Hope Everlastin' Book 4 (20 page)

It amazed Taryn how
Scottish families kept their histories alive through the telling of
stories from one generation to the next. Margaret eagerly spoke of
Ciarda and Guin, and all that had befallen the family since those
turbulent years. If one could believe the old woman, Guin Baird had
been a saint, beyond reproach. She never mentioned—nor did Taryn
enlighten her to her own knowledge of—Guin’s part in Lachlan's
death. Either Margaret didn't know, or chose not to expose that
delightful bit of information.

She also described Ciarda
as a cold, distant woman who preferred to be alone, who only left
the house when she traveled to the Isle of Lewis to visit her
father. According to Margaret, Ciarda displayed no love for her
first three sons. Only Lachlan.

Collin Guin-James Baird was
three years younger than his sister. At one time he had shared the
family home with Margaret, but confided to Taryn that she snored so
loudly in her sleep, he could not escape the sound in any part of
the house. He lived alone in a small cottage, a robust man with
thick white hair and light brown eyes that nearly mirrored her own.
He had never married but claimed to have had more than his share of
women.

To his knowledge, he had
fathered no children. He spoke proudly of his Baird heritage, and
talked greatly of Guin’s accomplishments in the early 1800's. When
Taryn asked what he knew of Ciarda, he became sullen and
resentful.

"She was a witch," he'd
said, his face contorted with contempt. "Her and the whole bloody
pack tha' settled on the Isle o' Lewis. Aye, the whole lot o' 'em,
evil. Old Lachlan was given his own ceremonial dirk, and you and me
know bloody weel the kind o' ceremonies it was used
for!"

He went on to say how the
family's scrapbook remained at the family house. Margaret hadn't
mentioned it, but Collin explained that his sister's memory wasn't
as clear as his own. To Taryn's delight, he went with her back to
Margaret's, where he brought out three large, leather-bound books.
He seated himself next to Taryn at the dining room table, and took
her on a visual tour of the Baird history through diary excerpts,
letters, newspaper articles, and photographs.

A lot of the information
Taryn found boring, but outwardly she remained enthused. The
highlights were the articles written about Ciarda's and Lachlan's
deaths. When they came to the latter, Collin slammed a fist on the
oak table top and released a squeal of glee.

"Fitting the bastard should
die by tha' cursed dirk!" he'd exclaimed.

He then pulled out a sketch
of the dirk. It was one Lachlan, himself, had drawn sometime before
he'd left for Europe with Millard Barluc, and it was easy to see
why the Baird males at the time had thought the weapon evil. The
sketch was detailed, especially the demonic-looking faces on the
handle.

Taryn had shivered at first
glance, but then became fascinated by the possibility that Ciarda
could have been a witch. Everything ever written about Lachlan
Baird was contained within the books. The only mention of the
history of the dirk was that it had been handed down for
generations on a particular side of the MacLachlan clan.

When Taryn questioned where
the dirk had originated from, Collin had shrugged and stated, "From
Broc MacLachlan in the seventeen hundreds. Ciarda, tha' one was
reluctant to talk much abou' her ancestry in tha' respect. All she
would say was he was a hero and had vanished on the isle. Her
family had located there to honor his memory. Lies, if you ask me.
Wha' better place to conduct the devil's work than at those evil
stones?"

"What stones?" Taryn had
asked.

He had looked at her as if
she'd grown two heads. "The Callanish Standing Stones! Surely
you've heard o' them, lass!"

Taryn hadn't.

"Weel, I'll tell you this
much, Miss Ingliss. Tha' dirk's a key to the gate o' Hell. One
night, ma great great-grandfaither, Gavin, overheard his mither
talkin’ to Lachlan while he slept. Och, Lachlan was young, nine or
ten, I think, and had been down wi' a fever for several days.
Ciarda was sittin’ wi' him, talkin’ o' this Broc MacLachlan, and
wha' due the clan owed him. But wha' shook up ma dear Gavin was her
tellin’ Lachlan she had figured ou' the secret. Aye, she had, and
it was the dirk. The dirk was the key to the mystery and the lost
souls who couldna leave till—" He made quotation marks with his
fingers. "—the dirk was returned to the stones.

