“Get up,” the man whispered. “Get tae yer feet and follow me before they all wind up dead.”
She had no idea who this strange man was, but that voice spoke to her innermost soul. She got to her feet. In an instant, he made across the field and plunged into a thicket. Carmen hurried after him and followed him into the shadows. She found the man standing in a tree-lined glade near a trickling stream. “Do ye ken who I be?”
Carmen shook her head. She couldn’t get her parched throat to function.
“The Camerons call me Ross, and ye may do likewise. Ye mun’ come tae the witch’s castle. Ye’re the only one who ken break the curse.”
“I don’t know anything about magic,” she stammered
He chopped his hand through the air. “Ye needn’t ken any magic tae break the curse. Ye need only go in and defeat her.”
“How am I supposed to do that?” Carmen asked. “She’ll have defenses set up to stop me getting inside.”
Ross nodded. “Aye, and many she weel. Ye’ll defeat them, too. Ye’ll have tae.”
“But how?” Carmen asked. “I don’t have any weapon or power or anything.”
Ross waved his hand. “Ye’ll do it.” Carmen started to argue, but he only pointed through the trees. “Follow that path there, and ye’ll come tae the castle. Once ye break the curse, ye’ll go back where ye belang.”
Before she could say any more, Ross walked away, but not in the direction of the castle. Carmen shivered in the chilly night. She ought to go back to Angus and the others. She shouldn’t even think about going near the witch’s castle without the Camerons.
She kicked herself for not taking the opportunity to ask Ross about the curse when she had the chance. Well, he was long gone now. If he wanted her to go to the castle with the Camerons, he wouldn’t have woken her up in the middle of the night to send her there alone. He would have waited for the whole group to go there.
He must have some reason for sending her there alone. He must know she could accomplish this better alone. That’s why he sent her. He probably put Angus to sleep so he could do that without any interference from the Highlander.
She looked back and forth between the path Ross pointed out and the way back to the men. She couldn’t stand out here in the cold forever. She wondered what this mysterious Ross was all about, and now she knew. She wanted to know how to get back to her own time and her own world. Now she knew.
She had to go to the witch’s castle. She had to break the curse. She would kill two birds with one stone. A pang of regret stabbed her in the guts. If she went home, she would leave Angus behind.
What was she thinking about Angus for? She only met him the previous day. He was nothing but a crude man in a skirt. Why should she sacrifice her future for him? The kindest thing she could do for him would be to break the curse and leave him to the kind of women he understood.
He would go home and get himself a girl in a tight-fitting dress who spoke his language. That’s what he needed, not some cop from the mean streets. He needed a cop to break the curse, not to get involved with.
She shook herself awake. She wasn’t involved with him, and she wasn’t going to be. She was getting out of here. Ross seemed to think she could break the curse alone, so what was she waiting for?
She started down the path. It wound through flickering shadows where the moonlight flashed between the leaves overhead. Angus said the castle was twenty miles from where he found her, and they hadn’t traveled that far. The castle must be another day’s travel away.
She came out of the forest into another open field. The silver moon lit up the land so bright she could make out every blade of grass. The path twisted and turned across the field and ended where the land dropped away into a deep valley.
Carmen pulled up on the precipice. The valley spread into the distant landscape all lit up with moonlight. Mountains jutted into the starry firmament on the other side. Lights winked against the treacherous peaks, and the moon struck full and bright against a huge white castle nestled into the mountainside.
Carmen stared at it. She didn’t expect it to be white. Black, maybe. The ivory turrets glistened in the starlight. White and colored flags rippled in the gentle breeze from the turrets, and a thousand lights shone from every window.
Maybe only in storybooks the good witches lived in white castles and the bad witches lived in black castles. Why shouldn’t this one live in a white castle?
The whole landscape all around lay quiet and peaceful. No demons guarded that castle. No wraiths haunted it or howled around its gargoyle-infested pinnacles.
