And no matter how hard she tried to focus on the Kelpie issue, her mind kept creeping back to Niall… and not just because he was the one she was working with on the problem. Late at night, with nothing to distract her, her mind kept painting pictures of the two of them together… of his skin under her hands, his body against hers, him taking her into his arms and kissing her a lot harder and longer than he had that night, that night his lips had burned themselves into her memory forever… exasperated, she sat up, running her hands through her hair before she thumped back into bed, turning over and over to try to find a comfortable spot.
Sometimes it helped to listen to the gentle sloshing of the Loch outside. So she tried to settle her breathing, tuning into the waves. She listened for a while, feeling them beginning to lull her into a calmer state… but then a frown crossed her face. That was strange. The sound of the waves… it was more intense than usual, more aggressive. Almost as though there was a storm… but no, the night was calm, she’d only just been outside. Besides, the sounds weren’t regular. That was the strange thing. It was almost as if there was someone swimming in the water… but who would be stupid enough to swim this late at night? Even in summer, it was freezing cold in the Loch at night… you’d catch your death of pneumonia if you tried to go swimming. Just like Helen nearly had when she’d first gotten here.
She must have drifted off to sleep for a few hours, but it was only a shallow sleep… which may have explained why she was awoken when she heard it. The unmistakable sound of a horse — a low, angry whinny, the kind of sound they made when threatened. She sat bolt upright in bed, her heart pounding, the very idea of sleep forgotten. The sound of splashing… then the low sound of a horse neighing? Was it possible there was a Kelpie right outside? It would make sense — they did come out at night. But the Monster came out at night, too. Was the Kelpie brave — or reckless — enough to come so close to the docks?
She heard more splashing, more violent this time… and then she shuddered, her heart pounding in her chest as she heard the whinny again, more desperate this time, more frightened. Then she heard the sounds of a scuffle, a few hollow sounds that almost sounded like hooves on a wooden surface… irregular, strange strikes… then another guttural whinny, and a heavy thud, as though something had fallen down hard on the surface of the dock. She pulled her boots on before she could give it a second thought, then bit her lip hard. It was the middle of the night… it wasn’t safe to go out, not with the Kelpies around.
What she’d just heard, though, sounded like a wounded Kelpie dragging itself out of the water, then falling in a heap on the dock.
She moved to the window as a compromise, her heart pounding in her chest. It was early, she realized as she peered out of the window — very early. The sky was dark, just beginning to turn gray with the light that would precede dawn. Though she didn’t have a watch anymore, she reckoned it at about four a.m. Going outside was definitely a bad idea… but still, she peered through the window, trying to make out the dark shapes out there. Her eyes were adjusted to the gloom, but still, it was difficult to peer out there. Was that a dark shape on the dock, or was she imagining it? Had her mind’s eye summoned the image of a wounded Kelpie, collapsed on the dock?
No — her heart leapt as a shadow seemed to shift and move. Then came that unearthly sound again — the scream of a horse, wounded and desperate. She could feel the emotion in it, feel its pain and confusion despite how alien the creature’s voice was. If that truly was a Kelpie out there, it was hurt badly. Something someone had once said leapt to her mind — they said that the Monster liked to hang around the docks, eager for scraps and fish that the fishermen threw over the sides for it. Was it possible that this Kelpie had had a run-in with the Loch Ness Monster? If so, it sounded like it was much the worse for wear.
And that opened up possibilities, she thought excitedly, her eyes fixed on the shadow — which had, ominously, almost completely stopped moving. If this was a Kelpie that had been badly injured by the Monster, it was possible that they could capture it. What better evidence was there for the existence of these creatures than a captured specimen? Was it safe to keep a Kelpie imprisoned, though? she wondered. Certainly, she’d be worried about keeping it around any real horses — not with those sharp teeth and a taste for blood. Could it be installed in a regular horse stall, muzzled somehow to keep it safe?
