The Highland Dragon's Lady (21 page)

Whatever news Edmund had gotten in the village, he was in a much better mood walking back to the house with Reggie than he had been while brooding over lunch. She didn’t ask—even with her power, there were areas of a man’s life that his sister was much better off not knowing about—but was simply glad that his mood had improved, even if that meant he kept teasing her about her auto.

“Only three days until they can send a chap out to fix the motor?” He whistled. “Modern convenience is a wonderful thing.”

“It is, in the city,” said Reggie.

“You might have noticed that we’re not.”

“For my sins, yes,” said Reggie, not entirely sincerely. Whitehill and environs were very pretty, with heaps of flowers and birds and things. A week or two away from London, particularly at this time of year, was nothing to sneeze at, at least in theory. The devil, as always, lurked in the details. “If
you
want to crowd yourself onto a train platform,” she said to her brother, “and then into a compartment with a lot of rowdy children going back to school or old biddies who don’t think women should travel or God knows what else, and be subject to the London and North Western’s timetables, you can jolly well have the privilege. Not to mention riding back from the station along with whomever else came down, and having to try and make conversation with strangers before you’ve had dinner.”

Edmund chuckled. “No, I’d
far
rather be shaken to bits, breathe a lot of dust and petrol and God knows what else, and arrive half-blind and nearly deaf—if I don’t simply break down by the side of the road.”

“That incident hardly counts,” Reggie parried, “given how the horses acted up. It’s probably a sign that I’m fated to walk everywhere. Can’t imagine what I did to deserve
that
.”

“Can’t you?” Edmund asked, giving her a mock-doubtful look that earned him an elbow in the side.

“Only came down to rescue you from the clutches of a vicar’s sister. I suppose that might have offended someone up there,” said Reggie, glancing toward the clear blue sky above them.

“Any god who wants me to marry Amelia Heselton would run contrary to all sensible theology.”

“Oh, well,” said Reggie, laughing despite herself, “she wouldn’t be nearly as bad if Pater hadn’t egged her on. And—” She hesitated. If Colin couldn’t say anything of their tentative agreement, she shouldn’t. He could change his mind too. The thought made her insides go startlingly cold. “And you’ll be going back to London soon.”

“A tactical retreat, I think they call it,” said Edmund. “I just hope it’s soon—and it’s a pity. The countryside’s marvelous. I was hoping I could get some hunting in.” He glanced over at Reggie. “Our positions might be better next year.”

Was he referring to his possible marriage, or her own? Was he hiding pleasure or resignation? Reggie couldn’t tell and didn’t have time to ask before the drive ended and deposited them at the front steps of Whitehill, which was, in the early evening, not anywhere near an ideal setting for sensitive conversations.

“For tonight, at least,” she said, “you’d best take a brace. It’s about time to dress for dinner.”

Inside was the usual twilight hush. Downstairs, the kitchen would be buzzing with preparations. Upstairs, Mater and the other ladies would already be getting ready, but the front hall was empty and serene, bars of red-gold light coming through the windows and dancing on the parquet floor. Reggie was starting to ascend the stairs, absently removing her hat, when she heard her father’s voice.

“Edmund?”

Although she wasn’t the subject, Reggie turned anyhow, and saw her father standing flabbergasted in the doorway to the study. His hands hung limp at his sides, and he stared at Edmund, not believing some part of his senses. Reggie thought of the old saying, “He looked as though he’d seen a ghost,” and the chill in her stomach reappeared, much stronger even though nothing was obviously wrong yet.

“Pater?” Edmund sounded puzzled, but not alarmed. “You didn’t expect me back earlier, did you?”

“No. No.” Mr. Talbot-Jones drew a hand slowly across his mouth. “I don’t see how you can be here at all. Not so quickly.” He looked from Edmund to the door outside, then to Reggie. “And where’s Mr. MacAlasdair?”

The chill began to radiate out from Reggie’s stomach, sending icy tendrils into her veins. “I don’t know,” she said, speaking slowly and carefully, though she wasn’t sure why. It seemed important to form every word correctly. If everyone could understand her, perhaps there would be some innocent, sensible explanation. “Didn’t he go out to the forest with you?”

