any form
Sam
Sam Rose was a vigilante Slayer before becoming an agent at HCU. Her only personal life involved vigilante activities with her sister Tabitha and cousin Brie, both currently classified as MIT, as well as a friend, Allie Monroe, who currently resides in Carrick, Scotland. There is some question as to Agent Rose’s objectivity in her current assignment; records indicate several previous and hostile interactions with Maclean in Scotland last year. However, Agent Rose has yet to fail to accomplish her mission. Agent Rose’s loyalty to CDA is unquestionable.
Note—Agent Rose has an active sexual life. There are no relationships, however. Involvement with Maclean is suspected and must be monitored.
*CDA agent or employee **A Master or otherwise affiliated with the Brotherhood ***evil in any form
Last Updated-July 19th, 2009
Read the complete stories in Brenda Joyce’s The Masters of Time Series:
Dark Embrace—Aidan and Brie
Dark Victory—Guy and Tabitha
Dark Lover—Ian and Sam
(available August 2009)
PROLOGUE
The Future
June 19, 1550
Near Melvaig, Scotland
HE DID NOT KNOW what caused him to awaken.
Guy Macleod sat bolt upright in his bed, his wife’s fury engulfing him. Horror began. Tabitha was rarely angry, but now her rage knew no bounds. He went completely still so that his extraordinary senses could locate her. She was supposed to be in Edinburgh, her sister’s guest. Immediately he knew she was not there—and that she was in great danger.
He would die for her without blinking. He never panicked, but now he fought to stay calm, searching for her.
And that was when he felt the familiar evil.
Black and vast, filled with hatred and malevolence, they’d lived with this evil for two-hundred-and-fifty years. Criosaidh had powerful black magic. Tabitha had equally powerful white power. But Criosaidh had been stalking his wife with growing determination, as if impatient, and with a new boldness recently. Tabitha had scoffed at Guy’s concerns. Now, maybe too late, he knew he’d been right.
He leaped from the bed, his gaze veering to the southern chamber window as he shrugged a leine over his muscular and battle-scarred body. The night sky was still and blue-black, glittering with a billion stars. His stare intensified. His senses sharpened. For one moment, even though Criosaidh’s stronghold at Melvaig was almost a day’s journey away by horse, he thought the night sky there was on fire. It was so oddly bright in the south. But that was impossible.
Or was it?
Tabitha’s power over fire continually amazed him. He had no more doubt now; Tabitha was at Melvaig—and so was Criosaidh.
His alarm vanished, his fear died. He stepped into his boots, leaping as he did so.
He had mastered the art of the leap through time and space centuries ago and he landed upright, dazed but battle ready, in Melvaig’s large central courtyard. The sky above was on fire.
Incredulous, he saw huge balls of fire falling into the bailey. Men, women and children were running for the castle’s front gates, screaming in terror and trying to escape the inferno. For one moment, he wondered if the sun was breaking apart and falling in blazing pieces to the ground, even though he knew better. His gaze shifted. Above the entire stronghold was Melvaig’s tall central tower—and it was an inferno.
Even though stone could not burn, chunks of the gray slabs were falling from the tower, the rocks ablaze, sizzling as they slammed down, only to burn holes into the bailey ground.
Tabitha screamed.
Criosaidh roared in answering rage.
The tower swayed in the fiery night and more blazing stone blocks sheered from it, crashing to the earth below.
They were at war.
He did not have the Sight, but suddenly he experienced the strange feeling his wife so often referred to—déjà vu. He felt as if he were reliving this terrible moment, although he knew he was not.
Only one witch would survive this night.
“Tabitha!” he roared, and bounded to the tower door, leaping to the uppermost floor. As he reached the landing, the heat from the fire inside the tower chamber blasted him, burning his face, chest and hands. He saw the fire scorching a solid wall across half of the tower room. His wife was trapped against the far wall by the flames, which were dangerously close to her velvet skirts.
Horror briefly paralyzed him.
Criosaidh stood on the fire wall’s other side, where the rest of the chamber was untouched by the flames. “You are too late, Macleod. Tonight she dies…at last.”
He had never come undone in battle, not once in almost four centuries. The heat had caused him to crouch; he straightened and flung all of his power at her, enraged as never before. “Ye die,” he roared, but she had wrapped herself in a protective spell, and his power fell harmlessly away from her. As it hit the floor and was diverted to the walls behind her, rock and stone cracked apart.
Macleod looked at his beautiful wife, who was never afraid in a crisis. As their gazes met, he heard her as clearly as ever.
I have known this day would come…You’ve known it, too.
She thought she would be defeated? “No!” he roared at her, blasting Criosaidh again. His life had been an endless cycle of blood and death, his heart had been stone, until she had come to him two-and-a-half centuries ago, bringing joy and happiness with her. Tabitha had saved his life.
Criosaidh smiled as his power was diverted by her spell, again.
“Command the fire,” Macleod shouted at Tabitha.
“I am trying,” she cried. “She has new powers!” Tabitha closed her eyes, visibly straining. And suddenly the fire wall shifted and moved back toward Criosaidh.
Criosaidh hissed in displeasure. Macleod stood very still. His power could not move fire, but long ago he had learned how to use his mind to help Tabitha cast her magic. Now he slipped inside her with his mind. The union always made them stronger—evil had never defeated them when they became one in their thoughts. It could not, must not, defeat them now.
“Fire be hungry, fire be quick. Get the Macleod bitch,” Criosaidh said harshly.
And even as Criosaidh spoke, he saw the tears slipping down Tabitha’s face. She was lost in this battle—and he was afraid it was a terrible portent of the outcome. “No!” he roared, blasting the black witch again. This time, taken unawares, she gasped in pain and was driven back into the untouched wall, but it didn’t matter.
Tabitha went still, eyes wide, as the flames circled her.
He seized Criosaidh, shaking her, wanting to break her. “Stop the fire or die!”
She sneered at him and vanished.
Tabitha screamed.
In horror, he turned—and saw her lavender velvet gown on fire. And then his wife was engulfed in the flames, only a portion of her frightened face visible to him.
I love you…
He knew her so well. It had been two-hundred-and-fifty-two years since he had seduced her in her small loft in New York City and then taken her to Blayde—against her very stubborn will. She was his wife, his lover, his best friend and his greatest ally in the war on evil. She was his partner in every task, both great and small, and she was the mother of his children, the grandmother of his grandchildren. She had taught him love, compassion, humanity. He had never believed in love until she’d come into his life. He’d been ruthless and merciless until Tabitha.
He knew she meant to say more.
Just as he knew these were her last, dying words.
But she did not finish speaking. Instead, the fire erupted, reaching the tower roof, consuming her completely.
“Tabitha!” he screamed.
Then the fire was gone, and there was only the charred ruin of the tower room.
He could not breathe. He could not move. In shock, he stared.
Across the room, upon the floor, he saw the gold necklace she had worn for two-and-a-half centuries, the amulet he had given her. The talisman was an open palm, a pale moonstone glittering in its center.
It had survived the fire, untouched and unscarred; his wife, who had powerful magic, had not.
“No!” He leaped into time.
CHAPTER ONE
The Present
New York City
December 7, 2008
IT HAD BEEN a really quiet weekend. Tabby wasn’t sure what to make of that as she and her sister and a friend stood in line to pass through a security checkpoint at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her sister, Sam, had even gotten off early enough last night to go out to dinner. Tabby couldn’t recall the last time the two of them had been able to go out and have a few drinks and a great meal. It made her uneasy. She was waiting for the ax to fall.
Something huge was going to happen.
She was a Rose, and while she didn’t have the Sight like her cousin, Brie, she could feel the premonition in her bones.
“It is weird,” Sam said, as they filed toward the security inspector. “There were only four friggin’ pleasure crimes yesterday. Not that I’m complaining. But it was Saturday night.”
Although they were sisters, they were as different as night and day. Sam was hard and edgy, while Tabby was soft and classic. Two years younger than Tabby, Sam wore short, spiky platinum hair, had an Angelina Jolie body and the face to go with it. Tabby was used to the attention her sister always received. Every male they passed, young or old, gave her a second glance—male radar gone haywire. Tabby didn’t mind. She knew she was conservative and old-fashioned. Although it was Sunday, she wore a wool skirt, a cashmere V-neck and pearls. She didn’t even own a pair of jeans.
Sam was being gawked at now. The tall, young male turned his gaze to Tabby next, giving her the once-over. Tabby was used to that, too. She was an attractive woman; her sister simply overshadowed her.
“There was not one Rampage, not in any of the five boroughs,” Sam said. “I mean, it’s noon and I haven’t even been called in on a case.”
Tabby knew that her warrior sister, who was an agent at HCU, was bored. Sam was at her best when she was hunting on the city streets. But the Rampages were terrible crimes. Innocent victims were burned, medieval style, at the stake. As eerie as the sudden decline in violence was, she should not be complaining.
“Why are you so uptight? I saw who you met up with at Trenza,” Kit said to Sam, smiling. “She was with Young, Dark and Hot.”
“Very young, very hot and very, very good.” Sam smiled.
“I don’t know why they never have friends,” Kit complained, but she winked at Tabby. She was slim, fair and dark-haired. Tabby had never seen her wear a stitch of makeup—she didn’t have to. Her siren’s face and sensuously buff body hid a brilliant intensity and resolve. Like Sam, her first love was the war on evil. She was one of the most serious and determined women Tabby had ever met, but Tabby didn’t blame her. Her twin sister had died in Jerusalem in Kit’s arms, the victim of demonic violence. Sometimes Tabby thought she might still be mourning Kelly. Kit worked at HCU, too—it was how she’d met Sam.
But Sam said, “He had a friend. You cut out before you could meet him.”
Kit shrugged negligently. “Had to hit the gym and take care of the bod.”
Sam snorted.
Tabby wasn’t sure if Kit was as old-fashioned as she was, or if she was simply too obsessed with work to get involved, but she had known Kit for about a year, and she was pretty certain Kit was as celibate as she was. The joke was a front and they all knew it. It was okay—they both lived vicariously through Sam. A stranger might be appalled by the way Sam used men, but Tabby was proud of her. She was a powerful and gorgeous woman; she was the one to say yes or no; she was the one who did the dumping. Sam would never have her heart broken. She would be spared that.
Tabby was relieved when the slight aching in her breast did not suddenly pierce through her heart and soul. The divorce no longer hurt. The betrayals no longer hurt. It was almost two years since she’d learned the extent of her ex-husband’s lies and adultery. She’d given him all of her love, and she’d meant every word of their marriage vows. It was the kind of woman she was. He hadn’t meant one damned word.
She intended to learn from her mistakes. Randall hadn’t been the love of her life after all. He had been a Wall Street investor—a high roller and a player. He’d cheated on her from start to finish, and to make the cliché just perfect, she’d been the last to find out. She was never going near that charismatic macho type again.
But sometimes, especially recently, she wished she was a bit more like her sister when it came to men. She did not want to even think that she might be lonely or that she needed the kind of intimacy she wasn’t sure she’d ever have again, but the evenings were getting harder and harder to deal with. She’d started dating again, being really careful to go out with intellectuals and artists, but it felt as if she was simply going through the motions. And maybe she was. When it came to dating and sex, she was the exact opposite of her sister. If she wasn’t in love, it wasn’t happening. She didn’t turn on easily, either. Maybe love and passion weren’t in the cards for her. She was twenty-nine already, and beginning to think she’d better focus on her Destiny as a Rose woman.
“You know, I wish you’d let me set you up with the new guy at CDA,” Sam said.
Tabby smiled a bit grimly at her. She’d met MacGregor once, when he and Sam had been leaving the Center for Demonic Activity Agency together. “Definitely not,” she said, meaning it. The agent had had macho written all over him.
“Let her explore the Beta side of life,” Kit said, her eyes wide with innocence. “Who knows? Maybe she’ll find a match made in some kind of odd, metro heaven.”
Tabby felt a pang, but she smiled brightly and said, “That’s the plan.”
Kit sobered and touched her arm. “I’m sorry. I never met Randall and I shouldn’t tease you for going out with his polar opposite.”
“It’s okay,” Tabby said. She smiled firmly. “What’s meant to be is meant to be. Maybe the love of my life is a poet with a Ph.D.”
Sam choked. “Over my dead body.” Then she looked closely at Tabby. “Are you okay?”
Sam always knew when something was really wrong. “It’s still hard.”
“Yeah, it is,” Sam said, and they both knew they were referring to their cousin, Brie. Kit probably knew it, too, but she pretended not to hear them, moving as the line progressed.
The Rose women were special. Each had her own Destiny, tied into the war on evil. For generations, the Rose women had been using their unusual powers to aid and abet good. It had only been three months since Brie had left them to redeem the Wolf of Awe. The year before, their best friend Allie had also vanished. Although Allie wasn’t related to them, they had become friends with her as children. That had been Fate, too—it turned out that she was a powerful Healer. Each woman had gone to embrace her Destiny in the past, because it had been time to do so. That was how the universe worked. It was a fundamental Wisdom in the Book of Roses, which had been passed down through the generations of Rose women.
Tabby missed them both, sometimes terribly, but she was also happy for them because Allie and Brie were hardly alone in the Middle Ages. Their Destinies had included powerful, nearly immortal partners—Highlanders who battled at their sides, as driven and committed as they were to the war on evil. But their absence had left a gaping hole in their lives. Sam had helped fill the void by going to work at HCU, the Historic Crimes Unit of CDA, a clandestine government agency dedicated to fighting the evil preying on society. Sam’s boss, Nick Forrester, ran HCU with an iron fist but he could be counted on to back them up. And so could Kit. But it wasn’t the same without Allie and Brie.
