Malcolm stood and said, “Very well, lad. On ye go, and I’ll see ye in America.”
Louis flashed his teeth, and this time, his smile lit up his face. He grasped his friend’s hand in heartfelt affection. “Mind yerself, laddie.”
Malcolm pulled him into a quick bear hug, then let him go and grabbed the trailing end of a ladder dangling against the frigate’s hull. He swung himself up and scaled over the rail in a heartbeat.
Louis watched until Malcolm reappeared over the ship’s side and dropped a rope into the jolly boat. He twisted a bowline around the rear thwart. Malcolm nodded to him, and Louis slipped into the frigid water without a ripple of splash.
The freezing water closed over his head and sucked the breath from his lungs. When he broke the surface panting and gasping, Malcolm had already hoisted the jolly boat halfway up the side. The river hugged Louis’s bare legs in an icy fist, bleeding the warmth from his limbs. He had to get out of this water fast.
The lights of Aberdeen twinkled in the distance as dawn began to lighten the skyline. He wasn’t too far from shore, and he struck out with powerful strokes. The cold numbed his brain, but he counted the click-click-clicking marking his arm beats. One hand over the other, and he crossed the river to the quay.
As soon as he hauled himself onto the nearest jetty, he ducked into an alley where the shadows hid him. He pulled off his tartan and wrung as much water as he could from it. He squeezed his shirt out too, but the wet linen still cloyed to his skin and made him shiver. He put his kilt back on and wrapped the damp wool around his shoulders. He had to keep moving before he froze to death, so he jogged down the street heading south until he found the house he wanted.
The tall edifice raked the still, gray sky. Nothing moved inside at this hour. Louis shrank into a dark corner between two structures across the street. Huddling inside his plaid, he closed his eyes against the cool brick. While he waited for signs of life at the house, he rifled through everything Ellen had ever told him. This wizard had known something about the Cipher’s Kiss. Louis had to make sure there wasn’t something they were missing that could affect their future, and his seeing Ellen again. He planned to search the house just to be sure nothing had been left behind that could help the Falisa and hurt the Angui.
Louis had never given much credence to the Cipher’s Kiss. He’d gone along with his friends in their obsession to replace the women they’d lost, but he was far too preoccupied with hating his own life to put any passion into that project or anything else. Now he faced a very different prospect. He didn’t fancy the idea of spending the next three hundred years alone—or even one more night, for that matter—but Ellen had awakened his desire to live, and with that his survival instinct. He might be able to find some useful information here that his friends could use. If he didn’t, he stood a good chance of getting himself killed in the bargain, and then he wouldn’t have to worry about any of this anymore.
In the middle of these black thoughts, someone let himself out of the house across the street. Louis jolted out of his reverie, every nerve strained. Who would venture outside at this time of the morning? One peek around the corner told him.
The thin old man twisted his rattling keys in the lock, then set off down the cobbled street with a spring in his step and his walking cane swinging.
Louis’s senses stretched to the breaking point. He’d get his revenge on this glorified conjurer after all, but not before he wrung the information out of him to speed the Angui on their way.
He waited until the wizard disappeared around the next winding bend, then darted forward and hid again. One corner at a time, he followed the wizard across the city. Troops of Redcoats cut him off once or twice. He retreated out of sight, only to dash out a moment later and pick up his quarry at the next intersection.
His heart threatened to explode at the prospect of tackling this jackdaw. He would have to get the man’s cane away from him in the first few seconds. Then he’d throttle him into the pavement before the wizard knew what hit him.
Insane glee spurred Louis forward until the wizard veered aside to enter a bookshop downtown. The sign on the window read Closed, but when he sneaked up to the darkened storefront, he discovered the door unlocked. Seeing no one inside, he slipped quietly through the door. A length of cloth muffled the doorbells. Someone must have expected the wizard to arrive this early and didn’t want to wake the whole house when he arrived. So much the better. They’d never know Louis was there, either.
