Return of the Highlander (Immortal Warriors) (25 page)

“She said your name.”

The voice came from the stone wall. It took a moment for Maclean to understand it was Brian who was speaking, and then he could only turn slowly, painfully. Brian still had his head bowed, but the voice had definitely come from him.

“What did ye say?”

This time Brian lifted his head, awkwardly, as if it were very heavy. His throat bobbed as he swallowed, forcing the words out as if they hurt. “You’re Maclean, aren’t you? Maclean, from Bella’s book. I don’t understand it, but I know it’s true.”

“Aye, I am Maclean.”

“Bella, she called out your name as it took her. That thing. It took her into the loch. And I couldn’t help her. I couldn’t move a muscle.”

Tears filled his eyes and his lips wobbled.

“I couldn’t save her,” Brian mumbled again.

Maclean climbed to his feet. He felt numb inside at the picture conjured by Brian’s words. Bella had called out to him for help, she had called out for
him
, and he hadn’t been here. Just like the last time.

“She’s in the loch?” he said, his voice husky with the awful pain. “I must swim and find her.”

“I think there is another way,” Brian said, before Maclean could take more than a step. “Ishbel, she was singing to that—that
thing
, then she went through the stones.”

Maclean stared at the
Cailleach
Stones. Gray and weathered, they had stood here for eons. The door into the between-worlds. But it was closed, and he knew he could not open it alone.

“Help me,” he whispered. “You said to call on you for help and now I do. Help me, doorkeeper. Cast a spell, use your powers again.”

“No, Maclean.” Suddenly she was here, the hag, her face a wan oval within her green arisaid. A pale shadow of her former self, but she was here. “I canna cast a spell,” she sighed, her milky eyes drowning in tears. “I am too weak, and besides, the
Fiosaiche
will no’ allow it. You must go through the door alone and seek Bella in the labyrinths, where Ishbel has taken her. Go now, before it is too late.”

“How?” he cried. “How do I open the door?”

She began to speak, Gaelic words of great age and
magical power. The
Cailleach
Stones shimmered and hummed, and there was a growing darkness at their edges. As Maclean stared, the space made by the two upright stones and the single cross stone flickered and blurred. And then there was a terrible rending sound and light began to pour from within the stones, light of a color and intensity he had never seen before.

“The door to the between-worlds is open.” He could hear the hag’s voice as if from a distance. “Go now….”

Maclean stepped forward, into the strange light, and suddenly there before him was a narrow staircase made of shadows, and it led down. As far as the eye could see.

There was something heavy resting on her
legs. Bella lay on her stomach, cheek pressed against the damp cold ground, her eyes closed, trying to think what it could be. Her feet felt quite numb, as if the blood circulation had been cut off. She tried to wriggle her toes, but couldn’t manage it.

Maybe my legs have been amputated in an accident and I’m lying by the side of the road bleeding to death.

The awful thought came from nowhere, but it was enough to startle her into movement.

Bella pushed herself up with her hands, and at the same time whatever was lying across her legs moved with a thunderous roar, splashing water over her. She screamed, rolling away, eyes wide.

She was lying on a beach and it was twilight.

The thing roared again, and she turned her head and saw it, long neck and humped body, propelling itself out into the waters of a black sea.

She had to run. She had to get away before it came back again.

Whimpering, Bella tried to rise, but her legs were still numb and she couldn’t do more than drag herself a few feet. Maybe she’d lost the use of her legs forever, maybe she’d never be able to walk again, maybe…The sudden onset of pins and needles lay those fears to rest. She gritted her teeth and sat up, rubbing her unresponsive flesh to try and ease the pain, as she tried to understand what had happened to her.

I am dead.

Was this the between-worlds?

But it didn’t look like the place Maclean had described, Bella thought, looking about her. She was in a cavern, an enormous cavern. The black sea washed the shores of a long curving beach, and there were cliffs at the far end and a fall of rocks close by. How had she come to be here, and what did it mean?

Pain jabbed her legs with a thousand needles and she rubbed at them frantically, tears burning her eyes. Her shoulder hurt, too, and when she tried to see what was wrong with it, she discovered her favorite red coat was torn and there was dried blood on the sweater beneath.

The monster had taken her into the loch.

With a shudder she remembered it all now.

It had taken her down into the water and she had believed herself dead. But now—she felt her clothes in amazement—she wasn’t even wet, apart from lying on the damp sand. Was none of it real, not even Maclean?

“Maclean,” she whispered.

“He’s no’ here,” a voice said from a little distance away.

Bella’s head snapped up. “Who’s there?”

A woman slid down from her perch upon one of the rocks and stood on the sand, watching her. She wore trews in a red and green tartan with a jacket of a darker green. Her hair was long and fair, and her face pale and beautiful.

And Bella felt chilled to the bone by the sight of her.

