by Hazel Hunter
“How long should I wait before I pull you out?” she asked.
I wondered if I’d still be attached to the rope when she did. “Count to a hundred. Out loud, so I can hear you.”
The ground opened as soon as I stepped inside the stones. Then the darkness swallowed me up, but it didn’t turn around me or take me anywhere. I could hear Lola’s nervous voice counting off the teens as a soft white light glowed around me. Then the rope jerked, and suddenly the cheerleader floated down in front of me, her eyes wide.
I took hold of her hands. It’s okay. I’ve got you.
Who’s got us? She gripped my fingers tightly.
Little movies began to play around us. I saw my aunt giving birth, and then running out of a hospital. Later she cried as she watched my mother pushing me around in a stroller. I watched myself getting married at the courthouse because my fiancé hadn’t wanted the expense of a big wedding, and Lola hitchhiking to college to save money. I saw how lonely I’d been on all the nights my husband hadn’t come home until late, and Lola studying alone in an empty library while the other cheerleaders had been out partying. I saw myself looking up bridges in Scotland I could jump from, and Lola standing on the battlements after losing Hannah, her only friend.
I felt not just what I had suffered, but Lola’s despair as well. Everything we had experienced in those dark places in our lives paralleled.
The movies around us shifted and showed two other women. One was an ancient druidess, the other was Coco’s friend Deb. They looked remarkably alike, just as I realized Lola and I did. We watched as time went backward to a terrible tragedy that had changed both their lives forever. Then the portal began to spin as it forced us up and out.
We landed on either side of the stone circle, and I staggered to my feet and hurried over to Lola, who grabbed me in a tight hug. We were both sobbing, and it took a few minutes to pull ourselves together.
“I would have tried to find you if I’d known,” I told Lola.
“Not your fault.” She wiped the tears from my face and then her own. “We need to tell the others about Ruith and Deb.”
I nodded, and put my arm around her. “Let’s do that right now.”
Coach Jennings and the laird listened as Lola and I described what the portal had shown us.
“Deb is Ruith’s sister,” I said. “As a toddler she wandered into a sacred grove, and it took her to the twenty-first century. The tribe assumed Ruith, who hated the baby, had killed her.”
“By the Gods.” Gill got to his feet. “My father executed a druidess for murdering a bairn. The clan tied her to a stone and drowned her in the loch.”
“Only the calpa rescued Ruith,” Lola said, “and made her queen.”
“Then we came back in time, and Ruith discovered Deb still lived.” Isobel regarded me. “Deb doesn’t know any of it.”
“I think Ruith has been lying to her so she can use her to take revenge,” I told her.
“Then we must capture her, and tell her the truth,” the laird said.
Chapter 27
Remembrance
To rescue my bae Deb from the shape-shifting calpa, and free her from the spirit of Ruith, the evil druidess possessing her, we needed teamwork. Sure, we had a whole squad of cheerleaders, most with superhuman abilities, a clan of powerful, combat-ready immortal Scottish warriors, and a tribe of magical druids. But the two Angels essential to pull off our plan bailed before I could explain how.
“No, Coco.” Miri scowled at our sub, grabbed a basket and headed to the kitchens.
“Oh, hell, no.” Lola stalked out in the opposite direction.
I looked at the other girls. “What am I missing here?”
“The wicked fight they had after Homecoming, for one thing,” Reggie said. “And at the Christmas party, the Valentine’s Day dance…” She stopped and frowned. “Weren’t they at it again before Spring Break?”
“Don’t wig-snatch them,” Gayla hissed. “It’s their business, not ours.”
“Well, I’m tired of it,” Cha-Cha said. “Lola and Miri deadass hate each other, Coco.”
“Hundo p,” her lover Gracie chimed in. “Like, if you find one of them murdered, the other one did it.”
“Why?” I watched all the girls shrug before I turned to Jane, Lola’s newfound cousin. “I really need these two for the remembrance spell Master Gowan taught me. It may be the only way to get Deb back.”
“I’ll talk to Lola,” she said. “You better handle Miranda.”
