Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
The borrowed car skidded on the gravel around the last turn approaching the circle drive. Once the view straightened, Rowan and TJ saw him: There in the wide gravel circle, Dick Murdoch stood at the rear of the open bed of a pickup truck full of MacLaoch goods.
“Oh, shit,” TJ said, watching as Murdoch began circling it, shaking what looked to be a can of petrol.
Rowan hit the brakes with his fingers on the door handle, though as they skidded to a stop, TJ had his door open and was out of the car first. He sprinted toward the petrol-carrying banker.
Seeing that his time was up, Dick frantically pulled something from his pocket as he dropped the can of petrol.
Fluid splashed out the nozzle, hitting the stones and the banker’s shoes.
He flicked the lighter open. “Stop right there!” Murdoch shouted.
TJ skidded to a stop, his hands up, wordlessly telling him he’d obey. “Now, hold on one moment—”
Rowan slammed his door and was about to shout at the man that he’d best start running when a flicker of light caught his eye from the castle turrets. In the upper windows, light flickered and waved.
“What the…” Rowan recognized then that it was fire. The upper stories were ablaze.
TJ added, “What in the hell is…”
The banker reluctantly looked to where they did and then back, a feral grin on his face.
Rowan cut to the chase. “You burning my home, Murdoch?!”
“And you thought you could escape me!” He held the lighter closer to the tailgate.
“I have contingencies upon contingencies! My ancestors lost the battle with their arrogance; they thought they were better than you MacLaochs, but didn’t prove it.
I will prove it, and not by a casual battle, but with forethought, intelligence, and attention to detail. ”
Rowan bent and picked up a stone. “Ye’ve gone and done it, haven’t ye? You’ve hit rock bottom, and nothing will ever be enough, will it?”
“Is that stone supposed to be my lesson? That’s my visual aid?
I think not, MacLaoch! I am hardly at rock bottom.
I think you and your clan have underestimated me, and it’s to be to your detriment!
The Murdochs will flourish in your absence!
Your lands are ours now; we’ll step out from under your shadow and rule all of Skye as we were destined—”
Rowan whipped the rock.
It struck the banker in the eye. “Oof!”
The lighter dropped from his hand as his palm went to his eye.
TJ leaped forward and grabbed the hot lighter in midair. “Shit! Ouch!” He hot-potatoed the extinguished lighter into his other hand and grasped it by its base. “Gosh damn it, that’s hotter than a tin roof in midsummer.”
Rowan approached and pulled from the truck bed a fuel-laced rope that had once held open the formal dining room silk curtains. “I need to get inside,” he said, handing TJ the cord. “I can feel Cole is still in there. Tie him up.”
Rowan was almost to the castle when through the newly mended stained glass above the open doors he saw an unmistakable figure. He stopped and stared at his wife.
Rowan wanted to talk to her and open their connection, but she was ablaze. Only then did he also notice the unconscious men littered about the gravel.
Behind him, TJ breathed, “Holy fuck, is that Pipsqueak?”
“Aye.” Then: “The banker?”
“He’s tied up at the moment.”
Rowan looked back and then gave him a dark grin. “Didn’t know they taught that kind of knot in basic.”
“They didn’t. That’s all country boy.”
Murdoch was squirming, wrists tied to his ankles—behind his back.
“I got a little crafty with that silk. I thought it’d be nice and smooth against his skin, so I didn’t want to waste it using it on just his wrists.”
“He’s appreciating it, I’m sure.” Rowan saw TJ had found some tape to cover Murdoch’s mouth. “Though, not as much as I am.”
“Hey, look.” TJ directed him to three very conscious men moving about the foyer. “I believe those men—”
“Don’t know they’re about to die?”
“Seeing my little sis look like she’s channeling 240 volts out her every pore, I’m worried for them. I wouldn’t care, except I’m thinking she’ll be real upset later when she finds out she killed those three idiots.”
“Best flush them out.” Rowan cupped his hands and shouted, “Oye, ya fucks! Get tae—”
TJ interrupted, “Not sure you know, but they have pistols—”
The gravel at their feet exploded.
“Oh, shit!”
“Duck!”
Rowan and TJ each dove toward the shelter of the low stone wall that funneled guests to the front from the parking circle. Rowan crouched in one bump-out beside its informational placards while TJ did so in another.
