Immortal Warriors 01 - Return of the Highlander

by Sara Mackenzie

  MacLean knew there were things he must do, but his mind was weary and everything was so confusing. Right now he was nothing but a wan ghostie, but maybe through the woman he could become himself again. Aye, even though the idea of the Black MacLean being dependent on a lassie seemed ludicrous and wrong, and went against everything he had ever been taught.

  He closed his eyes and smiled.

  * * *

  Chapter Five

  Thee wind was cool and scented with heather and earth. It brought back the elusive memories of better times, before he was plunged into this nightmare. Briefly the past was superimposed upon the present and a single strong memory filled him. Of the land as it had been, alive with families and their animals, crops growing, smoke trickling from cottages and with it the smells of food cooking. He longed, he ached, for those vanished days, but their voices in his head were a distant echo, while all around him was emptiness.

  The image faded, and MacLean knew better than to try and bring it back again. Forcing his mind to his will hurt. Agonizingly.

  The woman was walking in front of him along the side of the loch, and he matched his longer steps to her smaller ones, enjoying the sight of her lush body in loose gray trews and a bright pink jacket over a tight blue vestlike top.

  "Verra nice, lass," he murmured approvingly, as the wind tossed her long dark hair and her cheeks grew flushed from the exercise. "Verra nice, Bella."

  That was her name—Bella. He'd seen it written on some of her papers. Bella Ryan. He liked the way it rolled off his tongue, and he found himself using it more and more instead of "woman."

  At some point during the day Bella always went for a walk, sometimes two. It didn't matter if it was rain or shine, she set off with a brisk determination that made him smile. MacLean walked, too, slowing for her as she panted her way up the hillsides and slipped and slithered her way down again. He found himself reaching out to help her over the more difficult bits, forgetting his hand would pass through her, and always irritated when it did.

  Today they were walking along the loch, but yesterday she had taken him up to the castle ruins. He still didn't understand what had happened to bring about his home's destruction, but he decided that the catastrophe must have occurred long after his time. MacLean drew comfort from the knowledge that on his death his people had been safe and their future secure; he was a good chief and he had prepared for such an event.

  On his death? Aye, there was a question. Just how had he died?

  Only once had he tried to recall his last moments, though it made his head ache and pound like there was a wee man tossing a caber inside his skull. When he persisted he had heard the faint sounds of fighting. Culloden Moor again? But it was not so much the battle that sickened his stomach. It was what he felt. A sense of guilt and betrayal so keen it cut into his flesh like a blade. And the bone-deep pain of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and knowing he was going to die for it.

  But full understanding slipped through his fingers like something dark and foul, and he could not grasp it properly. He could not catch hold of it. Even as he tried, shadows fluttered at the edges of his sight, closing in, threatening him with an unspeakable something.

  Gasping, frightened, MacLean had pulled back at that moment. Maybe it was better not to push, he decided, as the caber-tosser rested and his heart stopped racing. Let the questions bide their time, let the answers come to him when they were ready.

  Things have changed. The Fiosaiche had said that to him when she woke him. He had not understood it then. He did now. She had also said he must change, too, and this he still did not understand. So many lives lost unnecessarily, Highlander. You must right the wrong. What did that mean? What lives, what wrong? He supposed he had to be patient, but MacLean had never been a patient man. While he lived he had striven hard to complete the tasks needed to be done each day, and still found time to enjoy himself into the night. MacLean was not used to waiting for anything.

  A bird cried shrilly high above him, and MacLean looked up. For a moment he thought he saw a golden eagle, far into the sky, but it was no more than a speck. Bella had paused for a rest, sitting herself down on a stone wall by some flowering heather. The wall ran by the old stones that stood two upright and one crosswise, forming a low doorway that led to nowhere. The stones had been here when the MacLeans came, and no one dared interfere with them. They were Goddess Stones, Cailleach Stones. He wasn't surprised to see them still here, weathered but unchanged.

