Immortal Warriors 02 - Secrets of the Highwayman

by Sara Mackenzie

  “Hmm.” She cocked an eyebrow, looking very like Melanie at her most skeptical. “I hope you’re being nice to my little sister, Nathaniel.”

  Nathaniel’s smile faded, replaced by a deadly seriousness. “You have my word that I am. She’s more important to me than I can tell you. Which is why I want you to take her away from here. Now, today. She’s not safe.”

  Suzie frowned, but her eyes stayed on his, as if she could see right inside his head. “If that’s what she wants.”

  “She must go,” Nathaniel spoke with urgency. “She must see sense. Surely you can persuade her, you’re her sister?”

  “Now,” Suzie admitted, “that’s where you might have a problem.”

  Melanie sat on the clifftop with her knees tucked up under her chin, staring down at the half-moon beach and the incoming tide. Tough little plants were growing around her, hardy enough to put up with the salt air and the wild storms and yet still scent the air with their perfume.

  After she left the house via the servants’ back stairs, she hadn’t known where to go. She didn’t want to return to the others, she needed to gather her thoughts. She needed to come to terms with what she was.

  A monster, like Pengorren.

  She looked down the cliff steps, longing to walk on the sand, but it was too dangerous. The tide was coming in, and she wasn’t reckless enough to risk it. According to The Raven’s Curse Ravenswood was a very unlucky house. Lots of deaths.

  But Pengorren didn’t want her to die just yet. He had plans for her…

  There were voices. Crying out.

  Startled, Melanie lifted her head to stare out to sea. Of course there was nothing. Just a haze along the horizon and some seagulls circling and diving, looking for their lunch. Maybe she’d heard a gull. But as much as Melanie tried to convince herself otherwise, she already knew that a ship was wrecked here long ago. Just as she’d known about the oak tree falling in the storm. She felt it, sensed the people who had drowned. She heard it again, the voices crying for help, faint but clear.

  Melanie closed her eyes and gave in, letting herself go.

  At once she felt cold. She was sitting on the clifftop in sunshine, but in her mind there was rain in her face and a gusting, savage wind pulling at her hair and her clothing. She smelled salt and spray, and her heart was thudding violently. Fearfully. There was death out there in the water.

  It had to be done.

  Pengorren’s voice, in her ear.

  Melanie started and swung around, ready to run. The adrenaline was pumping through her, and she was certain that if necessary she could have launched herself from the clifftop and flown like a gull.

  But there was no one there. Pengorren was in her head this time, invading her thoughts. Just as he always would, as long as she stayed here at Ravenswood. Her gaze was drawn toward the old house and the opaque shine of the windows. Ravenswood was Pengorren’s house, his essence was here. And his physical presence? What about that? Where was Pengorren hiding?

  A movement to the side. Suzie was heading along the overgrown path with her usual brisk determination. Melanie turned away and leaned her head against her knees, closing her eyes. She hadn’t decided yet whether she was glad or sorry that Suzie was here, but she was worried. Suzie was in danger and Melanie knew she would have to do her very best to send her sister home.

  By force, if necessary.

  Melanie waited until Suzie came up behind her before she spoke, her voice calm and faintly mocking. “You’ve taken your time. I was waiting for you to come and tell me you’d rung the funny farm and the van was on its way. Should I change, or will they bring the straitjacket with them? Hope they have my size.”

  Suzie laughed, bless her, but the hand she pressed to Melanie’s shoulder wasn’t quite steady. “You know I’m not going to do that, or at least I hope you know it. Anyway, if I did ring, they’d have to take me as well, wouldn’t they?”

  Melanie laughed back, surprised she could. That was one thing about Suzie, she could always make her laugh, sometimes at the most inconvenient moments. “I think out of the two of us I’m crazier.”

  “You’re not crazy,” Suzie said quietly, and sat down beside her. “You’re a long way from that. Anyway, I remember when this happened to you when you were a child—you weren’t crazy then, just frightened. I think the time has come for you to accept yourself for what you are.”

