The Screaming Stone: The Otherworld Series Book 2

by N. K. Vir

  It made sense Duncan assured himself. Answerer remained quiet and still strapped in its invisible sheath that hung securely on his back, only truth was being spoken so he had no reason to doubt the Knocker’s loyalty. And yet he hesitated. After a few moments of silent contemplation he realized why he hesitated. He wanted, no he felt responsible for not only Robert, but for Finn as well. In some strange way he felt he had let them down and not lived up to the unspoken expectations of protection that he should have provided, especially as a Green Rider. As illogical as it sounded it was the only explanation that felt right. Finn was more than capable of looking after not only himself but Robert as well; but still he felt he was at fault and not Finn.

  “You are brave and loyal, almost to a fault,” they were some of the last words Finn had said to him.

  “Fine,” he said quickly agreeing to Autie’s plan. “Rian, do ye think you can show Autie where ye, uh-,” he felt himself stumble and falter, unwilling to say anything that would upset the Brownie again.

  “Aye,” Rian answered quickly putting on a brave face, as his attention settled on the silently slumbering form of Annie.

  “Good,” Duncan said laying an encouraging hand on Rian’s shoulder. “Knackers, I hate to ask it of ye considering how much time ye’ve spent recently in that form but would you mind?”

  “Patrolling the grounds in cat form?” he asked.

  When Duncan nodded his old companion winked a cat-like eye at him and instantly shrunk down into a gray-brindle cat. When Rian shrieked in fright and threw himself into Autie’s arms Autie threw out a sooty black booted foot and kicked cat Knackers away from Rian. “Away ye mangy thing or they’ll be no fire ta keep ye warm tonight. I’ll see ta it.”

  Knackers responded by caterwauling loudly. The noise caused Annie to stir briefly. Everyone froze hoping that she would stay asleep. She mumbled something unintelligible and rolled over her back to the small group. Duncan pulled the covers up over her chin and gently brushed a few stray strands of hair off her face before turning and pinning the three Fae with a harsh glare.

  “Stop,” he hissed quietly. “You’re all lucky Fiona is no’ here,” he reminded them and was rewarded by Knackers and Rian shrinking in fear. “Autie ye and Rian go now. Once ye’ve located the trail I want Rian back here as quickly as possible. Is the basement safe?” he asked to which Autie silently nodded. “Good, Rian ye stay in the basement and sleep. Do you understand?” Rian nodded silently. “And you,” Duncan said pointing an angry finger at Knackers. “Three hours, that’s how long ye keep watch then off to bed with Rian in the basement. It should be dawn by then and the Unseelie will have little ta no power especially here. If anything happens scratch at the window and alert me right away.” Knackers purred loudly and Duncan accepted the noise as an understanding to his instructions. “Good, now all of ye get ta it.”

  Chapter Ten

  Battle Scars

  She had slept soundly; dreams and distractions were non-existent. Her body had just shut down and turned out the lights; and although it had only been a few short hours of solid sleep she felt more rested than she had in a long while. She stretched out her arms and legs, her muscles enjoying the elongation as she yawned out the last bit of sleepiness her mind was still clinging to. The room was dim and her eyes found that strange, usually her room was overly bright during the early morning hours of summer. Her barely awake brain could not seem to comprehend where she was but something was tapping at her consciousness. There was something she needed to remember; something important.

  Then like a rogue wave it crashed down violently upon her. “Robert!” she screamed sitting upright suddenly. Her head began to pound and her wrist kept a steady throbbing beat with her heart. Damn, everything seemed to hurt. Muscles and bones that she never felt began to scream at her in protest.

  “Owwww,” she moaned as she fell back into the pillows. “Where, no what is happening here?” she muttered to the ceiling.

