Bound by Time (10 page)

A smile tinged with sadness touched his lips. “I have…studied extensively. It tends to change the vocabulary.”

That made sense. They chatted about Georgia, and how it was different from other areas. Although he didn’t have an accent typical of the region, it surprised Isobel to learn that Damien had also grown up in the Midwest not far from where she had lived.

As dinner wound to an end, she found herself reluctant to leave. While she was helping clean up the voice suddenly whispered,
“Isobel, you cannot run from me.”
She nearly dropped the plates she carried. If it could follow her to another house, going somewhere else wasn’t going to help. And then there were the mysterious “they” her mother had written about. Who or what were they and would they come after her if she left?

Damien felt the energy spike and saw her flinch. “Isobel? Are you feeling okay?”

She smiled at him though her eyes were haunted. “I’m fine.”

Damien carefully set the dishes he carried in the sink, the task giving him a brief moment to control the rising frustration. Why didn’t she tell him the truth? He couldn’t tell her what he knew until she accepted what was happening, until she started to let her memories in.

When there was nothing left to clean, no reason left for her to put off leaving, Damien walked her to the door. She paused, looking up at his face. “Thank you for dinner. This was nice.”

Damien nodded. “I enjoyed your company. I always enjoy your company.” His fingers trailed over her cheek as the air between them thickened with intensity. His hand moved, brushing across her throat as his fingers found the back of her neck. Very slowly, he leaned down and brushed his lips across hers.

Isobel was stunned at the electricity that arced between them. Her lips tingled from the brief touch and her heart thundered in her ears, a deep yearning in her body. Damien stepped back putting some space between them.

“I’m sorry that was inappropriate. “What the hell was he thinking? She wasn’t his yet, and he couldn’t force her memories to surface.

Isobel shook her head. “No, it was fine. I liked it.”

Damien smiled slightly. “Even so...” He looked at her with longing before changing the subject. “Be careful on your way back. And if you need anything, don’t hesitate to call. Let me see your phone.”

She pulled it from her pocket and handed it over without thinking. He flicked through the various screens, typed a number in and gave it back. “I’ve programmed my number. I’m serious. Call me if you need anything.”

Isobel managed to refrain from saying that she needed him now. What was wrong with her? She shouldn’t get close to him. Things were too strange—her gift, curse, whatever kept trying to push forward.

She took her time walking back to the waiting house. Insects sang their nightly songs. The heavy humid air was warm against her skin and filled with the scent of blooming flowers. A blanket of hazy stars twinkled from the black dome of the sky. Just like the other summers she’d experienced in Georgia. Except this wasn’t like any other summer. Instead, she had to deal with whatever was going on inside the house. She stopped and watched it as it watched her.

Damien leaned on the counter, his back to Aiden. “He grows stronger.”

“Yes.” Aiden moved to his side. “Your repairs don’t last like they used to. Eusebia’s seal was never meant to hold him this many centuries. It is only a miracle that it has held this long.”

“I know. And his reach is extending. You felt what I did this evening?”

Aiden nodded. “He can reach her even here.” His face grew sad. “I wish I was going to be here to help you. Xapar is strong.”

“Isobel is stronger. So much stronger this time,” Damien said, thinking of the energy that radiated from her. Once she embraced it fully, she would be stronger than even Eusebia. “And I am nearly as strong as Xapar. You may rest easy, my old friend. I will not fail this time, and neither will Isobel.”

“I will likely be gone by the morrow. This body gives out. Take great care, Damien.”

In the morning only dust would be left to show his friend had existed in this life. “Good journey, my friend.
Usque ad proximum tempus
.” Until next time.

Aiden turned and shuffled toward his bedroom. “
Proximum semper est tempus.
” There is always a next time.

Isobel stood on the porch of the darkened house for a long time. Stay outside all night or go inside with the…whatever it was? Sorsha trilled and wound around her ankles waiting to be let in. Isobel looked down at the cat. “You have a cat door, you know.” The cat trilled again impatiently. “Yes, your majesty. I will open the people door for you. Although why you want in the house is a mystery to me.”

She crossed the threshold after the cat. After closing the door, she moved through the downstairs turning on every light. The idea of being alone in the dark with
it
terrified her. Not that it seemed to matter if it was day or night when it came to the window. However a lifetime of horror movie conditioning made her imagine the dark would be worse. She filled Sorsha’s food dish and gave her fresh water. The cat was entirely too picky about water. There couldn’t be a single hair or speck of dust in it.

