Dark Warrior [5] Midnight's Kiss

by Donna Grant

  “That’s the thing,” Broc said angrily. “They didna specify. Sonya is no’ the only one hearing things. Gwynn is as well.”

  “Shit,” Arran said.

  Gwynn, another Druid and wife to Logan, had magic that let her hear and speak to the wind.

  “The wind is telling Gwynn the same thing.”

  “Not exactly,” Gwynn’s voice could be heard in the background.

  Broc grunted. “Wait, Gwynn.”

  “No,” she said.

  After a moment of struggle where Arran could hear Logan and Sonya telling Broc to hand the phone to Gwynn, silence filled the other end of the phone.

  “Arran?” Gwynn said.

  “I’m here.”

  “Sorry, but what Broc said isn’t exactly true. Y’all don’t always hear what we’re saying. You Warriors think you know everything,” she said in exasperation.

  “Now, Gwynn,” Logan said in the background.

  Arran grinned at Gwynn’s Texas accent and Logan’s plaintive urging.

  “It’s true,” she said. “Anyway, what Broc told you about Sonya is fact. What I heard was a bit different. You know the wind and trees don’t always tell us what we need to know. The wind is adamant that…”

  Her voice faded to nothing. Arran punched his leg in frustration, but kept his voice even as he said, “Gwynn? Tell me.”

  “I think it’s about the dig site. The wind is speaking so fast, I can barely understand it, but I did hear your name. And Ronnie’s.”

  “That isna good.”

  “No. Listen, I think y’all need to get out of there.”

  Arran chuckled as he watched Ronnie leave the food tent and hurry to Andy’s caravan with the phone still at her ear. “As much as I agree with you, I doona think that’s going to happen. Ronnie is … well, she’s tenacious. She’s no’ leaving without seeing what’s inside the damned door.”

  “What door?”

  “I was just about to call Ian to see if he and Dani had found anything more about the magical items taken from Edinburgh.”

  Gwynn sighed loudly. “I’ve been on the computer constantly looking at this with the others helping out, but that was so long ago, Arran. I’m not sure they would’ve added something like that to any records.”

  “I know it’s a long shot, but keep a lookout.”

  “Wait,” Gwynn said.

  Arran could hear the phone being passed again, and this time it was Logan who was on the other end. “What’s going on there?”

  Arran ran a hand down his face. “I’m no’ sure. I doona want to scare anyone needlessly—”

  “What is it?” Logan interrupted. “Your instincts as a Warrior are good. Trust them.”

  “I’ve a bad feeling, Logan. A verra bad feeling about what Ronnie is excavating.”

  “Which is?”

  “All we can see now is stones that make an arch over a door. Fallon felt the magic surrounding this place just as I did. It’s ancient magic.”

  “So a burial mound, then? You’d best talk to Broc and Sonya about that, since they’ve explored many of them.”

  “I thought it was a burial mound, but I’m no’ so sure.”

  Logan grunted low. “What do you think it is?”

  “Something bad. The problem is, it appears that whoever constructed this no’ only did it belowground and covered it up, but they barred the door with several crisscrossing boards.”

  “They wanted people kept out.”

  “Or whatever is inside kept inside.”

  “Shite.”

  Arran’s lips flattened. “Exactly.”

  “You shouldna be there alone. If there is something in that structure … Wait. How big is it?”

  “I’ve no idea. Only the arch and about half a meter of the ceiling have been revealed.”

  Logan was silent for a moment. “I didna agree with Fallon sending you alone. We’ve lost Duncan. I doona want to lose another of us.”

  Arran hated to think of Duncan. He’d been Ian’s twin, and a close ally while Arran was locked in Deirdre’s mountain.

  When Deirdre had killed Duncan, they’d nearly lost Ian in the process. Nothing had been the same since Duncan’s death. As Warriors, they might be immortal, but take their heads and you took their life.

