by Ann Gimpel
“Because I have a nasty habit of resenting being manipulated.” Kat crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “I demand you return me to my own time. Immediately.”
“Oh, ye demand it, do ye?” Gales of laughter rolled from Rhea and the other shade.
“Who the fuck are you?” Kat demanded and walked close enough to thump the other woman in the chest with an index finger. It almost penetrated, but not quite.
“That’s no way to speak to your great-aunt,” the witch sputtered.
“Aye. Show some respect,” Rhea chimed in.
“Why?” Kat countered. “You haven’t respected me at all.” She stalked as close to Rhea as she could get, noticing her great-great grandmother’s ghost hovered an inch or two above the ground.
Before Rhea could respond, she continued. “Hear me loud and clear. I have zero interest in being conscripted into witch-hood. None. I will fight you at every turn. I’d rather be dead than be like you.”
A shocked look blossomed on Rhea’s face. “Ye doona mean that, great-great-granddaughter.”
“Yeah, I do. You would have turned me to your will when I was too young to understand—or protest. Mom and Grannie viewed you as such a big threat, they committed you. I have no idea how they pulled the strings to accomplish it. For all I know, they used magic to bamboozle a judge. They loved me. You only love wielding black magic.”
Kat’s chest tightened. She was chopping through ties she’d clung to since childhood, but she had to be ruthless or Rhea would sense a chink in her resolve and exploit it.
“Ye dinna tell me how much she hates you,” her aunt said to Rhea, sounding surprised.
“She never used to hate me.” Rhea’s tone held censure, and she turned an injured expression Kat’s way. “We can move past this, great-great granddaughter. Ye’ve misinterpreted things.”
Warm, syrupy magic flowed over Kat. Everything would be all right. Rhea loved her after all. Her mother and grannie had things wrong. They’d given her a bum steer, but all was forgiven—
“Stop it,” she snarled.
“Stop what, dear?” Rhea asked.
“You’re using magic to manipulate me. It won’t work.”
“How can it not work, child?” her great-aunt asked. “Ye’re a Roskelly, same as the rest of us. We need living blood to ensure our line doesna die out. Ye’re young, healthy. Ye could produce bairns—”
“I think not,” Kat interrupted, not caring she was being rude. “If you believe I’m going to serve as a broodmare so your brand of evil is perpetuated, you’re delusional.” She stood tall. “This conversation is over.”
Kat tried to turn away but couldn’t move. Her limbs were locked in place.
“I think not.” Rhea threw Kat’s words back in her face. “Our conversation has barely begun. Ye will heed my words and comply.”
“She’s this way,” a man’s voice rang out, speaking Latin.
Kat tried to look in the direction the voice was coming from, but her paralysis was absolute. Fuck! Could things get any worse? The men from earlier had tracked her. No doubt they’d brokered some cushy deal with her as an inducement.
Rhea and Great-Aunt No Name turned as a unit, chanting in a language Kat had never heard before. Heavy on consonants, it sounded like a perversion of German.
The three men came into view, running full out. Behind them was a fourth wearing black vestments, complete with a heavy gold cross suspended from a silver chain. The cross was set with three red gemstones that glowed as if lit from within.
“Oooh, fun,” Rhea crooned.
“Four holy men.” Aunt No Name rubbed her hands together and raised them. Black-tinged power flashed from her outstretched fingers.
Rhea blasted the men from where she stood next to Auntie. The ones from the cabin clutched their chests and fell to the wet ground, writhing in agony. The priest stepped back a pace, hands clutched around the crucifix, chanting in Latin. Power jetted from him. Glistening white threads ran up against witch enchantment creating miniature explosions where the two collided.
The beat of horse hooves moved toward them. Lots of horses, which probably meant reinforcements for the priest. Or it might mean the local laird was sending reinforcements. Either way, it wasn’t good.
Kat picked up an experimental foot, surprised she could move. Apparently, magic only went so far, and the stuff that had bound her had been redirected. She’d be goddamned if she’d wait around for her kinswomen to snare her again. To prevent it happening, she took off at a dead run, bag thumping against her side.
