The Sixth Labyrinth (The Child of the Erinyes Book 4) (83 page)

This hilltop was a dismal place. It made him burn for vengeance, even now, after he’d killed all twelve men who had forced their way into his home and slaughtered his wife and children.

Quentin Merriwether didn’t know it, but he would be Aodhàn’s thirteenth, a victim of Curran’s meddling. Barra hadn’t yet slaked its thirst for the blood of retribution.

* * * *

Faith coaxed the Englishman from his scribbling by telling him she’d found a crofter who wanted to speak to him about the murdered family. She led him through the deepening gloaming, up to the ruin of Bishop House, where Aodhàn was waiting with a garrote. Afterward, she helped Aodhàn get the body to a remote cove, where it could be weighted with stones and dumped. Aodhàn didn’t really care if the corpse surfaced again. If it did, it would serve as a reminder to Curran— to everyone— that he would not be trifled with.

In the coldest hours of the night, he returned to the MacNeil house with Faith and rummaged through Quinn’s belongings. There wasn’t much of interest, except at the writing table, where he uncovered a letter from Curran.

Quinn,

Have you found anything? Why haven’t I heard from you? We’re still in London, but will soon be leaving. Morrigan wants to come there, to Barra. I could scarcely believe it when she told me, but I have to honor her choice: it’s a pact we made. We’ll be in Mallaig on the first of August to fetch her aunt then will stop at Kilgarry for the other one. C.

This was interesting. Her subterranean memories were leading her to revisit the places she’d lived with
him
in other lives. One day, she might want to travel farther afield, to the German Empire, even to Crete.

Thinking of Crete turned his thoughts to the knife, and his humor instantly dissipated. Diorbhail must have spied on him. She always had been a troublemaker. He remembered when she’d unearthed damning evidence on Crete, and Alexiare had been forced to kill her. Aodhàn could hardly believe she’d made herself crawl into that wet, suffocating hole, braving mud, cold, and spiders. Selene’s courage obviously lived on in Diorbhail Sinclair.

Now Morrigan had the knife. He was glad she’d had a weapon when she needed it, but she didn’t know how dangerous this one was.

To distract himself, he broke the lock on the desk drawer and found the reply Quinn must have been drafting before Faith interrupted him.

I have disturbing information I do not want to trust to a letter. When you get to Mallaig stay there. I’ll come over on the first of August and meet you at the Scythe and Swan. Do not come here. It’s too dangerous
.

He’d underlined ‘do not come here’ several times.

Aodhàn leaned the chair onto its rear legs as he contemplated the fire and worked out his plan. Quinn wouldn’t be meeting anyone, or telling any tales of his discoveries, and without this letter to warn him, the laird wouldn’t know what a risk he was taking by agreeing to his wife’s request.

Curran would bring Morrigan to Barra.

Aodhàn laughed. All he had to do was wait.

* * * *

Morrigan lay in bed, fast asleep. It was only eight-thirty, and they had stayed at the ball until nearly four. Curran, however, was awake— bleary-eyed and with a pounding head, but awake. He shrugged into his coat and paused to look at her. The covers had shifted during the night, leaving her partially exposed. He ran his index finger along her spine then leaned down and kissed her shoulder, wishing he could strip again and dive back into bed with her.

But Doctor Wietzel was waiting. The entire house seemed to be still asleep, but for a few muffled sounds floating from the kitchens. He let himself out without seeing anyone.

He pondered as the cab carried him to his destination. No matter how close and happy he and Morrigan were now, he knew the problems at Kilgarry hadn’t been subdued. He longed to divine the future. Would she abandon him? Would he yield to this newfound rage he hadn’t known was lurking inside him, and hurt her?

The mutilated doll haunted him.

He’d always believed he would make a good husband and father. Now he had doubts. He feared his jealousy, and this new hatred for Aodhàn Mackinnon.

He stepped out of the cab into drizzling rain and an unseasonable chill.
Doktor Wietzel
, the bright brass nameplate on the green portal declared. No indication of what sort of doctor he was. The man, a German native, came highly recommended. He’d studied at the famed French
Salpêtrière
hospital with Jean-Martin Charcot, and was considered to be at the forefront of the newly emerging study of mental disorders.