Louis glided between the shelves in a tumult of excitement. Was the wizard lurking somewhere in this shop, just waiting to ambush him instead of the other way around? A few paces between the shelves, he heard voices coming from the rear. He crept one tentative step in front of the other until he reached a curtain covering a doorway.
“They stole the book, but it won’t do them any good without the spell to go with it,” an English accent declared. “They may hunt until doomsday, but they’ll never find it. I’ve got it hidden in my house. They’ll never get it there. The fools don’t even know they need a spell to activate the formula. You have nothing to worry about.”
“Where did ye find the spell?” a second voice asked in a gruff Scottish burr. “Ye must have found it somewhere. What’s to stop them going to the source the same way ye did?”
“I learned it from a loyal member of the Guild in Kazakhstan,” the first man replied. “He’s dead and buried now, and the spell was handed down by word of mouth before that. I’m the first to write it down. If anything happens to me, I’ve given instructions in my will to hand over my notebook to the Guild upon my death. We can’t allow them to have both the book and the spell.”
“We won’t,” the second man growled. “We’ve destroyed every other copy of the book. As soon as we recapture the one they stole, we’ll destroy that too. Yer friend from Kazakhstan had the right idea. From now on, the spell and the formula will be handed down by word of mouth to loyal members only. We cannae afford the risk of them getting their paws on it again.”
Louis’s senses prickled. So the Falisa were after the book Ned picked up in Orkney. They would track it down to San Francisco where Ree took it. In the meantime, they would destroy every other copy of the recipe, but that wasn’t all. His palms broke out in a cold sweat. The Cipher’s Kiss needed some activation spell. Without that, the formula was worthless. Did Ned and Ree understand that, or were they too wrapped up in creating the elixir itself?
If Louis could lay his hands on the spell, that would be a prize worth taking back with him. All he had to do was break into the wizard’s house and steal a notebook.
He glided back out of the bookshop the way he came in and hurried through the streets in a breakneck race to the wizard’s hiding place. He cowered in the alley with his plaid covering his head to wait for an opportunity to get inside—but how?
Chapter 23
Ellen woke up to another gray dawn, but one so different from the last that she didn’t recognize where she was. Smooth cotton sheets surrounded her on all sides. A fat feather mattress cushioned every curve, swaddling her in comfort. Her hair lay across a pristine white pillow.
In the hazy transition between sleep and waking, she floated into the delicious velvet warmth of Louis’s arms. His leg tucked between her thighs, and her arms draped over his chest. She hid her eyes in his hair and breathed in his ear. His fingertips dragged down her spine and around every crease, and he kissed her on the forehead. The memory vibrated into her bones, and she snuggled under the covers to savor the blissful arousal of holding him near her just a little longer. Their joining would mean so much more, now that they both knew each other’s stories. Would she ever enjoy that pleasure of sleeping with a man she connected with at the deepest level?
A shuffling noise outside her bedroom jerked her back to the present. Her head shot out from under the covers, and she listened for the slightest sound.
Nikolai would be waiting for her…somewhere. She climbed out of bed and
put on the beautiful dress he’d left out for her. She didn’t want to think about how Nikolai arranged that, but it was a magnificent dress, and it fit her perfectly. She turned this way and that in front of the mirror, shimmering and sparkling all over.
Ree had been right about Ellen needing sensible shoes, so she made sure to keep her sneakers on underneath the beautiful dress. She laid Ree’s green gown over the chair, frowning at the blood and dirt caked along its hem. Soot and grime smudged the fabric that had once captivated Ellen so much.
What would Ree say about Ellen leaving the dress behind? Ree had kept it as a reminder of the days when she fell in love with Ned. Abandoned in some stranger’s house, Ree would never get it back.
Ellen couldn’t help that now. Mud blackened lace trim and a blood-stained hem would not help her blend in until she could escape this time and place.
