Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
Cole getting shot had activated an old part of Rowan.
The part that made a promise at Vick’s wake to do all he could to never lose another person he loved.
And that night, with the moon’s glow coming out of his pores, he had the power to do a lot.
He’d reminded Cole about her sow, and he knew his was at his side.
He’d gone to war with reanimated wraiths on the cairn knoll.
Tonight, this enemy was mortal and would stay down when he put them down.
He moved in silence over the narrow stream and up the opposite embankment.
The air was moist, and his footfalls were hushed on the mossy ground.
Squatting in the brush on the rise of the other embankment, he heard voices.
They were debating if they’d hit it, if the thing was dead yet. He knew they were talking about Cole.
A twig snapped to his right, and he held his breath. Squinting into the dark, he saw his clanswoman make her way to him. Holly, eyes on him, moved silently up and in next to him. She had dried blood at the base of her nose and was in high spirits like a woman finally getting her battle wish.
She held up five fingers and said under her breath, “Listen, there are five down ’round back, and there’re skiffs on the beach.
Peabody is out of the castle and safe with Ethel in the tidal flats.
Da is coming. Said he had to pick up reinforcements and will be here with the constable.
But”—she emphasized—“the constable might be late.”
Rowan knew what that meant. The constable would finish his cuppa.
Polish his badge. Make sure his boots had a high shine and check in on his neighbor before making his way to the castle.
Everyone who’d grown up in Glentree understood: Man had their laws, and they’d be seen to, right after the laws of fairies were dealt.
“Two here,” Rowan whispered back. “One shot Cole.”
Holly’s eyes went wide. “Oh, fuck, is she OK?”
Rowan’s eyes closed, and he inhaled as Cole’s power pushed into him. This time, he didn’t try to hold it but pushed it out to those he was connected to.
“Aye, she’s fine. She’s not in danger of dying. But her shoulder was grazed by a bullet that was meant for her head. She’s still carrying Ormr within her, but that doesn’t mean she’s bulletproof.”
Holly was solemn for a moment, and then her eyes set on his. “After tonight, I’ve realized something keenly. I dunnae want to meet Ormr without Cole in the driver’s seat. He’s a nightmare come real.”
They were quiet for a moment as they agreed on how true that statement was.
Cole with Ormr was disturbing, and Ormr without her would surely be death unleashed.
Rowan understood now what historians tried to convey about berserkers—modern times had a narrow vocabulary for the brutality of those Vikings.
And he was glad he could stop having to explain to Holly why she shouldn’t wish for Ormr’s return.
“Aye,” he finally said.
From where they were crouched, they could see the flat grounds and meadow that Reggie had planted.
It was a point of pride, at Castle Laoch, that they could take Scotland back to its native roots, one plant at a time, setting a precedent for the rest of the ancestral estates.
All in that field the men were tramping through.
“There has to be at least ten more,” Rowan added.
“Aye. Those skiffs on the beach aren’t ours. I think they knew that it would raise suspicion if they tried to leave through Glentree. By boat, they’d never know.”
“Or it was part of Murdoch’s plan.”
Holly took a beat and then got it. “Ye mean that he’s trying to reenact that 1989 raid?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
Holly digested that. “He’s a nutter then?”
“A nutter hoping to receive the love he’ll never have from a father he never saw and a clan who doesn’t know who he is.”
“Dangerous. A love-hurt man wanting to burn the world.”
“All to win the hearts of men who don’t know he exists.”
“If you’re trying to make me feel bad for him…”
“No, but if you don’t understand the man yer up against, you’re on perpetual defense. And this time, I want to be on the offense.”
“Aye, right, well, they’ve guns, Offense,” she said, giving him a new nickname. “And you’re lit like the moon; once we’re out of the bush, they’ll shoot ye.” She looked around him to the men on the other side of the bushes, then back. “Best ye be my distraction and let me put them down.”
Looking past him, she gripped his arm as though she’d thought of something to add but let it go with a soft yelp: “Your skin is like ice.” Recovered, she said: “Over there, in the forest. What’s that, then?”
