by Suz deMello
He set down his pen and smiled. “Good evening, young Kier.”
“Sir.” Kier bent his head. He was always careful to remember small courtesies with Sir Gareth. Who knew what could set off the mad old vamp? “May I?”
Sir Gareth waved his hand. “My home is yours.”
“Thank ’ee.” He entered and sat on the only chair in the room, smelling only his grandda’s dry, papery scent tinctured with the cologne he insisted upon using…and a faint but distinct salty aroma. The sea, p’raps, given Sir Gareth’s long swim, but possibly blood. Aye, blood. He couldn’t identify whose.
He wondered, and not for the first time, if his son or grandson would one day sit in this place, speaking with Kier himself after he descended slowly into madness.
And how long could Sir Gareth continue? Forever?
“And to what do I owe the pleasure?” the old gentleman asked.
Ah…this appeared to be one of his grandfather’s sane moments. Kier relaxed. “Ye’ve done us a great service that has had, um…results I dinnae ken that you intended.”
“Hmm?” Head tilted, Sir Gareth was entirely focused on Kieran.
“Ye emptied the MacReiver lands of…MacReivers. Our clan will benefit from your temper.”
He stroked his chin. “I was very angry.”
“With reason.” Kieran was grim. “And I thank ’ee. Had ye not taken your revenge, I would have had to.”
Sir Gareth inclined his head. “Whatever service I may perform for the clan, consider it done.”
“Och, well, I would rather ye’d talked with me first.”
“I was hasty, I know.” His voice dropped, went dark. “I could not help myself.”
“I ken. We were all sad and angry. But now…”
“Now what?” A shifty expression entered Sir Gareth’s eyes.
Kier noted it and wondered what the old vamp had up his lace-trimmed sleeve. But speculation about the mad was itself insane, so he simply went straight to the purpose of his visit. “I’ve taken the young laird as my foster son.”
Sir Gareth sat back. “A bold and cunning move. I congratulate you on your foresight.” He smiled.
Gareth had always been quick. A good laird, in his day.
“Aye, and it happens he’s quite a likable laddie. Young enough to mold.” Kier raised a brow at Sir Gareth.
He held up a hand. “Say no more. I understand he’s not to be touched.”
“Ever.” Kier was firm. “I’ll marry him to our firstborn daughter, make him one of us in truth.”
“And thus the clan increases. Well done. A toast?”
“Of what?” Kier wasnae in the mood for bat, rat or cat. Or whatever else the old boy might have in his larder.
Sir Gareth laughed. “Nothing more fiendish than good Scots whisky.”
* * * * *
Seamas MacReiver awoke in hell.
Hell was midnight dark and cold, stinking of dead creatures great and small, with a persistent murmur, p’raps of demons muttering curses or imps sharpening their claws. Shackled, chained and stretched high, his wrists and shoulders burned with pain. His naked body was racked with shivers and his back scraped against the damp stone behind.
He licked his lips, though his mouth was dry and tasted of bile flavored by blood. He discovered from the roughness and swelling of his lower lip that he’d bitten it through.
What had happened?
Screams in the night… He’d left Moira in bed to grab his trews, find his shoes and sword. When he’d rushed out of his room, he’d run straight into the diabhol. Not the resurrected Euan—he was thoroughly dead—but a tall, thin creature reeking and streaked with blood. Blood lined every wrinkle in a face so ancient it seemed a hideous mask. Blood matted its hair, flowed from its mouth, dripped from its fangs.
Fangs. A vampire. The creature had flung him against a wall, and that was all Seamas remembered until waking up in this hellhole.
Had it been a Kilborn? It lacked the black hair of that wicked family. But it had been very old. P’raps even the hair of the accursed vamp turned white with age. But they were undead…not alive…unchanging, were they not?
Seamas tried but couldn’t think, not when his belly was cramped from hunger and his mouth leather-dry from thirst. Every limb and joint ached from being strung up like a haunch of venison for curing.
He ignored the pain and tried to find something, anything that would help him survive, though he remembered a voice saying, “You, MacReiver, you will surely die in this place.”
