Chloe's Guardian

by Cheri Gillard

  The three horsemen pulled their horses into a tight circle around her. They spoke to each other, but she didn’t recognize their words.

  “S’il vous plait? Por favor? Bitte? What language do you speak? Do you understand me?”

  The big one got down. He was huge. He smelled like a cow and had skin like tanned leather, except where a white scar puckered the left side of his face. He walked around her, rubbing against her. He picked up the extra sleeve coming out of the front of her dress and fondled it, turning it over in his hand and staring at her torso.

  She drew her arms up to try to protect herself from his eyes. She pulled back, though he hung on to the sleeve. “Let go.”

  His smile was dreadful. Her courage melted and drained out of her pores like sweat.

  “Horace?” With her eyes locked on the giant holding her tether, she cried out. “Horace, Horatius!”

  The giant yanked her in and grabbed her by the throat, squeezing tight enough that she couldn’t speak. Just before she passed out, he let go and she dropped. He laughed to his buddies then hauled her up onto his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He said a string of strange words, gave her a degrading thump on the rump, then threw her over the horse and remounted behind her.

  She tried to cry out but her strangled throat only let out a rasp.

  Kaitlyn stepped out of the barn. “You better take me with you, too,” she said to the men.

  “Run,” Chloe tried to yell but she had no voice.

  Kaitlyn didn’t run. The huge man who had Chloe charged his horse right at her. Chloe screamed but nothing came out. Kaitlyn didn’t blink. At the last second, her captor veered to the side. He reached down and grabbed a handful of Kaitlyn’s dress and hauled her up onto his horse with Chloe. After yelling incoherent words at his fellow riders, they all galloped away, leaving Horace behind in the barn, maybe dying without a soul to help him.

  CHAPTER 26

  As soon as he saw the girls, he knew they were different. Forget their ridiculous clothes. Their teeth and complexions were enough to tell Panahasi they were something worth grabbing. He could get a high ransom for girls like that.

  Then one of them called for Horace, Horatius. The Horatius they invoked had to be the very one who had caused him to be marooned in this hellish existence for all these years. Horatius, his brother. Leave it to his brother to associate with such odd yet beautiful young women. Then the ultimate surprise—the second girl walked out holding a cell phone. He hadn’t seen one of those for decades. These girls were from the future.

  The tips of his fingers gently stroked the scar that ran up the side of his face. The wound that left the horrid mark had come the night his banishment began. It was the night that Satarel was about to achieve his long sought-after goal of catching Horatius. And Panahasi’s plan was that he would be credited for delivering him.

  But it all went terribly wrong. He’d underestimated Horatius. Somehow, he found the willpower, against all odds, to transfigure. How could he with that hole in his chest? With all the beatings he had endured? Something unprecedented had occurred the night on that cliff top. And in the process, when Horatius metamorphosed into his blazing celestial form, he blew the sword of that idiot Scotsman right up the side of Panahasi’s cheek, slicing him open from jaw to temple. But worse than any of that, Satarel blamed him for the loss of Horatius’ head. Before chasing after Horatius, Satarel cursed Panahasi and took his powers, banishing him to stay in human form until whenever it might be Satarel’s whim to release him. Which had not yet come.

  So in the meantime, he made do, searching for ways to ease his plight, opportunities to use his extensive knowledge of humankind to make a living. With his unsightly disfigurement left by the sword wound—which festered overlong without his powers—he’d had the worst luck trying to find success. Only the underbelly of society wanted to associate with him or extend opportunities to him.

  Then, by some serendipitous, extraordinary set of circumstances, he happened upon the two girls.

  With the hope of flushing Horatius from his hiding by provoking him to reveal himself, he grabbed the one girl’s neck and squeezed the fragile thing in his fist until another moment would have left him with one less pawn. When no appearance came from his brother, he had to let go and develop a new idea. So he stole them both.

