Books by Maggie Shayne (277 page)

“I’ll take care of Arianna,” he whispered, saw her close her eyes in stark pain. Then he picked up the small box, felt the chilling thrum of its beat from within, and carried it down with him.

I took Nathanial Dearborne’s heart. Not because I could grow strong by draining its power, but because it was the only way he would remain dead. The only way I could be sure. I would burn it, and his body, when this gruesome task ended. I would free his soul, and perhaps on some other plane, he’d learn what this long lifetime had been about. Perhaps he’d live again one day, a decent, loving man. A father, perhaps, who would learn the meaning of the word.

Gently, I placed Nathanial’s heart in an empty box on the shelf, but as I did so, I couldn’t help but notice all the other boxes, and the weak, slow beats emanating from them. His victims. All his victims. I’d burn this place. I’d destroy the hearts that lived on here, beating endlessly while the bodies that had once owned them lay in some nightmarish state between life and death. I’d burn them all and, in so doing, set their captive souls free.

Sighing, I felt my heart breaking for all of them, but mostly for my sister, my Arianna, my beloved best friend and kindred spirit. I felt empty, lost without her. As lost as I had been all those years without Duncan.

Had I ever told her, I wondered, how very much she meant to me?

Crying, I washed my hands in a basin of water, and then I went down the stairs.

Arianna’s body was no longer there, tangled and bloody. Duncan had moved her to an antique chaise fit for a goddess. He’d draped a sheet over her as she reclined there. And for that, I was grateful.

Duncan awaited me at the foot of the stairs. His dark hair tousled, his eyes swirling cauldrons of emotion. I saw so much there as his intense gaze locked with mine; pain, grief, shock. And something more. He took me into his arms when I reached him. I thought he needed to hold me as much as I did him, just then. To feed from my strength, to bolster me with his. Together we were so much more than either of us was alone. But that couldn’t be what he was feeling. Maybe three centuries ago, but not now.

“I have to tell you some things, Raven. An’ I hope you’ll do me the honor of listenin‘ before you interrupt.“

Smiling just a little, tears still spilling from my eyes, I stepped back and looked up at him. “Your Highland lilt is back, Duncan. I… it was upstairs, but I was too…” I frowned hard, searching his face. “What does this mean?”

“I thought you liked my lilt.”

“I do. I just don’t understand why it keeps slipping into your speech.”

“Tis more than the accent that’s come back to me, Raven.“

I blinked… then blinked again and searched his eyes. “Duncan?”

“I love you, lass,” he said very softly. “I’ve been fallin’ in love with you all over again, ever since I found you, Raven, but ‘tis more than that now. It has come back to me. All of it, all you were to me, an“ all I was to you. All we still are to each other.” He closed his eyes, searching for words as his strong hands kneaded my shoulders in time with the beat of my heart.

I tried to speak and couldn’t.

He opened his eyes, and they were wet. “When I saw you fall… ”twas like a doorway into the past opened up wide. An‘ God, my sweet bonny lass, when I held your poor broken body in my arms on those rocks, I knew…“ He cradled my face in his hands, his eyes poring over me. ”You’re everythin“ to me, Raven.
Everythin’.
You always were. My mind might have forgotten for a little while, but my heart remembered you, lass, from the moment I set eyes on you again. I love you, Raven.”

I touched his face, searched his eyes, and saw him there. Duncan Wallace, the man I’d loved so long ago, alive again, fully alive at last. “Duncan…” I collapsed in his arms, wanting to weep for joy. “Oh, Duncan, hold me. Hold me forever.”

“We’ll never be apart again, love. Never again, I vow it to you.” He kissed me with such passion and love, and held me cradled against his chest, wrapped warmly in his arms.

“You truly remember everything?”

“Aye,” he said softly. “The night I watched you through the cabin windows, bathin’, singin‘ like a siren, an“ drawin’ me near. The first time we made love on the cliffs with the sea crashing below us… all of it.”

