Highland Hearts 03 - Crimson Heart

by Heather McCollum

  “Munro does.” Geoff blew on his hands then crossed his arms over his chest. “The most evil kind.”

  Peter turned to consider Elena, and she felt the urge to skitter away into the darkness like poor Hannah. The man’s eyes were black holes. She’d never really looked at him, the lines around his lips that made him look cruel, the bulbous nose that looked somewhat damp. His gaze traveled down her length and she shivered, only partly from the continued chill.

  “When Searc Munro appeared in Edinburgh, Father Renard bade me look into the man. His mother is considered a healer of great talent though many also call her a witch with innate magic. And then I came across Geoff and his mutterings about dark magic, but since I knew I could not get close to the warrior, Munro’s mother is a perfect substitute for my plans.”

  “What plans?” Elena’s chest tightened as her mind unfogged enough to focus the details into a gruesome picture. “You.” She swallowed. “Those girls…you—”

  “Need the power of young, virginal youth, from what I translated in this tome.” He shook his head. “Though I haven’t been able to extract enough power, even when I follow the entire ritual. The original heathen who penned this manuscript seems to have gotten the information second hand from a druid’s apprentice.” He turned back to the book, his finger skimming down the page. “The girls haven’t worked.”

  “And yet you killed three of them before you figured that out.” Elena couldn’t keep the loathing from her voice.

  “Shut yer mouth!” Geoff took a step toward her. He stopped when Peter raised a hand.

  “Really five, but the other two were not missed.” He turned to look back at her. “But now I have you and the Witch Munro.” He laughed. “What luck to have her come all the way from the west and walk right into my hands. The two of you should be bursting with magic, magic I will take.”

  Fear lashed through Elena with his smooth, calm words. “Why would you have need of magic? You are a man of God. Surely you will burn in Hell for what you have done, what you are trying to do,” Elena pointed out.

  Peter slid around behind the basin where Hannah rinsed the cloth she’d been wiping along Rachel’s skin. If she were awake, the poor woman would be freezing. Peter came back into the light with a roll of cloth that looked like velvet. His hot breath puffed out from thick lips as he exhaled. He set the roll across Rachel’s stomach and opened it, revealing polished silver blades in varying sizes. Elena’s heart thumped painfully.

  “There are dark texts in this world that must be read through righteous eyes only, else the words corrupt,” Peter said as if instructing. One by one, he straightened out the instruments on the velvet cloth, arranging them in some order. “This text, though evil, can be used for good.”

  “What good could possibly come from killing innocent women?” Elena’s voice came out breathless, her teeth chattering slightly. She had to stall him. Could she rush him, knock him over?

  Peter turned an annoyed face to her. “It is unholy for a woman, who brought original sin into God’s world, to rule a kingdom without a man to guide her. Marie de Guise and her daughter can be so easily swayed by the devil. I have bided my time, trying in small ways to rid the world of a queen regent’s rule, but I have failed. I have prayed continually for a means to stop this atrocity. And then Father Renard unearthed this unholy text in a crypt he found under this very abbey. He had me translate the runes. I haven’t shared my finding with him as he’s liable to burn it like the cowardly papacy wants me to do. They do not possess the courage that I have to use Satan against his own wickedness.”

  Peter brushed Rachel’s hair from her closed face. “And I will lead the church here in Edinburgh.” He kissed her forehead gently. “Let Renard haul the wood and sow the corn.” He turned and picked up one of the blades. “But first I must tap into the darkness in this woman.”

  “No!” Elena pushed, using her feet to help her rise up the wall. Hannah scurried to a corner, hiding her face in her hands. “No!” Elena yelled again. “Don’t hurt her!”

  Peter lowered his arm, his dark eyes peering at Elena. “She won’t feel any pain, as I forced her to drink a blend of my own herbs that will help her sleep through the worst. I am merciful after all.” He leaned back over Rachel. “Though sometimes the pain makes them rouse even with my tincture. ’Tis why the restraints are in place.” So casual, as if he spoke of brining a goose to enhance the flavor in the roast.

  Rapid footsteps echoed overhead on the other side of the iron bars. Elena sucked in breath and closed her eyes. She screamed, high and as loud as she could, pushing past the stabbing in her head.

