“You don’t know how to care for anyone but yourself, Marten. You murdered my family! How could you think I would have ever forgiven that?”
He shrugged, averting his eyes. “No matter. Put the weapon down, Arianna.”
She swallowed hard, darted a glance at Nidaba.
“Let him do as he will with me,” Nidaba whispered. “I beg of you, do not trade my son’s life for mine!”
Marten glared at Nidaba. “Shut up, woman!”
“I will not shut up! My son died to save my life once, and I cannot bear to let it happen again! Kill him, Arianna! Forget about me, and kill this cur! Now!”
Arianna clutched her dagger and lunged toward Marten. He jerked the lever instantly, and the blade lurched forward with a terrible groan, only to come to a creaking, shuddering stop again, mere inches from Nidaba’s belly. Nidaba’s eyes were shut tight, her jaw clenched in readiness.
Arianna froze where she was.
“It’s up to you,” Marten said. “But I feel I must warn you, Arianna, I am running low on patience. Dangerously low. Put it down.”
Nidaba’s eyes opened, damp with unshed tears. She turned her head toward Arianna. “No,” she whispered. “You mustn’t. No, no, no–”
“I’m sorry. I have to. Forgive me, Nidaba. I can’t watch you suffer such an agonizing death.” Arianna faced Marten again. “All right. You win.” She dropped her dagger to the dirt floor. Its tip sank into the rancid, packed earth.
Marten smiled, but his hand remained on the lever. “Very good. Now, come here. We have plans to make, you and I.” She remained rooted to the spot, and he held up a hand. “Come here, Arianna. Or I’ll kill her all the same.”
Chin lifting slightly, Arianna went to him. The dank place was filled then with the soft sound of Nidaba’s sobs, echoing endlessly.
* * * *
I WOKE WITH a feeling of dread. Something horrible had happened in my dream, but though I tried, I could not remember what. It had to do with Arianna . . . and with death.
My death.
I strained to recall the details, but they eluded me like thieves in the night. Sighing in frustration, I opened my eyes, reaching for her, needing to hold her close to me and feel her there and know that it wasn’t real. That it was only one more taunting memory of a past that was long dead.
But Arianna was not there.
“Arianna?”
No answer.
I got up slowly, looking around the room, eyeing the door of the adjoining bathroom, which stood open. I saw no movement inside. A slow fear spread through my veins and I moved faster, hurrying to the bathroom to look for her. “Arianna?” I called again.
The bathroom was empty. Her clothes, I realized as I turned to scan the bedroom in search of them . . . gone. I snatched up the clothing I’d never donned the night before, threw them on haphazardly, and ran back into the bedroom. I yanked open the door, stepping into the hall just as Duncan and Raven came ‘round a corner from their own room, smiling, hands joined.
“Where is Arianna?” I all but shouted.
Their smiles died. Duncan looked puzzled. Raven, terrified. “I assumed she was still with you,” Duncan said, his frown deepening as he looked past me into the empty room my wife and I had shared the night before. “You mean she’s not–”
“Gods, I was afraid she’d do something like this,” Raven said, interrupting him. “I knew it! I never should have believed her!”
I rushed forward, gripping Raven’s hands gently in my own and striving for patience. “Tell me.”
Bowing her head, Raven closed her eyes. “She knew where Marten had taken Nidaba . . . or . . . she thought she knew. But she wouldn’t tell me. Nicodimus, she felt you were still not strong enough to fight Marten and win.”
“So she went to fight him in my place?” I asked, my stomach clenching. “And you let her?”
Raven’s head came up fast. “Of course I didn’t let her! She promised we’d go together, this morning. She said we’d stand a greater chance that way.”
“And you believed her? Believed she’d allow you to risk your life in a battle with an immortal as old as I am! She’s your sister, Raven, and you didn’t see through so obvious a lie as that?”
“Come on, Nic, this isn’t Raven’s fault,” Duncan said, his hand on my arm. “When Arianna sets her mind to something, she’s as stubborn as they come. If you know her at all, you ought to know that.”
