Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
F arlan sent the cook and her maids to bed before he returned to the kitchen, where he saw Ava standing over a basin of soapy dishwater and staring through the window at the herb garden. The lass had come and gone from here all day.
The platters and crockery she had washed and rinsed sat drying in the racks and had the gleam of being scrubbed until sparkling clean. She didn’t seem to notice when he joined her; she dried off her hands and watched the dancing lights without blinking.
She’s got through most of her rage, then.
He had always had great affection for women. The curse had taken from him his lady màthair and four sisters, and he found some comfort in acting as a brother to the women who toiled for the clan. Yet with Ava he sensed she would not welcome such; she seemed far stronger and more reserved than other lasses her age. He wished to be of service to her, but doubted she would want him to do so. His gaze went to the scars on her knuckles, which seemed at first glance to suggest she was a fighter. Yet he knew enough about such marks to recognize them for what they were: proof of the many beatings she had taken. Someone had used a thin, hard object to strike her hands over and again, likely when she was very young.
That anyone could beat a bairn made Farlan understand why the outsiders believed in a hell. He hoped they were right, too. That was the only place for such animals.
“Are those bitty things out there part of the magic of this place, Seneschal?” she asked, startling him.
“Mayhap. We’ve never caught a one.” He gestured toward the door. “Do you wish try your luck?”
Outside, the wintery air had calmed, adding a frostiness to the still darkness. Walking with her through the herbs made Farlan appreciate how pretty the thousands of white lights appeared while floating through the greenery. Ben had mentioned collecting fireflies in jars as a boy, but even now when Farlan reached out to catch one of the lights it vanished a moment before his fingers curled over it.
“They’re like fairies, aren’t they?” Ava stretched out her long, slim hand and two of the lights seemed to settle on her palm. “Can’t make out what they are under the glow, but they’re warm.” The lights rose again from her skin. “If you don’t mind hearing about some girl trouble, I sure could use some advice.”
The wry way she described her problem made his mouth hitch, but a pang shot through his heart as well. What had it cost her to ask such of him?
“I cannae promise to provide any of use, Agent,” he said honestly, “but I’ll gladly listen.”
“I kissed your laird today.” She lifted her gaze to watch the two lights float off to circle around some rosemary stalks. “Tasgall and me, we agreed that was it, all we’d do, just that one kiss. Only it wasn’t enough. It was more like a terrible mistake, because now we know.”
He’d loved enough women to have already learned that with the right partner one kiss was never enough. “Did you worry on holding to your agreement, then?”
“I do, especially as we can’t break it.” Ava studied the ground around her boots. “Your laird has this spell trap to contend with, and what all with ruling the clan and dealing with your enemies. He also told me why the McKeran can’t marry mortal women, and I think that’s wise. Meanwhile, I need to track down someone who could be hiding in here among your vassals and find a way out of this trap to bring her to justice. My life is where I came from, too. The work I do is important to me, and I’d already figured on never getting involved with a man.”
Farlan resisted a strong urge to put an arm around her shoulders; she was not the sort of woman to want physical comfort. “You ken you may never leave the spell trap. You may yet catch the one you seek, but can you go on resisting my brother for all time to come?”
“I thought about that, too.” Her shoulders drooped. “I don’t know if we can stay away from each other for that long. That’s another reason why I have to get out of here.”
He nodded. “’Tis your right, Agent. Only can your life without Tasgall be enough?”
“I lost the first man I loved, so I’m very familiar with the pain I’ll suffer.” Her pretty eyes flashed a glance at him. “I know Darro’s his baby brother and all, but I don’t want this repeated to him. Can you do that?” When he nodded, she said, “Do you think Tasgall will be all right after I go?”
“You neednae fret.” Now he understood the reason for her concern, and his heart wept for her and his brother. “He’s endured much since the curse fell on the clan.”
“I know that, Seneschal. This, this thing between us, is different from what he’s had to manage before now.” Her hands clenched. “This may be the worst of all he has to suffer. I’m pretty sure it will be right up there for me, too.”
Farlan had encountered many pitiful souls in his long life, and yet in this moment he suspected Ava might be the most wretched, for she was genuinely, hopelessly in love with the laird.
