“Lock him inside.” He stood back as Grog and Onca lifted Faelan and laid him inside. “Careful,” Druan warned. He wanted the warrior in good condition when he awoke to witness the destruction of mankind. Assuming the time vault actually worked. Even if it didn’t, capturing the Mighty Faelan would teach the archangel the folly of sending a warrior to destroy an ancient demon. This would be a kick in heaven’s teeth.
Druan rubbed his hand—still burning after he had tried to take Faelan’s necklace—and studied the unconscious warrior’s face. “Sleep well, warrior. I have great plans for you.” He slowly closed the lid and locked Faelan inside. Then Druan handed the key to Onca. “Mark this place and guard the key with your life.” He turned to the other demons who were digging Faelan’s grave. “Dig faster,” he roared above the crash of thunder. “We don’t have much time.”
Chapter Seven
Two weeks later
Near Albany, New York
“What’s he doing?” Tavis asked, watching as the Seeker knelt down and put his face near the ground. Frustration sharpened his tone. They had arrived in America later than they had planned. It had taken them longer than expected to hunt down one of the demons. Then, a storm had delayed the trip. Once here, they had tracked Faelan from New York City to Albany and then on to a horse farm where he had taken a job. He hadn’t been seen for a couple of days, but his horse—which from its description bore a striking resemblance to Nandor—had been found wandering nearby.
“Checking the tracks.” Quinn Douglass moved closer, studying the ground.
It had rained recently, and the muddy field was covered with the tracks of men and horses. As if a battle had been fought, Tavis thought, his battle marks tingling. If Faelan had already battled Druan, where was he?
“Something’s wrong,” his father whispered. “We should have found him by now.”
Simon, a big black man with a bald head and sharp eyes, was one of the most powerful Seekers the clan had. The Council had sent their best. With all the warnings from the Watchers and worry over Faelan’s assignment to a second ancient demon, the Council wasn’t taking any chances.
After a moment, the Seeker lifted his head. Tavis waited for him to turn, but he continued to stare at the ground.
“Did you find something?” his father asked.
“There’s a time vault buried here,” the Seeker said.
Tavis frowned. “You think Faelan buried Druan?” Time vaults weren’t buried. They were returned to Michael.
The Seeker turned, and when Tavis saw the blank look on Simon’s face, he knew the news was bad. “It’s not a demon inside.”
“What?” his father asked, his face ashen.
A dull roar filled Tavis’ ears.
Seekers were always focused and calm. They had to be. But Simon’s hands trembled. “Faelan’s talisman is inside.”
A stunned silence met the Seeker’s announcement. The small group stared at him as the meaning of his words sunk in.
Tavis saw his father’s chin tremble. “Dig. We have to dig.”
Daylight was fading and they didn’t have proper tools. They made do with what they had, but knives and swords weren’t much good in the mud. Fearing his father would collapse, Tavis sent him to a nearby house to borrow a shovel. Quinn also went to keep an eye on him. They came back with two spades, but his father looked like he had aged fifteen years in the past hour.
“What did you tell them?” Ian asked.
“That we were looking for buried treasure,” his father said.
“A husband and wife live there,” Quinn said. “Frederick and Isabel Belville. They’ve invited us to stay while we search.” The Keeper looked relieved. He’d been acting odd the entire trip. Sneaking about at night, looking over his shoulder as if he someone was following him. And Tavis was certain that Quinn was hiding something in his trunk. When Tavis came upon him looking inside it on the ship, Quinn had looked as guilty as a thief.
When the time vault was finally uncovered, Tavis’ father yanked at the lid. It was locked. “Is he inside?” he asked, his voice strained.
They watched as Simon ran his hands over the vault. “I can’t tell if he’s there. But it’s his talisman inside.” And if his talisman was there, then he must be too. Unless he was injured, captured, or dead, Faelan would never allow someone to take his talisman.
His father leaned against the time vault. His shoulders shook, but he made no sound.