“Why, yes,” said Pater, “of course. We walked a good ways too—I was quite surprised when you caught up with us, Edmund. I didn’t know we had such a shortcut. Or”—his face, in the shadow of the doorway, almost matched the scattering of gray in his beard—“do we?”

“I wouldn’t know,” said Edmund, frowning. “I wasn’t there. I’ve been down in the village for the last hour. There are half a dozen people who can say so. What are you talking about?”

Reggie thought of figures at the window: formless, then taking on human shape. She thought of the forest, where Janet Morgan had performed her unspeakable rites, and where she still lay—bound at the center of her power. Reggie had to moisten her lips before she could speak.

“He’s talking about a trap,” she said, and her voice seemed to echo in the hall.

Both men turned to stare at her. There was surprise in their faces, and horror, but not a trace of disbelief. Was this how prophets had felt in ancient days, delivering messages of doom?

Doom wasn’t inevitable. Not yet.

“Where were you?” Reggie asked.

As her father answered, she listened closely, taking in every detail: the turns of the path, the fallen oak they’d passed, the time they’d taken. She listened, but she knew that what she was hearing wasn’t completely accurate. Pater meant it to be, but it wasn’t. Words got in the way of memory. Sometimes, words twisted it.

While he talked, she was stripping off her gloves. A few buttons popped off and fell to the floor, making little ticking sounds. Reggie dropped the gloves to lie beside them, once she’d managed to undo them, and stepped forward when her father reached the end of what he could say. In the silence, she held out one hand. “Remember where you were. Remember how you got there. And take my hand. Please.”

Mr. Talbot-Jones stared back at her. The knowledge in his face had been buried under every conversation they’d had since Reggie’s half-wild adolescence. Ghosts were one thing, and it was quite admirable for Russian immigrants and middle-class spinsters to be mediums, but a daughter who could read minds, even in a limited way, was more freak than asset. Because he loved her, he’d pretended not to know, pretended so hard that he’d even convinced himself. Because she loved him, and because her father’s reaction was the least of what she could expect from the world, she’d learned to hide.

Now it wasn’t just Reggie standing in front of him: it was all the truth he’d denied.

Edmund didn’t move. Reggie didn’t move, though she felt every breath and every second that passed. Then her father took hold of her hand.

He was old and human, and had none of Colin’s training. The memories slamming into her head were barely coherent. Reggie saw the path away from the house, heard Colin’s voice as if it was underwater, felt her father’s interest in this young man who was so much more than he seemed, who had protected them all on at least one occasion and who had also taken an interest in his daughter. Gratitude and suspicion mingled. Colin was a nice young man who knew magic, but he was also a wealthy young man from an old family, and Pater was just worldly enough to be wary.

She saw and recognized a fallen tree and a patch of bright flowers. She felt her father wondering about Colin’s connection to Edmund, and about Edmund himself—felt his sincere belief that Edmund would be happiest with a wife and children, mingled with Pater’s own desire that his legacy live on, his fear that his son would be caught at—he wouldn’t even think about the possibilities. Reggie wasn’t the only one in the family who read newspapers. He’d followed the Wilde trial and thanked God that Edmund wasn’t like that, in a talismanic way that was as much wishing as gratitude. He would never let himself know as much.

Pater and Colin stood talking on a section of the path by a stand of aspens. Reggie heard water running in the distance, and in the part of her mind that was still her own, she remembered her dream. It hadn’t been just a dream. Some part of her mind had touched Janet’s consciousness, a dead horror that still, in its own way, thought and dreamed. She knew that now, and knew that wherever they’d been, they were close.

Then Edmund’s shape strolled out of nowhere, Edmund’s shape but not Edmund, and Reggie wanted to scream and throw herself into the memory. Her other hand came up, as if to reach out and drag Colin away, but it was no good. The past was past; she watched him walk off with the lying form, and as her father turned away in memory, she stepped back.

“Regina—” said Pater, stricken.

“I’m all right,” she said, though her throat was thick and she didn’t know whether she wanted more to cry or to be ill on the floor. Neither was an option. Her mind folded itself around the memories, accepting them as its own. “I can find him. Or I can find where you were.”

