The eyebrow remained cocked. The black eyes stared steadily into hers. She could almost swear she could see fumes rising off his massive frame. Noxious fumes. With him, there could be no other.
"Well?"
Silence.
"Even someone who doesn't speak English should get the gist of what I'm saying," she said, finding it difficult to keep an edge of pique from her tone. She tapped her chest and gestured with both hands to the dark vault above them. "Show me how to get out."
To her chagrin, his only movement was to scratch an inner thigh through the tattered wool of his kilt.
"Charming," she muttered.
She turned in place, her gaze sweeping over the walls. The rocks were mostly smooth and shiny, some bearing engravings of runes. Beyond the pool was a wide tunnel some thirty-feet across, and the top of the arched entry a good forty-feet high. Beyond the stranger were two other tunnels, equally as big, and illuminated in the same mysterious glow. Taryn glanced at the pool. There did seem to be a light radiating up from the bottom, but that didn't explain the light in the distant tunnels.
She strained to see through the darkness above.
How high is the ceiling?
How can hollow ground support the base for the standing stones?
By the time she met the stranger's gaze, she was deeply pensive. Had she imagined falling? Was she actually trapped beneath the ancient site, or had the Watchdog-MacLachlans slipped something into her food, and she was hallucinating?
He spouted another round of Gaelic, his voice cutting into her eardrums. A stab of panic pierced her when he whirled, lifted his arms, and ranted on as if cursing the darkness and the rocks and the air.
"Shut up!" Taryn cried, her hands covering her ears.
The barbarian faced her, breathing heavily through flared nostrils, his eyes coals of fury. His gazed raked her contemptuously then, his movement so quick she didn't see it coming, planted a hand to her face and gave her a push. For the second time within minutes, she fell into the pool. The echoes of her shriek greeted her when she surfaced.
He was nowhere in sight.
Taryn climbed onto the floor, too incensed to feel the cool air. She vented her anger on the knapsack, kicking it until pain tweaked her toes. Fear, vexation and stark fury warred inside her as she staggered backward from the pool.
Her panting breaths reverberated around her, lending the illusion the rock walls were breathing.
"Let me out of here!" she wailed. "You can't keep me down here!"
Baiting silence rode the edge of her echoing words.
Wiping away part of the wetness on her face with a swipe of a hand, she glared into the patches of darkness surrounding her.
Hatred burned inside her belly. Hatred for her helplessness, and hatred for the man determined to push her over the brink of sanity. She quaked with the conviction she wanted to strike him dead. Anger and frustration had companioned her for most of her life, but what she felt at this moment went beyond anything in her experience.
With a last vicious kick at the knapsack, she broke into a run. Despite the cramping in her calf muscles, adrenaline fueled her determination to escape this mad world she had stumbled upon. Her eyesight was better adjusted now for the darker regions she entered, enough so that she could make out the staircase ahead—at least, the lower section of the stone spiral. Heedless, her mind empty of every thought but that of escaping, she ascended.
Hollow, whispering echoes of her footfalls marked her journey. Upward she climbed. Upward for an eternity. Upward while her legs faltered beneath the strain, her lungs grew heavier and encompassing darkness blinded her. At one point she slowed her pace.
How will I know if I step too close to the edge of a step?
Plunging to her death wasn't the escape she sought.
"Damn you," she choked, and collapsed to her knees.
Breath wheezed from lungs fiery from exertion. Every muscle in her body quivered achingly. Tears burned the backs of her eyes, but she knew if she gave in, whatever strength she had left would drain with them.
Step by step by step she crawled upward, her right hand groping to assure the solidity of her route. She had no concept of time. Images of her parents and Roan attempted to formulate in her mind, but she willed them back into the abyss of her misery. Then, one face did materialize across her mindscreen. Lachlan. Scowling. Disappointment in her burning in his fathomless dark eyes.
"You want a mon who can master you," he had told her.
Taryn gulped convulsively. "You don't know anything about me!"
"Heed this warnin', Taryn," he had said huskily. "There's a mon waitin' for you at the end o' yer destination. Dinna provoke him."
