The Highlander's Touch

by Karen Marie Moning

  “She will have the equivalent of five years of dual memory.”

  “Will it damage her mind?”

  “Lisa? Need you ask that? The woman is nearly Brude.”

  Circenn felt a flash of pride. “Aye, that she is.” He was silent for a moment. “But I doona understand how to do it.”

  “Patience. You’ve been a quick study on your own, you know. I’ve watched you. I know you use heightened speed, I know you scry, I know you’ve altered space around you without even being aware of it. We will proceed slowly.”

  “Slowly is good,” Circenn said. “My head pounds with too many strange concepts.”

  “We will move at a snail’s pace,” Adam assured him. “There is much to be learned about our kind, Circenn, but you must learn it in stages. The madness doesn’t result from immortality. It is an annoying and temporary side effect of our far-vision. We see how everything interconnects, and if you seek that knowledge too quickly, it can make you lose perspective, even cause madness.”

  “Someday I will be able to see those things too?”

  “Yes. I learned too quickly, arrogantly certain that nothing could ever harm me. When the understanding came, it overwhelmed me just as Aoibheal had warned it would. But I will bring you to the knowledge of our race slowly enough that you can absorb it while learning it.”

  “Adam—the spear,” Circenn said hesitantly.

  “What of it?” Adam replied, a hint of amusement curving his lip.

  “The spear and the sword are the only weapons that can kill immortals. The spear was used to wound Christ.”

  “You’re beginning to see connections. Keep looking.”

  “But what—”

  “You will find your own way. These are the things that must come slowly. You cannot expect to overthrow too quickly everything you’ve thought was true. You are still a ninth-century man in many ways. There will be plenty of time to talk of these things later. For now, let us concentrate on Lisa, and you discovering who and what you are. This is all I ever wanted from the beginning, Circenn—for you to accept that I am your father and be willing to learn about your heritage. I am the only Tuatha de Danaan who has a full-grown son,” he added smugly. “Some of them resent me for it.”

  Circenn rolled his eyes, and Adam, caught up in adoring himself, ignored it.

  “I can teach you to sift time, but a fuller understanding of your abilities will not come for many years. Are you certain you wish to proceed? I will not have you later cry foul and be angry with me again. Five hundred years of your bad temper is all I can stand.”

  “I am certain. Teach me.”

  “Come.” Adam extended his hand. “Let us begin and regain your mate. Welcome to my world, son.”

  * * *

  Circenn’s instruction at Adam’s hands commenced the next morning, and the laird of Brodie began slowly to understand what he’d always sensed within him, and feared: the potential for unlimited power. He began to see why it had frightened him, he—a warrior who feared nothing. Such power was terrifying because the ability to use it carried immense responsibilities. What had once seemed a vast unexplored wilderness—his country, Scotland—was now put into astonishing perspective.

  There were other worlds, far beyond the one they inhabited. He realized why the Tuatha de Danaan seemed detached to mortals. The tiny bit of land called Scotland and their tiny war for independence was one of millions in the universe.

  Over the next few days of learning just a tiny bit about himself, he began to develop (loath though he was to admit it) some respect for the man who had sired him. Adam was indeed given to strange amusements, prone to meddle and to be prankish. However, considering the extent of what his “blackest elf” could actually do, Circenn realized that Adam generally exercised admirable restraint. He also began to realize how mortals, who had no such magic, could so gravely misunderstand those who wielded it.

  He eyed his father, who was bent over an ancient tome from which he’d been reading aloud, giving Circenn more background on his race. It was difficult to conceive of the exotic man as his father, for Adam wore his customary glamour that made him seem even younger than Circenn.

  “Adam, what of this bond I have with her? What happened that night when she and I …”

  “Made love? Ah, tupped as Duncan would say.” Adam raised his head from the book. “What did Morganna tell you when you were a lad?”

  “About what? She told me many things.” Circenn shrugged.

  “What did she tell you about spilling your seed in a woman?” Adam asked, trying not to laugh.

  “Oh, that. She told me it would fall off,” Circenn muttered darkly.