“He shall bear parting from you for the sake of us all, but he’ll never be the same, I reckon.” He couldn’t lie to her, not about something this important. “Only ken that he’s no’ the sort to give in to despair.”
“If you would, look out for him when I’m gone.” She eyed the ground, and then knelt and scooped up something tiny and dark. “Here’s one of your fireflies, sir.”
On her palm sat a flake from one of the crystals from the stronghold’s stone walls, although it had darkened from red to a crimson-toned black. As he reached out to touch it the thin slice of crystal suddenly flared with white light and floated off her skin. It drifted through the gardens, eventually landing on a bare patch of soil, where it vanished.
“I bet in the morning whatever the gardeners picked from that bed will have grown back,” Ava predicted. “That’s how this place works. It’s these red crystals. They fly off the walls so they can make everything the way it was this morning. Like that pile of stones in the lists that keeps shrinking and then going back to the way it was.”
Farlan regarded the stronghold’s outer casing stones, and for the first time noticed tiny spots of white light on them.
“Aye, ’twould seem the way ’tis done. During the night the crystals that flake must grow back as well.” He shook his head. “I recall our sire used green and brown crystals to store power, and yet never considered the same to explain how the spell trap restores itself. After all these centuries, a newcomer solves a mystery we never could.”
“Tomorrow I’m letting your chieftains know about my investigation of the spell trap and what evidence I hope to find. I know you’re busy, but I hope you’ll be there, too. You seem to know this place better than anyone.” She nodded at the spot where the crystal had vanished. “They’re not going to trust me right away, but it could help my standing if you tell them about this.”
“’Twould be an honor, Agent.” He sensed someone watching them from one of the windows and suspected the laird had them in his sights. “Come inside now, and I’ll make some brew for us.”
In the kitchens he showed her the water pipe that Ben had installed to catch a stream from one of the skyfalls, which the cook and kitchen maids could tap for cooking and washing.
“I reckoned the healer a madman when first he came,” he admitted as he filled a kettle and hung it on the crane hook before swinging it over the flames in the hearth. “His talk of running water and indoor plumbing seemed crazed. Yet the laird permitted him build one rooftop cistern to collect the fall, and a single pipe to deliver it to the laundress. You never heard females screech with such joy as when they no longer needed fetch water in buckets.”
“The laird mentioned that everything you all break is repaired and what food and supplies you use are replenished overnight,” Ava said as she watched him hang two little hand-sewn teabags in the mugs. “Wouldn’t the spell remove any additions you make to the castle?”
“We reckoned as much, and thus never attempted altering the stronghold,” Farlan said. “’Twas Ben who noticed that such alterations to the stronghold go on all the time by themselves, and reckoned how he might do the same using stone and clay from the ground. I cannae tell you why, but the trap accepts whatever ’tis built by him.”
Her brows rose. “I was told the castle in my world sometimes changes on its own, too. Do you think it might be something other than the trap? Something about the castle itself?”
The seneschal moved his broad shoulders. “I learned my skills as a mason from the mortal who married my màthair and adopted me as his son. Da ever believed that when we built barns and stables, and even the humblest cottage they were merely things. ’Twas the people and animals that lived and died in them that brought them to life.”
“Like the ghost girl roaming your halls?” Ava asked, smiling.
Farlan chuckled. “If you believe that, my lady, then Ben possesses a bridge in Brooklyn that you may wish to buy.”
B odach’s magic had not yet sensed him as he faced the mortal female he had married in order to replenish his coffers. She had already attempted to murder him several times in the modern world when he had disguised himself as Ian James. While she couldn’t do him any real harm there or here, she could keep him from searching for his treasure, or worse, find it and keep it hidden from him for all eternity.
“There exist two methods to kill living beings in the spell trap.” Although he hated the sound of his natural voice, which rasped and croaked, he would not waste another guise on her. “One is to burn them to charcoal.”
“Nobody is just going to let me set fire to them,” Marianne said, and walked up to thrust her face close to his. “If I tie them up, the flames’ll burn through the ropes. There’s nothing here that knocks out anyone so they wouldn’t wake, either.”
He glanced around until he spotted a red crystal shard in a pot of red flowers, removed it, and uttered an incantation before handing it to her.
