LOCH MORAR, SCOTLAND
The Past
“Was that…that…man, your father?”
Clarion was silent a moment, too caught up in the horror of what he had just witnessed to speak again just yet.
Finally, he turned haunted eyes on Paige, and nodded.
“Aye, that was my sire.”
“Why did he do that?” She felt sick.
“I can no know his thoughts, but I could see his actions as ye witnessed as well.”
“I feel like I am going to be sick.”
“Aye,” he said. “I feel the same.”
“So, he made the dagger to use it against her?”
“Aye, it would seem so.”
“But why did he do it?”
“I can no say. Greed, lust, something sinful to be sure, but what his true intent was I do no know.”
“That was the gypsy that sent me back in time. Granted, she looks different, older, but I know it was the same woman. But how can that be?”
“I believe she is trying to seek her revenge.”
“Yeah, I get that. But what do I have to do with it?”
“Mayhap ye were no part of her plan and jes got mixed up in it somehow. Mayhap anyone would do. I do no know.”
Paige still felt sick. She couldn’t seem to get the awful vision from her mind. “That poor woman.”
“That thing is no real woman, lass,” Clarion said suddenly. “She, or rather, it, is something else entirely.”
“Well, maybe she is not, but what they did to her was unforgiveable.”
“Aye,” he agreed as a deep sadness settling upon him. “It is unforgiveable.”
Paige felt sick for Clarion, and herself, and that poor woman, or whatever she was; she didn’t deserve what they did to her. “But it wasn’t your fault…”
“I may not have been the one who did the foul deed to her, but I will be the one ta pay for it, I fear.”
“Wait. What?”
“I have ta get the dagger else my kin will all die.”
“And what does this have to do with Gavin?”
Clarion lifted his haunted eyes to hers. “He is my brother.”
Paige also knew that answer before he gave it to her, or rather, she was almost ninety nine percent sure of the answer but it still did not lesson the blow of hearing him say it out loud. “Oh, God.”
“Nay, lass.” He shook his head solemnly back and forth. “God has nothing ta do with this…this… foul business. It is much darker, I fear. It is evil.”
Paige gulped reflexively. “And what do you plan on doing?”
“It is an either-or situation.”
“What does that mean?”
“Either I kill the creature or the creature will kill not only me but my kin till our line is extinguished forever.”
“I see.” Actually, she didn’t see at all. Nothing made sense. Creatures, monsters, horrible things done to that poor woman that no woman should ever have to endure and for what? What? It didn’t make any sense, but neither did her traveling to the past in the first place and why did the gypsy or witch, send her here? Where did she fit in to all this…evil?
“Lass,” he said and then cleared his throat, seemingly finding it hard to talk suddenly. “She sent ye here for a purpose and I can promise ye, her intent was no pure. Do ye ken what I am saying ta ye?”
Oh, she kenned all right, but it still didn’t make a bit of sense to me and she said as much, “It still doesn’t make any sense.”
“I understand yer plight, however, ye are now part of this business whether ye want ta be or not.”
“So, um, what does that mean, for me and Gavin?” she asked, and added, “and you…”
It took a moment for him to answer but when he finally did, she kind of wished he had lied.
“We have ta kill the creature, or we will,” he stressed, the last, “die.”
“Including me?” Paige covered her mouth ashamed of her own selfish question.
“Aye, lass, including ye.”
“Oh.” Paige lowered down to the ground, trying to take a breath. She felt sick, and tired, and too many other things to list.
Clarion lowered to ground at her side and took hold of her cold clammy hand. “Lass, ye will be fine. I promise.”
That didn’t assuage her fears as much as Paige would have thought considering her previous albeit, very selfish, admission a moment ago. “I don’t want you or Gavin to die, either.”
His lips tilted up at the corners into a small sad smile. “I know.”
Her hands were shaking something fierce. She curled her fingers around his and placed her other hand on top as if to hold them in one place.
He put his other hand on top of hers and turned to look out across the field of grass shifting in the breeze.
His profile was so like Gavin’s it was hard discerning the two from one another with the exception of his eyes and that he had a ragged scar on the side of his neck.
“How did that happen? “Disentangling one of my hands from his hold, she reached up and touched the puckered skin with the tips of her fingers.
“Morag tried ta slit my throat.”
Paige gasped in horror. “Why would she do that?”
He shrugged indifferently. “I was no acting the way she wanted.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know it is a lot ta take in but the full blood moon will be rising soon.”
Paige reached out to touch his arm. Underneath she could feel something moving under the tips of her fingers and jerked her hand away. “What is wrong with your arm?”
He turned his head but not before she saw the look of sadness cross his face. She immediately felt horrible all over again.
“I…” He shook his head.
Paige grabbed hold of his arm again, purposefully putting her hand over the mark that was moving and as soon as her hand landed on top, another vision assailed us both.
♦
The wind tore at her hair, making it stand on end as the boat weaved and bobbed in the tumultuous waters. The men, the ones Paige had seen in the cabin in the previous vision were making their way up on the deck.
The woman, or creature, or whatever she was, was with them. Each of the four men had hold of either her arms or legs as they carried her to the upper deck where the storm was in full gale. Without a word they hoisted her up. She was steadily chanting some kind of gibberish that I could not understand.
The man named Nathanial lifted the hideous dagger in the air as the wind and rain sliced against him; he too said something but Paige couldn’t understand what it was.
And then to her horror, just like Callum and Muir had done to Paige at the loch, with a ‘heave ho’ they swung her out and released her body from their grasp, tossing her into the black swirling water below.