John glared at Lany, who gave him a what was I supposed to say? look in response. He turned back to Dallan. “The Muiraran is here for tonight only, that is, if we haven’t missed ah … it.”
Dallan’s eyes narrowed. He looked to the building again and began to walk directly to it.
John gasped. “Dallan, wait, let one of us go first.” He began to trot after him, the rest following.
Dallan reached two large wooden doors. A loud thumping sound was coming from inside. He stood, head cocked, listening with curiosity.
Angus caught up to him. “Let me take him in, Lord John. I’m more familiar with these sorts o’ places. I know what, uh, he needs to look for.”
John frowned, weighing Angus’s words. “All right, go ahead. Take him in, get a good look, and then bring him out. Lany and I will take it from there.” He glanced at Lany. “Right?”
Lany swallowed and stared at Dallan, all six-feet-six of him. “Right.” He smiled, his voice even flatter than usual.
Dallan pushed open the double doors and stepped inside, Angus hobbling along behind him. The doors closed, though they couldn’t hear them; the music was too loud, the people’s shouts and hollers deafening.
Dallan looked about and covered his ears. He’d never in his life heard such an irritating racket. The music was almost terrifying, and at first glance the people looked out of control. Upon closer inspection, however, he saw they danced and twirled as one huge group, all making the same motions with their hands and bodies, stomping their boot-clad feet in unison. He slowly uncovered his ears and glared at Angus. “Where is it? I’ll ha’ my look and then let’s be gone! I dinna like it here!”
Angus nodded and scanned the area, searching.
Dallan, too, searched the huge room with a trained eye. He scanned the walls, the corners, the tables, looking for any sort of unusual weapon. Nothing. “I dinna ken this thing, Angus. Ye’ll ha’ to point it out.”
Angus’s face had suddenly gone pale. He swallowed hard and peered up at Dallan. “Nay, lad, best ye see it for yerself. Believe me, ye’ll know it when ye sees it.”
Dallan glared. “How d’ye expect me to fetch it when I dinna ken what it looks like?”
Angus swallowed again and took an involuntary step back. “Look around, laddie. It’s here. By all that is holy, it’s here.”
Dallan couldn’t believe it. The man had fear in his eyes. He quickly scanned the room again. The people were everywhere, dancing and shouting. The music was still loud with a man singing about the Almighty blessing someone named Texas. He looked to a darkened corner where a huge lighted contraption glowed, apparently the source of the music.
A reddish flash suddenly caught his eye as a series of whoops and jeers rent the air. Several large men had just thrown a woman atop a long serving counter. She danced before them, her movements quick and graceful. Her long dark red hair flew about her as she twisted and spun, a large black hat of some sort covered her head and most of her face. Dallan feared she would fall, knowing she couldn’t possibly see with the hat over her eyes. He took an unconscious step forward, and involuntarily braced himself to run and catch her if need be.
She spun again and faced him, her small body swaying to the fast music. He couldn’t tear his eyes from her, though he knew he needed to continue his search. He was transfixed, the music dying away from his ears.
The woman lifted the hat from her face.
Dallan gasped and stumbled backward, almost falling on top of Angus. A bolt of searing heat shot through his body as his eyes locked on hers.
Her eyes were a brilliant green, the same as his, and they bore into him like lightning, traveling through him and out the doors behind him to who-knows-where. The confirmation hit him so hard, so fast he stepped back onto Angus’s feet, causing them both to stumble. The two men grabbed at each other to keep from falling.
“By the Saints!” Dallan breathed.
The woman let the hat fall over her face and broke the frightening hold she had on him. He nearly fell over again but Angus caught him. “Easy, lad, easy. Hold together now.” He tried to steer Dallan to the door.
Dallan stood to his full height and wrenched his arm from the small man. The woman! She was what John was after! He burst through the doors leading outside, nostrils flared, eyes narrowed, his jaw dancing.