She migrated downstairs through the old mansion’s elegant foyers and stately halls, finding her way back to the parlor where she first talked to Nikolai, but he wasn’t there. No fire burned in that room. Where was he right now?
While she stood there wondering where to go next, the housekeeper bustled in with a duster. “Aye, Miss, ye’re up. Well, I’ll tell Cook ye’re ready for breakfast.”
“Do you know where I can find Mr. Wainwright?” Ellen asked. “I’d like to get on my way, and I want to thank him for his hospitality before I go.”
“He’s in his office,” the housekeeper replied. “No one visits him there, but I’ll inform him ye wish to see him.”
“Thank you.”
The woman sailed away somewhere and came back a few moments later in a fluster. “He wants to see ye in his office right away. He says he’s been waiting for ye to wake up.”
“Oh!” Ellen exclaimed, surprised.
She followed the housekeeper to a back room. The woman stood aside so she wouldn’t even see inside when the door opened. Ellen entered a large bedroom that looked like two diametrically opposed rooms glued together out of some surreal collage. On one side stood the usual canopy bed made up with damask coverlet and cushions, a washstand, and a dresser. Trestle tables lined the opposite wall. Papers, books, chemical glass equipment, and bubbling pans of sticky tar covered every spare inch of space.
Nikolai stood in front of the tables, in the act of pipetting some clear yellow liquid into a large chemical-glass still. A thick blue syrup distilled from the cooling condenser into an Erlenmeyer flask on a flat, vibrating centrifuge.
Ellen frowned at the setup. After almost fifteen years involved with chemistry, she recognized enough of the equipment to know most of it didn’t come from 1740. The centrifuge was electric, although she couldn’t see any power outlet into which it might be plugged.
Before she could investigate any further, Nikolai turned around and beckoned her forward with his strange predatory smile. “Come in, my dear. I’ve been waiting to show you this.”
Ellen hesitated. Was he trying to trick her into walking into a trap? “Your housekeeper says no one comes in here.”
“No one does,” he replied. “But I believe in fate. And from the moment I noticed you alone on that bench in the park, I recognized something special about you. I’ve always wished to share my research with someone who understood the intricacies and mysteries of alchemy. And I believe you are that person.” He grinned, his eyes twinkling.
What do you say?” He guided her forward to stand at the table by his side.
Ellen took in the whole setup as fast as she could, but none of it made sense. A mishmash of old-fashioned kitchenware jumbled together with twenty-first-century chemical equipment no one in 1740 should have known existed, much less known how to use.
“Now this mixture here”—Nikolai waved to the pan of sticky tar—“this mixture heals wounds in a matter of seconds. I only share it with my closest associates. Wouldn’t the British Army be unstoppable if they could get their hands on that!” He let out a menacing chuckle while he pipetted the rest of the liquid into the still.
Ellen chose her words carefully. She was in the lions’ den—one false move and he would figure out who she was. “Well, who would be so lucky to benefit from such genius?” she asked, wide-eyed.
“Ah!” he exclaimed. “That is a closely guarded secret, but to date, I have shared it with only one other person alive on the face of the Earth. If people found out about it, they would stampede my house, demanding to pay any price to get it.”
Ellen surveyed the table one more time. “This is a truly impressive display of…of, well… I don’t know what to call it.”
“Call it necromancy, if you must call it anything,” he replied.
“Necromancy!” she repeated. “Is that what you are? A necromancer?”
“I am an alchemist.” His languid eyes slid to her face and away again.
“An alchemist is someone who transforms one element into another,” Ellen remarked.
“The more mundane and less sophisticated alchemists concern themselves with transforming one element into another,” he countered. “As a matter of fact, the true alchemist concerns himself with formulating the Elixir of Life. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.”
Ellen’s heart skipped a beat. She immediately gave her head a brisk shake to counter it. “Oh no. Such things are beyond me, I’m afraid.”
“Ah, shame.” He patted her arm. “Come. I want to show you something.”
