Angus (2 page)

Angus chuckled.

“Shut up, Angus,” Callum warned.

“Okay, let’s get on with it. I’ve work to get back to.” This came from Logan, who worked odd hours. He might be the head of their art department, but he was still an artist who hated to conform. He did a lot of his work at night.

“Indeed,” Phoebe said with a smile. Then, it slowly faded. “I found some references in the witch’s diary to the emerald.”

“You mentioned that a couple weeks before the wedding.”

She nodded. “Well, we put a few feelers out and found it.”

“So, Callum can buy it, we can put it in the sword, and then on to the next one,” Fletcher said. He always thought everyone had a price.

Phoebe looked at Angus then turned her attention to Fletcher. “No. That won’t work.”

“You think Callum doesn’t have enough money, love? Are you telling me you married the ugly wanker just because you love him?” Fletcher asked, humor lacing his tone now.

“I will hurt you later, wanker.” Callum looked at his wife. “Tell them.”

She looked around the room, making eye contact with each and every member of the group before coming to Angus. The sadness he saw there set off alarm bells.

 “We are never going to be able to buy the jewels. It isn’t allowed.” She sighed.

“Not allowed. There are rules we have to play by?” Fletcher asked, but Angus barely heard the ensuing argument. They were a loud lot and they rarely held back during discussions.

But, it started to come together in his brain, all the pieces snapping into place.

“We have to find it. We have to give something up to get each jewel.”

Everyone stopped talking and looked at him. It would have been comical if the implications hadn’t been so staggering.

“Will it be each of us?” Angus asked.

Phoebe’s eyes were drenched in sadness. “Yes. I think. Callum can do nothing else and no one can buy their way to redemption.”

Anger he’d controlled all these years surged. It left him feeling a bit nauseated. “Redemption. We didn’t fucking do anything. Not one bloody thing, but we have to fight for redemption.”

“You willna take that tone with Phoebe,” Callum said. His voice didn’t rise to the same level as Angus’ but was much more lethal.

“Callum, I can handle it.” Then she looked at him. “I wasn’t using my words. I was using those of the witch. And…there is a bit of me that thinks whoever started this diary years ago was sympathetic to the McLennans. She seemed to have an affinity for the man of potions with the green eyes.”

There was a telling beat of silence, but no one addressed Phoebe’s implied question.

“So, what do we have to do next?” Anice asked.

She sighed. “I’m still working it all out. Callum has the exciting of information about the Emerald.”

“Right. So, we found the emerald at the home of Franklin Sweeney.”

Deathly silence filled the room. Damn. The Sweeneys had been in league with McWalton years earlier and there was a good chance that they wouldn’t help them with their quest. In fact, one of the lairds had tried their best to kill Fletcher fifty years earlier.

“He owns it and it’s in his gallery.”

Bloody hell. It just got worse. “No one has ever broken into that gallery. It has some kind of special security. ”

“You don’t know how to break into it?” Logan asked.

Angus shook his head. “No. They wouldn’t let anyone know about it. I know he spent millions on it.”

Callum shook his head. “Yes, it’s bloody amazing, but there was a break-in years ago. They just covered it up because there was a death.”

“Ian O’Conner was known all over Europe at the time. Interpol had a pretty thick file on him.” Phoebe said.

“Should we ask how you got the file?” Anice asked. His cousin would look at that angle of it. Her job was PR and she took it seriously.

“No. I went through some different channels, but most of it was open to the public.”

“So, we get a hold of him…wait, you said there was a death,” Angus said.

“Yes. O’Conner was found dead on the premises. He had been strangled.”

“Odd,” Logan remarked. “I usually hear about things like that.”

“Well, Sweeney covered it up, we can be sure of that. Add in the fact that the death was unexplainable, well that makes you wonder just what the hell was going on there.”

“How was the death unexplainable?” Something strange was swirling in the pit of his stomach. Angus wasn’t sure why this information should bother him, but something about it wasn’t sitting right with him.

Callum nodded. “Yes. He was found dead of asphyxiation.”

