Angus regarded her with his head on one side. “I ne’er thought o’ that, but ye’re richt, o’ course. No one ever heard o’ the Phoenix Throne. It mun’ dwell in this country, and we entered this country to find this castle.”
“Maybe you had to fight your way in,” Carmen suggested. “Maybe that’s why Gahkra had to throw all those wraiths at you. Maybe that’s what stops ordinary people crossing the boundary.”
“Then how did ye get in?” Callum asked. “Ye’re an ordinary person, an’ ye dinnae e’en belang to Scotland.” Angus glared at him, and Callum pulled his head down between his shoulders. “Weel, she dinnae. E’en ye said so yerself, Angus.”
“He’s right,” Carmen replied. “The spell must have sent me here, and not to Scotland at all.”
“If that’s true,” Angus returned, “then it wasnea ordinary magic that braing ye here. If ye cross back tae the other side, ye’ll ne’er cross o’er again.”
Carmen nodded. “That’s right. Someone would have to use some extraordinary kind of magic to overcome that. From what I can make out, Hazel only managed to send me here by mistake. She could probably never repeat it if she tried.”
The table lapsed into silence until Angus got to his feet. “Weel, come on, all o’ ye. Let’s go find this bell tower and see what’s what.”
They left their dirty breakfast dishes on the table for the ghosts to clean up. They went all the way back to the grand entrance where the curving bannisters led up to the upper landing.
“What’ll we do today, Angus?” Callum asked.
“We’ll just ha’e to keep searching fer the bell tower. That’s our ainly clue.”
“That will take ages,” Carmen countered.
“Weel, what do ye suggest? We cinnae go searching door tae door in this place.”
“Maybe we don’t have to search door to door, but we can get closer to our target without looking for the bell tower. Gahkra is on the upper levels. We know that. Maybe we can find her by searching only the doors up there.”
“Ye’ll provoke her into attacking us,” Fergus pointed out.
“Maybe,” Carmen replied, “but if she attacks us and we defeat her, maybe we can get her to tell us what we want to know. Either way, we’ll have to engage with her to get to the witch. What difference does it make if we provoke her or she attacks us first, as long as we wind up fighting her?”
The others exchanged glances. “Ye want tae provoke Gahkra intae attacking us?” Angus asked.
“Why not?” Carmen asked. “We’ve got nothing better to do.”
Fergus threw up his hands. “Aw, this is pure daft!”
“It’s just daft enough tae work,” Angus interjected. “Come on. We might as well do it.”
He set off up the stairs. The moment he made up his mind, Carmen’s resolve flagged. Why did she have to go and suggest that? She didn’t want to face Gahkra any more than Fergus did, and she sure as blazes didn’t want to go to the upper levels and start throwing open doors willy-nilly until she found the hag waiting with some other fearsome magical weapon.
Once she suggested it, though, she couldn’t take it back. She had to follow Angus, and she was the only member of the party without a weapon. Still, that never stopped her before, and Ross gave her to understand she could break the curse without one.
Angus paused on the upper landing long enough for Carmen to show him the stairs she took to find Gahkra in the first place. “We’ll tak’ a different one,” he told her. “She’ll no be whippin’ up wraiths today, I’ll wager.”
Chapter 19
Carmen watched Angus set off with a jaunty step. The closer he got to the final confrontation, the happier he seemed. He’d made his peace with whatever happened.
He found another curving, gold-leafed staircase swooping upward to yet another glorious landing overlooking a wide hall. At the top, four wings spread off in different directions. Dozens of closed doors stood silent and mysterious along all four passages.
Angus threw open the first and looked in on a bedroom done up in fancy tapestries, carved furniture, and a cheerful fire burning in the fireplace. A hot meal waited on the table, just as if the ghosts expected some guest to arrive.
Angus pulled the door closed and went to the next. It opened on a sheer cliff face dropping out of sight. Bold, perilous mountain peaks stood all around, and an icy wind slashed the onlookers’ faces. Angus shut the door against the wind. “The whole castle’ll be lik’ this, I reckon. Each door opens into some other world. Ye ken travel there by stepping through.”