He plucked a dusty book off a high shelf above his work table. Quickly choosing one of several lengths of ribbon acting as bookmarks, he flipped the book open. “Here.” He held out the book to her. “Repeat those words and…” He glanced around, then set a plain drinking glass at the table’s edge. “Say these words and concentrate on this glass. See what happens.”
Ellen took the book in her hands and studied the page. The heading read Spell of Invisibility. Her head shot up. “Are you serious?”
A wicked grin spread over the old man’s face. “Give it a try.”
She studied the page, then concentrated on the glass and repeated the charm.
“Hrygr Momr Örtr Hræglfírn
Föng Lygþögr Uttumr Þrágþá
Þromnundýrtr Hrogþírrár Ornjönði.”
She paused, embarrassed. She couldn’t be pronouncing this strange language correctly.
Nikolai only smiled. “Keep trying.”
She repeated it again, and he corrected a few of her mistakes. When she repeated it a third time, with a little more enthusiasm, the glass started to wobble on the tabletop. Encouraged, she lowered the book, focused all her attention on the glass, and called out the words from the depths of her soul.
All at once, the glass blinked and vanished before her eyes.
Ellen stared at the empty workbench in dumbfounded surprise.
“Well done!” Nikolai exclaimed. “I knew you could do it.”
“What…what did I do?” she stammered.
“You made it turn invisible, just like the spell says,” he replied. “See? If you touch it, you can feel it’s still there. It’s just invisible.”
He picked up something unseen off the table, his hand molded to a shape with no substance, and set it in her hand. Her fingers surrounded the cool, smooth glass, but she couldn’t see anything there.
“Now make it visible again.” He took the glass out of her grasp and returned it to the table.
“How do I do that?” she asked.
“Repeat the spell backward.”
She studied the page. This was nuts—truly nuts. How could she, of all people, be turning things visible and invisible with magic charms? The whole idea was ludicrous. She repeated the charm backward, with pronunciation help from the wizard, and the glass reappeared.
Nikolai took the book out of her hands. “Now turn yourself invisible.”
Ellen gasped. “What?”
“Use the same charm on yourself. You can do it. You’ve repeated it enough times to know the words. Just try it and see what happens.”
She checked inside herself. As preposterous as the whole notion seemed, something told her she could do this. She closed her eyes and chanted the words. He was right. She knew them now, and they rose out of her soul to some forgotten realm of the universe where all this made sense.
She opened her eyes and found Nikolai staring at her. “I guess it didn’t work.”
“Nonsense,” he breathed. “Take a look in the glass.”
She turned to the large mirror hanging over the dressing table. The reflection offered her a full view of the room. Nikolai stood by his workbench—alone. The spell really had worked. She was invisible.
Nikolai murmured in her ear. “Now reverse it.”
She stammered out the words and, in front of her shocked eyes, she flickered into view. She gaped at her own face. How could this be possible?
“I knew you were a powerful witch when I saw you on that bench,” he breathed behind her. “You never knew, did you? No one ever showed you how.”
She turned around on wooden legs, unable to feel her own body. This couldn’t be happening. “A what?”
“You’re a witch, my dear,” he crooned. “You have power like few others on the face of the Earth. You should learn to use it.” He took the book out of her hand and leafed the pages. “Let me see here. Ah, yes. Here we are.” He handed it back to her.
Ellen turned her gaze to the book, taking a few moments to clear her head enough to read the words. Make Anything Disappear.
“You’ll have to be careful with this one.” He chuckled under his breath. “If you make it disappear, you’ll never be able to make it reappear. It won’t turn invisible but still be there like the invisibility spell. It will cease to be entirely.” He picked up the same glass and set it in the same spot.
She read the words but couldn’t put her spirit into it. This whole wacky experiment existed somewhere so far away from her she couldn’t believe it was really happening.
Spellbound by the Angui (Cipher's Kiss Book 2): A Scottish Highlander Time Travel Romance Page 16
