CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE #2
Sam choked. She hadn’t saved her mother that day and she knew it wasn’t real, but she blinked, because they were on the suburban street in upstate New York where she’d grown up. It was a fall day, just like that day. Red and gold leaves were everywhere.
The white clapboard house where she’d grown up was behind Laura. Tabby’s blue bicycle was in the driveway, its kickstand down. Sam’s bike was red and it lay on its side where she’d dropped it.
Just like that day…
“Sam,” Laura cried, rushing to her. She pulled her into her arms, trembling.
And her mother was warm and alive, her chest rising and falling against Sam’s, her cheek soft, silken. She smelled like citrus and flowers, the Halston fragrance she always wore. Had she time-traveled? Was this real?
Sam realized she was crying. She loved her mother impossibly; she always had. Now, she realized she missed her in a bone-deep way.
What if she’d interrupted the pleasure crime sooner, preventing Mom’s murder?
Laura released her. “Thank the gods you came along when you did,” she whispered, tears in her own blue eyes.
Alarm began. Her mother had become transparent. “Mom! Don’t go!” Sam cried. But she knew Laura was about to vanish forever, because this wasn’t real. This wasn’t happening.
Her mother disappeared.
Sam couldn’t understand where all of her grief was coming from. She held her face in her hands, really close to weeping.
“Satan can give her back to you, Sam.”
Moray’s soft voice vibrated within her. Sam forced herself to straighten. She wiped her eyes, and turned warily.
“I can give you whatever you want,” he said. “I can return your mother to you.”
“Oh, so now you can turn back the clock?” She scoffed. But she was becoming angry. This was as dirty as the game could get.
“I can’t turn back the clock. No one, not even one of your gods, can.” Moray smiled. “But you know that when Fate goes awry, it can be corrected.”
Sam went still. He’d just mentioned one of the most fundamental tenets of the Book of Roses. Had Laura’s death been a mistake? Could it be undone?
“I can undo it,” he said, and his eyes glowed strangely. It was as if he could see everything, and into forever.
The odd fire in his eyes went though her, the way his words were going through her, as if there were no physical boundaries between them. Sam couldn’t think straight. What if Laura hadn’t been fated to die?
“I need you, Sam. I want you. I want you so much that I can let Ian go, if returning your mother isn’t enough for you.” His smile had changed now, too. “I’ve watched you for a long time, since you were a small child. If I can’t turn Aidan, I will take you instead.”
And for the first time in her life, she knew real fear. “Who are you?”
Satan.
Sam backed into a wall.
“I have a thousand faces. Come to me, Sam, give me your soul, and I will give you all that you wish.”
Sam stared and Moray stared back. Her mind was heavy; it was so hard to think. She could not make a bargain with the devil! But what if her mother could be brought back from the dead and Ian could be freed from a life of torment?
Sam?
It was as if Ian’s voice had cut through the fog, lifting it. She blinked, saw Moray, and behind him, a giant dark shadow receding. “Ian!”
He was trying to find her. And as she spoke, she knew she’d never do the unthinkable. She was a Rose.
Moray leaned close. “You will pay if you don’t accept our offer.”
“I am getting out of here,” she snarled.
“No, you’re not,” he said. And he lifted his hand.
The black power went through her like a butcher knife. Sam looked down, expecting to find herself cleaved in two. There was blood everywhere.
And as Moray walked away, it took her one second to realize that she was bleeding out.
SAM WAS IN THE MAZE.
Ian realized he was in a small cell, and he ran to the door, but it was bolted from the outside. She could not be in that maze by herself!
And he was afraid—but not for himself.
It no longer mattered if this was a virtual reality or not. Because she was with Moray.
He closed his eyes and began to pray, meaning his every word.
If the gods intervened now, if they kept her safe, he’d give up his entire life.
He’d do whatever they asked. If they wanted him to go back to his time, he would.
If they wanted him to be a Master, like his father, he would.
He’d give his millions to charity, live like a pauper.
He’d even die, if they preferred his death.
But as he begged, bargained and prayed, he heard absolutely nothing from the other side.
The steel door was cold beneath his cheek and he finally opened his eyes.
They hadn’t heard him during all the years he’d been a captive, and he was pretty sure they hadn’t heard him now. But he was strangely calm.
He was going to find Sam.
Surprised, Ian stepped into the hallway, but not of the maze. Instead, shocked, he found himself in the entry hall of the house in Brooklyn where he’d spent most of six decades as a prisoner. Instantly his gut curdled.
