She hadn't ever really mourned home, had she? That was the problem… that was what was making her feel so insecure, so crazy about being here. She'd never let herself actually be sad about what she'd lost. Scared about where she was, sure. Confused and alarmed about adjusting to a completely new world, yes — she'd made plenty of time for those feelings. But good old fashioned grief — looking back on her life back home and regretting that she'd never go back there — that was what she'd been missing. Maybe that was the key to finally settling in.
Well, too late for all that now. When they discovered what she'd done… well, she had a suspicion she wouldn't be so welcome at the castle anymore. Unless, of course, she pulled off what she was attempting… but either way, would Liam forgive her for what she'd done? Unlikely, she decided, feeling a pang of sadness and crushing it down. He hadn't listened to her. That, more than anything, told her that their relationship wasn't going to work.
She rode up the path she knew led to the bog, Shadow flicking her ears curiously at the strange sounds of the forest. It was a little odd, being out so late at night… she remembered stories of goblins and monsters that stalked the woods at night, shivering a little to think of it before firmly reminding herself that the only monsters in the forest were the wisps… and that they wouldn't come anywhere near a traveler on horseback.
That was a good point. If she was going to lure the wisps close to her, she'd need to leave Shadow well behind, where she was safe. They were reaching the outskirts of the bog now — she could see the ground beginning to turn swampy — and she leaped down from Shadow's neck, careful not to disturb the bucket of pitch or the one of iron filings. Then she tethered Shadow to a tree, grateful that the horse's iron shoes would keep her safe from any hungry wisps that might happen upon her.
And if something happened to Kay in the bog, she thought, gritting her teeth to force herself to be brave, she'd tied the horse on the main path. Someone would come by and find her sooner or later… and in the meantime, she'd have plenty of grass to eat. Shadow would be fine. Whether Kay would be or not… well, that remained to be seen. Straightening her back and lifting her torch high, Kay stepped off the path — and headed into the depths of the bog.
There was plenty of squelching mud, that was for sure. Kay wrinkled her nose, a little unsettled by the feeling of the mud under her boots. But there were higher, ridged areas where grass was growing, and these were firm enough to bear her weight. She headed along one of these until she found a broad area, a little away from the path, and big enough for her to do what she needed to do. Taking a deep breath, she grabbed the bucket of pitch, and poured it in a thick circle around her, making a circle of about five feet in diameter. The smell was as strong as it had been back in the stable, and she wrinkled her nose, a little revolted by it. At least she didn't feel hungry, she thought with a grin.
She lifted her torch, peering around the bog. It was a fairy unremarkable area, at least by night, but it sent a chill down her spine to think how many cattle and people had died here… how many animals had been lured here by those hypnotic dancing lights, only to be paralyzed and devoured. She took a deep breath, holding the torch high, trying to tell herself not to be afraid… that she was doing the right thing here. She knew the torch would burn for hours yet, such was its design, and she settled in for what might be a long wait.
It wasn't likely, she supposed, that the wisps were used to having their prey just march into their swamp in open challenge.
Chapter 51
Or was it the bucket of iron they were wary of? She glanced down at it, frowning… could they smell it from here? Were they avoiding her because of it? She reached into it and took a fistful of the iron filings. She was ready. It was cold out here in the swamp, but she had her cloak around her shoulders and adrenaline pounding in her body. The comforting heat of the torch reassured her, kept her focused, stopped her from thinking too much about the shadowy trees around her, the suspicion that there might be more things than wisps out there…
And then she saw lights in the distance. At first, she thought she'd imagined them… that they were just reflections of the torch she was holding, or her eyes playing tricks on her. So she squinted more closely, lowering the torch a little to let herself see better. Were they lights? They didn't quite look like lights… more like reflections of lights on the surface of a pond, rippling and dancing… there was something rather beautiful about that. What was she doing here again? She was waiting for something… something important, she vaguely remembered. A strange laugh escaped her, an odd sound in the quiet night air. What on Earth was she waiting for out here in the forest? It couldn't have been particularly important, could it, if she'd forgotten it so easily?
But she was out here… and she had to admit, it was a beautiful night. She'd earned a bit of beauty, hadn't she? Maybe she could just spend the rest of the night by herself… enjoy some time in solitude, really enjoy herself, have a wander through the cool night air. Before she knew it, her feet were moving — she stepped neatly over the line of pitch she'd drawn on the grass, half tempted to put the torch down, too. Without the torch, she'd be able to see those lights better…. those beautiful lights. What were they? Something magical? Or something natural that just seemed magical? Whatever it was, she couldn't wait to reach them.
That was strange. Her boots were sinking into the mud. She frowned, tugging her feet out of the mud with some difficulty as she kept walking. Why was a part of her so reluctant to keep doing this? It was as though something deep in the back of her mind was screaming at her to stop. How silly, she thought with a smile. Maybe it was her inner child, still frightened of the dark… well, there was no need to be scared of the dark with a torch in her hand, was there? No need to be frightened of the dark at all, not with those lights up ahead. Maybe she should put the torch down. The unnatural flame was damaging her ability to adjust to the darkness… all she'd have to do was kneel and extinguish the flame in the waters of the swamp. Easy.
