Time Everlastin' Book 5

by Mickee Madden

  By the time you yokels discover what I've done, I'll be long gone, she thought smugly and patted the blanket.

  Another rap came at the door. Unlocking and opening it, she smiled tiredly at Katie.

  "I thought I would take the cup to the kitchen if ye were through wi' it."

  Taryn released a wide yawn. "Oh, excuse me. I can't keep my eyes open." She fetched the empty cup and handed it to the woman. This time her feigned yawn brought moisture to her eyes.

  She glanced at her watch. "It's only eight. Usually I can't get to sleep until after midnight."

  Katie nodded. "Tis our fine weather, Miss Ingliss."

  "Good night, Katie. See you in the morning."

  "Aye, miss."

  Shutting and locking the door, Taryn glared at the brass knob. This family was definitely hiding something.

  She closed the floral-print curtains, kicked off her flats, and stripped out of her jeans and pullover sweater. She again pulled the knapsack from beneath the bed. Two minutes later she was dressed in a snug-fitting black jumpsuit, over which she slipped on an oversized red T-shirt. She zipped the knapsack, pushed it beneath the bed, turned off the lamp on the nightstand and climbed beneath the covers.

  Someone would check on her in the next couple of hours. People with a secret had a tendency to be paranoid.

  Curled up on her side, she closed her eyes against the semi-darkness of the room. It was several minutes before she was able to slow her heartbeat. The blankets were drawn over her such that the T-shirt was visible at her back but not the jumpsuit's long sleeves beneath the short red ones. Her unbound thick, curly blond hair camouflaged the black high neck of the jumpsuit.

  Let them come. Once they believe I'm asleep, they'll let their guard down.

  Unbidden, Lachlan Baird materialized on her mindscape. Too often he intruded into the private recesses of her mind. She would never see him again, and it wasn't because he claimed to be in love with Beth Staples. Hell, he and Beth had shared their lives in death, then returned to the living and had twins.

  An impossible bond to challenge.

  The irony of finally finding a man who left her breathless every time she looked at him, was unfair. She was no saint. A wild romp between the sheets would have sufficed, but he had no interest in her that way.

  Some would say emphatically that Taryn was a bitch, untrustworthy, and without a heart. She used to laugh at those evaluations. Nice women didn't survive in her chosen career. Nice women were trampled beneath the soiled shoes of ambitious men.

  My hide isn’t affixed to their soles and never will be.

  Her thoughts shifted back to Lachlan. Ignoring a psychological knot forming in her throat, she sharpened his image.

  How was it that some men—so few men in her experience—had the ability to rock a woman's soul with a glance?

  Usually her intuition was impeccable. Not so in his case. The instant she laid eyes on him, she was sure she had met the man destined to be her equal, her significant other.

  Right.

  Life wasn't about wise choices, only choices. Stealing his dirk and mother's journal had sealed off any chance of returning to Baird House to see him.

  Roan was another matter. Her estranged brother hadn't accepted her, either. She couldn't blame him. While he was raised in Scotland by an aunt, Taryn was reared by their parents in Rhode Island. She didn't need a big brother interfering in her life.

  I don’t need anyone.

  With a mental groan, she remembered the pager. She should have called her editor, but Dan Whitecomb would have just chewed her out again and demanded she return to work.

  Not until the mystery is solved, she thought.

  A kind woman in an Aberdeen flower shop had translated a portion of Ciarda's journal. Lachlan's mother had mostly written about her young son's everyday experiences. There was only a brief section wherein she wrote about her family on the isle—a briefer notation on the standing stones, and two lines on how she prayed Lachlan would never go near them again.

  The most intriguing, the most inspiring, was a passage in which Ciarda wrote a prayer for one Broc MacLachlan, and for the forgiveness of his sins.

  Sins always intrigued me.

  Later on in the journal, Ciarda mentioned her desperation to keep Lachlan from the site, and another prayer that he would one day forgive her silence.

  Silence about what?

  Broc MacLachlan had vanished in 1799.

  Did this MacLachlan clan practice witchcraft, their rituals perhaps held at the stones?

