Highlander Hunted: A Scottish Time Travel Romance (Highlander In Time Book 8)

by Rebecca Preston

  "The Black Annis," Brendan said softly. "Why don't I remember the stories? I was always ignoring that kind of thing, focused on my studies… who'd have thought that it was the stories I'd need to remember?" He chuckled weakly, looking up at Jamie. "Sorry for scaring you, lad. This is — this is very helpful. Thank you, truly, for what you've done here. Can we keep the drawing?"

  "Of course," Jamie said. "Are you going to find out who she is, how to — how to defeat her?"

  "We are," Helena promised.

  "Don't ever stop reading folk stories, Jamie," Brendan said firmly as they left. "You never know when they might save your life."

  And then they were away, heading down the stairs. Brendan explained that he'd sent word to Audrina, Marianne, and Fiona that their advice was sorely needed — magical consultants, as it were. As the castle's local practicing coven, they were the best equipped to provide advice and possibly resources for defeating the Black Annis.

  "Could it really be Anne?" Helena wondered, frowning. "Brigid's mother? I thought she… well, I thought she died out there."

  "Maybe not," Brendan said. "Honestly, I don't know. I know everything about every herb that grows out here, but not a damn thing about magic. So we're going to the experts."

  Fiona and Marianne were both waiting in a room that Helena didn't recognize. It had a low bed in it, as well as some counters around the edges — it looked oddly like a modern hospital room, with admittedly medieval furnishings.

  "This is Audrina's sick room," Brendan explained with a smile. "Nobody's using it at the moment, and most of the castle folk tend to steer clear of it unless they are ill."

  "They tend not to like being around stuff they consider witchcraft you see," Marianne chuckled, mirth on her face. "They still haven't learned that witchcraft's nothing to be afraid of, it's a lot more like healing ills."

  "Though it can be more than that." Fiona shrugged. "I've had a hand in more than a few recoveries. Thanks to Fiona, the one I came back for, I've learned a lot. She left me all her spellbooks and potions and things. So I've been able to do quite a bit. Even did a lot of spellwork when that plague was going on."

  "Yeah, but Audrina, Cora, and Karin did a lot of medicine work," Marianne pointed out.

  Fiona shrugged her shoulders. "Both. Both is good. Now, what did you need our witchy insights on?"

  "Is Audrina coming too?" Helena asked.

  "No, she's with Mary helping with the kitchens right now, we figured we could handle whatever it is you need." Marianne smiled.

  Brendan pulled out the sketchbook, flipping to the picture of the Black Annis — the monster that had been outside of Jamie's window. The two witches leaned in, raising their eyebrows as they studied the drawing.

  "Creepy," Fiona commented, her brow furrowed. "This is the thing that killed those guards? Donal's been incredibly upset."

  "Eamon's been with the men's families all day," Marianne said softly, her face drawn. "Terrible thing, to lose such young men. It was definitely this thing? No way it was… I don't know, a wild animal?"

  "Yes, it seems that the supernatural is to blame," Brendan said heavily. "My question is — do you know anything about this myth, the Black Annis?"

  "A witch," Marianne said after an eerie silence. "A witch who's lost control, that's my instinct, the feeling I get. As I mentioned, I was a phone psychic, I get these impressions. You know?" She shrugged a little ruefully, her eyes flicking from Brendan to Helena. "My spell casting is a little unreliable. But this part of my magic, it's usually accurate, but… well, I get what I get."

  "So she's… a person? A normal person who's been… twisted, like that?" Helena asked, frowning. Did that mean that Anne… Brendan was staring down at the drawing, clearly losing himself in it again, and she gently eased it from his hands. "We should tell them about her," she told him gently.

  The other two women leaned in, curious. Brendan took a deep breath. This was clearly taking a lot out of him.

  "This drawing," he said softly. "It's… it resembles Anne. My dear Brigid's lost mother."

