by K H Lemoyne
The sorcerer circled the captain. He paused before the lieutenant and snatched away the fabric.
Unable to resist, Farris watched. What was once a woman’s delicate scarf now hung limp and mashed with permanent wrinkles. It twitched in the currents of heat from the molten moat beyond the pedestal’s edge. Owain closed his eyes, and lifted the gauze beneath his nose for a deep almost reverent inhale—the sensual display as unnerving as what Farris knew was about to unfold.
“What of her children?”
“They disappeared before we could finish the rites.” Farris paused and willed strength into his voice. “The daughter distracted the minion and interrupted the channeling stones. The sons vanished first. She followed them a second later.”
“She did not follow. Each was sent on their own path,” Owain snarled, his gaze riveted on the lieutenant. “How did she manage a distraction, Lieutenant Zern?”
The wide-eyed panic on the young lieutenant’s face didn’t faze Farris. Actions produced consequences. Only fortitude and a cold, diligent pursuit of the sorcerer’s dictates ensured longevity. Not acting on one’s own judgment. Life in the lands of Brennagmore held no room for individual thinking. Life within the mountain-bordered walls of Owain’s citadel offered even less.
“She grabbed the minion’s knife. I tried to reach her. It wasn’t my fault, my lord.”
“You say?” Owain maneuvered behind the younger man. “Did you find the woman a beauty? Her mother was such.”
“I-I...yes...I mean, no.” The lieutenant’s eyes flickered from left to right, as if in an effort to gauge the sorcerer’s location.
“Which is it, Lieutenant?” Owain moved before the stammering officer, his white hair slicked back from his lean, taut face. “You broke protocol. You admonished her brother in an absurd show of power you didn’t possess. You severed the link between stones and gave them all an opportunity to escape.”
A light sheen of sweat covered Zern’s face, visible in the lava’s orange light.
Farris shifted his gaze to the floor, choosing not to watch the man shake in terror. He could still see Owain’s feet as he approached the lieutenant, ensuring he was right in the man’s face.
“Do you think I condone incompetence within my armies, Lieutenant?”
“It won’t happen again.” The man’s hands trembled at his sides. “The weapon was the minion’s. He didn’t stop her either.” With a desperate whisper, he gestured toward the motionless, cloaked figure that had sidled into the chamber.
“I did not ask for your accounting of his faults, merely your own.” Owain turned his back on the three of them. “You will both make amends for your stupidity.”
With a long casual sweep of his arm, Owain gestured toward the minion. “Amenon!”
Flame burst out of thin air, encircling the minion. Not the red flame living within the fleshless skull beneath the creature’s hood—the sign of Owain’s energy and lifeblood to his minions—but black fire tinged in silver, an oily mass visible in the backlight from the lava. The creature writhed, its cloak fluttering. Bony fingers clawed the air as it screeched, the sound carrying to the farthest edges of the mystic citadel.
The cries, Farris knew, were a warning to all. He gripped his wrists behind his back and forced himself to maintain his composure.
Owain stood, absently observing the creature’s misery. After several minutes, he waved his fingers. The fire receded, and the minion slumped, silent, with an occasional twitch.
Then Owain turned his palm toward Zern. “Serve me now without the choice of free will.”
The lieutenant backed toward the archway. Then he jerked, stopped as if yanked back by restraints. A small cry issued forth as his body lifted off the ground. His eyes bulged and he clawed at his throat as Owain’s will suffocated him. With one final gasp, he fell on his knees. His face turned red, then blue. As his eyes rolled up in his head, his body gave a hard spasm and crumpled to the floor.
Owain cupped his palm, cradling the pale globe of light that was Zern’s soul.
“Asperas. Your soul shall serve me as I deem.” Another incantation, and mist floated from Owain’s palm over the floor in darkening swirls. It covered the lieutenant’s body. His uniform collapsed. Cloth, flesh, and sinew disappeared from the bony corpse. Silver sigils combined with the mist as black sheathing, void of texture, encompassed the skeleton. A wink of inhuman red fire ignited beyond the empty nose and eye sockets. Then the dark figure rose, a wavering wraith, awaiting Owain’s bidding.