  “I hate what I am,” Melanie whispered. “You know I’ve always had an aversion to everything to do with the supernatural. All that trance crap and talking to spirits and reading the future in the tarot cards. I’ve never wanted any part of it. And now I can’t stop it from happening. The past is as clear to me as you, Suzie, and I’ve had visions of the future. I see…things I don’t want to see. I know things I don’t want to know. Oh God, you don’t know the half of it!”

  “Look, you just need to learn to control—”

  “I don’t want to control it. I want it to go away.”

  Suzie was silent for a moment, considering her words. “Melanie, let me tell you what I believe, and yes, I know it sounds trite. Everything that happens happens for a reason. Because it’s meant to. Perhaps your, well, gift for want of a better word, was meant to return to you here at Ravenswood. Perhaps there’s a reason you need it now when you didn’t before. Have you thought of that?”

  Melanie picked at her fingernail and then stopped herself, squeezing her hand into a fist. She hadn’t bitten her nails since she was little, and she wasn’t about to start again now. Suzie was right; Nathaniel had said much the same thing. She accepted that this was all part of some “meant-to-be” scenario. She’d been chosen as Nathaniel’s companion in this time and this place because of what was inside her.

  The voices interrupted her thoughts again, rising from the waves and calling out in mortal fear.

  But Melanie refused to listen to them. She closed her mind, locked herself down. Always before such an action had caused her relief, but not this time. Now it felt claustrophobic, as if she was in a box in the darkness with only her own breathing for company.

  “What is it?” Suzie asked sharply. “Melanie, you have to talk to me. I know there are things you haven’t told me yet. You might as well, you know. I may even be able to help.”

  Melanie turned to her sister. Suzie’s face was pale, the freckles standing out, and she looked worried and serious and more than a little cross. As if she was reprimanding one of her sons for being thoughtless. Was she being thoughtless? Suzie loved her, and it couldn’t hurt to talk. Suzie might laugh in her face, but she mightn’t, either.

  “I should mention,” Suzie added, “that Nathaniel has told me he wants me to take you home. He was adamant. A bit scary, actually.” She grinned. “Gorgeous at the same time, of course. Where did you find him?”

  “He wants you to take me home?” Melanie repeated, and shook her head in disbelief. “How can he ask that? He knows he needs me here.”

  He was going to sacrifice himself for her, that was it. Return to the between-worlds for however long the queen wanted to keep him there, so that she could be safe.

  If she was safe. Melanie sat up straighter. Who was to say Pengorren wouldn’t follow her to London? Eventually. And Nathaniel would be gone by then, there’d be no one to help her. She’d be alone.

  “No,” she said abruptly. “I’m not leaving. I’ll tell you why, Suzie, but keep an open mind, okay?”

  Suzie snorted. “I always do.”

  “Then here goes. The abbreviated version. That man I was telling you about on the phone, with the dazzling allure, the glamour as Eddie calls it. It’s Pengorren. Yes, Pengorren from Eddie’s book, the man who’s been dead for at least a century. Evidently he walked into the sea and drowned, but his body has never been found. Suzie, I keep seeing Pengorren in my dreams, waking dreams sometimes. A part of him is in the house and when I see him he’s reenacting his past, except I’m not a spectator, because…he knows I’m there. He can see me, and he talks to
me. He knows my name. And just now you told me I was related to him.”

  “Oh Melanie—” Suzie’s eyes were round.

  “No, listen, that’s not the creepiest part of it. Pengorren is the man who was on the beach that day, the man who came up to me, and you pushed him over and dragged me away. He’s the very same man, Suzie, I swear it.”

  Suzie was still staring at her. “I want to say you’re making it up, but I know you’re not. I know you’re not, Melanie, because I’ve been thinking about that man again, too, probably because you are. That should tell you something about us. We’re not like ordinary folk. We’re fey, like Pengorren, only whereas he was a very bad man, as Eddie sweetly puts it, we are for the forces of good.”

  “Don’t joke, and anyway I want to be ordinary.” Melanie’s voice was shaking on the verge of tears. “I’ve only ever wanted to be ordinary.”