I could barely breathe, so tight was my chest. I closed my eyes. “And how you died…just because I didn’t trust in you enough to tell you the truth?” I asked him.

He stepped back slightly so he could see my face. “I’d die a thousand times for you, Raven St. James. An’ even that wouldna show you the limits of my love. I canna… I canna find the words… there
are
no words. “Tis beyond somethin‘ as mundane as language. ”Tis beyond anythin“ physical…’Tis pure, Raven. Spiritual. Holy. You… are a part of me. Even death couldna change that.”

“No. Not even death,” I told him.

“I need you the way I need air,” he whispered, and my heart soared. He held me tight and kissed me, so tenderly, so deeply, that I knew he truly meant every word. “An’ I believe all that happened to us was just as ‘twas meant to happen. Had it been different, I’d be long dead by now, an“ you with no hope of seein’ me again.”

I closed my eyes. “I can’t even imagine living with that kind of pain.”

“I want to take your pain away, my love,” Duncan whispered. “All your pain. An’ I think I can. I think so long as I’m with you, you’ll never hurt again. Not if I can prevent it.“

I lifted my head and glanced toward the sheet-draped body of the other person I’d come to love beyond reason. And my joy dimmed beneath a fresh onslaught of sorrow. The sister of my soul lay dead and beyond my reach.

“No one can ease this pain,” I said very softly. “Not even you, Duncan, though I love you with everything in me. I’m so glad you’ve come back to me. Truly come back, at last. So long, I’ve waited. And maybe… maybe someday Arianna will find her way back to me as well.”

Duncan looked toward where Arianna lay, and his eyes widened for just an instant. Then he smiled, a tentative, wary smile. “Maybe sooner than you think,” he said. He took my hands in his, staring down into my eyes. “Nathanial… he said somethin’ to me as he lay dyin‘.“

I tilted my head, frowned up at him. “I don’t under—”

“He said, ”The heart beats on. The body only rests. Put it back.“ An’ then he repeated, it. “Put it back,” he kept sayin‘.
“Put it back.”

I shook my head, and my breath caught in my throat. “P-put it back?”

Duncan nodded. “Aye. So… I did.”

“But…” I looked toward the chaise. Blinked my eyes as the sheet seemed to move. And then it moved again. “It can’t be… Arianna?”

The body beneath the sheet went stiff, the arms rigid, the sheet flinging aside as a desperate gasping sound filled the room. The sheet fluttered to the floor, revealing Arianna’s body, arching and taut… then relaxing back to the chaise. Still, unmoving, eyes closed.

I took a step forward. “Arianna?” I whispered, almost afraid to hope…

Her eyes opened. Arianna blinked, looked around, and then sat up fast, wide-eyed with fear. “What—Where—” Her hands clawed at her chest in search of the remembered wound.

I ran to her. “Arianna… Arianna, it’s all right. It’s okay, I’m right here.”

She stared at me, shocked and disoriented. Slowly she tugged at the remnants of her torn blouse and stared down at her chest. Even now, I could see the lines of the jagged cut, barely visible in her flesh, fading fast.

“How… how did you… what…”

I stroked her hair. “It’s over, Arianna. You’re all right.” My smile was watery and my chest nearly bursting with emotion. I hugged her close. “You’re really all right.”

“B-but…” She hugged me back, but she was trembling. “He took my heart,” she whispered.

“I know, I know, darling. But now I’ve taken his. And yours… yours beats still, back inside you, where it belongs.”

“But—”

’Twas Nathanial,“ Duncan said from behind me. His hands clasped my shoulders. Then he reached down and stroked Arianna’s hair as she lifted her head to stare up at him. ”He seemed to want to clear his conscience,“ Duncan explained. ”So he told me how to bring you back.“

Sitting back away from me, Arianna gazed up at him. “But how could he know that?
I
didn’t even know that… and… and…” Her eyes widened and her voice became a soft croak, barely audible. “He has other hearts here…”

“Well, yes, weak ones. Nearly lifeless, some of them. But—”

“Don’t you see?” She grasped my shoulders, shook me gently. “My Goddess, Raven,
don’t
you
see?”