That was providing it even survived the attack, she thought with worry. The shadow had certainly stopped moving — it was possible that the monster had claimed its life. Well, that served it right, really, she thought with a flare of anger, her mind going to the men who’d been taken and eaten whole, the animals that had lost their lives too, the fear that had spread around the castle and village in the wake of the attacks. And a dead Kelpie was just as good for evidence as a live one. Unless they disappeared somehow, or melted away when they died?
She watched it for another ten minutes or so, but it didn’t move or make a sound again. She was on the verge of going to wake up Niall when she decided against it — the Kelpie clearly wasn’t going anywhere. She’d wait for him to get up of his own accord — it wouldn’t be long now until he got up, he was always up and off around dawn. She dressed quickly, far too excited about the potential offered by the dead creature outside to go back to sleep and headed out into the living room where she took a seat at the dining room table to wait for him.
She didn’t have to wait long. She heard him moving around in the other room, heard a yawn from him and a shuffling of feet as he made his way into the dining room. She sat forward, realizing as she did so that she was looking forward to seeing him — not just because of the news she had.
He blinked at her, clearly surprised to see her there. “You’re up early,” he commented, voice raspy from sleep and his hair fetchingly askew.
She grinned. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”
Chapter 36
He dressed quickly once she’d described what she’d heard that morning — the strange sounds, the splashing, the horse-like whinnying… he was clearly as excited as she was about the prospect of finally getting some concrete, undeniable evidence of the monsters that were stalking the people of the castle and the village. Once he was dressed, he headed for the door — but she hesitated, drawing a concerned glance from him.
“What’s wrong?”
“These creatures are intelligent, right?” she asked slowly, her mind troubled. “How intelligent? Is it possible that this could be a trap designed to lure us outside unguarded?”
He paused for a moment, clearly thinking about this. “Good thought,” he said finally, giving her a little smile. “Do you still have that knife?”
“Of course!” It had become second nature to tuck her little iron blade into the bodice of her dress — easily accessed, but not so easily that Eamon might grab it, for example. “Good thinking,” she echoed him, grinning a little as she drew the blade from its hiding place. “Do you have something iron?”
He scoffed at her, a smile dancing around his face. “Do I have an iron weapon,” he echoed her with an ironic twist to his lips. “Who’re you talking to?” He strode across the room, to where a low wooden chest that she’d never seen inside of was standing. Removing a few of Eamon’s toys from its surface first, he lifted the lid and reached in to withdraw what looked like a short sword, sheathed in a decorated scabbard.
“Iron tends to rust,” he explained, drawing the sword to check its blade. “So I took to keeping this stowed away to keep it safe. But — well, you know what they say about a ship in harbor.”
“A ship in harbor is safe,” she said softly, smiling. “But that’s not what it’s for. Right?”
“Something like that.” He smiled at her. “I suppose the expression changed over the centuries.”
“Not by much.”
“Aye, not too much,” he agreed. “Now. Let’s go and see if we’ve got a dead Kelpie on our hands.”
She bit her lip as she followed h
im, her blade in her hand. After all this, she was beginning to worry that it was a false alarm — that whatever she’d heard out there wasn’t a Kelpie at all. What if they headed out there to find nothing but the sunrise? Well, she could think of worse ways to spend a sunrise, she thought with a smile, gazing at Niall’s back. But it would be better for both of them, overall, if this turned out to be a dead Kelpie.
“My word,” Niall breathed, coming to a dead stop as they reached the dock closest to Helen’s window. “Either that’s a Kelpie, or someone’s lost a prized steed…”
Her eyes widened as she gazed down at the dock. Sure enough, the dark shape she’d seen from her window was still there. It was lying dead still in the cool early morning air, and as the sky steadily went from black to gray, she could see just well enough to make out more details of the creature. It looked for all the world like an enormous horse — dark gray in color, if not black, with sleek, gleaming muscles under its silky coat. Even knowing what it was — what a dangerous creature it was, how many deaths it and its friends had caused — she felt a strange longing to stroke its shoulder, to feel the soft touch of its skin… she shivered a little.
“I feel — I know what it is, but I still feel like I want to pet it,” she murmured to Niall, who was staring down at the Kelpie with a similarly spellbound expression.
