“Jesus Christ!” Quinn yelled.
Marissa raised the shovel again to deal the teenager another blow. Quinn leaped forward and blocked the downward swing with his forearm. Pain sang through his arm, and then it went numb. With the other hand, he gripped the wooden handle and jerked it from her grasp. With a backhand swing, he heaved it across the room. The tool bounced off a protruding stone with a clamor and landed with a soggy thud in the mud.
He rounded on Marissa. “What the fuck is wrong with you, you crazy bitch?”
“Oh my God, Quinn. He’s got fluid coming out of his ears,” Regan said, her tone clogged with distress. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She grasped Will’s hand and touched his cheek.
Marissa’s expression was wild, intent. “We can’t allow any of this to get out. How long do you think that kid would have kept his shagging mouth shut?” She gripped his shirt. “Think about it, Quinn. We have Nicodemus right where we want him. We’ve witnessed the very power he needs to be healed. He’ll pay us whatever we want to keep silent.”
How could she focus on money when a boy’s life was draining from him? Quinn jerked her hands free and shoved her away. “You’ve just committed attempted murder. If the lad dies, t’will be murder.”
Regan rose to her feet. “By calling Nicodemus you’ve signed our death warrants.” Tears ran down her cheeks in rivulets. “Why would he pay us when he can kill us and not pay a dime? Why do you think he keeps MacBean and Lamont around? They’re hired guns. You know they are.”
Marissa’s features settled into a stubborn frown. “He won’t. The security guards know we’re here. They saw me come in.”
“Don’t be a fool. He doesn’t have to do anything right away. Accidents happen all the time on a dig site,” Regan said.
She turned her attention back to Will. “Help me get him into the light, Quinn. It may heal him.”
Marissa grabbed Quinn’s arm, and he flinched. Feeling was coming back into the limb, and it ached dully all the way to his shoulder. Was it broken again?
“If he wakes up, he’ll talk,” she said.
Quinn shook free of her. How could he have allowed this woman to ever touch him? “If you’re lucky, he’ll wake up.” He knelt next to Will. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he wiggled his arm beneath the boy’s thin frame and lifted him. It hurt like a son-of-a-bitch. Will’s head fell back loose, lifeless. Was his neck broken, too? His skin appeared grayish white. “Jesus. Is he still breathing?”
Regan touched Will’s thin chest and shook her head. “I don’t know. Oh God, we have to do something.”
Marissa leapt in front of them to block their way.
Rage spiked through Quinn taking his breath. “Get out of the way, Marissa.”
“No, let him die. If he wakes up—I’m not going to prison.”
Regan rushed at the woman, gripped her upper arms and tried to drag her out of the way.
With a screech, Marissa grasped her shoulders and attempted to push her off the scaffold. Regan held on and shoved into her with all her weight. Marissa staggered back, taking Regan with her.
“Regan,” Quinn cried out as the two stumbled toward the opening between the stones and the pulsing energy field.
Marissa sank her fingers into Regan’s hair and pulled back, and the muscles in Regan’s neck stood out like bands from the pressure.
She shoved the heel of her hand upward, hitting Marissa in the face. Blood splattered from the taller woman’s nose. She yelled in pain and lost her grip on Regan’s hair.
“You bitch,” Marissa screamed and head butted Regan.
Regan stumbled and fell to one knee, her fingers twisted in Marissa’s blouse. Marissa jerked free. Her heel slipped off the platform. Her arms wind-milled as she attempted to recover her balance. As though in slow motion, she fell backwards into the energy field. She landed hard on her hip and sat still for a moment.
Her movements sluggish, she pushed to her feet. Instead of turning back to the scaffold, she focused on the room beyond.
Regan’s face glowed pasty white in the light. A deep red spot and a knot were already forming on her forehead. “She’s going to go through unless we call her back. The field will pull her through.”
Marissa deserved whatever she got. “We have other things to worry about.” He lowered Will to the edge of the platform. Regan crawled to his side, and touching the lad’s cheek, said his name. The teenager remained limp and unresponsive.
