CHAPTER NINE #2
Aidan struggled to his feet. “I am done with her,” he lied, careful to keep his thoughts blank. “There be someone new. Ye can take her now.”
Moray stared, and Aidan knew he was trying to lurk.
Aidan changed his thoughts. Moray had fresh power now, making him even stronger than when he’d walked into the door.
But that was his way. He took life the way a man took his bread.
And until a great Master arose, he would continue his reign of evil, scorching the earth with fresh blood wherever he passed and turning other Innocents into demons for his hordes.
“You remain the same stubborn fool,” Moray murmured. “Your hatred does not serve you well. You know the truth. I can give you the power you dream of.”
Aidan tensed. His single ambition was power—but not for the reason everyone thought. Power was a necessary bulwark against Moray. Power was protection for himself and his infant son.
“Soon, Aidan, you will bend to me.” The red was fading from his eyes. He smiled and vanished into thin air.
Aidan shook with rage and hatred. Then he whirled and raced up the stairs to make certain Isabel was where he had left her—and that she was alive.
She lay as still as a perfect statue. He went to her side and touched her breast, only to find it rising and falling in the rhythm of life. His relief knew no bounds.
He straightened.
Aidan had never hated anyone the way he hated his father.
CLAIRE DID NOT WANT to be a test, not of any kind. Not where the outcome was the possession of Malcolm’s soul. Malcolm had to be wrong. If they made love, he was not going to lose control. She turned away from Malcolm, staring out at the ocean, over the lower-lying monastery walls.
It was almost unbelievable how quickly she had bought into this terrible new world. She was grim. She wondered if she’d ever feel lighthearted again.
He came to stand behind her. “Dinna brood,” he said, his tone lighter, but with an effort. She knew he wanted to offer her some comfort. “Yer on Iona, lass, an’ I ken this be what ye have wanted. I’ll ask MacNeil if ye can see the Cathach.”
She turned. “I’d like that.” She hesitated. “Malcolm, it’s eerie. It’s almost as if Moray is hunting you now.”
His eyes flickered, but his expression did not change. It was impossible to read. “’Twas three years ago, Claire. He’s nay huntin’ me now. He’s huntin’ other game.”
Claire wished she could believe him. “What’s three years in the life span of a demon like Moray?”
Malcolm stiffened.
“What is he, five hundred years old? A thousand?”
“I dinna ken. No one does.”
Her anger finally erupted. “I hate them! I hate them all! They murdered my mother, Lorie, thousands of others, and they want you, too! Except they want you to turn. Is that the word? Turn? Is that what they call it when a Master is seduced to evil?” Her rage knew no bounds.
“I’ll nay be seduced to the dark side, Claire,” Malcolm said, his gray eyes flashing. “I’d die by me own hand first.”
“That is not reassuring.” She hugged herself. “I keep thinking about life back at home. About the hints Amy was always dropping whenever the news featured another pleasure crime. Did she know something? Or did she guess?”
“I dinna ken yer cousin, Claire.”
“MacNeil said I am going home. He didn’t say when.”
Malcolm looked away from her, his face set in harsh lines.
She seized his arm. “When I do, I have to protect my cousin and her children somehow. I need to tell her the truth about evil.”
Malcolm grasped her elbow. His eyes blazed. “I must ask ye, how will ye protect them, Claire?”
Claire hesitated. That was a damn good question. “Can you teach me how to fight—no, kill—the bastards?”
He stood there, looking very unhappy with her request. “I dinna think so.”
But Claire barely heard. Now that she understood the world she lived in, she had damn well better be able to protect herself.
This was a world at war, and Malcolm was right.
There was no safe place to hide. She was terrified, but fighting back was better than hiding.
Surely, with some skill and a lot of wit, a human could take down demons.
He was lurking. “Nay! Yer a woman, and a mortal one, at that! Ye have no powers!”
She realized there was no other choice. It was do or die, literally. “They murdered Lorie and my mom. I’m strong. Teach me how to kill demons. You said yourself that Moray dispenses powers from the Duaisean. Why can’t I be given powers, too?”
“We be Masters, not magicians! We’re born with our powers, Claire.
They be in our blood! An’ we dinna ha’ the Duaisean, Moray does.
Even if we did, its powers be fer the Masters, an’ only the Masters!
” he exclaimed, flushing. “Ye might be able to kill the lower Deamhanain like ye did the other day. Ye might even find a way t’ kill Sibylla.
But a real Deamhan like Moray will read yer thoughts!
If ye somehow managed to attack him, ye’d have to stop his mind, otherwise he’ll suck yer life dry, laughin’ as he does so. ”
Claire trembled, getting the unspoken message. She’d be sexually seduced, too. “How can I stop a powerful demon’s mind?”
