Must Love Kilts

by Allie Mackay

  They had looked out for Margo, always.

  But she was alone now.

  Wishing her friends were near, she closed her eyes and breathed deeply, hoping the apparition would be gone when she looked again. It wasn’t, and at second glance she could see now that the creature wasn’t really Dina, however strong the resemblance. But the entity and her creepy black shadow were drifting closer to where she stood.

  Her heart beat much too fast, making her blood chill. Shock pounded through her, blotting everything except the nightmare before her.

  She couldn’t run.

  Her gaze was somehow fastened on the whirling vortex. And her legs felt like cement. She was sure that someone invisible had nailed her feet to the ground. No matter how much she wanted to bolt, she wasn’t going anywhere. It was impossible.

  She’d clearly been put under a binding spell, powerful witchery that would thwart any chance of escape.

  Margo knew such spells existed.

  Patience had once cast one on a purse snatcher outside Ye Olde Pagan Times. Her magic had held him in the shop’s vicinity until the police arrived.

  Margo swallowed hard, fear closing her throat.

  “Who are you?” Margo’s voice was a croak.

  The specter smiled. “Look again, more closely.” She spoke in the soft lilting tones of a Highland woman. But her voice was full of malicious pride.

  And each word oozed venom, however pleasingly musical her Scottish accent.

  She was of petite stature and voluptuous, with large breasts and a welter of dark curling hair that shone like a raven’s wing. She had bold, flashing eyes. They were the color of rich, brown black peat. There the similarities to Margo’s rival ended. This woman didn’t favor Dina’s tartan-tart mini-kilt getups, with thigh-high black leather boots and clinging, low-cut tops. The woman in the vortex wore a swirling black cloak that looked tissue thin and was luminous, giving off tiny speckles of light.

  Bands of silver and jet hung from her neck, wrists, and ankles. The delicate jewelry chimed together with her every move.

  Her strong, stale perfume was almost overpowering. It soaked the air, reminding Margo more than ever of a musty ancient tomb or chapel.

  Cold damp walls steeped with old smells like frankincense, myrrh, and maybe some gone-bad sandalwood.

  “This isn’t happening.” Margo spoke with more bravura than she felt. If she rejected the woman’s power, she might have a chance. “You’re not here and I’m not seeing you. You’re a figment—” The woman laughed. “You’re the will-o’-wisp.” Shaking her head, Margo held out her arm, as if she could ward off the woman and her shifting black cloud.

  “Look here. . . .” She took a step backward, then another. Every inch was like wading through thigh-high sand. “I don’t know who, or what, you are—”

  “I am many things, many faces.” The woman’s tone chilled her. Her gaze was like a blast of burning ice.

  “And you are the face I’m using to torture Magnus MacBride.”

  “Magnus?” Margo’s heartbeat kicked into overdrive.

  The woman’s eyes lit with amusement. “I see his name is known to you. As I knew it would be, for I’ve spent long hours at my craft, searching for the perfect vessel to break him.”

  “I don’t know any Magnus.” Sweat trickled between Margo’s breasts on the lie.

  “Ahhh, but that’s the sweetness of my revenge.” The vortex-woman laughed. It was a cold, brittle sound.

  The black cloud drifted closer, the woman’s eyes revealing she was amused by Margo’s passion for Magnus.

  “I have worked dark spells, showing you to him. He burns for you, yet”—the entity’s tone was pure evil—“he knows he can never possess you. Soon, desire will drive him to madness. His carelessness will bring his end.”

  Margo gulped.

  The woman lifted a hand, examining her talonlike fingernails.

  “I know something of magic. I can block your spell.” Margo’s heart hammered and her palms were slick with terror. She had no idea how to ward off such evil.

  She also wished her voice had rung stronger. The malice in the entity’s eyes scared her more than anything she’d ever seen in her life.

  She put back her shoulders, trying to look brave. “A friend of mine is a powerful sorceress.” Margo knew Patience wouldn’t mind the exaggeration. “She’ll hunt you down, turning all her skills on—”

  “No one’s powers can touch mine.” The vortex-woman smiled, the tilt of her lips chilling the air.