Not until Curran sat in a deep comfortable chair in the elderly alienist’s office, a cup of coffee in hand, did he begin to question why he’d made this appointment. What did he hope to discover? That he was afraid he might harm his wife? That he thought her half-mad?

In one numbing instant, he realized what he’d been avoiding. He would pay the cost, whatever it was. He had to protect her. But from what?
You’re the biggest threat to her
, he caught himself thinking, and scraped a palm over his tired eyes.

It was chilly enough this morning that someone had lit a fire in the hearth. Its crackle and spark reached out, teasing him into its hot core. Doctor Wietzel’s nasal voice faded into the flickering light on the wallpaper. No, the walls were not paper. They were stone. He was in a cave, lying on a pallet, half-covered in animal fur. Beside him reclined a woman, her hair falling over the edge of the pallet like a black river.
Kiss me,
she said, and he did.

She wasn’t Morrigan. Yet she was. He knew her by the mark on her wrist, and something else… in her eyes, something invisible that surrounded her.
This
was the woman Curran had dreamed of all his life. It was she, as a child, whom he’d carried from some underground place— she who had been imprisoned by a lion. Most recently he’d envisioned her while caught in the magic of Diorbhail’s mushroom at Cape Wrath. He’d seen many things that day, had seen himself making love to this woman, and for the first time, he knew her name.

Aridela.

I am empty as a broken crock,
she said.
You should have a woman who can return your love, as Selene does. Vengeance is all that’s left of me.

He drew out the words carefully, so she wouldn’t misunderstand.
I will bind you to this pallet until the day of your death.

You’ll tether me like a goat? That is your image of victory?

He threw himself over her, kissing then biting her throat until she cried out, yet still she pulled him closer.
I will have victory, Aridela,
he threatened fiercely.

“Mr. Ramsay?”

Curran blinked. Doctor Wietzel was bending over him with a glass of water.

“I think you are unwell, sir.”

“No, no.” Curran straightened. Perspiration dotted his forehead.

“You lost consciousness, or seemed to.” The physician’s voice echoed.

Aridela
. Though it made no sense, Curran knew that woman was Morrigan. She’d called him Menoetius. Strange as the vision was, it was also familiar, and as real as this chair he sat in.
I will have victory
. He felt a certain kinship to that scarred, ugly warrior. The words reverberated through Curran’s chest. He took the glass from Doctor Wietzel and drank all the water in three gulps.

I will have victory
. The image of Aodhàn Mackinnon materialized. Curran’s teeth grated; fire ran through his blood.

You wait and see
.

* * * *

Curran was back in bed with his wife, Olivia asleep between them. After the chilly rain that morning, the day had gone hot and muggy, and had made everyone sleepy.

He breathed in Morrigan’s scent, a musky fragrance he could never identify, though it filled him with contentment. He traced her shoulder, his finger hooking beneath the scrap of lace that held up her chemise. “Won’t you tell me what he did?” he asked.

“Who?” Morrigan’s eyelids fluttered. Her fingers brushed over the baby’s head nestled against her bosom, and moved on to her husband’s bare shoulder.

“Your father. What did he do to you?” He wanted to understand. He wanted to know her.

“Drove Nicky away. Tried to… let me sleep.” She rubbed her palm against his cheek. Her breathing lengthened.

Neither his wife nor daughter moved, but for the lift and fall of their chests.

It didn’t last. Morrigan’s head turned towards the pillow. She spoke one unintelligible word, trailing off at the end. “Crisss….”

“Are you awake?” he asked quietly.

For several moments she lay still, then she coughed. One hand lifted and scratched at her throat. Again she coughed. “No. No….”

“Morrigan?”

Her eyes opened. She sat upright, causing the lace to fall off her shoulder. “Let me go, Menoetius,” she said, touching his cheek.

Blood pounded in his ears and his vision went spotty. “What did you say?”

She lay down again. Her eyes closed.

“Wake up.” He shook her. “Morrigan, wake up.”

“What’s wrong?” she asked, yawning, blinking.

“What were you dreaming?” Olivia, awakened by her father’s low but insistent voice, began a strident protest.

“Look what you’ve done. Oh, Livvy.” She cuddled the baby. “Livvy, Livvy, everything’s all right.” Swinging her legs off the bed, she paced with the child.

“Can you mind it?” he asked. “You said something. Menoetius.”