  Panahasi was on his way to a job when he found the girls. The money promised him by George Gordon for working as a hired sword was badly needed, so he would take the girls and go forward with his plans to earn his cash reward. Then with coin to buy food and comfort for a time, he could prepare for his new plan. If his father would not release him from the curse and give him back his celestial privileges, he knew one who might—and now he had something he could offer in exchange for the restoration.

  ***

  When he came to, Horatius rolled onto his side and willed himself to lose consciousness again, trying not to think about what he must have done for such a bad hangover.

  Then his senses came back to him. He sprang up and his brain broke into a thousand pieces inside his skull.

  He dropped his face into his hands, splinting his throbbing skull with his wide-spread fingers, hoping to keep it from blowing into bits. Where are the girls? Where is Chloe? He tried to remember through the fog in his mind. He hadn't been able get a good hold of their quantum particles. He hadn’t been able to control the metamorphosis. Their clothes were completely wrong. Or was that just some strange dream?

  He had tried to transfigure, then everything went blank. What was happening to him? He couldn’t transfigure or even tolerate the most simple molecular transmutation. Any power leaving his body took everything with it.

  How long had he been unconscious? Fifteen minutes? An hour?

  He stumbled out of the barn and tripped down the path into the road, sprawling onto his hands and knees in the dusty path.

  He pivoted and sat in the middle of the road. Except for cawing birds, silence. No people. They might have been gone hours for all he knew. Hoof and boot prints in the dirt around him told him news he did not want.

  He threw his arms in the air to transfigure. Just in time, he checked himself. Old habits died hard. No transfiguring. No flying. No molecular manipulation. No attempts until he found out what was wrong, what his father had done to him. He’d have to find the girls and get them to safety in Queen Mary’s household—if he’d even landed when she was still queen—then he would find Sanctuary and ask the Celestials for help.

  He ignored the pain in his head and set out. At first, walking was the only movement he could tolerate. After a distance, he picked up the pace and, unexpectedly, his head remained intact. Once his skull became accustomed to the jostling, he jogged, and then all-out ran. About the time his brain could tolerate no more crashing around inside his head, he entered Edinburgh. The migraine needed some medicinal whiskey. Ainslie Tavern on Cowgate was the place to go. And someone might have seen two out-of-place girls.

  Horatius arrived to find a crowd so thick he could barely squeeze through the doorway. Seeing into the dark room was impossible after coming in from the glaring sun. The dark, cool room eased some of his headache as soon as he entered. He waited, listened, and took in a deep breath to smell the aroma. More pain slipped away with his exhalation. The pub smells he loved. Ale. When was the last time he had a drink? And food. Oh, how he could use a good meal. But he had to stay focused. He pushed his way through the packed bodies standing in clusters. His eyes adjusted and the room brightened, and he saw clumps of men huddled together holding tankards and gnawing on meaty goose legs, talking boisterously within their groups. His mouth watered watching them drink and chew.

  He made his way to the front counter where the barkeep filled tankards and couldn’t get them out fast enough. Everything in Horatius yearned for the taste of beer, but he realized in a new way, if he meant to find and rescue the girls, he couldn’t risk even one drink.

  The moment the serving maid laid out a plate of go
ose legs, fists snatched them away and left an empty dish with only sauce drippings on it. Another serving maid tried to fill her tray to deliver more drinks around the room, but she couldn’t keep the cups on her platter long enough to get away.

  “What is going on?” Horatius asked the barkeep in a voice booming over all the noise. He kept his eyes locked on the golden amber flowing from the keg to the tankard in the barkeep’s fist.

  The barkeep smiled and handed the cup to Horatius, but someone else grabbed it. “Sorry. I will ge’ yeh one of yur own.” He put another cup to the keg spigot.

  “Why the crowd? Is it a festival day I have forgotten?”

  “What? I canna hear you over the tumult.”

  “What is going on?”

  “The royal army is marching north on the morrow. Everyone is readying to go.”

  But which royal army? Who is monarch?