"Aye, Gavin told his
children and their children, and they their own and so on, o' how
she told the sleepin’ Lachlan she could no' return the dirk for
fear she would be lost there, too, or her son demanded in payment
o' Broc's sin. And she asked for her son's forgiveness."

Collin had leaned toward
Taryn then, his eyes reflecting the maniacal workings of his mind.
"Now you tell me, does it no' all reek o' witchcraft and the devil,
himself?"

Taryn hadn't responded, but
thanked him for his time and returned to her hotel room.

The next morning, with the
sketch she'd stolen of the dirk tucked away in her purse, she took
a train to Inverness. The following day, she flew to Stornaway,
where she'd rented a car. With the directions she'd gotten from the
man at the rental office, she drove to the MacLachlans' inn. The
three-story building had been formerly called the Sgeul Inn, but
was translated into the Astory Inn at the turn of the
century.

It was there she discovered
she could learn no more about the dirk's history, and that the
remaining eleven family members of the original clan were as
tight-lipped as clams. During her five-day stay they watched her
when she ate in the dining room, and when she walked around the
grounds. She could almost swear they even watched her when she was
in her room. If she struck up a conversation with one of the
guests, one of them always seemed to be around, listening in. To
say they had deemed her a threat from the moment she had signed the
register might sound paranoid, but she was convinced it was
true.

A threat to whom or
what?

On the first floor, there
had been a room dedicated to Broc MacLachlan. A shrine. It had
given Taryn the willies, made her sick to her stomach every time
she tried to cross the threshold. Directly across from the doorway
was a massive portrait of a man in the MacLachlan red and blue
tartan, his black hair a wild mane falling nearly to his waist.
Although the figure stood larger than life, Taryn couldn't focus on
his features, only his black eyes, which gave her the distinct
impression they were boring into her with a silent accusation.
Accusing her of what, she didn't know.

Taryn had left the inn
without having viewed anything stored inside the shrine. She
visited the standing stones, a cruciform setting of megaliths that
had filled her with such dread, she couldn't stop shaking. Twenty
yards from the nearest stone, she couldn't force herself to go
closer. It was as if an invisible hand had slapped against her
chest and remained there to ward her off.

From Stornaway she flew to
Inverness, then to Glasgow that evening. She stayed overnight at
the Holiday Inn on Argyle Street, rented a Volkswagen the next
morning, and drove to Edinburgh. For the next three weeks she met
with various professors at the university, showing them the sketch
and asking their opinions of its origin. Although intrigued, they
all claimed they had never seen anything quite like it. The last
professor suggested she talk to Michael Stoughton, a retired
archaeologist and renowned collector of ancient weapons.

It took ten days before
Stoughton responded to the messages she'd left at his home and
office. He invited her to his home, a two-story, red brick house
with white trim. She had expected him to be an affluent man—a
collector of ancient weapons, after all—but in fact the house was
moderately furnished. He was a man in his sixties with salt and
pepper hair, deep-set hazel eyes, a charming smile, and only a hint
of an English accent. Over tea, Taryn showed him the
sketch.

"The MacLachlan dirk," he
said, a tremor in his tone. His shrewd gaze lifted to regard Taryn.
"What's your interest in this?"

At first, Taryn had
considered lying to him, but there was something in his eyes that
told her he would see through her if she tried. So, she told him
about the connections between the Baird and Ingliss clans, and how
Ciarda's father had given the dirk to Lachlan. All the while she
spoke, she was keenly observant of the way his repeatedly ran his
thumbs over the depiction of the dirk's handle.

