Chapter 4
Chapter Four
T he silver-winged butterfly flitted about the gardens outside the McKeran’s stronghold, pleased by everything inside the trap, and yet satisfied with none of it. Huge blossoms made splashes of color that would never fade; if picked they would regrow and bloom overnight. The scent of their perfume attracted the butterfly as well. Yet the being shrouded by the fragile insect’s body wished only that he could resume his full size. Discarding his disguise and doing so, however, would trigger the enchantment that kept this pocket universe separate from the mortal realm, which would instantly hurl him out of the trap.
He had, after all, created it with his formidable Fae magic, and since it had come from his power the magic refused to harm or contain him.
One looking upon the butterfly would never guess its true form, but that had been his game ever since being born to a pair of dark Fae goblins. His atrocious parents had never bothered to name him, so he had called himself Bodach after the myth of an ancient trickster that terrorized mortals. Among the Fae no one cared for those they called freaks like him, of course, because he had many natural powers, including the ability to mimic whoever he wished. In fact, as soon as the Dark Fae queen had learned of his existence she sent her guards to remove him from Elphyne and dump him in the mortal realm, where he was to live in permanent exile.
One of the first scores he had to settle when he returned to his homeland was ending that merciless bitch and seizing the dark throne for himself.
Bodach was not so conceited, however, that he could not admit his failings. Creating the spell trap and cursing the McKeran Clan had been one of his rare mistakes. Using such powerful magic always had consequences, of course, and because it had been created by melia, the spell would not permit its caster to be harmed. Yet until he had first thought to search the trap himself for his treasure, Bodach had never reckoned on being unable to roam the place of his own creation. His magic cast him out of the spell trap as soon as he crossed the threshold.
Then, too, he had been foolish not to first secure his priceless treasure. If he’d known that would also be caught by the spell, and cast into the trap, he would never have cursed these idiot highlanders.
He lit on the tiny white petals of a snowdrop and ducked his head to take a sip of the nectar-sweetened dew from its center. The insect disguise he had been forced to assume limited almost everything else for him, including his power; what magic he could use would hardly flutter a blade of grass. Yet each time he had attempted to cross the threshold in his own body, the enchantment had recognized him, as well as the forms of other man-sized beings. It had taken him centuries of fruitless attempts before he’d realized that the barrier was more permeable at night. Even more decades had elapsed before he learned that only in a tiny, shielded form could he elude the spell trap’s magic for a few hours. The painful lesson he’d learned with the full suit of chain mail was one he wouldn’t soon forget.
This time he would try a new tactic, however; one that would surely aid him in locating his prize.
Bodach crawled down the stem of the snowdrop to one of its long, slender leaves, and pressed the end of his abdomen to its underside. Slowly he expelled the tiny light yellow eggs that he had swallowed before assuming the insect’s shape, until the pale little specks covered the leaf. He then rubbed them with the sparkling red dust clinging to his legs. To prevent them from being noticed—the spell trap held no insects, nor eggs—he bent the leaf so that the top half drooped. Once the eggs were hidden, he flew up to take one last look into the stronghold’s narrow windows. Soon the first glimmer of sunlight would appear on the horizon as the spell trap advanced time from night to day.
Not yet, not yet.
Bodach wanted to linger and watch over his brood, but as he crawled up the stem so he could launch himself into the air a hand appeared and seized him by one wing.
“How nice to see you again, you lying sack of shit,” the short-haired brunette woman said, flashing her small, pearly teeth.
She carried him from the flower bed into one of the gardener’s huts, where she closed and bolted the door. A snide chuckle came from her as she placed him on a table and drove a dagger through his wing and its silver shroud to hold him there.
“Sorry if that hurt. Not.” She crouched down to look at his head. “Remember me, your ever-loving wife? The one you adored so much you promised to do anything to protect me? Like sending me into this fucking place to hide from the police?”
Bodach saw the same low-simmering lunacy in Marianne Portman’s eyes that had prompted him to marry her the same day they met. He could not answer her, as in his butterfly form he didn’t possess vocal cords or even a mouth.
“Change into something that can talk, you freaking two-faced fairy jackass,” she demanded, poking him with a jagged fingernail. “Then you’re going to tell me why you tricked me into coming here, for starters. Did you think I’d look for that treasure chest you said would be here after I found out I couldn’t leave, you dumb bastard?”
The first ray of sunlight came through the window slit, and Bodach watched as a handgun whizzed past it outside, followed by a smart phone. The same magic that flung the devices out of the spell trap enveloped him, tearing his wing free of the blade and hurling him through the window. The last thing he heard was Marianne’s furious shriek.
The distortion of his own magic blurred around him as he struck the boundary of the enchantment, which parted just enough to permit him to pass through it.