He shook himself. “I know what you mean,” he said softly. “The Fae have an unbelievable charm, that’s for sure. Part of their magic.. part of why they’re so deadly, when they want to be.”
She thought of Maggie, the irascible old woman’s surprising charm, how likable she was. A shiver ran down her spine. Was Maggie’s charm part Fae magic? Had she cast glamour on herself to make her seem less monstrous? She turned her attention back to the Kelpie, not liking where that particular train of thought was going.
Niall had knelt down next to the creature, clearly keeping his distance as he reached down with the tip of his unsheathed sword to lift a few strands of the creature’s mane. Just as Maggie had described it, the horse’s mane and tail both looked like they were dripping wet, just out of the water — even though the rest of the dock around them was dry. As he lifted the strands, she gasped a little — tendrils of smoke rose up from the strands, and the thick stench of burning hair reached her nose as the hair crumbled into dust beneath the touch of the iron. Niall sat back, clearly satisfied by his little experiment.
“Aye, this is a Fae creature and no mistake,” he said softly. Then he reached down with one fingertip, pressed it to the creature’s neck, and quickly yanked it away. He nodded, clearly pleased with the results of the experiment. “It’s safe to touch.”
“It’s dead,” she said, blinking. “Surely that would make it safe…”
“Not always,” he said. “I’ve heard legends of creatures like these — not Kelpies exactly, but water horses. They appear to people in fields close to bodies of water, beautiful things, and encourage them to get on their backs. But once they do, their skin becomes like thick glue, and their riders can’t get off. Then they drag them to the bottom of the nearest body of water and absorb them.”
“Where did you hear that?” she asked, her voice low as she stared down at the creature before them. Aside from its wet mane and tail, with its eyes closed it looked just like a regular horse.
“A man in a tavern,” he said with a chuckle. “He was missing a hand, and he offered to tell me the tale in exchange for a round of ales for him and his mates. I was happy enough to oblige — and the story was well worth the coin. He said that as a child, he and his friends had encountered a beautiful white horse in a field, a horse that had seemed so sweet and friendly… tempting it with handfuls of sweet grass, they’d quickly befriended it. It nuzzled at their faces and almost seemed to want to play with them, frolicking across the meadow and whickering joyfully when they ran alongside it. So, he told me, his bravest friend had asked him to help him climb on the horse’s back.”
A shiver ran down her spine. “What happened?”
“Keep in mind, this was pub talk,” Niall said heavily. “Whether there was any truth to it, I cannae say. But he told me… the minute his friend was aboard the horse, something changed. He’d leaned his hand against the horse’s neck to steady it as his friend climbed onto its back, but when he tried to pull his hand away, he couldn’t. It was as though his hand had stuck to the horse’s neck like glue. It sank deeper and deeper into the horse’s neck… as it slowly began to walk toward the deep lake in the corner of the paddock. He said the only thing that saved his life was the knife he had on him. As the horse descended into the water, his friend still screaming for help on its back, he was able to cut through his own wrist, freeing himself before it was too late.”
Dawn was approaching. Helen stared down at the dead creature before them, her heart pounding sickly in her chest. “Is that how the fishermen died?” she asked softly. “Is that how it dragged them into the Loch?”
“Maybe,” Niall said softly. “But this discovery… this will help us enormously to make sure that no more people are claimed by these monsters.”
He moved to the creature’s head, and gingerly reached down to lift one of its soft lips — then nodded, gesturing her to come over and have a look. Sure enough, where she’d been expecting the molars of an herbivore, there were instead several rows of sharp, serrated teeth.
“How did it die?” she wondered softly. “The Monster?”
“Aye, I’d guess so,” he said, scrutinizing the creature’s body. “It looks like it’s had its limbs broken — look, its back leg.” Sure enough, one of the creature’s hind legs was twisted at an odd angle, especially compared to the other one. “And there — on its shoulder. Does that look like bite marks?”