I took Tory with me into the kitchen garden, where we found her best friend yanking weeds. As soon as we reached her Miri shot to her feet.
“Is that evil skank throwing shade at me again?” she demanded. “Because I’ve had enough of her–”
“Chill, she didn’t say a word.” I glanced at Tory.
She put a comforting arm around her friend. “Bae, just tell Coco how it started.”
“Lola stole fifty bucks from me her first week on the squad,” Miri said. “I would have given it to her if she’d asked, but she denied the whole thing. Then, when I reported her, she told Coach I’d put a dead rat in her gym bag.”
“Miri didn’t do it,” Tory put in. “I was with her the whole time during that practice. She never went near Lola’s bag.”
“Why would she steal from you?” When they both started arguing I held up a hand. “I know Coach Jennings had her stipend paid to her before she started training with us. Lola didn’t need the cash.”
“So, she’s a klepto,” Miri said, sniffing.
“You saw her take the money?” When she shook her head, I rolled my hand. “So? Who did?”
Jane, Gayla and Lola were waiting in the great hall when I came back with the girls. I could feel powers ramping up all around us as we sat down at the far end of the table. Lola and Miri wouldn’t look at each other.
“Okay, let’s settle this,” I said. “I’d like to hear from the main witness. That would be you, Gayla.”
“I didn’t do anything, Coco,” Gayla said, and pressed a hand over her heart. “Swear to God.”
That told me she was lying for sure.
“You told Miri you saw Lola with her purse,” Tory reminded her. “Why?”
“You told me you saw Miri with my bag right before I found the rat.” When Gayla remained silent, Lola shot out of her chair. “She can’t hide the truth from me.”
“Wait. Miri’s boyfriend forced me to do it.” Tears filled Gayla’s eyes. “He said he’d hurt me if I didn’t.”
“I can guess why. Jake cornered me one night in the library before I joined the squad,” Lola told Miri. “I’ve dealt with bullies like him before in foster care, so I shut him down.”
“I never knew about this.” Miri held out her hand. “See for yourself.”
Lola shook her head. “I believe you.”
“Okay. Let us have the room,” I told the other girls.
Once Tory and Jane took Gayla out of the hall, I sat down and told Lola and Miri how the spell was supposed to work.
“You saw what made Ruith turn evil in the grove portal, so remember that,” I said to Lola. “Miri, once I channel her memories to you through this spell, they’ll be yours, too. Then, when we capture Deb, you’ll use your power to show them to her.”
Both of the girls agreed, and I took out the remembrance potion vial and placed a drop on one of their palms and both of mine. Our skin took on a pretty, rosy color as we joined hands and I repeated the words of the spell.
“Gods above, we beg you take remembrance from our sisters,” I murmured, “so that which one knew may be known by the other.”
The glow infusing us flared brighter as I heard a muffled shout. Something rushed through me from our joined hands. It seemed to go both ways before the light faded out, and the girls released my hands. I looked up to see Kendric Gowan staring at me.
“Gabrielle, you misspoke the spell” he said, sounding horrified. “’ Twas ‘sister,’ no’ ‘sisters.’”
>
“It’s all right.” I looked at both girls. “They seem fine.”
“No, Coco,” Lola said as she looked down at herself. “I’m Miri.”
“Oh, hell, no.” Miranda pressed her hands against her face. “I’m Lola.”
I expected them to scream, punch me and generally go crazy, but when they both grinned at each other I sighed with relief. “Okay, Master Gowan, give me the switch-back spell and I’ll fix this.”
“’Tisnae such a spell,” the druid told me. “The exchange, ’twill end at the full moon, and no’ before.”
“I still have my memories. Can I use Miri’s druid power while I’m in her body?” Lola asked, and when Kendric nodded she said, “Then the plan will still work. We just have to capture Deb before the full moon.”
“First we’d better go explain this to Ualan and Simidh,” Miri said.
