The Screaming Stone: The Otherworld Series Book 2 (16 page)

“Yes,” Annie said snapping her fingers suddenly.  “At the top of the stairs to the right in the churchyard there are two stones, one of them is thought to be Cernunnos,” her eyes were closed as she mentally recalled some bit of information from her well-schooled mind.  When she opened her eyes everyone stared, unblinkingly at her causing her to shift nervously in her own skin.  “What?” she asked defensively.  “I studied the history of this place before we came ok.  Some habits are hard to break.”

Griffin seized ahold of her and gave her a quick peck on the check.  Duncan growled instinctively at the man.  “Easy there big guy, I’ve got one of mine own.  Right now they are both geniuses though,” he said as he gave Kat a big full kiss on the lips to show his appreciation.

“If the smoochin’ an’ snoggin’ be done for now can we get on with it?” Knackers asked impatiently.

Fiona gave Knackers a nice whack upside his head before she added in her opinion.  “As cute as ye all are time is flyin’,” she informed them as she agreed with Knackers.  That was something Duncan thought he would never see, Fiona agreeing with Knackers.  Duncan saw Knackers’ facial muscles shift and before he could do something he would regret Duncan jumped in front of him and scowled down at him.  With a quick shake of his head Knackers’ corrected his face and put his tongue back in his mouth. 

Annie glanced down nervously at her watch.  The expression on her face told Duncan all he needed to know.  “Fine let’s get ta that rock and see what Cernunnos has ta show us.”

The group rushed towards the church, eager to find this mysterious staircase that led to an ancient god, much older than the one the current church had been built to honor.  Everyone spread out looking for further clues inside the surprisingly small church.  Duncan caught sight of Annie as she slowly wandered the structure taking in the quaint beauty.  He watched as she paused and squinted at something in front of her.  Curiosity drew him towards her until he stood by her side looking at the same strange thing that had kidnapped her attention.  Upon a single stone was etched the name
Dillan
.

“Dillan?  Could that be the word Patrick told us ta find?” Duncan asked her.

“Do you see any other stone with one word on it?” she asked back.

Just then Kat came running up to them.  She was winded as she had sprinted to their location; obviously it was not something she was not accustomed to doing.  “Griffin said that,” she glanced quickly over her shoulder found what she was looking for and traced a line from Griffin to the spot Annie had located a moment before.  “That you found what we’re looking for,” she said as she rolled her eyes and bent over placing her hands on her knees as she tried to catch her breath.

Duncan followed where her eyes had been looking.  Griffin stood outside looking down through a window at the exact spot where he and Annie currently stood.  They had indeed found the stone they were looking for and the word they needed to find was Dillan.  Annie’s tiny army gathered around as they formed another huddle and debated the significance of the name Dillan.  No one had an answer and their time had run out.

“Ladies and gentlemen if you would please take your seats the last performance of the evening is about to take place.  Thank you and we hope you’ve enjoyed your visit to Tara.  Seat of the High Kings of Ireland,” the tour guide Annie had spoken to earlier announced to the small group of people who were like them milling about the church.

“This is perfect,” Kat whispered.  “As soon as the lights go down we’ll slip down into the basement led by Knackers.”

“Maybe ye should lead the way Kat burglar,” Knackers muttered.  Kat answered him quickly by kicking him in the shin.

“Takes one to know one,” she said sticking out her tongue at him.

“How come she can do it but I can’t?” whined Knackers as he rubbed his sore shin.

“Stop it,” Duncan hissed down to Knackers.  “I need a moment ta think.”

Duncan had nothing, no plan to offer.  Right now the group’s best shot of reaching Finn and Robert lay in the hands of a mad monk, a Kat burglar and a being that occasionally was a cat.  The lights dimmed and the members of the Derby Nine, new and old, hugged the stone walls and followed Knackers to the basement to retrieve the rest of their party and safely get Annie to the stone.  Time was against them and they would have to move quickly if they were to reach the top of Tara before the sunset. 

He had wanted to wait one more day but Annie had convinced him they couldn’t risk it.  Tomorrow was Midsummer and the night was still held sacred to many humans who would gather to watch the sun set over Tara drumming and singing it to sleep.  They were lucky as it was that most of the tourists had gone home for the day in order to drink at one of the many local pubs that were offering Midsummer Eve parties.  Only a small handful had stayed behind to watch the last presentation of the day and the lone guide was too busy setting up to notice five beings and one dog slip silently into a door marked employees only.

Chapter Fifteen

Truth in the Dark

The old wooden stairs creaked and groaned under the weight of so many people slowly creeping down them.  Duncan had insisted on going first, and the rest had just formed a line behind him with Knackers bringing up the rear.  The soft light that emanated from Duncan’s sword was the only illumination the group had as they cautiously took one step at a time.  If the atmosphere hadn’t been so charged with uncertainty she might have had the courage to crack a joke.  They were making the same mistake every character in every scary tension filled scene in any adventure always did.  They were going to the one place they should never go; a basement.  Annie heard Kat giggle behind her and knew she had been thinking the same thing.  Duncan glanced over his shoulder and frowned at them both as Kat’s giggle inspired Annie’s own barely contained nervous laughter to burst out.