He found that there was a slight looseness in the bolt that held his right-hand manacle to the wall, though not enough to allow escape. It moved back and forth. He could turn his head to either side, and the slight shift afforded a little extra length to the chains that bound him so that he could twist ’round and touch his lips to the cold rock wall. Rough it was, and foul, but with enough dampness that p’raps the moisture could keep him alive. It tasted briny and he realized that the rushing, murmuring sound he heard was the ocean, not the fiends of hell preparing their tortures.
So he was still on earth. He still might escape and live.
His eyes gradually adjusted to the lack of light. To his right, the direction his head was turned, he could faintly see a white form, chained high by the wrists as he was, as naked as he was. His wife.
Her skin glowed but her head hung forward and her hair concealed her face. Forced by the chains, her body was stretched taut, the breasts high.
He hardened but was immediately assaulted by a shame so deep that tears gathered in his eyes. He turned his face away, unable to bear the sight.
On his left, against the roughly curving stone wall, another body hung, but this one seemed…wrong. No curves, so he was a man.
But no head.
Seamas retched, his body writhing. Vomit cascaded down his front, and he puked anew from the reek.
Boots clattered and suddenly, shockingly, he was drenched and even colder than before. Someone must have thrown a bucket of water over him. He licked his lips. Salty. Sea water. No relief there. Drink too much of that and he’d die.
But he was clean and had stopped breathing in his own stink and bile.
A torch was lit, revealing the seamed white face of his nightmares.
He shivered violently. “Rach air muin! What the fuck are ye?”
“Speak the King’s English, you ignorant dolt.” The voice was cultured, with none of the quavering that Seamas associated with great age.
He realized that his life was in this madman’s hands and remembered again, “You, MacReiver, you will surely die in this place.”
“Beg pardon, sir. I be Seamas MacReiver. And ye are…”
“Gareth Kilborn, lately laird of these lands.”
Seamas tried to think, to remember, but was not one Kilborn monster very like the next? “Was not the auld laird named Carrick?” he asked before remembering that the question was nonsensical. Carrick and his firstborn spawn, Ranald, had died at Culloden. Hadn’t they? He quivered and his bladder released a hot flood of urine that flowed down his thigh.
“Carrick was my son.”
Seamas fainted.
He came to, coughing and spluttering, to see the vampire, a tall, skinny figure in black, slosh more water over his wife. Moira raised her head, blinking. Her flesh was bluish-white in the dimness.
The creature dropped the bucket with a clatter and approached her. One long hand reached between her spread legs and the other clutched a hank of her hair, tugging her head to one side. He sank his fingers into her quim while he sank his teeth into her neck.
“Stop!” Seamas shouted.
Moira’s body began to undulate in a manner that he recognized. His belly churned as her hips pushed against the vampire’s probing fingers.
The creature loosened his grip on her head to open his breeches. He began to thrust and she shoved back. Their bodies moved together with more ease than Seamas had thought his wife could muster.
Twin
sighs accompanied twin shudders of release. The vampire, grunting with satisfaction, pulled out of her cunt and her neck. He leaned with one hand against the rock wall for a moment before tucking his member away and tying his trews. Muttering to himself, he left the cave.
Seamas stared at Moira. “What are ye?” he whispered.
* * * * *
“You have to feed them,” said the eyes inside.
“I know,” Sir Gareth said gloomily. But how? His prisoners wouldn’t eat raw meat or drink blood. P’raps he could roast a rat, or take a fish or two from the pond.
Easier if he could get into the kitchen… He slouched along the maze of corridors twisting throughout the Dark Tower, wondering if ’twere possible.
At four in the morning, there was little light except for the moon and few around to see him. Still, he’d have to evade the guard. Most of the clan was accustomed to thinking of him as one of their honored dead, and he did not wish to change that notion.
The upper wall-walk was not an option. It was patrolled even in the most peaceful of times, and Kieran was no fool, Gareth thought proudly. Given Euan’s death, young Kier would certainly have increased security.
