Beyond the Highland Myst

by Highlander 01-08

  "Somehow," Gwen said slowly, "I think before all is said and done, Gabby, you won't be the only one doing it."

  * * *

  "Turn left," Adam instructed.

  "Left? How can you even see a left in this pea soup?" Gabby said irritably. She could barely make out the road ten feet past the hood of the compact car. But it wasn't just the fog that was aggravating her; the farther they got from Castle Keltar, the more vulnerable she was feeling. As if the most magnificent chapter in the Book of Gabrielle O'Callaghan's Life was coming to a close and she wasn't going to like what she found when she turned the page.

  She understood now why her friend Elizabeth, with her near-genius, analytical mind gave wide berth to murder mysteries, psychological thrillers, and horror stories, and read only romance novels. Because, by God, when a woman picked up one of those steamy books, she had a firm guarantee that there would be a Happily-Ever-After. That though the world outside those covers could bring such sorrow and disappointment and loneliness, between those covers, the world was a splendid place to be.

  She glanced irritably at Adam. He was looking at her. Hard.

  "What?" she snapped belligerently, not meaning to sound belligerent but feeling it to the core.

  He said softly, "You aren't falling for me, are you, Irish?"

  Returning her gaze fixedly to the road ahead. Gabby clenched her jaw, incapable of speaking for several moments, her stomach a stew of emotions, a veritable pressure cooker about to blow. She muttered a few choice words Grain would have shuddered to hear.

  "Why do you keep asking me that?" she snapped at last. "I'm really sick of you asking me that. Do I ask you that? Have I ever asked you that? That is such a patronizing thing to say, like you're warning me or something, like you're saying. 'Don't fall for me, Irish, you helpless, weak little woman,' and what's with this frigging 'Irish' bit? Can't you call me by name? Is that one of those depersonalizing touches? Like it removes you a bit from the immediacy of the moment, somehow makes me less of a human being with feelings? I'll have you know, you arrogant, overbearing. thickheaded, underdisclosing, never-ask-me-any-questions-because-I-sure-as-hell-won't-answer-them-to-you-O-mere-mortal prince, that I took my fair share of psychology courses in college, and I understand a thing or two about men that applies to ones who aren't even of the human persuasion, and if were falling for you, which I'm here to tell you I'm not, because falling implies an ongoing action, an event that's taking place in real time, here and now— "

  She broke off abruptly, on the verge of revealing too much. Too wounded, too uncertain of herself, of him, to go on.

  Inhaled. Puffed her bangs from her face with an angry breath.

  Long moments unfurled and he said nothing.

  Gutting the words slowly, she said, "Why didn't Morganna take the elixir of immortality? I need you to answer this."

  The silence stretched. She refused to look at him.

  "Because immortality," he said finally, slowly, as if each word were being forcibly pried from his mouth and was paining him more deeply than she could possibly know, "and the immortal soul are incompatible. You can't have both."

  Gabby jerked and looked at him, horrified.

  He slammed his fist into the glove box. Plastic exploded as his hand went right through it. Half the little door dangled for a moment on one hinge, then fell to the floor. His lips curved in a bitter smile. "Not what you expected to hear, eh?"

  "You mean, if Morganna had taken it, she would have lost her immortal soul?" Gabby gasped.

  "And Darroc thinks humans aren't very bright." Dark sarcasm dripped from his voice.

  "So, er... but... I don't get it. How? Does a person, like, have to hand it over or something?"

  "Humans have an aura surrounding them that my kind can see," he said flatly. "The immortal soul lights than from within, makes than glow golden. Once a human takes the elixir of life, that soul begins to bum out, until there is nothing of it left."

  Gabby blinked. "I glow golden? You mean, right now, as I'm sitting here?"

  He gave a bitter little laugh. "More intensely than most."

  "Oh." A pause while she tried to collect her thoughts. "So, do they change, the humans who take it?"

  "Ah, yes. They change."

  "I see." The utter lack of inflection in his reply made her deeply uneasy. She suddenly had no desire to know how they changed. Suspected she wouldn't like it at all. "So then, that means our Books were right about the Tuatha Dé not having souls, doesn't it?"