“Well, let’s see,” he mocked furiously. “Ye can wield a sword an’ behead him, or stab him through the heart!”
A demon had to be instantaneously killed, she thought. “What if I managed to make him unconscious? He couldn’t entrance me then or take my life.”
“Nay! I willna ha’ ye fightin’ demons. I’ll do the fightin’ fer ye.”
Like hell, Claire thought. “Teach me to use a sword.”
“It takes years o’ practice! An’ even so, ye dinna have the strength to sever a man’s head from his body.”
“Shit,” Claire said. “And damn it, too.” But she could do this. Carotid arteries could be slit. Hearts could be punctured. So could lungs. Wrists could be cut. There was no choice. “I’m going to do this, Malcolm, with or without your help.”
“I shouldna ha’ told ye the truth.”
It was too late, Claire thought. Images were flashing in her mind now. The medieval world, the modern world. A world at war…demons and Masters…
A terrible idea began. Eyes wide, she looked up at Malcolm. “Malcolm.”
He stared back with dismay.
“I want to find the demon who murdered my mother.”
CLAIRE FOLLOWED MacNeil down the very short nave of the chapel, which was set behind the church and apart from it. She hadn’t noticed the chapel upon first entering the monastery. The stone building was centuries old, the ceiling low and round. Claire immediately saw the shrine.
A recess was set in the stone wall behind where the altar had once been and an ancient iron reliquary was there, trimmed with gold, the design Celtic. Claire’s pulse pounded.
As they stepped up to the shrine, their footsteps echoing, Claire became aware of the power and beauty that cloaked the chapel, heavy and tangible, weighing down the air.
Claire faltered as MacNeil went to the reliquary. There was something so silent and so deep in this church, so vast, so awesome. And if it wasn’t God’s presence, what was it?
She met MacNeil’s gaze and he smiled at her, clearly aware of what she was feeling. Because the ceiling was so low, he stood stooped. “The Masters make their vows here, Claire. Yer feeling more than eight hundred years o’ power an’ grace.”
Claire had never been religious, but he was right. “The Brotherhood came into being when St. Columba founded the monastery here in the sixth century?” she asked.
He dimpled. “Nay. There ha’ been Masters since the beginnin’ o’ time. But the Sanctuary moved t’ Iona with the great Saint.”
She faced the shrine as MacNeil took a key from the ring chained to his belt and unlocked the reliquary, raising its lid to expose the Cathach. Claire stepped closer and gasped.
The Cathach on display in Dublin was a manuscript. She was staring at a bound book, its cover encrusted with hundreds of blazing gems—rubies, sapphires, emeralds and citrines. A gold lock kept the pages concealed. “It’s beautiful!” she said in a low whisper.
“Aye.”
Claire gazed at him, her mind racing. “The Cathach in Dublin—it’s a copy St. Columba had scribed. This is the real deal, isn’t it?”
MacNeil smiled. “The pages were scribed fer us on Dalriada, lass, afore Columba was even born.”
Oh, my God, Claire thought in awe. “And it was bound recently.” She wasn’t asking a question. Bound books were an invention of the Middle Ages.
“A century ago.” MacNeil unlocked the padlock and opened the book.
Claire’s heart went wild. Instantly she saw the pages were parchment, hide that was intricately treated in order to be thinned, softened and preserved.
MacNeil was lurking, because he said, “’Tis the hide o’ sacred bulls. The Ancients told the shamans how to cure it when they gave us their wisdom an’ power.”
Claire licked her lips. “The book won’t last forever. It needs to be placed in a very sterile environment with precisely the right amount of humidity.”
MacNeil grinned at her. “The book has been blessed by the gods, lass. It be eternal.”
Claire fervently hoped he was right. She stepped closer.
Like the copy on display in the twenty-first century, it was written in old Irish Gaelic.
There were no spaces between words, and it was decorated with trumpet, spiral and guilloche patterns, distorting the letters.
She could not tear her gaze away. She was staring at a holy Celtic relic—one her peers didn’t even know existed.
Claire desperately wanted to read the book, but as she didn’t know Gaelic, she couldn’t. A translator would be the next best thing. “Read it to me, MacNeil. Just a page.”
His eyes widened. “’Tis forbidden—but ye have guessed that already.”
She slowly met MacNeil’s intense green gaze. “Historians believe the Cathach was used before battle to empower armies. If I recall correctly, a Scot carried it into battle and then it was fought over by clans.”
“They are wrong. A Master carried it into battle centuries ago. A demon fought him fer it.”