Dark Victory

by Brenda Joyce

Is he dead? Did he fall from the roof?

  He shut out their thoughts, stunned.

  The night sky was oddly starless, but still light and milky, as he had never before seen it. Hundreds of soaring towers filled it, the highest towers he had ever seen. He was in a huge city. Where was he—and in what time?

  He forgot her and her summons. He gripped his sword and slowly began to sit up, realizing his body was not broken after all. The people who had gathered around him cried out and ran farther away from him. He noted that no one carried weapons but he did not relax his guard. Now, he saw that the golden woman was not amongst the crowd. He wondered what that meant and if it was some kind of trick. It didn’t matter. He would find her sooner or later. He would make a point of it.

  He dismissed them all, his gaze returning to the astonishing sights around him. What kind of people could build such tall buildings, crowded so closely upon one another? Were they impregnable? And the windows within the towers were strangely lit. They could not be illuminated so brightly by rushes and candles.

  He stood up, looking warily around. The men wore strange hose and very short tunics. His eyes widened. Horseless vehicles were passing along the black stone street.

  He became absolutely still, adrenaline rushing. No mortal could make a wagon or a carriage move without the power of a slave or a beast.

  “He’s alive!”

  Macleod ignored the man. A screaming sound that did not come from any animal or human made him turn, seeking its source.

  One of the horseless vehicles was speeding toward the crowd, passing the other carriages. Red, blue and white lights were blinking on the roof. The vehicle screeched to a stop and the whining noise ceased. Doors slammed as men in dark clothes stepped out of the vehicle. From the way they began to approach, he knew that they were soldiers.

  Macleod tensed. He was in a strange world and he did not know what kinds of powers these soldiers had. He had never fled a battle in his life, but he was certain now that he had leaped through time. He had to be far in the future. He should try to learn the secrets of this world before any attempt at engagement. And he had to find the woman. He did not like being flung through time without his consent. He wanted to know why she had cast her magic upon him—and most of all, why she’d haunted him for so many years.

  But he was not a coward. He stood absolutely still, shifting his weight so he was evenly balanced, his right hand on the hilt of his long sword. If he had to fight, he hoped his powers would not fail him—and he certainly hoped that the dark soldiers did not have immortal powers, too.

  “What’s going on?” a black-clothed soldier asked firmly, his intent gaze on Macleod. From the way he stared, Macleod knew he expected a fight.

  The woman in the knee-length gown ran to him and began telling him that Macleod had fallen from the sky. As she gestured, he felt the icy cold fingers of evil chill the nape of his neck.

  They had deamhanain in this time and place, too.

  He hadn’t taken his vows, but he had been able to instantly sense evil’s presence from the moment he’d taken his first steps as a toddler. He had instinctively and passionately disliked evil ever since he could recall, and had been vanquishing evil since he was a small boy capable of wielding a child’s dagger. Macleod gripped the hilt of his sword, slowly turning to face the deamhan. A tall, blond man stared at him, smiling with bloodlust. The deamhanain desired the death of the good and the godly every bit as much as the brotherhood wanted evil gone. Its eyes slowly turned red.

  Macleod didn’t bother to smile back.

  “Hey, you, buddy.”

  Macleod knew one of the black-clad soldiers was speaking to him; he ignored him.

  The deamhan grinned and blasted him with his black power, which flared crimson as it was hurled at him.

  Macleod blocked the blast with his sword, using his other powers, and he was pleased when it blazed silver as it struck the demonic force. He hurled his power at the deamhan simultaneously and it went down, the people around it screaming and fleeing.

  “Drop your weapon!” the soldier shouted at him.

  Macleod ignored the command, advancing swiftly, sword raised. The deamhan leaped up and sent more energy at him, but he was weakened now and Macleod did not pause. He lunged, so swiftly and powerfully that his blade tore through the deamhan’s power, running right through his chest and out the other side.

  “Put the weapon down!”