  “I know Ronnie is going to Edinburgh for a few days soon. Maybe Saffron could meet her there and keep her distracted so I can see what’s behind the door.”

  “Nay,” Logan said. “So we can see what’s behind that door. You are no’ doing it alone.”

  Arran hung up the phone and smiled. He’d wanted to get away from the castle, but now that he’d been gone, he missed the others. The laughter, the fights, the movie nights, the sparring, and the meals.

  Mealtime was always so loud and chaotic. But it was special. Arran hadn’t appreciated until then how much it meant to him.

  If there was danger, he didn’t want any of his friends there to possibly get hurt. He’d take care of it all.

  Or die trying.

  CHAPTER

  FOURTEEN

  Ronnie lay in her tent and thought of Arran. Nights were the hardest. He haunted her dreams. His kiss made her long for things she once thought she’d never want. And somehow Arran and her dreams of the mystery box interwove until she couldn’t think of one without the other.

  The one thing she could count on to help her forget about Arran and things that could never be was the dig. She’d had the boards taken off the doors after dinner. Arran, of course, had been one of the men who did the job.

  The muscle tightening in his jaw told her in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t happy about it. She stood by his side as he pulled one board off at a time.

  It wasn’t until it was over that she realized how tense Arran had been. Almost as if he had expected something to happen.

  “Doona go inside,” he’d begged her softly so that no one else could hear.

  Ronnie planned to do just that, but something in Arran’s eyes gave her pause. What was one more day? It had seemed simple enough at the time, but now, in the dead of night, she couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  The box wanted out. It wanted her to find it, to open it. And it couldn’t wait one more day.

  She flopped onto her back on her cot and blew out a breath. She’d gone out to the dig by herself already and nearly died. Did she really want to chance that again?

  And if the box was there and she found it with everyone else, she’d have to give it to the government. The only way to know for sure was to go by herself. That way if the box was there, she could hide it. No one need ever know what she’d found.

  Ronnie rose from her bed and hurried to dress while the ever-present song beckoned her. Even as she dressed, she knew she was doing the wrong thing, but the box was important. She felt it in her bones, deep in her soul. Somehow that box belonged to her. There was no way she’d give it over to anyone.

  Anyone.

  Knowing that, she had only one choice. She had to get inside the chamber.

  Ronnie grabbed a flashlight and stepped out of her tent to look around. There wasn’t a soul in sight. It was almost 1 A.M., and the sky was just beginning to darken. Everything had been left at the dig so she easily got harnessed and lowered herself into the hole.

  It was dark and scary, now that she was in the ground alone. Swallowing a lump of unease, she turned on the flashlight. She unclipped her harness from the rope and faced the wooden door that Arran had been staring at.

  The door itself was nondescript. The only thing that made it stand out was that it was well over twelve feet high and carved to fit perfectly in the arch of stones.

  Ronnie walked to the door and turned the beam of light onto a stone she’d seen Arran inspecting earlier. She couldn’t see anything, but that didn’t mean nothing was there. She’d learned that she couldn’t chance overlooking anything.

  She picked up a handful of dirt and rubbed it onto the rock. To her amazement, she saw a trinity knot carved into
the sandstone.

  Why it hadn’t show up before, she wasn’t sure—nor did it matter. Ronnie quickly began to rub the dirt into other stones around the door and found even more Celtic symbols. Each different, and each invisible to the naked eye.

  She stepped back and looked at the door again. “What is it about you that makes Arran leery?”

  And makes me want inside so desperately?

  After a deep, calming breath, she placed her hand on the door. There were no handles, nothing that suggested how she might open the door. Before she could even try, something zinged through her fingers and ran all along her body.

  And then the door began to swing open on its own.

  “Oh, shit.”

  Ronnie jumped back and stumbled over the rope. She landed hard on her butt, catching herself with the hand not holding the flashlight.