I sighed and closed my eyes. “I know that. I am sorry, Raven. But Gods, she can’t fight Marten alone. He’s older than she, more experienced in battle. The last time he took her, he held her for . . .” Then I blinked, and looked up slowly. “The last time he took her . . . yes. Yes, I remember now! His men attacked our village . . . murdered her parents, and everyone else in their path. And he took Arianna. He took my wife the same way I had taken his sister so many years before. It was vengeance, in his twisted, perverse mind.”
I paced the hall, pressing one hand to my forehead as I sought the memory.
“Where, Nic?” Duncan asked urgently.
“I’m trying. . .. I remember following the trail of his soldiers. But it was a trick. The soldiers headed north, leaving an obvious path for me to follow. But Marten struck out alone with Arianna. He went south . . . . Yes, two days’ ride–south. There was a keep . . . on the coast. . ..”
Duncan gripped my arm. “Can you find it again?”
I looked up and met his eyes. “I must find it again. And I will.”
We had no choice but to travel by car . . . that amazing vehicle I had only observed from the windows of Arianna’s house until now. Duncan quickly procured one from a local man, explaining that it was an emergency.
Raven and Duncan eased me into the rear seat of the machine, and I held on and battled nausea as Duncan manned the controls, setting the beast into motion. Such speeds! It was dizzying, sickening, and yet I paid little heed to the protests of my head and stomach as we bounded over the rutted dirt roads of the new Scottish countryside. I was glad of the contraption that could, by some miracle, reduce a two day journey to one of mere hours. It would get me to Arianna sooner.
It would carry me to my wife sooner.
As we traveled, I directed Duncan as best I could, my memory still hazy. But more and more came back to me. I recalled this same feeling of rage and dread and helplessness filling me in the past. The thought of that vermin having Arianna. The love I felt for her, burning inside me. It had been there before. I knew that now. I may have told Arianna I could not love her, but love her I had, and still did.
I’d done too thorough a job convincing her of my lie, then, hadn’t I? For even now, she believed it. Even now, she thought my love an illusion. But it beat in me strong and sure, and old. Very old. She had changed me. I’d been a bitter, lonely man, living to fight, fighting to live, existing in a world that held no joy for me. She had given me joy again.
Such joy. Gods, just looking at her face, seeing her smile had filled me with it. Touching her, holding her delicate form in my arms . . . I had been born again, it seemed. Brought back to life long before she resurrected my body in this strange, new century. For I had been dead then, before I’d known her.
As I would be now, did I have to live on without her.
“I am coming for you, Arianna,’“ I whispered. “Hold on, my love. I will be with you soon.”
Raven turned in her seat, and clasped my hand in hers. “She’ll be all right,” she said, teary eyes at odds with the confidence in her voice.
“She has to be.”
* * * *
“DO YOU UNDERSTAND what you are to do?” Marten asked softly, eyeing Arianna, suspicion in his gaze.
“I keep telling you, it won’t matter. Nicodimus is not coming here.”
“And I keep telling you, he will. It is fate, I believe. Things must come full circle. It’s the way of the Universe. This will end just as it began. He will come for you, Arianna. And when he does, he will find you in the
arms of your lover. He will be beaten, utterly, long before I take his heart. I want him to suffer the ultimate defeat at my hands, and you will perform your part exactly as I have told you. You will recite the lines precisely, and convincingly, Arianna, or Nidaba will pay the price. Now again, do you understand?”
Arianna stared at him, hatred blazing from her soul. Nidaba remained strapped to the table, gagged now so that she could not cry out. No longer in sight, though. Marten had brought Arianna back to that place where she’d first spotted him. The place where the tunnel widened, lit now, with a torch of its own, leaving Nidaba helpless and silent, in the dim, flickering light of a single, dying torch. The frayed length of rope tied to Marten’s wrist led back around the corner to that deadly lever. He need only pull to cause Nidaba excruciating pain before ultimately ending her life. And he would, unless Arianna did exactly as he said.
