As Slocum and the old mage began to move towards the bloodied chamber doors, a much shaken Eric grabbed Reggie’s arm. “He’s back to normal. Human again. No sign of the Rakshasa demon. How’s that possible?”
“Eric, I really don’t know. He’s never had to go through an entire moon cycle before. Maybe it comes in waves, set off by strong emotion. More importantly, can you tell which woman he saved?”
“N-no. He’s blocking her with his body. I can’t even see her hair. It could be any of them. My god, there’s a lot of blood.”
“Oh dear. Three of the chambers are leaking blood. That certainly can’t be good. Look, Eric, you’d better go stand over there; I don’t want you to see this. Go!” Reggie waited until the teenager retreated across the room, and then he turned, using the bulk of his body to block Eric’s view. He and Ben Slocum pried open the door on one of the chambers, the bloodiest of the three, and slumped before the open cavity, unable to hide their crushing grief. The young woman inside was quite dead. “Oh my god. This is absolutely horrible. Who is this poor dear child?”
With tears pouring down his beefy sun-burnt face, it was obvious Ben Slocum knew. “Alice Perkins.” Unable to pull his horrified eyes from the mom with the short red hair’s skewered body, he choked out a little more. “She was our town nurse. God, I wonder if Bill and her two little kids are all right.”
“So our two unfortunate ladies are in the remaining chambers. God, I wish I could see which one he saved.”
“He made his choice, Reggie,” Ben patted the old mage on his purple shoulder. “I just hope it was the right one. I don’t envy him. He’s going to have to live with this.” They closed the door together, leaving the impaled young woman’s body inside. Rising together, they hurried to the next chamber.
* * * *
“Reggie!”
Stuck off to one side, Eric was the first to notice a change in MacLeod. The big shape-shifter was shoving aside some furniture and stalking with his unconscious burden toward a previously hidden door.
“What is it Eric?” Reggie gave the teenager the smallest notice, concentrating his attention on the jammed door of the second chamber. “I’m a little busy at the moment.”
“It’s Jamie. He’s changing into a beast again. And he’s leaving!”
That got Reggie’s attention, and he turned, leaving the stubborn chamber door to Slocum. What he saw horrified him.
Jamie was indeed preparing to carry his choice away, but from what Reggie saw of the woman, perhaps the lucky ones were still bleeding out in the chambers. The poor woman’s hair was mostly gone, hacked off or pulled out. What few wisps remained were blood-drenched. Her face was grotesquely distorted: the nose broken, lips split and puffy, eyes swollen shut. There were cuts and bites all over her body. Even from across the room, he could tell that at least one arm was broken and all of her fingers. The ones she still seemed to have. Which woman she was: Kat, Lacey, or Kalini was anybody’s guess. There was just so much blood.
“Jamie! Where do you think you’re going with her? That poor woman needs immediate medical attention! I can see two or three serious wounds from here! She needs immediate medical attention. Get her an emergency flight out of here! Think man, think!”
“I am thinking Reggie!” Jamie roared. “The damned phones don’t work! And in case you haven’t noticed, nobody is being allowed to leave this island! Look at her Reg! She’s hurt really bad. She hasn’t got another hour of life in her! There’s only one thing I can do!” Jamie turned and began to head towards the door. As he did Reggie realized their emotional shouting match had sped up Jamie’s shift. The man’s appearance was far from human. As he moved towards the door, the bestial shift continued.
“Jamie, wait! There must be something we can do together. Let me try my magic. Wait!” But the old witch was too late, shouting now to a closed door. Defeated and exhausted, he slumped were he knelt, mumbling that at least Jamie could have told him which one he’d saved, his lady or his tigress.
“Doc–you’ve got to come see this! I don’t believe it!” Slocum had kept working on the chamber door while Jamie and Reggie had their shouting match. Now, as the door slammed wide open, he’d made a startling discovery. As Reginald turned to peek inside, he felt the feeblest glimmer of hope begin to spark.
Chapter 57
Even as he carried her away from the others and through the hidden door, her torn arms wrapped tightly round his neck, her weeping face pressed against his hairy cheek. Eyes nearly swollen shut, blinded by bleeding tears, she kissed him openly. Her hot tears washed away some of her blood, exposing ugly bruises and a rash of cuts covering her ruined face. Jamie hoped what he was going to do would work; he really had no other choice. She was hurt far worse than the others guessed. There’d really never been a question of choice; he’d willingly sacrificed the other two women he loved just to save this one. The one now dying in his arms. Shoving aside his own chaotic urges, he held her in one arm while he bent to remove his weapons, then strode with determined steps across the room, his sharp nails clicking on the cold stone floor. He had to try. She might not survive; most didn’t. She was so weak. But he had to try. He was almost out of time. It had to be now. As soon as he was done, he’d shove her out the door to the safety of the others. Lock himself inside. Keep the beast away from her until it was safe. The change was coming fast now. Too fast. An emotional landslide. He moved closer to her. Bent his head over her, getting ready. She forced open blood sticky eyes and whispered I love you through broken lips. He didn’t answer, but moved in closer. It had to be now. Tears bright in a battered face, questions begging on trembling lips, Lacey looked up into the face of the man she loved, saw what he’d become, and screamed.
