Knight of Cups (Knights of the Tarot Book 2)

by Nina Mason

  Queen? What queen? I opened his mouth to ask, but her question cut me off.

  “By what name are you called, my lover?”

  “MacDubh,” I croaked through my parched throat. “Heathcliff MacDubh.”

  “I am Belphoebe.” She spread the plaid over me. “My sister, Amoret, is tending another not far from here. The rest of the wounded have been killed. Those who escaped were burned alive, shot, or hung. Any still on the moor have had their skulls bashed in by the butts of English rifles.”

  Her disclosure scourged me to the bone. Struck dumb, I took a moment to recover my wits. “What of the prince? Has he been killed or captured?”

  “Nay.” She kept her voice low. “He and some of his officers got away, but are being hunted as we speak.”

  I swallowed hard, shut my eyes, and laid back. In the stories, those taken by the faeries did not come back for hundreds of years, if they came back at all.

  A precious moment from the past came into my mind. My beloved Clara outstretched beneath me, both of us naked, my stubbled face perched atop the dome of her pregnant belly. We had just made love and I was saying my farewells to her and the bairn.

  Chest constricting, I lifted my gaze to the sky. “Please, Heavenly Father, keep them safe…and let them know in some way how much I loved them.”

  With tears in her eyes, Gwyn marked her place, and closed the thick novel—if, in fact, it was a work of fiction. She suspected it was a memoir, and had come to Scotland to meet the book’s reclusive author, who had become something of a fixation for her.

  For years, she had set aside every spare penny she made as a game tester while doing all she could think of to get in touch with Sir Leith MacQuill, a Knight of the Thistle like the character he supposedly “created” in Knight of Cups.

  To her bitter disappointment, all her letters and emails to him, his publisher, and his agent went unanswered. Then, while surfing the web for another avenue of access, she stumbled upon Castles and Cairns, a two-week excursion through the Scottish Highlands offering a brand-new feature: a night at Castle Glenarvon, Sir Leith’s otherwise inaccessible hermitage in Nairn.

  Gwyn saw the tour as the answer to her prayers; a sign from God confirming her purpose. Her friends on Facebook and in the Barstow Baronetcy of the Society for Creative Anachronism said she was setting herself up for disenchantment and would be smarter to spend her savings on a game console upgrade or new role-playing costumes. But they didn’t know how strongly she felt her connection to Sir Leith…or how deeply she felt the futility of her life. Reading his book had ignited a spark in some deep inner place she hadn’t known was there before. Reading his book had brought her back from the dead.

  Yes, she might be disappointed, but not half as disappointed as she would be in herself if she didn’t at least make the effort.

  In the next seat, Mrs. Dowd was still knitting.

  Click, click. Click, click.

  With a shuddering sigh, Gwyn looked out at the darkening sky. A storm was brewing—not that she minded. She liked rainstorms, which were all too rare in the high desert wasteland that was Barstow, California.

  Her life there had been a wasteland, too, but not anymore, dammit. Sir Leith was the knight in shining armor who would rescue her from the tower she’d locked herself inside to keep out the world. A tower built from the bricks of roleplaying games, re-enactments, and fantasy novels on a bedrock foundation of fear.

  Inside the tower, she could be a kick-ass heroine, a sexually confident temptress, or the brave-but-sweet Baroness MacDubh, the SCA persona she created after reading Knight of Cups. It was a role she seemed born to play.

  Outside the tower, she was a meek little mouse who was afraid to be touched or leave her trailer.

  Was she aware how pathetic she was? Yes, painfully aware. She was almost thirty and, because of the things her foster father had done to her, she had never been in a real relationship or even on a date.

  She was ready to change that—the reason she had embarked on this valiant quest to meet Sir Leith. No, not just to meet him, but to give herself to him, body and soul. If things went as she hoped, she would come back a different person. Or, better yet, never come back at all.

  Chapter 2

  Leith slipped into the garden shed, stripped off his clothes, and contemplated what lay ahead. Shifting was a self-abandoning experience much the way orgasm was. La petite mort, the French called it. The little death. Orgasm, not shifting. The absolute dissolution of mind and body brought about by shifting was closer to a near-death experience.