Quinn searched about for something to support the boy’s body. He spotted two pieces of lumber propped against the east wall where the scaffold was taken up to offer access to the ground beneath. He rushed to the boards. Sharp pain ran in rivulets through his arm as he grasped the closest board and returned. A half a meter wide, the plank would be wide enough if they could slide it forward once Will was positioned on it.
Regan said his name again, a note of anxiety spiking her voice. Marissa stepped through into the other room. Behind her a strange afterimage appeared.
“What is that?” Regan asked.
Quinn shook his head. “I don’t know.” He laid the board beside Will, and Regan turned him gently on his side. Quinn shoved the board as close to him as possible. Regan rolled him onto it. She positioned his arms and legs on the plank.
Fresh tears slid down Regan’s cheeks. “He’s barely breathing. Oh God, I hope this works.”
“Aye. Me, too.”
Regan rushed to Quinn’s side to help him ease the board forward into the field. The sound of thunder overhead vibrated through the air and the field brightened. “What if the stones are struck by lightning while he’s in there?” she asked.
“I don’t know, lass. He’s dying. He can’t be any worse off than he already is.”
Regan fell to her knees and pushed with both hands, while Quinn shoved with his one good one. The board slid forward with a grinding sound, the grit from the mud helping to ease the way. The plank started to tilt and Quinn pressed down on it with his weight to keep it parallel with the platform. Inch by inch they eased the boy’s head and shoulders into the light.
The strange shape that shadowed Marissa as she moved about the room beyond had grown clearer, more solid. It was a woman, a mirror image of Marissa, all but her clothing. Past and present were tied together by some strange multidimensional force. The two circled one another, giving each other a wide berth, their expressions equal parts curiosity and fear.
“Run!” Regan shouted from beside him. “If they touch, all they have to do is touch, and they’ll burn one another. I touched Coira in a dream and had the burn for days.”
“The other woman has appeared there from somewhere else, Regan. They may not be able to avoid one another.”
As he spoke, Marissa grasped the small wooden table she stood beside as some force grabbed her and nearly lifted her from her feet. The legs of the table dug into the ground leaving deep groves as it was dragged forward. The other woman clung to a wooden shelf heavy with pottery jars. The shelf tilted and some of the pots fell. The woman screamed, her voice high pitched with fear, sounded muffled by the field. Marissa lost her grip on the table. Her fingers clawed into the ground. Like magnets with an irresistible polarity, the two were drawn, inch-by-inch, together.
They both shrieked as their feet touched. Regan jerked and turned her face against his shoulder. He reached for her with an instinctive urge to protect.
Marissa’s legs melded with the other woman’s as though the two were melting one into the other. Their high piercing screams went on and on.
Quinn looked away. As horrified and disgusted by Marissa’s behavior as he was, he couldn’t harden himself to believe she deserved such suffering.
When the cries stopped, they both looked up. Marissa and the other woman were gone as though they had never been.
“Jesus,” Quinn murmured beneath his breath his heart pounding hard against his ribs making him short of breath. Relief warred with the nausea burrowing in the pit of his stomach.
He cupped Regan’s cheek as he held her tight against him.
Regan shuddered. “When do you think we can pull Will out of the stream?” Her voice sounded hoarse, choked.
As though on cue, the boy raised a hand, but it flopped over the side of the board.
“Now.” Quinn tugged one handed. It was harder pulling than pushing and he couldn’t use his hurt arm. ‘Put all your weight on the board, lass.”
Regan sat on the end of the plank.
Quinn jumped off the scaffold and, careful to keep his head and torso out of the energy field, he thrust his arms into the stream. He gripped the top of the board, holding it level. His injured arm screamed with the effort, then eased almost immediately as the healing ray of light touched it. Jesus, it had to be broken, but it was healing.
“All right, lass. I have the end of it. You can slide off.”
Regan rolled off onto her knees, and he heaved the two-foot section of board forward.