  A gust of stale air rushed out of the chamber and right at her, causing her to choke and cough repeatedly. Ronnie had to turn her head away and cover her mouth until the dust mixed with the air had settled enough that she could see into the chamber.

  The song swelled and then fell silent. She licked her lips and peered into the chamber, tilting her head first one way, then the other. The beams of the flashlight showed the chamber was twice the size she had guessed it to be.

  Silence filled the area, and when she climbed to her feet, the stillness seemed louder than normal. She took a tentative step toward the entrance and shone her light all around the door, looking for booby traps of any kind.

  Only when she was sure it was safe, did she step into the chamber. It was a rectangle with sides longer than front and back.

  Ronnie shivered as the dampness of the chamber settled over her. She almost thought she felt a thread of … evil. But surely it was just her imagination and all those horror movies she loved to watch alone.

  It was almost as if she were intruding someplace she had no business being. Her skin tingled unpleasantly, and the sensation caused her to shift her shoulders to try to make it go away.

  In all her years as an archeologist, and all the places she’d dug, nothing had ever taken her aback like this place.

  Ronnie squared her shoulders after a brief pause where she considered getting Arran. She proceeded farther into the chamber. And Arran’s words of warning echoed through her mind.

  She expected to find a body, as in any burial chamber, except there was none. Instead there were tables that lined the walls and ran down the middle of the chamber, where artifacts were scattered.

  Ronnie went to each one, looking at it. Some were nothing more than a piece of rock or stone with a Celtic inscription or drawing. One piece was a ring. Another a dagger.

  She wanted to touch each one, but she held back. As she walked each table, shining her light upon each piece, she was mentally cataloging everything.

  Her mind, however, went blank when she came upon a stone tablet the size of a laptop that was broken in half diagonally. The pieces were set beside each other, the cracked edges not fully touching.

  The writing was Gaelic, the knotwork etched with painstaking precision. She bent low over the table and tried to piece together any of her scattered knowledge of Gaelic to read what it said.

  “‘The one with unused—’” She shook her head. “No. Not unused—untapped, maybe. That’s it. ‘The one with untapped magic will…’” She pursed her lips and racked her brain to make out the next few lines. “‘Will free those trapped by—’ By what?” she said angrily.

  Ronnie licked her lips and looked at the writing again. “‘Will free those … trapped by the ones who came before.’”

  She stopped and looked at the tablet again. The lines were written not as a letter, but as a prophecy.

  “Shit,” she murmured. She looked at the tablet with new eyes.

  “‘The one with untapped magic will free those trapped by the ones who came before.’

  “‘She,’” she said with a tremor she couldn’t keep out of her voice, “‘will unknowingly bring about destruction and … death.’”

  A chill of foreboding raced down her spine. That prophecy had probably been locked away for thousands of years. It meant nothing.

  Didn’t it?

  Ronnie made herself walk away from it, yet the words she had read aloud repeated again and again in her mind

  Until she came to the box.

  “I found you,” she whispered excitedly as the song began again. It was sweet, soft now, lulling even. It soothed her and erased all her worries.

  Ronnie couldn’t believe her eyes. It was the same box she saw in her dreams. Small but curious. It had the arched lid as well.

  She set the flashlight beside the box so the light would shine on it and she could have both hands to hold it. Carefully she lifted the box in her hands and grinned.

  She lovingly ran her hands over the plain wooden box. After having been so curious to know what was inside it, she now found she was a little hesitant to open it.

  What could be so important that it was in such a small box? And why did it matter that she have it?

  Ronnie fell to her knees on the dirt floor and set the box back on the table as more of the unpleasant tingling prickled her skin. Arran had warned her not to come in here alone. He hadn’t been his laughing, cheerful self since she’d fallen through the ground.

  The way he looked at the doorway had been almost as if he were sizing it up, like he was trying to determine what was inside.

  She had no doubt he’d be pissed if he knew she was in here alone. Ronnie knew better than to open such a find by herself. It was reckless and stupid, but she’d found the box. That’s what was important.