Stuffed from dinner she curled up on the large sectional in the family room and turned on the TV, determined to get lost in a show. There was no way in hell she was sleeping upstairs tonight. In fact, in the morning she was moving her bathroom necessities to the full bath in the foyer. The less time she spent upstairs the better.

A light prickle ran over her skin as determined emotions swam over her. She looked to her right and nearly jumped out of her skin. The robed woman from her dreams sat there, a vial of blood in her hand.
“Sanctum inveni virum.”

Isobel scrambled back, blinked, and the woman was gone. Confusion and fear filled her mind. She stared for a long time at the spot where the woman had been as the adrenaline rush slowly faded. Isobel snuggled back down to watch the show, though her eyes still flicked to the spot every now and then. Seeing a ghost wasn’t completely unusual for her. She’d seen them off and on her whole life, but having one jump out of her dreams and speak to her was new.

The night wore on, and still she couldn’t sleep. Luckily, a marathon of one of her favorite shows was on. She lay on the couch beneath the quilt with every light on and stared at the screen as the characters tried to lead normal lives while being witches. Sometime near the end of the marathon sleep finally claimed her.

The dreams returned.

Damien, in clothes from another time and a sword at his hip, traced the line of her jaw with gentle fingers. A hamlet of small houses clustered in the distance, the grasses of the thatched roofs browned by the sun. They would be leaving soon. Leaving to do something important. Something that had been waiting to be done.

It was near dark when soldiers burst in and dragged her from the house into the street. An angry mob of people screamed at her. She fought them as she screamed for Damien. He would hear.

She was bound to the upright pole and then the men of the village were lighting the wood piled around her. Through the building flames she saw Damien, and another man with golden hair, fighting the soldiers, cutting them down and receiving several blows that should have been fatal in their efforts to reach her. Dark shapes moved among the men. Damien and his companion fought them too.

Isobel screamed in pain as the smoke and flames overwhelmed her. And then Damien was there, standing in the fire. He ripped the ropes away and gently carried her from the heat. Pain pulsed and radiated through her body as her smoke-clogged lungs shut down. The other man held one of her hands, sorrow filling his tawny eyes. Their faces faded and Damien’s voice, aching with the pain of loss, whispered in her ear,
“
Usque ad proximum tempus. Meae deliciae.
”

I
sobel woke with a scream in her throat and tears running down her face. She sobbed and curled into a ball. The dream had felt so real. Sorsha leapt off the couch, laid her ears back, and hissed as she darted from the room. The quiet thwack of the rubber flap on the cat door told her Sorsha had left the house.

Isobel closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, the robed woman was sitting on the floor, a vial of blood in her hands.

The woman gazed back. “
Sanctum inveni virum
.”

Startled, Isobel froze. The woman faded and disappeared.

Warm drops sprinkled across Isobel’s cheek. She wiped at it, and her hand came away red. Turning, she looked up at the ceiling. Damien’s body hung impaled by arrows, his face twisted in pain as blood dripped down on her. Screaming, she threw herself off the couch and scrambled across the floor on her hands and knees.

“Isobel. You are mine,”
the voice whispered throughout the house. She covered her ears and huddled against the wall as the blood continued to splatter the couch.
“Isobel,”
it taunted.

Damien disappeared, and only the dripping arrows remained. Her name sprang up on the walls written in a bloody, jagged script over and over again. Isobel lunged for the coffee table and snatched the phone, her hands shaking like leaves in the wind. She hit the icon for her contact list. It was right there at the top. Isobel didn’t care what he thought—she needed to know he was alive.

It seemed to ring forever. Just as her heart sank, thinking the worst, he answered. “Isobel?”

“Damien?” Tears welled in her eyes and her voice quivered.

“Isobel, what’s wrong?”

“I—” The phone slipped from her hand and landed with a quiet thump on the carpet as the room around her dissolved, melting like wax on a candle.

She struggled against the ropes that bound her wrists as she was forced up the wooden steps to a platform. A noose swayed back and forth. Isobel saw Damien fighting his way toward her, arrows sticking out from his body. An axe swung through the air severing his head. She wept uncontrollably when the noose was placed roughly around her neck, and a dark cloth was shoved over her head. Isobel barely heard the conviction of witchcraft when the floor dropped beneath her feet. The rope yanked against her neck cutting off her air. She thrashed and jerked, her mouth gaping as she tried desperately to breathe.