  Geoff’s rough hand slammed flat against her mouth, bruising her lips against her teeth. But she knew she had to try and reach whoever was above.

  Elena wretched her jaw open, tasting the nasty grime on Geoff’s hand, and slammed her teeth downward like a trap.

  “Yeow!” Geoff yanked his hand back with his shriek. Elena tasted blood, his blood and spit it out, gathered breath and screamed as loud as she possibly could.

  Bam! Stars and pain exploded in Elena’s head as Geoff’s fist connected with her face. Her body slammed into the bars and she fell, unable to catch herself with the binding. She lay on her side, her face hidden in her clasped hands.

  “Ye brazen bitch!” Geoff cursed. She heard his shuffling. Would he strike her again?

  “Leave her be,” Hannah’s voice came. “Please.”

  “The mouse speaks.” Peter chuckled low. “Bring the chalice closer, mouse. It will get rather messy soon.”

  “Who is down there? No one should be down there,” came from above, outside the bars. Father Renard. Elena opened her mouth but felt Geoff close. She inhaled.

  “Get the bloody hell out of my way,” Searc’s voice broke into muffled voices. Searc!

  Elena inhaled. “Help! Searc!”

  “Shut up!” Geoff yelled. She tightened in a ball, afraid he’d kick her, but his footfalls retreated toward the center of the room.

  “Searc Munro is here.” Geoff’s voice hissed low with an edge of panic.

  Peter’s voice remained calm as if he were concentrating. “He can’t get through those bars. There’s no gate on that side and by the time he finds his way through the far tunnels, I will have all the power I need to stop him. Stand your ground, man.”

  Geoff cursed softly. Torchlight danced along the wall beyond, illuminating a steep set of stone stairs.

  “Here, Searc!” Elena struggled to sit upright again, clinging to the bars.

  Searc landed full force at the bottom of the stairs. He squatted just on the other side of Elena. His hand was gentle when he touched her sore cheek, but his face was pure death. “I will kill him.” A spark of red grew in the back of his dark eyes. He looked up and saw Geoff. “Ye will die for touching her!” Geoff cursed and ran farther down the corridor.

  “I will be fine, but your mother. Searc, you have to help her.”

  “Where’s the door?” He rose, moved further down and shook the bars, but they barely moved.

  Alec Munro reached the bottom of the stairs and threw his torch into a holder, running to the bars, shaking them like Searc, with little affect.

  “There is no door on this side.” Elena’s pulse beat hard with hope. Father Renard stepped from the stairway up to the bars.

  “What goes on here?” He gasped. “Peter? What are you doing?”

  “Saving this sinful country from unholy ruin,” Peter murmured but continued to hunch over the book.

  “Rachel!” Alec roared. “I’ll kill ye, devil. What have ye done to her?”

  “She’s alive, but you need to get to her fast before he…” Elena leaned her hands out the bars. Searc squatted back down and slit the rope from her wrists. She curled her painfully tingling fingers around Searc’s hands. “Peter, Father Renard’s monk. He’s the killer. Some dark ritual. He wants her magic.” Elena spoke in pants as she nearly clawed at him.

  Searc cursed low and war
med her frozen fingers in his hands. Peter began to chant. “Back away from the bars, Elena.” Searc disentangled her hands from his. Elena scooted backwards with her heels until she felt the stone wall.

  Alec threw his weight against the iron bars, but they didn’t give. Once, twice, three times he flew into them, his feet leaving the stone ground each time. Searc examined where the bars connected to the walls. “There must be a bloody weakness.”

  “These bars have stood solid for centuries.” Father Renard ran his hands down his face and grabbed the crucifix that hung from his neck. “Peter, stop this at once. You will go to hell.”

  “He’s already going to hell!” Alec roared as he ran again into the bars. “I’ll be sending him there now! I’ll rip his bloody heart from his body!”

  “There’s a door,” Elena breathed out. “Down where Geoff went.”

  “Yes! Yes.” Father Renard bounded back up the steps. Alec pivoted and raced after him yelling in Gaelic.

  Searc shook the bars again. Elena watched the muscles of his biceps through his linen shirt, mound up in herculean strength as he pushed every ounce of himself into breaking through, but they didn’t bend. He tried shoving his body between the narrow bars but his leg could hardly squeeze through.

