Reckoning (Book 4 of Lost Highlander series) (5 page)

She fluttered her fingers at her throat, which was still red from Tavish’s hand prints. She paused a moment to catch her breath, all eyes rapt on her. Cormag patted her shoulder and swept her tousled hair behind her ear.

“How did ye do it?” he asked.

It was a fair question. Someone as small as Bella would have a very hard time lifting the sword, let alone finding the strength to thrust it clean into a man’s back.

She shook her head. “I dinna know. I was so frightened, my heart was beating so fast. I thought I was dead for certain when he … when he had his hands locked around my throat. But when he turned on Lachlan, I-I just did it. I grabbed the sword from Gordon before he knew what I was about, then it was all- it was all just a blur. May God forgive me for what I’ve done.”

Her face wrinkled up and she reached out to Lachlan as she collapsed against Cormag’s chest. The guard looked horrified and quickly stood with her and turned her over to Lachlan.

“The physician will be here soon,” Cormag said, turning to Gordon. “We must act swiftly. Clean up the blood. Do ye intend to bribe him or threaten him?”

“Both if we must,” Gordon said. “We must protect Bella.”

“Aye.” Cormag turned to Lachlan and gave him an appraising stare. Lachlan held Bella close and rubbed her back, trying not to feel the fuming rage that Pietro was directing at him. He met Cormag’s eye and held it until the guard turned away with a nod. “Aye, we must protect Bella.”

They stared at the little blue book, a sweet keepsake of a young girl. Surely nothing menacing about a diary. But why was it locked away in a hidden wall safe, why had it called to her through disturbing dreams? Holding it in her hands made Piper’s skin crawl with fear.

“Is that your grandma’s diary?” Evie whispered.

“I think so,” Piper said in a normal tone, which sounded like a shout in the hushed room. She felt like swearing.

“Well, this is awesome,” Evie said. “We can find out why she left the estate, maybe learn more about your gift.”

“I wouldn’t call it that,” Piper said, beginning to pick at the heart padlock. It was tiny and frail and popped open with very little fiddling. She turned and shrugged at Evie. “Should we open it?” she asked.

“Jeez, Piper. How can you be so calm?” Evie grabbed her elbow and led her to the seating area, all but shoving her into a chair. She sat down next to her and leaned over expectantly.

Piper sat with the diary in her palms, looking down at the embossed gold lettering. She ran her thumb over the smooth, shiny leather binding and then looked at the fireplace. Three logs sat neatly on the grate, purely decorative for the sake of the tourists.

Piper imagined a roaring fire, into which she would throw the book. She was so completely over mysterious old books. Hadn’t she gotten into enough trouble from reading Daria’s damn grimoire? Now she was supposed to read her grandmother’s secret, long locked away diary? She realized her hands had begun to shake.

“Maybe it’s just lists of boys’ names,” Evie said, placing a steadying hand on her wrist. “We don’t have to open it now if you don’t want.”

Piper continued to stare into the cold fireplace, trying to decide what to do. The awful little voice told her to wait, read it when she was alone, but she didn’t trust that little voice. Not one bit. But, the last thing she wanted to do was put Evie in danger, so out of fear she decided to listen to it.

“I think I’ll just look at it later,” she said, trying to sound casual.

How she hated that little voice. If it ever became corporeal in any way, she was going to punch it so hard. She opened her mouth to suggest they get back to work going over all the papers in the kitchen, when a loud crack sounded from across the room.

They both swiveled their heads to the sound to see a crackling, cheery fire had burst to life in the fireplace.

“Holy crap,” Evie said, jumping up.

Piper dropped the book into her lap and put her head in her hands. “Oh my God,” she said.

“Did you do that?” Evie asked, taking a few steps toward the fire, thinking better of it and stopping. “Holy crap, did you just start a fire
with your mind
?”

“I’m like Carrie now.” She looked at the flames, her body breaking out in a cold sweat.