Lany pushed himself away from the car he’d been leaning against. “Ah, see, Eaton? What did I tell you? I knew he’d be able to recognize… uh oh.”
“John!” Dallan bellowed as his angry strides brought him closer.
Lany nodded to himself nervously. “Instant recognition from the sound of it. You’ll excuse me for a second?”
John glared at his assistant before putting on his Lord Councilor’s face. He stood straight, preparing for the verbal onslaught.
Dallan stopped directly in front of him eyes set to kill, and bent to the shorter man’s face. “Ye ask me to trust. Ye tell me the Muiraran can get me home. Ye tell me how bloody close I am to getting away from the heathen! But ye seem to ha’ forgotten to tell me that the weapon, this…this Muiraran, is a woman!” He turned his face from John abruptly, caught his breath, and spun on him again. “Tell me, just how is a drunken woman to get me home?”
John’s eyes widened. “Drunken?” His voice, he thought seemed a little weak.
Dallan’s face exploded in exasperation. He threw one hand in the direction of the building. “Aye, dancing on the serving counter no less! What sort o’ place is this, a bloody brothel? Saints, man, have ye lost yer senses? I’ll ha’ no part o’ this! Nay, no part at all. Either ye play straight with me, or let me be on my way!”
John stood staring up at him, a flat look governing his face. Lany caught it and smiled to himself. “Ah, love at first sight.”
Dallan glared at him. “And just what is that supposed to mean?”
Lany threw up both hands in front of him. “Not a thing.” He turned to his superior. “Right, I’ll shut up.”
John took a deep breath. “Dallan, I didn’t tell you what the Muiraran was because I wasn’t allowed to.”
No one thought it possible, but Dallan’s eyes narrowed even further. “Dinna tell me. Let me guess.”
“It wasn’t Kwaku. It was the Elders.” John remained calm while he spoke, even going so far as to begin drawing circles in the gravel of the parking lot with his foot. “They felt you wouldn’t help us if you were told the Muiraran was a woman.”
Dallan snorted. “Ye canna call her even that. Why she’s naught but a wee lassie, nary more than six and ten.”
“Oh, she’s a bit older than that, Dallan. And whether you like it or not, she is still the only means you have of getting home.” John took a step toward him, closing the distance between them and looked directly into his eyes. “And she is still the only one able to save my people… and yours.”
Dallan stepped back, folded his arms over his chest and cocked his head. “I dinna understand. How can a wee lass be so important? And how am I to help ye now? I thought she was a weapon, not a… tavern wench!”
John sighed, looked to the ground, then back to Dallan. “She possesses the ability to save my people and yours from a horrible fate, one I care not to explain just now. Suffice to say, she’s all we’ve got. The problem is, she doesn’t know what she has. We need to win her trust.” He locked gazes with Dallan. “You need to win her trust. That’s why you’re here.”
Dallan’s arms fell to his sides slowly as he took another step back. His mouth opened halfway as disbelief formed on his face. “Ye canna be serious.”
John took two steps forward. “I most certainly am.” He took another step and glared straight up into Dallan’s face. “Dead serious.”
Dallan glared back, confusion warring with the need to believe in what John was saying. He looked to the building, then back to John as his eyes suddenly softened. “How can the wee lass save so many? Och, I doubt she could save herself if a need arose. Why, the way the lads were tossing her about in ther
e, I…”
His eyes narrowed again as he cursed to himself in Gaelic and sprang toward the building, his long legs eating up the distance. A sense of dread suddenly filled him at the thought of the woman inside getting hurt. The unwanted emotions irritated him even more. Yet, by all the Saints, he couldn’t stop himself.
“Dallan!” John ran after him, grabbed an arm and pulled. “Stop!”
Lany came away from the car he’d gone back to leaning against and ran after his superior. “I’ll take care of it, Eaton.” He said as he sped past them to the doors.
“He’ll make sure she’s okay, Dallan. Don’t worry,” John reassured, hoping he was right.