“Crush this and mix it in a drink,” he told her. “It will render them unconscious for an hour, even if their body is burning.”
She snatched the crystal from him and tucked it into the top of her chemise. Her expression also changed, shifting from open loathing to smiling charm.
“I sure miss the good times we had together, baby,” she said, purring the words as she sidled up to him. “Don’t you?”
She meant the sex, of course. Marianne had liked it rough and dirty, and urged him to do all manner of acts to debase her. One night she’d had him bring another man home with them from a bar so they could both use her. He imagined she’d done much the same with males here, although it would never satisfy her. The one thing that could—killing a man while she fucked him—she couldn’t manage in the spell trap, even with the help of his red crystal charm.
“Come here, my heartless little wife.” As soon as she did he pushed her down on her knees, which she had always enjoyed, masochistic little sadist that she was. “Hands behind your back. Keep your lips and eyes open.”
His member had already stiffened at the sight of her waiting for him to make use of her, and when he slapped her repeatedly he was glad to see her eyes fill with happy tears. If she hadn’t been such a murderous bitch, he thought as he shoved his cock into her mouth, he might have remained married to her in the outside world.
“Uh, uh,” Marianne groaned with every stroke, tears streaming down her cheeks.
His skin began to tingle as the spell trap’s enchantment finally sensed him and began to gather around him. He had no particular desire to seek his own release, but he could use hers to bring her back under his control. He withdrew from her lips, crouched and reached under her skirts with his gnarled hand, and shoved his fingers into the open crotch of her drawers.
“Gawd, you’re useless. Don’t even bother.” She started to rise.
Bodach took hold of her shoulder, shoving her back down, and used his fingers to roughly penetrate her. From the beginning the twisted delight she took in making him spill while feigning her own pleasure had revealed much about her. The one thing she couldn’t stand was to be forced, and yet that was the sort of sex that always made her climax, which was simple enough.
“I’m never letting you leave this place,” Bodach told her as he rubbed her with harsh, careless strokes. “So, you’d better not get caught when you murder this male you want dead.”
“Stop that.” She made a half-hearted push at his arm.
He told her how the clan would torture her for the rest of eternity for killing one of their own, taking turns to rape her every night while the others watched and jeered. She’d be left beaten and dripping with their seed, he promised. His description of her abuse at the hands of the clan excited her so much she orgasmed within a few moments. The slack-jawed look on her face gratified him, for like all mortals she could become enslaved by her senses. Once he found his treasure he might take her out of the trap so he could toy with her again. She was so beautifully, perfectly absurd.
“What did the McKeran do to you that you’d want him dead?” he asked as he wiped off his hand on her bodice before he rose to his feet.
“I don’t want to kill the laird, silly. It’s this FBI bitch you let sneak in here. She’s looking for me.” She stood and shook down her skirts. “What’s the other way I can kill her?”
In that moment Bodach recalled how clever she could be, and wondered if she might dare try the method on him. “Shall I show you?”
“No, thank you. I’m going to stay here and live forever.” She pursed her lips and blew him a kiss. “I just need to get rid of that agent. Why the hell did you let her come in here anyway?”
The air around Bodach began to shimmer, and he reverted to his butterfly form a moment before the enchantment hurled him through one of the glass panel walls, smashing a hole through it and cutting his wings to shreds. A moment later he dropped to the stone floor of the passage outside the trap’s entry on the other side, his true form starting to bleed in dozens of places. He nearly howled with rage and pain as he pushed himself upright, but the sound of approaching footsteps made him press himself into a corner.
Two mortal males dressed in baggy white protective garments appeared a moment later.
“I was sure I heard something fall in here.” One of the men aimed his flashlight at the floor. “You didn’t hear anything?”
“I heard you running this way.” The second man gestured at the illusion of the stone wall concealing the entry to the trap, which Bodach had put in place to keep anyone else from wandering inside. “There’s nothing here but a bad smell.”
“Yes, I noticed.” The first man waved a hand in front of his face. “Maybe that’s from a body.”
“It’s stagnant water, not rotting corpses. Beaumont warned Agent Grayson that rain leaks from the roof and pools under the floors because there’s hardly any drainage.” He nudged his partner. “Come on, the old man wants us to finish the second floor sweep today so we can join the team doing the outdoor grid search.”
