“Windsurfing?” Calan tried to keep his tone cool and just a little flippant. He hadn’t expected his old friend to turn their first conversation in months into an interrogation of this sort.
“Hardly. I am referring to your land mine and ordnance disposal work.” Nicholas drummed his fingers on a gleaming Georgian side table. “I found out last week from a Red Cross colleague in Switzerland. He filled me in about your work in developing countries without the equipment or expertise to clear their old fields. In all these years you never mentioned it to me.”
He sounded especially irritated, Calan thought, as if this secrecy had betrayed their friendship. “It didn’t seem relevant.”
“You nearly get yourself killed every six months and it’s not relevant? I saw the file about your last job in Azerbaijan. The government had several small remote detection vehicles, but they couldn’t get across the rocky terrain, so you went instead. You managed to save four children who had wandered into the minefield, I heard.”
Calan tensed. He kept this part of life as quiet as possible, and secrecy was always a stipulation of his help. The last thing he needed was a horde of journalists badgering him for human-interest stories or inquiries about his unusual skill at detection. “Who told you, Nicholas? My ordnance work is meant to be private.”
“The man who told me is high enough for access to all personnel records. And in case you’ve forgotten, I’m your friend. I know that you need your privacy. I accept your choice to have no contact or involvement with your family. But I’m hardy a stranger raking up details for a tabloid story.”
Calan didn’t answer.
“Fine, I’ll go back further. I’m the friend who dug you out of the mud when you were eight after the upper-form boys buried you up to your waist at summer camp in Scotland. I’m the one who bandaged you up afterward. I recall giving you your first cigarette as a consolation.”
“It was a Gauloise. The thing tasted like straw and old pavement, absolutely awful. So was that whole summer in the Hebrides.” Calan stared at his teacup. “I haven’t forgotten a single detail, you see? You made certain that my scrawny Scottish backside was not further harassed that summer.”
“They called you an orphan and you didn’t deny it. Why didn’t you tell them the truth?”
“Because I prefer to keep my family private.” Calan smiled grimly. “And for the record, I do appreciate all the help you have given me over the years. My…adjustments haven’t always come easily, so I’m grateful for a place of safety and your sound advice.”
“I don’t want your gratitude. I want you to come home and stay home, damn it. Be normal. Be happy.” Nicholas cut off a sound of irritation. “Why can’t you just settle down and find a smart woman who loves you? Start a family before you forget what the concept means.”
“I think not.” Calan’s eyes hardened. “Wife, children and holidays in St. Tropez are not in my future.”
“You want to die in a wretched little shack at the mouth of the Amazon or crossing a minefield in Africa? What kind of end is that?”
Last night’s rain had washed the air clean. Calan watched a bird circle slowly above the moat. Looking for food, no doubt. Nicholas made it a point to keep the abbey’s waters well stocked with trout.
Predators and prey, always circling. This was the natural order of life. One day you were a predator, and the next you were the prey. “Since I won’t be around to notice if I’m dead, how it happens hardly matters.”
“I’m serious, Calan.”
“So am I.” Calan stood up, carrying his teacup to the window. In the clear sunlight the abbey’s slopes were startlingly green. Roses framed the path with a riot of color. In the distance the moat gleamed like a freshly polished mirror, three swans caught on the bright surface. “It’s…an old kind of restlessness. You could call it a curse of my blood. I can never manage to stay anywhere for more than a few weeks.”
He had no real home. Definitely no family.
Restlessness was a friend when you trusted no one—not even yourself.
In every sense his family was dead to him, their memory no more than ashes tossed on barren soil. His past was closed, his future bound by ancient laws that Nicholas Draycott would neither understand nor condone.
Some things were best kept secret.
“You make it sound like a medieval legend, Calan, but I don’t believe in fate or curses. You have a beautiful house in Norfolk. You have work that can be done wherever you like and enough money so that you need never work again. Yet you keep pushing, always restless. What are you running away from?”
Calan didn’t turn around, but his back stiffened.
“It’s none of my business, of course. But I count you as my friend, so I refuse to let you throw your life away, forever rootless among strangers. So come home. Stay home this time.”
“Impossible.”
“Why?”
“I don’t think I care to discuss that.” Calan’s voice was polite, but there was an edge of warning in his words.
“And that means back off and keep my mouth shut?”
“I’d have put it more graciously. But…yes.” Calan put his teacup down on the table, wishing for something stronger.
Don’t look back.
Don’t think about how the sea feels, clawing at your feet in a northwest gale. Don’t think about the voices in the night, come to administer clan law to a boy too young to understand.
“What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Calan laughed shortly. “Simply the aftereffects of some tainted water in Azerbaijan.”
“You don’t look sick to me.” Nicholas leaned back and crossed his arms. “But since you’re determined to change the subject, so be it. You’ve come at an excellent time, as a matter of fact. It’s Kacey’s birthday in two weeks and I’ve just bought her a painting that may turn out to be a missing Whistler Nocturne.”
“You hardly need my help deciphering art, Nicholas. And why did you ask for my advice on your new wiring? Have you had any problems here?”
