by Vi Lily
I have a tourist's map of the Highlands in my backpack, but it only shows castles that are still either standing or are somewhat intact ruins. In the future, Avisha's fortress was neither. He said the only part that hadn't been in ruins was the tower he'd sat on, and that wasn't even visible unless you knew where to look. I doubt there's any mention of it on the map I have.
It's hopeless.
That sadistic part of the human mind that just loves to provide as much torment as possible decides to remind me then that the creeps who took Carlie had accused me of being a witch…and Avisha's witch, no less. They're probably going to assume Carlie is our love child: The baby of a witch and a gargoyle. And that means they're going to hurt her.
The last bit of my sanity snaps at that thought.
My legs buckle under me and I hit the ground on my hands and knees. I start crying so hard that I'm choking as snot runs out of my nose and mouth. Ugly crying to the extreme.
The idea of that sweet baby being tortured…and killed…I can't. I just can't.
The wails coming from me are enough to make the horses start kicking the gates in their stalls. I can hear them screaming with me, the sound nearly as mournful as my own. Even the cat, who's as wild as a cougar and doesn't let anyone get within ten feet, comes up to me and nudges my side, howling with me.
It's just a minute, I think, before the horses manage to break down their stalls and escape. I can hear them breathing near me, pawing the ground, snorting and whinnying. I gulp in some air and wipe my face and look back at them.
That's when I see the birds—they're everywhere. Like the horses and the cat, they're all squawking. One hops toward me and jumps up on my hand, cocking his head as he stares at me and screeches. I can feel some more birds on my back. Squirrels and rabbits too, have come near enough to touch.
Despite my insane bawling, I have to wonder what kind of vibes I'm sending out if the animal kingdom thinks it needs to come join in my pain.
But then a roar splits the air and the animals all scatter, leaving me alone to deal with whatever nightmare is coming my way. From the volume of the roar, it sounds like a lion. A huge mofo lion. I look around, but I don't see anything.
A part of me doesn't care. Let it come. Kill me. Rip me to pieces.
Of course, the survivalist inside fights against those thoughts, that ingrained part of humans that tells us to not just roll over and die. It's that part that forces me to pull a knife out of my boot—yeah, I still carry it at all times, out of habit—and face whatever is coming my way.
There's a sound like a huge beast galloping toward me, but again, I can't see anything. I notice that the horses are running back toward the stable, and the rabbits and squirrels are running for the trees.
Another roar vibrates through the air then, but this time it's a word. "Gwen!"
It's then that I see what I can only describe as an outraged avenging angel flying up over the trees, heading toward us. I breath a sigh of relief and choke on a happy sob.
"Avisha," I whisper.
I've seen him fly a few times. Carlie is fond of "fairy rides" around the fortress, where he cradles her in his arms and flies a few feet above the ground. But I've never seen him fly fly, if that makes sense. Which I'm sure it doesn't. Let's just put it this way—the flying he's done with Carlie was a kite on a gentle breeze.
The way he's beating his wings as he's coming toward us is like watching one of those huge military helicopters plow through a tornado.
He slams into the ground just a few feet away from me and I push myself up and run to his arms before he can even stop beating those massive wings.
"They have Carlie," I wail all over again and sob against his chest as he wraps his arms around me. It's comforting, but it's not…my sister is still gone and in danger. Nothing is going to make that feel better, honestly.
"Yer bleeding! Where are ye hurt?" His paws then start roaming all over me. I assume he's looking for injuries. I slap them away.
"I'm fine," I tell him, even though I know I have blood on my face. I can still feel it dripping.
I'm sure that my frustration is clear in my voice. I grab Avisha's face and force him to look at me. His reptile eyes blink at me a few times. I'm pretty sure I shocked him.
"You're not listening!" I scream at him. "They have Carlie!"
I then start babbling and sobbing more. "They came to the fortress and said they were coming for you and they called me your witch and I know what happens to witches in this time, but I knew they wouldn't listen to me that I'm not a witch once they saw my eyes. And when they see Carlie's eyes…and I'm pretty sure they think Carlie is our child which means they're going to hurt her!"