  “Sshh.” Suzie slid an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. For a moment they leaned against each other like children, comforted by the warmth and closeness of each other’s bodies.

  Out on the sea the waves were rolling in toward the cliffs, the tide rising farther and farther up the small beach. A seagull shrieked as it flew past.

  Suzie spoke again. “Does Nathaniel think Pengorren is trying to harm you, is that why he wants you to go home?”

  “I don’t know for sure what Pengorren wants and neither does Nathaniel. He’s guessing, but going by Pengorren’s past history I don’t think anything he does would be very nice. Nathaniel believes Pengorren was responsible for the deaths of members of the Raven family back in the early nineteenth century. Major Pengorren gained a great deal from those deaths, but no one would have thought of blaming him. He was universally loved. And yet, looking at the facts coldly and rationally, he’s the obvious suspect.”

  “Glamour,” Suzie murmured. “There was a man I knew,” she paused, her gaze far away.

  “Go on.”

  Suzie shook herself. “It still upsets me when I think of it. I was traveling at the time…”

  “With your New Age friends?”

  “Yes. This man set himself up as the leader of a group, but I never trusted him. There was weird stuff going on. He seemed to have a hold over them that wasn’t entirely natural, as if they were blinded to what he was really like. Sick stuff, Melanie. I think someone was killed, and then he was arrested. Those left behind still believed he was innocent, that if he hurt them, then that was okay because it was his right. A bit like Charles Manson. Some people are so charismatic they’re able to manipulate their followers like that.”

  “Is that glamour, though? Or just plain evil?”

  “Could some people use glamour as a cover for evil?” Suzie sat up straighter. “I’ve just had a thought. If Pengorren was alive in the early nineteenth century and we saw him as a flesh-and-blood man when you were nine, who’s to say he hasn’t been around in other time periods as well? What if he really is a sort of faery? A fey being. Theoretically, he could go on living for centuries.”

  Melanie’s heartbeat quickened. Pengorren was alive. He’d been alive all this time, hiding in the shadows, changing his identity, slipping in and out of history. And he was here right now, watching them, laughing at them, waiting for the right moment to put a stop to the queen of the between-worlds’ plans to give Nathaniel another chance…

  Nathaniel!

  She didn’t realize she said it aloud, or maybe she didn’t. Suzie heard her, though, and now she was looking as if she was deciding how to phrase her next question.

  “Nathaniel is in danger,” Melanie said, anticipating her.

  “Nathaniel thinks you’re in danger.”

  “You don’t understand…”

  I will live forever. You will help me, Melanie…

  “Oh God,” Melanie gasped, turning sharply as Pengorren’s voice whispered in her ear again.

  Suzie was staring at her, wide-eyed. “What is it? Melanie?”

  Melanie shook her head, locking herself down again, and then wrinkling her brow as a headache began its slow grind.

  Suzie looked as if she was going to burst with frustration, and suddenly Melanie gave in. “There’s more I have to tell you,” she said, and immediately felt the relief of opening up. “Just be quiet and listen, and promise, if you do have me committed, it’s somewhere nice.”

  Twenty-nine

  Nathaniel looked up as the two women came toward him. He had gone out to the stable to see to Neptune, leaving Eddie engrossed in Miss Pengorren’s diaries. He’d felt in need of some fresh air, as well as some physical exercise. It seemed sensible to allow Melanie and Suzie some time alone. Maybe they’d be gone when he got back?

  But he knew he couldn’t bear that. Painful as it was, he needed to say good-bye.

  Pengorren had a lot to answer for. Like a squid, his tentacles reached far. He had to be stopped. Despairingly, he wondered how he was going to complete his impossible task without Melanie at his side.

  Then he looked up and all thought left him.

  Melanie was glowing again. The sunlight caught in her hair and reflected off her skin, as if she’d been dipped in liquid gold. When her eyes met his they sparkled, more silver than blue. He felt his blood throbbing through his veins. She was so beautiful, so captivating, and he was completely enraptured. Was this glamour? His heart gave a sickening lurch at the thought that none of what he was feeling was real, that it was Pengorren manipulating them.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and now she was close enough for him to reach out and touch, but he bunched his hands into fists and didn’t. Control, that was the thing. Self-control. He was beginning to enjoy restraining his impulses…well, most of the time.

