CHAPTER FOURTEEN #2
He jerked at the sound of Brianna’s voice as she and Aidan hurried toward him. A maidservant was with them. “Meg has something to show us.”
He looked sharply at the thin, freckled maid, who stared wide-eyed at him and then at Aidan. She blushed and darted past them. Ian fell into step with Aidan and Brianna. The maid ran to the end of the hall and then entered a small closet door. There, she waited for them.
Ian went to the threshold of another very dark, very narrow hall. She pointed down it, ducked under his arm and ran away.
Ian rushed forward, Aidan and Brianna on his heels. A single door was at the hall’s end. As he thrust it open, he strained for Sam. He remained aware of her presence, but the awareness didn’t intensify. Even before he saw the torture chamber, he knew she wasn’t there.
He recognized it immediately.
The single window was above on one wall, and the room was dark and dank, containing two tables. The center table had restraints. The side table had too many sharp instruments and tools to count. “This is where I saw her,” he said harshly.
Brianna touched his arm. “Meg overheard the monk arguing with a very strange foreigner. She couldn’t understand the stranger, but the monk was livid because the woman had escaped.”
Ian exhaled.
“She may still be within the Cathedral,” Aidan said. “The best way to leave would be to do so after dark.”
“I’m not leaving without her,” Ian said.
SAM CAREFULLY CRACKED open the door, but the hinges groaned.
She’d been working her way down and through the Cathedral for the past hour or so.
It was slow going. Carlisle Cathedral was a busy place, filled with nobles, various clergy, and all kinds of servants.
The monk had a full-scale search going for her.
Soldiers were going through the premises room by room, and she had been constantly backtracking and hiding from them.
In her contemporary clothes, with her short, platinum hair, she knew that if anyone saw her, she was done.
She couldn’t imagine what all of these people were doing at a place of God.
Most of those wandering about Carlisle were average, ordinary humans.
But they seemed oblivious to the oppressive weight in the dark halls and long corridors of the Cathedral.
Patiently making her way through the palace, she was acutely aware of the heavy darkness and what it meant.
Bad things happened at Carlisle, all of the time.
She hadn’t been the first victim to see that torture room.
She felt sorry for the medieval civilians she’d seen. They had clearly come to a house of God looking for something good, maybe even salvation, but they’d never find it at Carlisle.
I am definitely getting soft, she thought grimly, with an odd pang. And it was Maclean’s fault.
He’d reached out to help her when Hemmer had come after her. If he wasn’t careful, he might turn himself into some kind of hero.
She smiled at the ludicrous thought. But it had warmed her, too. She wasn’t very worried about her predicament now. She’d escaped those demons, and she knew she could find her way out to safety. She just had to be careful. She had to minimize risks.
About to start down a set of stairs, she suddenly paused, tensing.
Sam?
For one instant, she was certain that she’d heard Ian calling to her. She glanced down the corridor but it was empty. She turned back to the stairwell, straining to hear him again.
A footstep fell behind her, startling her. For one moment, she realized she had let down her guard. But then she felt soft, soothing white power, encompassing her.
Sam whirled to face her sister.
Tabby looked exactly as she had the last time she’d seen her, a few months ago—in 1502.
She wore a gorgeous long red velvet dress and many jewels.
Her hair was pinned up beneath a medieval hairpiece.
And she was radiant. Guy Macleod stood behind her, a huge, muscular and surprisingly dark man, one hand protectively on the hilt of his sword.
Her heart exploded with joy. “My lady.” Sam grinned. She was too thrilled to add to the joke by curtsying. Instead, she wrapped Tabby in the biggest hug she could possibly manage.
Tabby held her back, hard. “I have so missed you!” she whispered.
Sam held on for one more moment, then pushed back. “Yeah, because you’ve gone centuries without your Sam fix.”
Tabby flushed. “Sam, I was forbidden from going to you. Leaping is a power given to the Masters so they can protect Innocence, not so they can take their wives on jaunts through time to visit family relations!” But Tabby was smiling.
“I begged MacNeil, the Abbot of Iona, to go to the Ancients and get a dispensation, but he said you were fine and that we’d be together soon.
And I guess in his eyes, a few centuries isn’t all that long! ”
“I thought you’d come for the Book,” Sam said. She couldn’t get over how radiant her sister was. “It would have been the perfect excuse, but some Highlander came instead.”