Dallan stopped and leaned toward the building, John still holding his arm, as Lany slipped inside. Minutes passed, and he began to pace. “What’s taking him so long?”
John smiled at the concern in Dallan’s voice, pleased at the sound. “He’s doing his job, Dallan. He knows what to do. Don’t worry.”
No sooner had John spoken than the din of the music stopped abruptly. A moment later Lany emerged from the building, a satisfied look on his face. He walked quickly to the rest of the small company. “She’s fine now.”
John raised a brow at him.
“We’ll talk later, Eaton, but I think she was feeding.”
“By the Creator, so soon?”
“Afraid so. There’s more, but we can’t talk here.” He turned to Dallan. “She’s being well taken care of, and you’ll see her again later.” He took a step closer and looked directly into Dallan’s eyes. “You’re right, she does need protection. Interested?”
Dallan’s head cocked slightly as he studied him. He then looked to John. “So … I’m to be a sort o’ guard for her?”
John glanced at his assistant who stood with one eyebrow raised, a tiny, nervous smile on his face. John smiled back. “Yes, Dallan, that’s a start. Let’s go back to the apartment. We’ll tell you a little more about it, right, Lany?”
Lany looked to the building and sighed. “Yes. It’s time.”
John started to lead Dallan back to the other side of the parking lot where the bus had let them off, Angus shuffling along close behind.
John let Dallan and Angus go on ahead, then stopped and turned to his assistant. “Feeding? On what?”
Lany watched Dallan walk on a moment before answering. “Music, if my guess is right.”
John’s mouth dropped open. “Are you kidding?”
“Afraid not.”
“By the Creator, no wonder she was… I mean, if you’re right, and she really does need to, what was she doing here anyway?”
Lany glanced over his shoulder at the building. “That’s what I need to talk to you about.” He watched as Dallan and Angus got even further ahead of them. “Privately.”
John nodded, then suddenly stopped to look at his assistant. “The music. Why did it stop?”
Lany held up an odd black round object with three metal tines, attached to about six inches of cord. Severed cord. “I had to stop it somehow. No telling how long she’d be in there. Maybe now she’ll go home.”
John began to laugh at his assistant’s creativity. “How’d you do it?”
Lany pulled a large pen out of his back pocket, a combination communicator and laser. “I never travel without one.” His expression became quickly serious. “Eaton, we’ve got company. Someone else knows the Maiden is nearly ready.”
John stared at him at him blankly a moment. “No.”
“A woman. I don’t know who she is, but she definitely was using the music.”
“By the Creator, what could this mean?”
Lany looked to Dallan’s retreating form in the distance. “It means he may only have a few days to win the Maiden, join, and consummate before whomever originally stole her comes to do the same.”
John also looked to the back of the Weapon’s Master. “Great Bells, I hope and pray he’s cooperative.”
“Oh, I don’t think there’ll be any problem.”
John stared disbelievingly at Lany, knowing full well there was always a problem with Dallan.
“Eaton, trust me. There won’t be a problem.”
“How can you say that when there’s so little time?”
Lany grinned at him knowingly. He leaned forward. “I saw the Maiden.”
“And?”
“She knows he’s here.”
“How do you know?”
“She was in Flux.”
John’s knees went weak and he sat down, hard, on the ground.
The Muiraran Maiden’s features were fluxing back and forth, a sure sign her inner heart was quickly waking. The small company had perhaps only days to perform the impossible.
For the Known Lands and John’s people to be saved from civil war, Dallan MacDonald and the Muiraran Maiden would have to fall in love.
Quickly.
To be loved at fi rst sight, a man
Should have at the same time
Something to respect and
Something to pity in his face.
Stendhal
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Shona struck her pillow in anger as the tears fell. How could she have acted so awful? How could she let herself be such a disgrace? And why hadn’t Julia stopped her? Shona continued to vent her shame and absently beat the pillow.
