“Almost there,” he encouraged as the blackness of the fens loomed in front of them like an unearthly apparition.
Another shot whizzed close by in the swirling mist. It had to be Rylie’s red sweatshirt he was aiming for. The realization slashed cold terror through Donovan’s fevered brain. With her hands cuffed, they couldn’t get it off of her, even if they dared pause long enough to try. He tugged Rylie with him as he lunged to the left and then the right in a desperate attempt to confuse their enemy.
Lynch shot again.
And again.
The vines and brush were no more than a dozen meters away. Beside him, Rylie suddenly jerked from his grasp and went down on one knee. A cry of pain erupted from her lips.
Donovan grabbed her upper arm to pull her up and a warm, sticky fluid gushed over his hand. Blood! She’d been hit!
The terrible image of his mother’s body being flung forward as the bullet slammed into her back flashed through his mind.
“Rylie?”
Breathing hard, she stared open-mouthed at the blood dripping from his fingertips. She made a little strangled sound and her terror-filled eyes flicked up to his for an instant. Then they rolled backward into her head, and she went limp.
Rylie!
No sound emerged from his mouth.
Everything stopped, frozen in that moment of horror.
Then another bullet zinged through the bush next to her crumpled form, and spurred Donovan into action. Sucking in a ragged breath, he pulled her into his arms and made a mad dash toward the tangles of undergrowth.
Into the dank sanctuary of the fens.
He couldn’t stay on the path! That was his last coherent thought as the cacophony of noise that had assaulted him earlier hit him again. He couldn’t hear, could scarcely see as he crashed through the branches and brambles.
One of his feet sank into muck up to his ankle and Donovan lurched and nearly dropped his precious burden. He wasn’t even sure if she was alive . . .
Oh God! She couldn’t be dead! She couldn’t!
He held her tighter and lumbered on, gasping to breathe in the moist, heavy air.
The sounds inside his head pounded like a battlefield. War trumpets blared. Drums beat in savage rhythm. Dark colors swirled in front of his eyes.
He couldn’t let himself lose consciousness! He wouldn’t!
Donovan could sense movement and the presence of other beings around him.
“Dony!” He recognized the gruff voice and turned to see the huge warrior materialize out of the mist.
“This way, my brother,” Ro urged, motioning with the sword clutched in his right hand.
Donovan followed him, the sounds of battle all around them—drums, horns, shouts. He couldn’t tell if Lynch still pursued them or not. He only knew he must keep up with Ro, as he stumbled through the wavering half-twilight that now surrounded them. Nothing else mattered, except the oozing of Rylie’s blood, warm and moist as it soaked through his shirt.
Just when his legs were about to collapse, they burst into a small clearing no more than a dozen meters wide. In the center, stones were stacked knee high in a circle around a dark opening, a well. Thick green moss carpeted the ground on the north side of it.
Ro motioned to the mossy area. “Put her there.”
He sheathed his sword and propped his round, iron-studded shield against the rocks; a sure signal that for the moment at least, they were safe. Then he dropped a small wooden bucket tied to a crossbeam into the well.
Gingerly, Donovan knelt and let go of Rylie’s legs. Relief such as he’d never known flooded him when he saw her chest rapidly rising and falling. Thank all the stars in heaven, she was still alive!
Holding her against him with his left hand, he struggled to get his jacket off so that he could put it on the ground under her.
She stirred and groaned. “Ow! Hurts . . . ”
Her eyelids fluttered but didn’t open.
Joy nearly overcame him, along with the overpowering urge to kiss her. Instead, he saw the wound was still bleeding and terror seized him anew.
Had the bullet nicked an artery?
Would she bleed to death before he could get help?
God knew that if she didn’t survive, he didn’t want to either. The bullet should have hit him, not her!
Rylie moaned again and though he scarcely remembered how, Donovan lifted his eyes heavenward to pray. The limbs of a hawthorn tree, adorned with bits of cloth and shiny trinkets left as offerings, spread over their heads.
“This is a holy place,” Ro affirmed, squatting next to him with a bucketful of water. “’Tis said the well has healing powers, so we must clean her wound.”
