Books by Maggie Shayne (297 page)

Oh, she feared the pain, the loss, just as Nicodimus had. She feared it. But it wouldn't matter if she feared it or not. She was incapable of loving another as she had loved her Nicodimus ... as she still loved him.

One day, she vowed, she would find Nathanial Dear-borne again, and make him pay for what he had done. And one day, perhaps, if her long ago spell had worked, she would find her beloved sister again, as well. That dim hope was the one thing that gave her the strength to keep going.

Until then, she had nothing to do, except prepare. She would learn. To fight, to kill... to survive.

Arianna spent almost two hundred years alone. More utterly alone, she thought, than the last star to fade in the morning. And in that time, she nursed a hatred for Nathanial Dear-borne and for Marten, that rivaled the sun for its blazing fury. She didn't see Nidaba in all that time, and didn't search for her. The woman hated her with good reason. Besides, seeing her would only be a painful reminder of Nicodimus and the brief, sweet time Arianna had spent with him. In his arms. Loving him, even though he couldn't return her feelings.

But that was history. She was no longer a seventeen-year-old girl in love. She was different now. She didn't look the same; she'd kept her hair short and liked it that way. Though perhaps if she looked very deeply, she would find somewhere inside, buried in the deepest part of her being, the notion that she left her hair short in memory of Nicodimus. In some kind of meaningless penance for the long ago mistakes that had cost him his heart.

She didn't
sound
the same. The lilt of the highlands had long since faded from her voice. She was hard, solitary, and she spent every moment she could honing her skills with a blade. She fought. She killed. She survived, with

one thought foremost in her mind. Someday she would cross paths with Dearborne and Marten again. And when that day came, she would kill them for what they had done.

But almost two centuries after Nicodimus's brutal murder, something happened that softened Arianna's rocklike soul, and restored a sense of joy to her existence; in the summer of 1691, she found her sister. Raven at long last, lived again. Arianna's long ago spell
had
been true. Raven looked the same, bore the same name, and Arianna recognized her at once. And even though Raven didn't know who Arianna was at first, there had been an immediate connection, and a slow rebuilding of the bond they'd once shared. For over three centuries, they remained together almost continuously.

And then, a year ago, in 1998, another figure from the distant past had reappeared in Arianna's life. Nathanial Dearborne. He'd been determined to kill Raven, to take her heart for his own. He'd hated her for capturing the love of the man he'd thought of as his son. He blamed Raven for turning Duncan against him, and sought vengeance. But he hadn't counted on Arianna's presence, nor her intervention. Deaborne's attempt on Raven thwarted, he had run back to his rooms to gather his belongings and flee Arianna's wrath.... At last, her chance to avenge Nicodimus had come....

Arianna walked into the room while Nathanial Dearborne gathered up the tiny wooden boxes, all of them filled with stolen, still beating hearts. The sources of his strength, his very life. For a moment she only stood in the doorway, watching him as he packed the hearts in a case, and began reaching for the volumes of journals that lined the shelves. It amazed her that her hatred for him could still be so strong, after four hundred eighty-seven years ... for that was precisely how long it had been since she'd seen the bastard plunge his blade into Nicodimus's back.

Arianna drew a breath, and stilling her emotions, began to speak."You took the man I loved," she all but growled. "And I'll kill you for it."

Dearborne froze, then turned slowly to face her. And Arianna knew he feared her. She'd nearly bested him when she'd been but a fledgling immortal, after all. He had to know she could kill him easily now. He'd always known. It was why he'd been so carefully avoiding her for so very long. She could see it in his eyes.

"Don't be so certain, Arianna," he said to her slowly. "I was unprepared for you before. But never again will I underestimate the power of hatred."

"It wasn't the power of hatred, Nathanial. It was the power of love." He took a step forward, but she moved to block the door fully. She stood there with her legs shoulder width apart, knuckles on her hips, chin high. "Hatred has no power. The power that nearly killed you then was the power of love. My love for one of the many you murdered. And it's that same power that will destroy you now."

He took a step backward, setting his packed case on the floor to free his hands. She watched his every move, ready to react. "Which one was he, this victim of mine? It's been so long... I can scarcely remember them all. Was he the barbaric Celtic warlord? The Mayan Shaman?" He shrugged. ' 'Not that it matters. They all died on their knees, begging for mercy."

