Moon Cursed

by Lori Handeland

  Something about her feelings, her responses, tickled the edge of her brain, and if Kris had had time to think, she might have drawn it out. But when she went to her knees in the mud and damp grass next to the woman, every thought but one fled her head.

  “She isn’t breathing.”

  Kris had taken CPR, but it had been a while and she’d never had to use it. Still, she found the steps coming back.

  Clear the airway. Position the head. Pinch the nose. Mouth over mouth and exhale, one one thousand, then again, two one thousand. Check to see if she’d started to breathe on her own.

  No. Dammit!

  Chest compressions. One and two and three and—

  Kris reached thirty, breathed for the woman twice more, and went back to the compressions. By the time Kris thought to look for Nessie, the creature was gone.

  The woman suddenly drew in a great, gasping breath and began to choke. Kris turned her on her side, and lake water poured forth like a river.

  “What-what—?”

  Kris pressed her back on the ground, which was cold and wet but all they had. Together they shivered violently enough to shake loose a few teeth. Kris would have given the woman her sweater, but it lay in the mud, as soaked as her hair.

  “Stay still,” Kris said. “You nearly drowned.”

  “I—” The woman lifted her hand to her head and winced. “Someone hit me.”

  “That seems to be going around,” Kris muttered.

  She glanced toward the road, hoping a car would happen by. The sun was up, but it was early yet.

  “Then they were carrying me, but it was dark, and I couldnae see.”

  Sounded familiar.

  “Then I was in the water, and it was cold and deep and I couldnae get anywhere no matter how hard I tried.”

  Kris remembered feeling the same way when she was in the loch, then—

  “Nessie came,” the woman whispered. “Did ye see her?”

  Lies did get easier the more they were told. Kris had no problem at all meeting the woman’s eyes and saying, “No.”

  *

  Just when Kris thought she’d have to leave the poor, shivering, in-and-out-of-consciousness woman alone in the mud while she went for help, Alan Mac and all his cronies arrived like the proverbial cavalry.

  After giving her the same seriously, you again? glance, Alan Mac took over. The woman babbled about Nessie, but no one seemed to think this was odd. They all went about their business of helping the victim, securing the scene, then spiriting her away.

  Luckily the EMTs, or whatever they were called in this country, had brought blankets. Kris grabbed two and tried to make her escape. But Alan Mac appeared at her side and took her arm. “What happened?”

  “How did you know to come here? And with all of…” She lifted her chin to indicate the cavalry. “Them?”

  He didn’t answer.

  She turned her gaze to his, and she knew. Somehow Liam had gotten word to him. Perhaps Liam could shift back and forth at will, although why then …

  Kris frowned at the slowly rising sun. Why had he said, “Wait for it”? Why hadn’t he jumped into the loch and saved the woman immediately?

  Because he couldn’t. So how had he brought Alan Mac here so fast? Perhaps Liam was a talking lake monster.

  Kris choked. This was all so ridiculous. Though nonetheless true.

  She considered accusing Alan Mac of being a guardian, but that probably wasn’t the best idea. He guarded Nessie, had protected her—him—for who knows how long. What if protecting the monster included making sure that anyone who’d seen him change never saw that, or anything else, again?

  Kris considered the chief constable. Did she really think he’d toss her in the deep to keep Liam safe?

  Yes.

  “The woman said Nessie saved her,” Kris blurted.

  “Aye,” Alan Mac agreed, gaze intent on Kris’s face. “And what do you say?”

  Kris shrugged. “I found her on the shore. She wasn’t breathing. I did CPR; then you showed up.”

  “Mmm,” Alan Mac said. “I ken there is a bit more to it than that.”

  “Said someone hit her on the head, dragged her to the water. Next thing she remembers, she was drowning.”

  Alan Mac cursed. “I have to get back. I’ll drop ye at the cottage.”

  Kris considered saying she’d walk, but her legs were still trembly, along with the rest of her. A September dawn in the Highlands was not the time to be soaked to the skin. If her lips weren’t actually blue, they soon would be.