Against the horse’s dark pelt, it was hard to make out what Niall was talking about — but sure enough, as she looked closer she could see what he was talking about. Deep indents in the horse’s side, with black blood tricking from them still. “Gross,” she commented, an eyebrow raised. “Can we get the villagers to the docks to see this? What better evidence that the Monster is hunting these things, not the fishermen?”
Niall nodded. “They need to see this, that’s for sure. But I’d rather take it into the village, so it’s not just the fishermen.”
She nodded. “I’ll come with you.”
The rest of the morning passed in a flurry. She helped Niall shift the Kelpie’s heavy carcass to a slightly less obstructive position on the docks, and then ran up to the castle to fetch Laird Donal, Malcolm and Brendan to have a look at the creature. The stablemaster Liam, Kay’s husband, came along too, fascinated to see the creature that had been causing such problems. The women came too, all of them — Helen couldn’t help but grin at the defeated looks on the faces of their husbands as they cheerfully ignored the suggestion that seeing the creature might unnerve them.
“It just looks like a regular horse,” Kay said softly as they gathered around the dead Kelpie. Niall was lashing ropes around its body, already preparing to drag it into the village to show the villagers once the Laird and his men had seen their fill. There was already a crowd of curious fishermen gathering, and when Niall moved up to show the horse’s pointed fangs to Kay, they withdrew with shocked, horrified murmurs. “Not a regular horse then,” she said with a grin, raising her hands. “Well, I’m glad there’s one less of them about. Hope it didn’t take a bite out of Nessie,” she added with a frown, glancing towards the Loch.
“Aye, she deserves a medal for this one,” Malcolm said, glancing sideways at Nancy. “Or perhaps a pail of fish?”
“I’ll gladly split my catch with her,” one of the fisherman called out — there was a chorus of agreement from the others.
Helen smiled to herself. Already, it felt like the attitude among the fishermen was changing — and Niall could sense it too. She felt a burst of gratitude for the Monster in the Loch. Had she sensed how badly her people needed some concrete evidence of the Kelpie threat? Had s
he delivered them this corpse intentionally, to help them continue to fight against the threat? Or was it an instinct for self-preservation — did she sense that the villagers were coming after her?
Whatever it was, Helen thought as Niall returned with a roll of some kind of canvas to protect the Kelpie’s body from damage, she was fiercely grateful to the Monster. They headed up to the castle together to collect a couple of horses with which to drag the Kelpie into town to show the villagers. And for the first time in a long time, Helen found herself feeling sincerely optimistic about the future of this investigation.
Now all they had to do was hunt down the rest of the Kelpies. And with the villagers on side, that would be a whole lot easier.
Chapter 37
By the time they were riding into town, the sun was well in the sky. She had sensed Niall’s impatience that morning — all the fishermen had insisted on getting a good look at the dead Kelpie, as had many of the castle folk — word had spread quickly that one of the creatures that had been stalking the village had been captured. Thankfully, they’d managed to keep little Eamon away from the dead Kelpie — Anna had offered to take him for the day to stop him from getting too curious about the monster. For all his bravery, Niall was still worried about the little boy getting nightmares from the Kelpie. Thinking of the story he’d told about the man with the missing hand, Helen couldn’t help but agree with a delicate shudder — she had a suspicion the Kelpie would be making more than a few appearances in her own nightmares, too. But better her than Eamon. Adults were much better at handling bad dreams than children were.
Still, despite the slow start, she could sense the good mood Niall was in, and it was infectious. She found herself smiling broadly at the countryside they were riding through, at the beautiful scenery they were seeing, the feel of the fresh breeze against her skin, the warmth of the horse beneath her… for all that both horses were a little bit wary of the cargo they were dragging behind them. Both of them had demonstrated an uncharacteristic reluctance and nervousness when they were being tethered to the Kelpie’s corpse, seeming to sense the danger of the creature even in death. She reached down to stroke her horse’s neck soothingly, receiving a huff from it in response. Niall was smiling at her, but when she looked up to meet his eyes curiously he cleared his throat and looked back up at the road. What had that meant?
Needed By The Highlander: A Scottish Time Travel Romance (Highlander Forever Book 5) Page 22