  Peace followed the quieting of conscious thought, especially the grief and regret that seemed always to be squirming inside his heart like worms boring their way through an apple.

  The hush of animal instinct was heavenly—or would be if his human self didn’t squat in the background making a nuisance of itself. Conversely, the cat was always there, too, living inside him like a restless embryo, constantly striving to make more room for itself inside his subconscious womb.

  Sometimes it was a wildcat, big and blood-hungry. Other times it was a kitten, docile and contented. Often, it woke him in the night, needing to stretch its restricted limbs. Occasionally, its swiping claws would tear at his insides, drawing blood.

  The change was nothing to him now (the whole process only took a minute), but it wasn’t always so. Like sex or roleplaying, like everything, really, shifting got easier with practice.

  In the early days, the transformation took place from the inside out. He would sit for a spell meditating upon the picture of himself as the cat before speaking the incantation. He would imagine himself growing fur, a snout, and a tail; envision his hands and feet becoming paws and his ears rising to the top of his head to form points. It took a considerable amount of effort and concentration back then.

  Now, he simply called the sleeping cat forth.

  Here, kitty, kitty.

  Well, no, it wasn’t quite that simple. He still had to recite the ancient spell Belphoebe taught him before he turned her over to the druids and imagine himself covered in black fur with a long tail and slanted green eyes.

  Taking a deep breath, he got down on all fours on the shed’s dirty floor. Grit dug into his knees and palms as he called the image of a Kellas Cat into his mind and spoke the magic words.

  Fee-faw

  Fee-faw

  Fee-faw

  His hands and feet changed first. The feeling was like the chills one gets with a fever. His toes and fingers retracted as their nailbeds sprouted claws. He dug their sharp points into the rough wood of the floor as a symphony of smells waltzed up his elongating snout. The sharply pungent steer manure behind him led the way, followed by the garden’s roses, lavender, and honeysuckle. The sea comes next with his bracing primordial pong. Then, the woods joined in with the soft notes of soil, grass, pine, and decaying leaves. Finally, he caught the scent of that earthy perfume Mother Nature dabbed on after the first few drops of rain.

  Inside him, the cat purred like a lawnmower.

  His shoulders, back, and haunches changed next. The hands of an invisible sculptor pushed, pulled, and reshaped the cellular clay of his form. Flesh, blood, and bone magically and painlessly reconfigured in a matter of moments.

  Squatting on his furry hindquarters in the open doorway, he looked across the garden with colorless vision while licking his paws with his new coarser tongue. As animal instinct pushed forward, roughly shoving human intelligence out of its way, he caught the musky scent of a hare.

  A pleasant tingling sensation akin to carnal desire surged through his bloodstream. Saliva gathered in his mouth like pre-ejaculate. His legs, all four of them, hit the ground as if only the chase mattered, his heart as hungry for blood as someone out for revenge. Somewhere in the back of his brain, the squatting man wondered if he had ever been that bloodthirsty.

  The cat batted the thought away with a swipe of his paw. You must trust me, he said with a Cheshire grin. I know what is best for you. />
  The man, trusting the cat would reward his submission, yielded to his inner savage.

  He tracked his prey to the cliffs, where the hare took cover under some rocks. Being the size of a bobcat, he couldn’t follow, so he waited, crouched and ready to spring. Overhead, the dark sky boomed and flashed, shedding sudden light on his monochrome world.

  Minutes later, his prey reemerged, nose twitching. He pounced, taking the hapless creature down by its neck. As his sharp teeth pierced the soft pelt, the man vaguely recalled a hare he had made a pet of as a boy, and how upset he’d been when the dogs got it. The cat only remembered the last hare he killed and how good it felt to fill his belly.

  Up above, thunder rumbled like distant cannon fire. The sound meant nothing to the cat, which had no reminiscences, only impulses. The cat’s mantra wasn’t eat, pray, love; it was eat, sleep, mate.