  Marianne took the picture and stared down at it, her eyes widening. "No shit," she breathed, her eyes widening in recognition. "I can see exactly what you mean. But that's impossible." She looked up, frowning. "I thought she … she disappeared out onto the moors a year after Brigid died, didn't she? Everyone thought that she…"

  "She was never found," Brendan said, shaking his head. "We just assumed she'd been… well, that she'd wandered a great distance. Or that animals had found her remains. But is it possible — could it be, that all these years she's been out there…"

  "Why come back now, though?" Marianne asked. "Why wait six years before —" But then she stopped.

  All three of them looked straight at Helena, their faces wearing identical looks of dismay.

  "Because she sensed her daughter had come home at last," Marianne whispered.

  "Surely not," Brendan said doubtfully. "Surely…"

  "All I know is that a witch would have to be pretty powerful to pull off this kind of magic," Marianne said, shaking the paper meaningfully. "And from what I remember about Anne… yeah, I got some pretty strong magical vibes from her and no mistake."

  "What do you mean?" Helena asked.

  "Got them from Brigid, too," Fiona said softly. "Magic often runs in families, Helena."

  "Are you saying that — that Brigid really was a witch?" Brendan looked upset, but Marianne didn't look worried.

  "Not in the sense that the witch-hunters thought she was, no. But she definitely had some latent power. So did Anne… and that was what came out when she lost Brigid. She wandered out onto the moors — we all assumed that she was going out there to harm herself. But she wasn't. She was going out there to let her magic overwhelm her. Her grief, her pain… it found an outlet through magic."

  "How do you know all this?" Helena demanded, narrowing her eyes.

  Marianne only shrugged her shoulders. "It's just a hunch. Just intuition. But that's how my magic has always worked — just hunches and intuition. I was a really scary good phone psychic, back in the future. I've learned to trust it. It's taken me twenty years or so to refine it, but I've finally figured it out." She smiled. "Now I can start actually getting good at spellwork too."

  "I can't believe this," Brendan was saying faintly, running his hands through his tousled auburn hair again and again. "So Anne… was a witch. Is a witch. And somehow, that magic has… has taken over her, turned her into this … this monster. This creature that killed those men." His eyes were wide and horrified. "That can't be true. The Anne I knew… she'd never have harmed anyone."

  "Grief can do awful things to people," Fiona said softly, an unusual sad look on her face. "I've seen it change people completely. When you add latent magic to that mix… well, I'm not surprised she turned into this creature."

  "So what can we do about it?" Helena asked, frowning. It was all very well to have figured out where the monster came from, she was happy everyone was getting closure… but at the end of the day, no matter who the monster had used to be, it was still harming people. "From what Weatherby was saying — and from a lot of the evidence we have, too — this thing is going to start trying to kidnap children pretty soon."

  "Anne would never hurt a child," Brendan said, his jaw clenched.

  "We're not dealing with Anne. We're dealing with Black Annis," Helena said irritably. "You didn't look her in the eye like I did, Brendan. She was ready to kill me."

  "Was she?" Brendan said suddenly, tilting his head. "She was moving pretty slowly toward you when I saw her. I thought she might just be frail and old — but she moved so fast once I hit her with an arrow. Are you sure she was trying to kill you?"

  Helena hesitated, trying to remember what had happened that night. It was true, she had to admit… the creature had reached out to her very slowly with its metallic talons. They were razor-sharp and decorated with fresh lamb's blood — that was what had made her conclude that the monster
was trying to kill her. But was it possible that it might instead have just been reaching out to her? She remembered her dream, all of a sudden — the way the creature had spoken to her in a high, terrible voice. It was almost as though it had been happy to see her… as though it were welcoming her to the mists, to the cave. Welcoming her back. Welcoming its daughter.

  Brendan was watching her face shift and change, his eyes troubled. "See? It's possible that this creature… whatever it is… I mean, if it truly is Anne, surely there's some part of her left inside it? Could we reach her, somehow? Try to ask her to take control of her magic?"

  "It might be too late," Fiona said softly, looking grief-stricken. "If she's already killed two human beings… Brendan, she might be gone entirely."