Chapter 28
Trapped
Capturing Ruith should have been easy. We knew from Jane and Lola’s visions of the evil druidess’s past that she couldn’t breathe underwater like the calpa, and she wouldn’t risk drowning Deb. Ruith had lived in a sea cave while reining as the shape-shifters’ queen, so the laird sent lookouts to watch the spots on the island’s craggy shorelines where she might hide. One came back to report that Deb had been spotted going in and out of a deep cave near a waterfall, which was when the McGillean abruptly shut down our plan.
“’Tisnae safe, Gabrielle,” Gill told me, his expression darkening. “The entry’s dangerous, and the cave floods at high tide. We’ll try another scheme.”
“Why would Ruith hide someplace where Deb could be hurt, my lord?” I asked, and then glanced at my husband. “And why do you all look like I just kicked you where it hurts guys the most?”
Griogair eyed the laird, who nodded. “That cave, ’tis called Ifrinn. ’Twas cursed long before men came to live on the island. Any mortal who enters never leaves alive.”
“Except Deb,” I said. “She’s still human.”
“No’ entirely, lass,” Gill said.
“Okay, so we don’t set a trap for her inside the cave.” I thought of all the Angels with particular powers. “We’ll need Stephanie, Roxanne and a few others, but here’s what we can do instead.”
Because any light hurt her eyes Stephanie had to stay blindfolded from dawn to sunset, but in the dark she had druid super-vision, and could spot the calpa from miles away. I had her and her guy Duncan keep watch from the top of the craggy boulders flanking the entrance to Ifrinn. Roxanne, her guy Smith and I hoisted the heavy nets above the cave entrance.
“I’d stay, my lady,” Smith said as we walked to the path leading to the top of the cliff. “Only my wife would toss me across the reach.”
“Damn right,” Roxanne said, pressing his hand against her abdomen. “You’re mortal, and our kid is going to need a dad. No heroics.”
I congratulated the expecting parents before I sent them with the mounted clansmen waiting to escort them back to the village. Then I stood for a moment to admire the waterfall beside the cave, which looked like flowing silver in the moonlight.
How could such a beautiful place be cursed? And why?
“Incoming,” Stephanie called out before she and Duncan hurried up the cliff path.
I turned to see Reggie being chased along the beach by a huge black stallion with crazy eyes, and ran for her. I caught her in my arms and shoved her behind me as I faced the shifter.
Show time.
“All right, nightmare,” I said, bracing my feet in the sand. “Come and pick on someone who can actually kick your ass all the way to Albuquerque—or where it will be eventually.”
“Iloren.” A robed woman waded up out of the waves, dragging a little boat behind her. “Dinnae trouble yourself, my son. Permit me to deal with this slut.”
From the top of the cliff my husband swung his sword, cutting the ropes holding the nets we’d hoisted earlier. A huge thunderous roar came with a huge pile of rocks that crashed down and blocked off the cave.
“You used to call me your best friend, Deb,” I said as I retreated. “You remember, before Bad Taste in Mates possessed you.”
“Deborah betrayed my trust when she came to warn your stablemaster,” Ruith said, “and for that I sent her into oblivion. She’s dead. This body belongs to me alone now.”
As I flinched the shifter bared his jagged teeth in a vicious sneer.
“Calm, now, calm.” The druidess went to him, stroking his neck with her hands. “I watched them set their pitiful trap above my cave. We will find another place where we may talk—after you feast.” She smirked at me. “You’re the one trapped, slut.”
“Seems that way.” I glanced up at Griogair, who had his grim face on. “Only one thing.” I smiled at the evil bitch. “That’s not Iloren.”
Velvet used his head to knock Ruith aside, sending her sprawling while I scrambled over the boulders. Kendric emerged from where he had been hiding, and tossed a small sphere of white light that expanded over the druidess, pinning her to the sand. He murmured a spell as he approached her, and then knelt to tie her wrists and ankles with glowing mistletoe vines.
“Incoming,” Stephanie shouted down to us.
Kendric and I loaded Ruith onto Velvet’s back, and the druid swung up behind her before riding up the cliff trail. By the time the calpa were galloping out of the waves, she and Reggie marched down to the piles of dried seaweed lining the beach.
