by Hazel Hunter
They could be visitors, and the kid in the village simply had an overworked mother and an overactive imagination, but Diana still felt dread knot up her gut. All the men in the group were wearing tartans of differing colors and patterns, which meant different clans. All the women looked pale in the torchlight.
Another man came out of the castle, stopped in front of the gray-haired laird, and slapped his arm across his chest armor. He wore a flowing red cloak over Roman battle armor, and seemed to be reporting to the laird and the old man. Then the laird removed his tartan, revealing his own armor, while the new shift of sentries assumed their posts outside the stronghold.
The sentries wore clan clothing, but had skin so white it looked like they’d been carved from plaster, and eyes that were the same shade of reptilian black as the undead Diana had fought.
Her gut had been absolutely right. The legion had taken over Ermindale.
Diana crept down the hill and retrieved the gelding. Carefully walking Treun across the stream and away from the castle, she considered her options. It would take too long to ride back to Gordon’s stronghold, and Raen had probably already left to look for her. She was closer to Lamont’s, and from her patrols with the clan she knew what roads to take to get there. The earl also had couriers. She could send a report directly to Dun Aran from there.
“I hope you had a decent break, pal,” Diana said to Treun as she mounted the horse. “Because there won’t be any more tonight.”
Knowing the horse couldn’t gallop the entire distance without dropping from exhaustion, Diana kept her mount at a steady pace while she thought about everything she had seen at Ermindale. If the clan was to attack, they’d have to go in the morning, when the undead would be unable to spot them approaching or come out and fight. Assuming the nobles being held there were all brainwashed, they’d have to lure them out somehow and get them contained so they didn’t try to protect their undead masters. The locals were obviously scared out of their minds, so they wouldn’t offer much help. Maybe she’d consult with the earl’s daughter on how to best infiltrate the castle, seeing as Nathara was already an expert on how to get out of one unnoticed.
“What we need, Treun, is a great big Trojan laundry basket,” Diana joked, and then tugged on the reins as she saw the sunrise glimmering behind the silhouette of the earl’s gatehouse. “Boy, you really can trot. Extra oats for you when we get home.”
She dismounted and led the tired gelding up to the castle entry, and then stopped as she saw a man in druid’s robes standing just outside it.
“I need to speak with the laird right away,” she told them, and peered at the druid, who pushed back his hood. “Cailean. What are you doing here?”
“I have been looking for you, Lieutenant. So has Master Aber.” He gestured for one of the laird’s sentries to take Treun. “I must speak with you on an urgent matter. Will you walk with me?”
“Uh, okay, sure.” She followed him past the gatehouse and into the woods surrounding the estate. “How did you know I’d be here?”
He shrugged. “We have our ways.”
That was druid-speak for classified info, so Diana asked, “Did Raen tell you about this morning? Long story short, the undead are posing as the guards and having enthralled household staff let them inside to get at the nobles. They can also do it during the day.”
“We ken.” He went around a large oak into a small circular clearing, and then stopped and turned to her. “I am sorry about this, Lieutenant. As I have said, I have always liked you.”
Diana felt someone else coming up behind her, and guessed why he’d lured her away from Lamont’s stronghold. But instead of surprise or anger, a strange familiarity filled her. She’d known it couldn’t last.
“How about you, old guy?” she asked. “Still nursing that grudge?”
“I have forgiven you for harming me,” Bhaltair said as he came around her, his eyes cold and his expression dark with some tightly-leashed emotion. “We are all grateful for what you have done for the clan and druid kind, Mistress Burke.”
“No, you’re not,” she said simply and glanced down to see the center of the clearing glowing faintly. “But I bet it’ll feel good when you drop-kick me back to my time, huh?” She didn’t wait for him to answer, but instead turned to Cailean. “Tell Raen this: I’m sorry, I love him, and I’ll be okay.”
The younger druid gave her a pained smile. “Safe journey, Diana.”