“He’s not a big man,” said Edmund, clearing his throat on some remote planet off to the side, “but he’ll have left tracks. I’ll get my rifle.”

“What good will bullets do against a ghost?” Reggie asked.

“Not much against a ghost. A damned lot against whatever poor creatures she sends at us. Wait here. I won’t be five minutes.”

He strode off, full of purpose and decision. Reggie, who had to wait, turned back to her father. “Thank you,” she said, because she didn’t know what else to say.

Mr. Talbot-Jones nodded absently and then frowned. “I should go,” he said. “Not you.”

“No,” Reggie said, and her heart squeezed as she spoke the words. “I’m thirty years younger than you are. I’m stronger, and I’m quicker, even in skirts, and my eyes are sharper.”

Also, if Colin had to change shape, she at least wouldn’t find it a shock. The other reasons held true, though. She wouldn’t have mentioned them to her father’s face if they weren’t. She wouldn’t have even let herself think them if the situation hadn’t been dire, just as she’d tried not to notice the gray in his hair or the wrinkles near her mother’s eyes.

Everyone hid things from themselves.

“Then for God’s sake, take care,” said her father, sounding as if he was angry at her. Reggie knew better. “I’ll find Hobb and send him with you—”

“After us,” said Reggie. To occupy herself, she pinned her hat back on. She suspected that the results were haphazard, but she didn’t much care. “We can’t wait that long. But send Hobb, and Miss Browne if she’ll go, and anyone else you think might help. I’ve no idea what we’re getting into.”

“That’s hardly reassuring,” said her father.

“I know.”

“How will we find you?”

“I’ll make the trail as obvious as I can. Shouldn’t be hard—I’m no great hand in the wilderness.”

Edmund stepped through the door again, carrying a rifle. He stopped at Reggie’s side, facing their father, and didn’t speak.

Mr. Talbot-Jones didn’t, either. Instead, he embraced each of them quickly, kissed Reggie on the forehead, and shook Edmund’s hand. “We’ll be waiting for you,” he finally said. “Your mother and I in particular.”

Something was badly wrong.

Colin knew it before he’d followed Edmund for more than a few feet, even before they’d turned off the trail and onto what barely qualified as a path, just a line that was a bit less overgrown than the rest of the forest. Before, Edmund had moved with the sturdy grace of a young man used to an active outdoor life. Now there was a jerky, almost mechanical hitch to the way he walked, and when he looked anywhere but straight ahead, he paused for a second first.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Colin asked.

“Yes. Fine.” Pause. “Thank you.”

“Well—what did you want to talk to me about? Here seems as decent a place as any. No need to go farther along.”

Edmund’s head turned slowly. His eyes didn’t narrow, nor did his lips thin, but Colin saw anger in his face, there for a second and then gone. It was like no anger Edmund had ever showed in the time Colin had known him. He was frank and open, and even his rages had passed quickly. The look he’d given Colin had held a long-lived emotion, and a poisonous one. There was a force to it, too, which made Colin want to step back, ridiculous as the idea was.

Then he shook his head. “I think I found something,” he said. “I didn’t want my father to see right away. Better if we tell him first. You know how he can be.” Edmund smiled. “Old chap.”

The stilted imitation of slang left Colin in no doubt. Whatever was speaking, it wasn’t Edmund.

Green and gold, the forest blazed up around him. The birdsongs doubled their volume. Colin could hear the burble of water over rocks somewhere in the distance. He could smell pine and acorns, dirt and a small dead creature rotting. He saw every detail of Edmund, down to the faded aura whose edges now looked necrotic. Since his youth, this feeling had been familiar: the razor-sharp edge his senses took before a battle.

And yet there couldn’t be a battle, he decided in a few seconds that seemed like hours. Not yet. Yes, he knew that Janet Morgan was speaking, not Edmund. He knew that she was almost certainly trying to lure him into the center of her power, there to kill him. But he also knew that she’d twice proved herself able to control living creatures. He’d thought she couldn’t manage humans, but he’d been wrong, and he was paying now. And he didn’t know how far that control went, or what happened when she released it.