He flung open the next door. In front of all their eyes, a steam locomotive screamed down its tracks on a collision course with the door. The headlamp glared in their faces, and the whistle shrieked to raise the dead. Angus slammed the door just in time. Fergus and Jamie trembled in their boots. “What was that?”
Angus shook himself. “I dinnae ken. Come on.”
He moved on to the next door. He put out his hand for the latch when Callum broke away from the group. “We may as weel speed things up a bit.”
He crossed the passage to a different door opposite. Without really looking, he threw it open. At the same moment, a whizzing, spinning, burning ball of fire rocketed through the door and struck him in the head. It flattened him across the floor.
The others whirled around to face the threat when another four fire balls hurtled through the door going a mile a minute. One of them whistled past Carmen’s ear. She ducked sideways just in time when another came at her knees. She jumped over it and bolted. Her police training told her to take shelter behind the door jamb, and she plastered her back against the wall.
The brothers didn’t move so fast. One of the fire balls struck Fergus in the stomach. He doubled over, and the air grunted out of his lungs. Angus laid hold of Fergus’s sleeve and dragged him toward Carmen. He flung his younger brother behind the door jamb as another projectile zinged across the threshold.
This one hit Angus in the shoulder. It singed his shirt and knocked him reeling. Carmen lunged forward. “Angus!”
Fergus held her back. Another missile whooshed into view coming straight at Angus’s head. He whipped out his saber and smashed it to pieces with one upper cut. It splintered into a shower of flames that bounced on the stone floor.
Callum, Ewan, and Jamie all fought the things catapulting through that door. Angus charged forward. He put out his hand to yank the door closed when he froze in his tracks. His startled face hovered inches away from Carmen. “What is it?”
At that moment, he ducked, and another fire ball soared over his head to hit Jamie in his injured shoulder. He spun like a top and went down on one knee. Angus stumbled back out of the doorway. Dozens of fireballs puffed through the opening behind him. They struck the brothers here and there when they couldn’t fight them fast enough with their swords.
Carmen gathered her courage to make another dive to shut that door when a stooped figure emerged from the room. It was Gahkra. A filthy grey horsehair gown hung around her feet, and her stringy hair brushed her shoulders while her arms whipped around her on all sides.
The fire balls materialized in her hands, and she hurled them as fast as she could form them. She never took the time to aim. She sent them pounding down the passage at anything that moved.
Fergus launched himself off the wall at the same time Carmen did, but Carmen reached the hag first. She didn’t have a weapon, but she didn’t need one. She dropped into a crouch and swept one foot across Gahkra’s ankles to knock the hag flying.
Gahkra hit the floor sideways. She shrieked in pain and fury, but instead of firing her burning projectiles, she simply lay where she landed and aimed her two hands at anyone upon whom her eye fell. A solid beam of burning flame shot out of either hand. She whipped these snakes of doom across the passage at the party struggling to stay alive.
Carmen started to get to her feet when one of those whipping jets slashed across her face. She dropped to the floor to escape it, and it hit the wall above her he
ad. It dislodged one of the heavy tapestries, which tumbled down on top of Fergus.
Across the hall, the brothers all fought to their utmost against Gahkra’s magical powers. Ewan slashed the fiery jet with his saber. It fell to the ground at his feet and writhed like a snake in its death throes, but Gahkra only closed and opened her hand once to form a new jet.
Carmen saw her only chance. She pounced on the hag and grabbed the old woman’s wrists. She wrestled her arms to the floor and pinned the hag’s legs under her ankles.
Carmen searched the area. “Quick, Angus! Find something to tie her up.”
He unwound the plaid from his shoulder and helped Carmen flip the hag over on her side. He bound her hand and foot until she lay helpless and spitting on the floor.
Angus stood back and stared down at his fallen enemy. “Now what do we do wi’ her?”