Carmen looked back over her shoulder. How long would the guys sleep before they woke up and found her gone? What would Angus do when he realized where she went? He would come after her. He would attack the castle.
If she could break the curse without any more men getting killed, she should do it. She started forward. She didn’t need a path to show her where to go now. She could see her destination in front of her, plain as day.
She marched all night. She climbed down the steep hillsides. The valley extended a long way in both directions. The sun peeked over the hill behind her before she came to a river. She put out her foot to pick her way across the stepping stones when a voice echoed through the trees.
A woman in a blue shirt and blue pants dashed out of the trees. “Carmen! There you are!”
Carmen stared at her. “Sadie! What are you doing here?”
“Come on! You have to come with me right away. Grace is over here, and she’s hurt. I need your help.”
Sadie grabbed Carmen by the hand. She towed her toward the trees and wouldn’t let her go until Carmen followed her. Then she let go and darted away into the woods. Carmen hurried to catch up.
She lost sight of Sadie. She pressed forward to catch up when Sadie came running back to snatch at her hand again. “Come on! You have to hurry. I can’t save her alone.”
Carmen put on speed, but Sadie bolted out of sight again. “Wait a minute!”
Carmen set off running in the direction Sadie went, but she still couldn’t catch her friend. A moment later, Sadie reappeared. Her cheeks flushed scarlet from running, and she panted out the words. “Hurry, Carmen! I don’t know if she’s gonna make it.”
Carmen yanked her hand out of Sadie’s grasp. She stopped in her tracks. “Wait a minute, Sadie. Where have you been the last few days? What happened to you after you left Hazel’s house, and what happened when Grace got injured?”
“Please hurry, Carmen,” Sadie pleaded. “She’s bleeding and I can’t stop it. I need your help. You have to come now.”
Sadie dashed off out of sight one more time. Carmen didn’t move. Something about this didn’t sit right with her. Sadie led her far off the path toward the castle. Now she wanted to lead Carmen even farther away. Why?
Carmen stayed where she was. Three times Sadie reappeared to tempt her away. She always used the same words. Grace was hurt. Grace needed help. Sadie couldn’t do it alone.
Now Carmen knew something was wrong. Sadie was a doctor—a good one, too. She could stop superficial bleeding on her own. Carmen couldn’t help her with anything internal. If Grace got that badly injured out here, she was history.
The fourth time Sadie returned and ran off again, Carmen didn’t wait for her to come back. She turned the other way and walked back to the river. Sadie wasn’t here. That image Carmen saw in the woods was just a temptation the witch created to divert Carmen from confronting her.
If Ross was right and Carmen alone could break the curse, the witch would throw any obstacle in her path. The witch would create the most tempting diversions to distract Carmen from her mission.
Carmen crossed the river and sat down to rest in the shade. She gazed on the bright green grass, the sun twinkling across the shimmering water, the breeze whispering in the trees. This really was a beautiful world.
She never stopped to admire the natural world back home. She was too busy building a career for h
erself, but these beauties must have been there, too. They waited just out of sight. They waited for her to look up and notice them instead of driving around in her car in search of the worst criminals in the country.
Carmen always lived in a world of concrete and glass, a world of guns and jails and courts and offices. She lived in a hard world, an unforgiving world. Now she was here, in the Scottish Highlands.
Even sitting here under the witch’s watchful eye, she became aware of the exquisite beauty all around her. Even those hardened fighting men possessed a raw, rugged beauty of their own. Their kilts made them more masculine than they would have been in pants. Their long hair and square-cut features gave them an eternal, unblemished look, just like this stream and those mountains up there.
What would her life be like if she could stay here? What kind of person would she have to be to fit in here? Would she have to give up her hard exterior and become a helpless wallflower? Could a woman like her exist in this world?
Anyway, she wasn’t going to stay here. She was going to that castle to break the curse. She could give Angus that, even if she couldn’t give him anything else. She might never kiss him or get to love him. She would probably never see him again, but she could free him from this burden.