Without a gun or a knife, without even a
body
, the ancient bitch had managed to take herself a hostage.

“Not the sort of thing a fellow in his sixties should encounter up close?” Colin asked. Any gentleman learned to conceal his feelings. He’d had more than a century to learn. Nobody, except Reggie, could have guessed that he felt anything more than concern for Mr. Talbot-Jones’s state of mind. “I should have expected as much. Lead on—and I’ll try not to faint when we come to the moment.”

Edmund’s throat produced a stunted little approximation of a chuckle. He started walking again. Colin followed, glad that the path restricted them to single file, trying to form a plan.

Odds were, Edmund couldn’t catch him if he turned and ran—but then Edmund would be out here,
not
on his own. This wasn’t good country for cliffs, thank God, but there were plenty of stones and sharp tree branches if Janet wanted to be spiteful, and Edmund might well be carrying a knife. Knives were so bloody
useful
for walking in the wilderness, after all.

Attacking Edmund, either physically or magically, might work better, except that Janet was in his mind. Colin didn’t know what damage she could do there. She might only be able to pull the strings of Edmund’s body, but it was just as likely that she could shatter his mind, leaving him mad for the rest of his life. Either way—

If
I
don’t break his back at the first jump, he can still fight
, he remembered reading, a line in some story he’d half skimmed on a train,
and
if
he
fights
—

He was too fond of Edmund,
much
too fond of Edmund’s sister, and he knew too little about what Janet Morgan was now, and what she could do. The only sound option was to play for time. She was, after all, taking him to the place that they’d all been trying to discover. There or on the way, he would almost certainly learn more.

One other consolation: if he knew too little, so did she. Whatever she was in death, Janet Morgan had only been a mortal magician during life. She might have been able to provoke the animals and to target them, but he doubted she’d seen out of the horses’ eyes. She would expect Colin to fight like a man and to die like one. Others had made that mistake before.

“You’re awfully quiet,” said “Edmund,” glancing back over his shoulder. He, too, looked and sounded only concerned. “Maybe I should ask if you’re sure
you’re
all right.”

“Oh, yes,” said Colin. “Just—bracing myself, you know. For what’s likely to be ahead.”

Satisfied that Colin wasn’t removing a knife from his boot, “Edmund” looked back at the trail ahead of them. “Ah,” he said, trying to sound sympathetic and getting about ten degrees off. Colin wanted to shudder and didn’t let himself. “That’s most likely a good idea.”

Under the fake sympathy, Colin heard deep and malicious satisfaction. He walked on, his eyes on the back of his friend’s body. With every foot, he hated the creature inside it more and more.

Before long, they reached the water Colin had heard: a stream, narrow but quite deep, running through the forest. The trees were shorter near it, the ground rockier, and here Colin didn’t doubt his senses. Around him, the air felt more like March than August, and in his very bones there was a sense of wrongness, of dislocation, that hummed more strongly with every step he took.

He saw the cave before “Edmund” said anything. Ahead of them, a small hill rose, and in its side a hole opened, just barely big enough to admit a man like Edmund. The stream flowed from within, Colin saw, and his stomach made a slow, lazy turn as he realized it. This was where Janet had done her grisliest work, he had no question about that—looked at through mystic sight for a moment, the cave was a pestilent gray-black, like the face of a hanged man—and the stream had been flowing from there for hundreds of years, its water gradually pervading every part of the estate.

No wonder she had such a strong foothold.

“Interesting spot,” he said, wiping his brow and catching his breath. He exaggerated both. Janet had seen too much to think he was feeble, but Colin would deny her no opportunity to underestimate him. “If I’d been a witch, I’d have used it.”

“Witch,” said the thing wearing Edmund’s skin, with ill-disguised contempt. “Witches are peasant women fiddling about with herbs. She was more than that.”

“As you like,” said Colin. He took as close a look at “Edmund” as he dared, but saw nothing of use. The corruption of the place was overpowering, almost blinding. “We might go back to the house and tell the rest,” he added.

Mrs. Osbourne might be able to help, or Mr. Heselton—or Colin himself, if he could get out of this miasma.

But Edmund shook his head. “We’d best see what’s inside first.”