Safe journey? It’d be anything but. She’d be better off with the un–
“Wait,” she exclaimed. “I have to tell you.” But Bhaltair had already raised a hand. “No. The clan needs to go to Ermin–”
Something shoved Diana forward onto the glowing spot, which sucked her down into the ground and through the long, curving tunnel of trees. This time she didn’t feel any fear. She knew what was waiting for her on the other end. She only wished she hadn’t left Raen without saying good-bye, but she doubted she would have been able to say it without breaking down.
Maybe this way was better.
It was almost painless.
The world brightened around her as the tunnel emptied her out onto the ground, and she sat up to see fresh crime scene tape wound around the trees. The tape seemed to be sparkling, too, or maybe it was the brightness of the day. The sky looked as pale as milk around the huge orb of the sun, and Diana closed her eyes against the stabbing pain that looking at it inflicted.
She had gone on one final adventure. She’d found Kinley, and fallen in love. That didn’t hurt. That was every last wish, fulfilled to the max.
The pain didn’t go away, but ballooned, pressing on the sides of her skull from within. Soon she was curled over and holding her head to keep it from exploding.
“Hey, lady, are you all right?” a voice said. A bearded man appeared over her, and then knelt down beside her. “Are you hurt? Let me see. I know some first aid.”
“I’m not…hurt. I’m…sick.” Diana could hear how she slurred the words, and knew she didn’t have much time left. “Call. Ambulance.”
“Honey, call nine-one-one,” the bearded man said to someone else as he rolled Diana over onto her side. “Tell them she’s having a seizure.” A woman’s voice spoke, and then he said, “I don’t know. Maybe it’s epilepsy.”
No, Einstein, she thought as the shakes stopped, and her vision darkened to black. It’s an inoperable brain tumor.
The oak grove seemed to shimmy around Diana, and then her body convulsed as the time bomb that had been ticking in her head for the last two years finally went off.
Chapter Twenty-Two
RAEN PERSONALLY SEARCHED all of Gordon’s land for Diana before returning to Dun Aran in hopes of finding her there. He knew he had been a fool to speak to her out of fear instead of love, and he would convince her to forget his irrational proposal. Even if it was safer for her in her time, he knew he could not live without her in his.
At the castle Diana was nowhere to be found, and when the clan’s horses were brought back from the mainland, Treun was not among them. Raen spoke to every member of the warband that had gone with him and Diana to the Gordon’s castle. Two clansmen reported seeing Diana, dressed in the laird’s clothes, saddle and ride off on her gelding.
“I saw her looking to the ground,” one of the men said. “As she does when she’s tracking.”
That she would go in search of the undead by herself terrified Raen, who went to his rooms to pack what he needed for his journey. She did not know Scotland or the mortals of this time. She would give that away the first time she spoke to anyone. Being a woman dressed like a man would make every clan suspicious of her. The ignorant and often superstitious villagers might think her a witch. After dark she could be captured and enthralled by any undead who desired her.
Raen went down to the great hall, where he saw Lachlan and Kinley talking with Neac. For the first time since the awakening he didn’t feel any interest in whatever clan business they were discussing. All he could thin
k of was his woman, out there alone somewhere, furious with him and unaware that she’d put herself in grave danger.
As soon as he saw him Neac hurried over. “You dinnae have to search for Diana,” the chieftain said.
“I have naught to do but that,” Raen said, and went to the laird. “I drove her away. I am going after her. I dinnae ken when I will return.”
Lachlan offered him a message scroll and said, “Have a look, lad.”
Raen took it and read it, but the words made no sense. “Lamont wishes to keep Treun for his daughter? Why would he…oh, fack me. She’s there now? Why didnae you say before?”
“She’s not there.” The laird turned over the paper to show him the rest of the message. “Lamont says she was taken from the gatehouse by a druid.”
The air in Raen’s lungs turned to lead as his gaze shifted to Cailean, who sat by the hearth and was staring into the flames. A druid. He felt his body harden as if he were about to go into battle. Dinnae kill him, no’ yet. He strode over, seized the front of the druid’s robe, and dragged him out of the chair.
