Some Enchanted Dream: A Time Travel Adventure (Seasons of Enchantment Book 2) (38 page)

"Tara . . .
Tara
!" She heard her husband's voice shrieking from far below.

The terrifying memory of being seized thus as a child consumed her. Tara struggled to tamp down her panic as she wriggled and fought to be released by her captor.

The sound of thunderous wings followed them. "Let her go, you piece of shite or I'll send you to hell." 

Hands grappled with her captor, and then Mick's furious soot darkened face came into view beside her. The men were both gripping her with one hand and fighting with the other.

"A female, of the Irish Starling mound! We need females to breed," her captor hissed.

"Over my burning body," Mick reached up to gouge the eye of her captor.

Tara took that instant to summon lightning to gather around them.

The wind picked up and the air zinged and sizzled with electricity. Blue arcs streaked across the sky and shot toward them as a sensation of power replaced Tara's terror.

"That's it, lass." Mick pushed his thumb into the Darkling's eye. It flinched and let go of her to reach up to palm its wounded eye.

She started to fall but Mick's hand seized her forearm in an iron grip, stopping her fall to earth. He'd broken away from their enemy at the last instant, just as arcs of lightning hit the dark one and sizzled over its body. The fey dropped like a great burning bird from the sky.

Another dark fey slammed into them and broke them apart. Tara was falling to the earth.
Mick shrieked as blue streams of energy surrounded him and trapped him within the churning, glowing ball of fire. Tara was born up again by clawed hands.

"Let go of me, you arrogant ass. I'll hurt you!"

"You can try, little fey child. Try very hard. I like a struggle with my females, and I always win." It was hideous as it stared down at her with glowing sapphire eyes and jagged teeth. The face before her was ancient, and thus, incredibly powerful.

"Try this, dickhead," she fairly spat the words in his face and let her arms raise to the sky. She felt the power flowing through her as it had twice before, the searing, teeth numbing energy heralding a time-jump was about to ensue. Tara knew she had to take him somewhere else, fast. He was the leader of this tribe of miscreants, an ancient fey with strength beyond what her brothers or her human family could hope to overcome.

"I'll enjoy taming you to my tastes, and getting you with child. We need breeders like you."

His words revived her panic. Tara desperately tried to think of a place where he would not be a threat to her family. Adrian would die before he let this thing have her.

Massive explosions beneath them drowned out all sound. The skies roiled with angry storm clouds. Lightning crackled and sizzled around them.

The burning, electrifying sting over her teeth and skin told Tara they were jumping back to another time.

The old fey male snarled and growled as the lightning bolts snapped at his body from all sides, underscoring her fury. He dropped Tara as the lightning ignited his wings. His screeching filled her ears as he grabbed fistfuls of air to try to stop his fall.

People in a field below them scattered. She looked about, and tried to think of lying on that soft mound of plant cuttings they had piled high. The translocation worked. Her fall stopped and she was lying on the pile of pulled bean plants.  

She knew this place. It was the Inca ruins, the ancient site where she'd spent a summer digging up bones and artifacts. But it wasn't modern Peru. The temple in the distance was not in ruins. It looked fairly new as it rose up from the mists and vibrant green foliage.

Incan warriors emerged from a the far edges of the field, their gleaming spears held up to attack the winged intruder covered in soot who fell from the sky. The dark fey was slapping at his burning black wings, shrieking like a demon, unaware he was being rounded upon by warriors from another time.

A few brave laborers came to peer at her. They were simple farmers, perhaps slaves. Seeing she was human, they helped her down from the high pile of exhausted bean bushes they were stacking to set to the flame. They spoke in a language she couldn't understand, but their gestures were not threatening.

The most god-awful cries came from further afield, as the warriors surrounded the dark fey with burning black wings and stabbed him repeatedly with their bronze tipped spears while others hacked at his body with gleaming copper hatchets.

Copper,
one of the seven metals of alchemy! Mixed with tin, another pure metal element used in alchemy, it became bronze. She saw the dark one go down and not rise again.

