Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

J ulianne smelled spices and wood smoke, and for a moment thought she was at her aunt's place. Klee had always loved the most exotic scents, and gathered rare incense during her trips around the world. The thought that her aunt wouldn't even be born for hundreds of years made her wish she could sleep that long, so she would wake up in her own time.

Do you not know this world even better, my child?

That odd voice in her head made her roll over, wincing as the hard mat under her shifted. She pushed herself up as she opened her eyes to see she was alone. She'd been left in an almost empty room that had what looked like white paper and dark wood slatted walls and a scroll with Asian writing hanging on the wall. A tiny low table held an empty mug with no handle and a small tea pot, both made of dull, dark gray metal. Shaw was nowhere to be seen, but that didn't worry her too much; she sensed he wasn't too far away. The scroll on the wall, that really bugged her, although she didn't know why.

The wall across from her slid to one side, and the monk she'd seen before entered and bowed. "Are you recovered, Mistress Scott?"

"I'm fine." She looked up at the monk's blue-green eyes, which seemed weirdly familiar to her. "Where's Shaw? Ah, the man I was with?"

"He walks the temple grounds at the moment." He gestured toward the little table. "Have some tea. It is bitter, but it will revive you."

"I'm not thirsty." She glanced down and for the first time realized what she was wearing. "Where are my clothes?"

"They are being cleaned." The monk gracefully knelt on the mat and rested his elegant hands atop his thighs. "Do not fear us, Mistress. We are an ancient order, sired here in the mortal realm by our elders to assure the balance between dark and light remains. What is now being bred in the waters of Caladh shall destroy that, and all this world that you love."

Julianne thought of all that Caroline had told her. "Are you talking about the shark shifter?"

The monk inclined his head. "The immortal who created that creature desires your lover above all other beings, so he may transform him and command the dark one. He doesnae realize he has already put the mortal realm in great peril. Now that you have come home, you present even more danger to humanity."

"I don't live here." A chilly sensation made her rub her arms. "Besides, what can I do about any of this? I've never seen the shark shifter. I don't know where to find the guy that made it."

"You have only to do that which you've already done many, many times in the past." He smiled, showing small teeth that gleamed like ivory pearls. "You and Shaw shall save the world by perishing together, as you have in every other incarnation you've shared."

She watched as he pulled a scroll out of his wide sleeve, and unrolled it to show a painting of a golden-haired woman and a dark man jumping off a cliff. The next image on the scroll was older, and illustrated a similar couple embracing in a dark cave as flood waters crept up to their waists. A third, very faded painting above that showed a couple wearing furs and holding hands as they looked up at a bunch of huge rocks tumbling down a mountain side toward them.

Something about each painting resonated deep inside Julianne's chest, as if she had seen the same thing in real life. Then she understood why he was showing it to her.

"Are you saying that these people…they're me and Shaw?" When he nodded her belly made a sickly flop. "How could you possibly know that we lived before, and how we died?"

"My order recognizes those of the darkness and light who become soul-bonded, and we record their passages through time. We have followed you and the chieftain since the beginning of our quest. You and Shaw MacMar have returned from death every time to seek each other in your next lives, as you did now, and as you always will." The monk rolled up and tucked away the scroll, and then stood. "I know you do not yet believe me, but I can prove my words. Would you come with me, please?"

Julianne reluctantly followed him to another room that was filled with huge jars filled with scrolls, and a long, low desk with pillows around it that had slender brushes, new scrolls, and a funny kind of bowl with black paint in it. The air smelled musty, and from the way the scrolls in the jars looked they had been made a long time ago.

"My order has recorded all of your lives since the first." The monk made a sweeping gesture. "These show the end of every one of your incarnations. When you meet for the first time, you fall in love at once. You give each other great happiness for a time, but the burdens of your destiny soon come to bear on you both. Unhappily your shared fate is always the same. The only manner in which you may save the world is to perish together."

"Why do we have to die? Because of Shaw's Pritani spirit," she answered before he could. "If all this is true, then why do we come back when we know how it's going to end?"

"Love," the monk said, smiling a little. "Your devotion to and affection for one another, like your return to the mortal realm, is constant and unwavering."