Tavis’s chest and throat felt so tight he couldn’t breathe. He raised his arms, putting his hands behind his head to expand his chest, hoping to pull in a breath.
Ian shook his head, his face pale, but didn’t speak. He and Tavis made their way to their father’s side and stood near the time vault. Ian’s cheeks were damp now, as were their father’s, but Tavis felt like stone inside. He couldn’t be gone. Not the Mighty Faelan. Not his big brother. Tavis looked back and saw all the warriors and the Seeker had bowed their heads.
Tavis turned back to the muddy time vault, unable to fathom that his brother might be locked inside, frozen in time. Time vaults were made for demons, not humans. Druan must have put him there, and without Faelan’s talisman, there was no one to stop the ancient demon.
Stiff with shock and grief, they searched the hole for the key, hoping it had been buried with the time vault, and when they couldn’t find it, they covered the hole so no one would know the time vault had been removed. Tavis sent two warriors to accompany the Seeker back to town and purchase a wagon. He insisted that his father and Quinn go to Frederick and Isabel’s house before they became suspicious, while he, Ian, and the others disguised the time vault with branches and waited for nightfall. When it was quiet, and the house was dark, they went to move Faelan to holy ground. In case Druan, or whoever buried it, came back. A soft rain fell, as if heaven mourned. Even with four warriors, the time vault was difficult to move. Tavis’ muscles strained as he lifted his end. “Careful, don’t drop it!” he warned, when one of the warriors stumbled under the weight. Panting, they placed the time vault in the wagon.
“Someone’s coming,” Ian whispered.
They waited to see if they would be discovered, but the lone horse and rider moved past. When the path was clear, they continued their task. They unloaded the time vault outside the graveyard and carried it toward the crypt they’d seen earlier. It would protect Faelan for now. They were surprised, and relieved, to find the crypt empty. After placing Faelan inside the burial vault, they stood in a circle, their faces somber. Then the others left for town, where they and the Seeker had taken rooms.
Tavis and Ian spent the night in the crypt with their brother.
“Do you think he’s alive?” Ian asked.
“Aye. He doesn’t feel dead to me.” Not quite alive either, but not dead.
“We could find Druan and shackle him. Make him tell us what happened.”
“We’d never get close enough to shackle him,” Tavis said. “We would die. That would kill Ma, losing all her sons. We have to believe he’s alive and that he’s safe inside.” Tavis looked around at the crypt. “We need a permanent place to put him until then.”
“I wish we could take the time vault with us,” Ian said. “He belongs at home in Scotland.”
“Aye, he does, but it’s dangerous to move the time vault.” There were stories about the contents being destroyed if moved around too much.
“How do we know that?” Ian asked.
It was likely a fable, considering that time vaults were sent back to Michael and no one would have lived long enough to know such a thing anyway. Still, they couldn’t risk injuring Faelan more than he might already be. “The warning could have come from Michael. Do you want to risk it?”
“No. But we can’t just leave him here, unprotected.” Ian looked around at the small tomb. “This crypt would be the safest place. We wouldn’t have to move him again, and it’s on holy ground.”
“I think Frederick would notice if there was a time vault in
his crypt. We could bury the time vault in the graveyard, but Frederick would notice that too.”
“I don’t want to put Faelan in the ground,” Ian said. “What if he can’t breathe?”
“He’s not breathing anyway.”
“We don’t know that. Maybe it’s different for humans. Maybe time doesn’t stop inside. Maybe it won’t open after a hundred and fifty years. Even if it does. What’ll he wake to? No family. Everything he knows dead and gone. That’ll be worse than death.”
“He has to be alive,” Tavis said. “His talisman is the only thing that can destroy Druan.”
“We have to find a safe place to keep him.”
“We could ask to buy the crypt, but I don’t know what explanation we would give.” Tavis sighed. “We’ll think of something. First, we have to find the key. Without it, nothing else matters.”