There was no defying Destiny. Tabby’s Destiny was magic. Every generation of Rose women had a Slayer, a Healer and a Witch. She had been practicing her craft since she was fourteen—the year her mother had died, the victim of a demonic pleasure crime. There was one big fat problem, though. Rose women usually came into their powers very, very swiftly once their Destiny was made known. Apparently, Tabby was the exception to that rule. Although she’d been practicing magic since adolescence, her powers were still erratic and, once in a while, too weak to do any good. It simply didn’t make any sense.
But as the Book of Roses said, there was a reason for everything.
Kit said, “After the gym, I went back to HCU. I was digging around in some older case files. That last Rampage has been bothering me. There were only three in the gang.”
“They were doped up on a drug we’ve never seen before,” Sam said quietly.
HCU’s jurisdiction was the past—all past demonic activity, even if centuries old. Because so many of today’s demons came from previous centuries, HCU’s agents worked closely with CDA. Rarely could a present-day crime be solved without HCU’s expertise. Tabby had already heard about last week’s Rampage. A couple had been burned at the stake in one of Manhattan’s most posh neighborhoods. These terrible murders were usually committed between midnight and dawn, with an entire gang present. But it had only been 8:00 p.m. and only three gang members had been there, two males and a female. Were they becoming bolder? Had it even been a genuine Rampage?
The press had dubbed the crimes “witch burnings,” a label Tabby particularly disliked, because the victims were average men, women and children of all ages, races, sizes and shapes. But then, evil rarely discriminated—except, of course, when it came to pleasure crimes. Then the most innocent and beautiful were chosen. The witch burnings had instilled so much fear into the general public that no one seemed to care that seventy percent of all murders were still pleasure crimes. What was really scary was how vicious the gangs of possessed kids had become.
They’d once been ghetto gang members or normal kids gone missing. Evil preyed on them, seducing these gang members, offering them power in return for their souls, and then directing them to commit violence, brutality, bestiality and anarchy. The possessed gangs were out of control, ruling the city streets through fear and might. Gang warfare was no longer “in.” Now the gangs often worked together to hunt down civilians, cruelly and sadistically. Very few “normal” gangs remained in the country now.
“Something’s been bothering me about the Rampages, across the board,” Kit said. “I feel like I’ve missed a really glaring clue.”
“I’ll go back to HCU with you,” Sam decided, “and we can check it out.”
They had reached the security checkpoint. Tabby smiled at the guard as Sam flipped her government ID. Sam’s messenger bag was loaded with weapons, and she carried a stiletto up her sleeve and a Beretta in a shoulder holster. She would never make it through the checkpoint. Kit flipped a similar ID. Although they were government issued, neither Kit nor Sam were Feds, as the IDs claimed. But CDA was so clandestine that only the top levels of the CIA, the FBI and the Secret Service worked with its agents.
As they passed through the checkpoint, Sam and Kit were both so thoughtful that Tabby had the feeling they were ready to cut out on their plans for the afternoon. She would have to wander around the exhibit by herself, and return alone to the loft she shared with Sam. She’d float around it in the same solitude she did every night—except when she was out with some sweet guy she had no real interest in. It was lonely—Sam was almost never there—but she’d deal the same way she always did. She’d outline tomorrow’s curriculum, and then work on her spells.
“So which way to the Wisdom of the Celts?” Sam asked.
Tabby smiled back, relieved. Sam knew she needed company. “Up those stairs,” she said, nodding.
The huge front hall was terribly crowded. Every New Yorker knew that visiting the Met on the weekend was a really dumb idea. They started across the granite floored hall, dwarfed by the columns and arches, before going up the broad staircase to the first level of exhibits.
There was no line.
They exchanged looks as they approached the glass displays. Tabby said, “This is too weird. There should have been a half-hour wait, at least.”
Kit murmured, “It’s an exhibit on medieval Ireland. If you ask me, medieval Scotland and Ireland are peas in the same pod.”
Allie and Brie were in medieval Scotland, with Highlanders who belonged to a secret society dedicated to the protection of Innocence. “Are you saying that you think we’re meant to go in here? That the exhibit is related to the Brotherhood?”
“The earliest Scots came from Dalriada—which is Ireland.”
Tabby barely heard them. She realized her heart was thundering as she left them debating the odd lack of a line and walked over to a large glass display case. Inside, there were numerous artifacts and objects. She vaguely saw a large sword with an intricately designed hilt, and a pair of daggers, a brooch and a cup. But her gaze was drawn to the necklace there, instead.
A terrible tension filled her as she stared at the gold chain and the pendant hanging from it. It was a talisman in the shape of an open palm, a pale stone glittering from the palm’s center.
Tabby’s pulse skittered wildly in her throat. When she touched the hollow of her collarbone, where she wore pearls and a small key on a chain, her skin there felt far too warm. She felt a bit dizzy, faint.
“Are you all right?” Sam asked.
“I feel odd,” Tabby said, realizing she was perspiring. She leaned forward to read about the amulet.
It was dated to the early thirteenth century, but had been found in 1932 among the ruins of Melvaig Castle in the northeastern Highlands of Scotland. It had somehow survived the legendary battle of An Tùir-Tara, which meant the Burning Tower. On June 19, 1550, a terrible fire had destroyed the central tower of Melvaig Castle. Most historians could not decide on the cause of the inferno, because no weapons or other signs of a battle had been found. A blaze that extensive should have been caused by medieval warfare. The most common hypothesis was that the fire was the result of treachery, the kind so often seen in the ongoing clan war between the MacDougalls of Skye and their blood enemies, the Macleods of Loch Gairloch. That bloody and bitter clan feud seemed to have originated in 1201, when a fire set by the MacDougalls razed the Macleod stronghold at Blayde to the ground, destroying the Macleod chief, William the Lion. Very few survivors were left, but amongst them was Macleod’s fourteen-year-old son.
Tabby reeled. The words blurred before her eyes. She could not breathe; she started to choke on the lack of air.
The Macleods of Loch Gairloch….
His fourteen-year-old son….
She finally breathed, gulping in air. Were the Macleods important somehow? Did she know the clan? Had they been a part of Rose history? Why did that boy seem important to her? She almost felt as if the clan name rang a bell, as if she needed to reach out to that boy. Yet she did not know anyone named Macleod. Her family came from Narne, in the western Highlands.
But she remained shaken. She could almost see a fourteen-year-old boy, covered in blood and choking on grief and guilt. And suddenly so much conflicting emotion consumed her that she could not breathe at all.
Tabby went still.
She could see the inferno.
The sky was pitch-black, and an entire castle was ablaze. There was dread, fury.
The images shifted. The sky was a brilliant robin’s-egg blue. Only a soaring tower burned….
The terrible emotions intensified. Tabby cried out, rocked by the rage and anguish, the fear, the horror, and even the love.
And there was evil, too.
“What’s wrong?” Sam asked urgently. “You need to sit down!”
Tabby barely heard her sister. Tabby did not have the power to sense evil, but evil was beckoning her now. It wanted her. Tabby strained to see, horrified and mesmerized at once. And from the raging inferno on that sunny summer day, a dark fog came, slithering over the blazing tower, consuming it. Slowly the dark mists began shape-shifting into a woman—a faceless woman cloaked in swirling black.
“Tabby, damn it!”
The evil woman beckoned. Tabby couldn’t see her face but she knew she was smiling the cold, lustful smile of pure evil. Then she realized that she was afraid.
Tabby blinked. The darkly cloaked woman became clearer. Night-black hair spilled over her cloak, framing her pale beautiful face. She somehow knew this woman—a black witch or a demon. It was déjà vu. Yet they’d never met.
The woman started to drift away. She opened her eyes—or her eyes were already open and only now could she see what was in front of her. She clung to Sam’s strong arms. Her sister was pale and staring at her with alarm. “Evil,” she whispered dryly.
She felt Sam’s disbelief. “But you can’t sense evil. I can, and there’s no evil here, Tabby.”
There was so much evil. “It’s here. I’m sensing it now. It’s a woman.”
“She’s as white as a sheet. She’s going to faint—she needs to lie down and get her feet elevated,” Kit said quickly.
Tabby then saw Kit beside Sam, the display and the amulet behind them. She stared at the bright gold palm. “I’m okay,” she said harshly.
“I didn’t feel any evil,” Sam said quietly. “Is it coming from the talisman?”
Tabby wet her lips, no longer dizzy but still a bit weak. What had just happened? She’d just felt a huge and threatening black force. And it had wanted her?
Her gaze moved to the glowing white stone in the palm’s center. It winked at her and she was stunned to feel its holy power. “It has white light. The amulet is for good, not evil. It has powerful magic.”
“It has to, to survive a fire. Gold melts,” Kit said flatly.
Tabby trembled. “I think I had a vision.” And what about her reaction to the fourteen-year-old boy who had survived Blayde’s destruction in the thirteenth century?
Tabby tensed. She felt as if she could almost see that boy. When she’d read those words, she’d felt his grief and guilt.
Sam’s dark blue eyes widened. “You don’t have the Sight, either!”
“It felt like déjà vu.” She wet her dry lips again. “There was a witch—or a female demon. I know her.” She corrected herself. “I knew her. And the survivor of the first fire, I might know him, too.”
“What first fire?” Sam demanded.
Tabby realized she needed to sit down. “The clans started warring after 1201—it says so right on the plaque, Sam.” She glanced around for a bench. There was one across the hall, but she didn’t want to leave the display.
A brief silence fell, in which they all considered what had just happened. Kit said, “I get good vibes from the pendant. Maybe I can dig up something at HCU on it, and on these two clans.”
“My gut is telling me that we should see what we can find out about An Tùir-Tara.” Sam stared closely at Tabby. “Ring any more bells?”
Tabby stared at her sister. Whatever had happened at An Tùir-Tara had been frightening and horrible. What was Sam thinking? She looked far too grim—as if she knew more than she’d let on.
“Want me to dig into the destruction of Blayde, too?” Sam asked quietly.
Tabby became chilled—and even more sick. The boy’s grief felt as if it was a part of her. Had she been there?
She thought about reincarnation. The Book of Roses had one mention of past lives, in a Wisdom that had clearly been read over and over again. Tabby didn’t disbelieve in past lives, but she didn’t believe, exactly, either. “Are you thinking I was there? Either at Blayde, or at An Tùir-Tara in 1550?”
“I don’t know,” Sam said matter-of-factly. She was oddly poker-faced. What was going on with her?
“Maybe Mom was there, or Grandma Sara, or another ancestor,” Sam said. “Maybe it was you, in a different life, although I’m not really into reincarnation. Or maybe you are coming into the power to sense evil—to feel across time the way Brie did.” Sam shrugged. “It can’t hurt to check it out. You’re obviously involved with this amulet, in one way or another.”
Tabby was silent now. The Book of Roses was very clear about Fate and the fact that there was no such thing as coincidence.
“I hate to jinx ourselves, but I’ve been waiting for something bad to happen all day. I just thought it would be really bad—you know, like vampires from a Buffy episode stepping out of the TV and coming to life in our living rooms,” Kit said, eyes wide.
Tabby couldn’t smile.
“We need vampires like we need a hole in the head. Don’t give the demons any ideas,” Sam said, amused. Then she and Kit exchanged conspiratorial looks.
Kit was more of a Hunter than a Slayer, and not half as impatient as Sam. She didn’t mind spending days poring through HCU’s amazing database, while Sam couldn’t sit still for very long—or stay off the street for very long. “What are you two planning?” Tabby asked with some trepidation.
Sam put her arm around her. “You’re still really pale. I think we should take you home and start checking this out. Tomorrow would be a better time to visit here, anyway.”
Tabby knew Sam was worried about her. She stared past her sister at the pendant. The little white stone was glowing now. “I’m fine.”
“What does that mean? We can’t leave you here, not when you almost fainted,” Sam said. “You seemed to go back in time while standing right here with us. I don’t like it, not one bit.”
Sam was never this protective of her. They were a team of equals, backing each other up in crisis after crisis. They fought demons together almost nightly. Tabby straightened and took a deep breath, deciding not to worry about her sister’s odd behavior now. She needed to think about that boy and that demon-witch. “I’m staying. I have to stay.” When Sam’s eyes widened, she said firmly, as if to one of her first-graders, “I am fine. I’m not going to break like fine china. I am going to get some water and then I am going to sit down by this amulet and think—and feel.”
Sam finally said, “I am not liking this very much.”
Tabby stared closely. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Sam’s expression became bland. “We don’t keep secrets, Tab.”
Kit said, “She should stay here, Sam. We were meant to be here today. This is the first time she’s ever felt evil—and by God, she felt it across time. This is a medieval Celtic exhibit. Melvaig is in the Highlands.”
Kit thought the exhibit related to the Highlanders who were fighting this war with them—but from medieval times, Tabby thought, surprised. She didn’t buy that. This was about a suffering boy and a woman with lots of black power. And it was about that amulet.
But why did everything feel so familiar?
Sam was grim. “That was spoken like a Rose,” she said to Kit.
“Hanging around you two, I feel like a Rose sometimes,” she quipped, her eyes sparkling.
“You know I can hold my own when it counts,” Tabby said, which was true.
“Okay,” Sam said, shrugging. “You’re a big girl and this is obviously in the Big Game Plan. Don’t know what got into me.”
Tabby walked back with them as far as the closest water fountain. She preferred Giuliani Water to the bottled stuff, anyway. When Sam and Kit were gone and she’d had a drink, she hurried back to the exhibit.
The closer she got to the glass case with the amulet, the stranger she began to feel. Dizzy, expectant, nervous, afraid…and angered.