But it wouldn’t matter. Arianna wouldn’t be forced to play out this gruesome act, for there would be no audience. Nicodimus did not remember.
He must not remember!
Marten pushed her to the floor, then took a seat beside her. “Now we wait,” he told her, “for your hero to arrive. And when he does, Arianna . . .” Marten smiled grimly in the dancing light, and she could see the evil emanating from his small, pig-like eyes. “He will die. And this time, he won’t be coming back.”
Chapter 23
WE STOPPED THE vehicle each time I thought I saw a familiar place and got out to explore. But I was so disoriented. Things had changed. Not just by the appearance of villages where none had been, and the utter absence of some that had existed long ago, but by the building of roads, the disappearance of forests, the leveling of hills. Meadows thrived where barren moors had rolled before. Pastures that had once been dotted with grazing flocks, now grew up to woodlands. I could only follow the coast, wondering if even its shape had changed. If the constant barrage of the sea had eroded it away to the point where I would not recognize even its familiar form.
But at last, I spied the odd-shaped hills poking into the sky like a circlet of spikes, and I knew this was familiar. Within them, a keep nestled, protected from attack by its natural fortress.
And then, Raven pointed and sat up straight in her seat. “Look! Arianna’s Jeep!”
I saw it. But no sign of Arianna anywhere near it, nor from within. I got out at once, racing to the machine to check for her presence all the same. Knowing I would not find her there. My heart fell, and my hands clenched into trembling fists at my sides. Without a word, I turned and began walking toward where I thought the keep had been. In silence, Duncan and Raven followed. I knew that they, too, were wondering what we would find here. Arianna’s lifeless corpse, sentenced to death without her heart?
Her heart. Gods the thought of Marten draining the life force of the most vital woman I had ever known, tortured me. But I could not allow myself to think that way, for the pain of it was nearly crippling. I would get her back. I would find her again and restore her to life just as she had done for me. I would, no matter what.
“Nic, hold up,” Duncan said, his voice a harsh whisper, his hand on my shoulder. I stopped walking, and he pointed past me. “Look.”
I saw it then, the ruins of the keep. It struck me anew how very long it had been that I’d been away . . . from life. From Arianna. To my mind it had been only days ago that I had come here, stood in this very spot, quivering with rage just as I was now.
That looks like the way in,” Duncan said.
I took only a single step before he gripped my arm. “Wait, Nic. It could be a trap. God knows the bastard will be expecting us. It’s why he took Nidaba in the first place. He’ll be in there, waiting for you.”
“Then I will not disappoint him,” I said, starting off again.
“Nic, will you use your head?” Raven cried.
Again I stopped, turning this time to face the two who had become more than just my allies in the past several days. They had become my friends. I knew their concern for me was genuine and heartfelt. And likely wise. But wisdom did not concern me. Getting to Arianna was my only thought.
“Look, we’ll go around this thing, see if there’s another way inside,” Duncan suggested. “That way we can approach from two directions at once, maybe catch this Marten character off guard.”
I nodded. It was a good plan. One that made perfect sense. “Go then. I’ll wait here. Signal me when you are ready to go inside.”
Duncan eyed me, and finally nodded once. “Be careful,” he warned me.
“I intend to.”
With that, Duncan and Raven raced off around the crumbling remains of broken stone. The moment they were out of sight, I started inside. I could not wait. Not while visions of what Marten might be doing to Arianna played havoc with my mind. I would kill him.
Kill him!
The tunnel I entered was long and winding, littered with debris. Silence was impossible, and I knew that if Marten were listening–as he surely must be–he would hear my approach. Dagger in hand, I moved on all the same. I peered around each corner, fully expecting ambush.
At last, I emerged into a spot where the tunnel widened, and there I saw the last thing I had expected.
Arianna, in Marten’s arms. Not fighting him. Not kicking or pulling away. Her arms were twined ‘round his neck, and he was kissing her. And she was kissing him. A red haze of fury colored my vision when at last he lifted his head. And he stared at her, never looking my way, though he had to know full well I was there.
