Haunting Desire (14 page)

“The paper, when her husband disappeared.”

Well that made sense. Her mother’s first husband disappearing had caused quite a scandal on the Isle of Fennore. The old-timers still talked about the trouble they’d had keeping the tabloids from invading. She took another step closer to the warmth of the fire.

“What are you doing here?” she said, perching cautiously on a rock opposite where he sat.

“I was chased. By a wolf if you can believe such a thing. You?”

“A
wolf?”
Meaghan stared at him with her jaw dropped. “Where the feck are we?” she blurted.

“Now, that’s the question,” Donnell said with a sad shake of his head. “And one I’m not sure I can answer. I’ve been here for a day or two—I can’t say if it’s one or the other. It seems that the sun rises and sets unpredictably, but I know that’s not possible.”

“No, it’s not,” Meaghan said, eyeing him even as she thought of the sun, which had seemed to slip from the sky in double time.

“How did you get here?” he asked.

“I’m not really certain.” Feeling foolish, she told him about going to the cavern and the blinding light that came before opening her eyes here. “It happened like that,” and she snapped her fingers. The sound echoed unnaturally loud around them.

“The Isle of Fennore,” he said darkly. “The last time I was there I was in an automobile accident. I lost my wife and almost lost my daughter, Shealy.”

Meaghan frowned, his words stirring a memory inside her. And then her eyes widened. “O’Leary!” she exclaimed. “Your daughter is Shealy O’Leary?”

Donnell nodded, looking miserable. “You know her, then?”

“Only from the papers.”

Shealy O’Leary was the spokesperson for a charitable organization that helped kids with correctable deformities. Her own amazing transformation from the mangled wreckage of the accident that had nearly killed her to the beautiful woman who’d graced magazine covers and appeared on commercials had made her famous worldwide. The media had followed her recovery like a reality television progam.

Donnell looked down and shook his head. “Just before that accident, something like what you described happening in the cavern . . . it happened to me. To us.”

“What do you mean?”

“I saw a blinding light and felt the car jerk. I thought it was an earthquake, but then the car vanished and we were here.”

“Here?” Meaghan said, confused. “In this cave?”

“No, Ms. Ballagh. Here in this world where time runs on its own clock.”

Frowning, she shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

Donnell didn’t appear to have heard her. “It was just for a moment,” he said. “A blink of the eye. But what I saw . . . Terrible things, Ms. Ballagh.”

Dry-mouthed, Meaghan tried not to ask, but she couldn’t help it. “Like what?”

“Monsters,” he whispered.

Monsters?
She laughed. She couldn’t help it.
Monsters.
But Donnell O’Leary’s face held no humor.

“I don’t blame you for not believing me. I wouldn’t believe me either if I was sitting across the fire listening. But this is a dangerous place. Somehow my daughter and I ended up back in that car, sailing over the cliff and into the sea. But my wife, Maggie—she didn’t come with us.”

Meaghan frowned. “The papers said she died in the accident.”

“What else would they say? That a bright light sucked her into an impossible world and killed her?”

It was just too queer, all of this, and suddenly she thought perhaps she
had
been struck by the falling stones. Perhaps she was in hospital getting pumped full of morphine or something that caused wild delusions just like this.

No
, a voice of reason insisted. Dreams didn’t have texture, and she could feel the chill in the air, the heat of the fire, the taste of fear in her mouth.

A silence fell between her and the old man as each of them contemplated their unbelievable circumstances. Then, faintly at first and louder as they drew closer, Meaghan heard voices. They echoed down the tunnel from outside.

Meaghan jumped to her feet and moved through the winding corridor to investigate. Behind her, Donnell O’Leary followed.

They reached the mouth of the cave and down below they saw a gathering of men on horses. There were eight, maybe ten of them circled around another man on foot.

She thought of raising her arms and shouting to get their attention, but a small voice of caution made her crouch and watch first. The man without a horse was tall and handsome, dressed in a bizarrely formal white button-down shirt and creased black trousers. He might have just come from the office. He turned in place, eyeing the men who surrounded him, and Meaghan was surprised to see a clerical collar at his throat.