The cold water was soaking through the knees of her skirts when she finally realized what she was doing. She'd stumbled and almost fallen, and with the splash of water that had resulted, she reflectively shut her eyes… and found a sudden breath of clarity that almost made her scream. She yanked the torch back from the water, her eyes still squeezed shut, felt her heart hammering in her chest at what she'd almost done. She'd almost extinguished her only source of fire… and she hadn't brought flint and steel with her. And how far had she walked through the swamp?
Kay began to feel sick as she realized what had happened. Just the barest glimpse of the lights… and they'd gotten right into her mind. She shivered in the cold night air, clutching the torch firmly by its handle, feeling the reassuring heat of the flame against her face and reminding herself that she'd done it, that she'd hung onto the torch, that she hadn't let the wisps completely control her. But still… the situation was a little dire. She had no idea where she was… and she was far too frightened to open her eyes again. And her feet were sinking into the mud — she kept shuffling her feet, taking step after step on the spot to stop the mud from completely claiming her boots… or worse, immobilizing her here in the mud.
How long had they had her hypnotized for? It was impossible to tell… and impossible to remember where she'd walked. Hoping it was in a straight line, she slowly began to take backwards steps, frowning as she focused hard on how the ground felt under her feet… and to her relief, it began to solidify, no longer sucking her boots down, down into the thick mud. That was something, at least… standing on semi-solid ground at least would mean she wasn't immobilized in the swamp water. But what about the wisps? She knew for a fact that they had other, much less pleasant ways of immobilizing their prey. And though the lights she'd seen had seemed pretty far away, from the force of the hypnotic suggestion she'd experienced she had a feeling that they were on their way to her.
She had to find her way back to the circle of pitch she'd made. She had to find it, h
ad to remember her plan, had to be close to the bucket of iron shavings… that was the whole point of this. Her fist was still full of iron, she realized, holding it tight. The sickly realization hit her that the proximity of the iron filings was probably the only thing that had saved her from the hypnosis… that, and the brief deviation from staring into the lights. If it wasn't for the iron, and for her brief stumble, she'd still be walking to her death.
Kay braced herself, trying to stop the panic from setting in. She wasn't under hypnosis anymore — she just had to focus on what she could do with her eyes shut. Not much. She took a deep breath, trying to rely on her other senses… then realized with a start that she could smell the distinct smell of pitch. Her heart pounding with relief, she moved carefully toward where the smell seemed to be coming from, feeling carefully with the tip of her boot for the sticky substance on the ground… and to her acute relief, before too long she felt it, tugging slightly at the toe of her boot as she prodded at it.
It was the work of a moment to step nimbly over the thick line of pitch, her eyes still shut. Carefully, she leaned down to find where the two buckets were, relieved to find that they were both sitting where she'd left them. In the end, she hadn't traveled too far from her little base — she uttered a silent prayer of relief and gratitude that the wisps hadn't quite managed to capture her, body and soul.
But now she was worried. How was she supposed to fight with her eyes shut? What was she going to do when they arrived? Because she knew they were coming… she could feel it, deep in her marrow, like a prey animal that sensed a carnivore was nearing the herd. The creatures were on their way. And all Kay had to rely on were her senses, her bucket of iron… and her nerve.
Would it be enough? She had to hope it would.
Chapter 52
She could hear the distant sound of the wisps, coming closer and closer as time wore on. Liam had told her about the strange, beautiful sounds they made… chiming sounds, like little bells in the distance. To Kay, they sounded like windchimes jangling on the night air. She wondered how many people had been lured by the sound alone, wondered with some horror whether the sound had the potential to hypnotize her as well… but realized shortly that she wasn't feeling any kind of impulse to step out of her pitch circle. Quite the opposite… her body was tensing up, adrenaline pumping through her. There was a strange calm, here at the center of the ring as she waited for her foe to get closer. It was as though the panic had surged through her so completely that she'd found some eerie calm on the other side of it.
The chimes were incredibly close now. She pressed her eyelids tighter together, leaning into her sense of hearing to try to get a better sense of where they were… and she realized with a shock that under the sound of the chimes, she could hear another sound. A sound that reminded her of long summer days… the gentle whine of the buzzing of wings, for all the world like great mosquitos. There were a lot of them, she realized sickly, her hand tightening around the torch. Dozens at least. Maybe hundreds. Liam had given her a good sense of the size of the creatures — they were about the size of a small cat, with wings on their back and lights that glowed in their bellies. She squeezed her eyes tight, aware of the flickering of their hypnotic lights against her eyelids, determined not to let it have any effect on her…
"Come on then," she muttered under her breath, and heard a fluttering of wings in response, as though she'd surprised the wisps by addressing them. "Come closer, why don't you? Come and get me, if you want me —"
A sudden upswing in the fluttering of wings, a rush of cool air against her skin — that was all she needed, that was what told her, instinctively, that the wisps were rushing her. Before she could think, she threw the torch down, praying that it would land where it needed to… and she uttered a shout of triumph as she felt a wave of heat rise and encircle her, the pitch catching light as she'd known it would. An eerie chattering went up — and then she heard what sounded almost like screams, like the chiming bells she'd heard before… but distorted.