  “Sorry?” Her words finally penetrated. “You’re leaving,” he said bleakly, even though it was what he wanted.

  She shook her head, then glanced at Suzie. Her guilty expression told him everything he needed to know. “You’ve told her about me,” he said accusingly.

  “I had to.”

  It was Melanie who reached out to touch him.

  Something zapped between them so strongly that it hurt. He cried out, his head spinning and his body enveloped in heat. He wanted to lean down and kiss her. He could see the shine on her soft lips, he could taste her. He thought for a moment he was lost, that he couldn’t stop himself this time, but somehow he found the strength.

  “Close your eyes, Melanie,” he said, hoarsely. “Please.”

  She blinked and took a step back. She didn’t close her eyes, but she did look away, presenting him with her perfect profile. “I had to tell Suzie.” Her voice was quiet, barely audible. “She needed to know, Nathaniel, she’s a blood relation of Pengorren, too.”

  But Nathaniel didn’t want to listen any longer. He wanted her out of here and safe. “You have to go back to London. Today. Now.”

  She shook her head, staring ahead.

  He wanted to shake her, but he couldn’t, he knew he couldn’t touch her again. “You’re in danger, Melanie,” he said angrily, but he was pleading. “Pengorren wants you. He thinks that through you he’s going to live forever.”

  “I know.” She shuddered. “He’s here in the present, he’s alive, but he’s grown old and feeble. He needs me so he can be strong again. When he touches me, he feeds off me like some sort of vampire…” She laughed, but it was more like a sob.

  She was right, it was the only thing that made sense.

  “That’s why you have to leave,” he told her. “He’s going to kill you, Melanie.”

  Her chin lifted stubbornly. “And why is he trying to be strong again, Nathaniel? So he can destroy you! He knows you’re here, he knows you’ve come for him, and there’s only one thing he can do to stop you. I’m not going to leave you here to face him alone.”

  “You can’t help—”

  “I can. How do you know he won’t follow me, anyway? How do you know that?”

  “Miss Pengorren went to London, and he didn’t follow
her,” Nathaniel said levelly. “I think that’s why she went, to get away from him and to stop him from using her strength to keep himself alive. You’re right, he feeds off people, he drains the life from them.”

  Melanie shook her head. “I won’t go,” she said stubbornly. “I’m not leaving you here to face Pengorren alone.”

  “Melanie…” Frustration made him want to shake her. Didn’t she realize that her being safe was more important to him than anything else?

  Suzie, who had been glancing between them like a spectator at a tennis match, put her hand on Nathaniel’s arm. He frowned at her, not wanting her to interrupt, but she faced up to him. “I’m sorry, Nathaniel, but I think Melanie’s right. Pengorren is still around, still alive, and he wants to get rid of you just like he did the last time. You need help if you’re going to defeat him.”

  “I won’t let him get rid of me this time,” he said coolly. “I’m prepared. I know what to expect from him.”

  “But he’s not a man, is he? He’s something more.”

  “You need me,” Melanie insisted, and she looked him in the eye, knowing how hard it would be for them both but needing to see his face and understand what he was thinking.

  He sucked in his breath as desire enveloped them. “You know what you’re doing to me, Melanie,” he said on a groan.

  “I know, but I’m Pengorren’s flesh and blood. I see him, I talk with him, I am part of him, and he’s part of me. He needs me, and we can use that to draw him into a trap.” Melanie felt herself go cold at the idea of it, but she’d given it a lot of thought. If this was her reason for being at Ravenswood, then she must play her part.

  Nathaniel knew she was right. His mind told him so, even while his heart was telling him to bundle her up in his arms and toss her into her car and send her on her way. He didn’t want Melanie to be yet another sacrifice to Pengorren.

  “Nathaniel?” she whispered, pleading for understanding. “I have to stay. You know I have to.”

  “You’ve made your decision, haven’t you?”

  She nodded.