Evie laughed nervously. “I don’t think Carrie did that. I think you mean Firestarter.”

“Either way I’m a monster from a horror movie.”

Evie walked back and forth, her neck and arms mottling red, a sure sign of how upset she was. She shook her head vigorously. “You’re not a monster,” she said, flapping her hands. “At least it’s in the fireplace where it belongs.”

She crept closer and finally sat back down. Piper was relieved she hadn’t fled the house altogether. A tear leaked out she was so grateful she wasn’t being abandoned like she so clearly deserved to be, mutant freak that she was.

“How did you do it?” she asked.

Piper choked a laugh. Leave it to Evie to want to evaluate and understand it. “I don’t know,” she said. “I wanted to toss the diary in the fire a few minutes before it happened, but I didn’t especially, you know, dwell on it or anything.” She felt sick saying the words, dirty and ashamed.

“Do you think we should toss it in?” Evie asked in all seriousness.

Piper jerked. Is that why the fire started? She was supposed to get rid of the diary? Why didn’t her weirdness come with a manual? That would have been infinitely useful. She closed her eyes and searched all the conflicting emotions, strange yearnings and shadowy voices that warred within her these days.

As frustrated as she was with finding something new to add to her misery, and as much as she would have liked to watch it curl up and burn, she didn’t think that was what she was supposed to do. Sadly.

“No, I think we better keep it.” She felt her face heat up with fresh shame. “I think it started because I was pissed off.”

“Dear lord,” Evelyn said, pulling at the neckline of her sweater. “Maybe we better get you a drink or something, then. Keep you mellow.” Even though she was clearly disturbed, her tone was light and her smile was more relaxed.

“Shut up,” Piper groaned, dragging herself from the chair.

She felt exhausted, even though she’d just woken up from a nap. Apparently inadvertent pyrokinesis took a lot out of one.

“What’ll you do if I don’t?” Evie teased, heading for the door. “Oh wait, you might set me on fire.”

Piper gasped and stopped stock still in the middle of the room, shaking her head. Evie was foolishly teasing her, not believing she would ever hurt her, but what if it was out of her control? It clearly was out of her control! The fire now dancing away in the grate was proof of that. She pressed her hands into her stomach to keep the roiling sickness down.

Evie turned and saw her standing there, quickly crossed the room and hugged her. “Don’t be daft,” she said. “I know you’d never do that. You couldn’t.”

“How do you know?” she asked.

Evie shook her, then pinched her arm. “See? I know that’s got to be annoying.” She pinched her again.

“Ouch. Damn it, Evie, knock it off.”

She gave her one more shake and dropped her hands, a self-satisfied smile on her face. “You’d never set me on fire,” she said confidently. “I could smack you upside the head right now—”

“You better not,” Piper said with an eye roll, brushing past her to head to the kitchen. “Even if I don’t barbeque you, I will smack you right back.”

“I’m not scared of you,” Evie said, her voice no longer teasing.

Piper paused and closed her eyes, another wash of gratefulness soothing her inner turmoil like a balm. She nodded once and kept heading for the kitchen, knowing that Evie was behind her.

***

Sam finished his sandwich, having flatly refused to even glance at the papers until he was properly fed. Now Evie was still upstairs getting Magnus bathed and changed for his bedtime, and they wanted to wait for her, since she was the one who’d made the discovery.

Sam pointed out that grandma Rose’s name wasn’t all that uncommon, and perhaps the mention wasn’t of her at all. His opinion was roundly dismissed.

Piper placed a slice of pound cake in front of him and sat across from him to pick at a slice of her own. She’d discovered it was easier to pretend to eat, force down a few bites here and there, instead of constantly explaining her lack of hunger, then trying to deflect the worry. Sam’s appetite was fine, and he smiled at her before digging in.

“I’m going to ask Evelyn to move back in with me,” he said after making sure she wasn’t about to walk back in the room.