  Adam tossed back his head, shaking with mirth. “That is exactly something Morganna would have said. She knew better than to reason with the stubborn boy you were. And did you ever spill in a woman?”

  “Nay. At first I believed her and feared it would indeed fall off. Then, when I was old enough to realize she’d been jesting with me, I didn’t because I didn’t wish to scatter my bastards across the land. Finally, when I wed Naya and was ready to have a family, I discovered what you had done—”

  “I told you the same day, didn’t I? I knew you would plan children.”

  “You told me to prevent me?” Circenn said, startled.

  “Of course. I knew what would happen if you did. You would have been bound to a woman you did not love, and that is the purest hell for us.”

  “So spilling my seed in a woman links us?”

  “It seems to be a side effect of our immortality. Our life force is so strong, so potent, that when we find our release inside a mortal woman the union that is forged connects us. And that link will soon include your child.”

  “Lisa’s not pregnant,” Circenn said quickly.

  Adam glanced at him mockingly. “Of course she is. You—half-fae and half-mortal—are much more virile than we are. You might be our hope for the future.”

  “Lisa is carrying my child?” Circenn roared.

  “Yes, from the moment you spent your seed, the first time you made love to her.”

  Circenn was stuck silent.

  “The first seven months are splendid. It’s amazing when the child’s force starts to mingle with yours and hers. You feel the babe’s awakening, its excitement, and burgeoning life. You marvel at what you have created, you hunger to see it arrive. Then the last two months become hellish. You, Circenn, were a pain in the ass. You wanted out, you kicked and brooded and argued, and suddenly I developed cravings for ridiculous foods I’d never wanted before, and ah—the birth, sweet Dagda! I suffered her labor. I felt the pain, and I felt the creation, the wonder. By the time you birth your first child, you and Lisa will be so deeply bound you won’t be able to imagine breathing without her.”

  Circenn was silent, awed by the thought of Lisa’s pregnancy and what was to come. Then the enormity of what Adam had just admitted struck him. “You had such a bond with my mother?”

  “I am not without emotion, Circenn,” Adam replied stiffly. “I endeavor to keep it still.”

  “But she died.”

  “Yes,” Adam said. “And I ran to the farthest ends of the earth trying not to feel her death. But I couldn’t escape it. Even on Morar, even on other worlds, I felt her dying.”

  “Why did you let her?”

  Adam gave him a black look. “At least now that you understand that what I had with Morganna is what you have with Lisa, imagine what I endured permitting her to die. Perhaps you can find it within you to be less harsh in your judgment of me.”

  “But why did you let her?” Circenn repeated.

  Adam shook his head. “My life with Morganna is another story and we have no time for it now.”

  Circenn studied the exotic man, who would no longer meet his gaze. Permit Lisa to die? Never. “But you could have made her immortal?” he pressed, with a sense of desperation.

  Adam’s jaw was rigid. He shot Circenn a furious gaze. “She wouldn’t accept i
t. Now leave it.”

  Circenn closed his eyes. Why had his mother refused the potion if Adam had offered it? Would Lisa refuse?

  He would not allow her to do so, he resolved. Never would he permit her to die. Gone were the vague feelings of guilt for his thoughts of making her immortal. After what Adam had just told him, he knew he could never endure losing the union they shared. A child! She carried his babe, and the bond would swell to include their son or daughter.

  Live through Lisa’s death? No. But in recompense for taking her mortality he would give her the perfect future with her family. It would be his way of making amends.

  * * *

  Circenn materialized at dawn on the day of her graduation. Swiftly he scaled the wall surrounding the Stone estate. Swiftly he punctured the wheels on the small machine to prevent it from moving. Then he regarded the bigger machine irritably. Which one is a Mercedes? he wondered with a scowl. Moving quickly, he punctured those wheels, too. But what if they changed the wheels? What if they had new wheels somewhere in their keep?

  He glared at the keep, then he glowered at the machines for a long moment, holding them personally responsible for hurting his woman. He struggled against an intense desire to creep into the home and peer down at the sleeping eighteen-year-old Lisa he hadn’t yet met.