"I can hardly wait to see how you do," she said, and drew her dagger, held it lightly, tossed it from one hand to the other. "But to remind you, his name was Nicodimus, and he died with the blade of a coward in his back. And you remember him perfectly well. I know you do."

His Adam's apple moved as he swallowed his fear—or tried to. "Will you kill me unarmed, Arianna, or give me a chance to draw my blade?'' His hand inched toward the leather pocket at his side.

She narrowed her eyes. "I'll kill you in a fair fight or not at all," she told him. "Go on."

He drew the weapon from its sheath. Not his dagger, but she didn't see in time. Dearborne pulled out a handgun, and even as Arianna gasped and tried to dart out of its line of fire, he leveled the barrel and pulled the trigger.

The bullet hit Arianna in the chest like a freight train,

driving her backward through the open doorway, and into the hall. The pain exploded even as the floor fell away, and she realized she was tumbling head over heels down the stairs. Her body crashed and pounded, twisted and turned, and when she came to a stop at last, her limbs were bent beneath her, broken, and she knew the healing wouldn't have time to take place, because Dearborne wouldn't let it.

It was over. She had failed ... failed Nicodimus. Again.

She opened her eyes and saw the evil bastard standing over her. "It's a shame you prefer a fair fight," he said. He crouched low, tore open her blouse and she could do nothing to prevent it. "I prefer a sure win, myself." And then she felt the fiery tip of his blade slicing her flesh.

"Raven ... will kill you for this ..." The thought of her sister's grief was nearly as painful as the rest.

"Oh, I'm sure she will try." Dearborne tilted his head thoughtfully. "Do you ever wonder about the bodies of slain immortals, Arianna? They die, but don't really. They remain ever new, ever young. Do you suppose their minds are still alive, as well? Do you suppose they
know
they've been buried alive?"

She did wonder, had wondered endlessly, ever since Nicodimus had been taken from her. But she had no more time to wonder, because Dearborne chose that moment to drive his blade into her chest to the hilt. Arianna's mind exploded in a screaming blast of agony... and then she descended into blackness.

But it was a blackness that faded.

The next thing Arianna felt was the jolt that seemed so much like electrocution. Her back arched sharply as she sucked new breath into her lungs. And as she relaxed and blinked her eyes open, it was to see her beloved sister staring down into her eyes. Fear and shock raged inside, and Arianna clutched at her chest, which throbbed and tingled. "How ... how did you ... what... ?"

Raven stroked her hair. "It's over, Arianna. You're all right." She smiled through her tears. "You're really all right."

Raven hugged her close, but Arianna couldn't stop her

own violent trembling. "B-but... he took my heart."

"I know, I know, darling. But now I've taken his. And yours . . . yours beats still, back inside you where it belongs."

"But—"

She was interrupted then, by Duncan, her sister's lover, the man who'd once thought of Dearborne as a father. "It was Nathanial," he said. "He seemed to want to clear his conscience before he died. So he told me how to bring you back."

"But how could he know that?" Arianna asked, amazed. "I didn't even know that such a thing was possible, and..." She blinked then, as the magnitude of what this meant hit her fully. "He has other hearts here."

"Well, yes," Raven said. "Weak ones, nearly lifeless, some of them, but—"

"Don't you see?" Arianna sat up slightly, grasping her sister's shoulders. "My Goddess, Raven, don't you see what this means?"

Raven hadn't seen. Not fully. Not then. But Arianna had. She'd taken all those captive hearts, knowing that one of them, one precious heart, belonged to Nicodimus. And if there was a chance in creation that she could return it to him, restore him as she had been restored ... she had to try.

She'd taken Dearborne's journals as well, pored over them. And what she found in them horrified her. The man had considered himself some kind of scientist. He'd taken other immortals captive, kept them and experimented on them to find their strengths, their weaknesses, all with the intent of becoming the strongest of them all. He had killed and revived his victims time and again, observing the effects, making notes. He had taken hearts, and returned them, just to see what the results would be. His notes made mention of one "subject" in particular. One he called only "the dark woman," whom he'd tormented longer than any other, before she had finally escaped him. Dearborne had written that this woman had been the oldest High Witch

he'd ever known, and that even her strong mind had begun to flirt with madness, in time. He had intended to kill her once and for all when he'd finished with her, but she'd managed to break free before he'd done so. As she read those words, Arianna thought of Nidaba. The last time Ar-ianna had seen the woman, she had been going after Dear-borne.