Continue the Legacy of Terror series with The Blackest Heart. Please enjoy the first two chapters
Chapter One
High in the sky over Grim Island a sharp-eyed raven patrolled the ragged coastline south of Lost Hope light, scouring the rocky scrub for any sign of food. Though an early winter morning, the usual clinging fogbanks had blown out to sea, and the scavenger's beady black eyes could see for miles in any direction. He floated over the abandoned shell of the old lighthouse, silent witness to so much gruesome slaughter. This was an unfriendly coast of jagged rocks, violent storms and foul deeds. Yet not all the deaths involved the angry sea. In recent years, this had been a favored killing ground for at least one serial killer, and in the dead of night, far worse things stalked the lonely shore. The raven flew on, pumping wings with tattered feathers the color of filmy oil bleeding into a shimmering puddle. He dropped down lower, inspecting some burnt out auto wreckage spewed across the empty road at Goosefish Beach. A few low level passes and he began to climb; confident he’d ignored nothing but a sizeable splatter of dried blood. Banking hard to port, he screamed in low over the sparkling snow, checking out the blood trails and frozen lumps that crept up toward the front door of Principal Sweetling’s brooding mansion. The Paine estate, once the private lair of Jeremiah Paine, infamous founding father of Grim Island. He'd been a wealthy self-indulgent man, a hard cruel Yankee, and a man of most unusual tastes. Principal Sweetling, Paine’s most recent fruit, had not fallen far from his ancestral tree. If anything, it was rumored this latest bloated fruit had been born already rotten to the core.
Although the melting snow was beginning to exhale misty steam, the raven was attracted by a bleeding lump he’d spied across the marsh. Nearly blinded by the early morning sun glancing off the hundred grimy windows of the abandoned asylum, the carrion bird spied a tender morsel just below the one dark rectangle in that blazing wall of light. In a forgotten structure deserted as long as this one, at least half the windows should have been smashed, the crumpling brick walls held up by overlapping runes of foul graffiti. Yet there were almost no broken windows, obscene drawings, or discarded trash; as though the islanders instinctive
ly shunned the place, going well out of their way to avoid walking in its shadow. Not only man, but all the natural creatures of the surrounding woods and marsh skirted the place, although the neglected grounds were festooned with rusting vehicle hulks and crumbling ruins, perfect for animal lairs. Still, it was extremely rare to see any furry creatures hiding there. Those few were usually quite still; quaking in terror or violently dead. Like the crow’s rigid lump. Something big and furry had burst out through a third story window and lay face down in the snow, oozing an irresistible stench. The raven flew higher up the crumbling brick wall and fluttered to a watchful rest atop the rust and slate roof. Hopping across crusty rivets, it stationed itself on the guano stained head of a sentinel gargoyle, and took a long cautious look at its lifeless meal below. The demonic duo that’d financed much of the building of this facility for the Criminally Insane had possessed an odd sense of humor. Undoubtedly, Dyer and Paine thought themselves quite clever when they adorned the face of each of the thirty-nine gargoyles with the visage of a particular mental aberration. Had the raven cared as he picked at the festering rash on his denuded chest, he was squatting on Murderous Rage. Judging his dinner truly dead, he withdrew his ragged beak from his own stippled flesh and fluttered down to stalk up to the stinking corpse. It was obviously not human. Darting pecker full of steaming gobbets of flesh, it didn’t matter to him. He would’ve gorged himself until he couldn’t fly. A random chunk of brick bounced off the corpse and drove him skyward with an annoyed squawk. He settled seconds later, still intent on feeding. The second chunk bounced off his rump, and sent him winging angrily up the old brick wall. Clinging to a copper downspout stained with rich verdigris; he had a clear view in through the shattered window. Looking through the rectangle of broken glass, the raven saw a fat man giggling and capering in the mouth of the yawning hole. Was this one of the drooling felons left behind, forgotten when they closed the asylum forty years ago? The raven didn’t care, but cawed angrily at being cheated of a ready meal. Glaring right at the dancing idiot, he squawked again, before winging further south in quest of easier prey.
* * * *
Gerald Sweetling had every reason to be smugly self-satisfied. His plans had worked out perfectly. After months of planning, he’d finally enjoyed the prim Miss Rodriguez. Throw in the unexpected bonus of the other two ladies, and he felt like an ecstatically bloated kid wandering out of a devastated Candy shop. Add to that the fact that he’d managed to elude MacLeod; leaving the frustrated detective to make a hasty life or death choice before his screaming curse devoured him. Ah, life could be so diabolically sweet!
He couldn’t help but wonder which one MacLeod had finally picked. He’d left all of Jamie’s ladies bound and gagged in a long line of engineering marvels. He’d taken great pride in maintaining his adopted ancestor’s Confessionals of Death. Each tight metal chamber was fitted with a slowly advancing gear-driven wall of knives, enough to drive a screaming confession out of the most resolute of throats. Gerry had thrust MacLeod’s three women in random chambers, and charged the cop to pick one to save. Releasing his chosen prize would have triggered the knives in the remaining chambers to spring forward, plunging straight into the hearts of his two abandoned lovers. But which had he chosen to live? O'Hara, Rodriguez, or the pretty Indian woman?
