Kiss of the Highlander

Page 54

I went back too far. I thought I could come with you, but I cannot.
Save my clan.
Oh, God, Drustan, she thought, you didn’t go back in time. You sent me back to save you!
“When I consider the small span of my life absorbed in the eternity of all time, or the small part of space which I can touch or see engulfed by the infinite immensity of spaces that I know not and that know me not, I am frightened and astonished to see myself here instead of there…now instead of then.”
—BLAISE PASCAL
“For those of us who believe in physics, this separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, however tenacious.”
—ALBERT EINSTEIN
JULY 18
1518
11
The nightmare was beyond anything Drustan MacKeltar’s slumbering mind had ever managed to conjure, replete with a taste so vile, he knew it for what it was: the taste of death.
Shadowy images taunted him at the periphery of his vision, and he felt a monstrous leech suckle onto him, and they grappled, then suddenly there were two discrete yet similar beings inside his body.
I am possessed of a demon, the sleeping Drustan thought, struggling to spew the atrocity forth. I will not permit this. Enraged, he resisted the new presence violently, lashing out to destroy it without even trying to identify it. It was foreign and as strong as he was, and that was all he needed to know.
He focused his mind, isolating the intruder, cocooning it with his will, and with immense effort thrust it from his body.
Then suddenly there were two of him in his nightmare, but the other him looked older, and anguished. Mortally weary.
Get thee hence, devil, Drustan shouted.
Listen to me, you fool.
Drustan clamped his hands over his ears. I will hear none of your lies, demon. Somewhere in the distance—in the nightmare place that defied his mind’s ability to either comprehend or fabricate—Drustan scented a woman. She was indistinct, but he could feel her, even smell the fragrant heat of her skin. A rush of longing consumed him, nearly shattering his resolve to hold the other him at bay.
Sensing the weakness, the replica leaped forward, but Drustan flexed his will and knocked him aside.
They glared at each other, and Drustan wondered at the play of emotions on the replica’s face. Fear. Sorrow so deep it might cleave a man asunder. And as he watched, a sudden understanding flickered in the false Drustan’s eyes, even as the replica seemed to be losing solidity.
You would fight me to the death, the counterfeit’s lips moved soundlessly. I see. I see now why only one lives. ’Tis not Nature, which is innately indifferent, but our own fear that causes us to destroy each other. I beg you, accept me. Let us both be.
I will never accept you, Drustan roared.
The replica faded, then grew more solid, then faded around the edges again. You are in terrible danger—
Speak no more! I will believe naught you say! Drustan lashed out at the shadow-him viciously.
The shadow-him glanced over his shoulder and shouted to someone Drustan couldn’t see: The moment you see him you must tell him the first rhyme I taught you, remember it? The verse in the car, and show him the backpack and all will be well.
Be gone, demon! Drustan roared, shoving at him with his will.
The other him speared Drustan with his gaze. Love her, the counterfeit whispered, and then he vanished.
Drustan shot bolt upright in bed, gasping for air.
He clawed at his throat, pounded his fists on his chest, and finally managed to suck in a painful breath. He was sweating. Icy and feverish at the same time, he’d shredded his linens in his sleep. Previously soft animal skins were now mere tufts of sweat-slicked fur, and his head pounded.
He fumbled for the mug of wine at his bedside. It took him several attempts before he succeeded in wrapping his fingers securely around it. Trembling, he drank deep, until the mug was empty. He dragged the back of his hand across his mouth.
His heart thundered and he felt as if he’d just been more bitterly threatened than ever in his life. As if something had crept into his body and tried to claim territorial rights.
He plunged shaking hands into his hair, lunged from the bed, and began to pace. He glanced back at the bed warily, expecting a succubus to be lurking in the pile of destroyed linens.
By Amergin! What strange dream had been visited upon him? He could recall naught of it now but a bitter sense of violation, and a hollow sense of victory.
His attention was snared by a brilliant flash of light beyond the window of his bedchamber. A low growl of thunder followed it, and he tugged aside the tapestry and gazed out through the glass into the night.