  “Shh, it’s alright,” murmured a soothing honeyed voice. Again her body bolted upright, this time in fright. Adrenaline injected itself into her veins causing her heart to race faster and her wrist to hurt more. She moaned in pain and reached out to soothe her injury. A thick mass of padding covered her arm and she moaned again as every memory of the previous evening came rushing back to her the bad and the good. The mirror breaking, Robert and Finn missing, Rian crying, Knackers and some small Fae stranger wrestling on the floor where she and Duncan had…OH!

  “Duncan,” she whispered aloud without realizing it.

  “I’m right here Annie,” he replied quickly.

  “Oh, good,” she mumbled as she tied to hide her flaming red cheeks in the pillow. She squeezed her eyes shut and willed herself to turn into an ostrich. If she couldn’t see him maybe he would not see her, and her embarrassment.

  However hard she tried though she could not turn off her other senses. She felt the bed dip as he carefully sat on the edge. She smelled the spicy, earthy scent that was unique to him. She heard his slow deep, even breaths.

  “Annie,” he began as he gently pried the pillow off of her face. “How are you feeling?”

  “Oh, fine,” she replied simply still not opening her eyes. If she didn’t see him maybe she was still sleeping. This could all just be a lovely embarrassing dream.

  “Annie,” he said again. “If you are feeling ok we should go.”

  Nope, she wasn’t dreaming. If she was dreaming she hoped her imagination would make up some better conversation. Not the same old dribble she had heard a thousand times before.

  “Annie let’s go.”

  “Where, where are we going Duncan?”

  “Anywhere, anywhere but here; where have you always wanted to go? We can go there. We’ll run away.”

  When she didn’t respond he repeated the statement, louder this time and with more authority.

  “Where are we going Duncan?” Hadn’t she already asked him that? She half mumbled and half whined. Food, she thought, that might get her out of bed. He best chose his next words carefully.

  “Anywhere but here,” he answered brushing a few stray strands of hair away from her face.

  Oh boy here we go again.

  Strangely his next words surprised her. “Somewhere where we can get you food.”

  “You want to go out and grab something to eat? Maybe see the town?” she asked hopefully as her stomach began to rumble in anticipation of eating.

  “Yes, I’ll make sure yer fed.” She still hadn’t opened her eyes but she could hear him smiling. He had such a beautiful smile when he chose to use it; which unfortunately wasn’t often. She was too preoccupied imaging his smile, the way it transformed his face and brightened his stormy eyes that she almost missed what he said next. “Then we need to leave.”

  “I’m not leaving without Robert,” she stated simply.

  “Annie, Robert could be-“

  “No,” she shouted cutting him off before he gave voice to her biggest fear. She could not and would not believe the worst had happened. Right now she needed to stay positive. They had gotten lucky in Salem. Only the Unseelie had died. She couldn’t bear the thought of losing any of her friends, new or old.

  She jumped out of the bed and scurried away from Duncan’s reaching hands. The sudden movement caused her vision to darken slightly and she felt herself sway as a wave of dizziness over took her. She clenched her eyes shut and swallowed hard her mind willing her body to stay upright. She needed food and fresh air and the quicker the better.

  “Duncan,” she said as she exhaled a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “We are going to get some food, gather the others, find Robert and Finn then I’m going to stand, touch, sit, jump whatever it takes on that screaming stone which will hopefully,” she added dramatically crossing her fingers on both hands. “Eject this sleeping goddess from me. Then and only then will I leave Ireland and head back to Salem.” She ended her mini-tirade with a firm nod and what she hoped wa
s an equally firm look of determination.

  When her eyes settled on his her expression softened and she felt her resolve quickly begin to melt away when she saw the sad look that had settled onto his face. She opened her mouth to speak but when her voice failed to produce words she clamped it shut. She had nothing to say, she had said enough, and she meant every word; but that pained look that darkened his eyes to the color of thunderclouds made her question her certainty.

  “Listen,” she said quietly finally finding her voice. “I promise to try and convince her to make sure that no matter what she comes back for you. You’ve been through so much to find her. You’ve fought so hard to be with her. It’s obvious how much you love her.”