I know my face is red, but I don't care. "They're gonna hurt her, I just know it," I sob again as my eyes fill.
"Who, lass? Who took her?" His voice is deeper than normal, which is saying a lot. There's a rumble to it I've never heard before. He sounds really angry.
Good. Angry is good. Fire-breathing would be even better. At that moment, I wish Avisha really was a dragon.
"I don't know," I sob. "The fortress was attacked, and we dropped Greek fire on them," I hiccup and wave my hand toward the fortress door where the fire is still going.
"Well, not technically Greek fire, but anyway, everyone is gone. Kate, Gavina, Aonghus, those other guys I don't know…" I sob some more, and his huge paw rubs circles on my back.
"When I was attacked, Carlie—"
"Ye were attacked, lass?" he roars again, and my hair literally blows back off my face from his breath.
"Yes, but I'm fine," I lie, before he starts pawing me again. Judging by the way my vision is swimming and my head's pounding, I'm pretty sure I've hurt my head even worse than I did when I cracked that tree, but I don't have time to worry about me right now.
"I just bumped my head. You know how much head wounds bleed," I say as I wipe at the blood running down my face.
Avisha pulls me back into his chest. I can feel the concern and pain coming from him. I realize then that I suddenly have more clarity with my empathic abilities, because I can actually tell there are two different kinds of pain he's feeling—one kind for Carlie, and worry for her; and another kind because I'm hurting and it hurts him to know that.
I try opening my senses even more, as I wonder if I now have an even stronger ability to sense. Maybe the empath part is stronger, along with my body. Or maybe my thinking isn't right, and my brain is really scrambled this time.
But it apparently works, because I'm feeling concern swirling around me. It's not just Avisha—it's the horses, who have now come back out of the stable and are sniffing at me. The birds, too, the cat, the little furry four-leggeds—all of them are worried about me.
Wow. It's cool that I can sense that now; and especially awesome to know that the animals actually care about me, a mere human.
"Tell me exactly what happened, lass," Avisha whispers in my ear as he continues to rub my back.
I hiccup and wipe snot on my sleeve. "I saw this mob coming from miles—" I remember then that "miles" doesn't compute in medieval terms.
"Uh, they were coming from a long way away—and I had the others get lard to melt so we could start a fire to keep them away from the fortress door. But to make it really burn good, you have to pour water on the burning oil, so I left the others in your room while Carlie and I went to get water from the cistern. I told her to stay at the top of the stairs and while I was down there, these guys—there were ten of them—came in through the hole where the cistern is.
"They grabbed me and took me back up the stairs, but I yelled a special word to Carlie that tells her to go hide, then I pushed the guys down the stairs, but one of them grabbed my shirt and pulled me down with him. I was knocked out and when I woke up, I started trying to find my sister, but she's gone." I wail the last word and start my blubbering all over again.
Avisha raises his voice to be heard over my sobbing. "Wait, lass…ye say ye were 'knocke
d out'? Does that mean ye hit yer head hard enough to sleep ag'in?"
I don't care that I have snot all over my face as I push back to look at him. "After all I just told you, that's what you got out of it? My sister is gone!" I yell and swipe angrily at my eyes and face.
"Ye have my apologies," he says quietly, and I can feel his worry washing over me. It is nice to know that someone cares, honestly. I'll tell him that, after we find my sister.
"Now, tell me what this 'mob' looked like."
Finally. "There were maybe fifty guys," I answer as I sniff back some more snot.
"They had pitchforks, axes, spears, some had swords and bow and arrows—oh and the butcher is dead, by the way." I shrug.
"It was the stereotypical mob. I yelled out the window to ask them what they wanted, cuz, you know, I didn't know if they were friends of yours or what."