On the other side of the spell trap, Bodach slammed into the wall outside the trap’s entry passage before he slid down the stone. Thanks to his Fae blood he was immortal, and could not be killed, but that didn’t stop him from becoming injured, especially in such a fragile form. Muttering under his breath, he shed his insectile disguise and pushed himself up from the floor. Thanks to being torn from the blade, his left arm hung at an odd angle, which he corrected with a hard jerk.
“Stupid idiot spell I wish I’d never cast you,” Bodach muttered as he flexed his now-functioning arm. “Worthless heap of stinking melia magic.”
Once he defeated the trap he would retrieve his treasure, and then hunt down that heartless woodland bitch that had sold him the curse. He’d create a pocket universe just for her, and make sure no matter what he did to her in it that she never died.
No mirrors adorned the walls of Dun Talamh, but Bodach never regarded his reflection. No matter how many times or ways he disguised himself, he could not forget the ugliness that lay beneath his glamour. Unless he found his treasure, he would forever look like a bald ancient thing with wrinkled ashen flesh, jagged yellow teeth, and rheumy eyes the color of congealed mortal blood. That was his true form, thanks to the taint passed along from his goblin parents, who had been forbidden from breeding due to the nature of their blighted bloodlines. They had coupled anyway, and that had brought Bodach into being.
Get away from me, you hideous monster.
His mother, a common goblin the size of an elephant, had attempted several times to stomp him to death, but it had been her hatred of him since birth that had hurt Bodach the most. She had nearly succeeded in slaying him when she’d chained him inside an old tunnel lined with red Fae parasite crystals and left him there to die. Bodach had been desperate enough to eat one of the crystals, which should have poisoned him. Instead, the crystal seemed to fall in love with his starving body and released all its power, which he had absorbed. That allowed him to break free and escape.
Bodach’s only regret was not gorging on the crystals while in the tunnel. If he’d absorbed more power, he would have been strong enough to defeat the Dark Queen’s guards and take the throne for himself.
Now he looked back at the threshold of the spell trap. On the floor just in front of it lay the handgun and phone, both in pieces. He knew from experience neither would work again, thanks to the magic that had expelled them. Leaving them here, however, would just provide the FBI team arriving tomorrow with proof that Agent Ava Travars had gone missing inside the castle. He also had to create the illusion that she had come to McKeran’s and left before disappearing.
Simple enough, given how many times he’d done the same before now.
He disguised himself with a mortal form no one would recognize and collected her belongings before he hobbled out of the castle and walked down to where she had left her rental car. Looking at the driver’s seat, he found a long strand of dark hair that he plucked from the headrest before he climbed inside. It took only a tap of his finger against the ignition for his magic to start the engine. From there he drove to the nearest high cliff and parked on the very edge. Placing the pieces of the handgun and cell phone on the seat, Bodach climbed out again and looked around until he found two twigs of pine and bound them together in an X shape with the FBI agent’s hair. He tucked under the hair a flake of red crystal before he placed the twigs on the driver’s seat.
“Become the mortal female Ava Travars,” he muttered.
The twigs sparkled before swelling and changing into a perfect replica of the FBI agent. His red crystal, now buried inside the counterfeit body, would hold the spell even after the remains burned, allowing the corpse to pass as the woman even if recovered and autopsied.
Bodach moved back before making a shoving gesture that sent a haze of tiny red crystals flying through the air toward the vehicle. The rental car sailed out over the sea, dropping down to smash into the rocky shallows below. The car, which he had hoped would explode, settled there as a crumpled wreck. That would not do, so he snapped his fingers, and the car burst into flames.
“You never reached Dun Talamh, Agent Travars,” he said as he turned away and began hobbling to the spot where he had hidden his own vehicle. “Such a pity.”
Bodach drove to a road hidden from view by overgrown brush and followed it down to a small grove of evergreens he’d planted himself long ago. The trees concealed a footpath that led halfway down to the ocean, and what appeared to be a rocky outcropping. He walked through the illusion, and into his lair.
Before he had claimed the cliff cave as his retreat, there had been nothing but damp and malodorous darkness, and some trash left behind by homeless mortals seeking shelter. He had burned it clean before covering the rugged walls of the cavern with the ruby crystals he had mined from various Fae territories over the centuries. They grew now on their own, slowly sucking the life out of the soil and anything that came near or into the cave. The stone bench centered in the back of the cave provided the only rest he could enjoy in this dismal mud ball of a realm.
The red Fae crystal, however, still loved him, and provided nourishing raw power for his body and his magic.
Even now as he lay down and closed his eyes, Bodach sensed every part of his physical form drinking up the energy radiating from the crystals he’d cemented to the cave’s interior. Once he found his treasure, he could use both to become more than the outcast, unwanted son of two miscreants. He would no longer need to disguise himself, and his return to Elphyne would be unnoticed before the time came for him to be crowned King of the Light and Dark Courts.