Had Lachlan foreseen the barbarian?
"Impossible," she whimpered.
"He'll no' understand yer ways," Lachlan had said.
A tortured laugh escaped Taryn, and she threw all her stamina into continuing her ascent.
"Go back to the States, lass," Lachlan had said. "Wha’ever ye're efter, tis no' worth the price you'll pay."
Fear swallowed up her hatred. Searing stitches of pain sliced into her sides, forcing her to stop. By the time that pain waned, her leg muscles cramped. Whimpering low, she vigorously massaged her thighs and calves.
Sounds drifted upward from the bowels of the realm. Gurgling water, soothing and yet disturbing in that she detected a distinct cadence at times. It was as if she was listening to speech rather than water flowing over rocks.
She crept up three more steps and stopped when the gurgling ceased and the enraged voice of the barbarian rose from the dark abyss.
Taryn climbed and climbed. The higher she went, the cooler the air. Her wet clothing was like ice against her skin. Protesting muscles balked at her abuse. Still, she went on, growing more numb and desensitized to her plight.
Upward and on. Upward and on.
Where am I going? she wondered. Is the outside world any better or worse than this one?
She laughed, the sound hollow, discordant.
Lachlan, you could find me if you wanted to. And where is there a fairy when I really need one?
"I could have jungle fever," she mewled. "I don't remember going into a jungle, but a fever could dim that recollection, couldn't it?"
She frowned and murmured, "Jungle fever? What am I—"
Drums. A steady, driving cadence filled the chamber, this one not water-based.
The barbarian is actually a cannibal, and it's suppertime, she mused. She choked out a laugh until a vicelike pain gripped her left calf.
Dum dum dum dum....
The pounding hammered unmercifully in her head.
"Stop the drums," she wheezed, forcing herself up yet another step. "Stop the...drums."
A low, rumbling growl reached her ears. An icy dash of terror swept through her and, despite her agonized muscles, she stood and rushed onward. Forgotten was the perilous drop. In her mind's eye, she pictured the ground opening and moonlight spilling down to light her way to freedom. The vault that had enticed her to enter had to be near.
Her breath roared in her ears.
Upward. Onward.
Determined.
Nothing would stop her from gazing upon the ancient, sentinel stones of the site above. Nothing would stop her from exposing this netherworld and the barbarian—
A shrill cry wrenched from her when a foul stench assailed her nostrils, followed swiftly by steely fingers biting into her right arm. An inhuman growl deafened her to all else. She came to a jarring halt. The hold on her arm nearly jerked it from her shoulder socket. Her left hand swung out with all the might she could throw behind it, but her effort only met with air. Then oily, thick hair filled her left fist and she yanked.
Guttural, unintelligible curses rang out. With the hair fiercely locked in her hold, she drove her fist upward and connected with flesh-covered bone. A harsh clack followed, telling her she had nailed him beneath his jaw, driving his teeth together. Despite the pain seiz
ing her hand, sweet satisfaction sang in her blood. She swung again, unwittingly stepping back, her left hand gripping the hair with all the strength she possessed.
Her feet lost their perch.
A strangled cry of alarm rang from her. Another sirened when her fall came to an abrupt stop. A masculine howl harshly chimed in the chamber, and it was several seconds before she realized that she was dangling in midair, in darkness, the hair wound about her left fist all that kept her from falling to her death.
An internal roaring in her ears blocked out most of the sounds from the infuriated stranger. Fingers gripped her wrist.
Was he planning to hoist her back onto the steps, or force her to let go before he allowed her to drop?
When she realized that he was pulling her up, she swung up her right arm and hooked it over the back of his neck.
"Gawd!" exploded from him.
Then they were falling.
Worse than knowing she was plunging to her death, was the barbarian wrapping his arms and legs about her as if to absorb her completely into his putrid body. To die was frightening enough. To contemplate impact melding their broken flesh as one was more than she could bear.