  So she climbed into his car, which smelled like old tennis shoes and bad coffee. Kris would have opened the window if she’d had the energy.

  “What else is my victim going to tell me?” Alan Mac asked.

  Kris sighed. Cops liked to have witnesses repeat their stories, see if anything new shook out, but this was tiresome. She was a reporter. She knew what he was up to.

  She rapped her knuckles against her head. Then made her hand dive downward. “Splash,” she said, and used both hands to indicate just that.

  Alan Mac rolled his eyes. “And then?”

  “According to your victim, saved by the monster.”

  “Yet ye saw nothing.”

  Kris met his eyes. “Nothing but her.”

  *

  After the sun set, Liam climbed from the water and found the clothes he kept hidden for those times he waited too long and changed before he was able to disrobe. When that happened, the clothes he’d been wearing just disappeared.

  Magic was like that.

  “I told ye t’ leave her be.”

  Though he was still dripping wet and completely naked, Liam didn’t start when the voice came out of the shrouded darkness of the forest. He’d known someone was there. He’d expected him to be.

  Alan Mac stepped out as Liam put on his pants. “She knows.”

  “Of course she knows.” Liam zipped the zipper, the sound a perfect punctuation to the sharpness of his words. “She saw.”

  “But—” Alan Mac frowned. “She looked me right in the eye and swore she saw nothing but the woman.”

  Interesting. Liam had to wonder why Kris would lie about this, considering her aversion to lies.

  “She saw,” Liam repeated. “I shifted right in front of her.”

  “Are ye daft?” Alan Mac threw up his big hands. “Now I’ll have t’—”

  Liam was across the distance between them in an instant, one hand around the much larger man’s throat. “Ye willnae.”

  “My vows,” Alan Mac began.

  “Bugger your vows.” Liam leaned closer and squeezed. Alan Mac’s face began to redden. “Ye willnae touch her. She is mine.”

  He shoved the man away. Alan Mac stumbled and nearly fell. His fingers rubbed at the mark on his neck as Liam calmly picked up his shirt and put it on.

  “Those vows were composed in times long past,” Liam continued. “They arenae…” He searched for a word. “Right anymore. Ye cannae kill someone because they see me change. I forbid it.”

  “Yes, Uilebheist.”

  Liam sighed. Until recently no one had known his name. They’d all called him Uilebheist. Gaelic for “monster.”

  He hated it.

  Certainly he’d been a monster once upon a time. He had killed. He had enjoyed it.

  But since he’d become the beastie known as Nessie, a monster in form by day, a man by night, he was a true monster no longer.

  Which made it both ironic and annoying to be called that. But he’d allowed it because … what difference did it make what they called him? And really, he’d deserved nothing less.

  He still didn’t deserve to have a name, a life, to love. But it had been nice, for a little while, to pretend.

  “Ye told me she came to do a show on this place, on you.”

  Alan Mac seemed to have conquered his momentary fear. One of the reasons Liam liked the man. He was honest, at least with Liam. He’d lie like a lazy dog to everyone else on the planet
. But Liam trusted Alan Mac both to protect him and to tell him the truth.

  He’d like to think the constable was his friend, but that wasn’t the case. Alan Mac had little choice in the relationship. Which made it not friendship but bondage. Liam wished he could release the man, but only death would do that.

  “What can she do?” Liam asked. “Her camera is at the bottom of the loch.”

  He never had determined just who had shoved her off. It could very well have been one of his guardians. There was a reason no good footage of Nessie existed, and they were it.

  “She came here to expose ye as a hoax.”

  “People do that by the dozen,” Liam said. “Since I am not a hoax, they dinnae succeed.”

  “What if she—”

  “What?” Liam threw up his hands. “Tells the world that she slept with the Loch Ness Monster? What d’ ye think will happen to her career then?”

  Alan Mac’s eyes widened as understanding dawned “Ah,” he said.