She paused before the bright gold palm, light-headed and tense, uneasy. She’d been waiting for the sky to fall and it was falling now—this was it, she thought anxiously. The white moonstone blinked merrily at her. She remained aware of the boy and the woman with black power, of all the emotions that were somehow associated with the amulet, or An Tùir-Tara, or Blayde and the warring clans. Just as she had the odd notion that the amulet was protecting her from getting too close to emotions that might be dangerous for her—or a life that might be dangerous for her—so much grief consumed Tabby that she cried out.
It sent her right down to her knees.
It was the kind of grief she’d never felt in her life. It resonated with so much male warrior power and so much rage. On her hands and knees, Tabby somehow looked up.
A Highlander towered over her. He was a huge and muscular man, dark of complexion and hair, his face a mask of fury. His face was blistered, burned and bleeding. She recoiled in fear. He was holding a long sword, his knuckles blistered and bloody, too, and a red-and-black plaid was pinned to one shoulder. Otherwise he was clad in a short-sleeved tunic that hit mid-thigh, and it was charred and sooty. She inhaled—his arms and thighs were also burned and bloody!
His enraged and anguished blue eyes locked with hers.
In his grief, the Highlander looked ready to commit murder.
Uncertain if he was real or not, she somehow got up and reached for his hand. Her fingers grazed his.
Her heart leaped as they made contact for one split second.
And then he vanished.
Tabby reeled backward, her fingers burning from the heat of his hands, until she leaned against the case. Her heart was pounding with explosive force. She somehow saw a Met security officer begin to hurry toward her, but she couldn’t move off the display. She was shaken to the very core of her soul, his blue eyes engraved in her mind. Finally, she whispered, “Come back. Let me help you.”
The security officer grabbed her arm. “You can’t lean on the case, miss. Are you all right?”
Tabby barely heard him. She pulled away, rushing to the nearest bench, where she collapsed. She inhaled, her mind racing. She had to cast a spell to bring him back to her while he was still close, before he vanished into time. She had to help him.
Tabby closed her eyes. Beginning to perspire, focused as never before, she murmured, “Come to me, Highlander, come to me now. Come to my healing power. Come to me, Highlander.”
She knew she had to help him. Somehow, it was the most important moment of her life.
Tabby waited.
CHAPTER TWO
The Past
Blayde, Scotland
1298
“YE HAVE NO HEART!”
“Aye.” The Black Macleod stared coldly down at his mortal enemy. The man crouched on his hands and knees, shaking like a leaf, as pale as any ghost, clearly terrified. Panic showed in his eyes. Macleod felt nothing in return.
Alasdair would die that day. It was that simple. He could beg for mercy, but there would be none. He had been hunting down the MacDougall kinsmen since he was fourteen years old. He had lost tally of all the MacDougall men he had wounded, maimed and killed. He did not even care what that count was. Maybe, as his enemies said, his heart was truly made of stone.
“A Uilleam,” he said softly.
Images from the past flashed. He fought them, unwilling to ever see them again. His father being stabbed, repeatedly, while he helplessly watched…his father, a still and lifeless corpse, being sent to his burial at sea…Blayde in ruins, a pile of scorched black stone, the sun bloodred as it was rising in the smoke-filled dawn…and a jumbled, unfocused image of the desperate, grief-stricken boy he’d once been.
“My wife is with child, Macleod, I beg ye!” The MacDougall of Melvaig screamed. “What happened at Blayde was long ago. I wasna even born yet! Yer father tried to make peace, Macleod. Let us do what our fathers failed to do!”
His father, William, had tried to make peace—and instead, the entire clan had been murdered in a bloody midnight massacre. His life had become revenge that day. It remained revenge now.
“A Elasaid,” he said harshly. Deep within himself, he felt the anger roiling. In war, he never allowed it free rein. “A Blayde.”
He knew better than to try to use his god-given powers to murder the other man. A master swordsman, Alasdair’s scream sounded and was cut off as Macleod’s sword sliced through skin and flesh, tendon and bone, severing his head from his body.
For one moment, Macleod stood there coldly, watching the headless man topple over and finally begin to tumble down the slope. The boy felt a bit closer now. His choked sobs became mere hiccups. Macleod looked at the wide-eyed, severed head, aware that the boy was the only one present who cared. Sightlessly, Alasdair stared back at him.
Sometimes he wished that the boy had died that day, too.
His heart was beating, though, slow and steady, telling him that he did have a heart—contrary to what popular opinion held. His expression never changing, his mouth remaining hard and tight, Macleod reached down, seized Alasdair’s head by his golden hair and flung it away, into the ravine and river below. “Join yer ancestors in hell.”
The ground rolled ominously beneath his feet. The sky overhead was the color of wildflowers, but thunder boomed directly above him and lightning split the sky. The gods were furious with him.
Again.
He did not care. He looked up and laughed at them—scorning their wishes, their commands.
They could curse him and threaten him, and even spoil his powers, but he was their grandson and he feared no one…not even an angry god. “Do as ye will,” he said, and for the first time that day, his interest was actually piqued.
Their response was immediate. Lightning split a nearby tree, and it crashed over at his feet.
He smiled with amusement. Did they think that would scare him?
Then he turned his attention to the fear and fury roiling below him.
His smile gone, Macleod turned to stare at the river below, where Alasdair’s sixteen-year-old son had fled to hide. Macleod had lurked not far from Melvaig in the hopes of preying upon Alasdair, or one of his brothers or cousins, but Alasdair had ridden out with his eldest son. Macleod had followed and eventually ambushed them.
He was a very tall man, often standing a head over everyone else, with a muscular body hewn from years of riding difficult chargers, running ridges and hills, and engaging in the kind of warfare he liked best—hand-to-hand and sword-to-sword combat. He might have extraordinary powers, but he could not depend upon them—they were often erratic. It hardly mattered. He was stronger than all the men he knew, faster, and more intelligent. He had never lost a battle, not in any kind of combat; nor did he intend to.
It was a pleasant June day, warmer than was usual this far north, and he wore a simple short-sleeved leine that came to mid-thigh. It was belted at the waist, and the bold red-and-black brat of the Macleod clan was pinned to his left shoulder with a gold-and-citrine brooch, where a lion was engraved upon the golden stone. The brooch had belonged to his father, the great William the Lion. He wore both long and short swords. His boots were knee-high and spurred. Unlike other Highlanders, his skin was surprisingly dark and his hair was almost as black as midnight, but his eyes were stunningly blue. His mother had told him that his grandfather had been the son of a Persian goddess—the explanation for his unusual coloring.
Macleod saw movement below, along the river’s banks.
As he did, Alasdair’s son’s desperation washed over him, and instantly the other boy, the fourteen-year-old who should have died, came back. He almost recalled a very similar moment of desperation, ninety-seven years ago. He decided not to think about it.
He began to move down the ridge, intent, unrushed and very aware of his prey’s fear—and his courage. Blue flashed; he heard a branch snap. He slid and slipped down the wet dirt, pausing, listening acutely to Coinneach MacDougall’s every thought.
He’ll kill me without a second thought, as he did my da’…. He’s too fast, too strong, to fight openly…. I ha’ to hide…so I can return to kill him another day!
Macleod took a few more steps and reached the rocky bank of the river. A pair of doe took flight as he paused, listening to his victim’s thoughts carefully.
He canna be immortal, as is claimed…. Someone will kill him one day—an’ ’twill be me!
As if anticipating the kill, a huge black crow settled on the upper bough of a fir, its black eyes bright with interest. Macleod knew that Coinneach hid behind that tree.
He slid his sword from its sheath. Well oiled and bloody, it hissed loudly in the quiet Highland morning.
A nearby saber sang.
The boy had drawn his sword. His thoughts were silent now. Coinneach would die fighting—a true Highlander’s death. His kin would be proud of him—and then they would seek revenge for both father and son.
He did not care. It was the way of this Highland world. Death brought revenge and more death. The cycle was an endless one and to question it would be as purposeless as questioning why the sun rose and set each and every day. He started toward the stand of firs.
Lightning sizzled in the blue sky.
Macleod ignored the warning. As he was about to step into the thigh-deep water, he felt a huge power emerging behind him, almost as holy as that of the gods. The power was so immense that it enveloped him. He instantly recognized its source. Macleod tensed.
Thunder boomed.
“Let him live. He’s Innocent.”
And finally, he was angered. He turned to face MacNeil, the Abbot of Iona—the man who had become his protector and guardian the day after the massacre, the man he had come to consider both family and friend. But MacNeil was not in the habit of calling at Blayde—except when he meant to harass him. “Dinna interfere,” Macleod warned, meaning it.
MacNeil was a tall, golden Highlander with more power and wisdom than any other man, mortal or not. “Of course I will interfere. If I dinna protect ye from yerself, who will?”
“I dinna need protection, not from ye or anyone,” Macleod said, his temper lost at last. He would never allow himself any passion during a hunt or a battle, but he was aware of Coinneach running through the forest, toward Melvaig, the hunt now ended. So he would live…only to die another day.
MacNeil’s smile faded. “Have I ever failed ye on this day, lad?” he asked softly.
Macleod’s tension increased. It was the anniversary of the murders—and the burials. “Ye need not come every single year. I never think about the past. I ceased thinking about the past an’ that day years ago.” It wasn’t really a lie, he thought. “It serves no purpose. I leave broodin’ to the women,” he snarled.
“I will always come on the anniversary of their deaths,” MacNeil said gently. “Besides, the gods are impatient. I’m impatient.”
And finally Macleod felt as if he was on firm ground again. He smiled, but without humor. “So ye say, year after year. Ye bore me, MacNeil, the way a woman does when she’s not in my bed.”
“Ye’re as stubborn as that boy was,” Macleod said, unperturbed. “But Coinneach is cunning. Ye’re a fool. Ye survived the massacre fer great reasons! And ye heard the gods just now—in a rage over yer pursuit of an Innocent.”
“No one commands me, MacNeil. Not even yer gods.”
“Now ye deny yer mother’s faith?”
He was furious, enough so that the branches on the nearby firs started waving wildly about their heads. “Dinna dare speak to me o’ Elasaid!”
“Ye survived that terrible day so ye could become a great Master—so ye could take yer vows to protect Innocence an’ keep Faith. Most Masters take their vows at an early age, but yer over a hundred years old now. Ye can hardly delay fer much longer. An’ I’ll discuss yer mother if I wish. She must be very disappointed, lad.”
Macleod was enraged. “Mention her again an’ suffer the consequences!”
“I hardly fear ye…an’ I willna fight ye, not now, not ever.”
His duty was to his father, the great William, first and always. Elasaid would understand. He had no intention of taking his vows and joining the brethren—ever. He did not mind fighting evil—he fought evil as naturally as he took women to his bed. He did both every single day. His heart might be made of stone, but his word was written in stone, as well. If he took the vows MacNeil was speaking of, those vows would rule his life. The gods would rule his life. Protecting the Innocent would rule his life. And then he would have to forgo—or even forget—his duty to his dead kin and to Blayde. And that he would not do.
“’Tis time. Come to Iona and make yer vows.” MacNeil laid his hand upon his shoulder again. “Before yer Destiny is taken from ye.”
“Let them take my damned Destiny,” Macleod snapped. “It would please me greatly!”
“Ye act fourteen years old!” MacNeil exclaimed. “We both ken ye can control that rage o’ yours. Ye do so when ye hunt an’ war—ye can do so now.”
“Ye push me more than I’d ever let any other man push me, MacNeil. I let ye do so because I owe ye still. Ye arrived at Blayde that day with yer soldiers to help me turn the enemy away. Blayde would have been lost if ye hadn’t come. Ye helped me bury the dead—ye helped me rebuild. But I watched two Frenchmen stab my father in the back. I was held captive an’ I could not go to aid him, to defend him! My mother died in the fires that day, carryin’ my brother or sister in her womb. My two older brothers died that day, fighting against all odds.” Now, the placid river was raging, racing past them. “When every MacDougall is dead, I will come to yer island and swear on yer holy books to serve the Ancients and protect Innocence. But as long as a single MacDougall lives, my duty is to Blayde.”
“Are ye nay tired of yer endless wars? Have ye never thought of havin’ a different life—a pleasin’ one?”
“Ye’re the fool now.” He turned and whistled for his horse, aware that it was but a short distance away, grazing in a nearby glen. He’d leaped from it to pursue Alasdair on foot.
MacNeil sighed. “Ye’ve had yer revenge—ye’ve had yer revenge for over ninety years. No man would ever fault ye, Guy. Ye have done yer duty to yer father an’ mother.”
“My duty will never be done.” As he spoke, he glimpsed that young boy again, and his presence infuriated him. That boy was weak and he’d failed everyone. “If ye cease yer harangue, ye’re welcome at Blayde an’ I will be pleased to offer ye wine, a woman and a bed.”
Hooves sounded. The huge black charger came galloping up the riverbank, its eyes bright with interest. Macleod seized the bridle, then gave the animal a single stroke upon its neck.
“Ye’ve enchanted yer horse. Yer powers are meant to be used against deamhanain an’ their lackeys, not on mortals an’ not on the gods’ earthly creatures.”
Macleod shrugged. Shortly before the massacre—as if the gods had known he would lose his family and become laird—he had learned that he could hear the thoughts of others and bend the will of either man or beast with a simple direct thought. It was a useful power. And just after the massacre, he had found his other, god-given powers, powers that could destroy a man or a deamhan with a single blast.
But MacNeil showed no sign of being ready to return to Blayde. “Do ye ever wonder why yer powers sometimes defy yer very will?”
It was common knowledge that he often could not control his own powers, especially when he was angry. Even those closest to him were afraid of his errant powers and his terrible temper. “I dinna care if the occasional stone wall falls when I take an extra breath.” But he was curious now.
“When ye take yer vows, ye’ll be master of yer powers, Macleod, but until then, they’ll escape ye when ye need them most. The gods toy with ye—a punishment fer yer refusal to obey them.”