Donovan tossed his jacket on the ground. Then Ro helped him ease Rylie onto it. She whimpered again, but still didn’t open her eyes. He yanked off his bloodstained pullover and T-shirt, handing the latter to his friend. “Use this.”
While the big shaggy-haired man easily ripped the cotton knit to pieces, Donovan searched his pockets for anything useful. Nothing.
Shrugging the pullover back on he asked, “Is there anything we can use to get these cuffs off?”
Ro offered the dagger from his sword belt, but though the blade was razor sharp, it was too wide. Donovan handed the weapon back, and his friend immediately used it to slice through the bloody sleeves of Rylie’s sweatshirt and sweater. Donovan had to turn away for a moment. The amount of her blood seemed too massive to be anything but serious.
Glancing toward the festooned tree, a flash of metal caught his eye. From a thorn on the lowest branch hung a string of carved polished beads with a silver crucifix dangling from the end. His mother’s rosary. He’d know it anywhere. How had it come to be here?
Feeling as if another presence guided him, he stood and slipped the rosary from the branch. Holding his breath, he knelt beside Rylie, and carefully inserted the end of the silver cross into the slot between the handcuffs. With a small twist, one cuff sprang open as if by magic.
With her hands no longer bound, Rylie rolled her uninjured arm in front of her with a long sigh. Her eyelids drifted up just enough so that she met Donovan’s gaze. The corners of her pale lips curled just a fraction and his heart threatened to pound right through his chest wall. Then, her eyes flicked across to Ro, hovering close on her other side, dagger in hand and she gasped in fright. Her fingers frantically searched for Donovan.
“Is—is he—fr—fr—” she struggled to speak.
Torn between elation and anxiety Donovan covered her hand with his, the rosary falling around his wrist. “Friendly? Yes, he is.”
Her grip was icy but gratifyingly strong. “But he . . . ” She licked her lips and panted with the effort. “He’s naked.”
Donovan couldn’t help but smile. Of course that would be the first thing she noticed. “You can see him that clearly, then?”
“Umm hmmm.” Rylie murmured, then jerked her injured arm with a hiss of pain.
The warm metallic scent of her blood tinged the air. Ro had taken advantage of her distraction to continue treating her wound.
Still wishing he were the one bleeding instead of her, Donovan smoothed her hair with his free hand and made a shushing sound of comfort.
All he could do.
Then he glanced over to where Ro swabbed away at the dark blood, his shaggy head bent close to Rylie’s shoulder. The bullet appeared to have gone completely through the flesh of her upper arm. Donovan couldn’t let her see his concern.
“Ro’s a Celtic warrior,” he explained, to keep her attention diverted. “They went into battle with their sword, shield, and not much else.”
She started to reply, but instead she stiffened and sucked her breath in sharply. Donovan’s frantic gaze jumped to Ro. The big man had wrapped thick strips of cloth around her arm and pulled them taut.
“You must hold it tight to staunch the blood,” Ro said, motioning with his bearded chin for Donovan to take his place.
“Lynch shot me
, didn’t he?” Rylie asked in a quavering voice.
Donovan didn’t want to let go of her hand, but he had to. He couldn’t bring himself to answer her question as he scooted awkwardly around to her other side. To give voice to the horror would make it too real, perhaps unbearable. His eyes probed Ro’s face for answers while his hand closed over Rylie’s bandaged arm.
“I am no healer,” the big man said, rising to his feet. “I shall send for Hain.”
“Where’s Lynch now?” Rylie persisted, her breathing shallow and uneven. She didn’t appear able to hear Ro. Or if she did, she must not understand his words.
Again, Donovan looked at the warrior, who had hefted his shield into his hand. A dark smear of Rylie’s blood mingled with the green and yellow paint on his sword arm.
“I don’t know,” Donovan whispered.
“Don’t worry, Dony,” the tall warrior said. “Spirit or flesh, I’ll allow none to disturb you and your wee lass here.”
In one fluid motion, he drew his long sword. Then with a final glance at them, he strode from the clearing.