  Margo tried to back away again, but her legs felt leaden.

  The entity’s eyes glowed, showing she knew. Wind whipped around her—strong, icy currents illuminated by a dazzle of whirling blue-black sparkles—as she lifted a hand to her lips, whispering ancient words against her fingertips before pointing to an empty space between Margo and the tide line.

  “See him now, while he yet breathes.” She swept her arm in a circle, making the air crackle like rustling paper. A tiny burning light appeared within the space she drew, a speck of brightness no larger than the shine of a candle. Then the flame burst into a sheet of fire, vanishing as quickly in a swirl of smoke.

  When the haze cleared, Magnus stood on the strand.

  He was dressed for battle, with his arm rings glinting brightly and his sword at his side. Wind tore at his plaid and he stood with his legs slightly spread and his hands on his hips, his broad mail-clad shoulders just brushing the ring of eerie sparkles encircling him.

  His long, silky black hair spilled down his back in a glossy skein, the shining strands lifted by the unholy wind that had conjured him.

  He didn’t see them, his fierce gaze fixed on something distant.

  He was magnificent.

  And so real-seeming that Margo’s knees weakened. She started to cry out, but no sound came.

  Her tongue felt weighted, her throat too tight to form words. When she tried to step forward, her feet still wouldn’t move. Even breathing was difficult.

  She did tighten her grip on her stone, trying to ground herself with its cold solidity.

  She kept her gaze on Magnus, both horrified and enthralled.

  “You’ll never have him.” The entity taunted her, triumphant. “My magic will trap you in an in-between place where you’ll exist and yet not exist. Not in your world or mine. You’re as cursed as the Viking Slayer.” She pointed her finger at him then and he disappeared, vanishing with an awful popping noise.

  The terrible wind that had been circling him rushed at Margo, whipping around her with blasts of frigid air.

  “No-o-o! ” Margo’s denial ripped free, the effort making her throat burn like fire.

  Her cry only caused the entity to drift nearer, her luminous cloak floating about her like a shining black cloud. To Margo’s amazement, the creature plucked several tiny sparkles off the gossamer material.

  Murmuring again, she thrust out her hand and the teeny lights danced across her palm, bursting into a blazing ball of light the size of a man’s fist.

  “Behold the Viking Slayer’s destiny.” She held up the fiery ball with her fingers, clearly protected from its flames. “As this fire is dashed”—she threw the bal into the surf, where it landed with a hiss, quickly vanishing beneath the waves—“so will he always yearn for you, only to find himself plunged into cold darkness, his passion thwarted. His desire shall remain unfulfilled, its fire snuffed out as swiftly as my ball of flame.

  “You will come with me now.” She started twirling, spinning faster as she spoke. “Innocent and naked as you came into your world, so shall you enter mine.

  Your arrival will blind Magnus, laming him with shock and making his steel as useless as sand spilling through his fingers. You’ll see him cut down and he’ll stare at you as he dies, his blood flowing red onto this strand.

  “So mote it be.”

  Her eyes flashed silver then, her final words echoing down the strand.

  And then she was gone.

 
; The terrible black cloud went with her. And her cloying, Byzantine-tomb scent.

  Margo stared at the spot where she’d been, then dropped to her knees, her legs too shaky to hold her.

  It was then she noticed she was naked.

  “Oh, God!” Her eyes rounded as disbelief sluiced her. She began to shake, uncontrollable tremors rolling through her body. Her stomach heaved, clenching as if she was about to be ill.

  She still held her rock, gripping so tightly her knuckles shone white.

  Everything else was gone.

  Even the night’s darkness, for it was now morning.

  A cold, blustery morning on the same pebbled shore where she’d just stood. Nowhere did she see a trace of the vortex-woman. And despite the entity’s threat, Magnus MacBride wasn’t anywhere, either.

  She was alone.

  Nothing stirred except a shimmering veil that stretched across the strand. It reached as high as the low, scudding clouds and shone like spun glass.