“I know. I tried that argument, too. MacNeil pointed out that my war with evil is here. And he’s right,” Tabby said happily. Then her smile faded. “Are you okay? What happened? I was in the kitchens at home helping Cook, when I heard you. I almost swooned!”
Now she swooned, not fainted? Sam laughed. “So the lady of the manor condescends to get flour under her nails with the help?”
She finally looked at Macleod. He was a big beast of a man, reeking of a warrior’s savagery and an abundance of testosterone, and she’d hated him at first sight. But Tabby loved him and he, apparently, loved her. Sam squinted at him. “Is he giving you a hard time? No pun intended, of course.”
Tabby took her hand. “His chauvinism doesn’t bother me, Sam. I love everything about my husband. He might be overly protective, but I can handle it.”
Sam scowled. “You’d better be faithful, buddy,” she warned. “If I ever find out you treat my sister like the brute you appear to be, you will be sorrier than any of your MacDougal enemies.”
Macleod seemed amused. “She still dislikes me,” he said to Tabby, shrugging. “Masters are here. They’re searchin’ fer ye—and so is evil.”
Sam went still. Ian wasn’t a Master. She shouldn’t be disappointed, but she was. For an instant, she strained to feel him—and she started, because she thought she did!
Tabby seized her hand. “Oh, no! I can tell this is going to be another five-minute reunion. That’s not fair! What’s going on?”
Sam felt exactly the same way. “No, I am not going back to New York so quickly! I’m in a bit of a jam, Tabby.
The monk of Carlisle is after me, and so is someone from our, my, time, a really evil human, Rupert Hemmer.
They were planning on torturing me when your spell showed up.
By the way, thanks, sis,” she added, grinning.
Tabby touched her and spoke in Gaelic. “That’s an extra dose of protection,” she said, seeming worried. She turned to her husband. “We have to get out of here.”
Macleod’s handsome face tightened. A savage light flickered in his eyes. “We’ll help her escape Carlisle an’ I’ll make certain ye have some time with yer sister.”
Tabby sent him a soft smile.
Sam smiled to herself. Macleod might be as macho as a man could be, making him impossibly wrong for her sister, but it was clear that he was protective of her and madly in love, even after two centuries.
Sam? Where are ye?
Sam jerked. She’d heard Ian as clear as day, right down to the frustration and worry in his voice. “Ian,” she whispered. “I’m at Carlisle Cathedral, on the ground floor, on the north side of the building.”
Sam!
“Sam?” Tabby asked.
Sam held up her hand. The moment she strained for him, she felt his hot and male white power gathering, then approaching.
She turned to face south. Someone was turning the corner of the hallway, but it was a well-dressed couple, followed by a secretary and a valet.
Sam inhaled in disappointment. The three men all looked at Sam.
Tabby smiled graciously at the couple as they passed.
She nodded at the servants. The nobleman craned his head to stare at Sam’s legs, until he walked into the wall.
The woman jabbed her elbow in his velvet-clothed abdomen.
“You should change clothes if you intend to stay around the sixteenth century for any length of time,” Tabby said, glancing at her miniskirt.
His power was growing, she thought, having heard her sister. It was hot, seething, and so familiar.
Maclean hurried around the corner.
Sam’s heart lurched wildly.
He rushed to her. “Are ye all right?”
Sam shrugged. “Like you care?” She was flippant, no easy task, when her heart was thundering madly. “So what brings you to this neck of the woods?” she asked. And then she saw Brie and Aidan, coming around the same hall corner.
“Did ye think I’d leave ye to my enemies?” He was incredulous.
She tore her gaze back to his regard. It was surprisingly searching. There was no mockery. It was as if he were really concerned. “I thought you might try to help out,” she said carefully. “And you did. Thanks for the assist with the shackles.”
He started. “I unlocked the manacles?”
“Yeah.” Then she said, very seriously, “Just so you know, I’m starting to worry about Hemmer.”
His gaze held hers.
Sam knew he understood. There was more to Hemmer than met the eye, a lot more.
“Can I interrupt?” Brie asked, but she was grinning.
“I barely recognize you without the geeky glasses—and in a dress!” Sam cried, laughing. Brie had turned from a chubby, frightened nerd into a beautiful, self-possessed woman. Sam wanted to hug her.
Brie hugged her, instead.