“What did you do to Diana?” Raen demanded, lifting him until his boots dangled above the floor.
“Master Aber,” the druid managed to say. Sweat popped out on his pale face. “You must ken I wouldnae ever… I cannae… Please put me down.”
Raen had never been a man to inflict harm on the helpless, and he had always had great respect for the magic folk. None of that mattered to him in this moment.
“Answer me now, and true, or I will put you down in the facking fire and watch you burn.”
Cailean gulped. “’Twas Master Flen. I am his acolyte. I’ve no choice but to obey him. He discovered where the lieutenant would be, and bid me go there with him. To enforce the ruling, ’tis all.”
Raen dropped him to the floor, but Tormod immediately stepped in and backed the druid up against the wall.
“You helped Bhaltair send Red back to her time? She’s clan.”
“We will deal with the druids later, Viking,” Lachlan said. “Now we must retrieve Diana. We can use the sacred grove here to reach her. Cailean, can Kinley safely pass through the grove now that she is immortal?”
The druid nodded quickly. “The resurrection spell healed all of her wounds, as it did the clan’s. They willnae return in any time, as yours didnae when you last went through the grove, my lord. But my lady, surely it would be better if…” His voice trailed off as he saw how everyone was glaring at him. “Or no’.”
“You need to deal with the undead,” Kinley said to the laird, “not to mention Bhaltair, so I’m not taking you with me this time. But trust me, I’ll be back, and I’ll have our cop.”
Lachlan kissed his wife, and nodded to Raen. “Go.”
“I am coming with you,” Tormod said, taking down an ax from a weapons rack.
He paused to glance at Lachlan who gave him a nod.
“Fine, but you can’t bring that,” Kinley said. She turned to address them both. “When we arrive you have to let me do all the talking. Also, you can’t freak out over things. If we have to go into the city after Diana, it’s going to be really scary, but you just have to stay calm.”
“I dinnae care about your city,” Raen told her flatly. “I go there only for my lady.”
Kinley touched his arm. “Let’s move.”
They left the stronghold and hurried out across the glen to the grove where Diana had originally crossed over from her time. Raen felt something very old and powerful in the air as soon as Kinley entered the grove.
“Hold onto me while we’re crossing,” she warned them as she stretched out her hands. “And don’t let go. I don’t want to lose either of you to the space between time. Ready?”
“No,” Tormod said and wrapped his arm around hers. “Yes.”
Raen held her free hand, and Kinley stepped forward into the center of the grove. The ground beneath them shook, and then vanished.
The last time Raen had made this journey he had been dying. Now he was fully awake and aware, and felt the immense power hurtling them through eight centuries to Diana’s world, and it seemed a good time to entreat the gods. I know ’tis my fault, and I shouldnae have driven her from me. I will accept any punishment you wish. Please, take us to her.
A heartbeat later they dropped out of the portal, and Raen found himself standing between two oak trees in front of the smoothest, most perfect curtain wall he had ever seen.
“Okay,” Kinley said, looking around them. “We’re at San Diego General instead of Horsethief Canyon. Oh, my god. I think this is a portal.” She touched one of the oaks. “Or it was.”
“You have strange names for things.” Tormod said as he stared up at the huge building. “Is this Diana’s stronghold?” He turned his head to gape at a pretty young blonde in a tank top and shorts. “Oh, tell me that wench ’tis her sister.”
“She doesnae have blood kin,” Raen told him, and felt another stab of guilt. He had been so adamant about keeping her safe that he hadn’t considered how miserable she might be in her time, where she only had her work.
“This is a hospital, a place where sick people are brought to be healed,” the laird’s wife said, frowning. “The portal must have brought us here for a reason. Maybe Diana got hurt when she was forced through by Bhaltair. Come on.”
Tormod stared at everything they passed inside the hospital, but Raen only scanned the faces of every woman within sight. “Kinley, she is no’ here.”