But then, so must she.
“I am so glad you came away with me at last, Arianna,” Marten said.
Arianna said nothing. She turned her head toward me, and I saw in her eyes a message, words she could not speak, feelings spilling with the tears. “It has always been you,” she said softly, her voice breaking. “I’ve never loved any one else the way I love you.”
The words, apparently spoken to Marten, yet her eyes were on me. That was when the final memory returned to me. I saw it all unfold in my mind in the mere space of an instant. I had crashed through the doors of Kenwick, surprised to find them unbarred, and I found my wife in Marten’s arms. I had seen the same message in her eyes then–just before I was leapt upon and killed.
As I had lain dying, Marten had gloated, “Our plan worked perfectly, Arianna.’“ And for one brief instant, I had believed it. I had believed it.
Just as I was no doubt meant to believe it now.
I let my body sag, let my head lower, and my hand and my weapon with it, fell to my side. “So this is the way of it,” I muttered.
“Nicodimus, no–” Arianna began. I saw Marten grip her arm painfully and nod toward his hand. Glancing downward, I noticed what I hadn’t before: a length of hemp tied ‘round his wrist.
“Tell him, Arianna,” Marten said.
She closed her eyes to prevent the tears spilling over. “I . . . I never loved you,” she whispered, her words hoarse and broken.
I had to wait until Martin let her go, before doing anything at all. He was hurting her, I could see that. And the implications of that rope on his arm. . . .
I dropped my dagger to the floor. “Then I have no reason to fight, Arianna. No reason . . . at all.”
“That will make this much easier,” Marten all but crowed, his face alight with the anticipation of his triumph. “Come then,” I said. Take me if you will.” I opened my arms out to my sides and waited. He would have to release Arianna to come to where I stood. And that rope, whatever it was, as well.
He paused, glancing down at the rope with a hint of alarm in his eyes. “No, Nicodimus. You come to me. You must at least wish to say goodbye to . . . to your faithless wife.”
But I wouldn’t. For it was what he wished me to do. Instead I sank to my knees, hoping my act would be a convincing one. I lowered my head and made my shoulders shake as if with the force of sobs too violent to contain.
“So be it then,” Marten said. “I never intended to let the dar
k woman live anyway.”
Even as I lifted my head to see what he meant, Marten removed the rope from his wrist with a flick of his hand, clenched it in his fist, and gave it a brutal tug.
Arianna screamed in utter horror, and another scream came from the depths of this place. A feint one that was terror-filled, and very brief. Arianna leapt on Marten, even as he charged at me. He carried her on his back as she pummeled and clawed at his face and eyes. My hand closed ‘round the dagger I had dropped. Marten flung Arianna from his back, lifted his dagger high, and brought it down at me. I drove mine upward. It pierced him just beneath the rib cage, at a sharp upward angle, and I buried it to the hilt, and gave it a twist for good measure.
He froze where he stood, eyes bulging, blood surging over my hand. Then he staggered backward two steps. I yanked the blade free as he did. He fell to the dirt floor. Beyond him, Arianna knelt with her head bowed. Getting to my feet, I went to Marten, bent over him, and quickly cut the heart from his chest. I flung it into the dirt at my feet, and left it there, to be disposed of later.
Arianna needed me now.
I wiped my hands as best I could, and went to her where she knelt, sobbing. Gripping her shoulders I pulled her up and into my arms. “Arianna, it’s over. He’s dead, my love. You’re safe now.”
But she was limp in my arms, and trembling violently, uncontrollably.
I eased her away from me just enough to stare down into her haunted eyes. “He made me say those things, Nicodimus . . . I never meant. . .”
“I know that.”
She frowned hard at me. “You . . . you know?”
“Just as I knew the last time, Arianna. Even as my life slipped away from me, I knew you could not have betrayed me with him. I believed in you. With my very last breath, I believed in you, Arianna.”
Eternal Love: The Immortal Witch Series Page 66