Dark Embrace (5 page)

Brie pulled the first of two hundred and thirteen volumes, and as she typed in the words
Aidan of Awe
in the search box, she said, “Nick, it's Brie. Please call me at home. Thanks.”

Her search yielded zero results, and she pulled the next volume and repeated the search. On her fourth search, a sudden nausea began, and Brie cried out. The floor tilted wildly, accompanied by a terrible feeling of dread.

And the vision began.

She gripped the arms of the desk chair tightly, no longer aware of her surroundings, entirely focused on what she was meant to see. Aidan was lying on his back. He was bare-legged, wearing high boots and clad in a leine and black cloak, the latter pinned to one shoulder and belted. His hands were folded atop the belt, which held two huge swords. The image sharpened. He was asleep, his eyes closed, his face relaxed, at peace. The necklace he wore became apparent, as if her mind's eye had zoomed in on it. A fang, capped with gold, lay against the hollow of his collarbone.

He turned into stone, becoming an effigy atop a tomb.

She sprang to her feet, crying out.

Tabby was hovering over her. “What did you see?”

Brie hardly heard her. She could not have seen what she had! Her premonitions were never wrong. She looked at Tabby, aghast. “I saw him in stone effigy, atop a medieval tomb.”

Tabby took her hand. “Brie, he's from the fifteenth century,” she said carefully.

“So what? Allie is still alive, isn't she? And he was alive the other day!” she cried. And her grandmother's ring began pinching her.

Brie had been wearing Sarah's garnet ring since she was thirteen. Sarah had always claimed it would protect her and enhance her gifts. She twisted it nervously, aware of desperation surging. Tabby said, “Honey, he
is
alive, somewhere, farther in the past. But we can't time-travel like they do.”

Brie stared at her. She wanted him to be alive right then and there. “My visions are a tool. They're meant to help others. Why did I have that vision?” she cried.

“I don't know. Brie, would you please rest? And eat?” Tabby returned to the kitchen, then set a sizzling plate before her. Brie had been hungry earlier; now, she had no appetite.

“I'm going to go,” Tabby said. “I haven't been home in three days. The neighbor's been taking care of the cats and the plants. And I really need a shower.”

Brie stood to hug her. Tabby looked as if she was on her way to take tea at Buckingham Palace. “I'm fine. Thank you for everything.”

When Tabby was gone, Brie—almost desperate—went on to her next search, and the words
Aidan of Awe
produced a result. She froze in sheer disbelief. Then, her heart leaping painfully in her chest, she hit the enter key. She quickly skimmed down the first page and began to read.

Brie couldn't see the page, for her vision suddenly blurred. The terrible Wolf of Awe could not be her Aidan. Her Aidan was a Master of Time, sworn to protect Innocence through the ages, a mighty hero defending mankind from evil, upholding God. And Aidan could not hang. He would simply vanish into the future or the past.

Except he had been badly hurt.

She started to cry, but wiped the tears away. She read the next sentences.

She was so upset she was shaking. She looked at the plate Tabby had set down before her and wanted to wretch. Picking the plate up, she carried it to the kitchen, set it down and leaned hard on the counter. What did all of this mean?

If she went to Loch Awe now, would she find the tomb and effigy she'd seen in her vision?

The Wolf of Awe had been
hanged.
He was cruel, mercenary. Surely he was not the same man.

But in her vision of him, she had seen her Aidan before he'd turned into stone. He'd worn a wolf's fang.

Good humans were possessed every single day and then they committed unspeakably evil acts.

Brie moaned. Had Aidan become the Wolf of Awe? Was it somehow possible?

Her head exploded with pain. Brie stepped behind the counter into her kitchen, opening the refrigerator to chug a glass of wine. She was shaking like a leaf.
What had happened to him?

Brie slammed the refrigerator door closed. She had to know what was in that Level Four file. She grabbed her purse and keys and stormed from the loft. If Nick wasn't at his office, she'd wait.

 

H
E FELT THE MOON SETTING
for the third time.

Aidan slowly came back to the tower room, a dark despair clawing at him. This hunt had lasted three days and he had not found anything.

He blinked and adjusted his eyes to the dark, shuttered room. As the swirling black evil and the cries of innocence faded, he became aware of his body and his power. All sense of euphoric invincibility was gone. Most of what he had taken three nights ago was gone. The power in his body was hardly ordinary; it was that of the son of one of the greatest deamhanain ever known to Alba. He was arrogant enough to think he might, even without the extra life coursing through him, be capable of defeating a lesser god.

Still he was tired. His body and his mind begged him for rest, but it was time to think of other, worldly matters. He commanded an army of four thousand men—some soulless humans, others fierce Highlanders. He usually sold his army's services to the highest bidders, and had done so for the past sixty-six years. He didn't care about the land, the mortal power—although he needed the gold to maintain his army, but he took vast pleasure in every single battle. If he could not engage Moray, he would go to war and relish destroying his other enemies, one by one.