"Well, that's not helpful." She knew she should ask more questions, but everything he said just confused her more. Frustration made her want to smack herself in her empty head, but that would hurt. "This is way unfair, you know. Why should we have to keep dying to save the world? Is it like we totally messed up the first time, and this is how we're being punished? Like that movie with all the scissors?"

"I cannot tell you," the monk said softly. "Perhaps this time when you and your lover reach the Well of Stars, you will remember our discussion, and convince him to remain there with you. Whenever you return to the mortal realm, you are both doomed to suffer this fate again. You cannot escape it."

"Okay." He seemed to know everything, so he might have some insight she didn't. "If you were me, what would you do?"

He coughed into his sleeve. "My kind are born fully aware of our destiny, Julianne Scott. Once we come into the mortal realm, we cannot alter our path in the slightest. I cannot even imagine making such a choice."

"That's terrible. You should talk to your gods, and tell them you need to switch it up sometimes." She glanced around at the jars. "Can I look through some of these? I'll be careful."

The monk bowed. "Take your time, please."

After he left Julianne picked up a handful of scrolls and took them over to the writing table. It was hard for her to get comfortable with her long legs, so in the end she nudged aside the pillow and just knelt as she untied the cord around the first scroll and spread it out. This one had faint charcoal sketches of her and Shaw looking just as they did now, killing each other with daggers, holding up swords as bolts of lightning came down, and together in a bed as smoke billowed around them. In each one they didn't seem to be afraid, only sad. In the sketch where they stabbed each other they were both crying. Hovering in the background of each sketch loomed the silhouette of something that looked like a man covered in black oil.

Julianne smiled a little. There you are, Buster.

A short time later she left the scroll room and went in search of Shaw, who she found standing on the pavilion beside a stone garden. He was watching two elderly servants carefully raking the sand in beautiful lines. For a while she stood there in silence, wondering what if anything she should say to him. The monk's claims also hung around her neck like a too-large statement necklace.

"He showed you the scroll paintings, then?" Shaw asked.

He already knew. "I looked at some of them. How many did you see?"

"Thirty or so." He reached for her hand, and curled his around it. His thumb moved idly back and forth across her knuckles. "He stopped after the one with the mountain spewing whole islands of smoke in the sky, and flaming rivers of smelted ore. We jumped into that crater holding hands."

"Death by volcano. Big yikes. Well, at least it would have been quick." She leaned against him, relaxing a little as he put his arm around her. "Even if we are the whole dark and light thing, I don't get why it's our fate to die horribly every time together. How does that save the world, really, if we keep coming back? And hey, why aren't you upset about all this depressing soul-bonded business?"

"All beings die, even immortals." He moved his shoulders. "I cannae dwell on such when I may yet live with and love you, and ken we've eternity together. That, 'tis what truly matters. When we die, we die. The scrolls assure me we shall find each other again."

"Yeah, but I've been alive this time for like just two minutes, Shaw," she said, annoyed now. "I didn't even get a chance to become a better person, you know?"

"How could you become better?" he chided.

"You have no idea what a slouch I can be. I never put my laundry away. I just take it out of the basket and wear it wrinkled." She had to think for a minute to recall her other bad habits. "I drink milk directly from the carton and eat cereal out of the box. Why dirty a dish, right? And I never ever pluck my eyebrows. My friend, Eva? Got hers waxed once, and I watched. That like scarred me for life."

His mouth curved a little. "I steal from the kitchens in the night, and then hide the food in my chamber. 'Tisnae from hunger, but my fear of starving again. Even now 'tis likely fifty piles of oatcakes rotting away under my bed and in my trunks. I've stolen a dozen tunics from my brother Fletcher, who never says a word when he sees me wearing them. Aye, and whenever the laird leaves the stronghold, I'm meant to stay in his place. Yet I follow him."

"Why?" she asked, unsure of how that tied in with his other secrets.

"All the NightRiver, I ken they're gone, but yet still I worry mayhap some escaped, and sired sons who now hunt me and my clan." He rubbed his eyes. "I fear they may come and capture my brother, and enslave him as they did me. 'Twould destroy Connal, suffering such horrors."