  Had Broc met his end in sacrifice at the site?

  Lachlan was born in 1811. Had Ciarda's family deemed him an eventual sacrifice?

  The dirk and journal were in the knapsack. Her ancestry was linked with the Bairds on Lachlan's father's side. The dirk was the key to something, according to the runes.

  Besides the runes, hideous gargoyle faces adorned the handle.

  Gargoyles. What could they represent?

  Ciarda MacLachlan Baird had died with a secret. The dirk was somehow tied in. Taryn's gut told her the dirk was also a vital key to something connected to Lachlan. The what, why, and how's were maddening.

  And exhilarating.

  A faint sound caught her notice. Breathing shallowly, she listened as a key turned in the lock, the door opened, and soft footfalls crossed the room.

  She could feel eyes boring into the back of her head before a hand none-too-gently pushed her raised shoulder. Seconds passed before she was jarred once again.

  "Are ye sleepin'?" Katherine asked, her tone loud enough to be heard in the next room. Her voice lowered when she added, "Tis no' yer concern wha' goes on here."

  Momentarily, the door closed. Taryn waited an indefinite time before sitting up and staring in its direction.

  What is going on? Oh, Katherine, you won't feel quite so cocky when you learn I beat you at your own game.

  Climbing out of bed, Taryn pulled the T-shirt over her head and stashed it beneath the mattress and box spring. She arranged the pillows beneath the covers to give the impression a body occupied the bed. She placed her flats into the knapsack, deciding to wait until she was outside before putting them on. She removed an empty wallet that resembled the used one in her purse, and emptied the purse into the knapsack. With the fake wallet zipped inside, she set it on the nightstand. If someone came into the room again to check on her, the sight of her purse would reinforce her presence.

  Finally, she closed all the compartments on the knapsack, slipped her arms through the straps and settled it at her back.

  The thrill of adventure pulsed through her veins as she left her room, but the silence in the house was quick to cast a pall over her excitement.

  It was weighty, watchful, omniscient.

  Taryn reached the first floor landing and heard a soft rustling of fabric coming from the direction of the parlor. She eyed the short distance to the front door, decided against making a run for it, and dashed down a dark hall in the opposite direction. Stopping, regulating her breathing, she searched the darkness. She thought it odd no hall lights were on, but then Scots were known to pinch pennies—at least, according to her mother.

  "A penny saved is a penny collecting interest," Eilionoir would say.

  A whisper-soft hum accompanied the rustling. Taryn groped for a doorknob. The family bedrooms were on the far side of the inn. Finding a knob, she eased it clockwise, opened the door, and slipped inside. She closed the door and kept an ear pressed to the wood. The nightwalker came closer. Closer. The humming drowned out the sound of the material now.

  Closer still.

  Taryn's heart beat wildly behind her breast. She wasn't panicking. Women like her didn't panic, just anticipated the enemy's next move. But her heart slammed into her throat when the knob turned and the door moved toward her. She flattened against the adjacent wall. The air in her lungs expanded, straining against the painfully extended tissue. The soft glow of a hand-held candle preceded Mavis MacLachla
n's entrance. Her free hand clutched the side of a flannel nightgown, lifting the ruffled hemline off the floor. Tiny slippered feet padded across the room. The woman had a surprisingly sprite step.

  She continued to hum while she used her candle to light others across the room, eleven in all, Taryn counted.

  Perhaps there were more. Something else distracted her.

  She was in the shrine.

  The Broc MacLachlan Shrine.

  One of the ancient writing "experts" she had interviewed in Stornaway, had talked about the shrine when Taryn mentioned she was on her way to the Astory Inn. When she asked Katherine about visiting it, the woman had said the room was now closed to tourists, due to damage to the mural.

  More lies.

  An inexplicable coldness permeated her bones and turned her blood to ice. The candle-glow bathed the nine-foot, full-bodied portrait in an ethereal luminance, lending the illusion the figure depicted was alive and about to leap from the mural.