  Down below, waves battered the jagged rocks abutting the cliffs in the usual violent ways of Mother Nature.

  Blood spurted over his tongue before settling into a steady stream. Euphoria spread through him, warm and golden, like the honeyed afterglow of an excellent fuck.

  The cat did know what was best. Feeding felt a lot like what Queen Morgan’s curse had forbidden the man.

  Henceforth, you will live without love, she had said over her enchanted chalice, or kill in its pursuit.

  * * * *

  Thunder boomed louder than Gwyn thought possible, rattling her nerves along with the window beside her. With trembling hands, she slipped Knight of Cups into the backpack at her feet, which contained two other precious possessions: her handheld game console and a photo of her parents on their wedding day—the only image of them she had left.

  The rest had been lost when she was put into foster care after they were killed by a drunk driver. She was in the car, too, but survived after the doctors patched her fractured skull with a metal plate.

  Images of that long-ago accident flashed through Gwyn’s mind as the bus listed precariously. She gripped the armrests and broke out in a cold sweat. Good God. The bus all but tipped over that time. Why didn’t the driver pull over?

  The tour guide, a forty-something woman named Alice Trowbridge, was coming down the center aisle, reassuring the other passengers, who looked as uneasy as Gwyn felt.

  Alice was lanky and long-limbed with a sculpted pageboy and oversized teardrop eyes that reminded Gwyn of those creepy sixties-era paintings of sad-eyed children her foster mother collected. Not that Alice was creepy. On the contrary, she seemed friendly, organized, and, though English, knowledgeable about Scotland.

  Just as Alice approached their row, another violent gust rocked the coach. A chorus of screams rose from the forward seats. All the blood in Gwyn’s body rushed to her stomach. She shot a hard look at the tour guide.

  “Shouldn’t we pull over and wait it out?”

  “We’re horribly late already.” Alice checked the pendant watch she wore around her neck on a long chain. “And the driver knows this road like the back of his hand.”

  Gwyn hoped to hell it was true. Wringing her hands, she turned back to the storm. It was like being inside one of those drive-through carwashes without the soap.

  “All will be well,” Alice assured her. “I promise.”

  The bus tipped. The tour guide stumbled, but gripped the headrest on Mrs. Dowd’s seat to stop her fall. The color drained from Alice’s face. Her pageboy was no longer perfect.

  Gwyn turned back to the window just in time to meet a blinding flash. The sky was dark and churning, rain poured down in sheets, and a steep ravine edged the narrow road. One good gust could blow the bus right over the side! She gulped and closed her eyes. She should pray, but to which saint? Michael, the archangel of protection? Christopher, the patron of travelers? She was almost sure there was a saint for storms, but couldn’t seem to dislodge the name from her fear-gummed brain.

  Oh, to hell with it. She would just go with the old standard, not that prayer had ever done her any good anyway.

  Angel of God, my Guardian dear,

  to whom His love commits me here,

  ever this day, be at my side,

  to light and guard, to rule and guide.

  The coach tilted to one side. Her heart jumped into her throat and fear scurried across her skin like tiny spiders on frozen legs. Oh, dear God. She was going to die. The wheels dropped with a jolt, knocking her teeth together. Damn, she bit her tongue, but at least she was still alive.

  The bus lurched, flinging her forward. The seatbelt stopped her throwing her back against the seat. Her head snapped back like a Pez dispenser. Blood salted her tongue. Damn, she had bitten it again.

  Beside her, Mrs. Dowd, needles clicking like rosary beads, recited the Hail Mary under her breath.

  The coach teetered on the edge of the ravine.

  Screams cut through the noise of the storm.

  Gwyn clamped her hands around the armrests.

  Mrs. Dowd carried on knitting and praying.

  “Holy Mary, Mother of God”—click, click, click—”pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.”

  Gwyn struggled to shut her out. She didn’t want to think about dying. This trip was supposed to be the start of a new, more exciting life. The beginning, not the end.

  Eurosia! That’s the name of the patron saint of storms.