One of the mounted riders clicked his tongue and urged his horse forward. The tall man shifted to watch him, and Meaghan glimpsed his face. Beside her, Donnell sucked in a breath.

“ ’Tis Father Mahon. Kyle, I mean,” Donnell said.

“You know
him, too
?” Meaghan asked.

He didn’t look like any priest she’d ever met. He was too young and far too handsome, temptation in the flesh. She was certain that many a female had dreamed of sinning during his sermons.

“Aye, I know him well,” Donnell said with a note of despair in his voice. “When I first met him, he was a deacon, planning on devoting his life to the church.”

There was something in Donnell’s tone that set alarms clanging in her already distressed mind.

“What is he doing here?”

But Donnell wasn’t listening anymore. Uneasy, Meaghan glanced back to the gathering, noting a tension she’d missed before. There was wariness on the priest’s face and in the shuttered expressions the other men wore. The priest held his hands out at his sides, showing compliance. Meaghan couldn’t tell if he was part of the group or a . . . prisoner.

Frowning at her own thoughts, she looked at the others and saw . . . good God, the others wore swords.
Swords.

“Why are they so hostile?” Meaghan whispered. “He’s a priest.”

Donnell didn’t answer and she glanced back at him to find a look of horror on his features.

“I’ve got to help him,” Donnell said. “Lord above, what did I get him into?”

Without another word, he started climbing down the huge boulders, moving gingerly as he descended.

“Wait,” Meaghan hissed. “Where are you going?”

Donnell paused, glancing up at her, and his foot dislodged some pebbles that rappelled down to where the men gathered. Alert, the riders began scanning the rocky hillside. They saw Donnell immediately and caught sight of Meaghan before she could duck and hide. The one who seemed in charge snapped his fingers and two others broke from the circle and dismounted, handing off their reins and starting to climb.

“Run, girl,” Donnell said. “Run.”

His words went through her like a shot of adrenaline, but now three other men had left their horses and began to climb, coming fast. There was no way to get down and past them. She had to go up, into the dark and winding passageways.

Donnell called out a greeting to the approaching men, told them he came in friendship, but his words did nothing to gentle the hands that grabbed him. With a last glance back, Meaghan scrambled back into the tunnel, racing down the winding corridor, past the fire, plunging into the darkness that was held tight in the confined space. Her fear tried to strangle her, writhing like a serpent beneath her skin. This dark was as shrouded and evil as the shade of the forest. She felt it brushing against her as she ran, teasing the hairs on her arms, blowing softly against her nape.

Echoing from behind her, she heard raised voices coming closer, gaining on her. Why were they chasing her? What did they want?

Her foot slid on gravel and she careened into the rock wall. Pain sliced through her shoulder, making her fingers go numb. Gasping, she turned at another tunnel that veered off to the right. In her head she tried to keep track of where she was going, afraid she’d get lost in the winding labyrinth, terrified of the grasping shadows and the malignant taint that permeated them. The voices behind pursued, getting closer, louder as the tunnel grew darker and narrower. She couldn’t see anything and the air felt old and dank, as if it had been trapped for a million years.

Panic made her feel sluggish even as it boosted her energy and spurred her to go faster. Then suddenly she plowed full speed into a solid wall. The impact jarred every bone in her body and snapped her neck back as stars exploded behind her eyes. Her knees wobbled and then gave. She hit the floor hard just as the chasing footsteps reached her.

“Think this is the one he’s looking for?” asked a man whose face she couldn’t make out in the gloom.

“Would be a fine thing if it was,” another answered.

The first man grabbed her roughly and jerked her to her feet. “You’ll be coming with us, won’t you now?”

“I don’t think so,” she said, and tried to yank her arm free of his grasp. But he was strong and not in the mood to play games.

She fought. She’d taken self-defense courses. She knew to go for eyes and groin, to stomp on insteps, elbow the solar plexus. Scream. She did all of that. She slammed her head hard into the nose of the man who caught hold of her again and was rewarded with his shout of pain and the hot spray of blood against her neck, which nearly made her vomit. She’d have to be Wonder Woman to come out of this the winner. She was nowhere close to that.