I ignore the snort Avisha gives at that comment. It probably means he doesn't have friends. "Anyway, the guy who seemed to be the leader said they wanted the dragon—and I corrected him on that—and he called me your witch. So that's when we knew they were bad guys and we dumped the lard out and lit it on fire, then poured the water on it."
Avisha is apparently smarter than the others, because he knew what the water would do to a grease fire. "Good thinkin', lass," he says with a gargoyle-y smile. I wave it away. I failed to protect my sister; I don't want compliments.
My eyes start to fill again, and I blink rapidly. Enough crying—now that I have reinforcements, plus a way to find the mob, I need to get my act together.
"But we needed more water and that's the part when the guys came in the cistern hole." I lean back into him for comfort and let him give it to me.
He's stroking my back again and my cheek vibrates against his chest when he speaks. "What did the man look like that yer thinkin' was the leader o' the attackers?"
I frown, trying to remember. "Actually, he looked like all the other guys in this century…you know, grungy, kinda dirty. Ugly, long, bushy beard."
He chuckles. "What color was his hair, lass?"
That one is easy. "Red. Bright orange, actually. Like a pumpkin." I'm not even sure if they have pumpkins in this time in Scotland. But Avisha knows who I'm talking about regardless.
"Osgar," he says with disgust. "That one has caused me nothin' but troubles and worries since I purchased the land."
He sighs and my head lifts from the movement. "Well, at the least, we now ken which direction to start lookin'."
He stands then with me in his arms and a wave of dizziness sweeps over me. In response, I wrap my arms around his neck; well, I try to, but they don't reach all the way around.
The horses are still swamping me with their concern, so I reach out to them. The black one comes up to let me pet him, but the others stay back. I can feel the fear coming from them and it surprises me that they're afraid of Avisha.
"He won't hurt you," I tell the others and smile when they come closer, like they understand me. You would think they would already know he won't hurt them since they're Avisha's horses, but you can see the fear in their eyes.
But as the horses all circle around us, I realize that, yeah, I think they do understand me…which makes me start to think that the animals are sensing my feelings, much like I can theirs.
I turn to the rabbits that are still hanging out nearby. I don't say anything to them, but I sort of push my thoughts toward them. The gargoyle is good. He won't hurt you. Sure enough, they hop right on over, right up to the big guy's feet. If I weren't so worried and stressed, I'd be laughing in delight.
I have another new ability. Cool. Not sure what to call this one…it's the opposite of the empath, since I'm projecting my feelings. Maybe my thoughts too. I wonder if it only works on animals.
I look at Avisha, staring at his long-faced profile as he stares out over the hills, presumably toward wherever this Osgar creep lives. It's worth a try…
>†<
A feeling of love, trust and appreciation slams into him at that moment and it's so strong and surprising that he almost drops the lass.
Avisha looked down at the girl in his arms, wondering if the feeling came from her. O' course it did, ye moron. I doonae think the horses are sendin' ye their love.
But then he realized that yes, it was love that he was feeling first and foremost. His heart softened even further toward his mate, the woman who didn't yet know she was his mate. He hadn't had the opportunity to tell her. Or the right time.
Or the courage.
He wondered how she would take the news that her mate was a gargoyle. Probably not well, he snorted to himself. No woman in her right mind would accept such a fate.
Avisha also knew that the mating—the feeling of intense need to protect and the desire to always be at the other's side—wasn't something Gwen was likely to ever feel in return. Humans just didn't have that instinct. He was still shaking his head at the fact that he did.
The lass was staring at him like she was waiting for a reaction and he knew then that she was intentionally projecting her feelings. He grinned at her.
"Was that you, lass?" She nodded with a small smile and her cheeks heated.
"Yeah. It worked with the animals, so I thought I'd try it on you."
He cocked the corner of his mouth up. "Lass, I doonae ken how ye did that, but ye ken that I am an animal, in this form."
Her eyes widen at that. "Oh yeah," she said, as if she had forgotten that fact. "Well, um, I have some…uh, abilities, that I haven't told you about."