  "No matter what," Marianne said briskly, "we have to find her. And we have to do what we can to stop her. Whatever we can," she said firmly, looking hard at Brendan. "Even if that means ending her life, Brendan. If it comes to that."

  He nodded, his face pale but determined. "I hope it doesn't," he said softly. "I hope we can reach her. If it really is her."

  "We'll try," Helena promised, chewing worriedly at her lip. "Maybe there's something I can do. I mean, she and I are technically related, right? Maybe there's something… I don't know." She sighed, getting to her feet. "But first things first… we have to keep ourselves safe. For the sake of the children around here."

  Brendan nodded, but she could tell he was troubled. They parted ways after the meeting, and she headed for her room, lost in thought. What were they going to do about this creature? Suddenly, it wasn't just as simple as finding a way to kill it. Now that might mean killing a person they knew, someone they loved.

  But what if that hesitation cost the life of a child?

  Chapter 22

  The day passed slowly, and Helena couldn't remember feeling so powerless in all her life. From what they'd heard from Weatherby and his men, and from their own first-hand experiences with the creature — the Annis, she kept trying to tell herself, but naming it felt uncomfortably like acknowledging that it was a person and not just a wild beast hunting them — it seemed clear that it was a nocturnal creature. Nobody had ever seen it during the daylight hours — all of the sightings were in the dead of night, far from dawn or dusk. That seemed to make sense, given that the creature also appeared to be frightened of bright lights. Did she hide away in the sandstone cliffs during the day? Helena wondered. Was she lingering there now, waiting for night to fall so that she might stalk the flocks again… or were her appearances at little Mary's window, and at Jamie's, evidence that she had moved on to a different kind of prey?

  When night fell, she went down to dinner to stop herself brooding constantly over the creature and what it might be doing. If she didn't put her mind somewhere else she knew she would spend the whole night staring out the window, trying to see the creature down there on the deserted moors, and that was no way to spend an evening. Part of her itched to go straight to the sandstone caves, to try to drive the monster out, but she knew that Laird Donal would never support that plan. Not with having lost two men to the monster the last time anyone got anywhere near its home. No, they had to wait. They needed more information about the creature; that was clear… but still, she felt powerless and frustrated just waiting for it to strike again.

  When she got to dinner, she realized with a smile that all the time-lost women were sitting together — even Karin, who was often not there for dinner, living as she did in a little cottage some distance from the castle. It seemed she and her husband were staying in the Keep for the time being, worried as they were about the creature stalking the night. It was a sobering reminder of the seriousness of what was going on — it wasn't just sheep that could fall victim to the creature's attacks any longer, and Helena found it difficult to put on a bright smile and chat with the women.

  "You seem to be taking this a little personally," Marianne said thoughtfully, tilting her head and staring straight through Helena with those unsettlingly keen eyes of hers.

  Helena swallowed the mouthful of food she was eating before she responded, a little hesitantly. "I mean … it feels a little personal." She shrugged. "This thing started hunting people right when I arrived, you know? I can't help but feel that it's connected to me, somehow. That I have a responsibility to help deal with it."

  Karin shook her head firmly. "It's not your fault," she said softly. "You can't blame yourself. When I first got here, a plague started spreading through the village. I was tempted to blame myself — but that wouldn't have helped anyone."

  "You did help, though," Helena pointed out, a little exasperated by the comparison. "You're an infectious disease specialist. You helped a whole lot. If I was some kind of expert in monsters like this, I'd feel better about it. All I know about is… is rocks. So if an in-depth assessment of the formation of the caves the monster lives in would be helpful, I've got you covered, but otherwise… I just feel useless, that's all. Everyone here's been so kind and I feel like there's nothing I can do to repay that kindness."

  "The MacClarans haven't been kind because they want something from you," Delilah said, sounding a little exasperated. "They took you in because you needed to be taken in. You don't owe anyone anything." She shrugged. "And if we're keeping score, you've helped a whole lot just by seeing this thing, being able to give the Laird a proper description of it. It seems to like you."