“Yeah, you would think he would get shot by the guards.”

“The guards didn’t even know he was there. He was found when the manager opened up in the morning.”

“And?”

“And there was no sign of forced entry into the gallery. That means there is a good chance that whomever it was—worked there.”

“Everyone checked out though,” Phoebe reminded Callum. “The guard was convinced there was something wrong…as if there was something bad going on.”

“Just out with it, love,” Callum said.

“They think there was magick involved.”

He waited for everyone to start laughing, even smile…but nothing happened. In fact, the deathly calm that took over the office was almost suffocating.

“Are you trying to tell me as a scientist you believe this?” Angus asked.

Phoebe shrugged. “You tell me. You’re one of the five who have been alive longer than any one person should. After what Callum and I experienced, I am not ready to rule anything out. Especially since he was apparently hired by a McWalton to steal the emerald.”

“Fucking McWaltons,” Fletcher said. “I swear we will never be rid of that horrible clan.”

“At least the new laird would rather stay at the family estate,” Anice said.

“Ha, like they’ve much of an estate right now.”

Fletcher was correct, but Angus wasn’t in the mood to deal with watching the siblings argue. Again.

“You think there is something that needs to be done? Something by one of us?” he asked.

Phoebe’s grave expression didn’t change as she nodded. “I believe, from what I read, that all of you will be tested. I had thought at first it might just mean the clan would be tested, but this passage made me think it might be something each one of you will have to face.”

She held up a piece of paper. Angus retrieved it.  

The one who questions everything will be the one who must find the green stone of fire. With the Witch by his side, he will succeed if he believes the answer.

Something cold crossed over him, filled his blood, and chilled him from the inside out.

“Angus?” Logan asked. He took the piece of paper out of Angus’ hand and read it out loud.

“You’re the one who questions everything, Angus.” Phoebe’s voice was quiet, but it didn’t make any less of an impact than if she had yelled the words at him.

“I don’t have a witch though.”

Logan made a noise, but said nothing when Angus shot him a warning look.

“And we’re going over all of this…why?” he asked, trying his best not to let the rest of the clan know how shaken he was.

“We’ve found O’Connor’s widow. It wasna easy, let me tell you. When he was killed, she disappeared off the earth.”

“Or so it seemed. With some outside help, we found her, in New York.”

“Who is she working with now?” Anice asked. When everyone turned to look at her, she shrugged. “If it was a two-person team before, it seems that she would hook up with someone else, right?”

“As far as we can tell, she hasn’t picked up with anyone new. In fact, she changed her name and is working in a pub there.”

When Phoebe handed over the picture, Angus let a breath he hadn’t known he was holding release. This woman had dark hair, black, and her eyes were mud brown. There were similarities to the one he dreamed about, but they were common traits among people of Irish descent.

“So, you call her, offer her a lot of money and get her over here.”

Again the couple shared a glance.

“Bloody hell, out with it.”

Everyone looked at him surprised…except for Logan.

“It isn’t that simple. She’s under an assumed name.”

“And?”

“We need you to go get her. This is your quest, you need to be in charge of it from the beginning.”

“Then I say Fletcher can go get her.”

“Not my type, cuz. She’s kind of dowdy.”

Anger swelled out of nowhere and it was directed at his cousin. “We aren’t trying to get you laid. It’s a job.”

“And it’s now yours.” The finality of Callum’s tone told him everything he needed to know. There would be no getting out of this.

*  *  *  *

When they were alone, Callum finally gave into the need to touch Phoebe. He pulled her onto his lap. She settled there, nuzzling his neck.

It calmed the worry in his heart…but not his head.

“You’re worried about Angus.”

Not a question, but Phoebe knew him better than anyone. He gently pulled her back and looked at her. A year earlier, he would have never thought it possible to find the woman he needed in a nerdy professor with a horrible English accent. But, she was now his life.

“Aye. There’s something going on with him.”

He wanted her to refute it, but she nodded. “I sensed it too. There’s something about this quest he’s not telling us.”