Tara looked around as she realized her clothing was far too modern for this time period. She was in the ancient past, when Mesoamerican regions of central and south America were inhabited by millions of indigenous peoples. It was before the European explorers vanquished them. These laborers were wearing white woven skirts that went to the knee and crude sandals on their feet.

She removed the heavy wool cap and let her hair fall about her shoulders to reveal she was a woman. Startled gasps came from all around. They gazed at her with wonder, and one warrior who had joined them had the temerity to touch her hair and lift it in his palm with astonishment. Apparently red-haired women were not known in these parts.

The group of warriors jaunted over to look at her, having left a few men to guard the dying demon, or what they must believe was a demon in their culture.

Okay, now what do I do?
She took a few deep breaths and thought through the possible scenarios. If she displayed magic, they might kill her, too. If she were meek and quiet, a little shaken and perhaps grateful for their intervention, she might survive this road trip unscathed. 

The real trick was going to be getting back to Paris of May 24th, 1889.

Chapter Thirty-Two

The apartment was cold and gloomy without her.

Adrian sat at the table, his arms crossed akimbo on the lace tablecloth Gisele insisted must protect the wood. He stared at the uneaten steak and eggs Dan and Gisele made for him. 

She was gone.

Not dead--at least they were hoping that was the case. 

Mick believed Tara transported herself and the darkling leader into another time period whilst trying to throw off the dark fey commander who seized her.

Not dead, just lost in another time period, unable to return to their time.

What if she were wounded? Who would care for her?

"Your eggs are getting cold." Dan was sitting beside him and eyeing his steak now that the man had finished his own.

Adrian shoved the plate in Dan's direction and let his head drop to his crossed forearms.

"Try to think of it as Tara going off to visit a relative for a few days. She'll come back to us, eventually. She's smart, she's--"

"
Gone.
" Adrian's voice cracked when he said it. He lifted his head to glare at Dan through watery eyes. "It hardly matters if she's stuck in another time, unable to come back to us.
It doesn't matter
! She's gone, Dan. To me, it's as if she died."

"We do not know if she's hurt or injured. She could be dead, mon cher." Gisele's voice was like a sweet breeze to Adrian's senses, even if she agreed with his bleak point of view.

"Not helping, my love," The tension in Dan's voice made his comment come out gruff.

"It's been over a week," Adrian retorted. "If she could come back to us, she would have."

"A week is a short time," Dan countered.  "Don't lose hope. Tara is a clever girl."

He wanted to shout at the big ox to shut up. He wanted to scream, break something, hurl the silver coffee pot across the room and punch Dan in the teeth.

None of it would bring her back. None of it would make him feel any less hurt at this staggering loss. Losing Tara would forever burn in his heart and tear at his soul.

Adrian glanced around the room at the lovely furnishings, all done for her comfort. He glanced at the bedroom door, part of him expecting Tara to emerge from it.

Mick and Riley entered the apartment.

Dan rose and gestured for the brothers to join him at the window.

Adrian stared ahead, allowing them to whisper, not caring what they said.  Gisele sat down where Dan had been, and put her hand on his arm. He looked at her, at her big blue eyes moist with tears, and the dam finally broke. He stopped fighting the tears. He dropped his head in his hands and wept like a wounded child.

"Can't you do something?" He heard Dan's voice carry from across the room. "Can't you just mesmerize him, making him forget the pain?"

"No," Riley answered. "We cannot interfere with his grief, it is a natural response and must be released. We don't wish him to forget Tara. She may yet come back to us." 

Adrian felt a familiar presence lingering near his chair. Mick was like a brother to him. At each phase of his life, Mick was there--as a child, an adolescent--always mirroring Adrian's age. A hand touched his back, and he somehow managed to rein in his emotions.

"We can do something," Mick said softly. "Wash your face, shave, and put on some clean clothes. We'll go to the bank and sort out your money issues. We can gain funds and buy a nice house for you and Dan. We'll find something grand, for when she returns."

"I want to stay here. What if she comes back here, and we're gone? I can't leave. This is all I have left of Tara, this little place we decorated for her."