He had seen MacNeil use his powers, and they never failed him. Suddenly the explanation made so much more sense than his assumption that he was simply less skillful or powerful. “I have enough power, more than any mortal man,” he said slowly. “Ye should remind the gods that I never use their powers to dispatch my enemies. I always use my dagger, my sword or my bare hands.”
“We ken,” MacNeil said. “’Tis hardly enough, lad.”
He hated it when MacNeil looked at him as if he was looking into his very heart and soul, seeing secrets even Macleod did not know. MacNeil had great Sight. He could see the future and the past. If anyone could look into a man’s most private and unspoken thoughts, it was MacNeil. “I am ready fer wine,” he said, leaping onto his horse. “Ye have no mount, but then, ye undoubtedly leaped to Melvaig.” MacNeil could leap to Blayde to meet him there.
MacNeil seized the bridle.
“Ye were spared that day because the gods wrote yer Fate. ’Tis time to take the vows an’ serve them—or suffer their displeasure.”
That sounded like a threat! “Aye, the damned gods wrote my Fate—ye’ve told me a hundred times. But the massacre was Highland madness. The gods dinna care to save my family and I’m a mad Highlander now!”
“No god can save every man, woman or child,” MacNeil fired back. “’Tis impossible!”
“Let go of my horse.”
“I fear for ye now.”
“Dinna bother to fear fer me. An’, MacNeil? The boy will die another day.” He reached down and jerked his reins free.
“Ye had better think on yer ways,” MacNeil warned, his eyes dark and fierce now. “Because if ye dinna take yer vows soon, the gods will turn against ye.”
Macleod froze. The gods could not turn against him. His mother had been a holy woman. While no one could worship the old gods openly—it was heresy—she had been their priestess and he had been raised in those ancient beliefs. He still worshipped the Ancients secretly, while outwardly conforming to the Catholic Church. For ninety-seven years, he had been told that the gods had spared his life so that he could serve them as a holy warrior.
How could the gods turn against him? He was one of them.
“I came here today to warn ye, Guy. Continue to displease the gods, an’ they will disown ye. Ye will live a long an’ bleak life, without friends, family, without a wife or sons an’ daughters, huntin’ yer mortal enemies, each day the same. A man of stone, without a heart, without a reason to live.” MacNeil’s eyes flashed and he vanished.
Macleod stared at the boulder-strewn river, the water frothing white now. Without a reason to live? He had a reason to live. He was living each and every day because of that reason—revenge. His life was the blood feud. It was his duty. He did not need friends, family, a wife or children. MacNeil’s threats meant nothing, not to a man like him.
HIS HORSE KNEW the lay of the land as well as he did, and it was eager to reach the stables at Blayde. It was easier to ride along the coastline than follow deer and game trails in the interior, even if the going was rocky at times. But when Blayde appeared high upon the cliffs ahead, Macleod abruptly halted the animal. It was dusk, the moon beginning to rise. He was breathing hard and as lathered as his horse.
He hadn’t meant to cross this beach, the very same beach where he’d sent his family and kin to their graves at sea. He hadn’t been back to this small cove since the sea burials, not once. But suddenly he was at that precise cove. He could smell the smoke…he could smell the blood, the death.
He slid from his horse and silently told it to go home. The stallion snorted, sending him an almost human glance before trotting away.
Slowly, Macleod turned.
Roiling white waves broke upon the shore and the rocks there. The surf was always rougher at night, boiling and dangerous. But as he stared, the waves gentled, softly lapping at the beach. The dark sand shimmered, becoming the color of pearls—except where it was stained with blood. The sky became lighter as dawn came and the red sun tried to rise in the gray, smoke-filled skies. A boy stood there on the beach, vowing revenge, filled with guilt and desperation and trying not to cry.
He did not want to remember. Another man might hope to go back in time—especially considering that such a power might be attainable—but not he. He’d been told that the past could not be changed, and he believed it.
He started walking toward the churning ocean. The boy knelt in the sand, watching the funeral pyres as they drifted out to sea.
Although he was observing the boy with complete detachment, he was aware of a deep, dark tension. He paused, staring out across the ocean, but not at the rising moon. He still saw the bleak dawn horizon. The galleys were rocking upon the waves, their sails limp and flaccid, eighteen in all.
He had lost everyone that day.
But he’d found his mother’s amulet in the hand of a dead enemy soldier. Elasaid had worn a small talisman, never taking it off—a small gold palm with a bright white stone in its center, a pendant with great magical powers. He hadn’t been able to send it to sea. He kept it locked in his bedchamber in a chest.
He had not been able to defend his father, his brothers or his mother, or anyone else. He had failed them all. Yet he had survived….
He watched the boy, now on his knees. He began to vomit. Macleod almost felt sorry for him.
It was worse this year, he somehow thought. The boy was closer than ever, when he hoped to forget his very existence. He closed his eyes. Why was the boy so close, after ninety-seven long years?
He was never going to be able to make up for his failures, he thought grimly. He could murder a hundred MacDougalls, but William would remain in his sea grave, and Elasaid’s bones would still be dust.
Suddenly Macleod tensed.
He was not alone.
Let me help you.
Surprise stiffened him. She had returned.
He began to breathe harder, afraid to move, remembering. The boy had been kneeling on the beach, watching the funeral ships as they drifted away, when he’d felt the woman’s soft, warm presence. He’d heard her, behind him. She had said, “Let me help you.” When he had turned, he’d thought he’d glimpsed a golden woman, but no one had been standing there.
In that first decade after the massacre, she’d come to him in his dreams, offering comfort, whispering, “Let me help you.” In his dreams, she had been beautiful, strangely dressed, with long golden hair, a dozen years older than he was. She had been so vivid and so real that when he had reached out in his dreams he could touch her. Even though her audacity had angered him, he had wanted her immediately, the urgency stunning. But every time he had tried to bring her into his embrace, to take her to his bed, she had vanished.
He had stopped dreaming of the massacre and the dawn burials years ago. But when he was very tired after a terrible and vicious battle, she would suddenly appear. He would feel her strong, comforting presence first. Then he would hear her. Let me help you. And when he turned he would see her shimmering apparition. It hadn’t taken him long to realize she was a ghost—or a goddess.
She had been haunting him now for almost a century.
Macleod was certain she was present now.
Let me help you.
Slowly, Macleod stood and turned.
For one instant, he saw a flushed face, wide, concerned eyes and golden hair—and then he saw nothing but the beach and the cliffs above.
It was dusk again. There was no smoke, and two stars had emerged in the growing darkness, along with the rising moon.
He glanced warily around, straining to see in the twilight, but he no longer felt her presence. He knew she would come back. What he did not know was why. He did not care for her haunting. He preferred a flesh-and-blood woman to an elusive ghost or goddess. But one day he would detain her. One day he would find out what she wanted from him.
He started toward the cliffs, where a path led up to Blayde. At least the boy was gone, too.
HE COULDN’T SLEEP.
The massacre was on his mind now. If he tried, he could relive that day. If he slept, he might dream about it. Instead, he slipped from his bed, clad only in his leine, leaving the woman sleeping there alone. Without thinking, he stepped into his boots, as the floors were icy cold, and picked up his belt and brat. As he stalked to the hearth he belted the tunic and pinned the plaid over one shoulder to ward off the chill. Outside the chamber window, an ebony sky was filled with stars and a waning moon. A wolf was howling.
The woman he’d taken to his bed suddenly awoke. He knew it without looking at her—he felt her fear and nervousness. They all feared him, although he didn’t really know why. He never beat his dogs, much less a woman. He didn’t know her name—she was new in the household. Not looking at her, he said, “Bring wine and tend the fire.”
She leaped naked from his bed, seized her clothes and fled.
His head seemed to throb, almost hurting him. He stared grimly at the fire, wishing he hadn’t decided to hunt his enemies that day.
Let me help you.
She had returned. He was incredulous. His eyes wide, he glanced about quickly, expecting to see her in his bedchamber. She was close by, he was certain, and she was coming closer by the moment. He wanted to end this haunting—he was determined to end it, now, and learn what she wanted from him.
But she did not manifest.
He stared into the shadows of the chamber, waiting for her to show herself. She did not.
“What do ye want?” he demanded of the empty room.
There was no answer.
He smiled without mirth. She’d never amused him, not even that first time.
For one moment, he thought she was about to appear. But as he waited for the sensation to intensify, it vanished instead.
She was toying with him. He did not like that. But suddenly he looked at the chest that was locked at the foot of his bed.
He thought about Elasaid’s amulet. Uncertain why he wanted to suddenly look at it, he took a key from his belt and unlocked the chest at the foot of the bed. He took out the gold talisman and stared thoughtfully at it. The pendant had always had great magic for his mother. He almost felt expectant or uncertain—and he was never uncertain.
The moonstone in the gold palm’s center winked brightly at him.
The room seemed to shift.
He knew he had not imagined the slight movement of the floor and bed. The sense of expectation intensified. It was as if a gale was about to blow in, but no storm was coming. The necklace burned in his palm.
The maid skittered into the chamber, carefully avoiding looking at him as she set the tray with wine down on the chamber’s only table. Macleod waited while she lit the rushes in the room before hurrying out.
He put the pendant back in the chest and was locking it when he felt her presence filling the bedchamber.
This time, he was not mistaken.
This time, he felt the holy power with her.
Startled and wary, almost certain now that she was a goddess and not a ghost, he scanned every shadowy corner. He could feel her power, strong and white and so terribly bright, but he could not see her yet. “Show yourself,” he ordered. “I am tired of this haunting. What do ye want?”
In answer, he felt the entire room shift.
Come to me.
Her soft words washed over him, through him. He was incredulous now and even more wary. Her message had changed.
She was summoning him.
“Show yourself,” he said again. Could he enchant a goddess with his powers of persuasion? “Tell me what ye want. Why are ye botherin’ me so much today?”
Come to me.
His blood surged. Not only had he heard her speaking, her voice was becoming clearer, even if her English remained strange. She sounded closer. Maybe he would finally discover what she wanted from him.
Come to me.
He looked around the chamber again, and the sense of her presence intensified. The woman was very powerful and he prepared for battle with her.
By the fire, the air shimmered, as if gold dust danced on the air.
He stared, certain the flames were causing the air to sparkle. But the shimmering intensified; the gold dust began to congeal. Almost disbelieving, his heart thundered as the gold dust began to shape itself and form, so transparently he could see the hearth and fire through it.
Come to me.
He stood absolutely still. Her words were even louder now, but they still echoed oddly. He waited as the dust finally formed into a woman’s tall, lush, truly perfect figure and strikingly beautiful face. He inhaled. In that moment, he wanted her to be real because he desired her so greatly.
If she were a flesh-and-blood woman, he’d end this soon enough with her immediate seduction. But he could see through her to the other side of the chamber. She wasn’t mortal. He was disappointed but not daunted. Even if she was a goddess, he intended to triumph over her.
She stood before him, shifting and swaying, as if on a breeze, and her eyes were golden and mesmerizing. He could not look away. Their gazes had locked. “What do ye want?” He was careful now. He did not want her to vanish.
“Come to me.”
Before he could ask her where she wished for him to go, the air between them visibly sizzled. Macleod tensed and felt the space around him lurch, putting him off balance. The chamber seemed to sigh—or was it a breeze from the sea? And then such a profound stillness came, with such an absolute silence, that he knew it was the lull before the storm, the interlude before the cataclysm.
Instinct made him seize his sword.
She vanished.
And he was hurled up toward the stone roof of his chamber.
In that instant, he thought he would be crushed against the ceiling and that he was about to die.
But the ceiling vanished and he was flung upward and there was only the ebony night sky, filled with stars, suns and moons, which he passed at dizzying speed. He gave into the pain and roared.
CHAPTER THREE
“MISS, WE’RE HERE,” the cabdriver said.
Tabby was so distressed by what had happened at the Met that she’d zoned out the entire taxicab ride downtown. Now she saw the brick façade of the building where she shared a loft with Sam. As she dug into her purse to pay the cabbie, the Highlander’s dark image remained engraved on her mind. Her pulse accelerated. He was hurt and he needed help.
She paid the driver, tipping him generously, and slid from the taxi. The Highlander had been in that fire at Melvaig. It was the only conclusion to draw. She assumed that the amulet had drawn him to the Met. If she hadn’t touched his hand, she might have thought him a ghost. But he was no ghost—she’d felt a man’s strong hand beneath her fingers and it had not been her imagination.
She trembled. He had clearly traveled through time from the medieval world. Was he a Master, like Aidan and Royce? And why had she been chosen to see him? What did Fate want of her?
She inhaled, still shaken. Even if he was one of the brethren, he was hurt. She was not a Healer, but that didn’t matter. No Rose would ever turn her back on anyone in need. She was beginning to think that she was meant to help him. She couldn’t think of another reason to explain what had just happened.
He must have walked out of that fire. He’d looked as fierce and savage as a warrior who’d just left a medieval battlefield after a bloody and barbaric battle. He was so huge and so muscular, so powerful, that even hurt and anguished, he had been daunting.
Of course, she didn’t even know if her spell had worked.
Tabby wasn’t hopeful. She was pretty good with simple, classic spells—like sleeping spells—but inventing a powerful spell to bring someone to her across time and having it work was a whole different ball game. She might never come face-to-face with him again. That would almost be a relief. On the other hand, their brief encounter was not that of two normal strangers passing on the street. Not when she was a Rose, and he, a Master.
The front door to the building had high-security locks. After glancing behind her to make certain no one was going to follow her inside, she unlocked the door and stepped into the front hall. Another locked door was there, which she unlocked. Inside, the lobby was spacious and modern, with green plants spilling over planters built stylishly into the travertine floors. At the elevator, she leaned her head against the burnished metal door while waiting for it.
