Time Everlastin' Book 5

by Mickee Madden

  How did the ground open and close so quickly?

  She hadn't detected the sound of hydraulics. Certainly an opening that big required massive equipment.

  Her gaze traveled in the direction of the inn. If she returned, there was no way she could hide the fact she had left the establishment.

  How desperate are the inhabitants to keep their secret?

  Desperate enough to kill?

  Dragging herself to her feet, she lifted the knapsack and trudged along the border where the chasm had been moments ago. Perhaps ten feet from where she believed the man had ridden downward, she encountered a rock with a flat surface, roughly eighteen inches high. Sitting, she laid the knapsack across her lap and draped herself over it. She was beyond exhaustion and yet her mind wouldn't slow its reeling pace.

  A vibration beneath her rib cage wrenched a startled cry from her, and she sat up, staring at the pack as if convinced it would come alive and swallow her up.

  "Damn," she gasped, and unzipped one of the smaller sections. She fished for the pager and found it. Its harsh vibrations ceased when she depressed a tiny button. Green luminous numbers were displayed across the narrow strip at the top.

  Her boss. Again.

  Idiot! Doesn’t he realize the time difference?

  An urge to cry overwhelmed her, but she forced it back, refusing to allow any weakness to take control. She testily cleared the message and set the pager next to her on the rock. When a fierce shiver coursed through her, she muttered under her breath and scanned the surrounding desolation. The rain continued its steady downpour, obstructing the range of her vision. She didn't need to see far to fully grasp her predicament. Her options were zilch at the moment. Unless she returned to the inn and changed into warm, dry clothing, she would end up in a hospital—or worse yet, under the care of the Watchdog-MacLachlans.

  "Who are you?" she murmured, squinting off into space.

  Her gaze lowered to the ground stretched out in front of her. With the standing stones increasing in height toward the central menhir, the area between them did resemble a runway.

  Frowning, she worried her lower lip. The stranger had vanished below ground. A chasm had opened and closed. Was the secret the Watchdog-MacLachlans were protecting, connected to some subterranean society?

  Now, wouldn't that be a kick.

  She had gone to a good deal of trouble to garner information on Broc MacLachlan and Ciarda Baird—more time than she had spent researching her ancestor Robert Ingliss-Baird.

  She glanced at her knapsack and made a rueful face.

  What would a dirk with runes and carved gargoyle faces have to do with that man and a subterranean chamber?

  A sacrificial dagger? Hmmmm.

  "I'm not leaving without my answers," she vowed, a tremor in her tone.

  She was about to unzip the sack and remove the dirk when her pager went off, the vibrations particularly obnoxious against the rock. Snatching it up, she unzipped the sack with her free hand, flung the annoyance inside, and closed the opening. She stood and nearly pitched forward when ground tremors engaged beneath her feet. They rapidly swept ahead of her, spanning most of the runway, and came to an abrupt stop before reaching the cairn.

  "Oh...crap," she breathed as the ground in front of her parted into a ten-foot wide, forty-foot long opening. It was several seconds before she could bring herself to step toward the gap. Two feet from the edge, she gaped at stone steps the width of the opening, and extending a good three feet in depth. Sweeping her tongue along the moisture on her lips, she knelt in wet, spongy earth and hesitantly touched the top step. It was solid, the texture rough as if imbedded with granules of sand.

  Fear told her to close her eyes and wish the damn portal away. Common sense told her to run. Her curiosity, though, was far stronger.

  Taryn was in the process of securing her knapsack on her back when the rain ceased, the clouds moved on at the horizon, and the gloaming returned to breathe its ethereal luminance across the land.

  She scanned the site, chanting in a whisper, "I love me, I love me not. I love me, I love me—dammit, just get on with it!"

  She sucked in a breath and determinedly planted her feet on the step. Heat and coldness swept through her with equal force. She gulped in time to stop her gorge from rising into her throat. It popped into her mind to say a prayer. She would if she knew one.

  Instead, she sang low and off key:

  "Three six nine, the goose drank wine

  the monkey chewed tobacco in a street car line.