  And it didn’t mean she had to open the box right now. She could take it to her tent so she could open it whenever she wanted.

  It seemed the right thing to do, and it would get her out of the dark, eerie chamber. Ronnie picked up the box, but before she could get to her feet, a strange sensation overtook her.

  It was oppressive, overwhelming.

  Insistent.

  Suddenly she had to know what was in the box. If felt as if it was life or death if she didn’t open it and look inside. Right that minute.

  With shaky hands, she flipped the small metal latch and cracked open the lid.

  CHAPTER

  FIFTEEN

  Arran came awake and jumped to his feet with a low, rumbling growl. His god was bellowing inside him, and that’s when he felt the ancient, powerful magic blast from the section they’d been excavating.

  He surged from his tent and ran to the section. Without a second’s hesitation, he jumped over the side to land in front of the door and arch.

  Only to find the door open.

  His god was demanding he release him, insisting he fight. But Arran held back. He walked to the doorway and halted as he looked inside. It only took a moment for him to spot the light from a flashlight.

  And then he saw Ronnie.

  The strange pale dust swirling around her was coming from a box she held, and the magic arising from the dust felt … wrong. Very wrong.

  Arran entered the chamber when the dust materialized into a mass of creatures unlike anything he’d ever seen. There had been nothing in his time as a Warrior that gave him pause. Until that moment.

  The beings were tall and emaciated, as if someone had stretched their skin tightly over their bones so they looked like the bones would punch through at any moment. Long, stringy white hair fell in their elongated faces. Their eyes were solid black and their skin the color of ash.

  They looked like death. And Arran comprehended that’s what they’d bring.

  The creature closest to him snarled, showing fangs even longer than the ones Arran had in his Warrior form. The magic he’d felt earlier only intensified, and there was no mistaking the evil now.

  He had no choice but to release his Warrior. In an instant, claws sprang from his fingers, fangs filled his mouth, and his skin turned the white of his god.

 
Then they rushed him.

  Arran used his long claws to slash the creatures. Whereas such a cut would have killed others, it did nothing but anger these new monsters.

  Their regeneration was almost instantaneous. Arran knew he was in trouble, but he wasn’t going to go down without a fight. In true Highlander fashion.

  He released a loud roar from deep within his chest. With speed and skill, he began to move rapidly, cutting and slashing every creature that surrounded him. Something began to sting his skin. It burned like acid fire, and soon it had him on his knees.

  The creatures were smiling as they closed in around him. Arran wasn’t ready to die. Who would protect Ronnie when he was gone? Once more he lashed out with his claws, but it wasn’t the effort he’d wanted.

  The nearest creature caught his arm, its smile widening. Alarm swept through Arran. But it was too late to wish he had another Warrior with him.

  Instead of cutting him, the damned thing bit him. Arran threw back his head and bellowed at the feel of fangs on his skin. But it did no good. The others soon began to feed off him as well.

  He could feel the blood draining from his body, weakening him more effectively than whatever was burning his skin. Through the mass of bony gray bodies, he spied Ronnie. She was backed against a wall while one of the creatures stood over her.

  “Nay!” Arran thundered. He turned to his god and sought Memphaea’s strength, his power. His rage.

  When it gathered inside him like a great ball of energy, he threw the creatures off him.

  The monsters were immortal, and if there was one thing he knew, it was how to kill an immortal. Beheading. He stopped cutting at their chests and went for their necks.

  He killed two before they realized what was happening. Then three more fell. They began fighting to restrain him, and in his weakened condition, they should’ve been able to stop him.

  But there was Ronnie. She was all he could think about, she was all that kept him on his feet and fighting. He had to reach her, to get her to safety before the beasts harmed her.

  Tears coursed down her face as she stared up at the monster in fear. Arran reached the being in front of Ronnie and swiped his claws through the bastard’s neck.