Gods, could this victim have been Nidaba? That strong, proud immortal Arianna had admired—and envied—so greatly?

Arianna, Duncan and Raven, had bumed Dearborne's body. But before incinerating his heart, she'd performed an incantation over it, willing all its stolen power to return to the captive hearts where it belonged.

Once that was done, Arianna left her sister behind to begin the longest journey of her life. Armed with the six captive hearts, all beating strongly now in their little boxes, and the reams of information recorded in the journals of a madman, she set out to locate the bodies of Dearborne's victims, and to try to restore them to life.

But the first one... the very first heart she returned to its rightful home ... would be that of Nicodimus. The man she had loved and lost. The man who believed she had betrayed him. The man ... who had been her husband.

Stonehaven, Scotland Autumnal Equinox, 1999

Arianna stood upon the hill overlooking Stonehaven. It was rebuilt, isolated—backward by modern standards, space-aged in comparison to the way she remembered it. The ship had seemed to take forever to cross the Atlantic, and though she'd been impatient, there had been no other way. She certainly couldn't have boarded an airliner with six human hearts beating in her carry-on bag.

In her hands she held the small wooden box that contained the heart of Nicodimus Lachlan. Its beat had been weak, barely there, until she'd cast the spell to return all Dearbome's stolen power to its rightful owners. Now it beat strong and steady. And now she would try what her onetime husband had told her no Witch could do.

She would try to raise the dead.

The wind blew, riffling her short hair, brushing her cheeks with the scent of heather and the sea. Midnight now. The Witching Hour children spoke of in whispers on All Hallows' Eves. She walked slowly into the woods, leaving her vehicle, a small Jeep, parked nearby. A heavy backpack hung from her shoulders, and the jugs of rainwater sus-

pended from either side of it bounced against her hips, and made it even heavier. But she had grown strong in four centuries of immortality. The weight was no burden to a High Witch as old as she. Deeper and deeper into the woods she trekked, until she located the site where the sacred Stone Circle had once towered.

Those monoliths were tumbled down now. A few remained upright, leaning drunkenly inward. Some lay flat and broken, large chunks missing, ruined by time or over-zealous tourists who stumbled upon the circle and thought to take some of its magic home with them. Sacred souvenirs. The place was overgrown by vines and brambles. Few even knew it existed.

Arianna paused at the very center of the circle, where she had buried Nicodimus. Closing her eyes, she remembered him as he had been, and in turn, herself as she had been. She was not the same anymore. There was, she mused, a large difference between a girl of seventeen and a woman who had existed for centuries. But one thing remained the same. Her guilt. She blamed herself for Nicodimus's death just as surely as
he
had blamed her for it while the life drained away from him. And what she did now, she did to right the wrong she had done him. And for no other reason.

"You likely won't even know me now, Nicodimus," she murmured. According to Dearborne's hideous journals, others had been revived. Some right away, some more slowly, but all to varying degrees of confusion. And they had been relatively recent kills of his. The madman had noted that the longer he allowed an immortal to remain in death, the more disoriented they were upon their resurrections. Arianna herself had been dead only moments when she'd been revivified.

But Nicodimus ...

Nicodimus had been lying in this dark mockery of death for centuries.

Even without that, he might not recognize her. Her once long golden hair was cropped short now. Her voice no

longer carried the lilt of Scotland, and every shred of innocence had been burned from her eyes.

She no longer vomited at the thought of taking a heart. Indeed, she'd taken many. Quickly, coldly, and without remorse. For it was the way of things. She had come to learn that very early on in her new life.

Above all else in Arianna's mind, was the knowledge that if Nicodimus
did
somehow know her, and remember her, he would likely hate her for what she had done. His last glimpse of her had been in the arms of his darkest enemy. The man who'd hunted him all his life, and from whom he had come to rescue her. And he had died because of it.

"It doesn't matter," she told herself again. She had been telling herself the same things over and over all night as she'd made her preparations. "It doesn't matter. I'm righting a wrong. It isn't as if I still love him. It's been centuries. And that love belonged to an innocent girl—a girl who died along with her family back in that tiny cottage on that darkest of days. A girl... who no longer exists."