Tavis’ father and Quinn remained as guests of Frederick and Isabel under the pretext of searching for treasure, when in fact they were looking for the key to the time vault and keeping an eye on the crypt. Finding the key was crucial. Without it, the vault wouldn’t open, even after the proper time had passed. But they had no idea if Druan had the key or if he’d hidden it somewhere.
The next night, they got lucky and found a man sneaking around where the time vault had been buried. Tavis jumped the man, and he said that he was looking for a lost key. It was too much of a coincidence to believe that it was any key other than the one to Faelan’s time vault. With the right motivation, the man—one of Druan’s minions, they learned—admitted that he was helping the halfling, who had held the key for Druan that night. The halfling had lost the key and was terrified that Druan would find out.
They found Onca in the woods behind the chapel searching the path that led to town. He cooperated, telling the warriors what he knew, which wasn’t much. He didn’t know why Druan had locked the warrior away, except that it had something to do with revenge and this plot he was brewing. In return for their promise not to kill him and not to tell Druan what he’d done, Onca showed them the exact route he had taken that night, from the field where the time vault had been buried to Frederick and Isabel’s house, where he had stopped once to make sure they hadn’t seen the activity. Then he’d continued on the path to town.
They searched the area dozens of times, but the key was nowhere to be found. Even the Seeker couldn’t find it. It was as if it had vanished.
Just when it seemed things couldn’t get any worse, the warriors Faelan had sent to New York City returned with the urgent message Faelan had sent warning that Druan’s war was merely a cover for something far more deadly. He and his sorcerer were creating something that would destroy all humans. And it was almost ready.
“We should’ve stayed with him,” the oldest warrior said. “But we didn’t want to disobey his orders. This was his battle after all.” The warrior shrugged, looking miserable. “He is the Mighty Faelan.”
“It’s not your fault,” Tavis said. “He would have found a way to get you away from danger anyway.”
They decided that since they couldn’t destroy Druan without Faelan’s talisman, they could at least try to stop the sorcerer and destroy whatever he was working on. That might slow down Druan’s creation. But finding the sorcerer was a problem. The warriors spread out searching for Druan and his sorcerer. They found nothing but loose ends until a stranger approached Tavis and Ian outside town and said he had heard they were looking for Druan. The man was tall and dark-haired, but he kept his face hidden in the shadows, saying he preferred to remain anonymous. He said Jeremiah’s physician—which they reckoned must be his sorcerer—was leaving for Albany that night by stagecoach, and perhaps he could tell them where Jeremiah was staying.
The stranger’s manner and his use of Druan’s name along with his human identity made Tavis suspicious, and he insisted that the man identify himself. The stranger hesitated, and then said, “If you wish.” When he stepped into the light, Tavis’ heart crawled into his throat. He cursed and started to pull out his talisman even though it would be futile. As he touched the talisman, he felt numbness sliding over him.
“Don’t do anything rash,” Tristol said. “I mean you no harm. In this we have the same goal.”
Tavis stared into Tristol’s dark eyes, unable to look away. The numbness moved from Tavis’ body to his mind.
“Close your eyes and forget.” Tristol’s voice was soft, but commanding.
Tavis had no choice but obey. He felt his eyes closing. For how long, he didn’t know, and when he could open them again, the man was gone. A raven perched nearby, watching Tavis with dark eyes. Tavis felt a familiar chill. He pulled out his talisman and swung around in a circle.
“What just happened?” Ian asked. “There was a man here.”
“I don’t know,” Tavis whispered. He remembered the man—no, a demon—telling them where to find Druan’s sorcerer. “I think he was a demon.”
Ian frowned. “Aye, I think you’re right, but he wasn’t ugly like most of them. He was...beautiful. Bollocks. What did he do to us? Cast some kind of spell?”
“I wish I knew,” Tavis said, watching the raven watch him. “He said we had the same goal. I remember that.”
“It could be a trap.”
“I have a feeling he wouldn’t have needed a trap to kill us.”