All he needed to achieve his great destiny was the treasure, trapped somewhere inside Dun Talamh.
He grinned as he drifted off. Hatch soon, my children. Hatch and clear the path for me.
W hen Ava woke the next morning she considered looking for the laird, but then changed her mind. He’d told her she was allowed to look around the castle, and she thought it might be wise to put some distance between them now. The last thing she needed to do was become dependent on him. She needed to look for a way out of this place. Besides, Tasgall probably had enough to do running the castle and managing his people without wasting his time showing her around like some tour guide.
It sounded real good as she kept telling herself all that, Ava thought. She might even end up believing it.
Opening the wardrobe, she eyed the clothes that Elspeth had brought for her before she closed the doors again and went over to the hearth. On a rack there she had draped her own shirt and jacket to dry last night after hand washing them in a bucket with some flower-scented soap mixture the maid had also given her. Once she determined they had dried she put them on.
Even if she did the same thing every night she couldn’t keep wearing the one outfit every day; her clothes would wear out. Yet the thought of dressing like the maids here made her shudder a little. She knew how to do simple sewing like hemming trousers and taking in seams for a better fit, but she’d never tried to make clothes.
Maybe I should learn from one of the other modern gals.
A soft series of knocks brought Ava to the door, and when she opened it a tall, blonde young woman smiled at her, and held up a bouquet of bright red and white flowers in a dark brown cylindrical vase.
“Good morning, Agent Travars,” the woman said in a sweet voice that sounded almost exactly like that of the server at the diner in Monterey. “I’m Inga Holm, the clan’s chatelaine. Might I have a word with you?”
“Of course, come in.” She watched Inga walk in and place the vase on the little table next to the bed. Although the chatelaine wasn’t quite as tall as she was, she had the slender build and graceful nonchalance of a runway model. Her white linen blouse and light blue trousers appeared to be hand stitched, and yet fit her perfectly, and even had buttons. “Were you wearing those clothes when you came in here?”
“Oh, no, my original outfit fell apart after some years. I made these from the clan’s homespun fabrics.” The other woman glanced down at herself before she gave Ava a rueful smile. “When I came here I couldn’t get used to wearing long skirts. I felt as if I were dressing for a formal every day.” She gestured toward the hearth. “Shall we sit and talk?”
Ava hoped she wasn’t in for a lecture as she nodded and went over to perch on one of the chairs. Inga added some wood to the fire before doing the same. The directness in the other woman’s light blue eyes helped her relax a little; she sensed she was also being inspected, but kindly.
“I became caught in the trap in nineteen fifty-four, when I was taking the tour of McKeran’s Castle,” Inga said. “I left my group to look for a ladies room, and ended up here. I’ve been told that you came from the twenty-first century. If you have any questions you need answered by someone with a more modern view than the clan, I might be of help.”
That explained what happened to the clothes she had been wearing upon entering the spell trap; the woman had come here almost seventy years ago. “How have you adjusted to living at the castle?”
“As much as anyone from our world can, I suppose.” She touched her smooth cheek. “I just celebrated my ninety-fourth birthday, and yet I still look as I did when I came here. I don’t suffer any of the afflictions of old age, and I’ve never become sick. Those are the obvious benefits. The clan are very kind to outsiders as well. They would have let me do whatever I wanted, but I’m best at housekeeping. In my time most women didn’t work outside the home.”
As Inga talked about how she managed during her first years at Dun Talamh, Ava got the impression she was actually being careful about what she told her.
“You don’t want to scare me, I’m guessing,” she said once the chatelaine finished her story. “You needn’t bother tiptoeing around the truth. The laird said the clan’s enemies attack the place throughout the year, and then there’s a siege where a lot of people die. Is there anything worse?”
“The siege is the most terrible event.” The chatelaine sighed. “I’m sorry, I’d hoped to give you some time to adjust to life here, but the cycle of events is due to begin again in a few days. It’s best to let our lord and the clan deal with the MacBren and his thugs, but as things escalate, you may find yourself becoming involved anyway.”
She saw very real anxiety in the other woman’s eyes now. “What do these MacBren fellows do when they come here?”
“They’re from the twelfth century like the McKeran, but they don’t behave like our men,” Inga said, and twisted her hands in her lap. “They thought nothing of beating anyone who dared displeased them in any way. When the MacBren arrives, one of the watch tower guards will sound a horn. As soon as you hear it, you must come down to the dungeons and hide with the other women.”
“Why do we need to hide from these… Oh.” Ava felt foolish now. “I can defend myself, Miz Holm."