For a moment, Farris pressed hard on the spiked wrist manacles he hid beneath this uniform. The pain, the quick draw of blood, enforced his composure through the horror, and camouflaged his revulsion. Yet even the pain couldn’t distract him from Owain’s change. White hair shifted from silver to black, then the pallor of his face reverted to a subtle ruddy, almost healthy hue.
“You.” The sorcerer gestured to the first minion. “Seek the ancient bloodline of the Makir.” From his palm floated a tiny crystal vial, a ruby drop of blood suspended in the center. One quick flourish of his hand and the crystal disappeared into the depths of the minion’s fiery form. A high-pitched whine accompanied a shiver of the cloak. “Search each portal. Destroy the sentinels of the portals and bring me proof of each descendent.”
“And you.” He motioned the former lieutenant forward. “Follow the knife. When it is used, find the girl. Bring her here to me. Be successful this time, for if she aides the Makir, I will spend my last breath ensuring your existence beside me in eternal hell.”
With a fiber of the scarf and a drop of his own blood, Owain began muttering. The chant rose in volume and cadence. His body shook with the effort, but he continued until he’d summoned a man-sized white circle. The center rippled with the greens and blues of grass and sky, the edge rimmed in garnet, like blood. The two minions stepped through, one after the other. The circle snapped to a pinpoint behind them and disappeared.
Owain turned to Farris, his hair once again white, his pallor gray and gaunt.
“Bring me the others.”
2
Nine Years Later
Dimension Earth - Duart Castle, Scotland
“This was the last stop on Aaron and Emilie’s tour, right?” Robert asked.
Hand on the wheel, Logan MacKenzie glanced from the open stretch of road to his cousin “Yep. We’re lucky the owner agreed to let us search around and take photos.”
Robert scowled as he looked from his PDA to an open file with the crime scene photos on his lap. “What were you looking for in these?”
“A miracle. Inspiration. I don’t know. Guess I’d hoped whatever killed them would be obvious,” Logan said, as he turned his attention back to the road.
“The problem with that line of thinking is that if we could figure out the threat, then they would have also. And survived.” Robert stuffed the material he’d been reviewing into a satchel on the floor of their small rental vehicle. “Anything specific we should look for here?”
“Ruth called last night.” Logan kept his eyes focused on the granite rise at the end of the road. Duart Castle’s refurbished curtain walls stood silent guard against the marine blue of the Sound of Mull and the Firth of Lorne. Seemed too beautiful a backdrop for a place to find a killer. But their search had led them here.
“Yet another vision from Dana’s gran.”
“She’s positive we’ll find a clue soon. Her premonition was stronger this time.”
“Have you seen anything?” Robert’s voice held more than a hint of desperation.
“Nothing helpful.” Most of what Logan retained from his nightmares over the past several months were sounds. One clear voice resonated for him. The rest echoed in a confused jumble in his mind, mixed with random images.
“I got another text from Dana. Have to say I get her wanting to be here,” Robert added in a too-quiet voice. “Though I agree with you, given her powers, she shouldn’t be reliving this.”
In total agree
ment, Logan remained silent. Their youngest cousin, Dana, had been the last of their generation to lose parents. Each mother and father, aunt and uncle, dying from unexplained and violent circumstances. Seven deaths in ten years. Not a remarkable number by human actuarial statistics. But he didn’t know of actuaries who calculated the odds of mage deaths.
Aaron and Emilie Striker’s car had careened off the cliff road on the other side of the firth, erupting in a fiery blaze. Emilie was thrown clear, but later died of her injuries. Aaron had been trapped inside. Logan knew neither death was an accident.
His instincts told him a killer was hunting his family. That same gut feeling, powered by his magic, screamed the threat was escalating. But he had no proof.
Despite Dana’s wish to jump into the search, Logan and Ruth had combined their influence and convinced her that filling his shoes managing MacKenzie Restorations would be a better use of each of their powers. All of them wanted answers and closure. Each of the four cousins worked as a team—to protect each other and to survive. This time was no different.
