He’d had the woman! Had her right in his hands, impaled on his dagger, and still she managed to escape him! He should have held on to her, should have–but what use were should haves now? She’d escaped him. Fallen from those cliffs, to send his soft-hearted son scurrying after her. Once again Duncan had chosen Raven over Nathanial, even now, when they were supposed to be father and son. Even now.
But not her fair-haired companion. No, Arianna hadn’t been distracted for a moment. She’d headed up the cliffs, not down. And Nathanial had known then that she was coming for him.
He should have left this town, this state, perhaps this country, right then, should have fled Arianna’s wrath without hesitation. He could seek out some weaker immortal once he was safely away, take the first heart he found and get stronger. But to leave without the hearts he’d already taken–those he kept captive in small wooden boxes–would be to leave whatever vitality remained. So he’d returned to the old courthouse, to the small room at the top where he kept them, locked away from prying eyes inside their tiny wooden prisons. Some beat so weakly now they could barely be heard. He suspected they’d stop one day. But they hadn’t. Most were no longer strong enough to support life, yet they kept beating on. One beat an hour, one beat a day. Were they truly immortal? Would they beat eternally? Somewhere, perhaps, in the dusty tomes he’d collected over the centuries, he might find an answer to that puzzle. An explanation. But he hadn’t yet.
If she arrived in time, he never would. And there would be no time to take his books or his journals with him.
Quickly he opened a large case and set it in the middle of the floor. And then he snatched the most recent kills, the strongest hearts, from the shelf, carefully setting those boxes inside.
Speed was of the essence here. He couldn’t face Arianna, not now. She’d nearly beaten him once long ago, when he’d mistaken her for easy prey in Scotland. She’d been younger then. Weaker. He’d been at his best.
And she’d nearly killed him.
He would never forget the power of emotion again. Even as he’d battled, losing ground with every thrust, he’d wondered at her strength, her power. And reading his mind, it seemed, she’d uttered her curse. “You took the man I loved,” she’d all but growled. “And I’ll kill you for it.”
She nearly had. He’d run. Fled for his life, from a mere infant of a High Witch. And a woman, at that.
Thrusting the memory away, he closed his case, hefted it, and turned toward the doorway. Never again would he underestimate the power of hatred.
“It wasn’t the power of hatred, Nathanial.”
Her voice brought him up short. She stepped into view, into the doorway, blocking his escape. Arianna, a tiny mite of a woman standing with her legs wide, hands planted on her hips.
“So you truly do read my thoughts?”
“I hear thoughts sometimes. Yours are like poison. I’ll be glad to end them forever. But in the meantime, Nathanial, know this. Hatred has no power. The power that nearly killed you then was the power of love. My love for one of the many you murdered. And it’s that same power that will destroy you now.”
He took a step backward, setting the case on the floor to free his hands. “Which one was he, this victim of mine? It’s been so long, I can scarcely remember them all. Was he the barbaric Celtic warlord? The Mayan Shaman?” He shrugged. “Not that it matters. They all died on their knees, begging for mercy.”
“I can hardly wait to see how you do,” she said, and drew her dagger, held it lightly, tossed it from one hand to the other. “But to remind you, his name was Nicodimus, and he died with the blade of a coward in his back.”
She would kill him. Nathanial knew it beyond a doubt. If he played by the rules.
He swallowed hard. “Will you kill me unarmed, Arianna, or give me a chance to draw my blade?” His hand inched toward the leather pocket at his side. He had known she might get here before he could escape. He wasn’t a fool. He’d prepared for this.
She narrowed her eyes. “I’ll kill you in a fair fight or not at all,” she told him. “Go on.” And she nodded.
He drew the weapon from its sheath. Not his dagger. But a crude and inelegant handgun, the killing machine of the modern age. She sucked in a breath, but he simply leveled the barrel and pulled the trigger.
The impact sent her backward into the hall. She hit the stairs and tumbled, head over feet. Her body crashed down upon the first landing, bounced off the wall, and continued its brutal descent to the ground floor. Finally she came to rest at the bottom in a twisted, broken tangle.
