by Tia Isabella
Maya and Sara were like Pete—they had grown up with the threat of hurricanes all of their lives, lived through quite a few of them, and actually grew to anticipate the nervous excitement that came each time a new threat loomed. Nah, they wouldn’t leave. They’d stay at home, work on some of their research, then head over to Pete’s for beer and barbecue when the storm drew closer.
“This year it’s going to be a bit different,” Sara reflected giddily, “the party that is!”
Maya eyeballed Sara curiously. It wasn’t like Sara to get excited over a party. Hell, it wasn’t like Sara to get excited over anything. The woman was unflappably serene and undeniably stoic. Sorta like the Rock of Gibraltar with boobs.
Oddly enough, the fact that Maya and Sara were polar opposites in both personality and temperament was what made their personal friendship and professional relationship work out so wonderfully.
Maya was the spirited one, quick to laugh and easily brought to temper. She was an idealist, a head-in-the-clouds philosopher—an Aquarius. To their friendship, Maya brought zest and fun. To their working partnership, she brought the ability to see beyond the black and white and look deeper into the mysteries of the past to form grand theories for their archeological discoveries.
Sara, on the other hand, was everything calm, placid, and logical. She was a realist, a pragmatist—a Capricorn. To their friendship, she brought stability and calm. To their work, she brought sound business decisions, wise handling of the grant monies, and a Ph.D. in ancient languages that aided Maya to no end in figuring out what significance unearthed relics carried to whatever long ago dead peoples they were currently researching.
Yep, Sara was the most collected person, male or female, that Maya had ever known. To see her so obviously excited about a hurricane party made her curiosity pique. “So what’s the difference between this party and good ‘ole Pete’s other ones?”
Sara grinned. “It’s a costume party. Pete figured that since it’s so close to the end of October we might as well combine the two and have a Halloween Hurricane Party.”
Maya chuckled. “Yep, that sounds like Pete alright.” She was quiet for a moment, then nudged Sara with an elbow. “What are you going to go as?”
“I don’t know,” Sara admitted. “We’ll be too busy researching to go shopping so I was thinking of going as a sexy female Satan again. I still have that red clingy number from last year in the apartment somewhere.”
Maya sighed. “You’re right. We don’t have any time to be creative. We’re supposed to leave for Scotland in what, a month? Yeah, we have far too much legwork to do on that project before we commence the rest of the dig. I guess I’ll be going as the same thing I was last year too.”
Sara frowned. “Uh, perhaps I’m getting a little senile here, but I forget what you were last year.”
Maya smiled wryly. “Elvira, of course.”
* * * * *
“It’s good to be home.”
Maya inhaled a cathartic breath and plopped herself down onto the sofa. She stretched out her legs and yawned as she watched Sara make a beeline for the bathroom door. “Gonna shower?” she asked conversationally as she closed her eyes and relaxed.
“Yep,” Sara responded without looking back, “and you better take one after I do in case we lose the hot water for a few days.”
Maya opened her eyes with a groan as the bathroom door clicked shut. Sara was right. She had better wait to fall asleep at least until after she bathed because the hurricane could very well affect their ability to get running water for a while.
Besides, the emergency dig they just got back from handling had put them off of their research on the Highlander clan they were studying for the better part of three days. Now they had a heck of a lot of catching up to do before that plane ride to the UK next month. It’s a good thing she and Sara are roomies, Maya decided, because they would be able to work through the night tonight if need be to make up for the time they lost while on their emergency expedition.
Emergency expedition. Maya had never realized just how many emergencies an archeologist would come across until she’d been in graduate school. It’s not like dead people ever need a doctor or anything. She had previously thought of emergencies as being exclusive to the realm of M.D.s, not Ph.D.s, but she and Sara had been corrected on that score before their first term in grad school was out.
The emergencies were fun though—dashing out in the middle of the night to secure a scene before anyone tampered with it, analyzing and theorizing the data they found at the digs—it was a great time. The work was dirty, the days long and the nights longer, but it was worth it.
The emergency excavation they had just drove in from had happened along Alligator Alley en route to Miami. A midnight construction team accidentally unearthed some old bones, pottery, and necklaces during a routine inspection of the site they were planning to drill on. They called in Maya’s team immediately, knowing from having worked with her in the past that she would blister their ears until they were tempted to strangle her if they commenced drilling before the relics had been properly dug up and catalogued for later analysis at the university.
The relics had been Indian and much to the delight of her team, very, very old. Just how old remained to be seen, but Maya could barely contain her enthusiasm of having her hunch confirmed. She would have to wait for her grad students at the lab to finish the analyses, but she surmised from the layer of strata that the relics had been located in and from the bits of archaic symbols that Sara had decoded on the pottery that the tribe had to have been Paleolithic. The probables were definitely in favor of her theory.
Probables? Good grief! She was beginning to think like Sara. Sara always thought in statistics and talked in probables. “Probables” was Sara’s abbreviated way of saying “the probability of”. She began most of her sentences with the phrase, “probables are that …”
At any rate, if the probables turned out to be true, and this tribe of Indians had roamed North America during the Old Stone Age, then this would be the oldest evidence found that suggested there were peoples in Florida before the plates in the earth shifted and the Bering Straight opened up. Exciting stuff.