She had felt fine when they got to Stan’s; why would she suddenly lose control? And why had she felt so strange while she was dancing? It was as if she had woken from one of her nightmares, the kind that made her face change…
She turned onto her back and grabbed a tissue from her night stand as she did. Was she going crazy? Maybe it was the medication her mother had gotten her the day before. The stuff had made her pass out yesterday according to Julia. But her mother was a nurse after all, and Shona supposed she knew what was what when she obtained the prescription. Shona didn’t like taking it, but it did work.
Perhaps a bit too well.
She got out of bed, went into the hall, then stopped and stood a moment. What was wrong? What was there? She felt something inside her chest stirring, coming to life. She paced the hallway in an unsuccessful attempt to calm herself.
She needed something, anything. She was so … hungry.
“Of course, I am hungry.” The realization sent Shona down the hall, past her bedroom, and up the attic stairs to the one place where she could find relief from what raged within her.
She flung herself onto the worn sofa, hands shaking, and groped in the darkness for the stereo remote. “No, oh ... oh crap, I know you are here somewhere!”
She began to practically cry again, groped some more, and then realized the lights were off. Cursing her foolishness, not to mention her new-found use of profanity, she got up from the sofa, went to the light switch by the stairs and flipped it on.
Nothing. Darkness. For some reason the power to this part of the house wasn’t working. “Oh, no.” Shona stepped away from the stairs, her hand covering her mouth to stop the nausea assailing her.
The sinking realization that she couldn’t listen to any music hit full force and she fell to her knees, clutching her stomach. “Please, I have to listen, I have to… I need to make it go away.” She suddenly fought against a sob as she reached into the darkness, but for what she did not know.
“Help me,” she moaned as the unnamed thing began to take over. “Come to me…”
Shona closed her eyes, threw her head back and unable to stop herself, softly began to sing.
* * *
Dallan’s eyes sprang open as he bolted upright upon the bed. For a moment he felt unsure of where he was. He looked around the darkened room and swallowed, his throat dry, and spotted an odd form nearby.
Master Lany. The Assistant Councilor was sound asleep on his cot. He looked around and saw John and Angus also still slept. He swallowed again and got out of bed. He’d had to sleep in odd quarters before, but not in so strange a place as this.
He quietly left the room,
clad only in what John called boxers, the only comfortable piece of clothing he’d been introduced to since his arrival nearly two days ago. He stopped in the living room, glanced at his reflection in the window and almost laughed. Comfort aside, the boxers were still strange; he never thought he’d find himself clad in anything covered with funny little drawings of cows.
Dallan smiled and went to the window. He rested his head against the glass, his hands on the sill, and sighed as he looked to the empty street below as one of the carriages—correction, cars—sped by. He was beginning to enjoy the way they could maneuver and race about, so long as he wasn’t asked to get into one. He shuddered at the thought and began to head back to the bedroom when he heard something. He turned back to the window, head cocked, ears straining.
Nothing.
He shook his head as he turned, but stopped short again.
“Saints, what is that?” He approached the window and stared out into the night.
Music. Yes, he could hear music, soft and gentle, yet… sad, lonely. Weeping? But how could he hear it? He saw nothing.
Dallan glanced at Mother MacNab’s box, but it did not glow now. He turned back to the window and the city beyond, its tall buildings across the river reaching high into the sky, the lights reflecting off the water. Beyond them were the hills, also lit with the same lights, and it was to them his gaze was drawn.
He placed his palms flat against the window and strained against the glass separating him from… whatever… whoever was there. “Where are ye? Are ye out there? Nay, how could that be? Yer not any where, ye don’t exist, lass.”
He bowed his head and strained again to hear.
He wasn’t disappointed.
The music called softly to him, beckoning, pleading for him to come. No words, only a simple melody sung by a sweet voice.
Dallan cocked his head again. A voice? He stood straight, his eyes searching the distant hills, his heart breaking. “Mother of God,” he whispered as he looked to the sky, then back to the distant lights.
Something in him stirred, as if waking.
Time Masters Book One; The Call (An Urban Fantasy, Time Travel Romance) Page 18
