by Ann Gimpel
He wanted to say so much more. Ask if she understood an unquiet mind invited demonkind to enter. They lapped up chaos like mother’s milk. But Katerina was shaken enough. She didn’t need him nattering on about denizens of the underworld.
If she possessed magic, he was almost positive she was unaware of it.
“Part of the faculty?” She repeated his words, and he glommed onto a clear request for information.
“Aye, I’m assistant dean of the anthropology department, and I’ve followed your work for years.” He hesitated before continuing but was determined to set her at her ease as much as he could. “Your persistence and attention to details others ignore have always impressed the hell out of me.”
“Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
They drove in silence until he pulled into the King’s Arms’ circular drive. The rain-snow mix had worsened; not a fit night for anyone to be out and about. The doorman leapt forward and opened Kat’s door. After clutching her briefcase and shoulder bag under one arm, she got out.
Arlen exited the other side. “See she gets to her room,” he told the doorman. “She’s a wee bit under the weather.”
The doorman nodded. “Of course, Dr. MacGregor. We’ll take the best care possible of Dr. Roskelly.”
Arlen reached into an inner pocket, and then pretended to slip something into the doorman’s coat. The man was part of his order, and he’d needed an excuse to touch him. Along with the touch came instructions. He could have used telepathy, but evil hadn’t departed, and he didn’t want to risk any of Hell’s denizens intercepting his directions.
Katerina’s eyes narrowed with what looked like annoyance. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“Oh but I wanted to. Get a decent night’s sleep. I’ll be by around noon, and we’ll go on a city tour.”
The narrowed eyes turned chilly. “Thanks, but I’ll be fine on my own. You’ve done far too much for me as it is.”
He touched his wet hair, angling his head her way. “As the lassie chooses.”
Before she could rebuff his invitation a second time, he retreated to the Aston Martin and drove away. He shouldn’t have tapped his head, but old habits died a hard death. There’d been a time when he wore top hats and doffed them to ladies.
He blew out a tight breath and relaxed what had turned into a death grip on the steering wheel. He considered calling an emergency meeting of his order. Several heads were better than one, and tonight had been one of the most disturbing displays of dark power he’d witnessed in the past century.
Who was Katerina Roskelly?
How was it possible she was strong enough to draw evil across the veil?
Even if the horde flitting about her were only comprised of mischievous sprites—and they’d been far more wicked than that—why had they targeted her?
Since he’d kicked the door to Never-Never Land wide open, more questions pummeled him. Why couldn’t he sense what she was? He’d bet his last pound note she didn’t acknowledge the paranormal world, let alone court its presence.
She’d sounded truly frightened when he mentioned fell creatures.
He built a ward before raising his telepathic voice. Hopefully demonkind couldn’t drill through his shielding. Power shimmered around him, turning the air translucent. Druids of old had sounded the same alarm in times of need. His people would heed the call and come as soon as they could. Many within his order were even older than him, and he traced his origins to the middle of the sixteenth century.
He drove north, heading for South Ronaldsay Island in the Orkneys. A cave and a standing circle of stones would amplify his magic, and everyone else’s as well. By the time this night was done, he’d have answers. How he’d communicate them to Katerina remained to be seen. The way she’d looked at him after he offered to pick her up for lunch hadn’t been promising, but he didn’t care what she thought of him.
He winced at the lie. He did care—a whole lot. Something about her stirred him, but it might be as simple as old blood calling to its own. She had to possess something special, or the otherworld wouldn’t have found her attractive enough to bother with.
He pounded the steering wheel with a closed fist. He’d left Thomas, the hotel doorman, with specific instructions. The most important one was to not allow Katerina to leave before he showed up to collect her tomorrow. Thomas’s power should trump Katerina’s desire to head out on her own, but Arlen wasn’t certain of much of anything.
At least she’d have hot tea and a nice bath waiting for her in her room… He winced. Maybe it hadn’t been smart to rustle up either item. He hoped she’d chalk them up to exceptional service rather than anything unusual.