Shouts from just outside heralded the end of the storm and the arrival of other people.
As the first footsteps sounded on the stone stairs, the energy field faded. Quinn blinked at the loss of light, his eyes slow to adjust.
When he braced his hands on the scaffold and climbed out of the mud, his arm offered a small twinge, nothing more.
*****
Lamont and MacBean sandwiched Nicodemus between them and lifted him down the stairs. Though he appeared so frail he might break apart at any moment, his gaze sharpened as it swept Regan then Quinn. “What happened?” he asked, his attention focused on Will.
Regan motioned to Will. “Marissa attacked this boy with a shovel. Had Quinn not stopped her, she’d have killed him. When I tried to push her away, she head butted me.” She touched her forehead. Her head pounded. She probably had a concussion. And Quinn’s arm—he had been favoring it before he thrust it into the field. Had it been broken? Was it healed now?
Nicodemus motioned to Lamont. “Call an ambulance for the boy.”
Lamont jogged up the stairs, his hand resting at his waist where his cell phone hung.
Nicodemus turned his attention back to Regan. “Marissa called and said for us to come right away, but the lightning was so intense we couldn’t approach the stones.” Nicodemus eyed the giant blocks that dominated the center of the room. “What was happening?”
Will mumbled something unintelligible from the board. Everyone froze for a moment.
Regan leaned over him. “Hey, Will. Can you hear me?”
“Yeah. What happened?” he asked, his voice slurred.
Quick tears sprang to her eyes and for a moment relief overwhelmed her. She covered her face with her hands to try and compose herself, though tears coursed down her cheeks. She brushed at them. “You’ve had an accident. We have an ambulance coming,” she managed though her voice shook. “How do you feel?”
“My head aches a little.” His skin appeared white, but his eyes looked clear and focused.
“You need to lie still. Just in case.”
“Are you one of the workers here?” he asked.
Thank God he doesn’t remember anything. Regan glanced in Quinn’s direction and for a moment their gazes met. “Yes, I’m one of the archaeologists on the dig.”
“Where is Marissa? Where did she go?” Nicodemus asked.
Quinn frowned, his black brows drawn together like a fist. “We don’t know. She left the chamber.” He rubbed his arm and opened and closed his fist.
Lamont having returned, Nicodemus motioned to him once again. “Look about outside and see if she’s somewhere on the dig.”
Lamont nodded and jogged back up the stairs again. The sound of a siren warbled in the distance. Nicodemus fell silent but the look of frustration suffusing his face promised an interrogation later.
*****
Regan shivered against the damp chill permeating her bones. The stone steps she sat on had little to do with it. Reaction had stolen the strength from her limbs. Queasiness remained lodged in the pit of her stomach. Dear God, she’d never be able to forget what happened to Marissa.”
“You should probably come to the hospital, too, miss,” the EMT said as he shined a light into her eyes.
Regan shook her head. She wouldn’t take the coward’s way out and leave Quinn to face Nicodemus and his men alone. “The headache is almost gone. And the pump knot I have will go away.”
“Pump knot?” The man smiled. “You Americans have a way with words.”
“We have our moments.”
“Should you start to feel nauseous or dizzy, you must get to the hospital as quickly as possible.”
“Of course. I will, I promise.”
He nodded and rose to his feet. “We need to get the lad loaded,” he said to his partner.
By the time they’d cleared the entrance to the chamber, Hannah, Sheary, and Helen rushed down the stairs. “Are you all right then?” Hannah asked, giving her a quick hug.
“Yes, I just have a bump on my head.”
Sheary brushed her bangs back to look at it. “Good thing you’re as pig-headed as the rest of us.”
Regan forced a smile to her lips. “Yeah, it is.”
Helen gave her arm a quick squeeze. “When you didn’t turn up at the house, we grew concerned, especially with the storm blowing in so quickly.”
Regan swallowed against the emotion clogging her throat. These women were her friends. They truly cared about her. It hurt not to be able to share everything with them. But they were safer not knowing. “It came up so fast I couldn’t get away, and then my phone won’t work inside the chamber and going outside during a blow-up isn’t possible. I’m sorry I worried you.”