But Gareth could double as a shadow if he wanted, and he wanted to do so now. Back in his room, he donned clean attire in shades of black and gray before tucking his telltale white hair into a dark hat. He hid his marble-white hands with gloves.
He slipped from the old keep to the Garrison Tower by way of the bailey but kept to the shadows on its rim. About fifteen feet from the closed double doors, the night watch threw dice against the wall. Their game was lit by a tiny fire in a circle of stones, which tossed flickering reddish light against the laughing faces of his clansmen.
Gareth’s heart warmed. It did him good to see his people enjoying their innocent pastimes, knowing that his efforts through the years had helped assure their safety.
The Garrison Tower’s doors were shut but unlatched and he slipped inside, closing them after he’d entered, shutting away the laughter. Only a few glowing torches shed dim illumination, but he could see the kitchen’s brightness. He guessed that a cook or two were baking for the fortress’s inhabitants.
He was right. Fenella, evidently unable to sleep, kneaded dough and sang tunelessly.
“Any leavings for an old beggar?”
She jumped and spun and shrieked. “Milaird! You gave me such a fright.”
A blond head poked over the long counter. Its owner eyed him with suspicion, then looked at Fenella for enlightenment.
“Ah. I see that our newest fosterling also sleeps but lightly.”
Fenella told the boy, “’Tis only the madman from the tower.”
A sharply indrawn breath. “I believe we hosted you recently,” the child said.
Sir Gareth started, surprised at the boy’s unusual composure, then chuckled. “The Laird MacReiver has spoken.”
Fenella glared. “Dinnae tease the child. He has nightmares from ye.”
He bowed, first to Fenella, then to the boy. “’Twas not my intention.”
“If it makes any difference, I had naught to do with Uncle Euan’s death.”
Gareth cocked his head. “Uncle Euan, is it?”
He could see the boy’s blush even in the night-dark kitchen, which was lit but dimly. “‘Most everyone else calls him that.”
“Not everyone. I called him brother.”
“I’m sorry,” the boy whispered and hung his head.
Sir Gareth approached and tousled the shiny blond hair. “Any of yesterday’s bannocks to spare?” he asked Fenella.
“Och, aye, here’s a mite.” She busied herself wrapping baked oaten cakes and other provender in a cloth. “Ye havnae been here for anything in quite a while. Ciamar a tha sibh?”
“I’m fine,” he said. “Just a bit peckish.”
“The bannocks are good,” the child said.
“Aye, they are.” Gareth met the boy’s gaze and was again startled by the ancient soul peering out of the bright eyes, blue and endless like the summer sky at dawn. “Fear not, laddie-buck. You’re one of us now.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The sun settled onto the horizon. Its last ray shot through the standing stone circle on the promontory, striking the central white granite block precisely in the middle. The clansmen cheered and raised cups of ale. Bagpipes skirled and sang while children beat on drums.
Lydia sighed and lay back on the quilt to watch the stars come out, letting body and mind relax. Preparations for the clan’s harvest festival had proceeded side-by-side with the actual harvest. No one, not even the laird and his lady, had been excused from autumn’s demands. She’d been busy from the break of dawn until midnight, it seemed, and she’d dropped into bed exhausted. Among other tasks, she’d helped Fenella organize work teams, then picked herbs to dry and learned to pickle fruits and vegetables.
Great pots of ripe berries reducing to jams had released clouds of sweet-smelling steam in the kitchen. Outside, sheep had been shorn and inside, their wool spun. Kier hunted often, and sheds were full of meat being hung and smoked for the winter.
Every day, she’d managed to wedge in an hour or so of lessons for young Edgar, primarily reading and writing. Kieran was teaching the growing child how to handle weapons and to hunt. Together they reviewed the accounts of the MacReiver lands several times weekly, at night after Lydia had gone to bed.
She should have slept deeply and dreamlessly, but that wretched priest’s words often whirled and tumbled through her darkest midnight fantasies. She’d awaken, clutching Kieran, or at empty space if he were on one of his nocturnal rambles, walks that did nothing to improve the state of her mind.