“We’ll check with patient information,” she told him, and walked up to a huge, curved object behind which mortals were sitting and working on strange devices. “Hi, can you tell me if Diana Burke is a patient here? She would have been admitted last night.”
The woman checked one of the lighted gadgets and nodded. “She’s in intensive care, room four-bee. Are you family?”
“Yes, I’m her sister,” Kinley said, and pointed to Raen. “This is her husband, and her brother.” As the woman stared at all three of them she added, “We were just at a cosplay convention. We’re immortal highlanders. Don’t we look authentic?”
“Uh-huh,” the woman said, and handed Kinley three slips of paper with large Vs on them. “It’s about time some family showed up. Intensive Care is on the seventh floor. Visitation is restricted to thirty minutes, and you can’t leave anything in the room.”
Kinley had them walk into a large metal box, which jerked and hummed as it rose, and dinged when it stopped. When they walked out they were in another, new place crowded with mortals and more gadgets and bedchambers. From there she guided them through the crowded corridor to a room where the bed had been draped.
Raen could smell Diana, and jerked aside the curtains, only to freeze. “My lady?”
All of her glorious mane was gone, and in its place was a flimsy, short cap of thin, fragile-looking hairs. Her body now looked too thin and fragile, and her eyes appeared sunken and cloudy. The left side of her face drooped, and she didn’t react at all to their presence.
“She can’t speak,” a kind voice said, and a woman dressed in white entered the room. “Ms. Burke had several grand mal seizures, and then a stroke when she reached the ER. I’m afraid it’s common with her type of brain tumor.”
The woman took hold of Diana’s limp hand and pressed her fingers across her wrist as she stared at her own bracelet.
“My sister never told us about her illness,” Kinley said carefully. “I think she didn’t want to worry us. Will she be having surgery?”
“Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry. There’s nothing we can do for your sister now but make her comfortable.” The woman adjusted one of the tubes attached to Diana’s arm. “When you’re finished visiting, we would like to discuss transferring Ms. Burke to a hospice facility.”
Kinley nodded, waited until the woman left, then turned to Raen.
“I can’t take us back from here. We have to move her to where we crossed over, between the oak trees.” She glanced over her shoulder at the
door. “All right, this will have to be quick and dirty.” She turned to Tormod. “I need you by the elevator. If anyone tries to stop us, you knock them out.”
“The elevator is the metal box with the glowing discs?”
Kinley nodded and the Viking slipped out of the room.
“I’ll be right back. Stay here with her,” Kinley said, and followed Tormod.
Raen gently picked up Diana’s hand to hold it between his. “What I said to you before we parted was a lie. I can keep you safe. All you must do is stay with me.” He leaned over to kiss her cool brow. “You must, you ken, for you bear my mark.” He turned her palm up to kiss it, and saw the jag of ink had vanished. “I forgot that you are as you were before you can to Dun Aran. It doesnae matter. You are mine.”
A spark jumped from his face to her palm, and etched the mark again.
Diana opened her eyes, and one side of her mouth curled up. “Ouch.”
At that moment Kinley came back into the room pushing a chair with large wheels that contained a pile of garments. She handed Raen a large white coat.
“Put this on,” she ordered and then donned one herself. “Once I disconnect her from the equipment, I need you to put her in the wheelchair. Then we’re going to take her to the elevator.” She looked down at Diana and smiled. “Hey, lady. You didn’t think you’d get out of the clan that easy, did you?”
Raen watched as the laird’s wife quickly removed all of the wires and tubes from Diana’s body, and then eased his arms under her and lifted her from the bed. She felt as weightless as a child, and once he placed her in the chair Kinley covered her with a thin blanket.
“Don’t look at anyone, and walk normally,” she said before she opened the door.
She looked left and right, and then pushed Diana out of the room.
The mortals working around the rooms didn’t notice them. But as they drew close to the elevator, where Tormod was standing, another woman wearing white stopped and peered at Diana, and then Kinley.