  "Your Books were right about many things," he said coldly. "You know that. You knew it when you took me as your lover. You took me anyway."

  "You really don't have a soul?" Of all he'd just told her, she found that the most unfathomable. How could it be? She couldn't get her brain around it, not now that she knew him. Things that didn't have souls were... well, evil, weren't they? Adam wasn't evil. He was a good man. Better than most, if not all, she'd ever met.

  "Nope. No soul, Gabrielle. That's me, Adam Black, iridescent-eyed, soulless, deadly fairy."

  Ouch, she'd said that to him once. Seemed a lifetime ago.

  She stated into the fog for a time, driving on autopilot.

  And she tried not to ask it, but she'd just begun to believe that maybe the Tuatha Dé weren't quite so different from humans, only to find out that they were, and she couldn't stop herself. She had to know how different. Precisely what she was dealing with. "Hearts? Do the Tuatha Dé have hearts?"

  "No physiological equivalent." Bored-now voice.

  "Oh." Upon discovering how erroneous so much of the O'Callaghan lore was, she'd pretty much ejected the bulk of it from her mind, tossed it out with her many preconceptions. But pails of it had been right after all. Big parts.

  More driving. More silence.

  You're not falling for me, are you, Irish? he'd said.

  And she'd had a minor meltdown because that was precisely the problem. She wasn't falling. She'd fallen. As in, past tense. Way past tense. She was hopelessly in love with him. She'd been building a dream future for them inside her head, embellishing it with the tiniest and most tender of details.

  Gwen and Chloe had been absolutely right, and Gabby'd known it herself, even then. Just hadn't wanted to admit it. Just as she hadn't wanted to admit that the reason she'd wanted so desperately to know why Morganna had refused the elixir was because Gabby had been secretly hoping that he would fall in love with her, too, she could become immortal, and they could love each other forever. They could have an eternal Happily-Ever-After.

  But she wasn't stupid. Ever since he'd told her about Morganna refusing the chance to live forever, she'd known there had to be a catch. Just hadn't known what a whopper of a catch it was.

  Immortality and the immortal soul are incompatible.

  Though she'd never considered herself a particularly religious person, she was deeply spiritual, and the soul was, well... the sacred essence of a person, the imprint of self, the source of one's capacity for goodness, for love. It was what was reborn again and again on one's journey to evolve. A soul was the inner divine, the very breath of God.

  And his elixir of life reeked of Faustian overtones: Here, take this and you can live forever, for the small price of your immortal soul. She could almost smell the acrid brimstone of hellfire. Hear the rustle of unholy contracts scribed on thick, yellowed parchments, signed in blood. Feel the breeze from the leathery flapping of winged Hunters coming to collect.

  She shivered. She didn't count herself a superstitious person, yet it got to her on a visceral level. Made her blood run cold.

  A soft bitter laugh cut into her thoughts. "Not interested in living forever, Gabrielle? Not liking the terms?"

  Oh, that tone was like nothing she'd ever heard him use. Wicked, cynical, twisted. A voice truly befitting the blackest Fae.

  She glanced at him.

  And sucked in a sharp breath.

  He looked utterly devilish, his black eyes bottomless, ancient, cold. Nostrils f
lared, lips curled in something only a fool might call a smile. He was, at that moment, every inch an inhuman Fae prince, otherworldly, dangerous. This, she realized, was the face of the Sin Siriche Du: the face her ancestors had glimpsed on long-ago battlefields, as he'd watched the brutal slaughter, smiling.

  "Didn't think so." Silky sarcasm dripped from that deep, strangely accented voice.

  A dozen thoughts collided in her mind and she floundered mentally, trying to figure out where to step next in this conversation that had started out so innocuously, only to become such a quagmire.

  He looked so remote, so detached, as if nothing could touch him, as if nothing she could say would matter anyway. And a little doubt niggled at her: Was this, then, how he was when he was fully Tuatha Dé?