  Liam headed for the road.

  “Where are ye going?” Alan Mac hurried to keep up.

  “I have to talk to her.”

  “What? No!” Alan Mac laid his hand on Liam’s arm, then quickly snatched it back when Liam paused, looked at the man’s hand, then into his face. “If ye just … disappear she’ll leave.”

  “I doubt that,” Liam said, though maybe the constable was right. Regardless, he could not let Kris go without at least trying to explain. He owed her that.

  “Ye cannae tell her.”

  Liam could do anything that he wished. He was the Uilebheist. Once people had treated him like a god. Sometimes, they still did.

  “Dinnae worry about Kris,” Liam said. “Worry about whoever is killing women and trying to blame me. If we dinnae stop that, we’ll soon have another visit from Mandenauer or one of his minions. Perhaps this time they might even know how to kill me.”

  Liam’s heart lightened. He’d been hoping someone would discover that for centuries.

  CHAPTER 25

  After yet another long, hot shower, fresh, dry clothes, and a pot of coffee, Kris opened her computer. She spent hours fighting with the Internet, which seemed determined to waver in and out and keep her from uncovering any information about the kelpie of Loch Ness.

  In the end she found little more than what her brother had already told her. She had to wonder if someone—a guardian?—had erased all traces of the tale.

  To the majority of the world—those who weren’t Jäger-Suchers, “secret” Interpol consultants, or nut jobs—legends were merely that. Tall tales believed by superstitious ancients. Legends weren’t true; the creatures described in them weren’t real. They were the fairy tales her mother had read, kept alive for fun and the occasional Disney movie.

  So why the great purge?

  Eyes burning, Kris laid her head on the back of the couch. Next thing she knew, the room was dark and someone was knocking on the door.

  Figuring the caller was her brother, or Alan Mac with more stupid questions, she hit the lights and stumbled across the floor, rubbing her eyes with one hand, pulling the door open with the other. Then she stood there with her arm frozen in the air next to her face.

  Liam’s hair was wet. Now she knew why. She still couldn’t move or speak or think straight.

  “Can I come in?”

  She should slam the door, scream, shoot him with silver.

  No! The thought horrified her—because she didn’t want to kill anyone, anything? Or because silver didn’t appear to have any effect on him at all?

  “Please,” he murmured. “I’ll tell ye everything.”

  Kris stepped back and let him walk through the door.

  A waft of cool air followed; it smelled like rain on green trees, the moon in the middle of the night, and she yearned.

  Annoyed with that yearning—he’d lied to her all along; he wasn’t even human, talk about a date from hell—Kris gave in to the urge to slam the door. She expected the sharp clack to make him start, but it didn’t.

  Why would it? He had nothing to fear. He was an indestructible lake monster.

  Kris laughed, though the sound that came from her mouth was more of a waterlogged sob. Liam glanced at her, concerned, even took one step toward her, and she amazingly took one step toward him before she could stop herself.

  What was it about the man that made him so hard to resist?

  The thought that had nagged at the edge of her brain earlier tumbled free, and Kris lifted her hands to her temples and pushed. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t make the realization go away.

  “I didn’t understand why I felt like I did about you,” she murmured. “Why I kissed you the first time I saw you. Why I wanted you so badly, when that’s not like me. I don’t trust anyone that fast.” She laughed and now it was bitter; she was bitter. “You seduced me. It’s what you do, what you are.”

  “Kris—”

  “Don’t lie to me anymore!” she cried. Then, horrified when tears pricked hot against her eyelids, she blinked until they went away. “You’re a kelpie. You seduce, then kill. So why was I special? Why am I still alive?”

  He took a deep breath, letting it out long and slow. “I no longer kill,” he said.

  “But you do seduce.”

  “I didnae try.” He spread his hands. “But I am what I am.”

  “It was an accident?”

  “I havenae seduced a woman since I became this.”