  Peter’s chants became louder. The madman used the small knife to crisscross Rachel’s arms. Elena couldn’t see much from her place on the ground, but the anguish on Searc’s face was beyond fury. His eyes glowed red and she knew the magic must be tearing through him.

  “Per sanguis cordis,” Peter intoned in Latin, his voice echoing in the domed dungeon. Searc yanked again and threw his shoulder against the bars. They quivered under the assault but not enough to break. He roared in fury and frustration. He needed more strength.

  He needed… “Me,” Elena whispered, pulling herself back to the bars. “Searc! They aren’t going to make it in time!”

  Peter picked up a large knife. Hannah cried beside the challis. The small woman threw the holy water and basin at the deranged monk.

  “You will be punished for that,” Peter snapped and pushed the basin off of Rachel. It twanged against the stone floor. Unfazed, the crazed man started his long verse of chanting again, louder and louder. He raised the knife over Rachel’s prone body.

  “No!” Searc roared.

  Elena grabbed at him through the bars. “Searc, use me, take my strength, take my life force to break through the bars.”

  “I can’t.” He shook his head, his voice ragged, a pained look shifting between his mother and Elena. “Leave her!” he yelled at Peter.

  “Yes you can!” Elena grabbed onto him and forced herself to stand by climbing up the bars. “Take my life force, Searc. I trust you.” He looked into her eyes, her words pulling his focus. His were red. “Searc, do it. I love you.” She grasped his glowing hands.

  Elena felt a jolt within her, like her breath being sucked out. She gasped air but the effort did nothing to stop the feeling of suffocation. Her mouth opened but she couldn’t pull anything in. Her battered body sank back to the dungeon floor. Yet she still clung to Searc’s hands and he followed her down. He stared at her, his eyes sharp with red light, his breathing hard.

  Her chest ached now more than her head. He was doing it. He was taking her life force, and she gladly gave what she could. He must stop Peter. Elena blinked long several times until at last her lids refused to open anymore. The hardness of the floor met her cheek as she fell over. Blessedly the pain in her head and chest stopped. Everything stopped.

  Chapter Sixteen

  …and take the blood drops from the lines crisscrossing the flesh of the innocent and blend them with virgin wine while calling upon the powers of the earth, water, air, and fire…

  Searc watched Elena crumple to the floor through a haze of red power. He roared, his heightened voice reverberating through the underground dungeon. The pain of watching her fall ripped through him, his chest contracting and his stomach twisting inward as if his very soul was dying. Her life energy throbbed through him. It added more than just her physical strength to his. She’d given him her powerfully strong spirit and courage and…her love.

  “God help me!” The small woman threw her arms around the monk’s waist, yanking on him as he held the long blade over Searc’s mother. Peter wavered and knocked the girl away with the blunt end of the knife against her face.

  Searc’s fingers curled around the cold iron. Elena’s gift surged through to mix with his own strength. He would not let her sacrifice be in vain. He inhaled and pulled, his lips curling back from his teeth with his fury-filled cry. The bars creaked under his bulging muscles and slowly they bent away from one another.

  Searc could hardly hear the sadistic monk’s loud chants over the rushing of blood and magic in his ears. With one more tug, he opened the bars just wide enough for his body. Searc lunged sideways through the bars, leaping to grab the monk as the madman’s arm descended toward his mother. Searc lifted the cloaked man overhead until he was smashed against the low ceiling. The knife clattered to the floor. Peter screamed like a vicious animal, trying to twist out of Searc’s grip. Geoff’s garbled shriek echoed from the dark corridor beyond just before Alec ran into the room, breathing in huge gulps of air. He ran to Rachel while Searc held the thrashing monk.

  “Let me down!” Peter’s words were muffled as Searc held his face against the dank stone of the ceiling. The monk’s robes fell over Searc’s head.

  “Right down to hell, ye bloody demon!” Searc spat under the musty, sweat-reeking material and let the man drop from his hands to land on Searc’s upward surging knee. The crack of Peter’s back proceeded his pained howl as he fell in a jumble of robes to the stone floor. With a yell of feverish vengeance, Searc drew his sword and held it over the man. The devil’s eyes widened as Searc brought the blade flying downward to pierce his black heart.