It was Nicholas’s turn to look uncomfortable. “The possibility always exists. Crime is everywhere. Civilization is going to hell all around us, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“I’ve noticed.” Calan looked down at the scars on his hands, reminders of one grisly ordnance job in Serbia. It was hard to ignore the world’s problems when you walked through minefields on a regular basis. It was also hard to forget man’s capacity for villainy when you saw it up close, written in the faces of the victims.
“My wife believes that people are innately good. I wish I could feel the same. But the things I’ve seen make it hard to believe in goodness and innate human kindness.” Nicholas lifted a small photo in a silver frame. A grave woman with intense eyes and streaks of paint on her hands, Kacey Draycott was a recognized expert in nineteenth-century painting. Nicholas’s photo had caught her at her easel, holding a jeweler’s loupe to examine brush stroke and pigment layers of a suspect Whistler portrait. In a nearby photo, she stood holding a gardening spade, laughing with Prince Charles.
“She moves in good circles,” Calan murmured.
“I could barely tear her away that morning. The two of them were deep in a discussion about rose grafting and compost.”
“Your wife has an extraordinary ability to put anyone at ease.”
Nicholas carefully straightened the row of photos of his wife and their laughing daughter. His next words were spoken softly, almost to himself. “You try your best. You plan and you pray and you maneuver. But you never can keep them separate, can you?” He took a harsh breath. “On one side you have your work—your duty to your country. On the other you’ve got your family, and both of them deserve the very best you can give.” He traced his wife’s photograph, his eyes restless and worried. “But one will always affect the other. Whatever ties you to your family weakens you and makes you vulnerable to attack or influence. I, of all people, should know that.” His hand cl
osed to a fist. “Now I’ve let myself be caught, trapped between duty and family. But I won’t have my family put at risk. I’ll walk away first.”
“Walk away from what?”
“A promise I made to someone in the government.”
“And this problem involves danger?”
“Yes. I’m already regretting my promise. No good deed remains unpunished,” he said coldly. “Then last week I thought someone was following me. When I ran the plates with a friend, he said the car had been reported stolen.”
“I’d call that a bad sign. Anything else?”
“A few weeks ago a man was in town asking questions about the abbey and my family. He claimed to be an old friend trying to locate me. At first I put him down as a tabloid journalist cruising for a story. Now I’m thinking he was about a darker game. So I’m going to beef up all our security. I’ve already hired protection for my family. As of tonight, I’ll be traveling with a bodyguard.”
“You’re doing the right thing to be careful. So you’re talking about a complete overhaul, gatehouse to rose garden?”
“Exactly. I haven’t told Kacey any details yet, just that she needs to be especially careful now. She’s been in London every weekend due to this new Whistler painting that has surfaced. Then it’s our daughter’s birthday at the end of the month. They’re staying at a friend’s town house in London now, and I’ll see they remain there until I’m certain of their safety.”
Calan didn’t like anything about this news. Kidnapping was an ugly business. The attack last night appeared to be planned by men who hoped to snare a member of Nicholas’s family. “You’re right to take any suspicion of a threat seriously. Of course I’ll do whatever I can to help. I’ve been toying with a new program that automatically monitors circuit stability. It will provide alerts when your response is impeded anywhere in your system.”
“English would be good.” Nicholas raised an eyebrow. “Not all of us are electronics geniuses, I’m afraid.”
Calan shrugged. “It’s still in the beta stage, but it would signal you if anyone tampers with your system. When do you want me to start?”
“What about right now? If you’re free for a few days.”
Free as the wind. Free as an ocean swell headed for a rocky beach.
“I’m at your disposal, Nicky. I’ll need a day to find a few things in my workroom in Norfolk—”
“Give me a list. I’ll fetch them myself.” The viscount frowned. “There’s something else you should know about that promise I regret making.” Vibrations shook the old mullioned windows. Nicholas turned, gesturing as a powerful motor thundered up the abbey’s long driveway. “Good Lord, not now. Does the man never rest?”
Calan glanced over the viscount’s shoulder at the black SUV pulling toward them. “Do you know the driver, Nicky? Because I need to tell you about last night—”
The SUV fishtailed abruptly to a halt and a tall man jumped down. Ramrod straight, he studied the front grounds of the abbey and then set a small metal box on the gravel. He pulled out a cell phone and began to talk loudly.
“A friend of yours?”
“Brigadier Martingale, head of the Prime Minister’s security detail. Believe me, the man is no friend. He promised me another week, blast it.” The viscount ran a hand across his forehead. “Look, Calan, I’ve got to talk to him. If you don’t mind, I’d rather keep your involvement here our secret. The man trusts no one and will want to know every detail about you. I prefer that he remain entirely out of the loop on what we’re doing.”
“What exactly are we doing? I’m simply here visiting you as a friend, catching up on business trends and family gossip. No harm in that.” Calan’s face was guileless.
“I’ll stick to that story, too. But better to avoid the discussion entirely. I’ve only three weeks left anyway.”
“Now you’ve lost me, Nicky. Three weeks for what?”
Nicolas watched the big man in the dark uniform circle the front of the house, take a small camera from his pocket and photograph the ground-level doors and windows.