Rowan saw it too, a golden glow moving through the trees toward them. He squinted, but the picture didn’t clarify.
“Is that Cole? How’d she get there?”
Rowan inhaled, recognizing the connection. “Eli,” he breathed.
“No. Fucking. Way.” Holly made the sign of the cross before kissing her fingers.
Rowan grinned. “Now or never, Warrior.”
She grinned at her new nickname. “For what?”
“Retribution and a clan battle the likes of which we have never seen.”
“Oye. I need details; I’ve never been in battle!” she hissed.
“Aye: Knock the teeth out of these two. Lead the charge to flush these marauding eejits down to the boats.” He looked pointedly at her phone. “And text yer da. We’ll need water support.”
Before she could respond, Rowan erupted out of the brush with a screeching call that startled the two men there.
It triggered his clanspeople, who were, as he’d suspected, right behind Eli.
They swarmed out, their rudimentary weapons held high as their own skin-crawling screech returned their chief’s call.
Eli wielded his claymore replica. It glowed with golden light, as it had on the battle of the cairn knoll.
Rowan heard Holly curse from behind him, but she had his back.
Rowan leaned in, bringing his fist through with the power of his entire body, to connect with the first man’s cheek.
With a crack, he crumpled to the ground.
The second lifted his pistol. Holly’s hand was on the shaft, and she shoved his shooting hand down.
The man panicked and pulled the trigger, shooting himself in the leg.
He howled as Holly struck his nose with her forehead like a pro footballer, knocking him out.
Cursing from the banker’s invaders rose to a crescendo. Rowan heard the shout to “hit the boats.”
Holly released the magazine from the downed man’s gun, opened the slide, and popped out the chambered round. It hit the ground as Holly separated the handle from the shaft and threw the two pieces in opposite directions.
Rowan and Holly shared a glance. “I see yer da taught ye a few things before your mother came and got ye.”
Holly grinned. “Just a few things.”
Rowan watched the banker’s men scatter. “Let them flee,” Rowan said.
“The boats are loaded with artifacts from the dungeons and the fairy tower.”
That took Rowan a moment to process. The pickup had been full and now boats on the loch too?
He cursed resoundingly before looking for the pieces of the pistol. “Maybe we should’ve kept tha’.”
Eli worked his way toward them. He punched a man clean off his feet with his sword fist. Pleased with the power that surged through his magic-touched body, he stepped up to Holly and Rowan.
“Thanks, brother, for the power.” Eli held a golden hand out, and Rowan clasped it.
After a brief embrace, Rowan said, “Ye can thank your cousin for that.”
They both looked to where Cole was descending on Dick Murdoch.
The banker had tried to take the MacLaochs to their knees, using their finances as leverage, and when that didn’t work, he took a page out of their shared history.
He was still tied up behind the pickup, which Rowan now recognized as a mere decoy.
Love, he reached out to her.
Cole’s head snapped in his direction. He could see her glowing green eyes even at their distance. Ormr stood a full head height above her but was fading, a sign she was using less of his ancestral energy.
There are boats in the loch.
She nodded. I will come to you there. Be just a moment.
He pressed into her mind. You are not Ormr.
She understood his meaning. I won’t kill him.
Tha mo ghion ort.
And I you. She kissed her ring. The one on his own finger warmed with her breath.
Rowan returned the kiss before saying to Holly and Eli, “Come.”
Through the brush, along the stream’s edge, he led them down to the loch’s rocky black beach.
Holly said, “I want to glow too. Any chance I can get in on that? I am MacLaoch by blood. Can I be on Blue Team?”
Rowan came to the short drop-off where the stream emptied onto the beach in a small waterfall.
On the rocky beach, it meandered like a freshwater snake before fanning out and emptying into the loch.
He crouched, moved foliage out of the way, and inspected the beach.
Eli bent behind them, keeping watch on the hillside.
“Best we have at least one on this team that’s invisible, aye?” Eli whispered.