Gravel stopped spewing as the air began to pull. The soft breeze of it wiped Rowan’s cheek—it was as if the castle were inhaling.
They both chanced looking around and saw Cole’s hands extend, her sword held firmly in her right and pointed at the three men.
Rowan’s gaze met mine as he and TJ moved, crouched, up the gravel path like the military men they were. They’d both known close-quarters combat, and their alert postures and hand signals told me that it was knowledge that had never left them.
Coated in the golden glow of Ormr, I held the Ulfberht high and out to my ancestral grandmother, whose cold chill told me she was standing, grounded, in the tidal pools. “Prepare us,” I said.
Her voice breathed through me. Yes. Just once more, child. Ormr will be your guide.
Relieved that she could provide balance, I prepared to do something I so far could only do in a limited capacity.
The fire snapped and crackled, licking up the wood-paneled walls and coating the ceiling in black.
I gave a test of my sword hand, pulling on the fire.
Incredulously, it moved toward me as if a wind behind it blew it in my direction.
Emotionally leaning into it, I pulled harder.
It moved but was not removed. I was burning the castle down faster.
I cursed under my breath.
Breathe, child. Let Ormr guide you.
I coughed. The smoke was really beginning to billow, and I was suddenly conscious of how much I had inhaled. I should be passed out. Was holding the Ulfberht really creating a semi-sealed bubble of clear air around me?
The glow on me began to fade as fear took hold of my mind. I’d done the fire thing downstairs in Clive’s office, but this was an entire floor, no, the entire castle. How did I move that much fire?
My heart thudded at the enormity of the task.
Out on the cairn knoll during what I’d come to think of as the Healing, I’d held hands with the entire clan to move that much energy.
I was solo now. And it was so much energy—too much.
The frames of portraits were getting consumed; the MacLaochs were burning where they stood.
A burning ember landed on my thumb and sizzled through my skin.
For the first time that night, I felt pain. I hollered and dropped the Ulfberht.
Flames reached for me as smoke filled my next inhale. Coughing racked my chest, and I bent then went to my knees there at the top of the stairs. On all fours, I watched as my skin lost its glow. The Ulfberht lay inert an arm’s reach away from me. I was a fool. I needed to get out.
Mo ghràdh—came Rowan’s voice clear and cool—Ethel cannot reach you.
I coughed and tried… Can’t breathe.
I could hear his cursing, but I was sinking. His voice came again: Tee says if you don’t get your ass up and come outside right this instant, your mother is going to serve pecan pie at your funeral.
I smiled, but with the effort of a tired soul ready to lay down and sleep for eternity.
Where’s your pig, mo ghràdh?
It took me a second to remember my pig, and as soon as I thought of her, I couldn’t quite remember what a pig was.
Breathe close to the ground; I’m coming.
Something moved into me. My ring heated just as cold, outside air entered my lungs as if Rowan were blowing into our connection.
I heard Ethel. Grab the Ulfberht! Orabilia’s grandson is coming for you, child; I’ve given you his breath through your connection so that my granddaughter can save him.
Save Rowan, I thought.
Save Rowan came clearer into my head until the protective sow Rowan had asked me about came tearing back. I needed to get the fuck up and get the fuck out.
My eyes watered as I searched the carpet around me.
The back of my hand hit the hilt, and then with seemingly the last of my clean air, I grabbed it.
The connection was like lightning to my mind and body.
My lungs filled with pure, breathable air as if an oxygen mask had been put over my face.
I gave one last lung-clearing cough and sucked in the freshness of that golden glow.
“Oh,” I said softly. This was magic.
Shouts and grunts from a fistfight in the lobby. I came up to my knees and looked down as the man with brass knuckles clocked Rowan.
Over the roar of the fire, my own voice, my cry of rage, echoed off the cathedral ceiling. The golden clasps were around my wrists again, and this time, when I pulled on the fire, I did not drag it. I carried it.
The fire wound around my body like snakes to Medusa. It came off the walls, down the stairs from the turret and up from the lower floors. Arms full of it, I shoved them out and sent the fire through the skirmishing men and cut off new men trying to rush inside.
It had been a good effort, but I’d intended to circle the castle.
Instead, it left the front doors and collapsed like a fiery pile of molten lava.
Frustrated, I gripped the Ulfberht tighter; holding it out, I let the connection, the talisman to the violent, talented man who wielded it in a former life, guide me.
The castle shuddered, and the stones groaned.