“Know what, monsters?” she shouted. “I’m wearing wool. I hate wool. It itches. I hate the rash it’s going to give me. And I hate you.”
Fire blazed up as her power ignited her gown and the seaweed all around her. Flames raced down the beach, forming a wall between us and the shifters, who reared up and then whirled and ran into the sea.
Griogair caught me in his arms, and buried his face in my hair. “I love you, Gabrielle. I hate when you take such risks. Yet your courage, ’tis as beautiful as you.”
“Thanks.” I kissed him, and then swallowed hard as the thought of Deb being gone stuck another knife in my heart.
As soon as it was safe to walk down and stand beside Reggie we did.
I eyed the scorched ruins of her gown. “Shame they haven’t invented marshmallows yet.”
“Marshmallows?” My husband draped his tartan around our tumbler’s bare body.
“Sticky sweet things you toast over fire.” Her nose wrinkled. “Only mine always fell off and burned.” She hesitated before she said, “I’m sorry about Deb.”
I blinked back the last of my tears. “Me, too.”
Chapter 29
Darklight
Ruith said I was dead, didn’t she? Bitch.
You think I’m just as evil as my sister is. After all, I tried to burn the McGillean Clan and the Angels alive on Bonfire Night. I also kidnapped Coco and Teague, and I would have fed them to the shape-shifters.
Only I didn’t do any of it. She did.
My sister got to me in my dreams. She showed me how the old laird, Gill’s father, tried to have her drowned for my murder, and how she really died. It was all my fault. So, I let her in, and she took over. When I realized how much I tried to fight back, but by then it was too late. Maybe I deserved to be drop-kicked into eternal darkness.
Only I’m not dead. Not yet, anyway.
Get me out of here, Jess. Please.
“Jessica.”
I bolted out of bed, screaming and shoving at the massive chest in my way until I looked up and saw the beautiful swan inked on my husband’s face. Then I collapsed in Sorley’s arms and let him hold me as I shuddered. The light from our chamber window told me it was close to noon.
“I couldnae wake you, my love,” he murmured, his hand stroking my head and my shoulders. “I reckoned you caught alone in the nightlands.”
“No, it was somewhere else.” I drew back from him. “Sweetheart, Deb’s alive, and trapped there.”
Sorley helped me dress, and then went down with me t
o the dungeons where the laird had locked up Ruith, the dark druidess who had possessed Deb’s body. Seeing her pacing back and forth in the cell Kendric had warded to null her powers made me shiver. Coco, who was watching her, frowned when she saw me and Sorley.
“Sinister Sis isn’t interested in surrendering.” Her lips twisted. “But she’s threatened to kill us in lots of gruesome ways.”
Ruith made a nasty sound. “Aye, and I shall see you gutted last, Gabrielle, so you may watch all the others suffer.”
“Thank you next,” Coco said.
“We need to chat,” I told her. “Sorley will stand guard.”
I waited until we left the castle before I told her about my dreamwalk encounter with Deb. “It’s not like the nightlands where Sorley and I go. She’s in some kind of huge forest of oak trees. The light there was dark. Weirdly dark.”
“She must be in the Grove of Stars.” Coco went so pale I thought she might pass out. “Kendric says it’s a place between the mortal realm and the afterlife where souls go after we die.”
The druid headman had been spending a lot of time lately teaching Coco how to be a shamaness, which worried Coach and Griogair. Personally, I thought it was pretty cool that she had that kind of power.
“Well, anyway, Deb’s not dead,” I assured her. “I think I can get her out of there, too. But if I bring her back, the only place she can go is her own body, right?”
“Yeah, and Ruith will just kick her out again, unless…” She hesitated and glanced back at the castle. “There’s another way, but you’ll have to take me with you.”
Sorley didn’t want to stay behind while I nightwalked with Coco, but I needed someone awake who knew what we were doing and could come and rescue us if things went south. I also wasn’t sure I could take someone with me, but as soon as we closed our eyes I felt Coco’s druid power flooding into me and supercharging mine.