He was still a lost little boy at heart, Julianne thought. She also hoped if the jerks who had enslaved him were reincarnated, they'd come back as cockroaches.

"If we could come to terms with Buster, we wouldn't have to kill ourselves in this lifetime," she said. "What would the Big Bad want to keep from Armageddoning the world? Maybe if we find out, we can get it on our side, and then maybe we don't have to jump into a volcano."

"I dinnae care, for I hate the facking thing," Shaw said flatly. "If 'twas any manner in which I might slay the demon, I would."

"But we know it's not a demon. It's the end. The end isn't bad or good, it's just the end." She thought for a moment. "Is there anything else that makes Buster settle down?"

His dark eyes narrowed. "You."

She recalled the way his tattoos responded to her whenever they made love. "It definitely likes me, or it wouldn't have inked me. What if I try to convince Big Bad to hop over to me so we can chat?"

Shaw recoiled. "Never. I'd sooner end myself than let the facking thing possess you."

"That's not what I mean." She put her arms around his waist to keep him from leaving her. "Calm down. We're just talking about what we could try. You told me the only time it's interested but not wanting to kill is when I'm near you. I'm your fated love, so that makes sense in a way. It sees me as part of you."

"You dinnae ken what the spirit arouses in me," he told her. "'Twill roar through you like a storm of fire and ice. 'Twill gnaw at your heart and your mind and all the good and kind and gentle parts of you until they're but scarred and twisted. Then it shall whisper to you the worst of your desires, and taunt you for resisting them."

"Sounds like my ex." Julianne suspected he was dead wrong about what the beast would do to her. "Okay, we'll back burner that idea for now. I think we better head back to Caladh soon. C and V are probably totally freaking out about now."

Shaw nodded, and turned and led her down the walkway around the garden to a room that had a sliding door. When he opened it she saw a guest room inside like hers, only with dozens of white paper scrolls dangling from gold cords tied to the ceiling rafters.

"What's with the hanging art?" she asked, frowning.

"They're something like Fae charms, I reckon," Shaw said as he went to close the sliding door. "Mortals of faith use such as safeguards against evil spirits. Doubtless they consider me the same."

"Stop calling Buster evil. It's dark, but so is the universe. That comes from this uber long poem that I had to write a report on when I started high school." She sighed, remembering the huge red F scrawled across her paper. "Never compare darkness to your ninth grade English teacher, by the way. After you do she like hates you forever and won't give you any grade better than a D minus."

He smiled a little as he turned to face her. "How anyone should hate you, I dinnae ken."

"When you're this tall, this blonde, and have boobs this big?" Julianne shook her head. "Everyone hates you, especially other girls. Even my bestie told me that she was glad I was intellectually challenged, because if I was also smart she'd kill herself."

"She doesnae sound like a friend," Shaw said, tugging her into his arms.

"Eva was, really. She looked out for me a lot during high school, and kept me from doing dumb stuff that could get me hurt. She just hated herself for not being as tall or pretty." She slid her hands up his chest, and let herself relax. "Being totally gorgeous isn't so great, you know. Girls don't trust you or they think you're after their guys. Like every guy hits on you, too, even the ones who are married. I went to this party one time, and the married dude hosting it cornered me in his bathroom. Told me he was totally in love with me and had to have me right there, like on the floor. With his wife on the other side of the wall, baking those little sausages in biscuit dough."

Her lover made a hmming sound as he slowly tugged the wide band around the waist of her robe loose.

"He was drunk, but man. I had to do some serious weaving and dodging." Julianne reached behind him to untie the laces of his pants. "I appreciate you not being married, by the way. Sorry I'm already hitched. Or that I will be in the future."

Shaw touched his brow to hers. "No regrets between us, my lovely merrow."

"Remember that," she said softly as she took hold of his marked hand. "I don't regret a single thing I've done since I got here. Especially this." She pressed his hand against the tattoo under her breast. "And the whole dark and light thing isn't so bad. We kind of go together, like chess pieces and piano keys and salt and pepper. I just wish we were back in your room at Dun Ard. That reed mat isn't all that comfortable, and I'd like to–"

Everything around them blurred.