She bit him hard on the side of the neck as they somersaulted downward, only unlocking her teeth when she tasted blood. She spat off to one side and choked on a cry when his teeth clamped onto the side of her neck.
"Do it!" she rasped, closing her eyes against the hope he would not make her suffer long.
The pressure of his teeth went away. Taryn could no longer tell if they were spinning head over heel or just falling. Surely, the ground had to be near. Not much longer. Perhaps she would suffocate on his stench before they reached the end of this most peculiar journey.
His fingers gripped the back of her hair, forcing her head back.
He’s going for a clean kill, she told herself. My jugular.
She didn't resist, but opened her eyes. Her stomach churned at the sight of his hairy face above her, the rapid tumbled of his unkempt mane telling her they were still somersaulting. In the now brightening blueness, his eyes were but chips of coal, absent of fear and every other emotion.
How can you not be afraid to die? she wondered.
The blueness meant they were nearing the bottom, nearing their deaths.
What kind of man doesn’t fear dying? Or are you just too stupid to understand that these are the last moments of your life?
She expected him to rip out her throat, or cast her away to die alone, or to crush the life out of her before the moment of impact. She did not expect his mouth to clamp over hers. It was not a kiss. Not in any sense she understood. It was punishing, grinding her lips against her teeth. Punishing her for invading his territory above ground. Punishing her for invading his realm below ground. Punishing her for every mean word and action she had perpetrated on him since their encounter.
They spun uncontrollably downward. An endless hell of sensation. A timeless round of retribution. She wished she could regret her misspent years, her lack of compassion, her cold-hearted approach to life, but it wasn't in her to do so.
Ask anyone who had the misfortune to know her, and they would say without hesitation that Taryn Eilionoir Ingliss was a heartless, conniving, self-centered bitch who wanted nothing out of life but thrills, fame and the power that came with wealth.
Perhaps these same people would believe this end a fitting one for her: Locked in the arms and legs of a madman; her last semblance of a kiss both painful and degrading.
His arms and legs tightened and his mouth ground down harder. A mantle of blackness cloaked her, freeing her mind from its struggle to come up with a modicum of regret for her history. She was too deeply immersed in inner darkness to feel the full impact of hitting bottom. She slipped away into nothingness, one thought trailing off.
God, he reeks.
Chapter 4
Back at Baird House in Crossmichael, Scotland, a scream as shrill as a neglected tea kettle wrenched Lachlan Baird from a realm of disjointed dreams.
He gasped "Fegs!" when an attempt to bolt from the bed resulted in him landing head first on the hardwood floor.
The scream rang on and on, nary a breath of pause in the sirening alarm, the reverberations hollow and crescendoing. He pushed up on his arms and realized his legs remained atop the bed. His temper in high gear, he swung them over the edge as he rolled onto his back, not realizing that the top sheet twisted around them, also cocooned Beth Staples. Her cry of surprise came too late. His eyes widened as a blur of motion tumbled off the mattress. When her weight fell across him, what air remained in his lungs billowed out.
"Lachlan!" she cried, scrambling off him. By the time she untangled herself from the sheet, he swayed on his feet, hands capping his throbbing head.
"Who's—"
"Alby," he rasped. "Stay here."
"But—"
"This once, lass, mind me!"
Lachlan ran from the room but stopped short when he realized the twins in the nursery to his right, wailed in fright. He swung open the door in time to see Jondee, one of the male fairies, turn in his direction, a child in each arm.
"I be stayin’ to quiet them," he assured Lachlan.
After a moment's hesitation, Lachlan beelined for the staircase.
Roan Ingliss and Winston Connery, both looking as sleep-addled and perplexed as he, met him at the top of the second floor landing. Two doors opened down the hall. Without looking in that direction, three male voices shouted, "Stay in yer rooms!" to young Kahl and Kevin, who, true to their nature, entered the hall and ran toward the men.
"Tis coming from the cellar," Lachlan said, deciding not to waste time arguing with the boys.
He led the others to the first floor, and slowed their approach to the door situated below the staircase.
A second screamer chorused with the first.