Rhea and Aunt No Name could find her. They’d track her through blood ties, but she wouldn’t make it easy for them. She uttered a prayer for the priest and whoever was on their way to help him. Maybe he’d keep the witches busy long enough for her to get away.
As she ran, slogging through puddles and slick, slippery mud, she opened herself, heart, mind, and soul, to Arlen. She was done being strong. If he heard her and came for her, she’d be in his debt forever.
If he didn’t show up, she’d keep on doing her damnedest to untangle the mess she’d made. Escaping from the eighteenth century hurtled to the tiptop of her list. She didn’t belong here. Any fantasies she’d spun about doing research in prima facie territory went up in smoke.
A bitter laugh rolled through her mind at all the podiums she’d stood on, extolling her knowledge of the 1700s. She might have been privy to a few facts, but she hadn’t had any idea what things were really like, and she still didn’t.
Kat ran faster, altering course to intercept the town wall looming to her right. Humility wasn’t a bad thing. She snorted and hoped to hell her slice of humble pie hadn’t been carved too small and arrived too late.
Chapter 10
Arlen called a mage light and examined the place they’d landed. It was their old cave, but the entrance end had fallen in.
“Win some, lose some,” Sean said, sounding far too cheerful.
“I can fix this.” Morgan ran lightly to the rockfall. Power jumped from her fingertips, and a path opened for them, amid noisy scraping as stones moved aside. She dusted her hands together and sprinted across the rubble.
Arlen almost fell over her where she’d stopped at what used to be a well-hidden entry point. “Hush.” She angled a look at both men.
Arlen sent a thread of seeking magic snaking outward. What reached him was so unbelievable, he repeated his actions. With the same result.
“Hunters?” Sean barely breathed the word into Arlen’s mind.
Morgan hissed in frustration.
“’Tisn’t possible. They all died out in the Middle Ages.” Arlen kept his voice very low.
“Not all of them,” Morgan whispered back. “I sense at least six, maybe a few more than that.”
“Probably safer not to use telepathy,” Sean mumbled sourly.
Arlen agreed. Hunters had magic, often not much, but magic sang to its own. The Church dressed them as clerics and commissioned them to seek out every other entity with power and wipe them out. Although they were an equal opportunity destroyer, they’d focused most of their efforts on witches. Somewhere in the 1400s, a wizard had crafted gemstones that glowed in the presence of witch power. Made it far easier to locate and annihilate them.
“Goddammit!” He clapped a hand over his mouth and lowered his voice. “Do you suppose they’re after Kat?”
“Her or her witchy kin.” Sean nodded grimly.
A shriek, raw, untamed, not titrated at all, roared through Arlen’s mind. Kat was screaming for him.
Screaming loud enough for every Hunter in a million-kilometer radius to pick up on her sending.
“Oberon’s balls, man.” Sean gripped Arlen’s arm. “Can you shut her up?”
“I can try.”
Arlen focused his mind voice, narrowing it to a funnel meant just for Kat. “Hush, darling. I’m close, but you must be silent. Fell things are afoot, and for once ’tisn’t your relatives.”
He waited thr
ough the space between three breaths, but she must have heard him because the frantic sending that held his name wasn’t repeated. Either she’d heard him, or the Hunters had nabbed her.
The thought sent ice chips scudding through his blood. Hunters kept themselves going by cutting power out of those who had it and feeding themselves. The process was bloody and excruciating since the victims were still alive while Hunters drained them. Kat’s magic would appear very attractive since Rhea and the other witch were already dead.
Arlen ground his teeth. He was assuming the dead Roskelly duo had shown up here, but it was almost a given. The witches had gone to a lot of trouble to move Kat to this locale. And they’d left Arlen’s in one hell of a hurry.
“Katerina is this way.” Arlen set off at a magic-fueled lope flanked by Sean and Morgan. What would they find? Maybe he’d been shortsighted not bringing more of them, but then he realized plenty of Druids were already here. All he needed to do was put out the call.
