“’Tis an old shepherd’s hut on the south side of the pastures, near where the stream bends, inside the spell boundary. ’Twould serve as a place for you to shelter and sleep for a time.” He nodded toward the glen. “I’ll take you there, if you wish.”
Edane was stalling so he could find out why she’d left, Nellie guessed, but that was fine with her. She wouldn’t put the finger on Kiaran. From the beginning the falconer had seen through her like she was made of glass. He’d always been honest with her, too, which was more than she could say. How could she blame Kiaran for wanting to protect his people? Maybe if she’d done a better job of that, she would have never gotten into this mess.
As they walked from the village to where the horses waited, Nellie saw the bulging satchel tied to Edane’s saddle. “You packed for a long trip.”
He shook his head. “Lady Rosealise sent provisions for you, and this.”
The housekeeper probably didn’t want her back either, Nellie thought, until Edane took out a small cloak and draped it over her shoulders. Of finely woven, light brown wool, it had intricate gold and green embroidered birds around the collar. Nellie recognized the fabric and threads. The housekeeper had been saving them to make herself a winter gown.
Thanks, Rosealise, she thought as she stroked a finger over the stitching, and saw the housekeeper secretly working on the cloak by candlelight. She’d miss the Englishwoman and her generous heart. And Jenna. And the guys.
Not Kiaran.
Once in the saddle Nellie rode with Edane along the wall until the end. From there he guided her through a birch grove to where the river narrowed to a curving stream. Sunlight sparkled on the rushing currents, reminding her of the new dress she’d worn on the night she’d gotten shot. Flowers covered the banks so densely they looked carpeted in blue, violet and white velvet.
“’Tis a safe spot,” Edane told her, and pointed across the stream. “The boundary ends where the firs stand.”
Tucked up against some old oaks on this side of the water she saw a squat thatched hut with mossy walls. A barrel stood beneath one corner of the roof, still brimming with rain water. A small circle of stones surrounded a tall swatch of grass under a trio of twigs, which she guessed was an overgrown campfire. The shelter looked very primitive, but the roof appeared intact, and a door of bark layered between willow branches still guarded the entry.
Edane helped her down before leading the horses to the stream to drink. That gave Nellie a chance to look inside the shelter, and to stop thinking about how it felt to have his hands on her. Hides covered the two small windows, but had been scraped thin to allow in some light. A fleece-stuffed mattress atop some woven branches occupied one corner, and a chair-high stump sat next to two others with a large flat stone propped atop them.
The interior smelled faintly of sheep, but the dirt floor had been packed down, and she didn’t see any signs of mice or bugs. With a little work she could make it livable. From what she remembered of her walk-up in the city, it had been pretty close to this.
The shepherd must have washed in the stream and cooked over a fire, so she could do the same, at least until she emptied the satchel. After that she’d have to find food. Maybe she could fish or gather berries. She also had no idea of how to do those things, but she could teach herself. She wasn’t helpless.
Or maybe I’ll starve.
Nellie walked out of the hut to find Edane crouched down, snapping twigs and tossing them into the circle of stones. Somehow, he thought he could make her change her mind by not trying to change her mind. He was indulging her, like she was a child having a tantrum.
“You don’t have to do that,” she told him. “I can take care of myself.”
“You’ve a fire steel?” he asked as he worked his dagger against the end of one stick to curl thin layers of wood. When she shook her head, he tossed a small pouch to her. “Keep mine.”
Nellie gripped the pouch and made her voice cold as she said, “I don’t need you here. Go back to your clan.”
“As you wish.” He dropped the curled stick on top of the twigs and stood. “Farewell, my lady.”
Edane started walking toward the tethered horses as if he meant to do just that. He was going to ride back to Dun Chaill, and leave her here alone, and she wasn’t going to stop him. She just had to make sure he wouldn’t return.
“I’m not a lady,” she shouted after him, furious now. “I’m not a flapper. My name isn’t Nellie. Everything you think you know about me is a lie.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
DISCOVERING THE MAG Raith had renewed their search of the stronghold had made Cul reinforce the wards protecting his underground lair. Wherever they chose to look, they would find nothing hidden or buried but stone, dirt, or the debris of centuries. Should they test the illusions, they would behave as if real. The scent bundles he had scattered around the keepe would also provide the correct smells for their noses.
To his relief, the only intruder who could expose his subterfuge had conveniently left in the night.
Although he hated leaving the castle unattended, Nellie Quinn’s abrupt departure provided too great a lure for Cul to resist. Although his injuries from the collapse had yet to completely heal, he left just before dawn. He tracked her to the empty village, and for a time watched her use her power to discover its secrets. The cloaking ward he had used when he’d killed the remaining mortals and disposed of all the bodies had been a thoughtful precaution. She would never know it had been him. Still, her power exposed another secret that needed keeping.
If I don’t silence her, the entire clan will come to search for the bodies.
While his work at Dun Chaill remained safely hidden, they would surely find what he had long concealed in the caves above the village.