“Ladies,” MacBean interrupted. “If you wouldn’t mind, Mr. Nicodemus would like a few minutes to ask Miss Stanhope some questions about the accident and then will send her home directly.”
The three eyed MacBean with identical frowns. Hannah’s gaze swung to Regan’s face. “We’ll wait for you at the top of the hill and give you a ride.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it.”
The women climbed the steps at a slower pace than they’d descended them.
MacBean made a motion as though to take her arm, and Regan sidestepped him. His dark brown gaze flat; expressionless, like a snake, gave her a shiver.
She sauntered back to Quinn’s side.
“MacBean, go assure we will not be interrupted again,” Nicodemus said.
“Aye, boss.” He jogged up the steps.
With the man gone, a little of her tension drained away.
“You said Miss Frost attacked the young man with a shovel.” Nicodemus focused on Regan.
“She did. She hit him in the head with it and knocked him out. Quinn kept her from hitting him again.”
“Since she called and said to come right away, I assume there was some activity with the monoliths.”
“Aye, some flickering lights. She ran up to call you, and when she returned she struck him,” Quinn said.
“And then?” he urged.
Regan took up the story. “She tried to persuade us to let her kill him. She said we couldn’t afford to allow him to tell anyone about the lights. Quinn told her she’d go to prison for murder.”
“She tried to prevent us from helping the lad and when she and Regan struggled, she head-butted her and then ran from the chamber,” Quinn added.
Nicodemus nodded. “Lamont has had no success in finding her. But one of the johnboats has been discovered floating on the loch without anyone in it. The local authorities have sent rescue parties onto the water to search for her. She may have fallen overboard during the storm.”
“Tell me more about these lights you saw,” Nicodemus eyes narrowed intently. “Were they the same as the last time?”
“Aye.”
“Did the boy see them?”
Regan’s stomach muscles tightened. They’d kill Will should they even think he knew anything. “No. I distracted him.” If only she had. “And Marissa
struck him before he was even aware of what was going on. She would have killed him for no reason.”
Quinn stepped closer to Nicodemus, his expression grave. Lamont started forward in a protective movement, but Nicodemus shoved out a hand to stay him.
“We know what’s at stake here,” Quinn said, his tone taut. “There’s a possibility my country could be destroyed over these fucking stones.” He gestured toward the two pillars projecting from the floor with a backhand motion. “I want to prevent that as much as you want to be healed. I don’t know what you promised her, but Marissa acted recklessly. Her attack on the lad could call more attention to the stones, the dig, than we want. That’s why Regan and I said it was an accident, a fall on the steps. If the boy remembers her attack, we’ll say he was just dreaming after he lost consciousness.”
Nicodemus’s gaze moved from Quinn to her. “The next time a storm comes up, I’ll be here to see them for myself. I expect you both to be here as well.”
Quinn straightened. “My contract has been terminated, and I’ll be leaving at the end of the week.”
“That decision is now rescinded, Mr. Douglas. You’ll be here with Regan when the next storm kicks up. For some reason the two of you seem to be a key element in their function.”
Quinn shrugged. “It could be that we’ve just been the only ones about when things happen.”
Nicodemus’s smile held malice and triumph, and made his emaciated features appear even more skull-like. “We both know that’s not so. I’ve heard Regan’s tape.”
CHAPTER 41
As they climbed the chamber steps Regan took deep breaths of the cool evening air to calm her speeding heart. “Do you think he believed us about Will?”
“I don’t think he believed anything we said.” Quinn’s expression remained grim.
Regan pressed a hand against her midriff where a sick dread had settled. Had they saved the boy’s life only to put him in danger? “We have to do something.”
“If we can keep him alive until tomorrow, he’ll leave for the states.”
That would only be a temporary measure. “Nicodemus has investments all over the globe. He has unlimited resources. He can find him wherever he goes.”
Timeless Page 36