  “Rachel, lass.” Alec wiped Rachel’s cheeks with his hands, trying to revive her. He planted a kiss on her and Searc noticed Father Renard standing on the other side, helping Marie’s girl rise.

  Searc turned to Elena where she lay against the bars and scooped her up. She weighed not more than a feather, as if only a hollow shell of her remained. He breathed deeply, focusing on not crushing her as he wrapped himself around her cold, limp body. He felt her stuttering heartbeat. “Elena.” His voice begged. “Elena, my God, what have I done?”

  He laid his ear against her chest to hear the sluggishness of her pulse. Cradling her in one arm, he brushed the silky hair from her face and his breath choked in his throat. For although Elena’s lovely auburn hair remained, her cheeks were sunken, her skin nearly translucent with age. Deep lines wrinkled around her shut eyes, dark lashes laying against sickly pale skin. He held her hand and ran his thumb along the wrinkles that had gnarled it. Even if she somehow lived, he had sucked out most of her years, crippling her body into that of an old woman.

  Gently he pressed her to his chest, burying his face in her hair. “I will hold and comfort ye for the rest of yer days, Elena.”

  “Searc?” His mother’s weak voice called from the table. He turned to see her sitting upon it with the support of his father. “Is she hurt?”

  He turned slightly, letting the light fall on Elena’s face. “She…she gave me the strength to reach ye.”

  His father swore, his gaze going to the widened hole in the bars behind Searc. “Rachel, can ye save her? Bring her here, Searc.”

  He lowered Elena in his arms until he sat with her against the base of the table. He wouldn’t lower her to the cold rock, wouldn’t allow her to endure anymore pain. “She’s barely alive.”

  Father Renard spoke softly in Latin. Last rites.

  “Help me down, Alec,” Rachel commanded, though her voice was so weak it barely sounded like his mother.

  “What did he do to ye?” Alec lowered Rachel to sit next to Searc. She rested her hand on his arm.

  “I don’t know.” She sounded groggy, a bit slurred.
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br />   “’Tis some type of drink he has.” Hannah sniffed, tears leaving lines in her dirty cheeks. “It makes one weak. He gave her a lot when she was unconscious, forced it down her throat so she’d stay asleep.”

  Rachel grasped Elena’s hand, pausing as she looked upon her aged face. Shame washed through Searc at what he’d done, yet he felt no fear from his mother. Only regret.

  Rachel looked at him. “Her body has been altered in every little part that makes up her whole. And…” She sighed with exhaustion. “I don’t have the power to fix it. Perhaps if I gain some strength first but…” Rachel’s eyes looked shiny with unshed tears. “I don’t think there is much time before her heart stops, Searc.”

  “Ye can’t do anything?” Alec took Elena’s other hand, rubbing it as if to give her back some warmth. But Searc had stolen her warmth. It didn’t matter that she’d given it to him. She’d trusted him, trusted him to take some but not all. She hadn’t said that but surely she hoped he wouldn’t kill her. Yet that was precisely what he had done.

  “No.” Rachel’s soft word tore through Searc’s heart. He bowed his head. She continued. “I have the ability to work my magic I think. I just have no power.”

  Searc raised his eyes to meet hers. Tears had seeped out and rolled down her pale cheeks. “I have power, all of mine and Elena’s. Can I transfer it to ye somehow, feed it into ye so ye can heal her?”

  Rachel’s one eyebrow rose very slightly. “I don’t know.”

  Searc brushed Elena’s soft hair back from her forehead. Fury licked inside him as he felt the stickiness of dried blood along her scalp. If he could kill Peter all over again, he would, painfully, slowly.

  “I don’t want to hurt ye.” Searc looked at his mother. “But if ye think there’s a chance…” Alec was already helping Rachel pull closer to Elena on Searc’s lap.

  “Let me hold the lass,” Alec said.

  Searc almost refused. He’d already lost so much of her, to relinquish his hold on her, to not be able to feel her slight heartbeat was nearly unbearable. But Alec gently pulled her from his grasp. “Careful,” Searc let go gingerly. Hannah came around and brushed back Elena’s hair from her withered features.