  Macleod withdrew the blade. The deamhan collapsed. Standing over him, Macleod breathed hard and slowly faced the soldiers. Both men were down on one knee, and had small, strange black weapons pointed at him.

  Macleod glanced swiftly around. He was at a crossroads, with lights that changed from red to green on all four corners. He glanced at the milky night sky—no moon or North Star could be seen. “I dinna wish to fight. Tell me, what place is this? Where am I?”

  “Hands in the air, sonuvabitch! Weapon down!” The first soldier shouted at him, while the crowd behind them murmured in surprise.

  No one had ever called his mother a bitch. It was an unimaginable insult. For one moment, he was in shock. And then rage rushed over him, through him, and he wanted to murder the soldier for his words. The fact that he was out of his time did not matter. But he somehow controlled himself. Breathing hard, he said, “Where am I, soldier?” But before he had even finished speaking, his power exploded.

  Silver sizzled in the night and both men were hurled backward by the blazing light.

  The remaining crowd screamed, fleeing. He saw two black-and-white vehicles with the red, white and blue blinking lights coming toward them at quick speed, making that high, whining noise. We have an officer down…Code black…Armed and dangerous…reinforcements…

  He heard a hundred frantic thoughts, a dozen sharp commands, and he felt the fear, the hatred and anger. As jumbled as the thoughts were, he knew that more soldiers were coming—and they would hunt him now for what he had done to one of their own.

  Macleod ran.

  Sharp sounds followed him. As he passed a building with a large window, it shattered. He had seen stained glass once, in a great cathedral at Moray. As the shards bit into his arms, he was stunned to realize the window had been covered with clear, nearly invisible glass. Just as he turned the corner, something burned like an iron brand deep into his shoulder.

  It was painful and he gasped, but it could not compare to the thrust of a sword. And now he saw the hundreds of vehicles coming toward him on the street. In the distance, behind most of them, was one that carried soldiers, with its blinking lights on top of the roof.

  He paused and glanced behind. More soldiers had turned the corner and were in pursuit, on foot, their black weapons drawn.

  A woman was stepping out of a building. Behind her, the interior was brightly lit. Most of the buildings were alight, but several were in shadow. Tonight the dark would be his friend.

  He ran up the street, the sharp, popping sounds following him. The iron brand felt worse now but he ignored the pain and seized the door to a building that was not lit. It was locked, but he wrenched it open easily. Then he stepped into the blackness inside, barring the door by bending the locks back into place. It would only hold the soldiers back for a moment, but a moment was all he needed.

  He swiftly checked the first three doors. The fourth door was what he was looking for. Macleod ran up the stairs, listening to the soldiers entering the small front hall below.

  How the fuck did he break the locks?

  Forget about it. He’s heading for the roof—the fucking fool.

  He smiled savagely to himself, running up the stairs, counting fifteen flights. He finally burst onto a large, square roof and ran to one end, looked down, and then to another. He did not hesitate. This way felt right. He chose the southern end and leaped to an adjacent roof, about two stories lower, and ran across that, heading in the direction he thought was east. He ran by pure instinct now. The next roof was higher but he leaped onto that, and the
n onto another, and another, until the soldiers were far behind him.

  He began to become familiar with the strange sounds of the city night; he began to comprehend the city’s noisy rhythm. He slowed to a walk. There was no reason to run now; for the moment, he was safe.

  And he paused, listening to the night—feeling it.

  Awareness began.

  He opened a window and slipped into a dark vacant building, his pulse taking on a new rhythm. Aware that he was alone, he began to explore it, his eyes adjusting to the darkness. Within moments, he realized he was in a building meant to house children. The tables and chairs were tiny, and children’s toys and drawings were on the walls.

  He began to smile.

  Her presence was everywhere.

  Macleod settled down to wait.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A HOLY HIGHLANDER WAS in the city, and he had just taken a demon down.

  Nick Forrester decided this might be a really interesting night.