"I remember reading about
his murder when the story was released last year on the current
happenings at the estate," he murmured. "This sketch is supposedly
of the dirk that killed him?"

Taryn had nodded. He paled
and shivered. After several moments, he gestured for Taryn to
follow him. He led her to a large room behind pocket doors. The
contents had taken her breath away. Not only did Stoughton collect
ancient weapons, but armor and small artifacts as well. There was
so much to see that she couldn't look at everything as she followed
him across the room. At one point, he commented that this part of
the collection was composed of reproductions, which answered her
unspoken question as to how he could have these items in a home
with no apparent security.

She was wrenched from her
preoccupation when she realized he had somehow engaged a hidden
wall to open. He led her down a staircase, the end of which opened
into an enormous room. Here, he had said, was his true
collection.

Taryn had felt as though
she had stepped into another world. She couldn't even begin to
imagine the value of the pieces. Each weapon was enclosed in glass
with soft showcase lights. She didn't dare ask him why they weren't
in a museum, for fear she would offend his
sensibilities.

Stoughton escorted her to a
polished maple desk and instructed her to sit in the only chair in
the room. He left her there and returned about a minute later with
something in his hand. Sitting on the edge of the desk, he
positioned a lighted magnifying glass, mounted to the side of the
desk, in front of her and handed her what appeared to be a gold
spearhead approximately four inches long and an inch and a half
wide at the base. The tip was sharp, and Stoughton cautioned her
not to touch it. At this point, Taryn regarded it without the aid
of the magnifying glass.

Stoughton smoothed out the
sketch on the desk, the handle pointed downward. "You can't see
them with the naked eye," he'd said, indicating the spearhead. "Use
the glass."

"Is this really
gold?"

He nodded.

Taryn adjusted the
magnifying glass and held the artifact beneath it. It had taken her
a moment to find just the right position to make clear the details
along the edge of the spearhead, and she jerked back in
surprise.

"Gargoyle faces," Stoughton
told her, "not demons."

Taryn couldn't bring
herself to look at the spearhead for several seconds, during which
her heart seemed lodged in her throat. Then, hesitantly, her hands
trembling a bit, she again placed it beneath the glass and forced
herself to concentrate on the engravings. Yes, they were faces,
each slightly different. Twenty-six, thirteen on each side, and to
the naked eye smaller than the head of a pin. Magnified, each face
was eerily detailed. Brows and cheekbones differed. The set of the
eyes. The mouths. Down the center of both sides of the spearhead
were symbols.

As if divining her thoughts,
Stoughton stated, "Runes. Each side translates to
‘Family of Karok'."

"What?"

"That's what it
says."

"Where did you get
this?"

"It was wedged in a side
seam of a trunk my nephew purchased at an estate sale."

Taryn had numbly stared at
the sketch of the dirk, specifically at the drawn strip of symbols
on the blade. "Are these runes, too?"

"Yes. It translates
to
'Passage Key Karok'."

"What does it
mean?"

"I have no idea." Stoughton
frowned. "When I first translated the spearhead, I searched through
every book I could find on myths of gods and demigods. Nothing. Not
even a king or prince who used the gargoyle as a symbol.

"Gargoyles originated in
Greece and Rome as water spouts," he went on, as if lecturing a
class. "The word descends from the Middle English word
gargule
and the French
word
gargouille,
meaning throat, and refers to the gargling sound of water
through a spout."

"So gargoyles were never
worshiped?"

He shook his head grimly.
"Not to my knowledge, which is why finding them engraved on a gold
piece is so unusual. "What are the odds, Miss Ingliss," he'd gone
on, his voice monotone, a faraway look in his eyes, "of you and I
coming together with two very unique pieces involving gargoyles and
runes?"

She had shrugged and shaken
her head in bewilderment.

Stoughton picked up the
sketch and studied it for a time. "I would like to see what's on
the other side of this dirk. Do you know where it is?"

Unwilling to tell him any
more than she had, she again shook her head.