“You’re my first choice for a sidekick.” Logan glanced over when Robert didn’t respond. “Though I’m surprised you left the military. I always figured you as a SEAL for life.”
Robert ignored the not-so-subtle prod for an explanation behind his decision. Fine. Logan could take a hint.
“We’ve followed their path,” Logan continued on, changing course, back to the question of Emilie and Aaron. “Tracked down every dealer, auctioneer, and private collector they’d contacted for new acquisitions. And while I don’t mind the list of new business opportunities, the last three weeks haven’t given us any new leads on the deaths.”
“Too bad nothing showed up on your personal radar.”
Logan didn’t have Dana’s psychometric ability to discern history from the touch of objects, but he read lies as easily as words on paper. His powers made evaluating the people they encountered simple.
Unfortunately, he’d uncovered nothing.
Robert shifted restlessly beside him as they entered the Duart parking lot. “I’m having trouble understanding how the Mull police misplaced Aaron and Emilie’s personal effects for four years.”
“Misplaced items during a move to a new building makes sense.” Logan shrugged, sorrow beating at him as he parked the car. “At least they returned Emilie’s necklace.” The remains had included one of three identical necklaces handcrafted for the three daughters born each generation into the MacKenzie family. His father’s sisters.
With a gruff exhale, Robert got out of the car and headed to the trunk. He grabbed their digital photography equipment and waited. “My mother never took hers off, either. I’m still having trouble wrapping my head around the idea of a killer who would spread his kills out over a ten-year span.”
“Ruth feels this killer is—”
“Like us?” Robert asked.
“No. The killer—no, killers—don’t register for her as physical beings. More like shells of evil.”
“Not helpful. No offense. I love Ruth as if she were my grandmother, though she hoards secrets like a miser. But we’ve lost enough family. I’m clear on the evil part. Bodiless doesn’t give me something I can kill.” Robert scrubbed at his face with one hand and then headed through the arched doorway of the gatehouse.
Logan understood the sentiment. He’d withheld the rest of Ruth’s message. Robert didn’t seem in the mood to listen. Slinging his bag over his shoulder, Logan followed him and looked up at the small, third-story windows tucked into the eaves of the roof. There had to be answers here.
“Find anything?”
“Nada.” Logan adjusted the light scale and refocused his camera to zoom in on the details of the stone stairway. “I still need pictures of the keep’s tower and the roof. Something may show up in the images.”
“Now we sound like ghost whisperers.”
Logan held back a laugh, then sobered. He wished this mission were that easy. “Whatever works.”
“The family who owns this castle isn’t negotiating the sale of any heirlooms to MacKenzie Restorations?” Robert asked.
“No, but they’ve agreed to Aaron’s original offer to participate in a documentary. We’ll create the storyboard with our photos. Once we find our answers you could come back with Dana to do the actual video—help her get closure in a more peaceful way.”
“Send her with Gwyn. They’ll make a chick trip out of it.” Robert picked up his tripod and headed for the door. “I’ll check the swords on display in the main room. If we get nothing, Ruth needs to envision specific details.”
Logan watched Robert leave, puzzled by the strange distance he sensed from his cousin. Robert always put their female cousins first. But there was an odd reticence in his words. He shook his head. Maybe he’d read too much into what Robert had said. Deciphering emotions was difficult in any human family, much less a magical one.
At the persistent hot tingle of the MacKenzie signet ring on his right hand, he wiped in on his pants leg. He must have brushed against the stinging nettles when they’d walked back from the bay this morning. Those things were a bear to get off the skin.
Determined to finish, he climbed to the second floor and focused his camera lens on the shield and crest above the stone hearth for one last shot. The sudden sound of voices distracted him.
Where is that coming from? He followed the trail of loud conversation and passed through an archway off the main room. Glossy, dark wood covered one side of the hallway, and a line of built-in bookshelves blanketed the other.
