by Amy Vansant
“You think this leads to the house?” whispered Catriona.
Broch nodded. “Feels right.”
He climbed to the top and placed his ear against the wooden door there. After listening for a minute, he pushed open the door, peeked around, and then crawled topside.
Catriona crouched, a dog under each arm, her stomach in knots. Just as she feared Broch would never return, his face appeared at the top of the ladder.
“Empty.”
Catriona peered down at the dogs, who both stood staring up the ladder, tongues lolling.
“What about the dogs?” she asked.
“Leave them there. Hard tae hide paw prints all over the floors.”
She climbed the ladder and joined him in what appeared to be an unfinished basement. The floor was dirt, but for a cement platform where an ancient washer and dryer sat, caked with soap. By the light of a small window, she could see a chair in the corner. Behind it, four shackles hung from the walls.
“That can’t be good,” she said.
They took the stairs to the door that led into the home. Catriona noticed Broch’s boots sitting on the top stair.
“Tak’ aff yer shoes.”
She complied, and they slipped out into the main house.
The house was large, but unadorned with any sort of homey touch. The living room had little more than a television and large L-shaped sofa, patches of it worn away to expose the foam cushions within. Beer cans littered the table tops. The bedrooms had two or three single beds apiece, but for one with a king. Plates piled high in the sink.
“Looks like they left in a hurry. I felt cleaner in the forest.” Catriona’s nose wrinkled at the sight of the filth. “We need to setup an ambush.”
“Aye. Tis whit ah’m thinking.”
Catriona and Broch moved through the house searching every closet and cabinet for weapons. Closing the door to their last hope she leaned against the wall.
“How can there be no guns? I knew I should have brought mine. I didn’t think I could get on the plane, but in hindsight, Lulu’s probably had worse on there.”
Broch grimaced. “We didn’t plan.”
“It was a tough call. Plan and miss a chance to surprise them, or bulldoze ahead and hope—”
There was a roar outside and they both jumped to flank the front window. Peering through the yellowed curtains, they could see three ATVs roll to a stop, feet from the front door. One had an open bed in the back, and from her angle, Catriona could see a man lying on his side inside it.
“They have Sean,” she whispered.
“There are tae many of them.”
She agreed. They were unarmed, and in addition to Thorn and the two men she recognized from California, two others had joined the group.
“We need tae go back to the tunnel, noo.”
“But what about Sean.”
“Na time.” He grabbed her wrist and tugged her toward the hall.
“But they could kill him!”
“If they haven’t yet, they won’t noo.”
They scurried into the basement and slipped back into the tunnel just as boots began to echo on the floor above.
The poodles greeted them with excited spins and leaps. Catriona petted them to keep them calm while Broch worked the trapdoor shut behind them.
Door sealed, Broch slid down the ladder.
“We should go back to town. Get armed,” whispered Catriona.
“It’s still two against five. Ye kin bet they hae guns tae.”
“But we’d have the element of surprise.”
“They’d have numbers, guns and a prisoner.”
The air escaped Catriona’s lungs like a deflating balloon. Sean. All they had to do was shoot him and the war was lost.
“I don’t know how we can find help. I’m afraid to enlist the law. If this turns into a hostage situation I don’t know that Thorn has any real reason to keep Sean alive.”
“He haes some reason or he wouldn’t be here.”
“But what’s good enough to drag him across the country might not be good enough once the police start shooting at him.”
Broch slid to a squat, his back up against the wall. His eyes were locked on Catriona, but she could tell his mind had drifted far away.
His gaze shifted to the trapdoor.
“We dae have one chance.”
“What?”
“The hoose wasn’t large and there are five of them. They won’t wantae Sean tae tak’ a bed with a comfortable set of irons down here.”
Her eyes widened. “You think they’ll lock him up and leave him?”
“I hope. Na reason to keep an old man guarded.”
“Then we can sneak in and get him.”
“Aye. Where force won’t work guile might. We’ll pull him intae the tunnel and be gone by the time they ken.”
Broch nodded and stood, pointing up the ladder. “Ah’m aff tae keep mah ear on the door. If they open it tae find me there, don’t wait. Ye run down the tunnel like a rabbit.”
“We’ll see.”
He scowled and put his index finger in her face. “Ye better listen tae me, lassie. I won’t hae yer blood on mah hands.”
She eased his finger away with her own and leaned her face towards his. “I won’t have your blood on mine. Keep the heid, Kilty.”
“Keep the heid.” He grimaced, grabbed the ladder rung with one hand and shook a fist playfully at her with the other. “You’re aff tae be a burr beneath mah saddle. Ah can tell.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Sean did his best to walk under his own power and not lean on the man guiding him from the bed of the all-terrain vehicle to the house. His legs felt like noodles. Achy noodles. Folding a sixty-five-year-old body into the trunk of car for nearly two days could do that to a person.
His escort shoved him towards a sofa and he fell into it, shoulder first. His hands were still tied behind his back. He righted himself and pushed a fingernail into the tip of each of his fingers in turn, both happy and surprised to discover he could still feel them.
