Chapter 37
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Ashudder went through me from Rowan. He needed coverage down on the beach. He asked for Ethel’s help, but Ormr had known the trick for fog, and using the power I was pushing into him, I also sent the words Ormr taught me.
I’d join Rowan on the beach, but the banker was at my feet.
“What do you want to do, Pipsqueak?”
“Murder.”
“Besides that?”
“Tie a rope around his neck and find a sturdy tree. Let us see how long it takes before his hatred becomes a plea for mercy.”
“Ormr, take a beat. Lemme talk with my sis.”
I grinned at him over my shoulder. “What would you do if he really took full control?”
“Impossible. Probably tell you jokes until you pissed yourself. You can fall down an elevator shaft but crawl right out with a well-told joke. Ormr could try to take over, but you’d come right back.”
I nodded. “Catnip. I love me a good laugh.”
“He’s gone now, and are you losing your glow?”
I looked at my arms. The pain in my shoulder felt stronger. “I think I am. Maybe I’m calming down? Do you want to arm wrestle?”
“No, thank you, ma’am.”
Over his shoulder, a golden, glowing Eli was moving toward us, then disappeared as he entered the shallow ravine.
He jumped over the wall, startling TJ.
“Ho-shit!” Clutching his shirt front, Tee leaned against me. “Damn near gave me a heart attack, man!”
Eli was grinning as he always did when we were together. The present we’d gotten a year ago of a newly found family relation was perpetually playing in our minds’ eyes.
Eli finally met my eyes and then glanced away. “Is there a being also attached to you? His outline is faint.”
Tee was keen to the fear caught in Eli’s gaze. “Ye-up.”
Eli leaned next to TJ’s ear and spoke.
TJ reassured him, “Yes, sir. She’s in the driver’s seat.”
“Come, Eli,” I said, holding my hand out to him. “We’ve fought together before. Let us resume our camaraderie.”
TJ amended as Eli clasped my hand, “Mostly.”
I grinned. “The fun part is that you can’t be sure who is driving at any given time.”
TJ gave me a dry look. “Don’t fuck with us, Pipsqueak.”
Movement at the rear of the pickup had TJ look around me and call out, “Whatcha doin’, Mac? I tied you up nice and purdy and now you’ve gone and wrecked it. Looks like someone helped you. Let’s correct that.”
Eli asked, “Why is he tied?”
“He is a liar and a thief. He is a dishonorable man with intentions that can only be done behind honorable men’s backs. Until his punishment can be decided, he must be detained.”
TJ gave me a look as if it was an overly long-winded answer.
“Let’s redo those ties, sir.” As TJ bent for him, I put my hand out, stopping him. Flames dripped off my pinkie. “Wait.”
TJ halted, throwing his hands up. “Hold up. There’s gasoline spilled everywhere, Pip.”
“I see.” Back to the banker, I said in Ormr’s baritone, “Is this what you wanted, Dick Murdoch? To burn us all to the ground?”
He was wriggling in earnest now, making TJ state the obvious. “He’s two seconds from slipping out of his ties.”
“And the time it takes for him to loose them, stand, and run for his life is the time he has to answer my question before my blade asks the next one.”
Eli butted in. “Please, Cole, tell Ormr, no killing.”
“Worry not, Cousin. I’ll only take what he’s not using. And his mind has been damaged for some time.”
“That is wholly unreassuring.”
I focused then on Dick, who was sweating and pushing off his ropes.
“I asked you, Banker Murdoch, was this what you desired? To burn us to the ground?”
He grunted and wriggled to all fours, then struggled to get to his feet.
TJ hissed in displeasure. I moved in, kicking the man in his rear, sending him sprawling into the gravel. As he rolled over, I walked a circle around him, the Ulfberht tip pointed at his abdomen.
“Do you wish to die here today?”
He grunted, pushing himself away from the blade and the fiery electricity that was actively dripping off me. “What— What are you?!”
“I asked you a question.” The blade nicked him, severing a button off his shirt as a wide paw grasped the front of my arm. Eli’s grip was firm on my bicep and stayed my hand.
“Cole. Cousin,” he whispered. “You are not a killer.”
I knew the hand I had to play, and with my brother close, I could do it in code. I didn’t want Eli to relax. To TJ, I said, “Death is the only confessional man knows.” Then, I gave my brother a TJ-class wink.
Eli gripped harder. “Death is no confessional!”
TJ pulled out his cell phone and moved to frame the banker in the lens.
“TJ!” Eli hollered, shocked. I yanked my arm out of his grip, and with two hands on the hilt of my redeemer, I swung down.
The banker screamed, “Yes! That was my intent!”
My blade stilled.
He was panting, his eyes darting to Eli, TJ, and reluctantly to me. “You deserve nothing, you MacLaochs. Death will be too kind a mistress for your chief. The hell made for the Murdochs ends today. By me! I did this!” He gave a small hiccup as laughter and fear blended in his diaphragm.
Eli’s hand was back on my arm, this time on my forearm, and gently pressed it down.
Surprised, I took my eyes off the banker to study Eli’s profile. He was beyond livid. He, I realized, hadn’t heard Dick spouting his nutter hatred before.