She had found herself analyzing her husband like never before, counting up the vampiric mannerisms and comparing them to Kieran’s humanity…and never coming to a conclusion. In the end, she supposed she’d continue as she had been doing, hoping that she wasn’t taking a step backward, hoping she wasn’t diminishing into Lydia Lambkin.
She’d cast her fears and worries aside for this day. It was Harvest Home, Meán Fóghar—a phrase whose pronunciation she couldn’t manage, so she called it “the party”. Her gelding was modestly loaded with two baskets containing quilts, but the mount, trained only for riding, curveted and danced with discontent as he walked along the cliffside trail.
She quieted him with a gentle tug on the reins and a stroke to the neck. “Be easy,” she told him. “Others of your brethren aren’t so lucky.”
She glanced behind her. Pack animals, horses as well as tough little Highland ponies, bore heavy burdens of food and other items. They were led rather than ridden. On the feast day, no one was in a hurry. A relaxed atmosphere enveloped the Kilborns.
Riding north on Kier’s left, she had an unobstructed view of the sea. In the afternoon, the sunlight gleamed golden on the waves. She wore her favorite red riding habit and boots. Hats protected both her face and her husband’s. His broad-brimmed black hat, with a long, shiny pheasant feather, reminded her of the mad creature in the tower. Beneath it, her husband’s pale skin seemed to emit an unearthly glow. The sun drew iridescent colors from the pheasant feather—green, pink, gold.
She turned away. Was the hat a harmless affectation or was its protection needed to shield his vampire flesh from the autumn afternoon sunshine?
She took a deep breath and stared over her horse’s ears at Edgar, who, mounted on his Highland pony, had the honor of leading the procession. She banished her concerns in favor of dwelling on her pride in her foster-son.
Though she’d longed for babies, she’d oft wondered if she’d be a good mother or an indifferent one. Jane and George were so wonderful with their boys, and Lydia hadn’t known if she’d be their equal.
Now she knew, and the knowledge had prodded her craving for children. She smiled as she gazed at the small, straight back, the gleaming cap of hair.
Kier’s saddle creaked as he leaned toward her. “Aye, he’s a fine laddi
e, our boy, is he no’?”
Her eyes grew wet but she didn’t know why. She cleared her throat. “Yes, he is.” She blinked.
As if he’d sensed their scrutiny, Edgar turned in his seat and gave them a quizzical stare, with brows drawing together and blue eyes squinting in the sun. She caught Kier’s eye and laughed.
High on a cliff overlooking the sea, the standing stones gleamed. Though the local rock was mostly a reddish sandstone, these were granite, pale and gray, almost silvery. Within the circle, scoured by the ocean winds, nothing grew, so their feast would be eaten outside where the land sloped slightly and flattened to form a pleasant meadow, still green with soft grass.
After they’d dismounted, and the clansmen were busy with unpacking, Lydia, Kier and Edgar walked among the giant standing stones. Each was far taller than a person, even a man Kier’s height. There were thirteen as well as one low, large, flat rock in the center of the circle. Struck by the strange beauty of the place, she asked Kier how old the silvery stones were and how the circle had been built.
“No one knows,” he told her, his dark eyes dancing. “That’s part of why they’re unique.”
“How did they come to be here?” Edgar asked.
“No one knows,” Kier repeated. “’Tis said that the nearest granite rocks like these are far, far away, across the sea in Ireland. No one knows how they came to be here.”
“Did your Viking ancestors erect these stones?” Lydia asked.
His mouth crinkled in a thoughtful frown. “Nay…if they did we have no record or legend of that. And I think we would have heard, ye ken? Because bringing them here was a massive undertaking. We havenae the time for such folly.”
“Folly?” Edgar asked.
“Well, aye. There’s nae purpose to the stones. They’re pretty, and a nice place to hold a gathering, but that’s all. We have enough work with keeping ourselves alive.”
“I’ve noticed.” Lydia stripped off her gloves and rubbed a callus that had grown on her forefinger.
Kier took her hand and kissed the little hard bump, then gave it a tiny nip. “Ye’ll have plenty of leisure this winter, milady, with the storms keepin’ ye inside.”