  The line broke, the monkey—the idiot—got choked,

  and they all went to heaven in a little row boat.”

  Or is it...they all went to hell in a little fire float?

  Even the sound of her voice held an unsettling quality. Hollow. Metallic like the loch. She could almost swear she heard a whispering breeze from far below, a zephyrous voice urging, "Come meet your destiny. Come."

  Taryn realized she had descended several steps, her chin ground level. Her heart leapt into a frantic tattoo, her lungs unable to hold much air.

  "Use your head this time!" she chided in a whisper. "No story is worth—"

  "I tell ye, I heard somethin' up ahead!"

  Taryn recognized Gil's voice, and by his tone, he was in a foul mood. She spied him and Flan between the north arm of the cross and the end of the stone wall. They walked briskly in her direction, their heads held low as if afraid of seeing something they would rather not.

  She descended five more stairs, but stopped when she stepped into the blackest shadow she had ever encountered. She could see nothing below. Above ground, rapid footfalls warned the men were approaching the central menhir.

  A tremor took her by surprise and she collapsed on one of the steps. Two male voices squawked, conveying their own alarm at the quaking of the ground. The shaking continued far longer than it had the first two times. She kept her eyes squeezed shut and clung to the contours of the upper stair. When the motion at last ceased, she opened her eyes.

  For several seconds, she thought her eyelids had frozen shut, for she saw nothing but pitch darkness. Blinking verified they were indeed opened.

  "Oh, no," she whimpered, staring upward into infinite blackness. The ground had sealed above her. It was that or the sun, moon, and stars had been sucked into a black hole.

  She inched up the steps on her backside, one arm raised above her head. She had no sense of existence. This world she had propelled herself into had no depth, no planes, no anything. For all she knew, each side of the stairs dropped off into nothingness. Perhaps it was a short fall.

  How deep a dugout could this be?

  Taryn's raised hand struck something solid. She remained motionless for a time, her mind reeling. When she dragged her fingertips along the surface, the coarse texture confused her all the more.

  Rock? How can it be rock? I came down through here!

  But it was rock. She slapped both palms to the slab then again and again until the pain in her hands made her stop.

  "Let me out of here!" she bellowed. "Hey! Can anyone hear me?"

  Drawing in a hoarse breath, she squinted into the darkness and shouted, "Hey, mister! Where are you? Hey, you can't leave me here!"

  Her efforts were futile. She knew the barbarian wasn't nearby because she couldn't smell him.

  “This is payback, Taryn, for siccing Mom and Dad on Roan,” she muttered.

  Chapter 3

  Katie MacLachlan couldn't bring herself to glance at her watch. A red shawl covered her head and shoulders, not that she could feel the cold, nor anything else. Her mother's harsh words reverberated in her head, doing their usual bit to undermine whatever self-esteem she may have gathered from one year to the next.

  "Tis a full moon, Katie, and tis your duty to offer yerself!"

  Since her twenty-first birthday, her family believed her the current lover of the Callanish Rider, and for over twenty years she had lied to them. In truth, he had refused her then and every
month since. Not once had she looked into his eyes. She didn't know if he was a man or a ghost. They had never touched each other. The only words he had spoken to her were Gaelic curses and demands that she never return. She wasn't sure if her parents' willingness to loan out her body to the Callanish Rider, or the Rider's lack of interest, hurt more.

  All for the sake of a treasure Katie didn't believe existed.

  Katie was the twenty-second female in her family chosen to comfort the MacLachlan Rider once each month. Her great-grandmother had called him a demi-god, but Katie was inclined to think him the devil, himself. Devil or god, though, he didn't want her. The lie ate away at her year after year, but she couldn't bring herself to confess her unworthiness and see the shame she knew would be in her family's eyes from that day forth. So, every month during the full moon, she returned to the site, and stood with her head lowered while he galloped among the stones and collected his gifts before vanishing once again.

  Next year, her cousin Margaret would replace her. Margaret. Nineteen and pretty.

  Tears gathered in Katie's eyes as she passed beyond the stone wall. Half of her resented his disinterest in her body. Half was relieved. If given a choice, she preferred to save herself for the man she married, although at her age, the possibility was bleak.