“Ouch!” Maya grimaced as her pet iguana pounced on her midsection. Talk about a jolt back to reality. “Jeez Fred, I really need to trim those toenails. You can do some serious damage with those things.”
Fred stuck out his lizard’s tongue and lapped at Maya’s face, seemingly oblivious to any discomfort his rambunctious greeting might have caused her. She grinned and scratched his head. “I missed you too, boy.”
Grimacing, Maya heaved in a breath as Barney, Sara’s iguana, jumped on her belly to join Fred. She smiled at the equally tenacious lizard and reassuringly scratched his head. “Now Barney, you know I missed you too. But you’re gonna make Fred here jealous.”
Maya gave them both kisses then shooed Fred and Barney off of her stomach and sat up. “You guys are getting too old for this. You’re both nearly six feet long, what with your tails included. You aren’t lightweights anymore boys.”
Maya glanced in the direction of the bathroom when she heard the door squeak open.
Sara emerged in a satiny white robe, her long black hair encased within the towel atop her head. “Your turn,” she announced as she glided over to the sofa and plopped down.
“With pleasure.” Maya wiggled her eyebrows comically, making Sara laugh, as she shot to her feet and dashed toward the now vacant shower.
* * * * *
The colors danced within the blackness and the demon wenches did thus appear. The dragons danced to do their bidding and soon the men fell near. Behold! The wenches were no demons, but enchantresses who came to dwell here.
Maya frowned. “Okay, aside from being a really cheesy attempt at poetry writing, what the hell does that mean?” She stood up to pour herself another cup of coffee while Sara contemplated the bit of prose that the University of Glasgow had uncovered, photocopied, and sent ov
er in a mailer.
The poetry had been photocopied from the original goatskin it had been written on back in what they were guessing to be the early 1300s. That, along with a bundle that contained the photocopies of other relics, had been mailed over to the States by an excavation team in the Highlands for the American team to get acquainted with.
The Castle MacGregor had been thoroughly excavated a long time ago, but it wasn’t until just recently that archeologists in Scotland had discovered a secret lair within the keep that had been used to house some of the Highlanders’ most sacred artifacts.
Much was already known of the MacGregor clan, namely that they were uncharacteristically prosperous for a Highlander people, that they were medically advanced for their time period but hadn’t shared their secrets with outsiders, and that they had survived and flourished for quite a few centuries, well into the 1700s in fact. But now scientists had the chance to learn even more, and Maya and Sara were thrilled to be a part of the discovery process.
The package sent over by the Scottish team of archeologists contained a great many copies of some original relics, relics that they wouldn’t actually get a chance to see until they went to the Highlands next month. The Scottish team wanted to give the American team as much of a background on the discovery as possible, so the package had been delivered to Maya and Sara with all speed.
“I’m not sure yet what it means, but it’s quite interesting,” Sara concluded as she regarded the papers through a magnifying glass. “There are at least five documents here that make a reference to these demon wenches.”
Maya chuckled as she sat down with her mug of coffee and handed a refilled cup to Sara. “Typical men. The women they wrote about must not have been the types to put up with their bullshit. Therefore, they labeled them demons.”
Sara grinned. “That’s definitely possible. From what I can gather, however, these demon wenches came to be important to the MacGregor clan.”
Maya quirked an eyebrow. “Perhaps the women were mythical then? You know, a fable that the Highlanders fashioned?”
Sara nodded, a serious expression smothering her face. “That’s very possible, but…”
“But what?” Maya prodded when it was obvious that Sara wasn’t going to continue her thought any time soon.
“I don’t know.” Sara sighed. “It’s just that that conclusion doesn’t feel right to me.”
Maya sat up straighter in her chair as she grew more interested in the puzzle spread out before them. “Why not?”
“Well,” Sara began, “from what I’ve been able to glean from these other records, it appears that our demon wenches later married into the clan. It seems one of the women actually became lady to the MacGregors and the other married a high ranking soldier named Sir Dugald, though I’m not yet certain as to whom this Dugald was to the clan in terms of his function or importance.”
Maya smiled her cat’s grin. “Ah, then the illustrious demon wenches really were real, and were no doubt thought to be nagging shrews by the MacGregor men.”
Sara laughed as she picked up her cup of coffee and drew it to her lips. “Yes, the probables are that you’re right on the money.” She grinned. “Though the clansmen no doubt came to accept the shrews as time went on.”
Maya rolled her eyes heavenward. “Men.”
A few hours later, Sara set aside the document she’d been translating and stared in awe at the photograph her partner was holding. “Wow Maya, I never realized that Castle MacGregor was so awesome looking in its heyday.”
Maya agreed as she put a second picture in front of her. “This is another photograph of the painting that the Scottish team found. It’s very rare for a medieval laird to commission a painting on a castle, so this was a gem of a find indeed.”
Sara nodded as she traced her fingers along the castle moats that had been detailed in the painting. “An impregnable fortress in its day, no doubt.”
“No doubt,” Maya murmured.