Piper could tell he was nervous to bring it up by the forceful way he shoved the words out at her. As much as she didn’t want to be alone, she desperately wanted Sam and Evie to get back together. Not just for Magnus, but because they were still crazy in love, even though Evie was being obstinate about her secretive reasons for breaking up with him in the first place.

And now that she had this new destructive ability to light up things that annoyed her, she would breathe a lot easier knowing that Magnus and Evie were safe from her. She pressed her knuckles into her eyes to keep from crying.

“Good,” she said just as forcefully. “You want to get back together with her, right?” She hoped that was it, and not because Sam was scared of her.

He didn’t know about her pyromania yet, but he did know about her possibly, most likely, being possessed by Daria’s foul spirit. God, she was a mess.

He looked around again and nodded, leaning closer to her across the table. “Yes,” he said. “Will you help me?”

She took a small nibble of cake to buy some time. As much as she wanted them back together, and believed it was the right thing for them, she had to respect Evie’s feelings.

“I have to stay neutral,” she said sadly, then gave him a hard look. “Are you sure you don’t know what you did wrong?”

He shook his head, looking momentarily outraged but quickly tamping it down. “No,” he said. “I haven’t the first clue. If she moves back in, I really feel I can win her back.”

“She will,” Piper said. “She jumps at every noise ever since …” she trailed off as he blanched. None of them liked speaking of Magnus being kidnapped by Daria.

“He’s asleep,” Evie said, breezing back into the room.

Her top had wet spots on it from Magnus’s bath and her hair was coming out of her ponytail. She eagerly held out her hand in Sam’s direction and he handed her his phone. She smiled widely as she scrolled through all the pictures Sam had taken while he had Mags for the day.

It broke Piper’s heart the way they each took dozens of pictures of the baby so the other one wouldn’t miss out. Evie could barely breathe when Magnus was with Sam, and Sam was just as much of a wreck when he had to leave the baby behind at the castle. They were such idiots.

With a sigh, Evie handed back the phone and became business-like. “Let’s get started, shall we?” She pushed the papers over to Sam, who began to peruse the messy old Gaelic scrawlings.

After a moment of poring over the text, he looked up and shook his head at them. “It’s going to take me a bit, aye?” he said. “Go about your business.”

Evie slumped, overly eager to find out if her theory held any weight, but grabbed a sheaf of papers for herself, sliding another pile over to Piper. She frowned at Piper’s barely touched cake and took the plate over to her side of the table, absently taking bites as she flipped through the papers.

Piper took a second to watch her two closest friends sitting across from her, heads down, elbows almost touching. She hoped they would find their way back to each other, and hoped she would be around to see it. A heavy sadness weighed her down, unrelated to missing Lachlan. It was more of a hopelessness. She didn’t know why they were trying so hard to figure things out, sure it was a lost cause. It wasn’t worth the maelstrom of arguments she would get if she brought it up though, so she half-heartedly began scanning the page in front of her.

The more she read, the more frustrated she became with the tiny script and the dead end information it contained. It got harder and harder to sit still and the fear that she would do something in reaction to her irritation boiled up in her until she was practically gasping for breath.

Trying to remain calm on the outside so Evie wouldn’t get upset became her main focus, and she couldn’t see the words on the page in front of her at all anymore. With a disgusted sigh, she pushed it away and got up to get a drink of water.

Evelyn blinked at her, then turned to Sam. “Anything?” she asked.

He stood up and stretched. “Sorry, but I think it’s just a list of people who lived in the village that year. It started off nice and concise, but then it veered off into a sermon. I’m just getting back to the bits about people. Did you find anything new?”

“Not a blessed thing,” she said, looking expectantly at Piper.

Piper didn’t want to admit she hadn’t read a single word in the past hour and shrugged. “Pigs and chickens,” she said vaguely, gulping down a second glass of water.

Sam settled back onto the bench, ready to soldier on through the night if need be. Piper smiled at his downturned head.