Nathanial descended slowly, smiling to himself, and making certain she could hear his footsteps. He replaced the handgun, and drew out the blade as he approached her prone, battered form. She couldn’t move. Dying, she was dying. He would make sure it was permanent.
“It’s a shame you prefer a fair fight,” he said, and he crouched over her, gripped her blouse in one fist, and tore it open. Sliced the center of her silken bra so that her breasts spilled free. “I prefer a sure win, myself.”
“Raven...will kill you for this.”
“Oh, I’m sure she will try.” He positioned the tip of his blade just to the left of the center of her chest. “Do you ever wonder about the bodies, Arianna?” he asked, pressing a little, drawing a droplet of blood, and hearing her suck air through her teeth. “They die, but don’t really. They remain ever new, ever young. Do you suppose their minds are still alive, as well? Do you suppose they know that they’ve been buried alive?”
He smiled slowly at the terror in her brown eyes, and then he drove the blade in to the hilt.
* * *
Raven went still, her eyes bulging, and screamed out loud. Her hands pressed to her chest, and she dropped to her knees.
Duncan was beside her in a heartbeat. They’d just stopped his car, got out, and had been running toward the courthouse when she’d suddenly...suddenly what?
“What’s wrong? Raven, what–”
She didn’t answer, just lifted her wounded, watering eyes toward the courthouse, and screamed, “Arianna! Arianna! Noooooo!”
He didn’t know what to do. Didn’t want to leave her, but he had to go inside, and sensed what he would find once he got there. He scooped her into his arms, and headed for the car, intending to lock her in where she would be safe while he went to see to Nathanial.
Halfway there she squirmed free and hit the ground running. He saw her pull that dagger from her hip as she went, could barely keep up with her speed. Damn, he didn’t want her going in there if what he thought was true.
She burst through the front door, cried out, and raced ahead. Duncan entered on her heels, only to find her on the floor, holding Arianna’s blood-soaked body in her arms, sobbing hysterically. Arianna was a slick, scarlet shimmer. Raven was rapidly becoming one, too. He saw the gaping, jagged hole in Arianna’s chest, and then he looked away, unable to bear the sight.
It only took a footstep from above, and a glimpse of Raven’s eyes to set him into motion. Nathanial would pay. He’d pay for this.
“Kill him,” Raven whispered through gritted teeth, her voice raw.
Duncan nodded once and took the blade Arianna had given him from its place at his side. Carefully he stepped over the body at the foot of the stairs and headed up. And then he paused, because he swore he heard a whisper.
“Take mine, too.”
He turned quickly. But Raven only knelt, crying, and Arianna couldn’t have spoken a word. Still, he knelt and took Arianna’s blade from where it lay on the floor beside her, blessedly away from the spreading crimson pool. He tucked it into the back of his jeans, and continued up the stairs.
The sound came from the room at the top. It lay up a second flight, and through a door.
Duncan stepped into the room to see his self-proclaimed father opening the window, a suitcase at his side. His hands were coated in Arianna’s blood, his sleeves stained with it. Atop the suitcase sat a small wooden box, fresh blood dripping do
wn its sides, a soft beat coming steadily from within. Arianna’s heart.
“Damn you to hell for this,’’ Duncan said softy.
Nathanial turned. He met Duncan’s eyes, closed his own. “Not you, Duncan,” he whispered. “I’ll face any of them, but not you.”
Duncan stepped forward. “Maybe I havena been immortal long enough yet to understand. You’re willin’ to fight with women, but not with a man?”
“Not with my son.”
“I’m not your son,” he said very softly. The only father I knew was Angus Wallace, and he’s been dead over three hundred years. I suppose I had another, this time around. But ‘twasna you, Nathanial Dearborne. ‘Twas never you.”
Nathanial lowered his eyes. “So you remember.”
“Aye. I remember the man you were. A killer in the guise of a priest. Makin’ a mockery of the faith you pretended to serve.”
“It’s all true. But you don’t understand, Duncan.”
“I understand that you had my birth parents murdered just to get your hands on me. Raised me without a hint of love, all so I’d lead you to Raven one day.”