  She couldn't believe that. She wouldn't believe that. She knew him. He was a good man.

  Leap, Gabby, an inner voice whispered. Tell him how you feel. Throw it all on the line.

  She swallowed. Hard. Were Gwen and Chloe here, she knew they would echo that counsel. They'd taken such leaps, and look where it had gotten them. Who was to say it wouldn't work for her?

  There was only one way to find out. Nothing risked, nothing gained.

  She drew a deep, fortifying breath. I love you. she whispered the words in her mind. She hadn't had a lot of practice with those words, had only ever said them to Gram, and long ago to parents, both of whom had gone away.

  She wet her lips. "Adam, I— "

  "Bloody hell, spare me whatever sniveling excuses you're about to offer." he snarled. "I didn't frigging ask you to take the elixir, did I, Irish?"

  Tears filled her eyes and her teeth clacked shut. Oh, she hadn't needed that reminder! She was all too aware of that fact. And that he'd never said so much as one word about any kind of future together. Nor a single word that seemed to hint at any degree of commitment or emotion. Oh, there'd been sweet words in bed, even out of it, but none of those things to which a woman was so attuned, those seemingly casually spoken phrases that hinted at a tomorrow and a dozen tomorrows after that. No mentions of an upcoming holiday, or a place or thing he'd like her to see. No subtle words that were really subtle pledges, testing the water, seeking like response.

  Not one.

  Her declaration clotted in her throat. And suddenly she couldn't breathe, couldn't sit in the car with him one moment more.

  She slammed on the brakes, jammed the car into park, and hopped out onto the road, walking blindly, scooping angrily at fog. The external environs too accurately mirrored her internal landscape: Nothing was clear, she couldn't see ten steps ahead of her, couldn't get a fix on where she'd just been.

  Behind her, she heard his car door slam.

  "Stop, Gabrielle! Come back here," he commanded roughly.

  "Just give me a few minutes alone, okay?"

  "Gabrielle, we're not on Keltar land," he thundered. "Come back here."

  "Oh!" She stopped and turned abruptly. She hadn't realized that. When had they left Keltar land?

  "No," a cool voice said as Darroc stepped out of the fog between them, "you're not, are you?"

  Then Darroc was turning toward Adam, and she heard a sudden, sharp, short burst of automatic gunfire.

  And Adam was flinching, jerking, great splashes of red spreading across that cream fisherman's sweater, his dark head flying back, arms outflung. Falling back, going down.

  And Hunters were closing in all around her.

  She felt their talons on her skin, felt a broken sob clawing its way up her throat.

  And then she fainted and felt no more.

  Ah, ka-lyrra, I look at you and you make me want to live a man's life with you. To wake with you and sleep with you, argue with you and make love with you, to get a silly human job and take walks in the park and live so tiny beneath such a vast sky.

  But I will never stay with another human woman and watch her die. Never.

  — FROM THE (GREATLY REVISED) BLACK EDITION OF THE O'CALLAGHAN Book of the Sin Siriche Du

  23

  Gabby raised the plastic shade over the plane window and stated out into the dark night sky.

  Alone, hence visible, she'd had no choice but to book a flight, putting it on her credit card. The only flight available had been the red-eye, and she had three lengthy layovers to look forward to, in Edinburgh, London, and Chicago.

  When she'd regained consciousness, she'd been lying in the road.

  Alone. With a sick, horrid feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  Watching the man she loved being brutally shot had been the purest hell.

  She'd heard the bullets ripping into his body with dull, wet sounds, she'd seen his blood spurting, and— if it had indeed been only an illusion courtesy of the queen, as she prayed it had been— the look of pain and shock on Adam's face had been stunningly, horrifyingly real.

  She'd forced herself up on shaky legs, trembling, desperately looking around for someone to tell her that it hadn't really happened. That the queen hadn't really let him die.

  But there'd been no one there to reassure her. Only thick, swirling fog and aching silence.

  Apparently. Faery was done with her.

  There wasn't even any blood anywhere; no sign that anyone had ever been on that road but her.