Telepathic responses to his summons filled his mind. Druids were rising to his call. Relief speared him, hot and sweet. The world had turned into an unfamiliar place earlier, but he and his companions would set things right.
They had to.
The simplest solution would be to send the woman back to the States as quickly as possible. He pulled into John O’ Groats and headed for the docks. The ferry would have stopped running for the night, but he’d find a likely boat and borrow it, covering his tracks with magic so no one would be the wiser. If things went as planned, the small craft would be back in its berth before dawn.
As he drove, he turned his solution about sending her back across the Atlantic posthaste over and over looking for cracks in it. Something about the Americas stifled power, so she might be safe back in her native California. The biggest flaw, of course, was she might not agree.
Aye, and she’ll only remain safe if she never ventures onto Scottish soil again.
He drew the car to a stop in one of the parking lots adjacent to the wharf. Katerina’s research was linked at the hip to Scotland. Chances of her staying put in the States were thin. She traveled to the Highlands most years to add to her research portfolio. What the hell was he going to tell her? To find another culture to delve into? It didn’t work that way. She’d fallen in love with the portion of the world she’d picked. It was what made her research so inspired. That type of infatuation didn’t come along twice in a lifetime.
“I’m getting a wee bit ahead of myself,” he murmured to the empty car. First, he’d meet with the others and describe everything. They’d call on the magic of the stones, weaving it with their own until clarity emerged.
Arlen exited the car, locking it. The docks were deserted, and it took less than five minutes to locate a motorboat. Keys weren’t important when you had magic, and he’d just fired the engine when two Druids pelted toward him. He couldn’t see them, but he felt their magic.
“Wait for us,” boomed in his head.
He set the engine to idle. Despite the grim circumstances, he welcomed the opportunity to see his kinfolks.
Chapter 3
Katerina muffled a groan and sat up in bed. The covers stuck to her sweat-slicked body. She’d slept—passed out was more like it—but rest had eluded her. Dark, wicked things had chased her most of the night. Once when she’d tried to shake herself awake to evade a winged horror with five-inch fangs, all she’d done was sink into a different nightmare. The dragon-thing didn’t follow her, but other bizarre hybrids popped up. Creatures straight out of gritty urban myths with scaly hides, multiple eyes, and rows of sharp teeth.
She buried her face in her hands and rubbed her tired eyes. She may have thought she’d escaped, but the mental illness she’d feared all her life had finally caught up with her. No other explanation for the past few hours. Hopefully, she’d be able to hold it together long enough to fly home and book herself into one of those cushy mental hospitals. The ones where they coddled you and shot you up with drug cocktails until the hallucinations retreated.
“Aw crap!” She made a dive for where she’d left her phone and stared at the display. Ten minutes to ten. Relief rattled through her. She had time to put herself to rights and run out the door before Arlen showed up.
Far simpler t
o not be here than to stumble through a series of lame explanations. The man might appear mild-mannered, but steel sat beneath his rugged good looks. When she’d waffled last night, he’d been out of his car in a trice, and she knew in her bones he wouldn’t have left until she acquiesced and went with him.
She lurched from the bed, glad she was steadier on her feet than she felt. The bathroom mirror behaved like mirrors were supposed to, and her haggard reflection stared back at her as she brushed her hair, washed her face, and brushed her teeth. A quick rifle through her suitcase yielded black stretchy pants, a silver top, and a black sweater. Last night’s stockings and boots were fine. She put them back on and made sure both wallet and passport were in her bag. She unfolded her rain jacket—the one she hadn’t had with her last night—and slung it over one arm.
Ready as she thought she’d ever be, she snatched her phone and perched on a chair while she hunted down a local cab company. She wanted a ride to Inverlochy Castle just north of Ft. William. It was about an hour’s drive, just the thing to calm her agitation.