Rylie gave a weak cough. “He’s . . . even more scary than . . . the other one.” She coughed again and looked down at Donovan’s hand, wrapped firmly around her arm.
Thank heaven she couldn’t see the blood he felt oozing through the cloth under his fingers. Or the wet ruddy stains darkening the green moss.
“They’re brothers,” Donovan explained, hoping to keep both their minds on something other than her seeping bullet wound and the madman who’d inflicted it. “At least I think they are. The three of us were playmates when I was a child.”
“Sc—scary,” Rylie murmured.
“Well, we were all a lot smaller then,” he conceded.
“Umm hmmm.” Her chin drooped as if she was tired, but then a shudder wracked her slim frame. “C—cold. S-so c-cold,” she chattered. “H-hold me?”
He pulled her against him with his free hand. She winced and moaned a little with pain, but grasped his jacket off the ground as she snuggled onto his lap. Donovan inched his way backward a slow and careful millimeter at a time until his back rested against the stones stacked around the well. His hand still gripped her arm. Fear nearly suffocated him.
Rylie curled against his chest. With his free hand, he pulled his jacket around her for warmth.
“Your shirt is wet,” she murmured in a voice that sounded weak and distant.
Donovan sucked in a breath and moved her slightly. “’Tis your blood, sweetheart.”
“Oh, s—sorry . . . ” Her voice faded.
Shock, no doubt. He wanted to rant, scream, do anything but sit here and helplessly watch her slipping away from him. He dropped his lips to the top of her head and rubbed them across her silky hair.
“Don’t you even think about dying on me!” He declared in a fierce whisper. “You hear me?”
She did, for she roused a bit and looked at him with half-closed eyes. “I . . . won’ . . . ”
“Good! See that you don’t.” He pulled her tighter against him. Then to his utter humiliation a sob hung up in his throat. He choked it back down and sputtered, “I love you far too much to lose you now.”
“Don’t cry . . . ” she breathed against the side of his neck. “ . . . love you, too . . . ”
The dry branches of the hawthorn rattled as if a gust of wind had passed through them. But the air remained deathly still. Alarm leaped like wild fire through his veins, and in spite of Ro’s vow, Donovan peered anxiously at the curtain of fog surrounding the clearing. He swiveled his head to the left, and an instant later, when he turned back to the right, the Druid stood over him.
“She is injured,” Hain stated, pulling the jacket away from Rylie’s arm.
As Donovan nodded numbly, Rylie murmured, “The other one?”
“Yes, he’s here to help.”
He turned to watch Hain kneel and draw a fresh bucket of water from the well. Then the Druid opened a cloth bag attached to his belt and pulled out a small gourd dipper and a leather pouch. He ladled up water from the bucket and sprinkled in a pinch of herbs from the pouch. “Give her this to drink, ’twill ease her pain.”
Donovan raised the dipper to Rylie’s lips, but at the first trickle, she drew back with a cough. “Tastes awful.”
The strength of her refusal actually heartened him. “Drink it for me,” he urged and poured the rest into her mouth.
“No,” she spluttered, spitting most of it back into his face. Not that he cared, for at least she displayed some of her usual spunk.
“I need to see the wound,” Hain requested and Donovan slowly released his vise-like grip.
Rylie gave a little whimper of fear and buried her face against his neck while the Druid carefully unbound the strips of bloody cloth. Donovan shielded her eyes from the sight, and had to force himself to look. To his surprise, the ragged flesh didn’t seem nearly so bloody. Too bad that didn’t ease his guilt.
“The bone is unbroken and the bleeding has nearly stopped,” Hain affirmed.
Donovan sagged with relief. Cradling Rylie’s head under his chin, he cooed nonsense sounds to her while he watched the Druid retrieve the remains of the T-shirt and cover it with a mixture of water and more ground up ingredients from a different pouch. Once the poultice was ready, Donovan helped Hain apply it to Rylie’s arm.
Though her eyes remained half-open, she didn’t appear to be aware of what the two of them were doing. Donovan wanted to believe she’d swallowed enough of the herb to anesthetize her, but part of him insisted blood loss and shock were the real reasons. Whatever the cause, she endured the re-bandaging without protest.