Bodach stayed where he was after the men left and muttered an enchantment under his breath. The spell wouldn’t heal his wounds—only red crystal could do that—but it created a shield around him to cover the stink of his blood. Because he had to eat the crystal at regular intervals he couldn’t do anything about the body smell it caused, which he usually masked with strong-scented cologne.
Leaving through the underground tunnel that he’d dug allowed him to avoid another encounter with the team of federal agents and get to his cave.
Once there, he collected a handful of crystals and ate them to heal his wounds. Before he lay down on the stone platform to heal, he looked into the empty scroll he’d stretched out along one wall. It had once belonged to a Fae scribe whom Bodach had travelled with across the mortal realm. The scribe, who had stolen it from the king’s archive before being exiled to the mortal realm for thievery, had also possessed many other useful spells and objects of power. Killing him and taking all he’d stolen had allowed Bodach to become one of the most powerful immortals outside of Elphyne.
“Show me my children,” he said to the scroll now, and an image of a room in a granary appeared on the scroll’s surface. What crawled across the floor in the next moment was fat and covered in slime, and not at all what he’d planned for when he’d released the bespelled eggs in the castle’s gardens.
Still, Bodach was pleased a moment later when an old man came into the room. More slimy fat things crawled out of the shadows, and began to spit their webs at the mortal, who in another moment could not move or make a sound.
Yes, this would work out quite nicely, especially if they could catch Marianne and silence her. Or perhaps he’d first give her a chance to slay Ava Travars and get her out of his way before he brought her out of the trap.
He would certainly enjoy rewarding Marianne’s efforts with all the abuse she could ever desire.
T asgall looked in at Ava and Farlan, who went from the kitchens to the great hall, where they sat with mugs of brew by the fire and spoke in low voices. He knew they had taken a liking to each other, and guessed they would shortly become good friends. That prospect made him glad, for the lady likely needed a confidant. It also made him want to go and drag Ava away from his seneschal and carry her off to his bed chamber. He could well imagine how he’d spend the night loving her until she forgot every other man existed.
Never had he suffered such wild, savage urges with any female. They shamed him so deeply his gut became knotted.
“She’s seduced Farlan, too, has she?” Alec gave him a malicious smile when he looked over his shoulder at him, and followed as he strode down the passage. “Our seneschal, he’s no’ taken a lover since summer. He likes her, you can see that by the way he–”
He turned and grabbed his war master by the throat and thrust him back against the nearest wall.
“What do you want from me, lad? A beating, like all those you took from the village lads? Or what your grandsire did instead?” He tightened his grip. “I ken how to make you suffer, only I’m more likely to send you to scrub out the charnel house.”
Alec’s beautiful eyes shimmered for a moment. “Aye, and you ken I’d scrub out that and a thousand more for you.”
Disgusted with both of them, Tasgall released him. “If ’twill give you pleasure, go and spy. Skulk about until you can hear every innocent word they speak. Farlan shallnae take offense, nor strike at you. He remembers, as do I, the day we found you chained and starved in that facking barn.”
Alec ducked his head so that his long hair hid his face; another trick he’d learned in boyhood to protect himself. “I wish only to protect you and my brothers, my lord. Aye, and I’ve seen how you regard that female.”
“Seneschal doesnae trifle with outsiders,” Tasgall reminded him. “And the lady desires me, no’ him.”
The war master rubbed his neck. “Then take her, Brother. Make her your lover and wheedle all you can out of her. The bastart that cursed us into this place may have sent her to spy on us and learn how we suffer through the year of torment. What if he permits her leave the trap so she may report to him?”
“Then you neednae stalk after her anymore.” Before he could reply he put a hand on his shoulder. “Come to the library. ’Tis something I wish you to see.”
Once they stood in front of the scroll viewer, Tasgall took down a blank scroll their sire had not yet used before his death, and unrolled it. He had not told Ava about this particular scroll, which had been enchanted to show the past of anyone whose name was spoken aloud. His sire had used it to get information from mortals who had been enchanted by rogue Fae not to speak of their passage or crimes.
“Watch,” he told his war master. “Ava Travars.”