Cursing, the first man held her while the other gave her a cold look.

“Lights out, sweetheart,” he said as he doubled up his fist and punched her hard in the face.

U
NFATHOMABLE as it seemed, only a day ago Shealy’s biggest fear was telling her father about her trip to Ireland. Now here she stood, on an island that couldn’t be, in a world that didn’t exist. And if that didn’t stretch the bounds of reality enough, she held a sister who’d been buried, unborn, seven years ago. She still couldn’t believe it—
any
of it. But not believing didn’t equal
not real
. That left her two choices—curl up in a corner, plug her ears, close her eyes, and pretend she didn’t know what went on beyond the radius of sensory perception; or deal with it.

Option one left the high risk of being devoured by something of the three-headed variety. And while option two had its merits, she’d learned the hard way that even though dealing with things she’d rather avoid wasn’t easy and it certainly wasn’t fun, it was usually quicker than ignoring them. Better to move on than to dwell in misery. That was her philosophy.

Yeah, that’s why you still put your makeup on with a spatula
, a snide voice in her head taunted.

Forcibly she shut it out and focused on the warm sleeping child she still held.
My sister . . .

She had a sister—a little baby sister who needed her. How in the world could she hope to protect her in this nightmare?

Shaking her head, she glanced up and caught Tiarnan watching her with those whiskey-colored eyes. His gaze skimmed her face, seeming to peer into her soul. Just the sight of him stole the air from her lungs and forced everything from her brain except the memories of last night, when his touch had gone beyond physical. He’d turned her emotions into a knot that seemed to bind her tighter and tighter to him. Flushing hotly, she looked away, but it was not so easy to tune Tiarnan out. She remained painfully aware of his every move, his every breath and before long, the hard lines of his body, the broad shoulders, the muscled arms that had held her so gently . . . all of him drew her gaze once more.

Liam left to search for survivors downriver, but Jamie and the other two men still stood nearby, discussing their plans in low tones. Then Jamie let loose a few colorful and juicy curses that would have done many an Irishman proud, before turning to herd in his troop of two and set about gathering supplies from the wreckage. He’d committed to helping find her father, but he still had reservations about the wisdom of the journey, reservations about Shealy and what her role in all of this would prove to be. She didn’t know how to convince him to trust her so she didn’t try. She could only hope he’d figure things out on his own and not view her with suspicion each time that ebony gaze found her.

He’d taken two steps away when she noticed the tattoo on his left shoulder blade. Stunned, she simply stared as her brain stuttered with surprise, trying to explain yet another inexplicable thing.

Black ink connected three spirals without a visible beginning or end on his shoulder. A common enough symbol in Ireland; it was on ruins everywhere. But Jamie wasn’t from Ireland, and Shealy knew that the symbol had a deeper meaning—one linked directly to the Book of Fennore.

“Where did you get that tattoo?” she asked, her question stopping him when he would have walked off. In her arms, Ellie shifted but did not wake.

Jamie frowned, glancing back at her with narrowed eyes . . .

“Detroit. Why?”

“My dad has the same one. Only his is on his chest.”

Beside her, Tiarnan stiffened. Jamie took note of it before he crossed back to where they stood.

“My daddy had this tattoo and so did his daddy,” he said. “It’s a family thing.”

Tiarnan cut his eyes from Jamie to Shealy. She sensed that he was making connections that she herself hadn’t quite linked together yet. Still, by his expression, something wasn’t adding up.

“My dad called it a ‘family thing’ as well,” Shealy told them. “He said all the men had it. Of course, most of our family is dead, so really, he was the only one.”

Jamie shifted his weight, scowling. “I’m the last in my family, too.”

There was something important here, some critical piece of knowledge that went with this strange symbol both men wore. She felt the magnitude of it but couldn’t quite pull it in and analyze just what it was. How did the tattoo link Jamie from Detroit to Donnell O’Leary of Ireland?