Gerald tittered to think the fool might have picked the school teacher. How ironic if MacLeod saved her, sacrificing his other two precious women, only to have his chosen love bleed out in his arms. But then, of course, the moon was already working on MacLeod. The detective had been half-beast when he’d confronted Sweetling in the room full of stuffed creatures. As the dying moon weakened, his bestial shift would intensify. How delightful if he lost control and took the life he’d just saved, savaging her in his primal lust. Damn! If only Gerry could know which one he’d picked. He was half tempted to stop, turn around and sneak back to spy on that cluster of inept friends. What were there, five survivors? And two of them were kids. No–he’d better not. He threw his last chunk of brick after the departing crow, and chugged on down the damp sea tunnel to safety. Knowing what was going on behind him would’ve been delightful to watch, but if MacLeod had shifted, he’d be in a murderous rage, and if there was one thing that Principal Gerald P. Sweetling valued most, it was his own precious hide.
Chapter Two
There is an ancient highland legend that claims an old laird of the Western Isles took a young bride of such incredible beauty that after their wedding night he was never able to sleep. He kept one eye open at all times, convinced she’d betray his love, or be carried off and ravaged. The maid, with no wealth of her own, clung to her grey chieftain, if not deeply in love, at least fiercely loyal. The highland laird engaged a witch from the far eastern region of Hindustan, as much a master of the blade as of the Dark Arts. In time, the old man, at last confident that his wife was truly his, had her trained to fight with a sword so that she might defend her honor when he was called away. As his clan was large, and his holdings vast, the laird was more often away than not. The maiden learned to love the blade, and like many a Scot, delighted in the skirl of swordplay, the spatter of hot blood. Very soon the chieftain’s chest swelled with pride; his lady had become the most skilled warrior to stand beneath his banner. She fell deeply in love with battle. She yearned for the sounds and sights of war, the drenching bath of gore. At the same time, she also fell in love with her dashing blade master from far across the Arabian Sea. Hakim Akbar Abdullah.
Filled with pride in the accomplishments of his treasured student, Abdullah gave her a beautiful curved scimitar. Its blade glittered bright, sacred fish scales worked into the much folded steel. The cross guard was solid brass, ending in roaring tiger heads. The covering for the hilt was fashioned from some rough hide, neither beast nor human flesh, wrapped in fine gold wire. Perched atop the pommel was a snarling Rakshasa’s head with fiery sapphires for the eyes. This was an exquisite scimitar, light and graceful. Deadly.
Time passed and their growing love would not be checked. Together they plotted the old laird’s death, though in truth, it was she who plunged the nameless dirk. They fled east, hoping to escape by booking passage on a southerly bound carrack out of Aberdeen. But that very foggy night, Abdullah’s horse plunged into a bog hole, shattering a leg. After mercifully killing his mount, they were forced to spend the night on the fog-shrouded moors while she nursed Abdullah's own sprained ankle. They burnt no peaty fire; instead for warmth, they made love beneath a gibberish moon, rutting in the crumpled heather. The old chieftain’s clansmen caught them there, attracted by their noisy love-making.
The lovers fought like mated lions, slaying many of their hunters, enduring many wounds. At last they both lay dying, their lives bleeding out on soggy ground. Weakly, Abdullah looked at his fading lover, and as she grabbed his arm and kissed his cooling lips one last time; she winked. He muttered five strange words before both fell dead.
* * * *
After severing Abdullah’s head, the bloodied clansmen turned their attention to the old chief’s bride. Living or dead, they’d been instructed to bring her back to the new laird, the old one’s eldest son. Smiling at one another, they moved in on the woman. Afterwards, they never spoke of what each had done before she died.
Seven hearty men turned to leave the boggy moor. The last bent to pick up the woman’s foreign sword, now strangely black and cold. As soon as his fist closed on the hilt, he screamed, pulling away fingers bloody with bursting sores. Three more of his comrades tried to hold the blade. All failed to heft it, shrieking in their agony. Shaking his head in disbelief, their leader stepped forward, throwing an old tartan rag across the cursed hilt, but as he bent to retrieve the sword, the blade began to scream. It was a young woman’s voice they all knew too well. Their murdered mistress shrieked a bloody rage. Forcing himself to endure the searing pain, the leader threw the blasted sword as far into the
moor as his throbbing arm allowed. As lively as they could, all the clansmen scattered across the moor, like swamp mice before a hungry osprey. With his dying words, the young sorcerer had bound his lover’s soul within the cursed blade. Immortal now, she would forever crave the sound of battle, the stinking taste of split bowels and fresh spilt blood. The sword lay forgotten on the moor, buried beneath an age of soggy rot, until the one who could hold it, began to wield the blade. That was the legend, but of the sword named Thirst, there were many fanciful tales. A few were true, most were definitely not.
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