Murdoch knocked my blade to the side; it sizzled when he touched it, and with a yelp, he scrambled to his feet before taking off down the drive. He screamed something incoherent as he blasted away from us.
“He’s out of his nut,” Eli said, astonished.
Coming up the driveway at a good clip was Rowan’s SUV.
“Uh-oh,” I whispered.
Too late, the driver saw the running banker in their headlights and slammed on the brakes. The tires caught, and the vehicle slid on the gravel, bumping Dick Murdoch. He flopped against the hood as the driver in the car screamed. We heard Dick groan before he fell back onto the ground.
Mickey stepped out and looked at the man on the ground and then at us. I watched him take in the ethereal glow and the fire behind us. He gave a shrug that seemed to encompass the entirety of the situation and called to us, “Got him.”
Charmaine was next to him, taking in the sight of the man’s prone body then the fire encircling the castle.
“What in god’s name…” Then her eyes found me.
TJ was sprinting for her as her eyes rolled up into the back of her head. He caught her just before her face hit the gravel.
Mickey stepped over the banker, adjusting his cuffs. “What’d I miss, chaps?”
“Gilliansson,” I commanded to Mickey and heard Ormr in my words, “how deep does your contempt for the elder Gilliansson go?”
Mickey cleared his throat as if hearing his name in Norse tradition, with the -son at the end of it, made him want to run and he was swallowing down that desire. “To the bone.”
“Then tonight is the night you’ll get retribution. The clan has flushed him and his men down to the loch.”
Mickey’s handsome symmetrical features contorted with suppressed venom as his lip lifted. “Death or prison?”
“You’ve earned my respect. I’ll give that decision to you.”
Eli was clearheaded. “Prison. No death, please. This is not a thirteenth-century fight.”
I held my arms out to Eli so he could see my glow and his own. “It is not?”
He grimaced. “Magical, yes. Thirteenth century? No.”
TJ joined us. “Charmaine”—he tossed his thumb behind him—“will wait for the constable. What’d I miss?”
“Tee, it’s time.” I grinned. “Gopher hole.”
He blinked, then smiled, understanding the context shift. “They’ve gone to ground?”
“Down to the loch.”
The gold in his gaze sparked with mischief. “Then it’s Foxhole.”
“They’re escaping on boats,” I argued.
“Then Pirates.”
“Goddamn it, Gopher Hole. They’re scrambling into the brush.”
“Foxhole Pirates!”
I could feel my hair crackle. “Gopher. Hole. Flush them out.”
“Gopher Hole, with Foxhole Pirates.”
I could feel the ground shake with my frustration. “Fucking Gopher Hole.”
Eli put a hand on TJ’s shoulder to stop his rebuttal. “Tha’s enough.” His eyes were on me and scared.
TJ patted Eli’s hand. “Don’t worry, big guy,” he said as Mickey backed away. “The key to Gopher Hole is to blast the varmints out of their holes. I’m assuming that she can’t do that if she’s calm.” He grinned at Eli. “Isn’t that right, Pipsqueak?”
Gritting my teeth at his asinine antics, I went to the low walkway wall where Rowan had disappeared earlier. I put the Ulfberht against my back, where it tucked into its metaphysical scabbard. Clapping my hands together, I shot lightning through the sky.
I heard TJ behind me. “Fuck yeah.”
TJ was a real dick, but he was effective.
I had to get down to Rowan; I could feel his struggle in the fog, his worry that Holly would get another damaging hit to her face, and his concern for the Whisky Boys, that they might fall on the rocky shore and break a hip.
His siphoning off my energy was new for him, and even as I fed him the dying fires from behind me, I could feel the toll it was taking on him.
The boys followed me down through the brush to the low ridge that formed a natural storm wall. The fog was so thick, I couldn’t see my own hand.
Ethel’s voice whispered over my skin as if carried by the fog: When the fire is out, this castle will crumble. The energy in its stones is the only power left to feed you. When that fire dies, stop, or it will cost MacLaochs everything. The castle will fall.
Anxiety rolled through me; now we were in trouble.
And yet… “Gopher Hole,” I whispered and concentrated. It wouldn’t take much more energy…I hoped.
“Remember, Pipsqueak.”
“Please dunnae antagonize your sister,” Eli whispered.
“What? Pipsqueak?”
“Aye.”
“That’s her nickname, and the name I’m using to keep myself from shitting my pants—again—today.”
I turned from the fog below us on the beach to grin at him. I could see him but could barely make out Eli. TJ gave me a matching grin in return.
“Is it the eyes?” I asked.
“They’re beautiful—”
“Thanks!”
“—for a space alien.”
The fog cover crackled. “Asshole.”
He just waved to the fog and antagonized me further. “Batshit crazy-looking goblin alien.”
I sucked in air as I watched his stupid face retrain his focus and squint into the distance.
“Not working.”
Turning back toward the beach, I opened my arms. I felt the soil beneath my feet all the way to the cairn knoll and north to the end of MacLaoch land. I connected to the root system of every flower, shrub, and tree then, using that energy pushed it out like a wall of light.
I heard TJ whisper to Eli behind me, “Bloody fucking hell, I feel that in my bones.”