  “Stay away from her. You are so dense sometimes, Circenn,” Adam’s bodiless voice mocked. “You still don’t understand the power you have. Why are you trying to harm the machines, when you can simply make them go away? For that matter, why did you appear outside the gate and climb the wall, when you might have appeared within the gates?”

  Circenn frowned. “I am unaccustomed to this power. And where would I send them?”

  “Send them to Morar. That should be interesting.” Adam laughed.

  Circenn shrugged and focused his newfound center of power. He closed his eyes and visualized the silica sands of Morar. With a small nudge, the machines disappeared.

  If they landed on the isle of Morar with a soft woosh of white silica sand, only one mortal was there to see it, and she hadn’t been surprised by anything in quite some time.

  * * *

  “Our cars have been stolen!” Catherine exclaimed.

  Jack peered over his newspaper. “Did you look for them?” he asked absently, as if a Mercedes and a Jeep could be overlooked.

  “Of course I did, Jack,” Catherine said. “How are we going to get to Lisa’s graduation? We can’t miss her big day!”

  * * *

  Circenn tugged the cap low on Adam’s forehead, stepped back, and grinned. “Perfect.”

  “I don’t see why I have to do this.”

  “I doona wish to risk being seen, nor dare I trust myself to see her. I doona know that I could restrain myself, so you must do it.”

  “This uniform is ridiculous.” Adam tugged at the crotch. “It’s too small.”

  “Then make it bigger, O powerful one,” Circenn said dryly. “Quit procrastinating and call their number. Tell them the cab is on the way.”

  “But they didn’t call for one.”

  “I’m counting on whoever answers to think someone else must have.”

  Adam arched a brow. “You’re good at this.”

  “Call.”

  Sure enough, Catherine assumed that Jack had called and ordered a cab to arrive at precisely 9:00 A.M. When it appeared, Jack assumed that Catherine had called. In the fuss over filing stolen-car reports with the police and the insurance company, neither thought to ask the other.

  * * *

  “What’s next?” Adam asked, rubbing his hands.

  Circenn shot him a dark look. “You seem to be enjoying this.”

  Adam shrugged. “I have never before manipulated in such fine detail. It’s quite fascinating.”

  “Cancer. She said her mother was dying of cancer,” Circenn said. “We doona even know what kind. I suspect this is not going to be as simple as making two machines disappear. We must find a way to prevent her from catching this disease, and from what I’ve read, they doona seem to know what causes it. I’ve been flipping through these books all night.” He gestured to the medical books scattered across his desk in the study at Castle Brodie.

  Adam picked up several and scanned them, THE CINCINNATI PUBLIC LIBRARY was stamped on the spine. “You pilfered from the library?” Adam said with mock dismay.

  “I had to. I tried to borrow them but they wanted papers I didn’t have. So I went back when they were closed, and a security guard—they protect their books even in the future—nearly attacked me before I’d finished finding what I wanted.” He sighed. “But I’m no closer to discovering how to prevent the disease. I must know what type of cancer she had.”

  Adam thought for a moment. “Are you up to some more nocturnal raiding? I believe there are no more than a half-dozen hospitals in her city.”

  “Hospitals?” Circenn’s brow furrowed.

  “You really are a medieval brute. Hospitals are where they treat the ill. We will go to her time and steal her records. Come. Sift time, and I will be your faithful guide.”

  * * *

  “She has cervical cancer,” Circenn said softly, glancing over his shoulder at Adam, who was reclining on the desk in a private office at Good Samaritan Hospital. “Listen to this: The diagnosis was severe dysplasia. Over time it became advanced invasive cancer. They refer to something called cervical intraepithelial neoplasia.” His tongue felt thick over the strange words, and he pronounced them very slowly. “The notes indicate Catherine might have been diagnosed in time to prevent the cancer had she had something called a Pap test. The notes indicate that Catherine told the doctor her last Pap test was eight years before they diagnosed the cancer. It seems cervical cancer is caused by a type of virus that is easily treated in the early stages.”