Again, Nathanial nodded, confirming what Duncan had still hoped, in some tiny corner of his mind, he would deny. “It began that way, Duncan. But the truth is...I’ve come to care for you, boy. Just as I did before.”
“I can see how you care for me. ‘Twas clear in the way you tried to murder the woman I love.”
“I might have died without another heart.”
“You think that makes it all right? You kill others just to prolong your own life, an’ you think that makes it all right?”
Nathanial shook his head slowly. “It’s the way things are for us, Duncan. The way it’s always been.”
“Not for you,” Duncan uttered quietly. “Not anymore.”
Nathanial closed his eyes. “I don’t want to kill you, Duncan, but I will if you make me.”
“I rather thought you would. An’ that says it all. Dinna you think...father!”
Duncan lunged forward, still seeing Arianna’s blood, Raven’s pain, in his mind’s eye. Nathanial dodged, and then drew his own blade, attacking, stabbing, fighting as fiercely as an animal, a rabid animal.
“You’ve no chance against me, Duncan. I’ve seven hundred years of practice!”
Duncan tried again, but this time Nathanial kicked and the blade went sailing out of Duncan’s hand.
He heard Raven, her footsteps rushing up the stairs, through the door.
“Don’t, Duncan! Don’t fight him! I didn’t mean–I wasn’t thinking!”
Nathanial lifted his blade and came at him. Raven ran into the room behind him and cried out. And Duncan stood where he was. One hand flashed behind him, to close around Arianna’s blade. He brought it forward just as Nathanial lunged at him. And the blade sank into the old man’s chest, deeply and brutally, though Duncan hadn’t even thrust it. ‘Twas Nathanial’s own forward motion, his attack, his own hatred, that killed him.
Blood welled, warm and thick, spilling over Duncan’s hands, and he took them away, disgusted. Sickened.
For a moment he stood, looking down at the man he’d called father, the man who lay dying. “I wanted your love,” he said. “I wanted it more than you know.”
Blinking slowly, his eyes already glazing over, Nathanial whispered, “You had it, son. I did love you...in my way....” His eyes fell closed, briefly. But then they opened again. His hand snatched the front of Duncan’s shirt with surprising strength, and he pulled him close. “I’ll prove it to you now,” he managed, and then he whispered something in Duncan’s ear. A second later his breaths stopped, his hand went slack, and Duncan straightened away from him.
Duncan’s throat closed off and he turned away, eyes burning. Raven enfolded him in her arms, held him tight to her, where he belonged. Nathanial hadn’t loved him. That wasn’t love. Even with that one final gesture, it wasn’t love. Guilt, maybe. This was love, this thing he felt right here, this woman he held, who was healing him even now. This was love, and ‘twas all he needed. All he had ever needed, or ever would.
“Don’t mourn him, Duncan. The world’s better off without him. He was evil.”
“I know.” He looked down at her, kissed her lips, finding some soothing elixir in her taste that eased his heartache. “But he’s still evil. He’ll...he’ll revive, won’t he?”
“I’ll do what has to be done.”
He stepped away from her, searched her face. “Nay, lass. I canna ask you to do that–’’
“I’ll do it, Duncan. I’ll do it because I love you.” She touched his shoulders, kissed his face. “If you knew, my darling, if you knew what you were to me...what you still are to me, you’d understand. Let me do this for you.”
“What I...still am?” he asked her. Lowering his head, he shook it slowly. “I doubted you. I called you crazy and gave my father more chances than a saint deserves, while refusing you so much as the benefit of the doubt. I nearly got you killed, Raven–”
“No.” She shook her head hard. “No, Duncan, it was your father who nearly killed me. You had no part in that.”
“An’ Arianna? Will you tell me now that her blood doesna stain my hands?”
Raven took his hands in hers, holding them tightly. “This is the way we live, Duncan. The Dark Ones pursue us, and when we meet them, we fight. Sometimes....” Her eyes filled, though she blinked against the tears. “Sometimes we die. Arianna knew that as I do, and she’d never have blamed you. She cared for you, Duncan. And I love you now, as I always have.”
“Do you, lass?”
She nodded. “I always will,” she told him.