“To set up enhanced security here at the abbey. In three weeks a meeting will take place here and everything around it may become a war zone,” the viscount said grimly. “I can’t say more now, but I can use all your help, Calan. Look around. Dig in all the abbey’s dark corners. See that nothing has been left here without my knowledge and no one has put any surveillance devices in place. You might want to start at our main power source, down at the stables. While you do that, I’ll go deal with the pain-in-the-ass brigadier.”
CHAPTER THREE
HE DIDN’T LIKE any part of it. There had been no time to discuss the night’s attack. His friend could be in much deeper trouble than he realized.
Calan stood in the shadows near the kitchen while the brigadier’s cool, clipped voice rapped out curt questions. Officious and manipulative came to mind, along with arrogant and intrusive. Calan wished he knew more about the meeting that required the security deadline of three weeks. It had to be important if the Prime Minister’s security team was involved, something that pitted duty against family in a very unpleasant way. How did you stand seeing the people you loved put at risk, even for the goal of a higher good?
He shook his head, glad that he would never feel that particular pain. He was never going to have a family to worry about.
Standing near the open window, he let the morning scents of roses and cool earth play through his senses. His muscles tightened with an urge to step through the window and drop into the green shadows.
To leave human tears and regrets behind.
To hunt.
The hunger to change made his blood surge. He felt the hair stir, prickling along his neck and shoulders.
The wild thing inside him called, open to the thousand smells that a human nose could never perceive and subtle movements far beyond the range of human sight. But Calan fought the dark call. He could not risk being seen, especially with the brigadier nearby. For the Other, the wild creature he became, daylight was no friend. Exposure was a constant risk in a world where he would always be an outsider.
Suddenly a new sensation nudged his awareness. Calan felt a faint pressure at his back, as if he was being touched. But gently. So gently.
Yet the corridor was empty. Nicholas and his unwelcome visitor had moved to the far side of the front steps, caught in an argument that seemed as if it would go on for quite a while.
Slowly he relaxed his control, slipping to the very edge of the Change. With fierce force of will, he drew both parts of his mind into balance. Each part fought the other, each one claiming the right to emerge, and the struggle made Calan’s muscles strain with effort.
As the itchy sensation moved up to his shoulder blades, he was certain that another presence was very close.
Offering a silent warning.
At the very edge of the Change, he opened his animal senses, yet he could see nothing more.
“Where are you?” he whispered.
A faint noise touched his ears, like the distant chime of very small bells shaken in a rough wind. The sound made his muscles tighten. The sense of a presence grew.
Low, even dreamlike, the bells seemed part of the abbey’s mysterious past, which Nicholas spoke of only rarely. Calan had heard stories about an arrogant eighteenth-century ancestor with a tragic history. He recalled a legend about thirteen bells that tolled by moonlight and a great gray cat who walked the abbey’s roof.
Nicholas always clammed up when the subject was raised, but the Draycott butler had savored the details, only too happy to fuel a young boy’s imagination.
But Calan was no longer a boy. Ghostly legends had no value for the man he’d become. Yet the sense of a presence persisted. Grew dense and strongly physical.
What do you want? Calan thought angrily. Make yourself clear.
The curtains stirred.
A bee landed on the windowsill, turning in a slow circle. Something glimmered, moving against th
e warm sunlight.
Calan looked up sharply, unsure of what he expected to see. A ghostly figure? Hideous, half-formed heads?
The shadows drew together, then faded. The corridor was empty.
Calan’s blood hammered. The wild places called to him, very close now.
Mark your choices well, Scotsman. Beware your Changes.
The words seemed to float on the sunlight.
Darkness waits at both hands, waits with hungry breath to claim its own. Do you go or do you stay?
Do you hope or do you die?
Calan felt the fur move, felt the Other stretch, trying to claw free and leap into the vast wildness that called to him.
Who are you? He shuddered, fighting to hold his human form when the Other summoned so deeply.
There was no answer.
Wind brushed his face, bringing a sudden memory of summer and sunlight in the days before his mother and father had died. Before his innocence had been lost.
The memories slowly gathered form and force. Despite the sunlight warm across his shoulders, the past returned in an icy storm.
THEY HAD COME FOR HIM AT DAWN.
He had expected it, feared it, but never thought it would happen so soon. All through the summer he had hidden the growing changes and the restless sleep. For weeks he had awakened at dawn to find himself muddy and bare, shivering on sand or rugged cliffs, his hands and feet bruised and bleeding. At first he had no memories of what had brought him there.
He had denied the new things he could do, hidden them even from himself. He was only nine years old, so he’d had no reference for the strangeness and strength.
Especially not the…hunger.
As a boy he had seen odd things on his rugged, isolated island in the Hebrides. At night he heard the cry of animals, saw icy footprints caught in winter mud near the beach. He sensed their meaning, yet he did not allow himself to truly know. A child was permitted his innocence, after all.
But not this child of Clan MacKay.
Then one moonless night Calan woke in the throes of Change, his muscles screaming, his skin on fire, and denial was no longer possible. He saw exactly what he was becoming. That night his innocence was lost forever.
Bound by Dreams Page 3