It would mean he’d run up against his two-hundred-years-ago self, but that wasn’t a problem. They could coexist for a short time before the warp and weft of time ejected him. “Do we need help?” he asked.
“Let’s wait and see what we face,” Sean replied.
“Aye, mayhap we’ll catch a break.” Morgan’s beauty had turned harsh and foreboding. She braided her silvery hair out of the way as she ran.
Arlen held a sense of Kat’s energy. He’d glommed onto it when her frantic cries reached him. They were almost to Inverness’s town walls when he skidded into a declination beneath two enormous stones. Once standing monoliths, they’d fallen against one another, forming a rough vee.
Kat huddled beneath them, her face white and strained.
Arlen wanted to gather her into his arms and never let go. Instead, he nodded curtly. “Come on, lass. We have to leave.”
She crept from her hiding place, her usual confident demeanor absent. “I’m sorry.”
“Be sorry later,” Sean muttered.
Arlen heard horses bearing down on them. He pulled power as hard and as fast as he could. Didn’t matter who was coming, it couldn’t be good.
Kat’s head snapped in that direction. “Damn it. They have to be the same ones. They’re the only horses I’ve heard since I got here. Must mean they’re done with Rhea and Auntie.”
“Who’s they?” Sean asked.
“There was a priest. Before I ran from him, I heard horses and figured reinforcements were on their way.”
“Awk. You’ve seen Hunters.” Morgan grasped Kat’s arm.
“Huh? I saw a priest is all.”
“Aye, but was his cross set with glowing gems?”
Kat nodded. “Yeah, but how could you possibly know that?”
“No time for explanations,” Morgan said. “I have to help Arlen, or none of us will escape.”
Arlen felt Sean and Morgan open channels to their magic. He drew on it shamelessly and visualized his manor house. The spell bubbled and boiled around the four of them but didn’t take off. Inverness’s walls refused to vanish. Worse, a phalanx of priests in black cassocks galloped toward them. Every single one clutched a cross with gems embedded in the gold.
Rubies, sapphires, and emeralds glowed hotly with an unnatural light.
“Redirect!” Sean yelled.
“Aye. We must fight,” Morgan bellowed.
Arlen threw his mind voice wide open, summoning Druids to their aid. The earth heard his plea. A rolling quake started in front of the first horseman, unseating him. The other horses peeled off to one side or another, so at least the mini-earthquake was a deterrent.
It bought them a few moments, not much more than that.
Arlen extended his arm and directed lethal magic at the fallen man. A lightning bolt caught the priest’s robes, and the man turned into a smoking pyre, squealing in agony as enchanted flames ate him alive. Killing was scarcely second nature for Druids, but Arlen had done plenty in his time.
Hunters deserved death, and he waited for another of the bastards to come close enough to target.
Kat watched him, wide-eyed. Her rain-wet hair clung to her face in sodden clumps. She hadn’t said a word, but she didn’t have to. Disgust and revulsion rolled off her. He felt like shaking her and screeching, “Ye doona like this? Ye should have remained in your room, not gone wandering about in the dead of night when magic is most powerful.”
The horses were circling, their riders intent on catching Arlen’s small group from behind, but Arlen was ready for them. So were Sean and Morgan. They’d killed two more of the black-robed horrors when a glowing portal formed fifty yards away. Druids poured through the opening with a cloud of glistening light surrounding them. Emotion buffeted Arlen. Gratitude toward his people. Worry they’d outed themselves sufficiently, they’d become even bigger targets than they already were.
“Thank you,” he shouted.
“Doona mention it. We always did love a good scrap.”
The early version of him shoved a fist skyward and launched himself at a rider, unseating him and pinning him to the ground. A quick grab freed the priest’s lance, and Arlen’s double jammed it through the holy man’s throat. Blood geysered, and he pushed off his prey. As he balanced on the balls of his feet, gaze sharp and ready, Arlen knew exactly what his earlier self was thinking.
Bring it on.
He’d been there. Killing evil was a high like no other, and he missed the challenge and the rush.