He’d negotiated sole access inside the building for several hours. As he strode through the long hallway, the faint scent of rosemary mingled with the mustiness of old books and wood polish. Heat now throbbed from his ring finger. He glanced down, startled. The engraving on top of his ring glowed with an odd shimmer, the details of the ring almost indiscernible.
With a curse, he gave his hand a brisk shake, but the heat increased. The insistent pulsing originated from his birthmark beneath the ring—one identical to the crest on his father’s ring. What the heck was going on?
He squeezed his eyes shut and detected pressure around him, but not a sense of raw, threatening power. Perhaps it was too much caffeine and not enough sleep. Either that or the castle’s old mystic essence and the lack of his success with their objective were playing havoc with his mind.
Laughter and shouts jerked him back, and Logan jogged until he reached a spill of sunshine coming through another archway. The fact that this archway shimmered, creating odd contrasts between the golden rays and the dim hallway, was enough to make him halt. But he stood transfixed, his gaze riveted to the small crowd outside.
Five or six adults and a young boy stood clustered in a group, their rustic clothes muted in shades of browns and grays. The men’s historic pants and tunics and the women’s ankle-length, shapeless dresses resembled those of the role-playing group in the nearby town. Who knew they visited the local landmarks dressed that way.
One man, bent and scrappy with wiry, white hair that defied gravity, held the elbow of a slender young woman.
Okay, her dress isn’t shapeless. Logan took a deep breath as he scrutinized the ripe curves barely confined in the woman’s dress. The rounded swells of her breasts, the gentle dip of her waist, and the soft flow of her hips filled the dress so well Logan swallowed hard. He had no problem imagining what lay beneath the fabric.
He inhaled and released his breath slowly. Better.
Yet, these people were still here. And more to the point, with these people on the premises, he had little possibility of finishing his search in peace.
As soon as that thought hit him his pulse raced, sending him on alert, magical power grasping his body to signal his mind. The woman suddenly turned, giving him a view of the elegant sweep of her perfect cheekbone.
His stomach knotted in anticipation, physical anticipation surging ahead of his analytical brain.
A thick coi
l of ebony hair nestled against her slender, ivory neck, the sheen glinting in the sunlight. Light gray eyes, framed by long dark lashes, slanted his way for a moment as something drew her attention to him. A comment turned her back to the others. Her warm, throaty laughter snaked across the distance toward him and washed over his senses. The sound spiraled along his skin in a caress like tantalizing fingers. He didn’t want the sensation, an almost painful pleasure, to stop. He unclenched his fists only after the grip of lust released a fraction of its hold on him.
He knew her. Well, not her name or who she was. He’d seen only parts of her face in his dreams. He’d never even heard her speak, much less laugh, and now the combination slammed into his senses in a frontal assault, leaving him dazed.
Then the woman glanced over her shoulder again. A frown marred the skin between her delicate brows as she looked straight at him. She contemplated him with one brow cocked and her full lips pursed together.
Eyes the shade of summer storm clouds. Creamy, delectable skin. Ruby lips begging to be kissed. He remembered them all and steeled himself as her gaze traveled over him from head to toe. Where her eyes touched, he burned. Wisps of hot air swirled over his skin and time stopped as she claimed a long-buried part of him.
Reining in his reaction, Logan blinked and took slow, deliberate breaths. How far away was she standing? No more than fifty feet? But he’d swear he could reach out and draw her to him.
A woman with such allure was trouble. He craved her, and the distance between them offered him no immunity to her appeal. Warm sensuality radiated across the gap, her essence as fresh as a sparkling drop of water after a summer rain.
He couldn’t remember the last woman who awakened such instant heat within him—if any. She was attractive, but her allure wasn’t about beauty. He’d known beautiful women. None had ever held him in a physical grip without even a touch. Nor had any woman called to his body in this manner—or perhaps it was his soul, if he believed in such a thing. His motto had always been logic over emotion and facts over feelings. In spite of the unpredictable mystical effects of the MacKenzie bloodline, only rational thought would keep them alive.