“I am Ishbel,” she said, sauntering closer. “We have met before.”

“Have we? I don’t remember it. What is this place?”

“This is my home. Do ye no’ like it, Arabella Ryan? This is the place Maclean condemned me to, and that”—she pointed out into the black sea—“is the company I keep.”

“Maclean did not condemn you to this,” Bella replied sharply. “You did it to yourself.”

Ishbel came closer, her green eyes unblinking. “I asked him to let me go. I begged him to give me my freedom so that I could find happiness. He would not. He came after me and killed my love. So I returned to Loch Fasail and destroyed all within it, and then I went to Castle Drumaird to kill his mother. She was no’ so easy to kill. The building was afire and I followed her into the heart of it, up the stairs. She cursed me for killing her son, and when I stabbed her with my dagger, she clung to me so fast I could no’ free myself. She took me down into the flames with her.”

Dear God.
Bella longed to cry out against the awfulness of what she said, but she knew that was what Ishbel wanted. To shock her; to weaken her.

“You died at Loch Fasail? Why do you blame Maclean for it, then? It was your choice.” Somehow she succeeded in sounding almost nonchalant.

Ishbel looked puzzled, just for an instant. “No, it was
his
choice, he brought all this about, and now he will pay for my misery.”

“He’s already paid for it.”

“Not enough. He has not suffered enough.”

“He has in the
Fiosaiche
’s opinion.”

Ishbel frowned. “Your tongue is insolent. I will have my creature bite it out.”

Bella felt dizzy with horror, but that was what Ishbel wanted and she refused to let her have the pleasure. Maclean’s voice came to her,
Dinna let fear overwhelm you, Bella, and make you weak. Keep it chained, use it, and dinna let it use you.

She made herself reply evenly, “Your creature didn’t kill me last time. Maybe it isn’t as obedient as you think.”

“I ordered him not to kill you,” Ishbel said testily. “Not yet.”

Bella had regained the feeling in her legs, and now she got shakily to her feet. If she had to fight for her life, she’d prefer to be standing. Maybe she could run to safety? But, looking about her, there didn’t seem to be anywhere to run. The beach was very long and the loch monster would catch her, and that would only amuse Ishbel.

If it comes for me I won’t run
, she told herself.

Something out in the black waters howled and splashed.

I’ll
try
not to run
, she amended.

“You say this is your home?” Bella asked, hoping her voice didn’t tremble as much as the rest of her.

Ishbel smiled. “This is the between-worlds, Bella, where the souls of those who are neither dead nor living dwell. We are waiting here for the
Fiosaiche
to decide what becomes of us. She rules here…or thinks she does,” Ishbel added slyly.

Bella dug her hands into her pockets, to warm them, to stop them from shaking.

“She wants me to say I am sorry,” Ishbel mimicked viciously, “to show remorse.”

“Perhaps you should,” Bella said, as if her mind were on something else.

“But I am not sorry.”

Bella believed it. Ishbel wasn’t human, she had lost whatever it was that made her so. She was as cold and vicious as the creatures she ruled, and there could be no reprieve when she decided to take Bella’s life. Bella wondered why she had not done so already, but whatever the reason for the delay, she was grateful. Another minute probably didn’t count for much, but every breath Bella took bought her a chance to get away.

“How did you get through the door into my world if the
Fiosaiche
is in charge? Doesn’t she have it all locked up tight?”

Ishbel smirked. “The witch is no’ as clever as she thinks she is. In the ancient days the loch was a door used by the monsters. It was sealed, but I found it again, with the help of the hag. I made her feel sorry for me,
poor
Ishbel, and she told me what I wanted to know, how to open the stones and how to cast spells, how to creep into dreams. Nothing is beyond me now.”

Bella shrugged off the boasting. “So there must be a similar door into Loch Ness,” she murmured. “It would explain—”

“I dinna care for Loch Ness.
My
creature has been visiting Loch Fasail regularly, feeding on sheep and anything else that wanders too close. And I sent one of my father’s men through the door, too, on his horse. To kill you, Arabella Ryan. I’m sure ye have no’ forgotten that. Maclean interfered, playing the big hero, but he canna stop me this time.”

Bella stilled. She had been twisting her fingers nervously in the bundle of cloth in her coat pocket, feeling the old leather strips and the silver disks, without remembering what it was.

The bridle.

When Brian called out to her, she had been polishing the thing and by chance had shoved it into her pocket.

Ye must watch for when the
each-uisge
is changing its form. That is when it is vulnerable. That is when it can be captured. Ye must have the magic bridle at hand. Dinna worry, I will see to it that you have such a thing before the time comes.

Or perhaps it was more than chance.

Slip the bridle on, but remember, the creature will no’ be easily restrained, and if it knows what ye are about then it will kill you.

Bella did not want to die. She tightened her grip on the bridle in her pocket and wondered if she would have the chance to use it. The mental strength to use it.

