Better Off Dead (14 page)

I opened my eyes and looked at the sword, realizing I was panting. I turned to face Tallis and shook my head, still trying to catch my breath. “What was that?” I demanded finally.

“Whit did ye see?”

“What does it matter what I saw?” I lashed out. “What I want to know is what the hell just happened?”

“Whit did ye see, lass?” he repeated.

I swallowed, taking another breath, and trying to calm my heart. “I saw a lot of ... things, but the only one I remember is a castle.”

Tallis’s eyes widened for a split second before the surprise disappeared from his face. “Deescribe it ta me.”

“You said it was dangerous for us to be out here at night,” I said with a quick scan around myself. “Do you mind if I describe it inside?”

He simply nodded and stepped aside, allowing me to enter. As soon as I walked through the door, the warm fire in the hearth hit me immediately. I gently brought my sword to the table near the door, half wondering if I set it down, would it separate from my hand? Luckily, it did.

“What the hell?” Bill started, but Tallis silenced him with a “shush” as he raised his hand in the air. Then he faced me again.

“Explain whit ye saw.”

“The castle sat on an island at the base of a green mountain. I think the island was in a lake maybe. There was a bridge that connected the castle to the mainland.” Tallis nodded as if he knew exactly what I was talking about, as if he recognized my description of the castle. He didn’t say anything, though, so I continued. “Do you know the castle I’m describing?”

He immediately shook his head, and I knew he wasn’t telling the truth. There was real recognition in his eyes when I described it ... “Now it’s your turn to answer me,” I said with steely resolve. “What happened when I touched that sword?”

Tallis shrugged. “The sword became one wi’ ye.
‘Twas ah test tae ensure that Ah created it correctly, that it was truly meant tae be yer sword.”

“That’s the sword you made for me?” I asked, surprised.

“Aye,” Tallis said with a nod. “A claidheamh mhor.”

“A what?” Bill called from the corner of the house where he’d made himself comfortable in front of the fireplace. “Sounds like a venereal disease.”

“In Anglish, ye call it ah Claymore sword. In Gaelic, ‘tis knoon as the claidheamh mhor, the great sword.”

I eyed the sword on the table and approached it, watching Tallis. “If I pick it up, will it freak out on me again?”

He shook his head. “It awreddy kens ye air its mistress.”

I reached for the hilt and lifted the sword, as though it was the first time. The blade was long, maybe four feet, and it had two handles. Each handle terminated in a honeycomb pattern. The hilt was carved of wood that appeared to be twisted, but fit my small grip perfectly. Taking my eyes from the sword to focus on Tallis’s face, I asked: “Did you create it correctly? Is the sword really meant for me?”

A strange thing happened then. Tallis actually smiled. I was so shocked to see the semblance of happiness on his face that it completely threw me. Luckily, the smile didn’t last long and his regular sourpuss demeanor quickly returned. I was then able to regard him once again as the arrogant jerk I’d come to expect.

“Aye, ’tis yer sword.”

Without another word, Tallis opened the door and stepped outside, before quickly closing it behind him. I looked at Bill, who simply shrugged as if he could care less about Tallis. “Shocker,” he said. “Conan can actually smile.”

“Thee it behooves to take another road.”

—
   
Dante’s
Inferno

EIGHT

I wasn’t sure how many hours passed before Tallis returned. I spent the time sitting in front of the fire and thinking, Bill’s sonorous snoring playing the part of soundtrack to my overwrought mind. My thoughts were pretty much wholly centered on the enigma called the bladesmith. There was something supernatural about him; of that I was convinced. Otherwise, how could he have healed himself? How was he able to bewitch my sword to make it ignite into a light show as soon as I touched it? And how could he survive in a forest that he, himself, described as treacherous? Furthermore, he
’d somehow managed to domesticate the herd of Grevels, something which seemed counterintuitive, seeing that they were demons! And that whole thing with his eyes … More than once I’d watched their midnight blue eclipsed by a colorless, dark void, of pure, inky blackness. Yes, I was convinced that Tallis Black was otherworldly. But the question still remained: what, exactly, was he? Definitely not an angel, so I crossed that off my list. Perhaps a demon? Hmm, that would explain a lot of things.

“Why ur ye still awake?

I jumped when his voice interrupted the stillness of the air, and cranked my neck toward him so quickly, a shooting pain stabbed through it. I didn’t answer him as I brought my hand to the back of my neck and rubbed it, trying to end the jabbing agony. I hadn’t heard him when he opened the door and entered the cabin and I also didn’t hear him when he closed the distance between us, and came up behind me. The only reason I knew he was there was because I suddenly felt his hands on my shoulders.

My instinctive response was to shrink away from him as the fleeting thought that he could very easily break my neck crossed my mind. “What?” I started in a voice laced with anxiety, but he interrupted me.