The four riders who remained, charged as a unit. They knew they were dead men, but they were fighting for the glory of God. Death was a small price to pay for an eternal seat in a mythical kingdom that didn’t exist.
Arlen laughed. Grim, harsh, bitter. Men were such fools. Manipulated by dreams of glory and the hype of a life after this one that would be better. He joined his earlier self, and together they killed another priest. The field stank of blood and spilled entrails. Crows were gathering. Delighted by the unexpected feast, they whirled in flocks cawing encouragement from overhead.
The two priests who remained must have suddenly decided the price was too high, or the odds too low. Wheeling, they galloped toward Moray Firth, no doubt headed back to report the disaster to the Church of Scotland.
The Druids hadn’t bothered to close their portal, and they eddied toward it, a magical tide flowing away, except for four who used power to draw a few of the riderless horses back toward where they stood. The livestock were unexpected bounty, and the Druids wouldn’t bypass an opportunity to filch them.
Arlen was proud of his people. He’d run a tight ship back in the day. The twenty-first century had made him sloppy, but he aimed to correct his shortcomings at the earliest opportunity.
1700s Arlen vaulted atop a bay stallion and placed a closed fist over his heart. The other three Druids, also on horseback, rode toward him. Two more loose horses trotted along.
Arlen returned the closed fist gesture. Jagged vibrations pierced him as the future beckoned. He’d overstayed his welcome. So had Sean and Morgan. Only one of them was allowed at a time.
“Time to go.” He whistled as loud as he could.
Kat huddled next to him, still looking shell-shocked. Morgan and Sean ran to his side. Redirecting the power eddying about them, they wove it into his time transit casting.
The air warmed with magic, pricking his skin and filling his nostrils with the clean, fresh scent of Druid power. Unlike witches, their magic carried the smells of earth and greenery, of stones washed by rushing rivers. The town walls vanished, replaced by blackness.
An arm wove around him. Kat. She was shaking, and he held onto her, determined to see her back safely. No matter how tough she thought she was, she’d come from a battle. Nothing ever prepared you for seeing a man die in front of you for the first time.
Or the second.
Or the third.
His great room shimmered into being, and they rolled out onto its thick rugs. Will and Krista sat next to the witch. Her nostrils
twitched, and she opened eyes the shade of aged whiskey.
“You,” she hissed. “Naught but trouble.”
Kat didn’t bother to reply. She swayed on her feet, and Arlen led her to a chair and pushed her into it. “Hang on,” he said and made a quick trip to the wet bar, returning with a tumblerful of whiskey.
She grasped it with both hands and took enough of a swallow to make her gasp as the fiery liquid ran down her throat. Setting the glass down with a clank, she said, “Before I lose my resolve.” She swallowed more liquor. “You said you’d teach me about my magic. I have to do that. No fucking way am I going to get shanghaied into the past every time Rhea gets a wild hair up her ass.”
“Speaking of her, where is your kinswoman?” Morgan selected a bottle of mead. Not bothering with a glass, she upended it, drinking deeply.
“I don’t know. I ran when the first priest showed up, except he wasn’t on a horse. Same cross though. With the eerie gems that look like eyes.”
“My sisters are back in their crypts,” the red-haired witch said dully, followed by, “Ye promised to release me.”
“So I did.” Arlen sent magic skittering across the great room, and the staves holding her snapped into pieces.
The witch jumped to her feet, chanting crazily. Moments later, she’d vanished.
“You could have at least thanked me,” Arlen called after her.
“Eh, her kind doesn’t know the meaning of thanks,” Will retorted and made a face.
“Wonder which Roskelly she was,” Kat mumbled and drank more whiskey.
“Does it matter?” Morgan asked.
Kat rolled her eyes. “No. Don’t mind me. I’m not exactly all here. Except I am here and not there, which makes all the difference in the world. And I’m not making any sense at all.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Thank all of you so much. I’m indebted to you forever. I was stupid, filled with hubris, sure I knew better than any of you what was right. Jesus, how could I have been such a dolt?”
She set the glass down, dropped her head into her hands, and sobbed.