  He seemed to be looking at her and through her at the same time. Her confidence in her current line of thought faltered for a moment. She began to wonder if something bigger was at play. A tiny kernel of hope began to take root somewhere deep inside of her that maybe, just maybe he had come to care for her. That maybe attraction wasn’t a one way street as she had been led to believe.

  He shook his head and his eyes seemed to glaze over. “I told my tale ta a monk form a newly born religion. He had sworn to me that he had traveled all over Ireland,” he replied. His statement seemed out of context with what she had just promised him. Instead of questioning him she remained silent, hopeful that he had a point.

  “It was the first time I had stepped foot into the natural world since I had become a Faeriedae, and I was shocked at how much time had passed.”

  She watched as his eyes were drawn further away from the present as he became mired in a past memory, and that memory came back to haunt him in the present. “How much time had passed?” she asked encouraging him to continue. Since meeting him shortly over a week and a half ago they had been through more physical challenges than most people experienced in a lifetime; but she still knew so little about him, and about his past.

  “Three hundred years,” his whispered his voice raw with emotion.

  “Three-“

  “Hundred!” he shouted. “Everythin’, everyone all of it was gone. It was taken from me, stolen from me while I gained my immortality in the Otherworld time raced on here erasin’ everyone I knew until she was all I had left. Until you were all I had left,” he corrected himself as his eyes came to settle on her.

  Annie shivered involuntarily under his intense gaze. The heat and passion radiating from his eyes made her stomach flutter as nervous butterflies grew wings and took flight inside her.

  Don’t get your hopes up.

  Don’t get your hopes up.

  Don’t get your hopes up.

  She repeated her internal mantra over and over until she had her unsettled emotions under control before she allowed herself to speak again. “I am not her,” she assured not only him but herself as well.

  He brushed a hand in front of his face as if he were shooing away an invisible fly. “I have what I want sittin’ here, in front of me now. I will no’ chase it across two worlds for another earthly millennia only ta tell yet another tale ta another monk who will twist it an’ torture it till it suits his needs and purpose,” he vowed.

  Annie not only heard every word, she had felt them. Her heart raced and thudded loudly in her chest. The small romantically pink girlie girl she had sheltered for so long gave a loud whoop of joy inside her as crescendo of violins and trumpets blared out a joyous chord. Externally she froze afraid to even blink lest he hear the internal party she was throwing herself. After all it wasn’t a pure declaration of love was it?

  “No,” whispered an evil little voice inside her head. “It was a settlement.” He was settling, for her, for Annie; and she refused to play second fiddle to anyone, even if she was a goddess.

  She forced her mind into playback mode searching for something anything else but his strangely heartfelt settlement to focus on. He had said something about the monk twisting his story. She forced her mind and her weeping heart to focus on that. After all she couldn’t, no she wasn’t really in love with him, was she?

  No, she tried to convince herself. Liar, her heart accused in return.

  She shook her head clearing her thoughts. “How did the monk twist things?” She asked as her heart screamed out a different question. One she desperately wanted answered but was afraid to ask. “I assume you’re referring to the Oisin legend. What did you really say to him? Weren’t you searching for Finn, not-,” Me? She wanted to say but stopped herself just before the word fell out of her mouth. She and her silently hibernating goddess were not the same, it was completely impossible.

  “That’s what ye chose ta focus yer question on?” he asked as a glint of an unnamed emotion lightened his storm colored eyes. Unable and unwilling to speak she firmly nodded her head.

  “Verra well mo grádh,” he returned. “Ta answer yer question no I wasna lookin’ for Finn. If anythin’ I was runnin’ from him. I had just taken the life of someone he had once called friend. I knew him ta be a traitor ta Finn but wasna sure of how he would take the news. So I ran an’ fell through one of the many small holes that had begun formin’ in the veil.”

  Annie winced unwillingly as she was reminded of their real purpose in Ireland. The holes in the veil had to be sealed. The dark forces of the Unseelie had to be stopped from gaining more power in the natural world. In order to do that the power of the triple goddess had to be restored of which she harbored one third of. No pressure. After all it wasn’t as if the fate of two worlds hung in the balance.