  MacLean remembered when he was a lad and he had run up and down these hills. Then when he was a man he had come here to teach the young men of the clan how to use a sword and to fight, to school them in the intricacies and brutality of battle. He had… had…

  MacLean sighed. He saw the image for a moment, himself as a man, and then it was gone, as though a door had slammed on his mind. Resentment simmered inside him, both for the sorceress with her bewildering instructions and for Bella because he could not make her see him again.

  "What am I doing following this bloody woman about? I am the Chief of the MacLeans of Fasail! Dinna ye know, woman, that your job is to cook a man's meals and ease his lust and bear his children? Men make the decisions, men make the rules and the laws. It is men who matter. Aye, it should be the other way around. Ye should be following me."

  Just then Bella sighed and rested her chin upon her hand. She looked sad today, her shoulders rounded, her full mouth turned down. MacLean imagined her thinking of the man she had driven out and wishing she had held her tongue. Well, she had only herself to blame, he told himself self-righteously, even while he secretly would have liked to pound the man senseless for the words he had used with her. But that was because he himself never used cruelty in his dealings with women. A strong man had no need of it when correcting a gentle creature like Bella.

  Aye, and she was gentle. Sweet and calm and gentle, like midsummer in Loch Fasail.

  He reached out his hand, as if to brush her soft cheek with his finger, but stopped himself. She would not feel him; he was as invisible to her as the air they breathed. They were bound together, she not knowing he was here, and he fated to watch her and follow her about like a shadow.

  "Is this my future? Is this the life I've been given by the Fiosaiche? A life that is no life at all!"

  "Stop feeling sorry for yourself."

  It was as if her words were addressed to him.

  Startled, MacLean opened his eyes to find that Bella had climbed to her feet. Her sadness still lingered, but she had straightened her shoulders and her mouth was set as stubbornly as her chin. Maybe she was not so fragile after all, MacLean thought. He remembered when he had seen her through the window in her cottage, her eyes flashing as she faced the man. Aye, there was real strength there. He felt pride in her, as if she belonged to him.

  MacLean smiled as she took a deep breath and set off at a march, back toward the cottage. And then he remembered what she had said. "Why should I no' feel sorry for myself?" he belatedly shouted after her.

  He had reason, hadn't he? Just for a moment MacLean was tempted to turn and walk in the opposite direction, into the country of the Macleods of Mhairi, his enemies. Anything was better than being tied to a bloody woman! He chafed against such bonds, longing for escape, longing for action.

  The ground vibrated beneath him and a heartbeat later he heard the hoofbeats. Alert, he turned, every muscle rigid, his hand already on the handle of his claidheamh mor.

  A horseman, his blood-red cloak sailing behind him, came galloping his horse down from the slopes above the loch. But he wasn't looking at MacLean. His sights were fixed on Bella.

  Sweet Bella, who, even with her hidden strength, would be no match for an armed man.

  MacLean roared, wrenching his broadsword from its scabbard and taking off at a run toward the approaching rider. He was a big man, but he was powerful and strong, and as he ran now he was filled with purpose. He must reach the rider before he caught up with Bella. The man had not a
cknowledged his shout, his gaze still fixed ahead on Bella where she had stopped to test the shallows at the edge of the loch with her fingertips.

  "Run, woman, run!"

  She looked around. Did she hear him? The horse?

  MacLean had no time to ponder it, or the startled expression on her pale face. His breath burned in his chest, the weight of the sword in his hand was as nothing and, although he stretched the muscles in his legs and gained even greater speed, the world around him slowed. As he approached diagonally to intercept the man, he could clearly see the foam on the horse's flanks, the grim determination on the rider's face, the cut across his cheek, and the battle madness in his eyes. There was only one way to stop a man with the scent of blood in his nostrils.

  Behind him he heard Bella scream, and the shrill sound spurred him on.

  MacLean flung himself into the path of the horse and rider, raising his sword with both hands and swinging it down, aiming to cut the man in half.

  The blade passed through without resistance.