  Kris snorted. “Right. I just jumped you because my slut gene kicked in. Must be the balmy Scottish air.”

  “There is—,” he insisted, then when she practically hissed at him corrected himself, “was something between us. It wasnae like anything I’d ever felt. I have never felt.” He lifted a shoulder. “Lust. Desire. Aye. But anything more, never. And that’s why…” He looked away, pursing his lips.

  “Why what?” she demanded.

  “Why I let this go on as I did. I dinnae deserve happiness, but I couldnae resist it with you.”

  “You are so full of—,” she began. “You wouldn’t know the truth if it reared up from the loch and bit you.”

  Why she was surprised to discover that he was a man, just like any other man—even though he wasn’t—she didn’t know. She expected lies to spill out of every mouth that she met. So why then, when she’d discovered Liam had lied, did she want to curl up and die?

  “Cry,” she muttered. She would curl up and cry. She would wish to die for no man. Hell, she’d wish to cry for no man, either. Not anymore.

  He gave her a strange glance, and she realized she’d said that out loud. “Never mind. You’re telling me you haven’t been with a woman in centuries.”

  “I swear—”

  “Bullshit,” she said matter-of-factly. “You might not be human, but you’re still a man, or at least you have all the parts, and no sex for a millennium or two isn’t possible for your breed.”

  “I couldnae,” he said. “I had hurt so many and, in the night, they haunted me.” His eyes met hers, and she felt again that odd shimmy in her chest. Must be too much coffee. “I was never at peace. Until I found you.”

  She wanted to believe him so badly she ached. She knew he was lying, and still she wanted to forgive, to take his hand and let him pull her into his arms.

  “Just tell me your story,” she ordered. “Leave my stupidity and your tricky dick out of it.”

  His brow furrowed at her words, but instead of questioning them, he began to speak. “I came into being when the earth was new. I am of the fey.”

  “You’re a fairy,” Kris said. “Right.”

  “Not as ye think of them now, no. Fey is an ancient term meaning ‘bewitched’ or ‘enchanted.’ I appeared right here, on the loch as I am now, full grown and knowing my place. I was Unseelie, a malicious being; I took joy in what I was and what I did.”

  “Seduce and kill.”

  “Aye. I was a monster. I was born one.”

  “Not born,” Kris sa
id. “Not really.”

  “I dinnae know what else to call it. I was delivered to the earth, and I remember nothing before I was me.”

  “Enchanted, bewitched,” Kris murmured. “By a great big witch, or maybe a god.”

  “Maybe the God.”

  “You think God would unleash something like you?” Kris asked, then paused. She was constantly amazed at the things put on the earth by whatever force had put them there. A seducing, shifting, serial-killing kelpie?

  Why the hell not?

  “Go on,” she said.

  “I was two natured.”

  “Aren’t you still?”

  He nodded. “But then I wasn’t human.”

  “You still aren’t,” she muttered.

  His face tightened—a flinch—before he continued. “I looked like a man, but that was just glamour. Magic to make me appealing.”

  “Are you magicing me now?” Kris demanded. That would explain why even though she knew what he was, she still couldn’t stop staring at him. He was just too damn pretty.

  “No need. I am human,” he insisted. “At least beneath the moon.”

  “Beneath the moon,” she repeated, another piece clicking into place. “I’ve never seen you in the sunlight.”

  “Ye have.” He lifted his chin to indicate the loch. “At dawn ye’ll find me there.”

  “Monster by day, man by night?” she murmured. “That’s a little backward.”

  “ ’Tis part of my punishment, my curse. Human beings live in the light. But not me. Never me.”

  His voice was bereft. She couldn’t blame him. Never was a very long time.

  Kris straightened. He might say he wasn’t working his voodoo on her, but something was going on. Why else would she have any sympathy for him?

  “You drowned a witch’s daughter,” she said. He’d drowned a lot of daughters. Hundreds, maybe thousands. But the last one was the one who had changed everything.

  “Aye. I didnae know, of course, who she was.”