“Don’t worry, Dony,” Hain’s words echoed those of his warrior brother, as he secured the fabric with a strip from Rylie’s hacked-off sweater sleeve. “Unless the wound putrefies, she shall recover. Her heart is strong.”
The mention of infection tightened Donovan’s grip with renewed worry.
The Druid stood and added, “And her love for you is true, my brother. Just as your mother’s was for the man who claimed and raised you, though another’s blood flowed in your veins.”
Air refused to enter Donovan’s lungs as his gaze followed Hain’s to the rosary still hanging from his wrist.
“My mother . . . ” he finally wheezed out. “She came here?”
“Is here,” the other man corrected. His eyes moved from the rosary to the limbs of the hawthorn. “Her spirit and many others sanctify this place.”
Donovan’s gaze moved from the tree to Rylie’s unresponsive form, and finally to the tall Druid. “Are we between then?”
Hain nodded, his dark blue eyes fathomless and unwavering. “For now.”
Though the ominous tone made Donovan feel sure of the answer, he asked anyway. “How long can we stay here?”
“Not long enough to escape the one who seeks you. Else you cannot return to your lives a’tall.” The leaves on the hawthorn rattled again, and Hain’s eyes shifted from it back to Donovan. “And there are other things afoot tonight.”
Icy dread washed over Donovan and he felt as if he were drowning. Clutching Rylie, he labored first for breath then for words. “H—how long can you remain with her if I go?”
The Druid shrugged. “Only an hour or maybe two by your reckoning. ’Tis our combined power that keeps the three of us here beyond reach.” He bent and brushed a lock of hair from Rylie’s cheek, then rested his hand on Donovan’s shoulder. “Hers is slight, and when you go, mine will fade.”
“And Ro?” The drowning feeling had been replaced with the helpless throes of a condemned man.
“Is equally limited.” Hain shook his shaggy head. “Though he will give his all to aid you.”
So that settled it. He had no choice.
“Do not believe yourself unworthy of this adversary, my brother,” Hain said, reading his thoughts. “You are equal to the task, just as you are worthy of her love.”
Donovan wished he could believe the words. In
truth, he’d never felt more incapable. He’d always viewed his so-called gift as a weakness, so this power Hain spoke of was a foreign concept. But when he looked down into Rylie’s unconscious face, he knew he must try.
She was only here because of him. He had put her in harm’s way and now he must get her out, or die trying. Flooded with guilt and trepidation, he pressed his lips to her forehead, cool and lifeless as a marble mask.
“Help me move her.”
With Hain’s assistance, he placed Rylie on an unsullied patch of moss, being careful not to jostle her injured arm. When Donovan finally let go of her, she uttered a whispered moan and curled into a fetal position. He spread his jacket over as much of her as he could, and hoped it would provide enough warmth. Without her pressed against his body, he himself felt bereft, like he might never be warm again.
His mother’s rosary lay on the ground beside the well. He picked it up and hung it back on the same thorn where’d he found it. The silver crucifix flashed in the dull half-light of the clearing. Then he picked up the tattered remains of Rylie’s red sweatshirt sleeve. Her blood had begun to stiffen and dry in brownish splotches all over the bright fabric. He tied it around the end of a branch in his own bloody offering.
Taking a fortifying breath, Donovan turned to Hain. “If Ro is to aid me, where will I find him?”
“You can conjure him with your thoughts, my brother,” the Druid answered. “Even as you called us both when we were all young.”
Had he really done that? Casting his mind back to the long ago memories, he supposed he did. Strange how he’d never really thought about it back then.
“Don’t I need a brooch or . . . something?”
Hain shook his head. “Not any more, and certainly not on Samhain.” He rested his big hand on Donovan’s shoulder and his words were the final catalyst. “Call Ro to you and together you can stalk your enemy.”
Two against one. But that one had a gun.
Didn’t matter, for he was no longer the prey.
Lynch was.
Donovan’s gaze dropped back to Rylie and a fierce swell of love and protectiveness surged through him and hardened to resolve. He would not fail.
The Wild Sight Page 22