CHAPTER TWENTY #2
Nick broke up the reunion by walking past the women and jerking the sheet off Becca. “I wondered if I’d find you here,” he said to Sam. He studied the corpse for a moment. Then he looked at Sam. “Your boy went to Awe.”
Sam tensed. Nick still had Maclean under surveillance?
Would Ian be okay at Loch Awe by himself?
She was still hurt, but her warrior mode replaced all emotional involvement.
Moray was out there, and he had to be destroyed.
To make matters worse, Ian didn’t know his grandfather had returned from the vanquished. “Is he okay?” she asked carefully.
“How the hell would I know?”
“Gee, I don’t know. By wiring that house, too?”
He gave her a dark glance. “I want you to come by my office tomorrow.”
“No, thanks.” Sam smiled coldly. She wouldn’t budge on this issue.
His stare would have leveled another person. “I have a present for Maclean.”
Sam started.
“I’m damned sorry I had to do what I did, although I’d do it all over again. But I don’t need his damned file. If you have the guts to come by, I’ll give it to you.”
She was stunned.
“Yeah, it’s a peace offering. But there are strings attached.”
“Like, I come back to work for you?”
“Something like that.” He smiled.
Tension filled her. She loved her job. It was her duty to protect and defend the world, but she’d never forgive Nick for tossing Ian under the bus. “I’ll think about it,” she said. “Or am I on a timer?”
He laughed. “No, the clock’s not ticking. In fact, even if you don’t come back to HCU, you can have the file.”
Sam was rarely surprised twice. She was stunned anew.
He crooked his finger at her. Sam decided not to bother asking. She followed him down to the ground floor and to the vault. The beautiful landscape painting was propped against one wall. The inscription she’d seen earlier was above it, where the painting had been hanging. The hieroglyphics glowed.
“Okay. You’ve got me. What is that, anyway? What does it mean?”
Nick walked over to it and Sam had the oddest feeling that he was uneasy. “In all the years I’ve been at war—before anyone even called it a war—I’ve seen that inscription exactly three times. Here, at 2145 Elm and in the first century.”
Sam shivered. “Give me the bad news.”
He glanced at her, his face uncharacteristically serious.
“It’s Satan’s stamp of approval, Sam. If you think the greatest evil of all doesn’t exist in one single and powerful entity, think again.
It’s said that no more than a dozen demons throughout time have ever gotten his seal.
” He was thoughtful. “Others have seen this, through the centuries. The Russian saw this in one of Stalin’s palaces. ” He hesitated. “Jan saw it.”
She could barely comprehend what he was telling her. “Are you frigging telling me that Hemmer, who is as mortal as we are, has Satan’s ear?”
“His DNA might be no different from the grocer’s on the corner, but I’m not sure he’s mortal. Not anymore. So where is our resident billionaire, anyway?”
“That’s a really good question.”
“Especially since he has the page. But how come I don’t think you’re here for the power? You know, there’s this wild rumor that Moray’s back from the vanquished.” Nick stared. “We both know old Rupert didn’t do in his wife. Sure you don’t want my help, kiddo?”
Sam was about to reply when she saw Ian.
He shimmered behind Nick, dressed exactly as she’d last seen him. She could see right through him, and she knew that his image was visual telepathy. There was urgency in his eyes. Something was terribly wrong. “Ian, where are you?” she cried. “What is it?”
Nick whirled and his eyes widened. He saw Ian, too.
THE CAGE TWIRLED. He clung to the bars, which were cold beneath his small hands. “Please let me out.” It was his first time in the cage, his punishment for attempting to escape. His heart beat so hard and so fast he thought it would explode.
His grandfather smiled and walked away. And he kicked frantically at the rats…
No. This was not really happening…
Those words were in the back of his mind, distant, vague.
They were going to leave him there to be eaten alive, and then they’d heal him.
If he tried to escape again, they’d put him back in the cage.
Panic choked him. He felt their sharp teeth and he cried out.
How could this be happening all over again?
He closed his eyes and prayed for his father. This was not really happening…But he kicked the rodents away, again and again, whimpering now. Why didn’t the great Aidan of Awe rescue him?
He saw his father so clearly, standing before the hearth in the great hall, surrounded by so much evil.
Please help me!
His father’s face was startled. “Ian?”
Help me! I’m in the new city of York. Help me!