  Focus on something small, she reminded herself. She still had a little time left before Midsummer; like a matter of hours.

  “Did he hurt you? The traitor I mean,” she asked him suddenly.

  “Aye,” he replied as his eyes pinned hers. “He left his mark like the others before and after him.”

  Annie glanced down at her own two wrists one well on its way to healing, an assassination attempt from a particularly nasty Redcap named Giles. The other wound was semi-self-inflicted and fresh from an angry battle and a big time loss with a mirror last night.

  “Do you think mine will become badges of honor like yours?”

  “My battle scars bear no honor lass,” he informed her. “Yours do. And I hope they fade so ye do not have ta remember how ye came by ‘em.”

  Her head snapped up and she stared at him in shock. “Your scars have as much honor as mine!” she protested. “Those scars are beautiful. They are a reminder that you are a survivor. They are badges of honor that you should wear proudly because they make you stronger. I intend to wear my proudly and I hope they never fade.”

  “Nay,” he replied with a sad shake of his head. “Each of these is a memory of when I tried ta die and failed. They hold no honor. They prove that I am a failure.” His head dropped and his eyes remained fixed to the floor.

  Out of all the descriptions he could chose to use to describe his scars he had chosen a line of thinking that for a moment stunned Annie into silence. When suddenly, without thought, or filter, words that surprised even her sprang from her mouth.

  “If you wanted to die so badly why didn’t you just lower your sword? How come you survived?”

  To that he had no answer.

  “You promised to show me each and every scar. Do you remember that?” she asked him. “Do you?” she repeated when he did not respond immediately.

  He responded with a faint nod. He wouldn’t look up at her. Instead he seemed to be focusing on the intricate pattern on the thread bare area rug under his feet. “Aye, I remember,” he finally said quietly.

  “Good!” she said loud enough to startle him into looking up at her. “Show me the worst one,” she ordered. “Come on, show me the time you tried to die and failed.”

  At first he did not move as he contemplated whether or not to agree with her requested order. When his shoulders sagged as he pushed out a deep heavy sigh she knew he had decided to keep his promise. Not that she really believed he would ever not be true to his word;
she just expected a little more resistance considering their conversation. Nobody wanted to show off their suicide scars. Although she seriously doubted that he had been out to kill himself. The trick was going to be proving it to him. By the time she had psyched herself up to give him her best “your life matters” speech she could think of, no matter what he showed her or told her, he had already relieved his chest of his shirt.

  “Oh my,” she gasped in surprise.

  She wasn’t embarrassed and couldn’t even muster up the acting skills to act embarrassed. She was in shock. No one should look that good, ever. His bare torso would send any fitness model to running to the gym in shame because Duncan had muscle groups they did not. Maybe she was bias, maybe it was a Faeriedae, thing whatever it was she had never seen such a well put together male in all of her life; and that was before she noticed the scars. Lines of white and pink crisscrossed his chest, some thick while others where barely noticeable, they all varied in size, shape and color and added to the beauty that Duncan inherently possessed.

  “Ye forgot there were so many didn’t ya?”

  She shook her head. “No I just forgot how damn beautiful you are.” He snorted unbelieving in response. “Really?” she said raising her eyebrows at him. “Duncan you are a warrior. There’d be a bigger problem if you did have these,” she said reaching out a hand to touch one. He grabbed her hand stopping her just before she could touch a particularly violent looking scar that sat dangerously close to his heart.

  “That should have killed me. That’s the worst one,” he said as still holding her hand.

  She looked down at her hand and then back up into his face silently asking permission to touch the puckering scar. Slowly he moved her hand, stopping a breath away from the scar before finally brushing her fingertips along its jagged edges. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply before relating the tale of how this particular scar was born. It was a struggle to keep her hand still as it wanted to explore every scar he had shown her, and even the ones he quiet possibly had not.