With a sigh of resignation, refusing to acknowledge the slight trill of anticipation singing through her veins and making her hands tremble, she set the box with its precious contents down, and shrugged off the large backpack. She set the water jugs aside, quickly loosing the knots that held them. Then, unzipping the pack, she took out the foldable shovel, the flashlight, the four white candles, and the soft, down-filled sleeping bag.

The moon sailed high, and the night breeze made the trees 'round her seem to whisper. Trees sacred to long ago Druids. Oaks, tall and mighty, so old they'd seen entire races come and go. These very trees had been in attendance at Nicodimus's burial. It was fitting they look on now, at this, his restoration.

Her hands still shaking, Arianna began to dig.

She hadn't buried him deeply. Her preternatural strength had only begun to manifest then, and besides, she'd been emotionally and physically drained. So firmly entrenched in her misery, she'd barely been able to hold her head up,

much less dig a proper grave. But she had made it deep enough so that Nicodimus would be safe. No animals would have reached his perfectly preserved body.

She pushed the blade in with a foot, scooped out mounds of soil and flung it behind her. Over and over she did this, never tiring in the least. As the hole deepened and widened, she dug more carefully, inserting the shovel with great care, feeling for his body lying helpless, lifeless beneath the black earth. Her heart pounded harder with every bit of dirt she removed—but not from the exertion.

Finally she glimpsed a rotted scrap of deep blue satin. Her breath caught in her throat, and she fell to her knees, picking it up carefully, shaking the dirt away and then running her fingers over the fabric. "Nicodimus," she whispered.

Using her hands, now, she clawed more soil away, and finally saw one large hand, icy cold and so ... so very still. Coated in dirt, damp with it. A sob escaped her as she brushed the dirt away. She dug faster, frantically now, scraping the dirt away from his forearm, then upper arm, and shoulder ... until at last, she uncovered his face.

Earth was caked upon his skin, but she whisked it away. Soil had crumbled into the creases around his closed eyes... Gods, how she wanted to see them open again! She continued working, refusing to give in to the foolish urge to just sit and stare at him. She could not be discovered here. How would she ever explain herself? No, she must work quickly, and put her emotions aside. Close them off. Refuse to feel. It was easier than it might have been once. She had been practicing this very thing for a long time, after all.

When his body was free of its earthen tomb, she paused briefly, brushing the soil from her hands and staring down at him. He lay motionless, in some kind of suspended state. Neither alive, nor fully dead. Bathed in moonlight at the bottom of an uncovered grave, caked in earth. Naked, except for the few scraps of satin that remained. And the pendant—her pendant.

Her breath caught in her throat at the sight of it lying

there, and it was as if the centuries, the very ages, melted away. The pain of losing him was as fresh and new in her heart as it had been on that day.

And yet, it had been so long. It had been so long since she'd looked at this man. Since she'd touched him.

Stop it!

Closing her eyes briefly, Arianna put a mental stronghold on her heart, and listened only to her mind. The practical voice telling her, step by step, what must be done. She had planned this all carefully. She knew what to do, how to proceed.

She went to the sleeping bag, unzipping it and laying it open, just to the left of the grave. Then she moved around to stand near Nicodimus's head, her feet in the grave on either side of it. Bending low, she gripped him underneath the arms, and tugged him out of the hole, onto the damp, mossy ground. The wound in his chest lay open, gaping, and filled with soil and stones, but no insects, thankfully. Evidently the insects had sensed this was no ordinary body to be feasted upon, and had stayed away. As she scooped the dirt and stones away, she wondered what Nicodimus felt, if anything, what he thought—if thoughts were still something of which he was capable. What he remembered ... or would remember when he revived.

If
he revived.

Over four hundred years. Gods, even Dearbome had never attempted to raise an immortal this long dead.

"It will work," she whispered, squaring her shoulders. "It
has
to work."

Arianna set the white candles around him, and lit them, one by one. Then she dug into the very bottom of the backpack for the large bowl and the clean cloths she'd brought along. Kneeling beside Nicodimus, she poured water from one of the jugs into the bowl, dipped a cloth, and held it, dripping, above his face. She squeezed gently, and the water trickled over him. Soil streamed away in dirty rivulets. Bending closer, she began to wash him.

Like history repeating itself, she thought, and the memories came vividly. Memories of the last time she'd washed

his lifeless body this way ... at a stream as she'd carried him back here to be buried.