  So what, she'd raged, shaking her fist at the dense bank of clouds above her. I don't even get to know what happened? That's bullshit. If you think I'm just walking away without explanations, you are so wrong! Where is Adam? What happened? Show him to me! Tell me he's okay!

  But walk away, or rather drag her miserable self away, was exactly what she'd finally ended up doing.

  She'd been out of her head for a time. She'd raged and shouted until her throat was raw, until she was capable of making only broken croaking sounds. She'd stalked and paced and stomped until her legs had given out, until she'd slumped against the car, then slid to the ground in exhaustion.

  She'd huddled, shivering in the chilly fog while the day turned to night around her, waiting.

  Absolutely certain that at any moment Adam would "pop" in, flash her that lazy-sexy smile, tell her he was okay, then finish the stupid, awful conversation they'd been having.

  She would tell him that she loved him. And somehow everything would be all right. So, he didn't have a soul or a heart. So, he was physiologically different from her, sprung of an alien race. So, she could never become immortal.

  So what

  She would take what Morganna had taken: a life with him. Whatever she could have of him. They could make things work, she knew they could. It might not be her idealistic teenage fantasy, but it would be enough. It would be far better than having nothing of him.

  Fourteen hours later it had dimly penetrated that she couldn't sit in the middle of the road forever. That she was stiff and cold and hungry and needed desperately to go to the bathroom.

  That she was slowly going crazy sitting in the dark by herself, torturing herself with imaginings.

  Surely the queen hadn't let him die. Surely Aoibheal wasn't so callous, would never sacrifice one of her own. Surely she'd swept him away and healed him. Surely she'd kept her word and restored him.

  But those "surelys" weren't entirely comforting, because if he was okay and restored, then where was he?

  If he was okay, how could he just leave her sitting in the middle of the road, with no answers, no matter how messy of an argument they'd gotten into?

  Unless, unless, unless...

  Oh, the "unlesses" just sucked!

  Unless he hadn't really cared about her at all.

  Unless it had all just been a brief diversion for him.

  Unless she'd never been anything more than a means to an end.

  No. She refused to believe that. Just as she refused to believe he was dead.

  "He's okay," she whispered to herself. "And he's going to come back. Any minute now."

  * * *

  Any minute became any day became any week.

  Gabby moved woodenly
though time. Detachedly going thorough the motions, void of passion, an automaton.

  Though, upon returning home, a part of her had wanted nothing more than to barricade herself in her house and hide, to curl in bed with the covers snug over her head, there was a bigger part of her that harbored a special and very personal hatred of quitters, of people who just gave up and left.

  It was something she could never permit herself to do.

  So the very next morning after returning to the States, she'd gone in to work at Little & Staller, acting as if she'd never even been gone.

  And just as she'd figured, no one had bothered to clean out her desk. Cases were still stacked every bit as high and haphazardly as ever they'd been. Cleaning it out would have taken time, and all the interns at Little & Staller were overworked. Besides, anyone foolish enough to clean off another person's desk inevitably got stuck with their caseload.

  No, her desk would have sat untouched until one plaintiff or another had called, demanding to know why their case hadn't been heard yet. Until some fire had needed putting out.

  Without saying a word to anyone, she'd walked in, plunked her double-shot espresso on the desk, sat down, and begun working on arbitrations. Woodenly. With brisk efficiency. Refusing to think about anything but the case at hand. Losing herself in her work. In the innocent people who needed her to help them, needed her expertise.

  And when Jeff Staller had stalked over, red-faced and blustering, furiously demanding to know where the hell she'd been— and was she some kind of idiot to think she still had a job after disappearing like that?— she'd merely glanced coolly up at him and said, Have you taken a good look at my win ratio? You want to fire me? Fine. Fire me. Say the word.

  It had been nearly a month since their little confrontation and he'd still not said "the word."

  And she knew he never would.

  Funny, she was dead inside, yet Jay had commented just the other day on how "together" she seemed. How great she looked, and he didn't know where her new confidence had come from, but, It's kick-ass, Gabby. You re really rocking.