“I’m afraid here you can’t,” the other woman said. “If one of the MacBren’s men sees you and grabs you, nothing will stop them. As they’re not real but part of the trap’s magic, you can’t kill or even hurt them. They can do whatever they like to you.”
Ava realized why the chatelaine hadn’t wanted to discuss the topic. “Did something like that happen to you, ma’am?”
“Inga, please.” She gave her a wan smile. “The first year after I came here I saw a maid being attacked and tried to stop it. The beating I took healed the next day, but I’ve never forgotten what it was like to be at the mercy of one of those thugs. That’s why I asked the men on watch to sound the horn when an event begins, so we women have a little time to hide. Do come down and join us in the dungeons as soon as you hear the horn, please. The laird sends some of the clansmen down to retrieve us when the event ends, and it’s safe to come out.”
Ava imagined hiding in the dark with the women, or fighting mercenaries who couldn’t be harmed or stopped. It wasn’t a hard choice to make at all. “I’ll remember, thank you—and please, call me Ava.”
“We’ll have some boots made for you, and I’ll be happy to sew some practical clothes and lingerie for you, or teach you how to make your own. While you’re here you won’t menstruate, Ava, and you don’t need to worry about birth control. Oh, I nearly forgot.” She reached into her pocket and took out a small pouch. “There’s a comb in here, as well as a toothbrush and a container of toothpaste that Ben makes.”
“Thank you.” She had cleaned her teeth last night with a piece of rag and some water, which she’d often had to do as a child. “Tasgall has agreed to let me investigate the spell trap, so I might need to meet with you again and ask you some questions. Where is your room?”
“I share one with two other women, but during the day you’ll find me working on the first floor or in my office. It’s at the end of the passage at the back of the kitchens.” Inga rose and laced her fingers in front of her. “If you need to talk, come and find me any time. We modern ladies have to stick together.”
Ava stood and smiled. “We surely do. Thank you.”
After the chatelaine left she used the primitive toothbrush, which had been carved from wood and fixed with some kind of bristles that worked quite well with the gray-green mixture from the little box in the pouch. The toothpaste smelled and tasted like mint- and herb-flavored dirt, but after she rinsed her mouth in the privy Ava couldn’t deny her mouth and teeth seemed quite clean. Closer inspection of the mixture revealed it had a base of clay that had been blended with crushed mint and something with smaller, aromatic leaves.
She tucked away the kit and stepped into her pumps before she left to head downstairs. Instead of joining the clansmen in the great hall for the morning meal, she went into the kitchens, where at least two dozen people were working. Everyone glanced at her, and most of them smiled, but the big, rawboned woman grinding grain in a huge stone bowl with a giant-size blunt wooden tool glared at her as if she were being a nuisance.
“’Tis naught to gawk at here, wench.” She paused for a moment to wipe some sweat from her brow, and pushed back a tendril of dark hair that had escaped her white linen cap. “Go on into the hall and break your fast with the others.”
“After the meal I’d like to help with the clearing up.” As the woman gave her a look of disbelief she added, “Now that I’m here I want to do my part. I can’t cook all that much, ma’am, but I know how to wash, scrub and sweep.”
“I’m Doon, and I do the cooking here. I’ve kitchen maids a-plenty to mind the work of cleaning up.” Her expression softened. “Ask the laird what you might do for your keep, lass. I expect he needs you more than me and mine.”
Ava thanked her and walked to the back of the kitchens, staying out of the way of the maids coming in with empty platters. The passage leading to Inga’s office appeared empty, and when she opened one of the other doors it led out into a long, narrow garden beside a small shed or hut. Through one of the open windows, she thought she saw something move inside the shed. Before she could go and take a closer look someone loomed up behind her.
Turning quickly, she nearly bumped into Tasgall’s broad chest, and suppressed a laugh. “Now where did you come from, sir?”
“The great hall,” he said, very seriously. “There I lingered until you should come down and share your morning meal with me and the lads. Only I saw you go to the kitchens.” He smiled slowly. “What do you out here?”
“Just being nosy, I suppose.” She liked that he had been waiting for her. “What’s on the menu today?”
“Porridge, which Ben tells us your folk call oatmeal, and bannocks, which he says taste much like cookies. We’ve ham, chicken, and spiced cooked apples with cheese. Mayhap a bit of vegetable pottage.” He opened the door for her. “I’ve bid Cook prepare my favorite brew as well. ’Tis spicy, but no’ so much ’twill burn your lips.” He stared at her mouth for a long moment, and then looked away.
I need to do something to work off all this heat, she thought, her lips tingling as if he’d kissed them.
“Do you practice with your men in the morning?” Ava asked. When he shook his head she said, “Well, then, how about you spar with me after they’re all done out there one day?”
“Mayhap soon I shall.” Tasgall opened the door for her. “Come and dine with me now.”