  Before the barkeep ruined his resolve not to drink, Horatius left the bar and squeezed between the packed men to look for a reliable source—away from the noise of the counter—that might have more information for him.

  Several men circled a table in the far back corner, leaning in to hear one another. William Keith was in the center of the group.

  Thank God and the Chronos Band, I made it into the right century!

  “…finally get your vengeance,” one of the men said when Horatius came within earshot.

  “Where in the name of haggis have you been?” Keith called out to Horatius. “Last I saw you was seven or eight moons ago during me daughter’s wedding. Then you just vanished.” He shoved at the man next to him. “Give the fellow a chair, man.”

  Horatius was grateful for the seat. “I was called away suddenly.”

  “You are back at a good time, that is for certes. We are going with Queen Mary’s army to put down the Cock o’ the North—George Gordon.”

  “The Queen is marching north, is she?”

  “Gordon aims to rise up against the nobles and force his papist beliefs back onto all of us Scots, thinking the Queen will back him. He has o’er-stepped by the width of the ocean this time. She is going to put him down. And I am going to help.” He lifted his tankard and all the men around the table lifted theirs in kind with hearty cheers. “You can come, too.” Another cheer rose.

  “I am looking for two young women. We were waylaid on the road west of town.” He left out he’d been helpless to help them. “I must recover them before they come to harm.”

  A red bearded, scruffy man behind Keith scoffed, as though the chance of that was past. Horatius glared at him and he quickly hid his face in his tankard. The other men around the table looked from one to the other, keeping their opinions private.

  “I saw them.” Someone behind Horatius stepped up and squeezed in close around the table. His stringy brown hair fell into his eyes, and his young beard left bare patches among the wads of wispy moss on his face. “They came through yesterday.”

  Damn! I was out a full day.

  “Two women, one wi’ white hair, the other dark. They were dressed in the oddest attire. Everyone was looking and whispering. It was impossible not to stare.”

  “That would be them.” So those strange clothes weren’t a dream. “What of the men?”

  “The dark man was the size of the other two put together—big like you. Bigger. And he was in charge. Mean son of a cur, tha’ one. There were two others, one tall and thin as a tree with orange hair flaming out the top. And the other was medium and dark.”

  An inner alarm went off. “Bigger than I am?” Who would be dark as well and bigger than I but another Nephil?

  “Aye, with a nasty scar down the side of his face, puckered and white.”

  Horatius slammed his fist on the table. Panahasi. Last Horatius had seen him was on the cliff top of Dunnottar with a slashed, bloody face the night Horatius barely escaped. If Panahasi was suffering an unmended scar, that meant he’d been stripped of his powers. And without his powers, he would try anything to regain what he’d lost. If he had Chloe and Kaitlyn, he would use them any way he could to his advantage. If he found out Chloe was a descendant of the house of Keith and on Satarel’s watch list, it was worse for Chloe than Horatius ever considered.

  “Did you see where they went? Hear where they are staying?” Horatius said, trying not to scare the lad, but he had to know everything, and fast.

  The boy lowered his tankard in the middle of his swig and coughed. Horatius tried to reassure him with a smile, but he knew by the fear in the boy’s eyes, he probably wasn’t really smiling and the lad thought he would skin him if he did not answer correctly.

  “I remember hearing something abou’ Gordon. George Gordon,” the boy stammered. “The big one was trying to speak low, but his companion couldna hear him over the commotion in the street. He spoke of earning siller. Going north.”

  It sounded like Panahasi was playing at being a mercenary, offering his service to whomever paid the heaviest purse for his sword. “What else? Did you hear where they are staying?”

  “By the speed they took down the road—not caring one wit if they ran a person o’er—they were on their way out of town, and in a hurry to quit it.”

  Horatius swatted a half-filled tankard off the table and into a wall.

  “I could be wrong,” the boy quickly amended.

  “You are not wrong,” Horatius grunted, forgetting any pretense to keep the boy comfortable. “The miscreant would not stay around here with all the Queen’s men gathering. He has got to be on his way to join Gordon. Maybe that means he does not know…”

  “Know what?” Keith said.