  Margo guessed it was a time curtain.

  But she could still see the stone steps carved into the cliffside. She even saw the wooden handrail that followed the path a few turns down from the road. But then the rail and the steps faded from view, first losing color and substance. It looked briefly like a black-and-white negative before they were simply gone.

  The cliff remained.

  As did her terror, for in the moment the steps and the handrail vanished, the strange symbols on her stone’s white quartz band returned. They blazed red, pulsing brightly around the stone. Not a trick of light, the fiery, sticklike characters were recognizable as runes.

  Norse runes.

  More specifically, they were ancient Elder Futhark runes. Margo knew because Patience sold sets of them at Ye Olde Pagan Times.

  Now they were almost on fire on her stone.

  And the instant she realized what they were, the world disappeared.

  “Agggh!” Margo clutched the stone as the earth tilted and bucked beneath her feet. She fell, spinning and tumbling as if she were caught in a cyclone.

  Everything flashed black-and-white, one blinding burst after another, like a bad lightning storm. Loud popping noises hurt her ears, worse than an airplane piercing the sound barrier. She reeled, trying to see, but there was only darkness shot through with spears of brilliant light.

  Then everything slammed to a jarring, teeth-rattling halt.

  Margo tried to scream, but her chest was tight, burning like fire, the air knocked from her lungs.

  She still held the stone.

  She was on the same strand as before.

  But now the vortex-woman’s curse claimed her.

  A terrible battle raged around her. Huge, wild-eyed men with swinging, waist-length hair and bushy, braided beards ran everywhere. In a killing frenzy, they braided beards ran everywhere. In a killing frenzy, they shouted and cursed, oblivious to the blood streaming on their mailed shirts and spilling down the bright blades of their slashing swords and arcing axes.

  None of them seemed aware of her.

  They were too intent on their mad slaughter, too busy plunging swords into one another and lopping off arms with giant axes. No one bothered to glance at an unclothed, trembling woman clutching a stone to her breast. Her mouth opened in a silent scream.

  “O-o-oh, God . . .” Margo closed her eyes, praying the strand would be empty when she looked again.

  But it wasn’t.

  If anything, it was worse, the details rushing at her.

  The pebbled shoreline was garishly crimson. And—her stomach rolled—bodies of dead warriors lay everywhere, their limbs at unnatural angles, or missing. Other men had lost their heads or suffered ghastly, gaping wounds, the cuts splitting them wide.

  One poor soul had been pinned to the ground by a spear. A flooding tide raced in, the long foaming rollers spreading the bloodshed so that the whole of Loch Gairloch swirled in an ocean of deadly, surging scarlet.

  Everywhere men yelled insults and roared in rage, the shrill cries of the wounded and the moans of the dying made more terrifying by the clashing of swords, the knocking of shields, and—Margo felt sick—the awful sound of spear blades and axes sinking into flesh.

  The sea landscape was more terrible.

  Men stood thigh-deep in the surf, hacking, stabbing, and slashing at one another. Margo wasn’t sure, but it seemed as if those men fought even more viciously than the ones racing about the beach. Many of the surf fighters grinned as they thrashed in the waves, swinging their swords and axes in ferocious, killing blows. When one fell, three more flung themselves into the fray, raising their swords and shouting with glee as they leapt off the scores of square-sailed, many-oared, Norse warships beating back and forth just off the shore.

  “Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no ...” Margo stared at the warriors, her eyes wide.

  Her blood drained as she watched them, so grateful they didn’t seem to see her.

  If this was to be Magnus’s death scene—as the entity had sworn—she was even more thankful that she still didn’t see him.

  Perhaps the woman had plunged her into the wrong battle?

  Maybe she hadn’t been sent anywhere.

  If she was lucky, she’d wake in her bed at the Old Harbour Inn and this would be a bad dream.

  But her stone was scalding her fingers and the fighting looked real.

  Margo shook her head, disbelief sweeping her.

  “This can’t be happening. Vikings—”

  The world shook on the word Vikings, the powerful jolt snatching her cry and shaking the air with strangely silent explosions that reminded her of a powerful earthquake without the rumbling.