  MacLean struck the ground hard. Briefly he lay, dazed, struggling for breath, and then he rolled over and lifted his head. The sun blinded him and, cursing, he shoved himself to his feet, heart pounding, expecting to see Bella trampled. Dead.

  She was standing stock-still, her mouth hanging open. "Oh God," she whispered. "Oh God."

  For a moment, a wonderful and terrifying moment, he thought she could see him. But then he realized she couldn't. She was looking to one side, up the slope where the horseman had come from before he… vanished.

  Bella blinked, hard, her hands in tight fists.

  MacLean stumbled a few steps, turning to look all around him. The blood throbbed in his ears. The rider really was gone… if he had ever existed. Was he a ghost? Or was he something like MacLean, who had been awoken from a long sleep by the Fiosaiche and released from the between-worlds? In which case, what game was she playing?

  "Bloody hell!" MacLean returned his broadsword to its scabbard with an angry ring of metal and wiped the sweat from his palms. And that was another thing. If he was a ghost, then why was he puffing and panting, with his heart thudding fit to burst open his chest?

  MacLean cursed some more, when all he really wanted to do was grab hold of Bella and shake her. Hard. And hold her. Tight.

  He started off after her, his long legs eating up the distance in no time. He was more than a little annoyed that he had just saved the woman in a very heroic manner and she didn't even know it. As soon as he was close enough he began his tirade.

  "When I say run, then ye will run! Do ye hear me, woman? Bella!"

  As his heartbeat quieted he became aware of her voice. What was she saying? Something about him causing her to feel like a natural woman?

  Bloody hell, she was singing! In a tremulous voice, her eyes still big and scared, she was singing to soothe herself.

  MacLean groaned. She had done that before, in the cottage, when the man had left her, and then again when she had seen him. What sort of woman sang songs in her darkest moments?

  "Singing willna save ye. You've no more sense than ye were born with," he said huffily, trying to hold on to his anger. But just like that it was gone. He even found his mouth twitching, trying to smile, and with a sigh he let it. She was safe, that was what mattered. The rider had returned to wherever he came from, and although MacLean knew he should consider what new threats awaited him, instead he found himself thinking of Bella. He'd grown so used to having her near that without her he'd feel desolate.

  It was a strong word, but MacLean knew he wasn't exaggerating. Bella had become his companion and in his loneliness and confusion he relied on her. He needed her.

  MacLean walked beside her, bending his head to listen to her singing. Her voice had steadied, she seemed calmer and the words were easy enough, though very silly in his opinion. "Oh Baby"? What the bloody hell did that mean? Tentatively he began to sing along with her, his uncertainty dropping away. He hadn't sung much when he was alive; it was not fitting for a Highland chief to break into song as he went about his tasks. But now he found he was enjoying hearing their mingled voices, the high note of Bella and the husky baritone of MacLean. Aye, they were well matched.

  Even if she didn't know it.

  * * *

  Chapter Six

  Bella didn't know what to do or think. First the Highlander in her kitchen and now that man on the horse, riding toward her. His face… He'd wanted to kill her, she'd known it with a cold, hard dread. And then, a moment later, nothing. The loch was still as glass, the air was sweet and chill, and the silence absolute. Bella could tell herself she was imagining it, that the past few days had scrambled her brain, that her synapses had gotten crossed.

  But she knew what she'd seen; she just wasn't sure what to do about it.

  And there was something else. Just after the man on the horse disappeared into thin air there had been a movement on top of one of the shallow hills that surrounded the loch, where the road ran across from Gregor's croft. Something pale brown and shaggy and elongated had been standing there. She hadn't seen it for long, but long enough to know it was the pony with the strange green eyes.

  When Gregor came to see her later in the day, bringing her milk, eggs, and butter, and asking her about some missing sheep he'd had grazing by the loch, she didn't know whether to mention her experiences or not.

  "You've seen no one about?" he asked, concerned for his sheep. "No strangers?"