  “I need a horse,” Horatius said. He snatched the boy’s tankard and downed what beer was left in the cup.

  “It will be impossible to find a mount today. Everyone who has one is using it or has already hired it out.”

  Horatius cursed then thought of who could help. “I have to go,” he said to the group and stood. “May you crush the Gordon while keeping your own skin safe.”

  Another round of hurrahs swelled around the table and many cups were inverted to dump more ale down their gullets, but Horatius was already on his way to the door.

  A serving maid at the exit held a partially filled tray and he grabbed a drumstick as he went out the door. His idea just had to work. He moved toward his goal as fast as he could walk, just short of running, tearing off huge mouthfuls of meat as he went. Though he had no appetite, not with the girls out there somewhere with that fiend, he ate. The next meal may not come for a long while, especially if he could not transmute matter. And he had to be strong for Chloe and Kaitlyn.

  Outside of Saint Giles church, he tossed the stripped leg bone to a dog nuzzling at a heap of rubbish in the gutter. The dog snapped up the scrap with a snarl and dashed away. Horatius licked the grease off his fingers and entered the church, letting his eyes adjust a moment to the dark interior. John Knox was at the front of the chancel tending something at the altar. Horatius wasted no time and marched to the front.

  “Ah, hello Horace,” Knox said. “Dropping in for a quick visit before disappearing again? It looks like your nose mended remarkably.” Knox scrutinized his profile. “Quite remarkably. I cannot even tell.”

  “I need a horse.”

  “So does everyone else.” He dismissed Horatius’ appearance and turned back to the altar. He pulled a candle stub from the brass candelabra and replaced it with a new, long taper. “I have emptied the church stables already for all the folks who have the idea they need to go on an adventure with that French Catholic wench.”

  “They want to go to protect your religion, John. I would not discount them too quickly.”

  “You mistake my intent. Those who own no horse have no sense heading into a war fought by trained men. Farmers. Townsmen. They have no experience. Some can barely wield a sword, let alone thrust it home when facing an adversary. Those are who have no business taking my horses.”

  “But you gave them to them anyway?” />
  “We need the coin. The hungry are here as much as ever. It is quite an expense to keep them in bread. Who am I to tell others what to do?”

  Horatius scoffed. You always tell others what to do. But Horatius needed his help so he swallowed the gibe. “Is there not a single mount I can use? I will pay you well.”

  “Do not tell me you wish to also chase north after that French harlot.”

  “I have other business. Much more pressing.”

  “More pressing than this, than what every other man in Scotland believes is imperative? Intriguing. Pray tell. What do you believe so paramount?”

  How much could he tell him? It would be such sweet relief to confide in another, to admit what he had done. And then to perhaps gain reassurances. Knox, of all people, should understand the need for another to receive grace. He knew that much about truth, having abandoned the corrupt system of penance and indulgences, and joined in the Reformation so fervently. Can I confide in him?

  “Are you just going to stare at me all day, or are you going to answer my question?”

  “Two girls, they were placed in my protection.”

  “Oh, dear Lord.”

  “No, it is not like that. I was protecting them. I was doing a good deed. Or hoping to. And it went terribly wrong.” Will John agree I have a chance at restoration?

  “We both already know you are damned to hell. What is one more sin?”

  The words were a blade in his chest. Knox was confirming his worst fear, telling him he was bound for the Pit. Well, he had been there. And the idea of spending eternity there, separated from all that was good and holy, was not something he could accept. Who did Knox think he was, anyway? Some presumptuous priest who believed he had the authority to determine the destiny of a person’s soul?

  Horatius would determine his own destiny. He would find those girls, and if he had to, undo any harm that had been done, and return them to safety. He would prove himself, working relentlessly, unerringly, to show he was worthy of They’s love and acceptance. He would do whatever was needed to win redemption. And to hell with Knox!