“True. But I’ll counter that feels a bit exclusionary.”
Rowan grinned. “As I’ve said before, Ms. Holly, be careful what you wish for.”
She was also peering out, counting the men and the two skiffs. “I’ve come to realize I’ve gotten everything I’ve wished for, so I’m making new wishes. It’s an auspicious night, feels right.”
Rowan gave her a dark grin. “Say yer prayers, conduct a blood ceremony, and have a witch make ye drink tha’ blood, and I bet ye can have Orabilia’s powers too.”
“Right.” Squinting into the distance, she revised: “On second thought, I’ll take my dark skin on this dark night and play to my strengths.”
“Didn’t like the blood-drinking part, eh?”
“Fucking repulsive.”
Turning his attention back out to the beach, Rowan murmured, “That’s a lot of open beach for us tae cover before we get to them.”
“They’ve not fired their guns,” Holly added.
“So they’ve maybe got loaded pistols.”
Rowan sighed, not liking that it was a mystery how many bullets were still out there.
Holly suggested, “We can skirt around the edges, then? Swim through the loch and come from behind?”
“We’ll be exhausted before we get to them,” Rowan explained.
“We need coverage.”
All three were quiet for a moment before Holly scooped up some water and let it drizzle back down into the low stream. “Any chance ye know a witch who can make fog?”
Rowan quieted his mind and sent the message to Cole.
“What now?” Holly asked.
“We wait.”
He looked back out to the black-rock beach from which he’d launched himself countless times to swim away the stress that plagued him.
Now, it all seemed like a distant memory as strange men wanting to tear down his castle and clan at the behest of a wealthy deranged banker swarmed it.
He could see from their perch the shadowy boats rising on the foam of the incoming tide. They’d timed it perfectly.
“I’m trying to think what my da would do,” Holly muttered.
“He was Jacky’s right-hand for a reason,” Eli said. He turned to Rowan with a grin. “He was always nice to Rowan and me, wasn’t he, Row? Even when he had to come get us when we took the boat out that one time.”
Rowan grinned up to Eli. “Oh, right.”
Holly asked, “Was it that ride on the Orkney current ye two took at eight?”
Eli’s low rumble of a laugh seemed to vibrate the air. “Oh aye.”
Rowan explained, “Holly’s ma brought her home before too much of Double-A’s city life rubbed off on her.”
“Yeah, well, I might have had some of it rub off on me when my mum and da first separated. Da didn’t take to losing Jacky so well, and Mum left him right after. Weekends in the big city were real enlightening.”
Rowan nodded and put a hand on Holly’s shoulder. “I’m glad he came home for ye, though.”
“Aye. He had his head up his arse for just a wee while.”
Eli asked, “Did your mum know of the city shenanigans?”
“Is my da still breathing?”
“Ahh. Right.”
Holly’s breath caught. “Oye, fuck.”
“Wha—”
She shook Rowan’s hand off her shoulder. “Is that…coming out of ye?”
Where he sat crouched next to the water, fog rolled off him. The tingle of Cole’s power was moving through him.
Holly encouraged him. “Here, hold yer hand out over the water.” Grasping his hand, she put his palm over the water.
“My mum says, set your intention into your mind, then connect it to your heart. Your heart is connected to your hand through your blood, so you must think hard about getting the fog tae build. It’s using the water. ”
“Right.” He wasn’t sure if it would work, but he knew it certainly wouldn’t if he didn’t try. A receptive vessel would work better than one just sitting like a lump.
Like a cat that had discovered a receptive petter, the fog wound around him and began to billow in earnest off the short waterfall and pour out over the beach.
Holly gave a tight, incredulous laugh. “I know I sounded sure of myself, but…I always thought she was full of it. Now I’ll have tae go apologize.
“Eli, go to Cole and TJ and help them sweep the men down onto the beach. We’ll take care of the boats.”
“Aye.”
“Let’s go—I can do this fog business while we walk.” And Rowan leaped.