It crossed her mind that he had looked at her as if he knew her.
Tabby jerked away from the elevator as the door opened. She had to have imagined that! But he had somehow seemed familiar—or was that because she’d become so obsessed with him? But almost every moment at the Met had felt like déjà vu.
There were twelve floors in the building; their loft was on the eleventh floor, because eleven was a master number. The Roses always looked at the numerology of everything that they did, and tried to choose appropriately. It was more tradition—and superstition—than anything else.
The moment Tabby opened the triple locks on her front door—before she could even cross the threshold—she knew that something was wrong. She didn’t know if she suddenly had a new sixth sense, one warning her of danger, or if it was mere human instinct.
She froze, staring wide-eyed into the large spacious interior of the loft. For one moment, nothing seemed out of place. An immaculate white kitchen was to her right, while a great room with a media area, a living area and two desks faced her, done in shades of beige and chocolate. The far wall was whitewashed brick, as were two central pillars. She and Sam had chosen the furnishings together, and everything was sleek and modern, classic and timeless, right down to the pale leather sectional and the glass coffee table.
Her gaze slammed to the iron-and-glass table in front of the sectional and she inhaled. A huge bouquet of bloodred roses was in a vase in its center. It had not been there when she had left for the Met that morning. Sam had left at dawn to work for a few hours at HCU, and Tabby knew she hadn’t been back since. No one had access to their loft, except for Kit. Tabby knew she hadn’t stopped by, either—and certainly not with red roses.
Tabby said firmly, “Who’s there?”
Only silence greeted her.
She hated weapons in general, and only carried pepper spray with her, except at night, when Sam insisted she arm herself with a .38. Tabby had been using a protective spell for years; it was one of the few spells she could summon up really quickly. It didn’t afford total protection—madmen and demons could breach it if they were really determined—but most humans could not.
“Good over me, good around me, good everywhere, barring dark intent. Circle formed, protecting me,” she murmured swiftly. Then she stepped inside, straining to hear, aware of the white cocoon she was in. She had left the door open so she could run if necessary. “Who’s there?” she said again, more loudly.
The loft was quiet and it felt vacant. Nothing felt awry or evil. She went to the kitchen drawer, took out her gun and went to the first bedroom door. It was wide-open and she glanced inside the room, which was filled with the gray light of dusk. Sam’s bedroom had one dark, almost ebony wall, but the rest of the furnishings were beige. Still, she could see clearly and it was empty.
She checked the closet and the hall bathroom; they were empty, too.
Refusing to put down her guard, she checked her own blue-and-white bedroom—also empty.
Only somewhat relieved, Tabby put down the gun and locked the front door. Someone had left the roses. She walked over to the sofa and sat down, looking for a card. There wasn’t one.
She pulled off her knee-high, medium-heeled brown boots and stared grimly at the roses, wondering what kind of threat they were. Had they been a romantic gesture, they would have been delivered to the front door. The roses were an omen—and not a good one. She’d call a locksmith tomorrow and have the locks changed.
The dark Highlander’s image returned to her mind. Tabby hesitated, and then went to the locked chest at the loft’s far end, set against the brick wall. She unlocked it with the key she wore on the chain beneath her pearls and took out the Book of Roses.
She was pretty sure that the spell she’d made up on the spot at the Met wouldn’t work. The Book of Roses contained just about every spell ever invented. But the Book was almost two thousand pages long. Some of the passages needed translation—they were in a very unusual and ancient form of Gaelic. Although Tabby had been studying the Book for seventeen years, she did not know it thoroughly—only a very ancient Rose ever could. Her grandmother Sara had studied the Book for generations, and had been able to find spells in a heartbeat—assuming she didn’t already know the spell by heart. But Grandma Sara had been an amazingly powerful and wise witch. She had died of old age in her sleep a few years ago, and Tabby still missed her—she always would. But she often felt as if Grandma was with her still, smiling with approval and encouragement. Just then, she desperately needed her guidance.
Because finding the right spell could be a huge challenge. Once in a while, Tabby could find a spell in a few hours, but usually it took days or even weeks to locate the exact spell she needed. She was almost certain she had neither days nor weeks to find the Highlander.
She prayed for some otherworldly help and began thumbing through the book, pausing to read bits and pieces and key words. As she did, his powerful image remained firmly implanted, front and center, in her mind.
The words began to jumble. Tabby stared at them, realizing she was exhausted from the events of that day, but she did not intend to quit. “Who are you?” she murmured, staring at the pages before her.
Of course there was no answer. She sighed, curling her legs up under her, telling herself she wasn’t going to take a nap, not now, not when she needed to find him. But she could close her eyes just for a minute, she thought.
Her lids drifted closed. She cradled the Book to her chest. She refused to fall asleep; instead, she relived their brief encounter at the Met, hoping for a clue as to who and what he was. But nothing in her memory changed and she was so tired…
Suddenly he was looking at her—and the burns and blisters were gone from his face and body. He was gorgeous. She sat up, wide-awake.
Sheer disappointment claimed her. The Highlander was not standing there in her loft; she had been dreaming.
She tightened her hold on the Book. Her heart was thundering. At the Met, it had been impossible to make out most of his features. She had surely invented such masculine beauty. Real men did not look like poster boys for a romance channel version of Braveheart.
Someone knocked on her front door.
Tabby tensed. It was impossible for a visitor to get into the lobby and upstairs to her door without buzzing from the downstairs front hall first. But someone was knocking loudly and insistently on her front door. Someone had gotten through the building’s locked doors. She became really alarmed, glancing at the red roses, her concern for the dark Highlander now taking a backseat to the intruder at her door.
“Tabby, are you home?” her ex-husband demanded.
Tabby jumped to her feet. Randall was banging on her front door? She hadn’t seen him since the divorce, twenty-one months ago, except by chance one night, when he’d been out on the town with a nineteen-year-old Russian model—one of the many models he’d cheated on her with.
Her gaze slammed to the roses. No, it was impossible. He’d never start things up again—not that she would let him.
“One moment,” she cried loudly, flustered and uncertain. Even though she had no wish to ever see him again, she felt a moment of distress. She had loved him. They’d been intimate, a couple; they’d been husband and wife. She’d given him two years of her life—and she’d thought it would be forever.
But their marriage had been a lie—one big, fat, long lie. Randall was ambitious and successful, on a fast track to the top, making millions of dollars for his clients and himself. He’d been smooth, charming, macho and charismatic, and she’d truly thought he loved her wildly, with all of his heart. While she’d thought that, he’d been out on the town with the city’s most beautiful women—the kind of women he could brag to his cronies about.
As she went to the front door, she could not imagine what he wanted. “Hello, Randall. This is truly a surprise.”
His gaze slid over her from head to toe, in a very familiar way. He smiled and shook his head. “Even barefoot, you’re as elegant as ever!”
She felt herself bristle, but she contained the surge of anger. She did not want any flattery from him.
Now he said, dropping his tone, “You could walk out of a steam room in a towel, Tabby, and you’d never have a hair out of place.”
“I highly doubt that.”
“Aw, come on. You could be First Lady, another Jackie O.”
“I hardly have that kind of ambition.” She trembled. “What are you doing here, Randall?”
His brown gaze was warm as it met hers. “I’ve been missing you and I decided to do something about it.”
She had stopped trusting him a long time ago. “We haven’t seen each other in almost two years. How did you get in?”
“Do you like the roses?”
She inhaled, very taken aback. Suddenly she was angry. “Randall, what are you doing?”
“I wanted to let you know that I’ve been thinking about you. I’m glad you like them.” His focus moved to the roses. “They’re gorgeous. I paid top dollar. When I ordered them, I told the florist only the best will do.”
“They’re inappropriate, Randall.”
He grinned. “I think they’re really appropriate—gorgeous, yet classic.”
It was hard to breathe. Randall had always admired her style, her sense of fashion and her grace. He had been so proud of how “elegant” she was. By the divorce, she’d come to hate that word. She vividly recalled a party on a humid day in the Hamptons. As they’d pulled into the driveway, Randall had told her again how elegant she was. It had suddenly bothered her. She’d wanted him to pull over, grab her and make love to her as if she was a sexpot. Sex was usually the last thing on her mind.
Tabby stared at him in dismay. “What happened to your Russian girlfriend?”
He didn’t hesitate. “I’ve grown up.”
She was beginning to have an idea of why he had come.
“I can see the skepticism on your face. Tabby, how many dumb models can a guy go out with before he gets it?”
“I have no idea,” she said truthfully.
“You’re still angry with me. I don’t blame you. But I have great news and I want to share it with you!”
“Whatever it is, I’m happy for—” she began to say, but he cut her off.
“I meant what I said, Tabby. I have grown up. The truth is that we shouldn’t have married three years ago—I wasn’t ready. But things have changed.” Excitement flared in his eyes. “I’ve been offered a top position at Odyssey, Tab. I mean top—as in my salary is doubling. With the clients I’ll have, I could be making eight or nine mil a year! Not only that, in a couple of years I’ll be in position to make CEO, if not there, at another major firm. This is it, everything we’ve always wanted!”
She’d never doubted he would make it to the very top of New York’s financial world, so his news was hardly a surprise. But CEOs at firms like the Odyssey Group needed suitable wives—wives who knew how to charm the city’s elite and their husband’s clients, wives who knew how to graciously hold fund-raisers and dinner parties, trophy wives who were fashionable, attractive, charming and elegant. She felt ill, realizing what he wanted. “I am very happy for you. But it’s late.”
He approached, his eyes blazing with excitement, and he seized her hand. “We can go to the top together, Tabby, I know we can!”
She tried to pull away but he wouldn’t let her go. “I can’t do this again.”
“I will never cheat on you again,” he said seriously.
Randall had never taken no for an answer, she thought, dismayed.
“Beyond the impeccable manners, you are still the kindest woman I know. Everyone makes mistakes, even you. Won’t you give me another shot? Because I am being sincere, Tab.”
She knew she must not give him another chance, and she had meant it when she said they were done. But the truth was, everyone did make mistakes and everyone deserved a second chance.
The dark Highlander loomed in her mind, as he’d been at the Met, bloody and burned.
Randall suddenly let her go. He was smiling. “Just think about it. You’re also the fairest person I know. Take your time. I’ll call you.”
Because she was proud of her manners, she walked him to the door, although she balked at allowing him a kiss on the cheek. When he was gone, she poured a huge glass of red wine and carried it to the sofa. She sipped, in absolute disbelief, her temples pounding.
She was angry. She hated being angry—anger had never worked for her. Anger made her uncomfortable. As far as she was concerned, it didn’t work for anyone. Civility and compromise were always the best path.
But no matter how polite she intended to be, how gracious, how fair, Randall’s return was unacceptable.
Besides, she had another man in her life, didn’t she? The joke was a bad one, but Tabby smiled anyway.
Her telephone rang.
She hesitated, certain it was Randall, then saw Sam’s number pop up on the ID screen. She seized the receiver. “Sam, we have to talk.”
Sam hesitated. “Yeah, we do.”
Tabby felt herself still. “What did you find out about An Tùir-Tara?”
“I got in touch with the foremost authority on the subject, a historian at Oxford in Britain.”
Dread began. “What happened?”
“Well, he’s the one historian who says the clan war between the Macleods and MacDougalls was not the real reason for the fire in 1550. There’s nothing written down to support the theory, but there is another oral tradition.”
Tabby had a bad feeling.
“Folklore has it the fire was a result of a war of witches.”
Tabby cried out.
WHAT HAD HAPPENED? Where was he?
Had he just journeyed through the universe?
Macleod lay very still, afraid to attempt to move. Having landed on stone, there was pain, although he was aware of it lessening as he lay there. And there was so much noise, most of it unfamiliar. People had been screaming, although their screams were ceasing now. He bit back a moan, and realized that he could move his fingers and toes. He had been hurled across the sky, past stars and suns. Was this the leap that MacNeil and the brothers spoke of?
The torment was fading swiftly now and he became aware that the people standing around him were speaking the same strangely accented English as the golden woman. He opened his eyes. Some of the women wore the same fashion of clothes that the goddess had, their skirts knee-length. His thoughts sharpened. She had summoned him. But now, he wondered if she was a mortal like the other people crowding over him. Or perhaps she was a near immortal like him? She certainly seemed to be from this time.
Was she there? He certainly wanted a word with her now.
Somebody call 911…Is that a costume…?
He could not comprehend their words very well, but he clearly heard and understood their thoughts. Slowly, Macleod looked past the excited crowd.
Is he dead? Did he fall from the roof?
He shut out their thoughts, stunned.
The night sky was oddly starless, but still light and milky, as he had never before seen it. Hundreds of soaring towers filled it, the highest towers he had ever seen. He was in a huge city. Where was he—and in what time?
He forgot her and her summons. He gripped his sword and slowly began to sit up, realizing his body was not broken after all. The people who had gathered around him cried out and ran farther away from him. He noted that no one carried weapons but he did not relax his guard. Now, he saw that the golden woman was not amongst the crowd. He wondered what that meant and if it was some kind of trick. It didn’t matter. He would find her sooner or later. He would make a point of it.
He dismissed them all, his gaze returning to the astonishing sights around him. What kind of people could build such tall buildings, crowded so closely upon one another? Were they impregnable? And the windows within the towers were strangely lit. They could not be illuminated so brightly by rushes and candles.
He stood up, looking warily around. The men wore strange hose and very short tunics. His eyes widened. Horseless vehicles were passing along the black stone street.
He became absolutely still, adrenaline rushing. No mortal could make a wagon or a carriage move without the power of a slave or a beast.
“He’s alive!”