  As the bus tipped toward the cliff, another shrill chorus assaulted Gwyn’s ears. She swallowed, eyes shut tight. If they were going over, she would rather not witness the carnage.

  Her memory unveiled the wedding photo of her parents. Hope fluttered in her breast like a dying butterfly. Would she see them on the other side? Or had they already come back as somebody else? Despite her Catholic upbringing, she believed in reincarnation and had even been regressed once. The hypnotist told her she was a Scottish lady in her last life who had died in the aftermath of the Jacobite Rising of 1745.

  Might that be the reason she felt such a strong connection to Leith MacQuill?

  Maybe, probably. Not that it mattered now. Not that anything mattered now.

  Rocking violently, the coach hung in the air, balanced on two wheels. Time stood still. So did her heart. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t remember how to scream.

  The bus tipped past the balancing point. No! This wasn’t happening…

  And yet, it was.

  The bus rolled down the embankment, thrashing and groaning like a dying elephant. Panic stabbed Gwyn like a crazed killer as the screams of the other passengers echoed in her ears.

  She was upside down in the air with the seatbelt digging into her shoulder. Something banged into her head. Weird, random things sprinted through her brain. Reading somewhere how Culloden had left a permanent scar on the Highlands. The hypnotist telling her about her past life. Her SCA friends arguing about the Holy Grail. The fear she would die before meeting Leith MacQuill.

  Please God, don’t let this be it. Not when I’m so close to his castle.

  The biting smell of gasoline overwhelmed. She dug her fingers deeper into the armrests. The window beside her exploded. Safety-glass shrapnel stung her face and arms.

  She cried out and let go. The seatbelt let go, too. She went weightless. Good God, she was flying. Her head hit something hard. The crack of bone echoed in her ears, the same way it did when the drunk driver killed her parents. As pain shot across her skull, she thought about the metal plate in her head and wondered if it would save her. Darkness pulled at her awareness like an undertow, dragging her down and down into the murky depths of oblivion.

  * * * *

  The cat had just reached the shed when an explosive boom shook the ground. The startling sound arched his back and made the hairs on his tail stick out.

  If that was a thunderclap, he had never heard its equal in volume. Just to be sure, he waited for an encore, whiskers twitching, ears pricked.

  A flash of lightning lit up the sky. The retorting boom, much softer than the one before,
had come from the moors. The first had come from the cliffs, where the road curved precariously along the edge.

  As alarm tingled along the cat’s backbone, the man inside reclaimed his dominance. He spoke the magic words to restore his human form and, while enduring the transformation, sent up a simple prayer.

  Please, Heavenly Father, let it not be the tour bus.

  * * * *

  Gwyn opened her eyes, blinking to clear her fuzzy vision and thoughts. She was still alive, but wouldn’t be for much longer, judging by the severity of her pain. Clenching against it, she cast a glance down her body. Her clothes were muddy and tattered, blood seeped from her chest, and her left arm looked distressingly similar to the pipe under the bathroom sink in her trailer back in Barstow.

  Shock cut into her thoughts. Her hips were twisted at an impossible angle. A book lay beside her, its cover gashed and mud-splattered. Was it Peter Pan? How she had loved that book in the happier days before her parents were killed.

  Her favorite part was when Tinker Bell drank the poison medicine to protect Peter. Then, to save Tink, he asked all the children to clap if they believed in faeries.

  Gwyn saw herself as a girl again, applauding like crazy and crying, “I believe! I believe!” as her mother read her the book.

  She meant it, too, with all of her heart. Just because she had never seen a faery didn’t mean they didn’t exist. Nobody had ever seen God, either, and plenty of people still believed He was real.

  She stretched her hand toward the book. She had to have it. Had to. If she could just touch the binding, even the merest graze with the tip of her finger, she would magically survive.

  The effort proved beyond her. As pain shot up her arm, tears of anguish and futility stung her eyes. Wherever she was, however she got here, she was going to die.

  Without ever meeting Leith MacQuill.

  Hot tears intermingled with the cold rain on her cheeks. Had her body been able, she would have curled up in the fetal position.