"Even so, let's get out of the house for a little while," Mick coaxed. "You have money in the bank, and they are damned well going to give it to you."

Two hours later, Adrian and Mick were standing in the foyer of the Bank of France. They were waiting to talk to the bank manager responsible for his old, inactive account.

"Good day, M'sieur Dillon. M'siuer Javais will see you now."  The assistant led them to the wide double doors and ushered them inside the luxurious office. It was set up like a grand salon in a mansion, with the coffin sized mahogany desk at the far end near the windows, and elegant chairs and settees set about. Potted plants the size of small trees surrounded the expensive furnishings. A high chandelier glittered with cut glass and gold above their heads.

"M'sieur Dillon, a pleasure. Please sit down," Javais said in greeting. He gestured to the two chairs before his desk that faced the window, and took his chair with his back to the sunshine filtering in.

They took their seats across from him. The fellow looked from Adrian to Mick and then said. "I understand your frustration, sir. I truly do. I regret to inform you that nothing has changed since we last spoke. I still will need some identification papers before I can release the funds to you, or at the very least the word of a French citizen who can verify your true identity by testifying before the investors that you are indeed the great grandson of Lord Adrian Dillon, whom we know was born in the year seventeen-sixty-eight."

"I beg to differ," Mick put in. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Michael Atticus Hadrian Gilamuir, a an ancient prince of Ireland."  He rose slightly from his chair and extended his hand across the large desk to connect with the man.

Javais took Mick's hand, shaking it vigorously as he looked up into Mick's eyes. Adrian knew the enchantment was working as the bank manager's eyes became distant and dreamy.

"The funds we speak of belong to Mr. Dillon." Mick said in that sultry, seductive voice that had a queer ring of bells following after it. He continued to hold the man's hand in a firm grip.

Adrian felt woozy as he listened to his companion's bewitching tone. He shook his head and knocked at one ear with his palm.

Javais nodded. Mick continued. "It is not necessary to prove his identity. You know him, your fathers were longtime friends, you played together as children. You don't need any papers from him. Say it with me,"

"I don't need any papers from him. I know him. We played as children together."

"Good. Now we will set up an open account for Lord Dillon with the funds from the old account transferred in full to the new one."

They left the bank an hour later. Mick walked alongside Adrian as they headed toward the north, toward Montmartre Hill and their lodgings. The air was hot in the early June sunshine. Bees and other insects buzzed around them, reveling in the summer heat.

"That was amusing, wasn't it?" Mick said in an attempt to make conversation. "You are wealthier now than when you first transferred those funds back in '98. Your wealth has increased almost three times in the past century."

"Yes. Money is no longer a concern for our future," he agreed. Without Tara, they had no ability to move to another time. Mick and Riley didn't possess that gift. "It doesn't matter. I'd rather be a pauper with my sweet Tara beside me."

*  *  *  *

Before leaving the Incas, who seemed to be arguing about whether to enslave her or make her a goddess, Tara tried to focus on the date she left Paris in order to return to Adrian's present. She concentrated on the Eiffel Tower, a large monument rising to the sky to pinpoint the exact location she wished to arrive at.

It didn't work. She ended up in the future, but at the Paris Expo of 1900 instead of 1889.

Hungry, tired and without the needed energy to time jump again right away, she holed up in a hotel, waited a few days and tried again.  This time, she landed in France, but not in Paris.

This time travel gig was not precise, just as Mick warned her.

Tara thought it was just a point and click deal, like going from the Pont Neuf bridge to the tower of Notre Dame. Actually, time travel took a lot more thought and energy than translocation, and trying to get back to a 'right place and right date' in time was just about impossible. 

On the good side of things, she was in France and the year was 1889. It was June 8th, she noted, from the newspaper at the cafe. She had no money, but used her gift of acquiring to survive.

The seaside town of Calais was north of Paris by a stretch. Tired and weak. she didn't have the energy to try translocation. Fingering the French edition newspaper that allowed only the basic reading and mostly a story by pictures experience, she noted an advertisement for the railroad. Looking closer, it appeared to be a train schedule. Paris was listed as a destination from Calais.