Macleod ignored the man. A screaming sound that did not come from any animal or human made him turn, seeking its source.
One of the horseless vehicles was speeding toward the crowd, passing the other carriages. Red, blue and white lights were blinking on the roof. The vehicle screeched to a stop and the whining noise ceased. Doors slammed as men in dark clothes stepped out of the vehicle. From the way they began to approach, he knew that they were soldiers.
Macleod tensed. He was in a strange world and he did not know what kinds of powers these soldiers had. He had never fled a battle in his life, but he was certain now that he had leaped through time. He had to be far in the future. He should try to learn the secrets of this world before any attempt at engagement. And he had to find the woman. He did not like being flung through time without his consent. He wanted to know why she had cast her magic upon him—and most of all, why she’d haunted him for so many years.
But he was not a coward. He stood absolutely still, shifting his weight so he was evenly balanced, his right hand on the hilt of his long sword. If he had to fight, he hoped his powers would not fail him—and he certainly hoped that the dark soldiers did not have immortal powers, too.
“What’s going on?” a black-clothed soldier asked firmly, his intent gaze on Macleod. From the way he stared, Macleod knew he expected a fight.
The woman in the knee-length gown ran to him and began telling him that Macleod had fallen from the sky. As she gestured, he felt the icy cold fingers of evil chill the nape of his neck.
They had deamhanain in this time and place, too.
He hadn’t taken his vows, but he had been able to instantly sense evil’s presence from the moment he’d taken his first steps as a toddler. He had instinctively and passionately disliked evil ever since he could recall, and had been vanquishing evil since he was a small boy capable of wielding a child’s dagger. Macleod gripped the hilt of his sword, slowly turning to face the deamhan. A tall, blond man stared at him, smiling with bloodlust. The deamhanain desired the death of the good and the godly every bit as much as the brotherhood wanted evil gone. Its eyes slowly turned red.
Macleod didn’t bother to smile back.
“Hey, you, buddy.”
Macleod knew one of the black-clad soldiers was speaking to him; he ignored him.
The deamhan grinned and blasted him with his black power, which flared crimson as it was hurled at him.
Macleod blocked the blast with his sword, using his other powers, and he was pleased when it blazed silver as it struck the demonic force. He hurled his power at the deamhan simultaneously and it went down, the people around it screaming and fleeing.
“Drop your weapon!” the soldier shouted at him.
Macleod ignored the command, advancing swiftly, sword raised. The deamhan leaped up and sent more energy at him, but he was weakened now and Macleod did not pause. He lunged, so swiftly and powerfully that his blade tore through the deamhan’s power, running right through his chest and out the other side.
“Put the weapon down!”
Macleod withdrew the blade. The deamhan collapsed. Standing over him, Macleod breathed hard and slowly faced the soldiers. Both men were down on one knee, and had small, strange black weapons pointed at him.
Macleod glanced swiftly around. He was at a crossroads, with lights that changed from red to green on all four corners. He glanced at the milky night sky—no moon or North Star could be seen. “I dinna wish to fight. Tell me, what place is this? Where am I?”
“Hands in the air, sonuvabitch! Weapon down!” The first soldier shouted at him, while the crowd behind them murmured in surprise.
No one had ever called his mother a bitch. It was an unimaginable insult. For one moment, he was in shock. And then rage rushed over him, through him, and he wanted to murder the soldier for his words. The fact that he was out of his time did not matter. But he somehow controlled himself. Breathing hard, he said, “Where am I, soldier?” But before he had even finished speaking, his power exploded.
Silver sizzled in the night and both men were hurled backward by the blazing light.
The remaining crowd screamed, fleeing. He saw two black-and-white vehicles with the red, white and blue blinking lights coming toward them at quick speed, making that high, whining noise. We have an officer down…Code black…Armed and dangerous…reinforcements…
He heard a hundred frantic thoughts, a dozen sharp commands, and he felt the fear, the hatred and anger. As jumbled as the thoughts were, he knew that more soldiers were coming—and they would hunt him now for what he had done to one of their own.
Macleod ran.
Sharp sounds followed him. As he passed a building with a large window, it shattered. He had seen stained glass once, in a great cathedral at Moray. As the shards bit into his arms, he was stunned to realize the window had been covered with clear, nearly invisible glass. Just as he turned the corner, something burned like an iron brand deep into his shoulder.
It was painful and he gasped, but it could not compare to the thrust of a sword. And now he saw the hundreds of vehicles coming toward him on the street. In the distance, behind most of them, was one that carried soldiers, with its blinking lights on top of the roof.
He paused and glanced behind. More soldiers had turned the corner and were in pursuit, on foot, their black weapons drawn.
A woman was stepping out of a building. Behind her, the interior was brightly lit. Most of the buildings were alight, but several were in shadow. Tonight the dark would be his friend.
He ran up the street, the sharp, popping sounds following him. The iron brand felt worse now but he ignored the pain and seized the door to a building that was not lit. It was locked, but he wrenched it open easily. Then he stepped into the blackness inside, barring the door by bending the locks back into place. It would only hold the soldiers back for a moment, but a moment was all he needed.
He swiftly checked the first three doors. The fourth door was what he was looking for. Macleod ran up the stairs, listening to the soldiers entering the small front hall below.
How the fuck did he break the locks?
Forget about it. He’s heading for the roof—the fucking fool.
He smiled savagely to himself, running up the stairs, counting fifteen flights. He finally burst onto a large, square roof and ran to one end, looked down, and then to another. He did not hesitate. This way felt right. He chose the southern end and leaped to an adjacent roof, about two stories lower, and ran across that, heading in the direction he thought was east. He ran by pure instinct now. The next roof was higher but he leaped onto that, and then onto another, and another, until the soldiers were far behind him.
He began to become familiar with the strange sounds of the city night; he began to comprehend the city’s noisy rhythm. He slowed to a walk. There was no reason to run now; for the moment, he was safe.
And he paused, listening to the night—feeling it.
Awareness began.
He opened a window and slipped into a dark vacant building, his pulse taking on a new rhythm. Aware that he was alone, he began to explore it, his eyes adjusting to the darkness. Within moments, he realized he was in a building meant to house children. The tables and chairs were tiny, and children’s toys and drawings were on the walls.
He began to smile.
Her presence was everywhere.
Macleod settled down to wait.
CHAPTER FOUR
A HOLY HIGHLANDER WAS in the city, and he had just taken a demon down.
Nick Forrester decided this might be a really interesting night.
He was a tall, powerful man with rugged good looks, brilliantly blue eyes, and the kind of appeal no woman had ever refused. He was utterly devoted to his agents, the war on evil and HCU, in that precise order. Sitting in his corner office, on the phone with one of his contacts at the New York Times, he felt Sam Rose before he saw her. He turned to wave her into his office as Paul Anderson said, “They’re breaking the story even as we speak.”
“Motherfucking shit,” Nick replied, slamming down the phone. He felt himself go into battle-ready mode. There was nothing he loved as much as a good battle, not even sex.
Sam’s eyes were wide with interest, although a moment ago she’d been wearing a don’t-read-my-mind poker face. And even while speaking with Anderson, he’d instantly known she had a secret. He did not like his kids keeping secrets, not unless they were personal ones. And then they’d damn well better keep secrets, because he didn’t like his kids having personal lives.
Either you were in this war or you were a bystander, it was that simple. And if you were in, love, romance, family and all that shit was out.
He’d made a really smart move three months ago, when he’d lured Sam into HCU and his employ. She was a soldier in every way, right down to her kick-ass, martial soul.
“Goddamn it,” he said, facing her. “There’s been a sighting.”
He eyed her as he picked up the blue phone, a direct line to his agents in the field. “There’s a Blondie down on Thirteenth and Broadway,” he said. The highest level of demons were beautiful, blond, blue-eyed and almost angelic in appearance. They’d been given a slew of appropriate—and inappropriate—nick-names.
“What’s going on?” Sam asked.
“It’s almost impossible to believe, but a Highlander has surfaced in the city. He took out a cop. I’ve got Angus bringing the goods to Five.”
“Okay.” Sam turned her back on him, walking over to a chair. She sat down. Even though she wore short skirts most of the time, and he’d seen her gorgeous and very strong legs hundreds of times, he stared at them while he thought about the night to come.
Being clandestine meant keeping a low profile. The press still thought the war was with crime, not evil. CDA had its own medical center. Shot-up, maimed and dead agents were all brought to Emergency there. Five had a morgue, too, and some very serious labs. Those were mostly filled with vanquished demons—if the demon could be brought in before disintegration began—and occasionally, the surviving sub.
She turned. “Do we know this one?”
“I don’t think so,” Nick said.
They exchanged a long and steady glance, and he didn’t have to read her mind to know she was thinking about the trip they’d made into the past.
He turned and walked to the wall of windows that looked down on Hudson Street. Outside, it was dark, the streets icy and gleaming with patches of snow, sleet and slush. Winter in the city sucked for most people, but he actually liked it. His blood continued to rush.
He did not like losing an agent in the vast expanse of time. Every agent at HCU had been handpicked by him for their respective jobs. He considered each and every one his responsibility, and when one went MIT, he went ballistic.
And he also went back.
The holy, time-traveling Masters of Time rarely surfaced in this city. They seemed to prefer medieval periods. CDA had sightings of them as early as the eleventh century, but the more contemporary the period got, the fewer the sightings.
The Highlanders were not the only warrior society out there. CDA had evidence of two other secret sects dedicated to the war on evil, one ancient, one modern. From time to time he came across men who had some of the same extraordinary powers he had. These men lay low, revealing themselves only to vanquish the enemy, and then they vanished, like ghosts in the night. Pretty much the way he did.
The Masters were an interesting bunch. They loved and warred like any other medieval Scot, but secretly worshipped pagan gods, most of whose names no historian had ever recorded. They defended a set of three holy books, and came out of the medieval woodwork to defend the good and the innocent and kick the ass of a demon honcho or two. Then they vanished back into the local population and their particular time. Only an experienced agent could identify a Master from the average Highlander, whether on paper in HCU’s immense database, or while in the field.
He’d lost count long ago, but over the course of the two decades he’d been at HCU, he’d probably traveled into the past a dozen times, usually on the heels of a great demon. He’d had exactly three encounters with Masters in all that time. Maybe it wasn’t that odd—he’d chased demons into the past all over the world, as far back as the first century, when the Romans were about to rule the world. The closest he’d ever come to a Highlander was last September, right there in the city. The Highlander had been turned against the Masters, and he’d taken his own agent hostage, vanishing into the past with Brie Rose. Nick had gone back to find her because there was nothing worse than losing an agent in time.
He’d found Sam’s cousin Brie and dragged her home before he could chat with her holy friends—and she’d gone back to her Highlander anyway. Her case file might have MIT stamped across it, but he knew she wasn’t really missing in time. She was just fine.
He’d had the chance to debrief her extensively, and now he knew more about the Brotherhood than anyone at CDA had ever known. Of course, encounters between CDA agents and Masters—and civilians and Masters—were as old as the agency and maybe, for the latter, as old as time. But the Masters remained secretive. They refused to talk about what they did; they simply fought evil when they had to, and were devoted to the war on evil in Scotland.
Except, a few hours ago, a Master had nailed a demon just a few blocks away from HCU.
Were they coming out of the medieval closet? And if so, what did that mean?
He refused to worry, but agency analysts were predicting the end of the world—literally. That was how dire the war had become. If it wasn’t turned around, every high government agency in the free world would be infiltrated by demons and controlled by evil within another decade.
He’d taken Sam with him into the past to find her cousin. It was about the toughest test he could give any agent, new or not. She’d passed with flying colors.
So why was she looking really tense? Why was she worried?
He lurked and his concern vanished. He was not interested in a war of witches, although he knew her civilian sister was a witch.
“Why would you think the Highlander is someone we know?”
She shrugged. “No reason.”
What wasn’t she telling him? “What’s wrong with you? Bad lay last night?”
She gave him a look. “There’s no such thing. Maybe the Highlander followed the demon here.”
He liked her arrogance—a lot. But her comment gave Nick pause.
He had decided well over a year ago that the witch burnings were not as random as most of law enforcement believed. He also disagreed with the agency’s social anthropologists and shrinks who claimed the gangs were simply on a new demonic high, and it was cooler to burn people at the stake than to murder each other gangland style. He knew with every fiber of his being that there was a rhyme and a reason to the burnings. He was absolutely certain that there was one great black power behind all of the gangs in the country, if not the world, and that their leader was a medieval demon.
And he had made it his personal mission to nail the sonuvabitch.
So if the Highlander had followed a medieval demon to New York, he’d jump for joy if the incident was somehow connected to the witch burnings. “We know nothing about our holy friend—although I intend to change that.”
“It was too quiet this weekend, until now,” Sam said after a reflective pause.
“Yeah, it was like a vacation.” He hated vacations. “Let’s not speculate. We have a priority. We need to find our medieval ally before someone else does.”
“Why?”
Before he could tell her about the breaking news, the child screamed.
He knew that horrific sound inside and out. It was a part of his soul and he’d hoped to never hear it again.
The young girl screamed, and he heard the roar as the sedan went up in flames. He inhaled, flinching. He had no time for a flashback now.
But he saw the inferno on the night-darkened freeway and he heard the heavy, black laughter.
“Nick? You okay?”
He heard Sam, but vaguely, as if she was speaking to him from far away. He breathed hard and realized he felt sick. He’d just had a goddamned flashback!
It took him a moment to push the image away. When he had, he was at his window, staring down at the cars passing below on the slick city streets.
Holy shit. He’d vanquished the flashbacks about a decade ago. He couldn’t understand why they were starting up all over again.