“Leave her to me. I’ll handle this.” Carmen squatted down next to Gahkra. “You’ve caused us all a lot of trouble. You understand that, don’t you? These men will kill you if you don’t help us defeat the witch.”
“Let me go!” the hag screeched. “You have no right! Let me go before I destroy you.”
Carmen nodded toward Angus. “You know this man. He’s the King. He belongs to the Phoenix Throne, and you know it or you wouldn’t have taken him to visit the Queen. You helped him once. Do it again for the sake of the whole realm.”
“Him—the King! Never! He will never sit on the Phoenix Throne. The Forces won’t allow it.”
“Tell us how to break the curse. Tell us where to find the witch so we can free the realm.”
Gahkra spat through her teeth. “Never!”
“You know where the witch is, don’t you? Is she in the bell tower like the Fire Trilogy says?”
The hag craned her neck around and fixed her glittering eyes on Carmen. “You are the witch! You are! You’ll never find her in the bell tower! You cast the curse on him—no one else.”
Carmen’s jaw hit the floor, and her blood ran cold. Why would Gahkra lie about this? She couldn’t be the witch—her! She would never curse Angus or his family. She would never hold this castle and all its people prisoner—and for what? For some ancient law no one understood?
Nothing made sense, but Carmen couldn’t ignore the expression on Gahkra’s face. The hag really believed what she just said. Carmen was the witch.
She glanced around to find all five men staring at her with their mouths open. No one could believe it, and yet no one doubted Gahkra’s word.
How could this be right? How could Carmen put a curse on these men without meaning to?
Carmen shuddered and turned her attention back to the hag. “If I’m the witch, how did I get here? How did I cross the boundary between the two worlds to come here to help him get his Throne back?”
“You cast the curse that caused this,” snarled the hag. “You killed all those men, and you dragged that boy to his death under the fire demons’ lair. You did this, and no one else. You want to help him? Kill yourself. You want to break the curse? Throw yourself into the well and be damned for all I care! You’ll never free the castle. You’ll never help him. You’ll drive him to death along with the others.”
She finished by letting out the most spine-chilling laugh. It rattled the castle to its foundation. That laugh got louder and louder until the sound itself lifted Gahkra off the floor. She elevated above Carmen’s head and started spinning around, faster and faster.
Burning flame shot out of her skin and hair in all directions. It burned through the plaid holding her arms behind her back.
The instant she got free, Gahkra stopped spinning and landed on her feet on the floor between Angus and Carmen. Both her knobby arms flew out, and a powerful concussion boomed out of her to bowl the pair off their feet.
Callum rushed forward at the same moment. Angus hit him falling the other way. By the time they recovered, Gahkra dashed down the passage. She stopped a few doors down and turned to face the startled party.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Gahkra swirled her hands over and over each other in the air above her head. She spun her fingers in a silent pantomime of conjuring something out of thin air.
The next thing Carmen knew, Gahkra bent down and bowled something along the floor toward them. It unwound itself into four spinning blades curved outward from a central rotating ball. It scooted over the carpet like a misguided vacuum cleaner. It spun its blades at any pair of legs in its path.
Carmen hopped over the thing. It paid no attention to her and set off for Angus. He saw Carmen jump over it, but he didn’t try. He chopped one blade with his saber. The thing motored away toward Fergus, who danced sideways to miss the deadly spinning machine.
All this time, Gahkra kept creating more of the things out of nothing. She rolled them along the floor, one after the other, until dozens of them buzzed all over the place. Carmen couldn’t jump them all, and she couldn’t fight them with her bare hands, either.
A scream caught her ear. She looked toward the sound to see one of the blades slash Jamie across the ankle. He started in time to hit the thing away, but another five spinning balls came at the group from Gahkra’s end of the hall.
Carmen thought fast. She had to find a way to stop this old woman killing them all then and there. She would keep coming up with crazy spells one after the other until she cut them all down.
Carmen didn’t have time to think twice. She rushed at Gahkra. The hag saw her coming and conjured another fireball out of the air. She pitched it at Carmen’s head, but Carmen ducked and dodged around the hag to dart down the passage going the other way.