“Relax. Ah wilnae hurt ye.” His tone of voice was soft and reassuring. He didn’t say anything more, but I felt his large, callused hands massaging the back of my neck, and moving down toward my right ear. “Is this whaur ye fill pain?”

I just nodded, my heart in my throat as I resisted the urge to close my eyes. His hands just felt so incredibly good, warm, big and … strong. He continued to manipulate the muscles of my neck, and the tensile strength of his fingers soon melted the pain away. I again
reminded myself that he could snap me in two effortlessly, yet he could also be so incredibly gentle.

“Are you a demon?” I asked, focusing on the mottled brown fur on the floor that Bill was noisily sleeping on.

Tallis chuckled a deep, luxurious and infectious sound.

“Nae, Ah am nae demon.”

“Then what are you?” I persisted, figuring if he were in a good mood, I might as well drill him for more information. Who knew when he’d be in another good mood again? “I know you’re not an angel, or an ordinary human like me.”

“Why dae ye think Ah am anythin'?”

I found it strange that he continued to massage my neck even though the pain was gone. Then I realized I hadn’t told him the pain had ceased. The truth was that I loved feeling his warm skin touching mine and I didn’t want him to stop his ministrations. “You can heal yourself and … others; you live in this forest even though you told us it’s a perilous place; you’re the leader of a pack of demons; and you did something to that sword when I touched it.”

He chuckled again, this time softer and I could feel his breath on the naked skin of my neck. My entire body responded with goose bumps.

“Hoo is the ache in yer neck now, Besom?”

“It’s gone, thanks,” I
answered, deciding to ignore my nickname for the time being. Frankly, I was embarrassed that he’d had to ask me about the pain at all. It had to be pretty obvious that I didn’t want him to stop touching me.

He pulled his
hands from my neck and I couldn’t staunch the disappointment that rose up inside me. Instead, I turned around to face him and offered him a small, hurried smile of gratitude, as a creeping blush heated my cheeks. He didn’t make any motion to stand up from where he’d been kneeling over me. Instead, he just leaned back on his haunches and stared at me. He was wearing a kilt, but a different one to what he’d worn earlier, or maybe I just hadn’t been paying attention. In the low light of the fire, I could make out the deep blue and green shades of his tartan. He crossed his arms over his bare chest and I wondered how he maintained his incredible physique. His muscles were the type that men would kill for, dedicating hours upon hours at the gym. One thing I knew for sure, though, was that Tallis Black definitely didn’t go to the gym.

“If you aren’t a demon, then what are you?” I repeated, trying to wipe the awe from my expression. I was just so obvious sometimes.

Well, it’s not like you’ve had much experience with the opposite sex,
I reprimanded myself.
Give yourself a break!

“Ah Celt,” Tallis
answered in a steely tone.

“A Celt?” I reiterated, baffled by his
response. I even felt my eyebrows drawing into the middle of my face. “As in a Druid?”

“Aye,” he said, as if it was nothing to raise one’s eyebrows at. He narrowed his gaze as he studied me and a slight smile played with the corners of his lips. Perhaps his smile was because he found it amusing when my mouth dropped open and my forehead furrowed into a unibrow.

“You mean you’re a direct descendent of the Celts?” I corrected him, more than aware that the Celts were long extinct. “As in—your ancestors were Celts?”

He shook his head. “Nae. Ah, mahself, am a
h Celt.”

“But the Celts don’t exist anymore?” I argued, shaking my head as I tried to understand what in the hell he was getting at. Despite speaking the same language, his ship had passed mine a while back where this conversation was concerned. Yep, his crazy Scottish brogue was definitely a hindrance.

“Aye, fur the moost part ’tis true that the Celts nae longer exist. An’ ’tis ah damn shame,” he continued. “Ah am the last ah mah line.”

I closed my eyes and brought my hand to my forehead
as I tried to decipher if his words could possibly mean anything else. I opened my eyes when I realized exactly what he was trying to tell me. “If I remember correctly, the Celts existed around the time of the Romans,” I started, shaking my head with disbelief. “And that was, what? Two thousand years ago?”

“Aye, yer memory serves ye weel, lass.”

My mouth was still agape. “So you’re saying you are two thousand years old?”

Cocking his head to the side, he appeared to ponder the question before facing me again. There was no sign of jocularity in his features; nope, none at all. He was back to that stoic, poker face that I was beginning to know so well. “Thereaboots, aye.”

I shook my head. “If you aren’t a demon and you aren’t an angel, how is it possible that you could be two thousand years old? I guess next you’ll tell me you’re a god?”

He shook his head and that smile of amusement returned to his lips. “Ah am nae god, Besom.”

“Then what are you?” I demanded, irritated that he seemed to be talking in riddles.

“The Romans called us
Galli
.”

“Galli?”