Feeling Nellie’s despair as she wandered through Wachvale surprised Cul, for he had been sure the demons had leeched her dry. It made him hungry for more, but as he crept down toward the village he saw a red-haired warrior approaching on horseback. He looked determined and hopeful, a man in love pursuing his lady.
Edane mag Raith had come to rescue the damned wench yet again.
His unwanted arrival drove Cul back into the shadows of the ridges. Nellie would have been simple to kill, but an immortal shaman would not fall victim so easily. If he could manage to snuff the life out of them, he’d have to drag their bodies off to the deep shaft he had used for the villagers. The same would have to be done for their horses, or the Mag Raith would move their search to Wachvale and look to the ridges.
Cul knew that in his weakened state Edane just might prevail over him.
A rumble of distant thunder interrupted his musings, and Cul looked out to the darkening horizon. It had been nearly sevenday since a storm had threatened the highlands, and he knew when it reached the Sluath they would not be able to resist it. He looked down again as the archer led Nellie from the village and helped her onto her horse. Instead of riding back toward Dun Chaill, he took her across the pastureland toward the stream.
Cul fumed. They would remain here for a time, doubtless to coo at each other. Then he recalled that an old shepherd’s hut lay just inside the boundary, and an answer to his dilemma began to form. It would provide them with shelter from the storm, if he could somehow keep them there until it arrived.
Did he dare an attack on two fronts?
He climbed higher, moving north through the craggy ridges until he came to the shimmering wall of his spell boundary. Caressing the curtain of magic with his gnarled hand, he summoned his power and channeled it into the ancient barrier. Slowly he reached through it until his hands emerged on the other side.
The spell he cast belonged to Edane mag Raith and, like the storm, it raced out toward the Sluath-occupied village.
Closing the spell barrier, Cul cast over himself a shadow ward, and began his long climb down from the ridges.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
EDANE TURNED AROUND to face Nellie. The anguish in her eyes mad
e him long to go to her and take her into his arms, but he forced himself to stand his ground. She needed more than comfort now. She needed his understanding, even if she didn’t realize it yet.
Mayhap even forgiveness. We never offered her that.
“You’ve remembered your past, then?”
“Yeah, I did.” She marched up to him and shoved the fire steel pouch into his hands. “My real name is Helen. Helen Frances Quinn.”
The imposing sound made him smile a little. “’Tis splendid.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t. I was a bumpkin. I grew up on a dairy farm in the country.” Her mouth twisted. “That’s how I know about cows. I spent most of my life around them. Be sure to tell Broden that. He was wondering.”
Edane pocketed the pouch. “We’ve no’ much knowledge of cattle. Yours could help the clan better care for our stock.”
Nellie made an exasperated sound and stalked off toward the stream. He followed her, and thought of what more he might coax from her. She sat down with a thump in a bed of wild bluebells and pansies. Lowering himself down a handspan away from her, he stretched out his long legs and watched her as she stared at the flashing currents.
“I’d ken more of your life on this farm,” he said.
“I lived with my parents and my younger brother, Michael. We called him Mickie for short.” She cradled her knees with her arms. “He was a good kid, and such a clown. No matter what kind of mood I was in, he could always make me laugh. I adored him. Everyone did.”
He saw the tears glinting on her lashes. “If ’tis too painful to speak of your brother–”
“That will never change.” She took in a shaky breath. “As Mickie and I got older, we took on more work for our folks. We knew how to run the farm, and planned to do that together once they retired. But sometimes I wondered if we would. See, Mickie loved driving our delivery truck to the bottling factory. He’d come back and tell me about everything he saw in the city. It seemed so exciting to him, compared to life on the farm.”
Sunlight streamed down on her, gilding her curls until it looked as if she wore a caplet of golden lace. It glided along her fine skin, painting the tiny fine hairs on her arms white. But for all her beauty it was her voice that reached into him, and wrapped around his heart.
Edane knew then that it didn’t matter to him who Helen had been, or why she’d become Nellie. He loved this woman.
“One day my brother drove to the city to make a delivery, but he never came home. The next morning the constable came.” She brushed away the tears from her eyes, and the emotion left her voice. “I heard my mother’s screaming from the barn, and ran to the house with my father. They found Mickie, dead on the side of the road, next to a broken-down truck. He’d been shot. He was only seventeen years old.”
Pain so filled her that she couldn’t allow herself to feel it, Edane thought, a tactic he’d used himself in his mortal life. “I’m so sorry, my lady.”
“When I went to the police station to collect my brother’s belongings, I talked them into letting me see the broken-down truck.” She looked down at her hands. “What I really wanted to do was touch it, so I could see who killed my brother. Mickey had stopped that night on the road to see if he could help. The men who had broken down were bootleggers. They killed him so they could steal his delivery truck and use it to move their hooch.”
Edane was stunned. “You had your power before the Sluath captured you?”
She nodded. “I just saw flashes when I was a little girl, but as I grew up more came to me. It got so that I had to wear gloves whenever I left the farm. That day, when I used it to see Mickie’s murder, I knew what I had to do. I applied to the Bureau of Prohibition to become an agent, a copper who hunts bootleggers, so I could find the men who killed my brother, and make them pay.”