He’d pretend it hadn’t happened—so it hadn’t happened. He had the best secretary money could buy—and money couldn’t buy Jan, only her own, personal demons could. Jan was classified Level Five at HCU and she’d been at his side through the best times and the worst times. Once upon a time she’d been his best field agent. If she ever learned he was having flashbacks again, she’d hound him so bad he’d cave and go to a shrink. Of course, by then, hell would have frozen over and the war would have been won or lost.
He got it together and faced Sam. “Here’s the deal. The Highlander got Brad with his sword in front of a bunch of cops and civvies,” Nick said.
Sam faced him, her eyes wide.
“The press got wind of it and they’re going with it. I can’t close it down. They’re calling him �the Sword Murderer’—original, don’t you think?”
“Shit,” Sam said. She was a bit pale, when Sam was usually the coolest cucumber he knew.
“He also took at least one hit from our city’s finest,” Nick added. “Of course, a teensy-weensy bullet probably won’t bother him very much.” He picked up the white phone and made a single call. It would stop the cops from hunting their Highlander down. He could do that much.
He smiled cheerfully at her after hanging up. “The cops will be put to bed shortly. But the story is breaking on the evening news right now.”
“It will cause hysteria,” Sam said, heading for the door. “We have to find him before one of the vigilante gangs does.”
Normally, Nick didn’t mind the dozens of violent vigilante gangs in the city. They were no match for the demons, but they sure as hell helped the war effort—even though their activities were against the law. CDA, the cops and the Feds all looked the other way.
He wasn’t looking the other way now.
The Highlander was wounded—and from all accounts, on the run. He needed their protection. “Let’s go find the holy warrior,” he said. “And see if we can help our medieval friend.”
HER NEWSPAPER TUCKED under her arm—she usually glanced at the front page in the teachers’ lounge when her class was in fifth-period music—Tabby walked into the school where she taught first grade. She greeted a half-dozen other teachers as she strolled toward her classroom, still trying to get focused on the day to come. She loved children and she loved being an elementary-school teacher, especially in public school, where many of the kids so needed direction and guidance. But she’d slept badly last night. Her dreams had been anxious and stressful—they’d all been about the dark Highlander.
She’d awoken with the certainty that he was in trouble, more so than ever, and that he needed her.
One strange visit to the Met and her life had changed so quickly, she thought.
And something was up. Sam hadn’t come home that morning. She worked at night—evil played after dark and hid in the daylight. But she was usually home at sunrise. Tabby knew she should assume whatever Sam was doing was routine, but her senses were telling her otherwise. Something was happening, and she wished she knew what.
Tabby entered her classroom and some of her anxiety vanished. The room’s walls were covered with the kids’ cheerful and colorful paintings and pictures, their latest spelling assignments, and maps of the city, the state and the country, with important landmarks flagged. Some articles they’d discussed from newspapers and magazines were also taped to the walls.
She always had a really good vibe when coming to class, and that hadn’t changed. First period was current events, so Tabby laid her copy of USA Today down on her desk, and with it, the article she’d clipped for the kids from the New York Times.
She glimpsed the paper’s headline and cried out.
Sword Murderer Threatens City. Tabby sank into her chair, scanning the article, somehow already knowing what she was going to find. A man dressed in a medieval Highland costume had murdered a man in Tribeca last night. He had escaped the authorities, but he was wounded, armed and dangerous.
Tabby began to shake. He was in the city, and he was hurt.
She closed her eyes and whispered, “I can help you.”
Come to me, she thought, straining for him. Come to me.
“Hello,” a cheerful voice called to her.
For one moment, Tabby was so focused that she heard the woman but couldn’t move or open her eyes. Then the woman spoke again and Tabby came back to the present.
She got up, drenched with perspiration, and faced a woman she had never seen before. The woman had very fair skin and hair, and she was wearing a beige suit that gave her an oddly bland appearance. “Are you okay?” the woman asked.
“I’m fine—I was lost in thought,” Tabby said, aware that she’d spoken the truth.
“I’m filling in for Marlene, and I just wanted to pop in and introduce myself,” the woman said, smiling. “I’m Kristin Lafarge.”
Marlene was vice principal, and she was on maternity leave. Tabby smiled in return, walking forward so they could shake hands. “Hi. I’m Tabby Rose, although you probably already know that.”
“I do,” she said pleasantly. “And I’ve heard great things about this school. I’m looking forward to my time here.”
“It’s a great faculty and a great group of kids, for the most part,” Tabby said.
Kristin glanced at her desk. “Just what we need, a nutcase on the loose in the city, running people through with a sword.”
Tabby smiled grimly. “I’m sure he’ll be apprehended.” Please keep him safe, she added silently, a prayer.
“I hope so. Although it’s not in the news, it’s all over the school that the victim was murdered eight blocks from here.”
He had been so close. Tabby lived five blocks from the school. She breathed hard as Kristin left, promising they’d catch up in the teachers’ lounge later. The vice principal was hardly out of the door when Tabby ran to her desk. She seized the newspaper. The murder had happened at eleven o’clock last night—when she’d been asleep, dreaming about him.
Had he come to her neighborhood because of her spell?
She inhaled, shaken. Was it possible that she had cast such a powerful spell? She had to call Sam. HCU would help him. Or was Sam already on the case? Was that what she’d been working on last night? But her first students began arriving, and Tabby couldn’t linger on the phone. Instead, she sent Sam a text message.
Have you found the Highlander?
Then she began greeting her class. If she did not get a grip and focus on her students, it would be an endless day for her, and unfair to them. Besides, a medieval warrior with the power to travel through time could probably handle a few cops and a wound or two. But she was not relieved. As she greeted her kids, she almost expected him to walk into her classroom, but every time she looked up, a parent or a student stood there.
A tiny, pretty blond girl named Willa, who happened to be one of Tabby’s brightest pupils, came into the classroom. “How are you, Willa?” she asked. Willa could already read and write at the second-grade level, and she was always asking questions that were amazingly insightful for a six-year-old.
Willa asked, “Can we have a spelling bee?”
Tabby laughed, and laughing felt good. “A spelling bee! You must have seen that show on TV over the weekend. I’ll think about it.” It was a foregone conclusion that if they had a spelling bee, Willa would win it.
More children filed in, greeting her with happy smiles, calling out to one another eagerly. It was a really good group of kids. But she couldn’t relax and she couldn’t stop worrying—or glancing at the door. When a few of the parents and caretakers expressed concern over the Sword Murderer being on the loose, Tabby reassured them all that the school was completely safe. Was he nearby?
If only she had a moment to focus, she would meditate and try to feel his presence.
Finally her last student arrived. Tabby shut the door, asking everyone to settle down so they could talk about the lame-duck presidency. “Does anyone remember what that means?” she asked. As she showed the class a picture of a duck, the kids shrieked and made outlandish comments. She let them carry on, her gaze drifting to the newspaper article.
“Ms. Rose? Ms. Rose!”
Tabby jerked, realizing the kids had settled down and were waiting for her expectantly. She heard her classroom door open, but did not turn. Assuming it was a staff member, she said, “Who wants to try to tell me what a lame-duck president is?”
Only Willa raised her hand. Tabby noticed that the kids were distracted by whoever had come into the room, but she said, “Willa?”
“Why are they locking the door?”
Tabby turned as she heard the lock click. Two teenage boys stood by the door, clad from head to toe in black, their complexions eerily pale and made more so by the application of pancake makeup.
Her heart began to thunder uncontrollably. The boys had the appearance of the subs that ran in the gangs burning civilians. She prayed the boys were Goths, not possessed humans. The sub gangs had always preyed on the Innocent in large groups—until last week’s Rampage. As for her “new” sixth sense, the only feeling she was getting was that these boys were definitely looking for trouble.
She managed to feign a calm she did not feel as she slowly put the paper aside and stood up. “Hello.” The children must not be alarmed. “Can I help you?”
The boy who had pitch-black hair with flame-colored streaks dyed in it grinned. “You sure can, Teach.”
She didn’t know if she finally had the power to sense evil or not, but she knew these boys were evil. While she didn’t know what they wanted, she did know their intent was purely malicious. How was she going to protect the children?
She turned from them and smiled at the children. “I have a great idea. Everyone sit down on the floor in a small circle, with the paper. Find as many items relating to the President as you can.”
One of the teen boys snickered.
“Come on,” Tabby said, wanting to gather the children into one tight group. As they all sat down on the floor, as far from the two boys and the door as she could get them, she handed Willa the article. “Willa, I want you to be the group leader and make a list.”
Willa stared at her with her big, intelligent blue eyes. Tabby smiled more fully; Willa knew something was wrong. “Are they going to watch the class?” Willa asked.
“Maybe.” Tabby smiled, when she heard the whirring of a drill.
She whirled and saw the blond boy drilling holes into the door. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like?” the dark-haired boy said. He pulled out a long metal object from his backpack.
The blonde was now drilling a set of holes into the wall, and Tabby realized they were adding a bolt to the door to lock her and the children inside the classroom. She lowered her voice, aware of her fear rising. But she somehow breathed and tamped it down. “Whatever you intend, do it to me. But let the children go.”
“Oh, don’t you worry, pretty lady. We are definitely doing it to you.” He laughed at her.
Tabby wet her lips, knowing she must hold her fear at bay for the children’s sake. She sent a silent message to Sam—telepathy was huge for them. “What’s your name?”
He bared his teeth and said, “Angel. You like that…Tabitha?”
They knew her name. Then comprehension flashed in her mind—her name was on the door. “You want me, not the children. Please, whatever you want, I won’t resist. But we have to let the children go, now.”
“We’ve got plans for the kiddies,” Angel said.
“Ms. Rose?” Willa asked.
Tabby jerked, wishing Willa hadn’t left the security of the circle of children, as false as it was. She took her hand. “Willa, go back to the other children.”
Willa looked carefully from her to Angel and then to the blonde, who was drilling screws into the new lock on the door. “Is he locking us in?”
Before Tabby could come up with an excuse for what was happening, Angel said, “We sure are, pretty girl.” He walked away and dumped the contents of a huge duffel onto the floor.
Tabby cringed as she saw the kindling.
He poured gasoline on it and grinned. “What’s wrong, Teach? Afraid of fire?”
Tabby breathed. “Go back to the other children, Willa.” But now she saw that every child had his or her eyes trained upon the drama that was unfolding.
Angel’s hand snaked out and he seized Willa, who screamed. “Maybe we’ll start with her, witch,” he said to Tabby.
Tabby sent Willa a reassuring glance, and Willa fought her tears and stopped struggling. “Let my student go,” she said, and it was not a request.
Angel nodded at his blond friend, ignoring her. The blonde produced matches and began to light one.
Tabby’s heart thundered as he lit the match. Her mind raced with lightning speed. Willa was going to be burned at the stake, and perhaps the other children would, too. And then they’d burn her. She needed a spell.
Dear God, it had to work.
The pile of kindling burst into flames. The children screamed, except for Willa, who was deathly pale now. But she could not calm the other children. Tabby closed her eyes and murmured, “Fire fears water, fire needs rain. Fear fears water, give us rain. Rain douse fire, give us rain.”
“She’s casting a spell,” the blonde said, sounding a bit alarmed.
Tabby opened her eyes. Nothing had happened; nothing had changed. Her students were crowded together by her desk, some of them crying, and all of them were staring at the fire roaring in the front of the classroom. The blond boy seemed nervous, but Angel looked pissed. Tabby was expecting the fire alarm to go off, but it did not. Surely they hadn’t been smart enough to dismantle the fire alarms last night or that morning before school?
Tabby glanced at the ceiling and saw a wire hanging off the closest alarm, and her heart sank. The fire alarms had been tampered with. Then she saw a yellow mark spreading across the ceiling.
“Come on, pretty girl—girls get to go first,” Angel said, grinning.
Willa screamed as Angel started to drag her toward the fire.
Tabby realized there was a water mark growing on the ceiling. As she rushed forward to fight for Willa, water dropped on her head—once, and then again and again. But a few drops of water weren’t going to put out the fire. She reached Angel and Willa; the blonde seized her, restraining her. “Don’t worry, you’ll get your turn.”
“Let her go,” Tabby said furiously, struggling to jerk free of the blonde. She was wearing her usual two-inch heels and she ground down as hard as she could onto the instep of his foot.
He was wearing sneakers and he howled, releasing her.
Tabby seized the can of kerosene and flung it at Angel. He cursed, releasing Willa, wiping the few drops of kerosene from his face. The fire suddenly roared, turning into an inferno. Tabby seized Willa and shoved her closer to the children. “Run!”
“Like hell,” Angel sneered. His eyes were black fire.
The next thing she knew she was in his arms and he had the blade of a knife pressed hard against her throat. She froze.
“There are many ways to kill a witch,” he said softly.
Tabby didn’t move, afraid he was going to sever her carotid artery.
“Do it and let’s get out of here,” the blonde said, “before she casts another spell.”
“Sounds good to me.” Angel grinned wickedly.
Dinna move.
Tabby heard the command, spoken in a heavy Scot brogue, as clear as day. Her fear vanished. Stunned, she looked across the classroom, past the fire.
The dark Highlander stood outside. He was staring at her through one of the windows. Their gazes locked. His was hard and ruthless, like his set face.
Tabby began to tremble.
And glass shattered. Energy blazed and the fire exploded, the heat intensifying. The children screamed, as did the blond boy, who was hurled backward into the bolted classroom door. Angel cried out as the Highlander bore down upon them both, sword raised. Panicking, Tabby pushed at Angel’s arms, but he didn’t release her.
The Highlander towered over them and smiled dangerously. “Release her or die.”
Tabby stared into his ice-cold eyes and knew he meant his every word. She wanted to protest but could not form words. His power was so strong, she inhaled it. It wrapped itself around her, male and thick and potent.