“What is wrong with you two?” Even though he had whispered his question it was laced with just enough disappointment that both Annie and Kat shrank deeper into the shadows.

“They’ve seen too many horror movies,” Griffin quietly answered for them; which of course inspired both of them to engage in a new round of giggles.  “And they’re both gigglers when they get nervous.”

Duncan frowned down at her and Annie returned his frown with a weak smile and a silent apology.  She couldn’t keep her mind from wandering occasional to every B-horror movie she had ever seen.  Nothing good ever happened in a basement; and they had no sacrificial, over sexed blonde to offer up to the horror that surely awaited them at the bottom of the stairs.

“If only Mandy was here,” Kat whispered in her ear.  Annie nodded in agreement and bit down on her bottom lip hard as she felt another wave of the giggles threatening to burst out of her.  Even Griffin seemed to be having a hard time ignoring that one as he made a strange strangled sound that he usually reserved for when Robert amused him and he shouldn’t laugh.

“Well I for one would no’ be against a wee bit more light,” whispered a whinny sounding Fiona.  “I know I’m supposed ta be blind but twere only ta be an act.”

Duncan stopped his decent suddenly causing a lot of bumping and complaining as everyone knocked into the person in front of them and some toes were damaged in the pile up.  He glared menacingly at the group.  “Will you all hold yer tongues?!”

“We can hear you you know!” shouted Robert from the distance.

Annie tried to run in the direction the sound was coming from but Duncan quickly wrapped his arm around her and pulled her up against him.  He still held Answerer in one hand, ready and waiting for whatever would come out of the darkness.  She hoped Robert was as far away as he sounded.  Duncan was on edge and she liked Robert’s head where it was, on his shoulders.

“It’s only Robert,” Annie whispered into his ear. 

Duncan shuddered in response before he returned the favor.  “An’ how do we know he and Finn are alone an’ not captive?”

Annie hadn’t thought of that.  If it had been this easy for them to find Robert and Finn then it was completely possible that the Unseelie had found them too.  After all didn’t Patrick tell them they were walking into a trap?  Was this what he had meant?  Annie’s mind began running through all of the exit strategies that had actually worked in all of those movies her and Kat would watch on those cold wintery Friday nights. 

“Shite,” she muttered violently.

“What?!” Duncan asked as he pushed Annie against the wall and used his own body as a shield.  “Do you see something?  Hear something that I can no’?”

“No, I just realized Kat was right Mandy was our only escape option.”  Duncan said nothing as he stepped away from her and lowered his sword so he could glare at her better.

“Uh, are you guys still there?” Robert’s questioning voice called out.

“Robert!” hissed an angry sounding Finn.

Annie raised her eyes to meet Duncan’s who had lowered his sword as the situation became clear to him.  “You humans are impossible ta defend,” he muttered rolling his eyes when Annie smiled up at him.

Kat patted his shoulder in mock appreciation.  “We could have perished many times had you not saved us all from our own imaginations,” she agreed.  “Thank you Duncan,” she called over her shoulder as she passed him by and went in search of Robert.

The rest of the group quickly followed suit and filed past Duncan, each one pausing a moment to thank him before following their new brave leader the Kat burglar.  Annie remained behind with Duncan; she wanted a moment alone with him before they joined the others and stepped into the unknown.

Duncan’s own feet seemed very happy where they were.  “Annie,” he began.  “You have ta trust me.”

“I do,” she quickly replied unsure of where he was going with this new sudden line of thought.

“I’m scared, more scared than I care ta admit.”

“Me too,” she quickly agreed.  She had sworn that she would never let on to any of them just how terrified she actually was.  She was attempting to do something no one in centuries had done, ask an ancient magickal stone to declare that she was Sidhe royalty.  It would either accept her or…it was the
‘or’
part of that statement that she was really afraid of.

Duncan leaned down closing the gap between them and rested his forehead against hers.  His hands came to rest gently on either side of her face.  Somewhere in the last few moments he had put his sword back into its magickal hiding spot and whether from the lack of light or his uncannily fast reflexes she had not seen him do it.  His breathing had changed from a slow even pace to deep and more labored sounding.  She couldn’t see him well, she had never been blessed with great night vision, but she could feel the torment he was putting himself through.

“I-I’ve been told that,” each word was a tortured whisper as it escaped his mouth and she breathed them in.