That was the plan, then. Inside the cave Edmund would attack him, or there’d be a few of the local farm dogs, mysteriously “gone missing.” Colin’s blood would fall on the stone floor, and Janet would gain power from his death.

He hesitated, thinking perhaps it would be better to have the fight here—but just as Janet’s power would be stronger in the place where she’d made her dedication, so it would be easier to break at the source. And if she turned to creatures with more natural weaponry than Edmund had, or brought them in on her side, her control might slip.

“All right,” he said, “but you’d best go ahead of me. You’re more likely to bring the whole place down, and it’d be no good for both of us to be trapped.”

To his surprise and suspicion, Edmund just nodded and went forward, slipping into the cave with remarkably little disruption to the rocks. Janet must be very confident, Colin thought. But then, she assumed she’d be fighting a mortal with a few tricks. He still had a good hand.

He thought as much until he stepped into the cave and a wave of screaming force hit him in the middle of the back. Colin stumbled forward, tried to catch himself. He felt the rough wall slashing his palms and fell to his knees in the middle of the cold, dank cavern. Behind him, rocks roared downward, cutting off light.

In an instant, the transformation was on him. Lightning flashed inside his veins as his new form snapped into place, and he let out a roar as loud as the rockfall had been. Darkness was no obstacle to his eyes now, nor would a few piddling rocks keep him imprisoned. Colin snarled and looked around, seeking Edmund—and saw, instead, lines of green-black fire on the floor around him. They blazed their way between a ring of skulls, some animal and some, thankfully the older ones,
not
. Disgusted, Colin swatted at one of them with a huge claw and found himself paralyzed for a moment as waves of agony went through his body. The pain was like nothing he’d felt before. As soon as he could move again, he lashed out at the lines of fire with flame of his own, only to see it fade into the darkness.

He gathered himself in the silence, braced for pain, and then threw himself bodily forward, against one of the lines.

Pain followed. Escape did not. He’d hit a barrier more solid than any steel or stone he’d ever encountered.

Then, from the darkness around him, a figure walked forward. At first it looked like Edmund, but with blue eyes rather than brown. As it kept walking, the features sharpened, the body shrunk, and the hair turned long and pale. Colin recognized Janet Morgan from her portrait, but the resemblance wasn’t complete, and not just because of age, or because this version of Janet was wearing a high-necked black dress and unpowdered hair. There was a blurriness about her features and a symmetry that wasn’t quite human.

He remembered the white figure he and Reggie had seen, and cursed himself.

“Arrogant,” said Janet, stopping in front of him. “So certain I wouldn’t know. So certain you know best.” She laughed. “So useful for me.”

None of that was wrong. Colin held still, telling himself he was saving his strength, truly horrified by how true her accusations were and how much harm was likely to result, and even more appalled by what he saw in Janet’s face.

Evil was a given. It took a certain kind of mind to bargain with demons and sacrifice children and turn people into flesh puppets. Colin had expected malice and had seen enough in his time. But when Janet had laughed, her whole face had looked wrong. The mouth didn’t move quite in line with the eyes.

She’d been able to pass quite convincingly for Edmund—but she’d been able to see the man himself. Trying to appear the way she had been, she succeeded in looking like a bad drawing.

You
don’t remember what you looked like
, he said, talking silently as he often did in dragon form. He doubted she could hear, and it didn’t matter.

In life, Janet Morgan had been a thoroughly loathsome human being. That had been one thing. The ghost before him didn’t even remember how to be human anymore.

“I had heard about things like you,” she said now, cocking her head to one side. “Freakish things. Neither one nor the other. Bastard blood. Mixed. Highly improper.”

Colin watched her without moving. If she was trying to make him angry, she was in for a severe disappointment. He didn’t give much weight to the opinion of a mad ghost. She was, however, worrying him badly, and not simply because he was trapped in her circle of dark magic.

As he sat there, he could feel power draining out of him. It wasn’t a great deal, and given time and food he’d recover, but he doubted he’d have either.

And where was the power going? And was Janet Morgan looking different as she went on talking? More…solid?

Colin was afraid that he knew the answer to both questions.