He would tell her the truth–that he did remember, that he was the man she’d been searching for all this time, that he loved her. By the Gods, he loved her! But first he wanted to give her something. A gift. A gift he knew how to give, because of an evil man’s dying words. And they might have been lies for all he knew. But he had to try.
“I’ll take care of Arianna,” he whispered, saw her close her eyes in stark pain: Then he picked up the small box, felt the chilling thrum of its beat from within, and carried it downstairs with him.
* * *
I took Nathaniel Dearborne’s heart. Not because I could grow strong by draining its power, but because it was the only way he would remain dead. The only way I could be sure. I would burn it, and his body, when this gruesome task ended. I would free his soul, and perhaps on some other plane, he would learn what this long lifetime had been about. Perhaps he would live again one day, a decent, loving man. A father, perhaps, who would learn the meaning of the word.
Gently, I placed Nathanial’s heart in an empty box on the shelf, but as I did so, I couldn’t help but notice all the other boxes, and the weak, slow beats emanating from them. His victims. All his victims. I would burn this place. I’d destroy the hearts that lived on here, beating endlessly while the bodies that had once owned them lay in some nightmarish state between life and death. I’d burn them all and, in so doing, perhaps set their captive souls free.
Sighing, I felt my heart breaking for all of them, but mostly for my sister, my Arianna, my beloved best friend and kindred spirit. I felt empty, lost without her. As lost as I had been all those years without Duncan.
Had I ever told her, I wondered, how very much she meant to me?
Crying, I washed my hands in a basin of water, and then I went down the stairs.
Arianna’s body was no longer there, tangled and bloody. Duncan had moved her to an antique chaise fit for a goddess. He’d draped a sheet over her as she reclined there. And for that, I was grateful.
Duncan awaited me at the foot of the stairs. His dark hair tousled, his eyes swirling cauldrons of emotion. I saw so much there as his intense gaze locked with mine; pain, grief, shock. And something more. He took me into his arms when I reached him. I thought he needed to hold me as much as I did him, just then. To feed from my strength, to bolster me with his. Together we were so much
more than either of us was alone. But that couldn’t be what he was feeling. Maybe three centuries ago, but not now.
“I have to tell you some things, Raven. An’ I hope you’ll do me the honor of listenin’ before you interrupt.”
Smiling just a little, tears still spilling from my eyes, I stepped back and looked up at him. “Your Highland lilt is back, Duncan. It was upstairs, but I was too....” I frowned hard, searching his face. “What does this mean?”
“I thought you liked my lilt.”
“I do. I just don’t understand why it keeps slipping into your speech.”
“‘Tis more than the accent that’s come back to me, Raven.”
I blinked, then blinked again and searched his eyes. “Duncan?”
“I love you, lass,” he said very softly. “I’ve been fallin’ in love with you all over again, ever since I found you, Raven, but ‘Tis more than that now. It has come back to me. All of it, all you were to me, an’ all I was to you. All we still are to each other.” He closed his eyes, searching for words as his strong hands kneaded my shoulders in time with the beat of my heart.
I tried to speak and couldn’t.
He opened his eyes, and they were wet. “When I saw you fall, ’twas like a doorway into the past opened up wide. An’ God, my sweet bonny lass, when I held your poor broken body in my arms on those rocks, I knew....” He cradled my face in his hands, his eyes poring over me. “You’re everythin’ to me, Raven. Everything. You always were. My mind might have forgotten for a little while, but my heart remembered you, lass, from the moment I set eyes on you again. I love you, Raven.”
I touched his face, searched his eyes, and saw him there. Duncan Wallace, the man I’d loved so long ago, alive again, fully alive at last. “Duncan.” I collapsed in his arms, wanting to weep for joy. “Oh, Duncan, hold me. Hold me forever.”
“We’ll never be apart again, love. Never again, I vow it to you.” He kissed me with boundless passion and love, then held me cradled against his chest, wrapped warmly in his arms.
“You truly remember everything?”
“Aye,” he said softly. “The night I watched you through the cabin windows, bathin’, singin’ like a siren, an’ drawin’ me near. The first time we made love on the cliffs with the sea crashing below us...all of it.”
Eternity: Immortal Witches Book 1 (The Immortal Witches) Page 32