Kay couldn't help it. She took the risk, and let her eyes flick open. And what she saw was horrific.
As she'd expected, she was completely surrounded by wisps… and up close, they weren't what she'd been expecting. Vaguely humanoid bodies, with clawed hands and feet hanging mid-air, round pot-bellied midsections that glowed with that eerie light, and tiny heads set with jewel-like black eyes, all fixed on her. But she only caught glimpses of the creatures, so quickly were they buzzing back and forth, aided by the translucent wings that spread from their shoulders and were almost invisible with how swiftly they were beating to keep the creatures aloft.
She only caught glimpses of them through the fire — the fire that had leapt up around her, distant enough from her at the center of the ring not to scorch her… but certainly close enough to envelop the first wave of wisps in flames. She felt grim satisfaction as she saw how many had been burned — sure enough, as Liam had said, their wings were flammable, and she saw at least a dozen crawling across the swampy ground away from the flame, chittering with rage and anger as they tried and failed to beat their ruined wings.
But there were more coming — wary of the flame, now, and clearly restructuring their attack. And was that malice in their beady little eyes? They were intelligent, weren't they… she was beginning to realize that from the way they worked together to attack her, to get around the flames. Intelligent, but not empathic, that much was clear from the way they dismissed the plight of their fallen friends without a second thought.
A handful swooped in toward her — but she was ready for this new wave. Bracing herself — and praying that this would work the way she'd imagined it would — she lifted her arm in a sudden motion, opening her fist to send the iron filings spraying out. It was nowhere near as explosive as the weapon she imagined would be, but it was something at least — a puff of iron that would give her an idea of how badly iron would damage these creatures. And damage them it did — she grinned in triumph as the creatures screamed and recoiled.
God, it really had damaged them badly. Her eyes widened as she watched the carnage of the iron spray. Her throw had caught a good dozen of the creatures — and even the ones who'd only been struck by a few tiny pieces were struggling, screeching and faltering in the air, their wings beating weakly as they plummeted toward the ground. She could see them reaching up, clawing at their bodies, trying to remove the iron that was burning into them… and from what she could tell, not only was it burning them, but it seemed to be sapping their strength and altering their powers. Though she' been trying not to look straight at the lights, she could feel the deceptive pull of the hypnotic suggestion, even as the creatures screamed and flew straight at her… but when she looked right at the glowing bellies of the iron-touched ones, she felt no pull at all.
It worked, she realized dizzily. It worked better than she could have imagined. And what was more, she could see, in the light of the flames, the way the iron was settling into the bog, the little pieces fluttering this way and that. Surely, with enough of this, they'd be able to make the bog completely uninhabitable for the creatures… and the problem itself would be solved.
Now all she had to do was get back to the castle with evidence of her plan's effectiveness. But that was where the whole thing began to come off the rails. For a start, she was utterly surrounded by wisps. There were at least a hundred in this clearing alone, hanging back a little now, a wary attitude in their little bodies… but they were getting braver. She grabbed two handfuls of iron, staring around at them… and when a couple of swarms lunged, she hurled the iron at them. They tried to dodge — most of them failed and plummeted to the ground, but a couple ducked through the spray by using their fellows as shields, and she screamed in alarm as they glanced past her, leaving a deep scratch in her arm.
It was as though the smell of the blood emboldened them. Suddenly, it was all she could do to fling iron as fast as she could at the creatures that were diving at her this way and that. She
could feel scratches appearing all over her body as they ducked past her, delivering quick blows before disappearing… but worse than that, she could feel stings appearing, too. Or more to the point — she couldn't feel the stings. Great areas of her body where she couldn't feel anything at all were developing — she realized with mounting terror that one of her arms was almost immobile. And the wisps, despite the mounting piles of dead ones, were showing no sign of stopping.
Was this it, she thought desperately as more and more waves of the creatures appeared? Was this how she was going to die?
Chapter 53
The numbing effect of the venom was spreading, and she was beginning to feel delirious. So when the distant light reached her eyes, she assumed it was a hallucination. That was funny, she thought dully, hurling a fistful of iron from her rapidly dwindling supply. The first night she'd been here, she'd thought she was hallucinating… strange, that a hallucination would be the last thing she saw here, too…
But then a familiar horse came charging into the clearing, whinnying in fear and disgust at the sight of the wisps, and Kay's eyes widened as she saw who was riding it, two long torches clutched in one hand and the reins gripped in the other.
"Liam," she managed to slur, realizing to her shock that the venom was beginning to affect her mouth as well. "The iron —"
But Liam wasn't looking at her. His attention was on the wisps, the great flocks of them that were now circling him. She watched as he fought with the torches, using the flame-tipped sticks like lances to hurt the creatures — with the last fragments of her strength, she gathered another fistful of rust and hurled it toward the thick swarm that were attempting to harm Liam. Satisfaction surged in her as most of them fell shrieking to the ground… but it was short-lived as she felt her legs give way, dropping her hard to the earth.
Distracted By The Highlander: A Scottish Time Travel Romance (Highlander Forever Book 4) Page 18