  The artist had taken painstaking care in every detail. Long, riotous dark hair. Chest-length beard. Black eyes that seemed to stare directly at Taryn, reprimanding her for trespassing into his space. She believed she saw a pulse throb at his blue-veined temples. And could it be her imagination that what she could see of his mouth, formed a grimmer line as she watched?

  The artist had made him larger than life. A Highland demigod amongst the decedents of his immediate clan. His broad shoulders, his imperious bearing, the defiant angle he cocked his head, bespoke of a power unto himself.

  What had he done to warrant this family's undying loyalty?

  Taryn was sure it went beyond hero-worship. Heroes were cheap these days. Turn on any television to any channel.

  Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

  Taryn gulped against the psychological wedge of fear in her throat. Distinctly, she heard a heartbeat. Not her own. Her's raced.

  Thump-thump. Ever louder. Surrounding her. Thump-thump.

  Taryn edged to slip into the hallway when the old woman spoke, her words taking Taryn aback.

  "Tis a fine full moon, ma lad." Gazing up at the portrait's austere features, she sighed emotively. "I'll no' be around for many mair. If only I could see ye again wi' ma old eyes."

  What a basket case, Taryn thought.

  "I made ye a fine blanket to keep ye warm in body and spirit. Tis ma birthday gift to ye. Would ma old bones take it, I would be ou' there this eve to see ye ride amongst the stones."

  A ghost? His ghost appears during a full moon?

  Thummp-thump. Thummp-thump.

  The unworldly heartbeat slowed.

  A sound resembling a sob escaped the trembling old woman.

  "I alone have no' feared seein' ye. I alone. Will ye miss me when I die? Have ye even known I watched ye all these years?"

  Mavis shook her lowered head then gazed up at the face in the portrait.

  "If ye can hear me, ken I will carry ye in ma heart ever-efter. I ask only ye deliver the promised treasure to our kin. We have waited long, we have."

  Taryn shivered as she locked eyes with the mural-man. His image wavered. For a horrifying moment she expected him to step from the wall and charge at her.

  "Broc," the old woman said in a raspy, chilling tone, "ye do this for us, and we will await ye at heaven's gate."

  It surprised Taryn to realize she was fleeing down the hall. Her heart jack-hammering, she disabled the alarm system by the door—having watched Katherine use the pad the first night of her return from months ago—and hastened outside. The door closed with nary a sound.

  A watchful eye on the house and grounds, Taryn loped barefoot to the edge of the front yard, halted and put on her flats, then lit into a run down the dirt.

  Broc MacLachlan's ghost! her mind sang jubilantly.

  So, maybe the "mystery" here had nothing to do with Karok. Maybe she would never know the full story behind the Baird-Ingliss history. Without a doubt, though, a sighting of the revered Broc MacLachlan would certainly compensate her for all her lost time.

  As she distanced herself from the inn, her rampant imagination deafened her to the heartbeat following in her wake, shifting and beckoning her from the ancient site that was her destination.

  Chapter 2

  The Callanish Standing Stones situated about a mile south from the inn, made Taryn's years of working out in gyms and jogging pay off. She focused on reaching the site, although she didn't know what to expect once she arrived.

  The mural was of the original Broc MacLachlan. A plaque at the base read:

  Broc MacLachlan, 1771 - 1799.

  The Broc who Mavis yearned to see again had to be his ghost...or perhaps a descendant?

  But what does the full moon have to do with anything?

  Maybe he's a werewolf. She laughed at herself. Maybe he's the restless spirit of a werewolf, and your soul is about to become his dinner.

  Dan would go for an original werewolf piece. Our last release was popular—bogus as hell, but sold off the stands. Yeah. Personalize it, Taryn. A reporter's terror-filled night at an ancient, haunted site.

  Her lungs began to feel the strain of her flight when she spied the stones ahead. They loomed in the night, the darkness more a twilight, benefit of the gloaming. In the summer, the sun didn't set but hovered along the horizon as the world spun on its axis. It was an eerie kind of nighttime, lending a surrealistic ambiance to the land.

  A drizzle fell, cold considering the warm air of minutes ago. The closer she came to her destination, the more the temperature dropped.