The two women sat in companionable silence as they studied every inch of the photographs. They took in each tower and memorized the exquisite details of every parapet. The Castle MacGregor was awesome according to modern architectural standards. It was no wonder the laird of this clan had been considered all-powerful during his lifetime. This keep was structured far more fantastically than the typical medieval Scottish tower house.
“Thomas was his name,” Maya offered. “I gathered that much from some of the documents I’ve read over but haven’t yet been translated by you.”
Sara nodded, not in the least bit surprised. Maya didn’t speak Latin as Sara did, but she was remarkably adept at Old Gaelic and Old English and was therefore able to translate parts of the records for herself.
“Yes,” Sara confirmed. “The name Thomas appears in the old documents a lot. It seems that he lived to a ripe old age and ruled over the clan for many years.”
Maya threw one of her unruly golden curls over her shoulder and regarded Sara with a steady gaze. “I’m not sure if I read it accurately because a lot of it was in Latin, but I got the feeling that he was a very feared man. Not just by his own clan, but supposedly by competing clans as well.”
Sara nodded. “That’s true enough. There are countless stories of battles told in these old records and Thomas’s name comes up quite a few times in each of them. In fact, the only name that comes up almost as much, though not nearly as often, is that of this Sir Dugald character.”
Maya squinted her eyes as she worked her fingers through her hair. “What do you make of him? Sounds like he was the laird’s commander-at-arms or something, eh?”
Sara nodded again. “Probables are that he was.” Her voice trailed off wistfully as she continued. “He was certainly an interesting enough character.”
Maya quirked an eyebrow. “Interesting?”
Sara shrugged, a blush settling across her cheeks. “He’s been described in the records as a man that is loyal to his laird and kinsmen and quick to retaliate against those that would do his people harm, while at the same time possessing a fun-loving and affable personality. In short, the perfect man.”
Maya smiled as she picked up on that telling tidbit. Jeez and she thought she’d been a little weird getting a crush on the hero in the last Dara Joy novel she’d read. “Not developing an affection for a seven hundred-year-old ghost are you?”
Sara rolled her eyes. “I’m not that lame, darling.”
Maya winked. “Certainly not.”
* * * * *
The MacGregor thought his lady a demon and the devil he cannot abide. Surely it ‘twas good she be a lady or he would have burned her hide…
Maya wrinkled her nose as she and Sara contemplated the latest reference they had found concerning the demon wenches. “I wonder who Thomas MacGregor commissioned to write his poetry—the court jester?”
Sara laughed. She wanted to respond but she was too tired to think, let alone conjecture on who the author of the seven-hundred-year-old document had been. She stretched her arms above her shoulders and yawned like a sleepy cat. “It’s two o’ clock in the morning and we have been at this for hours. I say we call it a night.”
Maya sighed. “We probably should. I’m too tired to be useful anyway.” She pulled herself up to her feet and cleaned up their work area. After putting away the laptop, she brushed the crumbs from the pizza she and Sara had split into the garbage can and made her way into the kitchen to wash out the two coffee mugs they had been drinking from.
A few minutes later, Maya climbed into bed. She was more tired than she could ever remember being, but too restless to sleep. Damn but this always happened when she and Sara were embroiled in a new project! And now they had two new projects to keep them up late at night theorizing over. First the Indian find and now the Highlander one. She loved her work, but the adrenaline rush it often generated wreaked havoc on trying to relax and go to sleep.
An hour later Maya finally drifted off into a deep slumber. She dreamed of demon wenche
s and dragons, of castles and clansmen, and of a heart-stopping hunk named Thomas. Even asleep she recognized the irony of it. After all, she had had the gall to tease Sara about developing a crush on a seven hundred-year-old dead man.
It occurred to Maya that she was better off lusting after the hunks brought forth from Dara Joy’s imagination.
Chapter 2
Maya and Sara worked throughout the rest of the next morning and afternoon. Sara translated a total of seven documents in that amount of time, a personal record for her. Maya studied the photographs of the other bits of archaic artwork, jewelry, and pottery that had been sent over by the Scottish team, elaborating more and more on her theory of who the demon wenches were and what role they had played in the clan with each piece.
Between the odes that had been written about Lady M, as the author later called the demon wench that married Thomas, and the artwork that had been commissioned by the MacGregor to capture the likeness of his wife, it was quite obvious to Maya that this mysterious lady had been extremely important to her adoptive clan. And Thomas had obviously loved her very much.
He had to have. After all, she was certain from other documents Sara had translated that the laird had been a harsh man that people naturally cowered to. He wouldn’t have been the type to succumb to something that would have seemed trivial to him, especially to matters of the heart as esoteric as love. That would have been beneath a man like Thomas. Yep, good ole Lady M had knocked the bully on his ass and turned his world inside out and upside down. Just what he deserved as far as Maya was concerned.
It was a shame that the two paintings that had been created in his wife’s likeness seven centuries ago hadn’t been able to survive intact a fire that had swept the castle a little over two hundred years ago, because Maya was curious to know what Lady M had looked like. The images were now severely charred and therefore unsalvageable. The only thing she’d been able to make out was the lady’s hair and one eye.