Ian?
He started. Sam was trying to find him. Sam, where are you?
But there was no answer. And then the monk stepped out of the small parlor, smiling benignly at him. He stepped back, wanting to run away.
“How was school, Ian?”
He reminded himself that the monk was dead and that this was not real. He remained acutely aware of who he was and what he had to do now—but that little boy was fighting to come to life, too. “Ye don’t exist,” he returned as evenly as possible.
“Of course I exist. I take care of you. Do you have homework?” the monk asked softly, his eyes gleaming.
And Ian knew what he wanted. He turned to face the stairs, his instinct to flee up them, the little boy emerging.
“You can’t run. There’s nowhere to hide,” his grandfather said.
Surprise stopped him in his tracks. The hatred and need for revenge rose up. The little boy vanished. Ian turned to face Moray, who laughed at him. “Where is she?”
Ian? Help me!
He heard Sam so clearly, it was as if she were in the other room. “Where is she, you evil bastard?” he shouted.
“Find her if you can.” And Moray vanished, as did the quaint foyer of the townhome. He stood in the concrete hallway again. Breathing hard, he looked down the endless hall at the dozens of identical doors. Was she in one of those rooms?
Striding forward, sweating, Ian opened the first door. He was shocked. The nine-year-old boy was inside, with his grandfather, and it was a memory he preferred to forget.
He slammed the door closed and leaned against the wall, trembling. He did not want those memories now! And the hatred was so vast it shredded any lingering fear. Moray knew his shame. Moray wanted to throw it in his face. But Sam was in one of the rooms, possibly being tortured.
He began a room-by-room search, ignoring each memory as it came, ignoring the pain, the fear and the shame.
Five doors later, he paused, out of breath and almost mindless now.
There were too many doors. He’d never find her this way.
Too late, he realized that in this game, as always, he wasn’t meant to succeed.
This game was meant to torture him. This game was meant to defeat him and bring him to his knees.
“What have ye done to her? I will kill ye, ye sonuvabitch!” he shouted at the empty hallway.
Moray did not answer him.
He strained for her. Sam!
He heard her moan.
Fury rose up. There was distant laughter now.
Moray was playing with him again, as he’d done for sixty-six years.
Sam was in trouble. He felt it in his heart.
He felt it in his soul. He didn’t have time to play Moray’s cat and mouse game.
His mind sharpened and he struggled to find the reality that was his Loch Awe home.
His father and Brie, Macleod and Tabby, were somewhere just beyond his grasp, his vision.
He looked down the hall at all the doors, trying to see his salon, his entry hall. And he saw Sam.
She was lying on the floor in a back hallway, in a pool of her own blood.
It was visual telepathy.
He started to run down the hall. The walls shifted. He saw painted walls and masterpieces. Then they were concrete again, filled with steel doors. “Sam!”
The walls kept shifting. Ahead a pair of windows emerged, the sun shining through them, Loch Awe beyond.
Ian ran harder down the hall, past the steel doors, toward those two windows. He had to get back to the real world.
The floor tilted. Concrete became fine, hand-dyed wool.
He skidded on a plank wood floor, past his Portuguese library desk. A wall of books faced him. He spun around. He was in his library. He ran across the room, to the door.
Sam lay on the floor in the hall.
He knelt, horrified. She could not die.
She was limp and nearly lifeless in his arms.
It was impossible! Sam Rose was undefeatable. She was the most magnificent, most courageous woman he knew! “Ye can’t die!”
He held her, his heart frantic. He could not live without her.
He loved this woman.
Booted steps sounded and he heard Tabby scream. Aidan knelt beside him. “Let me heal her.”
Ian looked up at his father. “Save her. Please.”
“He can’t save her.” Moray laughed at them.
As one, Ian and Aidan turned. Tabby sank down to her knees and started chanting. Macleod said softly, his expression ruthless, “Ye canna leap, deamhan.”
Ian and Aidan slowly stood. Ian had never wanted to kill anyone more. “Save Sam,” he told his father. “He’s mine.”
Moray’s eyes widened.
“What’s wrong, Father?” Aidan taunted. “Afraid?”
“My soul is immortal,” Moray snarled, “as is my power!” Black power blazed.
Ian was already blasting him and Macleod and Aidan struck a scant instant later. Black and white power collided and screamed. Moray struck again, crouching now. The two great waves of power hit each other again. Moray’s power blazed directly at Ian, past the clashing energies in the room.