It oddly calmed him that she keened it too.  “Are you positive it’s him? He’s the one who needs to go?”

“Who else questions everything?”

He sighed. “I know. And now I sound like an old woman worrying about the kiddies.”

She laughed and it danced through him and calmed his soul. “No one would ever mistake Callum McLennan for a little old lady.”

He heard the deepening of her voice. It brushed along his nerve endings. “Is that so?”

She smiled and lifted up off him so she could straddle his lap. “In fact, I have definite proof that you are very much male.”

*  *  *  *

Angus had just shoved a pair of rolled up socks into his duffle back when he sensed a movement behind him. He didn’t need to turn around to know who it was.

“What do you want, Logan?”

His brother didn’t question his ability to know that it was he. After two centuries, it was easy to know each other’s movements.

“You’ve got to take this seriously, Angus.”

He glanced over his shoulder and inwardly sighed. His younger brother was being a little too serious for him.

“I’ve taken it seriously from the beginning. I’m the one who found the diary, found the quest we need to take.”

But why did it have to be him….and with a witch?

“You don’t remember the witch’s remarks.”

“Of course I remember them. It was the last time…” It was the last bit of their adolescence. A week later the Battle of Culloden had changed their lives forever.

“Just know I remember.”

“And the witch. Maybe she’s the one.”

“First, we don’t know she’s a witch. Secondly, I don’t believe in
the one
. If I did, I definitely would think the universe would consider a witch the wrong match for me.”

Logan opened his mouth but Angus shook his head. “I’ve got to get out to the airport before they ground the jet.”

The sooner he got to New York, the faster this would be all over.

Chapter Two

Less than forty-eight hours later, Angus found himself sitting in a pub watching Maggie O’Conner work. She looked just like her pictures, with dark hair and dark eyes. She was also probably one of the tiniest women he had ever seen. She wasn’t small in height, probably more average, but she just seemed…delicate.

It had been two hours since he’d stashed his bags at his hotel then found his way to her pub. He was damned tired and not in the mood to be charming. Approaching her in this mood wouldn’t prove useful for anyone, but he didn’t think he was going to have a choice in the matter. Something told him he didn’t have much time before she disappeared again.

His mobile buzzed in his pocket and he knew without looking who it was.

He pulled it out and answered. “Good afternoon to you, Callum.”

“Have you spoken with her yet?”

Angus rolled his eyes, thankful his cousin wasn’t there to see it. Since they had discovered a way out of their nightmare, Callum had become unbearable—even more than he had been before. But, truthfully, Angus was happy for the reason.

“No. She’s at work.”

“What the bloody hell are you waiting for?”

He smiled at the question. It was so typical of Callum.

“She’s busy with customers.”

Which wasn’t exactly true. Most of the lunch crowd was gone, but he found himself watching, entranced by the way she worked the room. He had expected someone flashier. It was as if she had dimmed her light to hide it. But then, there was still something about her. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but it tugged at something deep within him. A part of him hoped he would never find out.

“Get over there and ask her out or something.”

Then he heard the phone being jostled.

“Angus?” Phoebe asked.

“Hullo, love,” he said genuinely happy to be speaking with his cousin’s new wife.

“I take it she’s waiting tables right now? I say you get a table at her station.”

Which made sense, but Angus hesitated. Something told him that this wasn’t going to be as easy as everyone thought possible. Being anonymous in New York was usually easy, but he was getting looks. Why, he had no idea, but he felt something brush against his neck every now and then telling him someone was watching him.

But, he knew part of it was the woman.

For the first time in years, he found himself intrigued by a woman. Beyond intrigued. In their situation that wasn’t a good thing. Still, he had a duty to his family and he hadn’t wanted Fletcher going in his place. His cousin would make sure the witch returned with him, but not before talking her into bed.

“That sounds like a plan.”

She sighed. “Good. Don’t worry. You’ll convince her.”

He heard the deep voice of his cousin in the background and her stern reply. “Callum McLennan, behave yourself.”