Carmen raced around the corner out of sight. She heard Angus bellow far behind her, “Carmen!”
She never stopped running. If Gahkra was right that she had anything to do with this curse, she had to overturn it right now. She had to find some way to save Angus and the realm from herself.
She ran past the landing. She knew where she had to go. She only hoped and prayed she didn’t get mixed up in this labyrinthian castle. She dashed down another hall and counted off the doors on either side.
She stopped to catch her breath outside the door. Please God, let this be the right door. Please God, if this works, I’ll never for anything else. She never prayed in her life until that moment, but she really meant those words. She needed all the help she could get right now.
She took a deep breath and flung the door wide. In an instant, the enormous monster that frightened her last time lunged for the door. It smashed into the wall and roared at her through the tiny opening.
This time, she didn’t shut the door and hurry away. She stood there in plain view while the monster thundered in her face. It smashed its forehead into the wall again and again in its rage to get free.
Carmen squinted and blinked before the ear-splitting noise, but she dared not retreat. She didn’t have much time, and this was her only chance to save Angus and the others. The monster crashed into the wall again, and again. Whenever it gave any sign of giving up, she took a step forward to catch its eye.
It hurled itself one more time into the wall, and cracks jutted up the mortar between the great stones holding the castle together. After that first crack appeared, every blow the monster delivered widened it. Powdered mortar sprinkled down to the floor. Carmen took a step back. Not long now.
The monster gave one last charge, and four massive boulders shook loose above the door. Once they dislodged and bounced into the passage, the rest of the wall gave way in no time. Carmen hesitated only long enough to make sure the monster got free. She backed away.
The monster lurched one more time, and the whole wall caved in. The monster lunged into the passage. Carmen set off running. She cast one look over her shoulder to make sure it followed her.
That was the last time she looked back. A massive reptilian body flowed through the passage behind the huge grotesque head. It resembled no creature Carmen ever saw. Ten sets of giant paddle feet slapped the floo
r to carry along a long serpentine body.
The head reminded her of a human head, only hideously ugly and about a thousand times the size. It rolled its goggle eyes and let out the most disgusting noises to shake the roof beams. Carmen put on speed. She had to stay ahead of the thing, and she had to be ready when she turned that corner.
The beast’s flapping feet shook the landing on her way past the stairs. She ran around the corner to see Angus and his brothers and Ewan in a desperate fight against Gahkra. Dozens of the spinning bladed vacuum cleaners rolled around the floor at the men’s feet. They avoided them as best they could while fighting for their lives against a constant barrage of the flying fire balls rocketing at them from Gahkra’s hands.
Carmen never stopped running. She tripped through the melee at top speed. She couldn’t breathe to warn her friends what was coming. Only one thing dominated her mind: survive this thing and find the witch. She blew past Angus and headed for the far end of the passage as the monster came trundling around the corner.
The last thing Carmen saw before she ran out of sight was Gahkra’s startled face as she turned around to face the monster.
Chapter 20
Angus cocked his head to listen. “I cinnae hear it anymore. I suppose it’s gone now.”
Callum collapsed back against the wall. “Phew! We gang awa’ easy that time.”
“We gang awa’ nothin’!” Ewan shot back. “It was Carmen. She got that thing and brought it around tae kill Gahkra.”
“Carmen!” Jamie countered. “Gahkra says Carmen’s the witch. Carmen cast the curse on us. Ye all heard ‘er say so.”
“Are ye gang soft in yer head, lad?” Ewan snapped. “Carmen saved our hide at every turn since she turned up in this country. There’s no a mon alive that’ll convince me she’s the witch or that she had ought tae do wi’ the curse or ought else. If ye say so again, ‘ere’s me blade to ‘old yer tongue for ye.”
“Wheest, the both o’ ye!” Angus hissed. “It’s no account who did what or when or where. Carmen’s gang, and so’s the hag. Now the question is, what’re we goin tae do about it?”
Ghost Clan_A Scottish Highlander Time Travel Romance Page 13