She could die, or she could be alive when Maclean came for her.

And he would come for her, she knew that. He loved her as much as she loved him, and he would find her.

Maclean’s head brushed the dank ceiling of the tunnel, and he ducked lower, ignoring the crunch and crackle of crawling things dying under his feet. The labyrinths were just as deeply appalling as he remembered. Worse. Because he knew Bella was here, too.

Bella should not be part of this; she would not survive it. She didn’t deserve it. He wanted to wish he had never met her, never drawn her into his nightmare, but he couldn’t. She had made him mortal again, she had changed him from a dark and bitter creature into a man with hope.

Without her he was nothing, and would be nothing again.

“Bella,” he groaned, “where are ye?”

Another turn in the tunnel. The ceiling seemed even lower, so that he was bent almost double as he moved forward. But there was no use turning back; he knew he had to go forward no matter what obstacles he encountered.

Water dripped.

Maclean wiped a hand across his face and felt the smear of blood and grime. The wound where his head had struck the stone had stopped bleeding now, but he still had a headache and it didn’t help him to think clearly. Something scuttled into the shadows, watching him with luminous eyes, but he ignored it and pushed on.

After a wee while he realized that there was a pale glow up ahead, as if dawn were breaking through a
long dark night. Maclean fixed his eyes on it and moved forward.

Bella gave Ishbel a sideways glance and tried not to let her growing anxiety show. The woman was annoyed. Bella had found a way to get under her skin. Despite Ishbel’s threats and sly innuendos, Bella hadn’t allowed herself to show any feeling. She shrugged her shoulder when Ishbel told her she would be torn to pieces by the loch monster, and, when Ishbel lingered on the details, replied that she wouldn’t make much of a meal for something so big. She smiled vaguely when Ishbel swore to make her suffer more than any mortal woman had ever suffered. She sang a Dido song under her breath and pretended to inspect her nails when Ishbel raised her arms and cried out, and her creature answered her with a truly hideous howling.

Somehow she had to get Ishbel angry enough to transform into the
each-uisge
. Then she could use the bridle and save herself.

“My darling, my beloved,” Ishbel was crooning. She cast Bella a vicious look. “It took me centuries to tame him, to make him mine, and now I will reward him with your flesh and blood, and we will travel through the door in the loch together and teach your world the power of the old magic.”

“My world will laugh at you,” Bella said. “We don’t believe in magic anymore.”

“You will be dead soon.”

“You don’t like to get your own hands dirty, then?” Bella asked. “You like to stand back and order your creature to do it for you?”

“You are beneath me,” Ishbel said coldly.

“And maybe you’re all talk,” Bella retorted. “Maybe the best you can do is steal Gregor’s sheep. Was it you who ate them? The terrible
each-uisge
chasing harmless sheep about. I’m shaking in my boots—”

Ishbel seemed to swell. “You insult me,” she said, and her voice was different, odd. Her body shimmered, moving, realigning itself.

Bella’s fingers tightened on the bridle in her pocket.

“You will see. I will kill you and eat you mysel’,” Ishbel roared, and her head was stretching, changing into an animal’s head, while her body rose and broadened. Bella recognized the pony. Ishbel was turning into the
each-uisge
, and in a moment the transformation would be complete.

It would be too late.

Bella dragged the bridle from her pocket, fumbling, twisting the leather strips into the correct position. They were tangled and for a moment she thought she wouldn’t be able to open them in time, but then the silver disks fell into place, the bridle opened, and she was rushing forward, her heart hammering.

Ishbel was arching above her, and Bella could see the equine snout and those wicked green eyes. The silver disks flashed and Ishbel flinched, but it was too late. Bella slipped the bridle over Ishbel’s head as if it had been made to fit, and as Ishbel opened her jaws, Bella pushed the bit between her sharp teeth. And pulled the bridle tight.

Ishbel screamed, a terrible sound that was neither woman nor mare but something of both. She spun away, stumbling back and forth, her head weaving as
she tried to rid herself of the bridle. Her shape shivered grotesquely, one moment horse and the next woman, and sometimes both.

Bella staggered back, gasping, too shocked to speak.

“Bella!”

There was a lone figure standing far down the beach. A big man in a plaid with his legs bare, his dark hair loose to his shoulders, and his broadsword held ready before him.

“Maclean,” she breathed, and she was smiling. She couldn’t help it. “Maclean!” she shouted, waving her arms.

The thing that was neither Ishbel nor
each-uisge
twisted and writhed, churning the sand. It screamed again, and now the monster in the black ocean heard. There was a great splash as it lifted itself up out of the water and replied with a groaning howl. Then it sprang forward.

Maclean was running toward her.

He knows
, Bella thought, as her horrified gaze drifted to the water’s edge.
He knows that the loch monster is coming for me. And he knows that he’ll never reach me in time.