I met her eyes, and slowly shook my head.

She swallowed hard and seemed to gather herself. “Never mind. Never mind, I… this isn’t the time. We have to get out of here. Cover this up. My God, if they find this place, the blood, his body up there like that…“

“You’re right,” I said.

She got to her feet, holding the sheet around her and moving slowly forward, until she stood toe to toe with Duncan. “You… you did all right for a newborn.”

He lifted a brow. “Aye, I suppose so. Better than you, at least.” And I saw a teasing gleam in Duncan’s eyes.

“He’d never have taken me without cheating,” Arianna said, looking a bit more like herself, I thought. Slightly mischievous, cocky, arrogant.

“I have no doubt,” Duncan returned.

She smiled, tilted her head. “You saved my life… returned my life, more precisely.”

He nodded. “You did the same for me, that night when I died, with your castin’ and conjurin‘.“ He stared at me then, but continued speaking to Arianna. ”You gave me back my life.“

“Ah, so you finally got your head straight, did you?”

“I got my heart back, just like you,” he said. “An’ I’ll never let her get away from me again.“

“And I’ll never let mine slip away, either,” I promised him.

Arianna put one hand on Duncan’s, one on mine, and drew the two together. “A love like yours is so precious,” she said, and her voice got a little gruff, drawing my gaze to the tear that shimmered in her eye. “And a second chance is a gift beyond measure. Not everyone gets that. Cherish it.”

The tear spilled, glistening on her cheek, rolling slowly downward.

“Arianna?” I whispered, instantly concerned.

“No. No, we have work to do tonight. And when it’s done, we celebrate. This is no time for tears. Tears make their own time. Tears… belong in private. Come.” And she drew us out, out of that house of death, and into the night.

Hand in hand, Duncan and I walked away from sadness and loneliness and grief. And for the first time I could remember, the future looked bright… and it would be. As long as we were together.

Hours later we stood far away from the courthouse as its red-orange flame licked up into the night sky. Duncan and I stood arm in arm, watching the fire. And I felt like a Phoenix. I’d survived the flames, I’d risen from the ashes, and now, at last, I would live again.

Duncan’s arm was around me, strong and firm, just as I remembered it.
He
was just as I remembered him. Just as I loved him, and I loved him still.

Apart from us a little, Arianna knelt. She’d gathered all the small boxes with their weakening, barely beating hearts, and they sat around her in a circle. In her hands she held the other box, the one that held the heart of Nathanial Dearborne. She’d taken all of these, along with all of Nathanial’s books, from the house before we’d set it alight. I suspected she wanted to work a special ritual over them before putting them to the torch and freeing their captive souls once and for all.

Staring at the flames that even now devoured Nathanial Dearborne’s body, Arianna lifted the box that held his heart high above her. In silence Duncan and I closed our eyes and aided in empowering her spell by joining our will with hers as Arianna spoke in a low but powerful voice.

“Thy spirit is free, and separate from thee. Thy body’s no more, thy spirit can soar! I release thee, Nathanial Dearborne, and commend thy spirit to the light.”

Then she lifted the box higher, for the heart beat on.

“The life in this heart, this heart does not own. Return to thine own hearts, return to thy home!”

I caught my breath as at last I realized her intent. “Arianna, no. You mustn’t—”

“As I will it,” she cried, her voice ringing with sheer force, “so mote it be!”

The sound of the beating from within that box grew suddenly louder, suddenly deafening, and then all at once, the box burst into flames. I caught my breath as the blazing thing tumbled from Arianna’s hands to the ground, snapping and crackling as if soaked in some propellant. In seconds it flickered and died, leaving only ashes. Arianna sighed and relaxed. Nathanial’s heartbeat was silenced now. Utterly, completely silenced.

She sank to the ground, lowered her head. And one by one the soft, weak thrum of the dying hearts in the boxes around her grew stronger, louder, until they all pumped with the steady rhythm of life.