Speal finished dressing the enchantress, who looked and smelled much better after a long hot bath, and stepped back to survey the silk gown she'd chosen for her to wear. The dark blue silk seemed to please Derdrui, as she kept stroking the shining fabric with her fingertips. In her hair the ribbons holding up her soft black curls cascaded with them to her shoulders, where a spider-web fine shawl of thin lace dyed black for mourning made shadows on her dusky skin. Her eyes had taken on a faint red caste, as they did when she drank too much mortal blood.

"You look magnificent, my princess," she said, her voice going husky now. Like this the enchantress resembled Fiacail so much it tore at her heart to look upon her.

"I must look my best for the slaughter of the sons of Mar. Then I think I will kill you and your sisters." Derdrui beamed at her before sweeping out of the room.

A few moments later Mace carried in two steaming buckets and set them by the tub. "Dinnae glare at me. You stink of dead Viking."

"I've most of the last ten she slew on my gown, I reckon." Speal picked up the washtub to empty the dirty bathing water into the empty buckets near the wall before she set it down. "At least she shallnae hunger for mortal torment for a time, and she's too pished on blood to pay us any mind." The threat Derdrui had made earlier to kill the Cait Sith still gave her pause; that sort of musing might be something she'd remember. "Found you any alive we might take on the boat for her?"

The shifter shook her head as she began to fill the tub with the clean water. "You ken she dispatched over a hundred in but half a morn, aye? Save those that hid and escaped her on that longboat."

What she didn't say hung between them like a festering wound unseen.

"I doubt they shall return to seek their vengeance, if 'tis your worry," Speal assured her as she made a particular gesture before she began stripping off her filthy gown. "Summon the rest of our sisters on the island and send them to the boats. You shall take half on the fisher and follow me and our sovereign on the trader at a safe distance until we reach the mainland."

"Permit me stay with you. I've no belly for commanding a vessel." Mace brought a scrubbing cloth and a crock of soap to her. "You reckon Fiacail's new master shall attempt capture Derdrui?"

"If he's a fool, he'll try." Slowly she lowered herself into the warm water of the tub and sat back, closing her eyes. "We'll sail too far apart to share thoughts. Tell our sisters on the fisher to watch for our lanterns at the stern. If I light two, 'tis safe to join us at the dock. If they see but one lit, then flee to the east and Francia or Almany."

"I pray the wind doesnae blow out the flame of the second. Lean forward." The shifter dipped the scrub cloth in the soft brown soap before using it to wash her shoulders. "Say this immortal leads us to the island of the MacMar. Shall we follow the enchantress into battle with the clan, or flee the moment she steps off the gangway?"

"'Tis why we shall gather at the tavern." Speal looked down at the bath water, which had turned a dull pink. "I've become sick unto death of death."

"We've served a sovereign of death since she taught us how we might live." Mace patted her wet shoulder before she handed her the stained cloth. "You'll need clean water to rinse yourself. I'll go and fetch more buckets."

Speal waited until the other shifter had gone before she stepped out, wrapping herself in a robe too small and short for her heavy body. Slowly she approached the bed, then quickly ducked down to look under the blood-soaked ticking.

Two large eyes peered back at her from the gaunt and bruised face of a boy who appeared to be approaching manhood. His skinny limbs suggested he had been poorly treated for some time, and not by the mortals who had occupied the island before Derdrui's arrival. From his grimy appearance and the poor condition of his ragged garments, she guessed him to be a Norse slave.

Derdrui had been so pished, she'd missed the scent of him when she'd first arrived. But now it was the carnage she'd created that masked his presence.

"You did well, hiding yourself for as long as you did, lad. You ken by now I shallnae harm you." Although his lower lip trembled, the rest of his body was rigid. "You speak Scots or English?" When he simply stared at her she sighed. "I dinnae speak any other tongue."

Her gaze shifted to the tray of tea and food Mace had brought in earlier, and then back to the boy. He could have it after they left. It would keep him occupied and away from the water until they'd left the island.

Aware that Mace would soon return, she stood and went back to the bath a moment before the door opened and Mace came in with two more buckets.

"Why didnae you wait?" she scolded. "Now I must find another clean robe for you."