Aidan shouted, his face becoming a mask of rage. And then he was gone…
He rattled the bars desperately. He had to get out, because he was bleeding and he didn’t have the will to try to kick the rats away.
But he wasn’t a boy now. This was a trick, a cruel, evil trick.
And as he clung to the bars, he was confused, because he saw a beautiful, fierce woman.
He gripped the bars harder, no longer fighting the pack of rats.
The woman’s face shimmered in his mind and he knew this was more important than the punishment of the cage.
Suddenly he saw her even more clearly and her eyes blazed with urgency.
Ian, where are you? What’s wrong?
Clasping the bars, he started. Sam.
In the back of his mind, knowledge grew, even as he began to faint from the pain. He could not pass out now. If he did, he’d die. This was not happening. He wasn’t a boy. He’d been through so much with Sam. They’d fought the terror of evil together.
He strained to push through the darkness of the cage.
The night was so heavy, pressing him back inside, pushing him down.
He had to push back, through this impenetrable blanket of black power.
He strained to see. For one moment, he was a grown man, doubled over in the cage that was sized for a small child.
And then he straightened fully, exhaling, and he did not hit the top of the cage.
The shapes and shadows of his living room were becoming visible.
Through a window, he saw the rising sun and the mists that floated upon the loch.
He breathed in deeply. Relief blazed.
Ian realized his fists were clenched, but not around bars.
They were so tightly balled that his short nails dug into the skin of his palms. He’d been trapped in the past by the power of the page, and it had been as real as if it were actually happening.
To be certain, he looked down, but saw his denim-clad leg, not the bare, small and bleeding calf of a child.
And there were no rats. He was firmly in reality now.
Ian, where are you?
He tensed, having heard Sam again, as clear as day.
He did not want her drawn into this war with his grandfather. Moray would hurt her if he could, just to get at him.
Fear finally vanished and in its place was a burning determination for revenge.
He could never let Moray hurt Sam or his father. He would protect those he loved—or die trying.
He reached out for her, to reassure himself that she was safe, and not already in evil’s hands. He found her instantly. She was standing in an unfamiliar bedroom. He focused and saw Nick, a badge hanging from his neck. Then he saw the sheet covering a corpse on the bed.
“My first pleasure crime. I so enjoyed it. I can see why the crime is addictive.”
The voice was Hemmer’s. But if this were real, if Moray had somehow come back, then Moray had become Rupert Hemmer now.
Ian slowly turned. Moray’s evil was unmistakable but no longer terrifying. He remained in his own living room. “Are ye Hemmer or Moray?”
“Both.” Hemmer smiled. “Right now, I am in control. Your grandfather was calling the shots a moment ago. He is too powerful to resist—and I hardly mind.”
Ian wet his lips, focused as never before. “So his soul took yers?”
Hemmer grinned. “Something like that.”
“He was vanquished.”
“After what we just put you through, do you really question his return?”
His gut churned. He didn’t have any doubts. Moray had returned. “Do ye have all of Moray’s powers?”
“Why else would I allow his soul to become mine?” His gaze narrowed, became the blue eyes of his grandfather. Slowly, they turned red. But the living room remained unchanged. “Did we give you permission to leave the cage, Ian, my boy?” Moray laughed softly.
“How did you get back? How did ye get into Hemmer?”
Those glowing red eyes widened. “We made another deal with the devil.”
This wasn’t virtual reality, Ian thought. This was real. He was facing his grandfather, who was also Rupert Hemmer.
Even mere minutes ago, the idea would have terrified him. Now, he burned to end this. He had never hated anyone as he did this evil entity. “I owe ye, Grandfather.”
“You challenge us?” Moray said. “But we have all the power.”
“No, ye don’t have all the power. Ye don’t have the power of the gods. Ye don’t have the power of right.”
Moray laughed, delighted. “You know, I never believed we could turn you when you were a boy. It’s why we hardly tried. But this is what we will do. We’re going to use you to bring down your father, once and for all.”
“He defeated ye before. He’ll defeat ye again. And this time, so will I. This time, ye fight us, together.”
“Such brave words! Aidan will come running to rescue you this time, don’t you think so, Ian?”
Ian tensed. He had not a doubt that his father would try to rescue him if he were put back in that virtual prison—just as he suddenly knew his father would have tried to rescue him when he was a child captive, if he hadn’t believed him to be dead.