That thought gladdened her heart. She set off for the castle. She would defeat the witch and go home. She would do it for Angus.
Chapter 8
Someone kicked Angus awake. He came up spitting mad to find Brody standing over him. “Sleeping on watch again? That’s a fine state to find our glorious leader first thing in the mornin’.”
Angus slapped his foot away when Brody tried to kick him again. “It was Ross. Ross cast a spell on me tae put me to sleep.”
“Ross!” Brody snorted. “A likely story.”
Angus looked around. “Where’s the woman?”
The others looked at each other. “She mun’ ha’e run off,” Ewan suggested.
“Ross was here,” Angus told him. “Either Ross sent her off, or the witch has ta’en her.”
“Angus, mon…” Callum began.
Angus whirled through the camp. “On yer feet, brothers! We mun’ get tae the castle. The woman holds the secret tae break the curse. If the witch has ta’en her, we’re lost. Get up, Callum. Jamie, stop yer primping and come on.”
He raced across the field. The rising sun touched the grass stems with gold, but he couldn’t pay attention to that. Ross came in the night, put him to sleep, and snatched Carmen from under his very nose.
How could he let this happen? Whether Ross took her or it was the witch, he had to find her. He had to get her back. He couldn’t let anything happen to her. If she got hurt in this poxed little war…
He shoved that idea out of his head. He didn’t wait for the others to get themselves together. They didn’t care what happened to Carmen. They couldn’t know what change she worked on his mind.
During the long, tortured weeks since they left their home castle, he never let himself imagine anything beyond the next day, the next hour, the next night’s battle. He couldn’t build castles on air.
Now he had Carmen. He didn’t exactly have her, but she threw him a lifeline. She listened while he explained their situation. She stood by him in battle. She saved him and his brother from the wraiths.
He let himself feel something, even if that something was nothing more than the connection to another human heart who understood him. He opened himself a tiny crack and let her in.
He couldn’t lose her now. He wouldn’t build a castle on air with her, either, but he clutched her to his heart for all he was worth. He couldn’t let her get hurt out here, not for his stupid little curse.
He strode over the grass, through the woods and into another field on the other side. The day grew large and bright all around him, but he paid no attention. He walked so fast he left his comrades behind.
He stood on the cliff edge a long time. He gazed down at the castle in the distance while he waited for the others to catch up. The hideous black towers stabbed into the sky, and black flags whipped in the wind.
Angus narrowed his eyes at the castle. She was down there. Carmen was down there. He couldn’t be more certain of that.
Robbie appeared at his side. “There i’tis.”
“The land looks quiet,” Ewan remarked.
“Don’t be fooled by the land,” Angus told him. “We’ll come tae grief before we get anywhere near it.”
Callum pointed down the hill. “Tak’ a look at that.” They all followed his finger to a tiny cottage tucked among the trees. While they watched, an old woman emerged from the trees leading a cow to the front door. “What do ye suppose i’tis?”
“Looks like a house tae me,” Fergus put in.
Jamie punched him in the shoulder. “Ye numpty scunner.”
Angus spun around and knocked Jamie so hard he stumbled backward. “Do ye jobbies think ye ken defeat the witch playing pattycake like milk-suckin’ bairns? Quit yer noise and pay attention. We winnae get anywhere near the place wi’out losing a mon here, so get yer heads on and whet yer blades. All the fights we had before’ll be naught compared to this.”
He didn’t wait for them to respond. He put his foot down on the steep cliff face and sidestepped down the precipice to the valley floor beyond. If these young ones wanted to turn this battle into a joke, he couldn’t save them.
He didn’t slow his pace until he reached the river. The sun played along the water’s edge, but something dangerous lurked on the other side. He sensed it all around him. His nerves prickled, but he had no choice but to cross that river and find out the worst the witch could throw at him. The sooner he faced it, the sooner he could fight it.