  Helena sighed. "I guess so. We certainly keep running into each other." She tilted her head, scanning the faces of the women. "You've all been filled in on —"

  "On the details of your — your particular relationship to the monster?" Delilah said, her voice dropping low so the tables around them wouldn't overhear them. "Yeah, Marianne let us know. It's an awful situation. But if folklore's anything to go by… it might mean you'll be instrumental in defeating the thing."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, from what I can remember of the Black Annis myth — and there's a lot of different versions of her, of course — she's a monstrous old hag who lives in a sandstone cave and eats children and lambs. Tans their hides on a tree outside, in some versions. People often dealt with her by giving offerings for her to take instead of their children. So what she wants…" Delilah shrugged, a sad look on her face. "She wants a child."

  A shiver ran down Helena's spine. "Did — did Brendan tell you about Anne?"

  "We know about Anne," Audrina said softly, shaking her head. "Jamie told me about the drawing he did, about Brendan recognizing her. It's a very troubling idea, that there might be some connection between the two of them. Poor Anne… I so desperately hoped she'd at least found peace out there, but …"

  "What drove her mad was losing her daughter," Delilah mused. "So… I guess that's why she's interested in other people's children."

  "Her daughter's gone," Helena said blankly. "How are we supposed to give her her daughter back if she was burned at the stake?"

  "We have you," Cora pointed out. "You're as close to her daughter as we're going to get, I'd imagine… but there's no way we're giving you to her."

  "It's impossible," Helena said softly, shaking her head. "Part of me hopes some guard just stabs her through the heart with his sword… but I'm worried somehow that that won't work."

  A gloomy silence fell among the women as they ate… then Fiona cleared her throat, shaking her head as she straightened up. "Let's change the subject, shall we?" she said brightly. "Let's focus on the good and not the gloomy. Helena! How are things going with Brendan?"

  Helena felt distinctly put on the spot by the question. All of the other women had looked up curiously when they'd heard the question, and she found herself facing seven identical grins from them. Swallowing her mouthful of food, she shook her head, feeling a blush rise to her cheeks as her mind cheerfully summoned the memory of kissing Brendan in the stables… "It's fine," she managed. "What?"

  "Well?" Delilah pressed her, grinning. "Anything — developed, between you two?"


  "Do the seven of you gossip about me when I'm not here?" she demanded, taking refuge in joking indignation.

  Fiona giggled. "Not exactly. But … well, we talk. How can we not? All seven of us wound up married to our MacClaran. Here's you with yours, spending all this time together, tutoring Jamie and going for romantic rides across the moors together —"

  "It wasn't exactly a romantic ride," Helena pointed out irritably. "I nearly got killed by a monster and then we camped out at a farmhouse and found some dead bodies. Not exactly the best first date I've ever been on."

  "But you admit it was a date," Audrina said whimsically, her eyes gleaming, drawing a titter from the other women.

  Helena had never blushed so furiously in all her life. "I guess! I guess there's something between us," she admitted. It was difficult to say out loud, but if she couldn't talk to these women about her distinctly bizarre romantic situation, who could she talk to? Honestly, it was a bit of a relief to get some of it off her chest, at least. "He's… I don't know. I'm still a little worried that he thinks I'm just a replacement for his wife."

  "Ah, that makes sense," Cora said softly. "Completely understandable."

  "We all went through it," Delilah said, smiling at her. "It's a strange situation, knowing your lover has been with someone just like you."

  "I spent a lot of time focusing on how I was different from her," Bethany said, shrugging her shoulders. "But in the end, the similarities are important, too. Not just the physical ones," she added with a smile.

  "I don't know much about Brigid other than she looked like me and maybe had some latent magical powers that got her killed," Helena said with a sigh. "And I mean… I've talked to Brendan about it. He's working on seeing me as my own person, not some carbon copy of her. I think… I think it'll be okay. It'll just take some time."

  "Time heals most wounds," Audrina said with a smile. "Take it from a nurse. But I'm glad you two are getting along. There's no rush, you know, no matter what these women may have you believe," she added with a gleam in her eye. "And nothing says you need to fall in love with him. Just… try to take it day by day. Get to know him."