  There wasn’t any noise at all.

  Total silence surrounded her, a quiet so heavy she could feel it weighing on her like a thick, lead blanket.

  Her hands were empty because, in her terror, she’d even dropped her special stone.

  She was afraid to open her eyes.

  She feared she’d been swept to a place far worse than Viking Scotland.

  A cold, silent place that might mean she was dead.

  Then she heard a shout and a splash. “Sea witch!” She cracked her lids, peeking around her. She was just in time to see Magnus vault over the side of one of the warships and run through the surf, coming straight at her. And he was wearing a thunderous scowl.

  Some might even say murderous.

  “Dinnae move, you! ” He was on the sand now, sprinting along the tide line, swiftly closing the distance between them.

  She was still naked.

  It was a circumstance that hadn’t really bothered her until this moment because no one had been aware of her before. Now Magnus and everyone else could see her. And although Magnus’s dark eyes burned with anger, his men were staring at her as if she wasn’t just unclothed, but also two-headed, horned, and sporting a long forked tail.

  She saw why at once.

  Although Magnus and his warriors still bore signs of hard fighting, their long hair tangled and their mail and weapons smeared with blood, there were few remaining traces of the battle.

  Sure, some of his men sat on the strand clutching wounds and moaning. And the warships under his command still rocked in the red-tinged water. The surf was just as crimson, bearing testimony to the slaughter.

  But the Norse dragon ships had vanished.

  The Vikings were gone.

  And it was clear that Magnus and his men held Margo responsible.

  They thought she was a witch.

  Maybe even something worse.

  And—Margo gulped as Magnus pounded up to her, his fury alive—she didn’t know how to convince them otherwise.

  The evidence against her was damning.

  Chapter 10

  “O-o-oh, no!” Margo stared at Magnus as he pounded across the strand toward her, his drawn sword glinting lethally. Hot fury burned in his eyes. And his scowl was fiercer than any she’d ever seen. She clapped her hands to strategic places and backed away, s
haking her head as her sweetest dream turned into a nightmare.

  “You don’t want to use that.” Her gaze didn’t leave his sword.

  The blade glistened red, fresh blood staining its length and dripping from the tip.

  “I don’t like violence.” She prayed she’d waken any minute.

  Her stomach lurched.

  Magnus was almost upon her. He didn’t look very sympathetic. If he noticed she was naked, or afraid, there was no indication. He appeared ready to toss her over his shoulder and carry her to the nearest bonfire.

  “What devilry is this?” he roared, sweeping his bloodied sword in a huge arc that took in the sullied, Viking-less strand and his white-faced, gog-eyed men.

  “Speak.” He pointed the blade at her. “Now, before I lose patience.”

  “I ...” Margo could only stare at him.

  He glared at her, his dark eyes flashing. “If you’re powerful enough to banish Vikings into thin air, you’ll have the strength to answer me.”

  Margo blinked. His voice was just as rich and deep as she’d imagined, and by some miracle she could understand him. But while the husky tones rumbled through her and could’ve been seductively intoxicating, his words were full of anger and distrust.

  She took a backward step, shaking her head.

  “I wait.” He held her gaze, his brows low and fierce.

  “I don’t know what happened.” Margo’s chest was so tight she could hardly find breath for words. She’d obviously chosen the wrong ones because his expression turned blacker.

  He tossed a glance at his men, now gathered nearby, gawking. “I see no one else capable of such witchery.”

  “It wasn’t my doing.” She wasn’t going anywhere near the w word.

  Besides, he looked more like the devil than her.

  Cold sea wind whipped his long black hair. And he was so tall, much larger and more harsh-looking than she’d pictured him. His plaid was wet, torn, and she’d pictured him. His plaid was wet, torn, and smeared with blood. Even the bright silver and gold rings on his well-muscled arms bore speckles of red.

  He was clearly a man who struck terror in the hearts of his enemies, but whose power and magnetism left women breathless.

  Unfortunately, at the moment, he was more terrifying than sexy.