  He was a tall, powerful man with rugged good looks, brilliantly blue eyes, and the kind of appeal no woman had ever refused. He was utterly devoted to his agents, the war on evil and HCU, in that precise order. Sitting in his corner office, on the phone with one of his contacts at the New York Times, he felt Sam Rose before he saw her. He turned to wave her into his office as Paul Anderson said, “They’re breaking the story even as we speak.”

  “Motherfucking shit,” Nick replied, slamming down the phone. He felt himself go into battle-ready mode. There was nothing he loved as much as a good battle, not even sex.

  Sam’s eyes were wide with interest, although a moment ago she’d been wearing a don’t-read-my-mind poker face. And even while speaking with Anderson, he’d instantly known she had a secret. He did not like his kids keeping secrets, not unless they were personal ones. And then they’d damn well better keep secrets, because he didn’t like his kids having personal lives.

  Either you were in this war or you were a bystander, it was that simple. And if you were in, love, romance, family and all that shit was out.

  He’d made a really smart move three months ago, when he’d lured Sam into HCU and his employ. She was a soldier in every way, right down to her kick-ass, martial soul.

  “Goddamn it,” he said, facing her. “There’s been a sighting.”

  He eyed her as he picked up the blue phone, a direct line to his agents in the field. “There’s a Blondie down on Thirteenth and Broadway,” he said. The highest level of demons were beautiful, blond, blue-eyed and almost angelic in appearance. They’d been given a slew of appropriate—and inappropriate—nick-names.

  “What’s going on?” Sam asked.

  “It’s almost impossible to believe, but a Highlander has surfaced in the city. He took out a cop. I’ve got Angus bringing the goods to Five.”

  “Okay.” Sam turned her back on him, walking over to a chair. She sat down. Even though she wore short skirts most of the time, and he’d seen her gorgeous and very strong legs hundreds of times, he stared at them while he thought about the night to come.

  Being clandestine meant keeping a low profile. The press still thought the war was with crime, not evil. CDA had its own medical center. Shot-up, maimed and dead agents were all brought to Emergency there. Five had a morgue, too, and some very serious labs. Those were mostly filled with vanquished demons—if the demon could be brought in before disintegration began—and occasionally, the surviving sub.

  She turned. “Do we know this one?”

  “I don’t think so,” Nick said.

  They exchanged a long and steady glance, and he didn’t have to read her mind to know she was thinking about the trip they’d made into the past.

  He turned and walked to the wall of windows that looked down on Hudson Street. Outside, it was dark, the streets icy and gleaming with patches of snow, sleet and slush. Winter in the city sucked for most people, but he actually liked it. His blood continued to rush.

  He did not like losing an agent in the vast expanse of time. Every agent at HCU had been handpicked by him for their respective jobs. He considered each and every one his responsibility, and when one went MIT, he went ballistic.

  And he also went back.

  The holy, time-traveling Masters of Time rarely surfaced in this city. They seemed to prefer medieval periods. CDA had sightings of them as early as the eleventh century, but the more contemporary the period got, the fewer the sightings.

  The Highlanders were not the only warrior society out there. CDA had evidence of two other secret sects dedicated to the war on evil, one ancient, one modern. From time to time he came across men who had some of the same extraordinary powers he had. These men lay low, revealing themselves only to vanquish the enemy, and then they vanished, like ghosts in the night. Pretty much the way he did.

  The Masters were an interesting bunch. They loved and warred like any other medieval Scot, but secretly worshipped pagan gods, most of whose names no historian had ever recorded. They defended a set of three holy books, and came out of the medieval woodwork to defend the good and the innocent and kick the ass of a demon honcho or two. Then they vanished back into the local population and their particular time. Only an experienced agent could identify a Master from the average Highlander, whether on paper in HCU’s immense database, or while in the field.