  Yes, a ghost in the kitchen and another one riding a horse.

  "Well… no."

  "Where's Brian?"

  Bella looked away from Gregor's keen gaze. "Brian's having a holiday. Sort of."

  Gregor nodded. "Verra well." He gave her a dour smile. "If sheep went missing in the old days it was the way of the people to blame the each-uisge. There were other monsters, too, like your Nessie in Loch Ness, and creatures in other lochs that are not so famous. The waters of Scotland have always held their secrets. Only nowadays we dinna believe in such things."

  Bella frowned. "Strange you should say that, Gregor. I did see a horse by the loch. Well, a pony. Twice. I thought it might have belonged to you."

  Gregor shook his head. "I have no horse, Bella. Mabbe it was from over Mhairi."

  "Maybe."

  "I'll ask about. See if there's one missing. What did it look like?"

  "Odd."

  He gave her another dour smile. "Next you'll be telling me you're seeing ghosts, Bella."

  She grimaced and knew she couldn't talk to Gregor. Whatever was happening to her, it was up to her to sort it out for herself.

  When Gregor had gone, Bella stood and gazed across the reflections in Loch Fasail and over to the gray bulk of the mountains that sheltered Ardloch on the coast. The long twilights seemed to go on forever, so that there was very little darkness. It felt like another world, a dreamlike place where anything was possible. On nights like this Bella had no difficulty in believing the Highland tales of ghosties and ghouls and monsters in the lochs.

  Brian had swum in the loch once and rushed out, white-faced, saying something had tugged his foot. She had laughed at him, but he'd been adamant it wasn't his imagination.

  "This place is haunted. That massacre you're writing about, there must be restless spirits all around us. That's why no one else wanted to stay here. That's why it was so cheap."

  "It's not haunted," she'd mocked, "and if it is I don't care. I want to live here forever."

  "I do want to live here forever," she said now to the silence. "Despite the spirits and the each-uisge. Please, can I stay?"

  And it was strange, but when she looked up there was a big bird, a majestic eagle, soaring above her. Considering her request.

  The sweat popped out on MacLean’s brow. Could ghosts sweat? Well, they must be able to, because he was.

  He tried again, concentrating fiercely on the tea mug Bella had left on the desk the night before, and his fingers shook as he tried to close them about the
hard shiny surface. For a heartbeat he felt it… and then his fingers slipped through.

  MacLean sat, head bowed, feeling confused and depressed.

  Since the rider had appeared and tried to hurt Bella, MacLean had felt a change in himself. A tingling in his fingertips. He'd hoped it meant he was regaining his sense of touch, but although several times he had almost caused the mug to move, it seemed he still had a long way to go.

  He was worried, too.

  What if something else happened to Bella? How could he protect her properly if he was barely anything more than a puff of air? He needed to regain his full faculties as soon as possible. When he was alive, there hadn't been much about warfare and battle he did not know. He had been protecting his people since he was a boy—it was one thing he was very proud of—and watching over Bella would be no hardship.

  Indeed not.

  Sometimes he wondered whether the real reason he wanted to feel again, to be a man again, was to protect Bella or because he wanted to hold her in his arms and feel her womanly curves. Both, maybe. It was true that the sight of her burned into him. He admitted it. For a man who could not feel hunger, MacLean was ravenous with lust. If this was two hundred and fifty years ago, he'd have taken her into his four-poster bed by now. He let himself picture them lying on the fine feather mattress with the bedcurtains pulled all around them and her soft pale skin flushed by his attentions. Muted, safe, intimate—just the two of them.

  But that was a randy dream—there was no possibility of taking her to his bed. Whether he liked it or not, MacLean could only watch and listen, and every hour that passed increased his awareness of her.

  Last night he had watched her sleep.

  When Bella slept she had such a peaceful expression on her face and her body grew soft and relaxed as her breathing slowed. MacLean did not sleep himself. Like other functions of the living, this was denied him, so instead he watched her with an intensity that was almost envy.