"Laura!" Roan bit out.
He pushed past Lachlan and dashed down the dark stairwell. Winston switched on the light, descending behind Lachlan and in front of the boys.
Roan came to an abrupt stop, roared in alarm, and pitched backward into Lachlan's arms. Lachlan dropped him to the floor with a terse, "Get a grip, mon," and, ignoring the shimmering, transparent ghost of a wildly gesturing Stephen Miles, ran through him, toward what the boys had nicknamed, "the murder room."
Seven months prior, Stephen Miles, a reporter in search of a story at Baird House, happened across Wade Cuttstone hiding in the basement room. The serial killer dubbed "The Phantom" by the press, turned Miles into yet another victim in The Phantom's psycho-impressive repertoire. Since, Miles became a self-appointed watchdog at the manor, warning the inhabitants when Cuttstone's wrathful spirit absorbed enough energy to materialize. Cuttstone, too, had died at the manor, during a fall from a third floor window, shortly following Miles' death.
Until now, The Phantom could do no more than terrorize the household with his visits—visits frightening enough to chase off Roan's parents. No loss there. But when Lachlan entered the south cellar, he knew immediately the manifestations had progressed to something far deadlier.
How, he didn't know, and his mind was too shocky to contemplate the possibilities.
Across the lantern-lit room, a sobbing Laura sat in a heap against the east wall, the bare legs beneath her short nightie folded against her chest. Between the fingers of the right hand pressed to her brow, blood ran in rivulets down the arm. Roan inched toward her. Oblivious to his approach, she remained fixated on the abomination standing ten feet away.
Winston stood at Lachlan's side, breathing heavily like an asthmatic struggling for air. He was about to take a step forward when Lachlan swung an arm across his chest, curbing his intention to rush at Cuttstone.
Laura's sobs now under control, allowed Four-year-old Alby Bennett's mewls of terror to be heard in the otherwise thickening silence. Lachlan gestured for Roan to help Laura away from the Phantom. Roan obeyed without hesitation. Lifting Laura into his arms, he backed
away from the killer until he stood behind Lachlan.
"Alby," she whimpered.
"I need to get you upstairs—"
"No!" she whispered harshly. "How can he...how can he...?
"Shhh," Lachlan hushed, staring unwaveringly at the semi-phantom across from him.
Eight-year-old Kahl and his six-year-old brother, Kevin, sprinted across the room. They squealed in protest when Winston snatched them into his arms.
"Quiet, lads," he said in a low tone.
"Let go of my brother!" Kahl demanded of Cuttstone, his hands clawing at the arm encircling his middle.
Lachlan's insides turned to cold marble at the sight of The Phantom's slow-forming grin of malice. A man born in 1811 and murdered by his bride and her lover in 1844, a man still renowned as Scotland's most famous ghost—although eight months prior he had been granted life—Lachlan believed little could shake him. He quaked now. The killer's left arm was wrapped about Alby's middle, securing the flailing boy to his side as one might a sack of grain.
"Alby!" Kevin wailed.
"Laddies, quiet down," Winston said, the tenderness he meant to project, overcome by his rising fear.
From the corner of his eye, Lachlan spied a blink of movement in the air. Swift and tiny. Then another, both swallowed up in the long shadows on the far wall.
"This is atween you an' me," Lachlan said to Cuttstone. "Let the lad go."
The Phantom's rictus grin remained. Only the icy blue eyes altered, becoming harder, more intense.
Cuttstone swung Alby up, imprisoning him between a thick arm and broad chest. The boy went limp, his round eyes beseeching the adults to rescue him.
Lachlan's heart thundered. His blood heated and flames licked at his willpower. The Phantom's eyes, mouth, left arm, portions of his chest and legs, were solid, while the rest of him was illuminated green mist contained in the outline of the man he'd been.
In Lachlan's spirit days, he would absorb available energies in the "grayness," the between world, to venture among the living for intervals of time. He had believed he alone had that ability until he had taught Beth after her death.
Time Everlastin' Book 5 Page 5