Angel knew he meant it, too. He dropped the knife but did not release her, wrapping both arms around her now. “I’ll let her go—outside.”
Tabby failed to breathe. Angel meant to use her as a human shield, in order to escape.
“A foolish choice,” the Highlander said softly.
She heard him again, although he did not speak. Dinna move….
Tabby met his dark blue gaze and knew he was going to free her somehow. He would triumph—this man never lost. Her life was in his hands, but she trusted him with it. She didn’t move, obeying him.
The silver blade flashed.
Tabby wanted to scream as it arced down toward her. Watching that blade descend was the most horrifying moment of her life. She had made a mistake; she was going to die. But it was Angel who screamed, as the sword came between them.
For one more moment, he held her. Then, as Angel’s head toppled away from his shoulders, she was in a headless man’s arms. He collapsed and she was released. The children screamed. Tabby jumped away, shocked.
The Highlander had beheaded Angel while he held her. He could have taken her head, too!
Aghast, she met his gaze. Then she saw the blond sub pointing a big black gun at him from behind.
She gasped as it went off.
He turned, and silver blazed from his hands. The blonde was hurled back again, and this time, as he hit the wall and crumbled to the floor, Tabby knew he was dead.
And then Tabby ran to the children, urging them to crowd around her. “Don’t look over there!” She had never seen a man decapitated before. Of course she hadn’t. This was New York City, 2008, not Scotland in 1550. She choked back bile and fear.
Most of the kids were crying. Bobby Wilson wanted to go home. As they huddled tightly together, several in her arms, she tried to get past her horror and shock. He had saved her life. He had done what he had been taught to do. He was the product of his violent, barbaric times.
But he had beheaded Angel while she was in his arms.
“The fire is spreadin’,” he said, and she felt him standing behind her. “Ye need to take the children from here.”
Tabby turned to look at him, incapable of saying a word, her pulse soaring. She met his dark, intense blue eyes, eyes she had seen at the Met—and in her dreams.
“Ye dinna wish fer me to kill the boys?” His blue gaze chilled. “They intended fer ye to die a verra unpleasant death.”
And that was when she realized he wasn’t the same Highlander—not exactly. He was the same man she’d briefly seen and touched at the Met, she had not a single doubt. But he wasn’t blistered and burned. His hard, determined face was scratched from glass, and he had a scar on one high cheekbone, but there were no burns, no blood, no blisters. In fact, he was damned gorgeous. His tunic was bloodstained, and there were cuts on his arms, face and legs from leaping through the glass, but he had not been in a fire recently. This man had not been at An Tùir-Tara.
Instead, he looked exactly as she had imagined he would before ever being in that fire.
“You’re not from Melvaig or 1550, are you?” she somehow said.
His face tightened with obvious displeasure. “Nay.”
She breathed hard, uncertain. Was he angry? If so, why? She wanted to back up, but she needed to get the children to safety. “Can you get the door open for us?” As she spoke, the school’s fire alarms finally went off.
For one more instant, his gaze held hers, searing in its intensity. Then he strode to the classroom door and wrenched it off its hinges. Tabby somehow smiled to reassure the children and she began herding them quickly that way. Behind her, there was an explosion.
The children screamed but Tabby cried, “Walk, don’t run. Everything is fine.” The Highlander stepped to the first child and took his hand, restraining little Paul Singh from running, clearly understanding that they must proceed without panic. She glanced behind her and saw that pieces of pipe and the plaster ceiling had collapsed and fallen to the floor.
In the hall, faculty were evacuating the children, trying to maintain a calm and orderly manner, as if this were a fire drill. The principal, Holz Vanderkirk, and Kristin came running up to them. “Are you all right?” Kristin cried, seizing her arm, her eyes wide and trained upon the Highlander. Police sirens sounded, screaming.
Kristin and Holz were clearly assuming that he was the Sword Murderer and a threat to them all. Tabby wanted to explain that there had been an attempted witch burning and that the Highlander had saved her and the children. She turned to face him, instead. “It’s all right,” she cried, when she knew no such thing.
His blue gaze met hers. It was the gaze of a professional soldier, devoid of all feeling and all fear. Then he turned and hurried back into the burning schoolroom.
Tabby screamed, “Come back!” She was afraid for him.
He ran into the fire as the ceiling began to fall in. Plaster and pipe hit him, but if the debris hurt him, he gave no sign. She froze in horror as he skirted the blaze, heading for the shattered window. Suddenly the fire exploded again, and then a wall of fire separated them.
Her insides curdled.
Standing on the other side of the fire wall, by the window, he paused and looked at her.
Every horrific emotion she’d felt yesterday at the Met flooded her, incapacitated her. The feeling of déjà vu was intense. There was outrage, fury, there was horror and dread. And there was love—the kind of love she had never felt before, but had dreamed of.
She loved him.
An expression of bewilderment crossed his dark face.
The fire wall blazed between them.
Even if he wanted to, he could not cross it.
He turned and leaped out of the window; Tabby felt her legs give way.
CHAPTER FIVE
KIT MARS HUNCHED over her desk at HCU, staring at her computer screen. She was watching the tape of last week’s Rampage, for the hundredth time.
She knew she’d missed something, and it was bothering her to the point that she wasn’t going to eat or sleep until she figured it out. She wanted to nail the little bastards terrorizing the city. She’d never rest, not until every demon had been wiped off the face of the earth.
She owed it to her twin sister, Kelly.
As always, Kelly stood behind her, approving—or it felt as if she did.
Kit had been recruited by Nick last year, while she was at Vice. He’d been stalking her for a few weeks, turning up at crime scenes or in the precinct corridors. At first she’d assumed he was a Fed, working a case. Then she’d begun to realize he was after her. But he was clearly one of the men in black. Finally, he’d caught up with her in a bar at the end of a really lousy day. After buying her a few drinks, he’d asked if she wanted to spend her life busting drug dealers and porn traffickers—or if she wanted to get into the real action.
She’d known exactly what he meant.
And she hadn’t thought twice about taking him up on his offer.
From her first day on the job at HCU, all the pieces of the puzzle had begun to fall into place. She’d already been keenly aware of evil. It had taken her sister from her, and she encountered it daily on the street. So when the revelation came that evil was a race and that there was a goddamned war, a million times more important than the war on terror, she had not been surprised. It had almost been a relief.
The war on evil was her life.
Kit stared at the computer screen. Hidden cameras were installed in sixty-nine percent of the city, at traffic lights, in restaurants, hotels, department stores, groceries, in every major airport, on every bridge and in every tunnel. Only a handful of lawmakers on the very secret Committee for Internal Defense, a half-dozen generals at the Pentagon and the President knew about the hidden cameras. The Civil Liberties Union would have a field day if it ever found out.
The surveillance system was CDA’s baby.
Kit tensed and leaned close. She watched the screen with absolute clinical detachment, as the two boys and a girl began starting the fire beneath their victim’s feet. The kids were possessed; the tape was proof. Real demons only appeared as dark, ghostly shapes on film and could not be individually identified. Sub-humans—or subs, as CDA referred to the possessed—could be filmed just like any flesh-and-blood man or woman. However, they also cast dark shadows, even at night. Subs on tape were simply impossible to miss.
Five passing civilians had stopped, gawked, then fled, all one-hundred-percent human. She jammed the pause button, hit Rewind. A civvie was fleeing. Kit zoomed in.
There was an odd blip just behind the man’s shoulder as he ran away from the gruesome crime—the hint of something grayish and almost oblong.
She hit Pause, backed it, then zoomed in on the civvie again. She froze the screen, and zoomed on his left shoulder at the odd blip.
It wasn’t oblong now. It was a shapeless form, becoming more and more indistinct the farther she looked from the center. She went back to the darkest part of the blip. A face began to emerge from the grayish light.
“What the hell?” Kit asked.
Now, she saw two eyes and a mouth—she would swear to it.
So someone had been standing there, watching the burning.
No, not someone—something.
TABBY SAT ON ONE OF the children’s chairs, hugging herself, exhausted. CDA had been all over the scene for hours—she’d been interrogated by Nick and his agents five times. The children had been picked up shortly after the crisis. Now, Nick was seated with Kristin and the principal, sipping coffee. She knew he was questioning them, but his demeanor was so casual he might have been at Starbucks with a couple of friends.
Those last moments of the morning kept replaying ruthlessly in her mind. She saw the look in the Highlander’s eyes just before his sword had flashed and he decapitated Angel; she saw the look in his eyes when he’d walked back into that schoolroom to avoid the police, his gaze hard and cold and devoid of all feeling, all fear. She trembled. Calling that man savage was an understatement—she couldn’t find the right word to describe him. She had witnessed violence for most of her life—evil was cruel and barbaric and it was everywhere. But the Highlander wasn’t evil—yet he had not had any conscience when he’d beheaded Angel. They could have tried to retrieve Angel’s soul, but he hadn’t hesitated. It was obvious that such brutality was second nature to him. He was a barbarian; he made Randall look like a saint.
She shivered.
But what really bothered her was how he’d stood on the other side of the fire wall, and how she’d felt standing across from him, the flames blazing between them.
For one moment, his hard face had changed, filling with surprise. Tabby wasn’t sure what he’d thought, but he’d suddenly seemed reluctant to leave her. She had been terrified and desperate, afraid that it was the end for them.
But there was no “them.”
Except, standing there with the fire between them, she’d felt as if she loved him.
Of course, she did not love him. He was a total stranger and as medieval as a man could be. She was a civilized, modern woman and a gentle soul. There would never be any kind of relationship between them, except for her helping him, if she could. But now, the idea that she might want to help a barbarian was laughable. It had to be a joke. As far as her feelings of dГ©jГ vu went, they were simply inexplicable.
Her temples hurt and she rubbed them. He needed medical attention, and then he had to go back to wherever he belonged. She’d feel better—safer—when he’d gone back to his primitive world. Maybe he’d left already—she would be relieved! She’d go back to the Met and try to figure out why that amulet had made her feel evil and so much more. Then she’d determine what she was supposed to do about it—and him.
Sam laid her hand on her shoulder, her face grim. “Nick said we can leave.”
Tabby got up, relieved to be able to go home. At least the police had been called off. Sam had told her that. He was running from the cops unnecessarily. But maybe that was a good thing. Otherwise, he might be hanging around. “Sam, if he hasn’t gone back in time, he needs medical attention.”
Sam grimaced. “So you said, a dozen times. If he’s still here, Nick will find him and have him taken care of.”
Tabby looked into Sam’s eyes, carefully shielding her thoughts—but not from her sister. Sam had told her she was certain Nick could read minds. Tabby thought it likely. She’d seen him in action once or twice and he was not your average mortal.
She had not told Nick what had happened yesterday at the Met. She wasn’t sure why she felt the need to be secretive now—not that she worked for Nick, anyway. But Nick was a control freak and he had his own agenda, always. He would be on the Highlander’s side, but she was oddly afraid of Nick’s interference. Involving him now, before she knew what was really happening, felt wrong.
Because she’d been covered with Angel’s blood, Tabby had borrowed an older student’s gym clothes. She picked up her white wool coat, slipping it on, and her purse and tote. Sam gestured and they started for the door. Nick rose to his feet and approached.
“So when you want to tell me what really happened, you have my direct line,” he said.
Tabby fought to control her thoughts and feelings. “I told you everything.” She hated lying, but did so now with aplomb—or so she thought.
But he seemed amused. “You’re lying through those pearly whites, Tabby.” He sobered. “I want to protect him, too.”
Tabby crossed her arms over her chest. Nick would protect him. She should come clean. “I didn’t say I want to protect him, but I don’t want to see him hurt.” She hesitated, then added, “He needs to go back to wherever it is he came from, Nick. I don’t think he should be here.”
“And you think that because?”
Tabby tried not to think about her encounter with him at the Met or the spell she’d cast. “Isn’t it obvious? A medieval man running around the city will raise all kinds of questions.” Tabby was aware that CDA’s second priority after the war on evil was to remain clandestine. The agency had an entire department devoted to public relations, to spinning demonic crimes into acceptable criminal ones. The public would not be able to handle the truth, and general hysteria would ensue, leading to chaos and anarchy. And that was what evil wanted. “If a single reporter figures out what is going on, it’s all over.”
Nick was clearly skeptical of her. Then he leaned close. “Listen, Tabitha, everything that happened last night was not reported in the press.”
Tabby tensed. She did not like the sound of that. “What do you mean?”
“He hurt a cop in the initial confrontation.” Nick stared, letting that sink in.
It took Tabby a moment. “Please tell me the cop is all right.”
Nick was grim. “I just got the call. He died an hour ago.”
Tabby took a calming breath, aware of Nick’s speculative stare, and Sam slid her arm around her. Nick said, “There are a lot of pissed-off cops in the city right now.” His blue gaze slammed to Tabby’s. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I want to protect him. He needs protection, because orders or not, the men in blue are gunning for him.”
Tabby knew the mind-set of the police. They were heroes—they defended the Innocent every single day—but they were merciless when one of their own went down. “He saved us today, Nick. He’s a Master, and he would never hurt a police officer on purpose. It had to be self-defense.”
“Don’t tell me,” Nick said. He patted her shoulder clumsily. “You look like hell. Go home and rest. Let us worry about the Highlander. And, Tabby, he’s probably long gone by now.”
Tabby couldn’t smile back. The Highlander was in trouble, and clearly he knew it. He’d fled at the sound of the sirens. On the other hand, he looked capable of surviving an apocalypse. But the police might shoot first and ask questions later. The Masters weren’t immortal. Enough bullets could kill him. Even though the odds were that he was gone, she was worried, terribly so. “Can’t you use your clout with the NYPD? Can’t you insist he be brought in alive and unharmed?”
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