Her hands collected more blue bells and pansies as she told him of the final loss she’d suffered after leaving the farm. Both her mother and father had been devastated by their loss, far more deeply than Helen had realized. While she was away at the training academy they fell into melancholy and neglected themselves. It rendered them too weak to fight off the sickness that came that winter, when they had died within a day of each other.
“The last time I went home to the farm, I had to bury my parents next to Mickie.” She looked down at the bouquet she’d made, and wound a piece of grass around the stalks. “The doctor said it was the flu, but when I touched things in the house, I felt their pain. They wanted to be with my brother more than they wanted to live. Everyone I loved was gone. I had nothing left but revenge, and I wasn’t giving that up.”
She told him how she returned to the academy to finish her training as an undercover agent. They taught her how to pose as a flapper so she could help locate underground clubs that served spirits against the law, and then sent her to live in the city as Nellie Quinn. Her ruse also allowed her to secretly use her power to identify and track the man she’d seen kill Mickie.
“It took a year of haunting the speakeasies, but I finally found Mickie’s killer, and his bootlegger boss. We set up a trap for them.” She stood up and carried the bouquet down to the edge of the water, her shoulders rigid now. “In the end, though, it was all for nothing.”
Edane stood and went to her as she lifted the bouquet to her face. “Dinnae tell me they escaped.”
“No. One of the boss’s rivals sent droppers to kill everyone at the club. No one got out alive that night, except me.” She tossed the flowers into the stream. “That big Sluath, Danar, found me dying. He knew about my power, and shoved his claws into my chest and that’s all I remember.” She pressed a hand over her heart.
He reached out and turned her to face him. “Now tell me why you left Dun Chaill last night, for I cannae fathom your reason. You remember a past spent seeking justice for a terrible wrong done you, and that drove you from me?”
“That’s the thing. It wasn’t an act.” She touched his cheek, her face pale now. “Don’t you get it? I would have done anything to get even, and I did. I flirted and drank and danced with horrible men. Thugs and thieves and killers. I made them think I wanted them so I could touch the things they carried. I let them put their hands and mouths on me. I lied to them, stole from them, and even drugged a few when I had to get away fast. I had so much hatred in my heart, Edane, that I would have done worse.”
Now he understood. “You’re wrong.”
“Ask Kiaran when you go back.” She stepped away from him. “He’ll tell you exactly who I am, and why you need to stay away from me. I think he’s always known.”
Edane thought of the vision they had shared, and knew he had to try to reach that part of her— the part she’d locked away in her time.
“Give me your hand, my lady,” he said, and saw her brows draw together. “Only for a moment, and then I shall go.”
Though she pressed her lips into a thin line, she slowly reached out to him.
He took her hand, pressed her palm to his skinwork, and curled his hand around her nape. Summoning his shamanic power, he sent magic into his arm and hand.
The sunlight grew blinding, and then everything faded to white.
* * *
In the depths of the underworld, Nellie heard the arrival of the demons from the outer tunnels. They didn’t make much noise, but the cries and screams from their captives came through the walls. She got up and went to stand at the fang-shaped panel of glass that was her only window. Since moving her into the new digs, the Sluath had given her a front-row seat to their fun and games. Through it she could see the other poor chumps that had been dragged out of time as they arrived, like a herd under black skies.
Watching them come back always made her sick, but Nellie had no choice. Danar had said that if she didn’t “attend our return from every cull” he’d nail her up against the window so she couldn’t turn away. Seeing what they did was supposed to make her like it. That much she’d worked out on her own.
She’d have to compliment th
e big goon when he came to gloat.
Nice work, Boss. Must have been a real chore, grabbing a bunch of maroons who couldn’t fight you off.
Judging by their expressions, the captives being herded in by the guards still thought it was some kind of mistake or nightmare or afterlife. Nellie had gone through that, too, although she’d quickly gotten wise to how this place worked. Everything she touched in the underworld gave her the inside scoop. She’d used that knowledge to try an escape through the tunnels, but she hadn’t known that Danar could track her through the tattoo on her neck.
This time I will not punish you, the big demon had said as he dragged her back. Run again and I will cut off your hands.
Outside the window a demon yanked a fine lady in a poofy gown from the very back of the group. He began to beat her while she screamed and pleaded for help. The other Sluath froze the newcomers so they couldn’t do anything but watch as her skull cracked open and blood poured down her silks.
Dead before she hit the ground, her body melted into the rock.
The mortals always assumed the demons would do the same to them if they stepped out of line, so everyone in the cull got quiet and cooperative. Nellie had seen the con a thousand times, and the cruelty of it still gnawed at her. Like so much in this place the fine lady wasn’t real. She existed only to have her head split open and scare the new arrivals.
The Sluath would never waste a real dame that way. They liked to make them last.
The sound of the wall dissolving tempted Nellie to turn around, but it might have been another test. She’d been put through too many to make mistakes anymore. Then there came a wet thump and a very human-sounding groan. She smelled blood and man, which meant it was real. They could fake everything down here but stink, or maybe they wanted to con her into thinking that.
Edane: Immortal Highlander, Clan Mag Raith Book 3 Page 15