Having deposited Sean, the other man beelined for the kitchen. The staccato sound of slamming kitchen cabinets filled the air.
“There’s no food!”
Thorn limped through the front door. The drive hadn’t done well by him either, and he stretched his back, using his cane for balance. His crooked features seemed even more offset, the skin beneath his left eye sagging.
“Go get some,” he muttered.
“What?” asked the man with the lump on his forehead, appearing behind Thorn. Sean had heard the others refer to him as Knotty.
“Food. Go get some.”
“Who?”
“All of you.”
Knotty shook his head. “Thorn, we can’t leave you here alone—”
Thorn’s head whipped around to face him.
“You think I can’t handle myself alone with a man who’s tied up and spent the last forty hours in the trunk of my car?”
The man blanched. “No. I mean, yeah, you can, I just—”
“I need some time alone with him. Now go get some food.”
“Right. Sure, Thorn. We’ll go get some food. But I’m leaving Clint outside here, just in case.”
Thorn sighed. “Fine.”
The four others piled back outside and Sean heard the ATVs roar to life. The sound of the engines grew fainter until it was just him and Thorn, staring at each other in silence.
With a grunt, Thorn hobbled to a faux leather recliner and lowered his bulky frame into it. He slid a handgun from his waistband and set it on the torn arm of the chair.
His gaze settled on Sean and he cleared his throat. “Take me to the future.”
Sean’s brow knit. “What?”
“Take me to the future. They don’t have what I need here.”
“What is it you need?”
“A cure.”
“For what? Cancer?”
Thorn guffawed. “I wish.”
Sean watched with fascination as the big man thrust two stubby fingers into his own mouth and moved them around as if he was searching for the last olive in a jar. He heard a pop and the entire left side of Thorn’s face collapsed. Gagging, he jerked a white object from his mouth, spit dripping from it to his lap. Sean saw a row of teeth along its edge.
“That’s quite a trick,” said Sean.
“It’s how I get all the ladies.” The words were nearly impossible to recognize slipping past the loose flesh of Thorn’s face.
Thorn slipped the prosthetic back into place, wincing with pain. Restored, he took a moment to find his composure and then continued.
“The same thing took my leg, my arm and half my face. I could pop out this eye and play marbles with it.”
“Please don’t.”
“My whole body is Swiss cheese.” He jerked down his shirt and Sean saw his chest riddled with stained bandages. “This thing would have killed a lesser man. But it made me stronger. Gave me the strength I needed to do the things I’ve done. To build my empire here.”
“I don’t know what any of that has to do with me.”
“In the last few years it’s become less about dealin’ with the pain and more about stayin’ alive. No doctor has ever seen anything like it, and I’ve been to them all. I can live without a leg and an arm, but it’s my insides now—it’s like somethin’s eating me. A little more disappears every day and its getting hungrier. Feeding faster. There’s no rot. No infection. They can’t stop it because there ain’t nothin’ there.”
Thorn leaned forward before continuing. “But you knew that, didn’t you, Ryft? You knew I didn’t have a disease. I could tell the first time you laid eyes on me you weren’t surprised.”
Sean looked away and stared out the front window, wondering how long it would take the others to get food.
“There’s no hope for you in the future, Thorn. Quite the opposite.”
Thorn slammed his fist against his thigh and Sean heard the hollow sound of a leg not made of flesh. “They’ll have a cure! Take me far enough forward and someone will have found a cure!”
“There’s no cure.”
“There is! There must be!”
“There’s not.” Sean returned his attention to Thorn, whose chin glistened with spittle. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
“I didn’t ask to come here! This was your doin’!”
“It was an accident.”
Thorn leaned back and composed himself, taking several long, deep breaths. “Don’t get me wrong, Sean. I’d be dead already if I were back home. That I’m here is the only thing that saved me.” He touched his jaw with the tips of his fingers. “They don’t have 3D printers for making jaw bones in seventeen twenty-one. They don’t have mechanical legs and synthetic skin in the ancient Highlands.”
Sean sighed. “No. But seventeen twenty-one had something this time doesn’t have.”
“What’s that?”
“You. And it wants to keep you.”
Thorn waved his hand like he was swatting a fly. “What does that mean? You’re talkin’ gibberish.”
“It means you’re not fit to travel through time. Your body wants to go back where it belongs. And it is, one atom at a time. As your cells age, they lose the fight to stay and begin returning to where they belong.”
Thorn’s lips parted. “What you’re sayin’—I’ve always felt a—a pull. It’s the time? Trying to pull me back?”
Sean nodded. “I’m surprised you’ve lasted this long.”
“But what about you? You look fit!”
“I was made to travel.”
“What are ya? Some kind of alien?”
Sean chuckled. “I don’t think so.”
Thorn rocked forward and tried to get up. He made it as far as the edge of the seat and thrust an index finger in Sean’s direction. “If you knew that’s how it would be for me, then why did you bring me with ya?”
“I didn’t choose to bring you. You tried to kill me. You pushed a sword through my lung. When I’m near death, the jump heals me. Somehow we were too entangled; you were brought forward with me.”