She pointed to her eyes, the abnormal color a reminder of the "experiment" that she called herself. Avisha didn't care how she came to be; he was just thankful to the Creator for her life.
"The guy who engineered—uh, who made us, thought we were failures because we didn't have all the special talents that he was trying to create. But we all have some skills. You know that I can run as fast as a horse and I can sense feelings. But after the attack today, I seem to have gotten some new abilities. Like super strength and being able to project my own feelings. Oh, and I might have super sight too. I saw that mob coming from a really long way away and could make them out."
Avisha frowned at her. "'Make them out'?" He didn't understand the expression. He often struggled to understand the girl, frankly.
She shrugged. "Yeah, you know, I could see that they were coming to 'kill the beast'." She curled the first two fingers of each hand in the air and moved them up and down as she said the last. He had no idea what that meant.
"They were way over past the hills, but I could see them clearly."
Avisha didn't know what to make of all her declarations. "Super abilities" seemed a bit like nonsense to him, but he knew the lass could run faster than any human; he'd seen the evidence of that with his own eyes. And he knew she believed what she said about the other abilities and had himself just been a recipient of one of those abilities. So, he really had no reason to doubt her claims.
While he was sure it was not in the Creator's plan that humans should have such special abilities, Avisha was also aware that sometimes He allowed such things to happen for a greater purpose.
But he did wonder why the Creator would allow such liberties to be taken with the creation of human lives and thought that the "Doctor Smythe" the lass spoke of was a cursed man. Based on what Bogdan had said about DEE being run by the Fallen Immoral, it was a highly likely probability that Smythe was, in fact, a demon.
Avisha stroked a claw down Gwen's tear-streaked, reddened face. "And how did ye find out about the, ehm, strength ability?"
Gwen's swollen eyes flickered over toward the fortress and she sniffled. "When I saw the mob coming, I ran back inside and barred the door with that big beam. Kate freaked out."
Avisha was having a hard time not "freaking out," as Gwen said, at her admission. He had lifted that beam enough times to know that it weighed nearly as much as a well-fed hog.
"Is that how ye were able to push the men down the stai
rs as well?"
She nodded. "Yeah, that and the fact that I'm trained in self-defense."
He frowned at that, not knowing what she meant, other than what her words obviously spoke to. He didn't like the idea of the lass having to defend herself; as far as he was concerned, that was his duty.
But then, she was from a different time. Mayhap the future world required its women to know the ways of war and protection. If so, he hoped Gwen never wished to return there. From what little he'd seen from the outskirts of society during his short trip back to the twenty-first century, he knew it was a time where people seemed overly concerned with rushing to and fro.
Bogdan had also said the humans were full of fear and hatred. Avisha snorted at that memory; nothing had changed in the past fifteen centuries. But his brother had told him the future peoples had much to fear. In addition to the "guns" that Avisha was unfortunately familiar with, Bogdan said that man had managed to create weapons that could destroy millions in one fell swoop.
It was mind-boggling.
He was thankful Gwen had not yet mentioned a desire to return to her time; that was an argument he didn't want to have. He had no idea how to keep her safe against such insanity.
The thought of the future reminded him of what he'd just gone to retrieve. He shifted her so that he was holding her with just one arm, then reached for the pack Bogdan had loaned him that he'd buckled around his waist. He opened it with the zipper Bogdan'd had to instruct him how to use. Avisha thought it was an amazing invention for a closure.
"Here, lass," he said as he put the bag of treats on her chest. He watched in amusement as she opened it and then squealed.
She pulled out a bar in a bright orange metallic-looking wrapping. Avisha felt great satisfaction as her puffy red-rimmed eyes lit up in awe.
"How…you…how did you…you went to the future to get this for me?" She squeaked the last bit out.
Avisha laughed at her shock. "Aye. I tried to get the cacao ye wanted, but that was a fruitless endeavor. So instead I went back to yer time to retrieve what ye needed."
Her eyes started filling with tears again. "I can't believe you did that…for me," she whispered. He ran another claw down her cheek.