  She had studied the layout of the stones and knew them by rote. The site sat atop a plateau overlooking Loch Roag, absent of trees and bushes, and relatively flat. The Lewisian gneiss stones resembled petrified sentinels reaching to the sky, the ground surrounding them peat bogs. The great configuration of this site lay in the fact the forty-plus standing stones formed a Celtic Cross.

  Taryn had read the tallest stone, a fifteen-and-a half-foot menhir, was considered a key or focus. The word "key" had jumped out at her.

  Key as in the MacLachlan dirk?

  She couldn't help but fantasize that the dirk would somehow fit into a crevice in the menhir and reveal something invaluable, something that would ultimately change her life.

  Her gaze scanning the area for one of the MacLachlan two-legged watchdogs, she stooped and hurried along a three-foot high, dry stone wall. She was heading west, toward the south end of the site. The drizzle grew colder, dampness seeping through her clothing and into her bones.

  A tight feeling weighted her lungs.

  Closing in on the site, she realized the silence held an element of warning. But for the sound of her flats mashing moist earth, there was nothing. Not a breeze stirred amongst the stones. Not an insect called. Not a dog howled at the full moon, spookily resplendent in the gloaming.

  The wall ended a short distance from the west arm of the cross. She dashed between the rows of gradually taller stones, running until she reached the center menhir. The silence in the heart of the cross caused her own to race painfully. Silence and absolute stillness. The combination stabbed her with apprehension. She considered returning to the inn, to her bed, comforted by the sounds most houses emit at night: rustling, creaks and groans, and the whisperings of tenants long dead.

  Taryn paused long enough to accommodate a shudder. When it waned a lethargy remained in her muscles she didn't care to analyze. At least not now. She had the distinct impression that countless eyes watched her. Inhuman eyes, dissecting her motives for intruding upon a site believed to have been constructed around 1800 BC. Taryn's research on the area had also revealed that Leodhas, the Gaelic name for Lewis, means marshy. Most of the island is covered by a layer of peat, the deposits started some 5000 years ago. The Lewisian gneiss rock is believed to be twenty-nine hundred million years old—nearly half as old as the Earth.

  Knowing the facts didn't ease her jitters.

  Not even seeing the dirk protruding from Lachlan's chest three m
onths ago had affected her like this. It was as if she had unwittingly given a piece of her soul to the stones, offered it up to some ancient god guarding them.

  She backed away ten paces, her gaze creeping up the flat facing of the reigning stone, the heart of the site. It stood inside a ten-yard-wide circle of twelve, twelve-foot-high menhirs. An austere beauty radiated from it. Its base was broad. About a third of the way up was a bulge that resembled an elbow. Instead of straight lines, the stone appeared to stoop slightly toward the top, the crown of which was flat and sharply angled.

  A faint hum emanated from the smooth surface.

  Taryn refused to believe it was real. To do so would tip the scales of her imagination.

  A not unpleasant vibration swept across her skin from the tips of her toes, to the top of her head. The drizzle turned to icy beads of rain, and she squinted at the haze of sunlight at the horizon, where across the loch, the distant Sleeping Woman of the Moor mountain range was but a silhouette.

  A sudden breeze, no more than a breath across one cheek, caused her to shut her eyes tightly and mentally chant:

  Heebie-jeebies go away, don't come back again this day.

  Heebie-jeebies go away, don't come back again this day.

  It was nighttime actually, but she couldn't think of a fitting rhyme.

  Her eyes shot open when she detected footfalls. Not forty yards away, Gil and Flan carried something between them. At first, Taryn thought it was a body. It paralyzed her momentarily, the spell breaking when she realized the men were headed in her direction. She stood behind one of the twelve-foot menhirs, a breath trapped in her lungs, her muscles cramped.

  "Tis nearly midnight," Gil grumbled. "Hold up yer bloody end, Flan, lest ye want to look into the eyes o' the devil, hisself."

  "Och, no."

  Taryn detected fear in Flan's thin voice.

  "Here we go," said Gil.

  Something heavy hit the ground. Taryn didn't dare risk peeking around the stone.