  Adam fanned rapidly through the textbook he had plucked off the desk. Locating an applicable entry, he read aloud: “‘Pap screening test: a cancer screening test developed in 1943 by Dr. George Papanicolaou. The Pap test examines cells from the cervix, or the mouth of the womb, located at the top of the vagina.’” Adam was silent for a long moment. “It says a woman should have a Pap test annually. Why didn’t she?”

  Circenn shrugged. “I doona know. But it sounds as if we go back a few years, we should be able to prevent it.”

  Adam arched a brow. “How can we fix this? Just how do you intend to get a woman who obviously hates to go to the doctor to go see the doctor?”

  Circenn grinned. “A little gentle persuasion.”

  * * *

  Catherine thumbed through the mail, hunting for a letter from her friend Sarah, who was in England for the summer. She tossed aside two fliers, snorting indelicately. Recently she’d been receiving a rash of junk mail dealing with one thing—gynecologists and cervical cancer.

  Have you had your Pap smear this year? one banner screamed.

  Cervical Cancer is preventable! a bright pink flier exclaimed.

  They were all from a nonprofit organization she’d never heard of. Apparently some do-gooder who had money to burn. She tossed them in the wastebasket and resumed flipping through the mail.

  But something nagged at her, so she retrieved the last flier. She must have received fifty of those things over the past month, and each time she threw one away, she felt a peculiar sense of déjà vu. She’d even received a call from a doctor’s office this week, offering a free exam. She had never heard of any doctor offering free Pap tests before.

  When was my last checkup? she wondered, fingering the flier. At nearly sixteen, Lisa was ready to start having annual checkups. It might be a bit difficult to persuade her daughter to have her first visit when Catherine wasn’t faithful about making and keeping her own appointments. She regarded the pamphlet thoughtfully. It said that cancer of the cervix was preventable—that a routine Pap smear could detect many abnormalities. And that women in all age groups were at risk.

  Decisively, she plunked down the pamphlet and calle
d her gynecologist to schedule appointments for herself and Lisa. Sometimes she and Jack tended to be irresponsible about things like checkups and life insurance and servicing the cars. She’d not seen her gynecologist because she felt perfectly fine. But that was like saying the car didn’t need service because it was running perfectly fine. Maintenance was different from repairs. Preventive medicine can save your life, the pamphlet said.

  Life was good, and Catherine certainly didn’t want to miss one moment of Lisa’s growing up. She had grandchildren to look forward to one day.

  Perhaps she should have Jack look into some life insurance, while she was at it.

  “YOU ARE CERTAIN THIS WILL WORK?” CIRCENN worried.

  “Yes. We will remove her from Morar while she sleeps and return her to her new future. I’ve done this before; however, this is the only time I have allowed the person to retain dual memories. Are you certain you wish her to recall the other reality? The one where her father died and her mother is ill?”

  “Yes. If we take it from her she will not know me. She will have no memory of our time together. Without those memories she would be a different person, and I love her precisely the way she is.”

  “Then let’s do it,” Adam said. “She will be very confused at first. You will need to get to her quickly, to help her understand. Once she has been returned, race to her side. She’ll need you.”

  * * *

  Lisa was drifting when she heard the voices.

  “You must do it now, Circenn.”

  Circenn, my love, her dreaming mind purred.

  I’m coming, Lisa.

  * * *

  Lisa woke from a sleep that felt drugged. Her pillow smelled funny. She sniffed it: jasmine and sandalwood. The scent brought tears to her eyes; it reminded her of Circenn, the way the faint smell had always seemed part of his skin. Another scent overpowered it swiftly: frying bacon. She kept her eyes closed and puzzled over that thought. Where was she? Had she stumbled down the beach and in her delirium found a house and a bed?

  She opened her eyes cautiously.

  She looked about the room, seeking traces of the fourteenth century—her first thought was that she’d blessedly traveled back to Circenn. But as her gaze skimmed again over the pale blue walls, her heart thudded painfully—she recognized this room, and had thought to never see it again.