“I feel like we should know him. There was something familiar about him, but I can’t remember. Maybe we’re dreaming,” Ian muttered.
Tavis punched him on the arm. “We’re not dreaming. Come on. We’re going to find this sorcerer. Trap or not, we have to check it out.”
They took a dozen warriors with them, just in case, and they found the stagecoach where the demon had said. When Tavis opened the door and looked inside, he first thought the man was a priest. Then he looked past the robes, at the long, gray hair, and he got a shock. “Old Donnal?”
“Bloody hell! It is him,” Ian said.
Old Donnal looked the same, except for the priest’s robes. He looked down his long nose at them. “My name is Selwyn.”
Tavis pulled the sorcerer from the carriage and put his dirk to his throat. “You’d best start explaining, Selwyn. How long have you been working for Druan?”
“Longer than you can imagine.”
“What were you doing in that apothecary shop pretending to be Old Donnal?”
“Druan paid me to follow another demon. He wanted to know what the demon was up to. The owner of the apothecary shop had recently died, and I needed a place to work on the virus, so I took over his shop so I could watch for the demon.”
“Virus? You mean Druan’s disease? You worked on it in the apothecary shop?” Ian asked.
“I’ve been working on this damned virus for longer than you’ve been alive. I’ve worked on it in so many locations I can’t recall them all.”
“We were in that shop when we were lads,” Tavis said.
“What is this virus?” Ian asked.
“It will destroy humans.”
Tavis frowned. “How?”
“I’ve said enough. If Druan finds out I’ve talked to you he’ll kill me.”
Tavis didn’t tell him but the sorcerer would be dead as soon as he told them where to find Druan and the virus. “Was this demon you followed to Scotland working with Druan?”
“I don’t think so. I don’t know why Druan was interested in him. I saw him only once,” Selwyn said.
“Why was he there and why was Druan spying on him?”
“The demon was there to kill a warrior.”
“What was the warrior’s name?”
“Something with an L. Liam, I think.”
Tavis felt as if his bones had crumbled. He remembered Old Donnal looking out the window, his face shocked as the demon dragged Liam away. Beside him, Ian looked stunned. “Liam Connor was our brother,” Tavis said. “He was killed by a demon when he was only two.” They’d always assumed Liam was killed out of revenge against their father.
&
nbsp; “I remember,” the sorcerer said. “I was there when it happened.”
“Who was the demon?” Ian asked.
“Druan didn’t tell me his name,” the sorcerer said. But his dark eyes narrowed, almost taunting, and Tavis was certain he lied.
“What demon could have known Liam was a warrior?” Ian asked. “He was just two.”
“One of the demons Liam would have destroyed when he grew up.”
“How did the demon find out about Liam?” Ian asked.
“If your name is Connor,” the sorcerer said, “then you must be the Mighty Faelan’s brothers.”
“Aye, we are,” Tavis said. “Why did Druan lock Faelan in the time vault?”
“I wasn’t there. I don’t know his plans.”
But he didn’t question what a time vault was, so he knew more than he was saying. Tavis dug the point of his dirk into the sorcerer’s chest. “Is Faelan alive?”
“I believe he is,” the sorcerer said, trying to get away from the dirk.
“Is he injured?” Ian asked.
“I don’t know.” The sorcerer threw up his hands when Tavis started to stab him again. “I tell you the truth. I don’t know what happened. I wasn’t there.”
“You were there when Liam died. You know who killed him.” Tavis was so full of anger and frustration that he knew he needed to step away before he did something he would regret.
Ian, reading his thoughts as Ian often did, pulled Tavis aside. “I know how you feel. I want to know who killed Liam, but we have to remember what’s important. Liam is dead. Faelan is lying in a time vault. Probably alive. We might be able to save him.”
Tavis swallowed and nodded his head. A warning cry rose from the warriors surrounding them, and Tavis turned back to see the sorcerer chanting and waving his hands. Ian pulled out his dirk and buried it in the man’s heart.
Faelan: A Highland Warrior Brief Page 8