He nodded again, his eyes suddenly appearing harder than they were a moment ago. The smirk on his lips vanished just as quickly as it had materialized. His expression was now harsh, as if he’d just recalled an unhappy memory. Then I remembered that the Celts and the Romans had pretty much been at war with one another throughout history. So if Tallis really were an ancient Celt, he must have despised the Romans and, apparently, still did.

“Aye,
Galli
… Barbarian,” he answered in a low, heated voice. “Ah prefer the term warriur.”

Suddenly the scar bisecting the left side of his face made sense. A warrior … It fit. Tallis Black was the epitome of a warrior—not only visibly, but also in his speech and his disposition. He was intimidating by any and all accounts. And yet, there were moments, such as this one, where I sensed a softer side to him. It was a side I’d only seen a few times.
He definitely appeared to be more comfortable playing the role of the daunting, controlling brute.

Looking back at his scar, I traced it with my eyes. It started at his outer eyebrow, now reduced to just a faint, pink line. It grazed his eye, moving down his angular cheek and widening to maybe an inch in width at the base of his cheek. Then it narrowed again before disappearing into his lower jaw. The scar was about a half an inch from his full lips making me
instantly thankful that it didn’t traverse the perfect arc of his cupid’s bow. Without realizing it, I brought my index finger up to his face, to touch the tissue of his scar.

He nearly doubled over on himself to escape my reach. When he seemed a safe distance away, he speared me with eyes that were suddenly ignited with anger. “Whit the bludy hell dae ye fink yer daein’?”

I shook my head, flushing with indignation as well as mortification, demanding the same question of myself. What in the hell
was
I doing? It was as if I’d fallen into some sort of trance while looking at him. I couldn’t remember a moment, (well, in recent history anyway,) when I’d been more embarrassed. “I, I’m sorry,” I said, dropping my eyes to the dirt floor beneath me.

“Ah dinnae like tae be tooched,” he explained. The fire in his eyes no longer burned and his tone of voice became slightly softer. Perhaps it was his way of apologizing.

I just nodded, still angry with myself that I’d tried to touch him. It was a totally weird thing to do, especially since Tallis and I weren’t exactly friends. Shoot! We weren’t even acquaintances. With the weight of silence closing in on me, I glanced up at him again. I suddenly wanted to break the quiet between us, so I asked the only question that still baffled me. “How did you get that scar?”

“Ask me nae questions, Ah'll teel ye nae lies.”

So, back to being evasive. I couldn’t understand this man at all. Sometimes, he was almost forthcoming with information about himself, and other times, seemed to want nothing to do with me. Well, call me nosy, but I wasn’t about to let him get away with it. “Why were you nice to me just now?” I demanded, shaking my head for emphasis.

Tallis didn’t respond but offered me a bemused grin as if to say my question was a silly one. His response made me feel like I had to explain myself. “I just don’t know what to make of you. Sometimes you’re a horrible bully, whom I can’t stand; and other times, you actually seem … nice.”

Tallis eyed me from where he leaned against the wall of the cabin, his arms crossed over his chest. His short, black hair nearly reached the ceiling. In the low light of the fire glow, I could just see myriad tiny scars, like tattoos, over his chest and upper arms. There were hundreds of them, like tiny, pink ants marching this way and that. Why I hadn’t noticed them before? No clue.

“Ye ur the daftest lass Ah hae ever mit,” he said, shaking his head as if he didn’t get me. “Ye jist say whutever coomes tae yer mind.”

I frowned at him, cocking a brow to show I didn’t appreciate being called “daft.” Then I put on as haughty an expression as I could muster and answered: “As Confucius says, ‘Speak the truth.’”

A slight smile curved Tallis’s lips and I was left with the sudden observation that when he was borderline happy, he was incredibly handsome. The smile managed to imbue him with an innocence he otherwise lacked. It gave him a certain boyishness. After thinking about it, I realized when Tallis wasn’t glowering, frowning, yelling or lecturing me, he was easily one of the handsomest men I’d ever seen.

“Och aye, an’ it was yer sixteenth president who said, ‘Better tae remain silent an’ be fought ah fool than tae speak oot, an’ remove all doubt.’” He chuckled and appeared pleased with himself.

For myself, I hadn’t realized Lincoln was the author of the quote but I filed it away in my memory all the same. It
was
a good one.

“Ye saw Alba, mah homeland,” Tallis suddenly said, like he was responding to a question I’d just asked.

“Excuse me? I thought we were talking about fools and presidents?”

“Alba … Scootland.”

I furrowed my brows, still lost. “Yes, I get it—Alba means Scotland. And yes, I have seen it. I live in Edinburgh now, so it naturally follows that I have seen Scotland.” I couldn’t keep the irritation from seeping into my tone. Truth be told, he had me at my wit’s end.