Connor Baird peered right and left. “I dinnae see ought. It looks safe.”
He put out his foot to the first stepping stone when the whole mass of water running past exploded out of its bed. Showers of dancing sparks rained down all over the grass and drenched the party. Angus staggered back, and his hand flew to his sword hilt.
Out of the rocky stream bed, something massive reared its reptile head. The party stumbled back farther and farther, but no matter how they craned their necks, the thing just kept getting bigger and bigger above the trees.
Another curving snake-shape burst out of the stream next to the first. Another and another appeared until five huge dragon heads writhed against the blue sky. They whipped their necks back and forth, and their sharp heads darted down to snap at the brothers.
Angus slashed the nearest one with his sword, but the dragon bobbed out of the way in a split second. Before anybody could make a move, one of them rocketed down to the ground. The dragon slammed its open mouth into the ground right on top of Connor. The jaws closed, and the head retracted into the air so high no one could reach it. Connor’s legs stuck out between the monster’s jaws, the dragon whipped back its head and tossed the man down its gullet.
Angus stared in open-mouthed horror. The next thing he knew, rage erupted out of him. He dashed forward and lunged his sword point into the dragon’s chest where it stuck out of the stream bed. The sword point embedded an inch between the creature’s scales. All five heads screamed to the skies, and another head sped down at Angus going a mile a minute.
He saw it coming. He yanked his sword, but he couldn’t free it. The scales wedged around it and held it fast. He couldn’t wait another second to get it back. He retreated among his brothers, but none of them dared go anywhere near the thing.
Another head slithered down. It bobbed level with the brothers’ faces. All of a sudden, it shot forward. It snapped its teeth inches away from the party. Only Brody kept his head enough to jab his sword at the creature. He pricked it in the nose when it came too close, and it whipped back with another ear-splitting screech.
In the fraction of a second before the dragon heads reacted and came back for another bite, Angus saw his chance. He rushed forward and seized his sword handle still sticking out of the monster’s c
hest.
The weapon took an extra jerk to free it, and in that brief instant, the dragon heads lashing the sky above rocketed down one more time. Their scales whistled through the air. Angus barely had time to leap out of the way before the razor spikes across the creature’s head cut him to shreds.
As it was, he didn’t get far enough back before the head whipped back the other way. He reacted on pure instinct. He spun to his left and slashed. By sheer chance, he met the head coming at him faster than he could think. His blade cut upward into the creature’s neck. The neck kept flying past him so fast the wind blew Angus’s hair off his face, but the head tumbled to the ground at his feet.
The moment it touched the grass, it sizzled into an acrid cloud of steam that drifted upward and dissolved into the clear blue sky. Angus didn’t wait for another strike. He sprang back out of the way to where his friends waited for him.
The severed neck gyrated against the sky. Bright colored blood spurted from the wound. In front of the Highlanders’ shocked eyes, those spouting plumes of green and red and orange liquid congealed and formed new heads until five new heads glared down from the one neck.
Angus extended his arm to move his men back. They backed well out of the way from those menacing heads, but they weren’t getting anywhere near that river with the monster in the way.
Angus looked around for any way forward, but that many-headed dragon blocked their path. Just then, he spied something moving in the trees. It was the woman leading the cow they noticed from the hilltop. A grey cloak and hood draped over her stooped shoulders.
She turned around, and Angus recoiled from her hideous ugliness. Warts disfigured her face, and her nose hung thick and lopsided off her face. She smiled at him, and rotten, crooked teeth protruded between her lips.
She cocked a knobby finger at him and beckoned him to come closer. He never saw anyone more revoltingly ugly, but something about her struck him. He couldn’t take his eyes off her, not even to watch the dragon bellowing and contorting in the riverbed.
He turned all the way around. Callum grabbed his shirt when he started to walk away. Then the whole group turned to see where he was going. The old woman swept her hand to include all of them, and she backed into the trees with her cow.
Ghost Clan Page 5