I lowered my head into my hands. “Oh, Arianna,” I whispered. “What have you done?”

“The hearts live on, the bodies only rest,” she told me. “That’s what Nathanial said, isn’t it?”

“Yes. But these were nearly gone. You should have helped them pass, Arianna, helped them find release, and peace. Now who knows how long they’ll go on beating from those prisons?”

Slowly she shook her head. “No. We don’t know that they’d ever have stopped beating entirely, do we?”

“Well, no, but we could have cremated them—”

“It would have been too much like murder,” she declared.

“Those hearts were not strong enough to sustain life, Arianna.“

“And now they are,” she shot back. “Now they’re as strong and as healthy as they were when he stole them.”

“But I don’t understand.”

Duncan’s hand closed around mine. “I do,” he said. He met Arianna’s eyes. “You’re goin’ to put them back.“

She smiled gently, and nodded. “If I can find the bodies they belong to. Nathanial kept journals and diaries among all those books of his. There might be clues there. If it worked for me… Well, there’s a chance.“

I stiffened, and stepped forward. “You… you’re
leaving
me?”

“Yes, my darling.” She cupped my cheek with her palm, leaned forward, and kissed me very gently, very briefly. “It’s time. This is your time, yours and Duncan’s.”

“No!” I cried. “No, you don’t have to leave. We
want
you with us. Tell her, Duncan!”

“She knows,” he said softly. “But I think this is her time, too.
Her
second chance… maybe.”

Arianna’s lips pulled tight, and her eyes welled with tears. “One of these hearts… means more to me than my own,” she said, then she bit her lip, but her tears fell anyway. “If there’s a chance in a million that I can find him… that I can restore him… I have to try.”

I blinked, searching her face. “You… you loved him.”

She said nothing, but I could see the truth in her eyes. So I hugged her close, held her a long time. “I will never be more than a wish away,” I promised her. “And you’ll come back to me. Promise me you will.”

“You know I will, little sister.”

Sniffling, I released her. Arianna gathered the small boxes, the six hearts of Nathanial’s victims, and gently packed them in a satchel. Then she zipped it tight and gathered it up. “I love you, you know,” she told me. Then she glanced at Duncan.
“Both
of you.”

“If you need us—” Duncan began.

“Ha! Me? Need help? You do make me laugh, Duncan.” But she said it with a wink and a smile. Then her smile died. “Take care of each other,” she whispered, just before she turned and walked away, disappearing into the night.

But not from my life. She’d return to tell me all about her adventures, and this mysterious man she sought. I knew she would. We were sisters, and always would be. Nothing could change that.

Just as nothing could change the love Duncan and I shared. A love beyond mortality. Beyond life, or death, or the forces of evil.

“Well, we should get started, too,” he said.

“Get started?” I turned toward him, and he gently brushed the tears from my eyes.

“I guess you didna believe me, did you lass? When I said I’d see to it you never hurt again.“

“Of course I did, but—”

“Then we’d best get started. I’ve lots of time to make up for, you know. Three hundred years of lovin’ to give to you. Three hundred years of sweet nothin’s to whisper into your ears, an‘ of gifts, an’ of kisses an’ pamperin’.“

I nodded. “And I suppose I have three hundred years of magick and of fighting to teach you.”

“Aye. But first, we travel.”

I tilted my head.

Duncan smiled and kissed my nose. “We dinna want that stubborn sister of yours to get too far ahead of us, do we?“

“We’re… going with her?”

“Aye, we’re goin’ with her.“

“But why?”

He stared down at me, his dark eyes growing darker, even as the light of that distant fire danced its reflection in their depths. “If you could see the joy in your eyes right now, love, I’d point to it, an’ I’d tell you, “That’s why.” I love you, Raven St. James. What makes you happy, makes me happy. I love you.
I love you, lass.
‘“

I closed my eyes when he kissed me again, and I knew it was true. The darkest night of my soul had ended, though it had been three centuries long. Dawn had finally broken, and my heart was whole again.