If she was going to develop schizophrenia, she’d come to terms with whatever it meant. Surely there’d be drugs to obliterate the monsters that had pursued her all night.
After hiring transport, she debated where to wait out the quarter hour before it was due to arrive. She could remain in her room or grab a croissant and coffee from the small lounge downstairs.
Opting for the latter, she walked out of her room and selected the nearest stairwell. Her lodging was on the sixth floor, and she welcomed physical exercise. Watching where each step was—so she wouldn’t sprawl on her ass—replaced needless worrying, a welcome exchange.
By the time she pushed through the door at lobby level, she was feeling almost human. She’d just ordered black coffee and a cinnamon bun when the doorman from last night rushed into the small dining room. Why the hell was he still working? Scotland was a civilized place; it must have labor laws.
He made a beeline for where she stood and offered a smile. “Good morning to ye, Dr. Roskelly. Did ye sleep well?” His brogue was thicker than it had been last night, at least she thought it was.
“Quite well, thank you,” she lied. No reason to go into any of the grisly details with this stranger. She turned aside, expecting him to leave, but he kept talking.
“I’ll wager ye’re quite looking forward to your tour of Inverness this afternoon with Dr. MacGregor. His family has been in this region for many hundreds of years, and—”
Kat had quite enough. She turned to face the doorman—Thomas according to his badge—and said, “Your concern is appreciated, but how I choose to spend my day is none of your affair. Nor is it Dr. MacGregor’s. I’ve made my own plans for today.”
“That’ll be five pounds, six, miss,” the clerk said from behind her.
Kat turned back and counted out money before collecting the paper cup with her coffee and the paper sack with her pastry. Once she had everything, she nodded at the doorman and swept past him, intent on walking out the front door. It wasn’t raining, and she’d wait for her taxi outside.
For a moment, she thought he’d given up, but footsteps tracked after her. “Dr. MacGregor will be most disappointed.”
Something inside her snapped. This time when she spun to face him, they were both outside. She bared her teeth in a snarl and spat, “Ask me if I give a damn. Now, go away and leave me be.”
Shock bloomed on his face as if she’d slapped him. In a metaphorical sense, she had. Remorse pricked, but she refused to back down. Whatever was going on with MacGregor and this dude, who was apparently his lackey, needed to be nipped in the bud.
A black vehicle bearing taxi logos pulled into the circular drive. She bit down on her lower lip. She’d behaved abysmally. Was this going to be part of her new mental illness too? An inability to be part of polite company?
“Look. I’m sorry. Truly I am, but I have to go.”
The driver was outside the cab and holding a door open for her. Kat dove through it feeling perfectly miserable as she grabbed the door’s handle and pulled it closed, spilling coffee on the floor mat. The other door slammed, and the driver murmured, “Inverlochy Castle, is it?”
She nodded, realized he couldn’t see her, and said, “Yes.”
The cab rolled down the cobblestoned drive. Kat blinked back tears. She had to get a grip on this problem and damned fast before it got even more out of hand. She barely recognized the stranger who’d snarled at the doorman. In truth, she hoped that aspect of herself never showed up again.
To settle her nerves, she pulled an electronic tablet out of her bag and jotted notes to structure the remainder of today. In between ideas, she drank what was left of her coffee and finished the cinnamon confection. Taking notes had a stabilizing effect. It was how she did fieldwork, delineating things she would accomplish no matter what. Once those was lined up, she designated lesser goals that might or might not come to pass.
The hour passed quickly, and she tipped the driver generously for taking her such a long way beyond his normal routes.
“Would miss like me to remain?”
She thought about it. “Thanks, but no. I’ll hit up one of the cab companies here in Ft. William once I’m done. I could be here an hour or the rest of the day.”
The man tipped his cabbie hat and drove off down the road. The gesture reminded her of Arlen touching his head last night, as if he didn’t realize he wasn’t wearing a hat.