Just like last time, tears mingled with the water. When the first one dropped from her face to his, it startled her. She stopped what she was doing, sat up straight, and touched her own cheek, only to find it damp. "You're a fool, Arianna. A hopeless fool," she told herself.

She bathed Nicodimus's face, and his neck. She washed his hands, gently working the soil away from each strong finger and from the creases in between. His arms and his chest, she cleansed. No movement came from him. No life. She spent a great deal of time on the wound in his chest, the place where his heart would rest once again, when she had finished. One entire jug of the fresh rainwater she had brought went to this purpose. She rinsed the gaping place again and again, and shone the flashlight upon the open wound, to be sure it was perfectly clean.

Then she moved lower, washing his strong thighs, and the place in between. His calves, and his feet. She rolled him over, and cleansed the ages of soil from his back and buttocks. And with the remaining water, she rinsed his hair, running her fingers through it to scrub the dirt away.

Finally, all was ready. All that remained was to replace his mighty heart. Arianna paused to brush a lock of gold and russet hair from his forehead. ' 'Come back to me, Ni-codimus. Fight your way back, if you must... but come back."

Closing her eyes, drawing a deep, steadying breath, she reached for the box with trembling hands. It was small, intricately etched with symbols and designs. Engraved upon the lid of each of Dearborne's tiny prisons was a single letter. She could only guess, only hope, that the N on this one stood for the initial of its rightful owner. Nicodimus.

Carefully, she lifted the lid, and gathered the heart in her hands. Lifting it high, tipping her face up to the moonlight, she held it, and it seemed to Arianna that its beat grew stronger as she spoke. "By the powers of the Ancient Ones, by every force of the Universe, I restore this heart. I revive

this body. I resurrect this man. Nicodimus, I call you forth. Return to life. Live, Nicodimus. Live.
Live!!''

Slowly, she lowered the heart into his body, positioned it carefully, and took her hands away. "As I will it, so mote it be," she whispered.

She sat back on her heels and waited, watching. She stared until her eyes watered, willing his chest to heal, his body to accept and embrace its heart. But nothing happened.

Tears once again stood in her eyes, but she angrily blinked them away. "It might take time," she reminded herself. "That's all. Just time." Nodding hard in affirmation of that belief, she gently eased Nicodimus's body onto the waiting sleeping bag, and folding it over him, zipped it up. One by one she snuffed the candles, and packed them away. She attached the empty jugs to the sides of the backpack. She scraped the earth back into the empty grave, and the bits of rotted silk along with it. Then she folded the shovel and put that in the pack, as well. She packed the basin, the soiled cloths, the flashlight. All that remained was a length of rope. This she tied to the sleeping bag at either side of Nicodimus's head, then looped the rope around her waist, and set off.

The journey back to her Jeep seemed endless. His weight behind her seemed to increase with every step, and even with her tremendous immortal strength, she grew tired. Not physically so much as mentally. She wanted the journey over. She wanted him safe inside, out of sight. At last her vehicle came into view, just as the first blush of purplish predawn light painted the horizon.

Nicodimus was heavy, even for one with her power and strength. But not too heavy. She wrested his body into the car, closed the rear door, and leaned against it for a moment, sighing in relief. It was done. Or all but done.

But would it work? Would he awaken?

And if he did ... what then?

With a sigh of resolution, she vowed to deal with that when the time came. Climbing behind the wheel, she started the engine, and drove over the rutted track and down

into the village of Stonehaven; to the cottage that sat on the site of her onetime home. The place where she'd been born. Where she'd lived. Where she'd found her parents brutally murdered.

She had returned here several times over the centuries. Drawn back like a moth to the candle's flame. She had come back to the memories; the pain, the hurt, the loss. As if testing her resolve to feel none of it anymore. She had purchased the lot on one of those many visits, and had a modest home built there. She rarely visited it anymore— simply paid a local resident to see that the place was cared for, kept up. But somehow, she couldn't seem to let it go. It was as if that place were her one remaining connection to the mortal, headstrong girl she had been, and the happiness she had once known. It was as if selling it would be cutting herself off at the very root.

The house was a simple, two-story structure, with clapboard siding painted white, and black shutters at the windows. Closed now, those shutters. All of them. It wouldn't do to have anyone peering in just now. The house had two bedrooms and a bath upstairs, and one below, in the back. That would be Nicodimus's home ... for now.