Thorn hung his head, panting, his breath ragged. As the rise and fall of his chest steadied, he looked back up at Sean.
“Then take me back.”
“What?”
“Take me back where I belong so that I can be reunited with the rest of my body.”
Sean shook his head. “That’s not how it works. Even if I could take you back—and I can’t—it wouldn’t make you whole. You’d be as you are now, and with nothing but eighteenth century medicine to ease your pain. I wouldn’t wish that on, well, on you.”
“Then, the future, as I said. They’ll know what to do.”
“No. There’s no cure for being out of time.”
Thorn wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and muttered. “You’re goin’ downstairs.” He used his cane to stand and retrieved the handgun, pointing it at Sean.
“Get up.”
Sean stood.
“Walk. To that door on the right.”
“Thorn. Listen to me. There’s no reason—”
“Go!” Thorn roared, the veins in his forehead threatening to burst.
Sean walked to the door.
“Open it.”
“My hands are tied.”
“I’ve spent decades with half my body missing. Ya figure it out.”
Sean turned his back to the door and twisted the knob with his tied hands. Righting himself, he pushed the door open the rest of the way with his foot. Stairs led downward.
“Go,” said Thorn, waggling the gun towards the basement.
Sean followed the stairs into a dirt-floored basement. A single chair sat in the corner, iron chains hanging from the wall behind it.
“Sit.”
Sean walked to the chair and sat. “Killing me isn’t going to change anything.”
Thorn stood six feet away, the gun in his hand shaking, the exertion of walking down the stairs having exhausted his reserves.
“Will it change anything when I call your son?” he asked.
Sean fought the urge to react. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“How stupid do you think I am? That boy is the spitting image of ya. And since he appeared in a kilt, I’m thinking he’s a time traveler, too. Am I right? I wonder what poor bastard he brought with him to this cursed time.”
Sean remained silent.
“Want to deny he’s yours? What if I told you I have the girl’s phone number. She your daughter? She come from the past as well?” Thorn scowled. “No. Not your daughter, I think. But she’s precious enough to you, of that I’m sure.”
Sean looked away. “Stop wasting my time. You’re boring me with all your poor me whining—”
“I’m not whining!” Thorn began to cough and he struggled to keep the gun raised. Sean suspected he’d lost a bit of lung tissue. Could be the time pulling him back, could be the cigarettes he’d smelled from the trunk. Thorn was dying either way. It didn’t matter how, except it wasn’t happening fast enough.
Thorn continued, his voice hoarse. “I’m goin’ to call your boy and your girl and tell them right where they can find you. When they get here—when your son is tied up beside you and your girl is upstairs with my boys—then we’ll see if you can think of a way to help me.”
Sean felt a surge of rage rush through him. “I told you, there’s nothing I can do. Nothing.”
Thorn took a step forward, his face crimson. “Can you even imagine the pain? Imagine your nerves, disappearing, exposed, each being played like the devil’s own fiddle? I’m going to make sure both of those kids of yours feels every bit of the pain I’ve endured! You have no idea what I’ve done to survive!”
Impassioned, Thorn raised his hand to the sky. Sean leapt from his chair, spearing his foe in the chest with his head.
The gun went off, and Sean felt a hot pain radiate through his chest.
Ch
apter Twenty-Eight
The man in the dark hood spurred his horse and galloped back towards the house.
Brochan stood, transfixed by the sight of the man rising and falling on his steed, up and down, like the beating of a black heart.
Keep the heid.
He heard Mother Margaret’s voice so clearly that he turned to see if she had walked out of the house.
Of course she hadn’t. Her hands had been cold as ice.
Keep the heid.
He spun, plucked his sword from the belly of the dead man, and held it high.
The hooded man reached across his body and pulled his own sword, much larger than his.
He was nearly upon him.
Keep the heid.
Heart beating twice as fast as the horse’s hooves, Broch bent his knees and lowered his sword as if submitting to his fate.
The hooded man was twenty feet away from him.
Ten.
He could see the steam and snot sputtering from the horse’s nostrils.
Five.
Keep the heid.
He sprung. Thrusting with all his might he leapt upward, his sword leading the attack. The man reached out and caught the sword as if it were nothing more than a flower. The weapon stuck fast and Broch felt his whole body jerked upward, his face meeting the side of the man’s own sword with such force he thought his skull would be popped open like an oyster shell.
He felt the blade split the flesh on either side of his eye socket and, knocked by the horse, Broch flew through the air. Landing on his back, the breath in his lungs expelling with one great rush.
He sat up, gasping for air, blood streaming down his face.
The man pulled up his horse and slid off. He bolted towards Brochan as if he had only moments to kill the boy, sword held high above his head.
The man’s glove had been torn away, the flesh on his hand and wrist exposed and ragged.
Broch caught a flash of metal in the sunlight, as if the bones in the man’s hand were carved from steel.
There was a flash of light and Brochan turned his head, shielding his eyes. He felt weightless. It reminded him of the time he’d been thrown by his pony, flying through the air, the unnatural and exhilarating feel of moving upward.