She shook her head. Why was she thinking about Arlen? She’d probably never see him again.
Yeah, particularly after Thomas tells him how perfectly horrid I was.
Kat told herself none of it mattered. Not Arlen. Not Thomas. She’d leave a cushy tip for the doorman before checking out. Entranced as always by ruins, she gazed at what was left of Inverlochy Castle. It sat on the south banks of the River Lochy and provided a key protection point for the Scottish Highlands. Constructed between 1270 and 1280 by John Comyn, Lord of Badenoch and Lochaber and chief of Clan Cormyn, it had been built on the site of an earlier Pictish fortification.
When Robert the Bruce succeeded to the Scottish throne in 1306, the Cormyns were dispossessed, and the castle sat empty for almost two hundred years. She’d begun walking through the ruins as their history rambled through her mind.
She’d always loved this place. When she closed her eyes, she could almost see and touch and smell the many battles that had unfolded on this patch of ground. Countless places in Scotland were said to be haunted, including this one, but that designation was the purview of an earlier people who were quite superstitious.
Kat prided herself on not having a superstitious bone in her body.
Today’s goal was the graveyard situated behind the ruins. She wanted to continue cataloging what she could find of tombstones. A few crypts remained. One in particular, belonging to Clan Cameron, interested her. She’d floated an abstract of a paper she wanted to write for Cultural Anthropology and had been given the green light.
At least it wasn’t raining, and if she was any judge, it wouldn’t for at least a while. The skies were gray, but the cloud cover didn’t hold the blackish tinge that meant a storm was imminent. Deciding to begin with the Cameron crypt since it was her primary objective, she hustled through the graveyard and drew to a stop in front of the stone structure. Letters and carvings had once embellished its walls, but time and weather had pitted the mortared blocks. After a thorough transit, where she took photos of the crumbling walls, she drew a penlight from a pocket. Shining it on a ragged set of stone steps, she made her way down them.
A chill, sere sensation crept over her, but she told herself she was being foolish. She’d spent hours in crypts over her academic career. No haunts had ever made their presence known—because such things didn’t exist. Transferring the penlight to beneath one arm, she drew out her tablet and started making notes describing the graves and urns and coffins laid out in neat rows.
As crypts went, this was o
ne of the larger ones. The creepy, crawling sensation didn’t abate, but she kept right on with her notations. If this would be her life from now on, she’d be damned if she’d allow it to get in the way of her research.
More crumbling stairs sat at the far end of the crypt, buried in shadows that had a slick, greasy feel.
“Stop it.” She spoke out loud. “I’m imagining this. Air can’t be oily.”
Resolute, she marched to the stairs and made her way down them to a subterranean space she’d totally missed on her other trips to Inverlochy. The excitement of, maybe, a brand-new discovery, ran hot and fast. Dreams of unearthing something to add to the collective understanding of the clans was a potent motivator.
It drove her forward despite the feeling of something desperately wrong screaming a tattoo in her brain. A whole slew of Camerons—probably from an even earlier time—had found their final resting place down here. Rather than coffins, moldering skeletons lay atop marble slabs. She jotted down names and dates. Donning gloves, she picked up and examined items that lay atop some of the bones, taking pictures as she went. Mostly archaic weaponry—likely worth a small fortune—the objects also encompassed jewelry.
How on earth had these items survived? Someone should have stolen the heavy golden chains adorned with uncut gemstones, yet here they were, undisturbed.
Time passed. Maybe as much as an hour, or even two or three, before she backtracked out of the hole.
Kat fished her phone from a pocket to check the time, but the screen was blank. What the hell? She wasn’t that far underground now. She looked in the corner of her tablet, but it didn’t show the time, either.
Or Verizon, her carrier.
She shrugged. Maybe a cell tower had gone down. It happened. Yesterday’s weather had been beastly enough to interrupt service. A quick review of what she’d written in her tablet convinced her she had enough material at least for now, and she walked through the main level of the crypt.