“That you might have to choose?” she asked weakly as she swallowed hard.  She needed to ask the question and feared the answer.  The answer could make what she was about to do either so much easier or so much harder.  All he had to do was tell her the truth.  She could feel the struggle within him and wanting to save him the pain of having to admit it.  She said what he had been trying and failing to say.  “I understand you choosing her.”  She was trying to absolve him of any guilt he might be feeling.  After all they had only known each other for a few weeks.  What was that when compared with a lifetime or more of love?

He shook his head, brushing his lips gently across her mouth in the process.  She inhaled deeply, savoring the tender moment that was meant to be a good bye.  She would remember this, take this with her as she climbed the tiny hill that held the stone that would either shout out her glory or damn her to her death.  It was a lovely memory.  She would hold it dear and pretend for the last few moments of her mortal existence that they, that he, had come to care for her, for Annie; and not the goddess she carried silently still sleeping.

He gripped her face tighter, “No,” he whispered.  “I can’t lose you Annie Locke.  I be wantin’ what’s in front of me now, not the ghost of somethin’ that could never be.”

He inhaled her shocked gasp swallowing it as his mouth captured hers in a kiss that every girl dreamed of receiving.  For a moment she remained passive, her body as well as her mind unwilling and unable to accept the declaration he had just made, with only minutes left until her possible execution.  Her mind wanted to rebel and object, it wanted to call him a liar but she could not summon the words to do so.  She felt it in the grip he had on her face as he held her unwilling to let her go.  She felt it in his body as it quickly molded against hers leaving no room for even a slip of paper to come in between them.  More importantly she felt it in his kiss.  His lips moved urgently against hers, willing her, and pleading with her to accept his words as truth.

Her mind rescinded its objections as it was too overpowered by the weight of the confession Duncan had just laid at her feet.  Her arms moved wrapping themselves around his neck as they locked him closer to her.  She could stop breathing, her heart could stop beating in the next moment and she would die happily with a satisfied smile upon her well kissed lips.  As a soft moan escaped her throat his fingers speared through the tangle mess of her hair pulling her head back as he defied physics and deepened the best kiss she had ever received.  Had she not been pinned between Duncan and the wall she would have melted into quivering heap on the floor as every bone in her body was set on fire and melted down to its simplest chemical elements.  This is what a kiss was supposed to be, how it was supposed to feel.  It was only the timing that was off.

As had happened countless times before they were interrupted and drawn apart by a universe that had other plans and a different timeline as Robert spoke out of the darkness.  “Annie?  Duncan?  Are you guys alright back there?”

“We’ll be there in a moment,” Annie quickly replied as she tore her mouth away from Duncan’s.

“Alright,” Robert hollered back.  “It’s getting late and I do not want to spend another night in this spider infested cellar.”

Annie kept her eyes locked onto Duncan’s.  They were both breathing heavily, neither one had let go of the other as the small space was filled with the only truth they wanted to cling to.

              When they had rejoined the others everyone was still passing around heartfelt hugs of a reunion long overdue.  Finn smiled knowingly when they entered the room but everyone else was too occupied with introductions and retellings of their own close calls and adventures.  Duncan sent Finn a weak smile, happy to see that his foster father was well and mending.  His sword would be missed tonight but at least he was healing.  An attack from a Nightflyer was rarely survived as once they grabbed a hold they hardly ever let go.  Some powerful force had to have intervened and allowed them to escape to the safety of St. Patrick’s church.  Maybe the loony old monk had helped out more than he let on.

Duncan tried hard to concentrate on their current surroundings but his mind kept slipping back in time to the stairwell and the satisfyingly soft form of Annie draped around him.  The urge to run was growing stronger almost overpowering the pull that refused to abate in his gut.  Something out there was calling to him and it scared him.  He had made his choice.  He had chosen Annie.  He had chosen what was in front of him instead of what was behind him.  He had fallen for the fragile human the moment he had seen her.  It had only taken a few weeks, a couple of near death experiences, and few heated embraces for him to realize how much he had come to love her. 

He loved her.

It was as simple as that.  He would not put aside his feelings for his goddess.  She had chosen and molded her mortal well; only a mortal with Annie’s strength, determination and capacity to love would have been able to contain an ancient and powerful being for as long as she had.  Duncan suddenly became a believer as he was, in that one moment, during the space of that one embrace, infected with Annie’s optimism and hope that soon they would be sitting in Salem, in the safe space of her garden laughing with newly formed friends.  He could find happiness with them and steal back the life span that had been stolen from him so long ago; and he would do it all with her by his side.

Bigger forces in the universe were readying to do battle and for once he had no problem sitting on the sidelines completely unaware of who was winning and who was losing.  His fractured soul would begin to heal and he would grow stronger with every kiss he stole, with every passionate sigh he inhaled and with every loving look Annie would offer him.  He would die happy.  He would die knowing he was loved.  He would die a mortal, the way he was born before the Sidhe had snatched him away.  He had faith as well as hope now singing a lovely tune deep inside of him.  There was only one thing standing in his way; getting Annie safely to the top of Tara.