  She was nearly to the central stone when she spied a figure sitting on a rock at the end of the cross. A breath lodged in her throat. She stepped around the menhir and anxiously peered beyond the edge, her heart thumping wildly in her ears.

  Not twenty minutes ago, she had checked in on the journalist. Obviously, the woman was not the shape beneath the blankets. The subterfuge rocked Katie more so than the fact the ground was open between herself and the woman. It wasn't the first time she had seen the black rectangle. This time, however, Taryn Ingliss' presence added an element of danger that left a bitter taste in Katie's mouth.

  "Use your head this time!" Katie heard her say. "No story is worth—"

  "I tell, ye, somethin' doesna feel right, tonight! I heard somethin'."

  Gil's voice alarmed Katie. With a whimper of helplessness, she shrank against the stone, molding her body to it as if to become a part of its surface. When she glanced at the journalist again, it was to see her disappearing into the rectangle. She opened her mouth to call out, but at the heavy footfalls of her cousins' rapid approach, her throat closed.

  The rain ceased. The clouds hovering at the horizon melted into the night. A gauzy, golden-orange light swept across the site, the now surrealistic landscape drugging Katie's consternation.

  Her cousins were at the end of the stone wall when tremors rippled across the ground. Katie clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle a scream, and closed her eyes tightly. The tremors lasted less than a minute. When they stopped, the rectangle was covered once again with boggy earth, and her cousins stood like statues a few yards away.

  Anger fisted in her stomach as she walked toward them.

  "Tis good Master Broc and I be done, or Mavis would have your hides!"

  She had passed them when Flan sneered, "Done, ye say?" He laughed cruelly. "The Rider was done wi' ye when he first laid eyes on ye!"

  So Flan and Gil knew. Racked with misery, Katie jogged in the direction of the inn.

  Forgotten was the journalist.

  * * *

  Taryn had no sense of placement. The blackness was so dense she believed she was part of it. Her throat was raw from shouting. Pain stabbed at her temples and gripped the back of her neck like a vice. Her stomach was queasy.

  In her timeless, dimensionless, lightless world, her thoughts warred between remaining where she was and continuing her descent. The barbarian had to be below somewhere. He knew how to open the ground.

  She couldn't determine how many steps she managed on her backside, for her mind as well as her bottom were numb.

  Several times, she encountered drop offs with her hands or feet. Terror had gripped her with each encounter. She lost count after the sixty-third stair. Considering how wide and deep they were, she couldn't help but wonder how far underground she had gone.

  "Mister!" She coughed, and cleared her throat. Her voice was scratchy, with none of its usual force. "When I get my hands on you— Nix that. I won't touch you." Not even with a ten-foot pole!

  She coughed again and stopped moving to rub her throat.

  Don't panic. You'll get through this.

  She would. Of course she would. She'd been in tighter fixes.

  Nothing that smelled as bad as Mr. Charmer, though.

  These damn stairs have to come to an end eventually. Unless....

  No unless about it. You're Taryn Ingliss. Queen of your domain.

  She shifted her knapsack to ease a kink in her back.

  Think of the story you'll get out of this.

  A thought struck her and a hoarse laugh burst past her lips. Her cell phone! Let the police figure out how to free her!

  She twisted around, reaching for the zipper at the top of the knapsack, and unknowingly scooted back on the rough stone. She tumbled backward. At first, her flight amused her. Turned to bemusement. Became terror so great a sensation of fiery liquid invaded her skin.

  She screamed as she somersaulted in the air. Over and over. Head over heels. Down. Down. Then she couldn't tell if she was falling or soaring, or remained still while the air swirled around her. She attempted to scream again. Only a croaking sound came out.

  How long had gone by since she'd fallen off the steps?

  Not that it mattered. Anytime now, she would make one messy splat on some surface. Splats usually implied death.

  Instant death, she hoped.

  Of course, with the way her luck had been going, she was definitely scheduled for a half splat. Worst yet, fall on top of Mr. Charmer, the impact merging their splats.