The MacDonalds were marching on Inverness, a royal garrison, and he was joining the rebels, as Malcolm had said. He had personally helped Donald Dubh, their imprisoned leader, escape from Innischonnail, where the Campbell had imprisoned him. Argyll had been infuriated. Had Ian lived, he would have been pleased and proud.

A cry of alarm filled the tower.

Aidan was on his feet, bewildered, unbelieving.

He had met her once in the future, perhaps seventy years ago, and had not thought of her since then. Now he recalled a small woman with white powers, dressed in shapeless garments and ugly spectacles.

Why had he just heard Brianna Rose cry out in alarm? How had he just seen her frightened face so clearly? He had ceased hunting evil through time.

No other cries resounded, but he could feel darkness now, encircling her.

Tension riddled his body. He did not protect Innocence; he used it ruthlessly for his own means, for the attainment of power. He did not want to know what was happening to her. He simply did not care about other people's problems.

She screamed.

It was a scream of fear and pain; he knew she'd been wounded.

He did not think. He leapt.

 

S
TILL DEVASTATED BY THE IDEA
that Aidan had become the Wolf of Awe, Brie hurried down the block. Dusk was approaching and she knew she had better not be caught outside. The city wasn't safe after dark and although the mayor's curfew was voluntary, very few of the city's denizens disobeyed it. Every shop on the street had already closed, except for the grocery store on the corner, and they were pulling their blinds.

She started to run. She couldn't recall ever being this upset, not even when Allie had vanished into time last year. But she had known that Allie's journey to the past was her Fate, she'd even seen the golden Highlander coming for her. This was entirely different.

The Book, handed down from generation to generation of Rose women, was very clear on the matter of Fate. It could never be defied by a mortal. Only the gods could rewrite it—and they never entirely did.

But sometimes events happened that were not in The Game Plan and the Gods corrected things when they went awry. Eventually, what was meant to be would happen.

Brie prayed that the historian she'd read had gotten all his facts wrong, or that her vision was wrong. She began to think that maybe she'd better go to Scotland and check out the tomb there, but she was really afraid of what she'd find. And why was her grandmother's ring bothering her? It had always fit perfectly, but now it was pinching her.

Brie stared at the ring. “This is meant to happen, isn't it?” she murmured.

Her grandmother had passed away a decade ago, at the ripe old age of 102. She'd been in full possession of her faculties right up until she'd taken her last breath. When she passed away in her sleep, Brie had somehow known her time had come and spent the night at her grandmother's Bedford, New York, house. Sarah Rose had died smiling, and Brie often felt her presence.

She felt her now. “I mean, I could have felt all that pain and anguish last year or the year before—but I felt it now, for a reason. He needs me. I'm supposed to help him.” She thought about her crush. Had she become infatuated with him so she could help him? “Why else would I feel him so strongly?”

She felt her grandmother's benevolence. If Sarah approved, Brie was on the right path, she thought. That only made her more determined to get into that Level Four file.

A shadow fell across the pavement directly in front of her.

Her heart seemed to stop with alarm. In a moment the sun would be vanishing beneath the horizon and the city would be lost in the gloom of the night. She'd never make it all the way to CDA.

A teenage boy stood in front of her, smiling maliciously.

He was pale, pimply and wore a long black cloak, marking him as a member of gangs who reputedly burned “witches” at the stake.

Brie breathed. “Get lost!” she cried, even though she was terrified. “It's light out!”

“Not for much longer.” He snickered.

She tensed as three more teenage boys barred her way, all of them ghostly white, their lips nearly purple, wearing the same long black cloaks, as if they'd come from the Dark Ages.

She knew all about the ongoing investigation into these gang members at CDA. The “sub-demons,” or subs, as they were often called, were human, with normal DNA and very real identities. They were missing boys and girls, belonging to distraught family members, but, robbed of their souls, they were pure evil.

Brie whirled to run, and faced two more leering teens in black hoods and cloaks. She was in big trouble. She prayed that Tabby and Sam would sense it and come to her rescue. And simultaneously, she thought about Aidan. It was instinct. If he was near, he had the power to save her.

“She's fat and ugly,” one boy said. “Let's find someone else.”

Brie didn't want to die, but she didn't want anyone else to die, either. She glanced back over her shoulder at the setting sun and cried out. The sky was mauve now, the sun out of sight. In another moment or so, dusk would become night and she would be killed.

Brie tried to run.

They let her. She ran as hard and fast as she could, across the empty street, aware of them laughing with malicious glee. Hope began when she didn't hear their footsteps behind her. She was going to make it. She didn't know why they'd let her go and she didn't care.

Suddenly three different boys appeared in front of her and barred her way, grinning. She tripped, crashing into them, but was seized from behind and pulled ruthlessly up against a lean and young male body.
They had only let her go to torture her.

She fought wildly, writhing, her mind exploding into shards of terror. Her captor jerked on her so hard that something inside her snapped. Brie screamed in pain and fear.

The boy holding her laughed. The pimply-faced blond boy held a knife and he hooked it into her jeans, jamming it through the denim. She felt blinded by her terror. The steel met the sensitive flesh of her belly. He said, “Witch. You're a real one, ain't you? You reek of witchcraft!”