She paused and regarded him, a tilt to her head. “I was dreaming of you, but that was your name. You threatened me.”

“Did I say I’d bind you?”

Her eyes widened. “How did you know that?”

“Because I had the same dream. We were lying beside a fire in a—”

“Cave.”

“Aye,” he said.

“You were keeping me from someone.”

“You had black hair.”

“I dreamed of the cave before. The first time we… on the moor, the first time, when I fell asleep.”

“What does it mean?”

“I don’t know.” She returned and lay beside him, her back snuggled against his chest and stomach. He held her close, rubbing her cheek with his while she nursed the wean.

“Stop it,” she said, half-smiling. “You need to shave. You’re prickly.”

“A shared dream.” He mused, thinking of Cape Wrath and the dream he’d had simultaneously with her, the one where they were being stoned. A faint shiver started at the base of his spine and traveled to his scalp. “What could cause such a thing?”

“You were different. Your hair was dark, and you were horribly scarred.”

“A lion did it.”

“How d’you know?”

He shrugged. “I just do.”

“A lion.”

He knew what she was thinking. He was too. The castle beneath the water. Fighting a lion. The woman chained in the oak.

She pressed closer, rousing him though he tried to ignore it. “When I first saw you in Stranraer,” she said, “at the train station, I thought you were Theseus come to life. My Greek hero, the man I always dreamed of when I was unhappy.”

“I thought you a wood nymph, sunburned and covered with bracken.”

She rolled onto her back, holding the babe on her stomach, and touched the scar beside his eye. “This scar…” she said. “It was there in the dream, but much worse. It started here, but went clear down your face.” She trailed the tip of her index finger to his mouth.

He took her hand and kissed her fingertips.

“Don’t you think that’s odd?” she asked.

“Aye.”

“You were kissing me. I wanted to stay there with you in that cave… forever. Forever and ever.” Her eyes darkened. “Forever.” Her face turned sad and forlorn. “But I don’t think it happened.”

“We’re together now.” Deep inside, that phrase formed. He’d heard it first when flying on the wings of whatever alchemy was in Diorbhail’s mushroom.
What seems the end is only the beginning.

He kissed her; she sighed, running her fingers through his hair and making a sound in her throat. “Your kisses are magic,” she whispered.

Tell me you love me
. It was a never-ending desire, one he never voiced. She had never said it. He’d never wanted to hear anything more.

She traced the scar next to his eye, frowning. “What makes us do the things we do? Why can’t we form life the way we want it?” Lifting her hand, she flexed her fingers then closed them into a fist. “Sometimes I feel like the paddle wheel on a ferryboat.”

He smiled. “That’s an odd bit of a thing to feel like.”

“I go round and round, clicking and clacking, churning the water, chopping up plankton and wee sea creatures, never getting anywhere, never finding a place to land. Just senseless spinning.”

Dark thoughts behind those luminous eyes. Not wanting to cause her more concern, he kept to himself the certainty that somehow, somewhere, the tableau in the cave had happened. The two of them had been in that cave, though they’d looked different and possessed odd names.

He kissed away her frown. She kept him close, her hand stroking the back of his neck. When she rose to change Olivia’s hippins he folded his arms beneath his head and gave himself over to the enjoyment of watching her. She wore nothing but a chemise, lace-bottomed drawers, and a single petticoat. When she caught him watching, she smiled and blushed like a virgin, this lass who had borne his child, and who once said,
I’m going to come home and ride you, my fine stallion
.

Once Doctor Wietzel had listened to Curran’s concerns, he’d asked to examine her. “It might be possible to bring out the cause of her nervous disposition,” he said, “and perhaps insert more healthy suggestions through the use of hypnotism. I’ve long wanted to try the method.”

Curran was instantly on guard. “What is it?”

Doctor Wietzel frowned as he absently polished a smudge on the corner of his desk with a handkerchief. “Hypnotism?” he said. “It was a popular theory in the ’40s and ’50s, mostly because of a surgeon in Edinburgh named Braid. He learned about the technique from texts on meditation coming out of India. I read his book on the subject— it was fascinating. Interest faded after his death, but lately, the French have resurrected the idea. Their new work shows promise, especially in the area of suggestion. Hysterical patients like your wife are surprisingly susceptible to new ideas and beliefs being placed into their thoughts. I have read accounts of tremendous changes in outlook and attitude.”