  Gross!

  Hello? Anyone care to stop this motion? I'm going to throw up. Any second now.

  A sudden halt of motion jarred her bones. Seconds passed before she realized that something gripped her right arm and something else wound about her waist. Through the staticlike roar filling her ears, she detected a whooshing that instantly formed in her mind the image of a giant bird.

  A distinct whoosh-whoosh replaced the roaring. Whoosh-whoosh. Whoosh....

  Her hands groped at her middle. The texture and shape of the objects reminded her of talons. Huge talons.

  If this is a bird, the wing span is enormous.

  Taryn was distracted by the sight of luminance below. Something glowed blue, and something else, golden. They were tiny lights, and before she could rationalize what they were, they grew a little bigger, and bigger, and bigger yet.

  How far down am I?

  Am I falling through the center of the earth?

  Her head went into a tailspin. Her eyes misted, blurring her vision. The lights were hazy blotches, growing ever-larger. Ever-larger.

  No splats. No splats. No broken body parts, please!

  The luminance smarted her eyes and she turned her face away. Everything was blue now. A beautiful blue but nonetheless too bright.

  "Put me down," she wheezed.

  She squinted against the luminance. At the same time she glimpsed a huge unrecognizable form above her, she was dropped. A strangled cry escaped her only to become lost when she plunged into a pool. Shockingly cold water surrounded her. A current of air bubbles burst past her lips as she stroked upward with all her might. The oxygen in her lungs was nearly depleted before she broke surface and she gulped in air amidst a paroxysm of coughing and sputtering.

  Forgotten was her bobbing position when she detected a lessening sound. Whoosh. Whoosh-whoosh. An image of an enormous vulture dominated her mindscreen. She shuddered and spat water then side-stroked toward the pool's edge, the knapsack heavy on her back.

  It took several tries before she was able to drag herself onto the rocky floor. On hands and knees, she coughed up what little water had gotten into her lungs. She wheezed with each breath until
her heartbeat slowed to normal and her fear lost its strangulating hold.

  The air was cooler than the water. Sitting, she slipped off the knapsack and hastily unzipped the main compartment. Because she hadn't secured the zipper all the way when she'd dumped the pager inside, water partially filled the sack. Muttering beneath her breath, her temper heating her blood, she drained most of the water and re-zipped the sack with more force than necessary.

  She screamed. Not from fear or fright but abject frustration.

  The sound reverberated in harmonious waves throughout the cavern, surprising her because the echo held none of the rawness or anger her voice had. Instead of calming her nerves, it had the opposite effect, and she screamed louder and punctuated the sound by slamming a fist atop the knapsack.

  "Mo chreach!" My complete ruination!

  The words cut through her ebbing voice. She turned and stood at the same time, her mouth agape at the sight of the barbarian twenty feet away. Not only did his odor sour the air, he was the scraggiest, dirtiest, most disgusting-looking excuse for a human being she'd ever encountered. He was a hairy wart on the magical ambiance of the cavern. A festering wound on the face of the chimerical blue glow bathing the area, its origin unknown.

  "You!" she spat, and kicked the knapsack for good measure. "You got me into this mess!"

  "Och!" he roared. Fists closed, he stalked toward her. His anger matching—or perhaps exceeding—her own, he stopped within arm's reach and released a tirade of Gaelic.

  Taryn shifted her head to one side, his breath more than she could bear. When his words cut off, she straightened and rammed the heel of her right hand into his chest. It incited more harsh words. She held her breath until he was through then jabbed him again and wagged a warning finger in his face.

  "Are you telling me to shut up?" she shouted, trembling with fury. "You owe me, you bag of week-old garbage." She jabbed the same finger upward. "Get me the hell out of here! Comprende?"

  One black eyebrow jerked upward. Reason reinserted itself. She released a thready laugh and stepped back.

  "Please?" she asked, throwing all her femininity behind the single word. "Pretty please? You don't want me here anymore than I want to be in your company. Let's compromise, shall we? You show me how to get the hell out of this tomb, and I promise I will never set foot near the standing stones again. Deal?"