Ava appeared on the scroll’s window in a room where she sat at a small desk and worked on a device Ben had told them was a laptop computer. She then spoke to a small rectangular device that she held to her ear.
“’Tis a smart phone,” Alec murmured. “In their world they use such to speak with each other over great distances.”
Tasgall nodded, and then turned the scroll in reverse. The window changed to show Ava dressed in black and standing beside a casket braced over a large hole in the ground. From her bleak expression and the tears filling her eyes it seemed obvious how much pain she suffered.
“She’s lost someone she loved,” he told the war master before turning the scroll again.
This time the window into the past showed a young, painfully thin version of Ava being held by her hair and beaten by a large, heavy-set man wielding a flat-ended metal instrument. Bloody welts covered her hands, but she didn’t make a sound. An older woman with a reddened, swollen face smoked as she watched, her eyes glittering with twisted satisfaction, as if she relished the sight.
“I cannae name this brute, but I reckon ’twas her sire.” Tasgall eyed him. “Your grandsire did much the same to you. Would you watch what he did when she was younger than you see here? When she had barely begun to walk?”
“Stop.” Alec snatched the scroll off the stand and rolled it closed. His chest heaved as if he’d just run the length of the bailey. “’Tis of no consequence. All of what you see could be caused by a spell the wench cast, so you’d see her in a favorable light.”
“Stubborn, mule-headed dolt.” He wouldn’t clout the war master, not after he’d been reminded of his wretched childhood. “No one has access to the library unless they come to me. She’s mortal, and cannae wield Fae magic.” He saw Alec’s eyes narrow. “You believe her to be Fae now? Go you mad?”
“’Tis something about her that’s unnatural,” the war master insisted. “Ask Rory. He watches her more than I do.” He left the library.
Tasgall went down to the armory, but found it locked. Since Rory sought his rest in several different, odd places he decided to wait until morning before he questioned him. From there he walked the passages until he found himself in front of the guest room. For a moment he reached out to touch the latch and saw himself going inside. If Ava were asleep, he imagined how he’d wake her with countless soft kisses on her lovely mouth, her long throat, and those full, round chebs. If she were still downstairs with Farlan, he could sit by her hearth and dream about what he’d do as he waited for her.
You’re no better than Alec.
“My lord?” a soft voice said behind him.
Tasgall turned to find the clan’s chatelaine standing there with a pile of linens in her arms. Behind her two maids with steaming buckets appeared busy studying the floor stones.
“Fair evening, ladies.” He inclined his head. “Please, get on with your tasks.”
Tasgall walked away, only too aware that his chatelaine was still watching him. He retreated to his own chamber but knew she would come to him as soon as she’d finished attending to Ava. A few years after she had come into the spell trap, he and Inga had become lovers for a short time, although they could never give each other enough affection to make the arrangement permanent. Since then she had been his closest female friend, and often listened when he grew troubled. She also came to him to attend to his needs when he asked, although that rarely happened anymore. Like Tuirne, the chatelaine reminded him that he could not run from his passions if he wished to remain the master of them.
When Inga came and knocked, he opened the door and invited her in. Yet the chatelaine shook her head and remained at the threshold.
“It is too late for a long talk tonight, my lord.” She glanced over her shoulder before she held out a small handful of dark-stained rags, and in a much lower voice said, “Polly, one of the gardeners who shares my bed chamber, used these to curl her hair after she cut it short. The stains are from nut dye. Since she came in from the outside world, and has no’ hurried to change her appearance, she may be the woman Agent Travars was trying to find.”
He had forgotten about Polly, whom he dimly remembered as possessing long, light-colored hair and a coy, trifling manner. “My thanks, Chatelaine. I shall ask Darro to bring the lass to Agent Travars for questioning on the morrow.”
Inga smiled. “When I finish my duties, my lord, shall I come back to you?”
The chatelaine had never taken any lovers beside him since coming into the trap, and yet she always remained willing to bed him. Sometimes, like tonight, she came when she suspected he had need of her.
“I thank you, but no, my lady.” Although she meant that as a kindness, Tasgall suddenly grew as uncomfortable as a lad caught in a hayloft with his first girl. “Fair night.”
The chatelaine curtseyed and departed, leaving him to his cold, lonely bed.