  He’d lost count long ago, but over the course of the two decades he’d been at HCU, he’d probably traveled into the past a dozen times, usually on the heels of a great demon. He’d had exactly three encounters with Masters in all that time. Maybe it wasn’t that odd—he’d chased demons into the past all over the world, as far back as the first century, when the Romans were about to rule the world. The closest he’d ever come to a Highlander was last September, right there in the city. The Highlander had been turned against the Masters, and he’d taken his own agent hostage, vanishing into the past with Brie Rose. Nick had gone back to find her because there was nothing worse than losing an agent in time.

  He’d found Sam’s cousin Brie and dragged her home before he could chat with her holy friends—and she’d gone back to her Highlander anyway. Her case file might have MIT stamped across it, but he knew she wasn’t really missing in time. She was just fine.

  He’d had the chance to debrief her extensively, and now he knew more about the Brotherhood than anyone at CDA had ever known. Of course, encounters between CDA agents and Masters—and civilians and Masters—were as old as the agency and maybe, for the latter, as old as time. But the Masters remained secretive. They refused to talk about what they did; they simply fought evil when they had to, and were devoted to the war on evil in Scotland.

  Except, a few hours ago, a Master had nailed a demon just a few blocks away from HCU.

  Were they coming out of the medieval closet? And if so, what did that mean?

  He refused to worry, but agency analysts were predicting the end of the world—literally. That was how dire the war had become. If it wasn’t turned around, every high government agency in the free world would be infiltrated by demons and controlled by evil within another decade.

  He’d taken Sam with him into the past to find her cousin. It was about the toughest test he could give any agent, new or not. She’d passed with flying colors.

  So why was she looking really tense? Why was she worried?

  He lurked and his concern vanished. He was not interested in a war of witches, although he knew her civilian sister was a witch.

  “Why would you think the Highlander is someone we know?”

  She shrugged. “No reason.”

  What wasn’t she telling him? “What’s wrong with you? Bad lay last night?”

  She gave him a look. “There’s no such thing. Maybe the Highlander followed the demon here.”

  He liked her arrogance—a lot. But her comment gave Nick pause.

  He had decided well over a year ago that the witch burnings were not as random as most of law enforcement believed. He also disagreed with the agency’s soc
ial anthropologists and shrinks who claimed the gangs were simply on a new demonic high, and it was cooler to burn people at the stake than to murder each other gangland style. He knew with every fiber of his being that there was a rhyme and a reason to the burnings. He was absolutely certain that there was one great black power behind all of the gangs in the country, if not the world, and that their leader was a medieval demon.

  And he had made it his personal mission to nail the sonuvabitch.

  So if the Highlander had followed a medieval demon to New York, he’d jump for joy if the incident was somehow connected to the witch burnings. “We know nothing about our holy friend—although I intend to change that.”

  “It was too quiet this weekend, until now,” Sam said after a reflective pause.

  “Yeah, it was like a vacation.” He hated vacations. “Let’s not speculate. We have a priority. We need to find our medieval ally before someone else does.”

  “Why?”

  Before he could tell her about the breaking news, the child screamed.

  He knew that horrific sound inside and out. It was a part of his soul and he’d hoped to never hear it again.

  The young girl screamed, and he heard the roar as the sedan went up in flames. He inhaled, flinching. He had no time for a flashback now.

  But he saw the inferno on the night-darkened freeway and he heard the heavy, black laughter.

  “Nick? You okay?”

  He heard Sam, but vaguely, as if she was speaking to him from far away. He breathed hard and realized he felt sick. He’d just had a goddamned flashback!

  It took him a moment to push the image away. When he had, he was at his window, staring down at the cars passing below on the slick city streets.

  Holy shit. He’d vanquished the flashbacks about a decade ago. He couldn’t understand why they were starting up all over again.

  He’d pretend it hadn’t happened—so it hadn’t happened. He had the best secretary money could buy—and money couldn’t buy Jan, only her own, personal demons could. Jan was classified Level Five at HCU and she’d been at his side through the best times and the worst times. Once upon a time she’d been his best field agent. If she ever learned he was having flashbacks again, she’d hound him so bad he’d cave and go to a shrink. Of course, by then, hell would have frozen over and the war would have been won or lost.