Dual Release (8 page)

“I believe with the technology we have access to,” he nodded as he spoke in an encouraging tone, “we will find them.”

She wanted to believe him. The determined look on his face eased the angst in her chest a smidgeon. But she knew how devious Leod could be when it came to the destruction of the MacKinnon clan.

“How about a glass of wine?” she asked as she walked over to the minibar. She wasn’t sure what to think at the moment. She’d been so close to bringing Donnell and Dour home only to lose them. Confusion and disappointment warred with exhaustion. “I could use one right about now.”

“It’s not polite to let a lady drink alone.” He grinned.

May poured two glasses of merlot, then moved to the couch. He laid an arm along the back of the couch, motioning her closer. Having his shoulder as a place of rest was too inviting to ignore. Once she was settled, she lifted her glass and touched it to his.

“Here’s to renewing old friendships once we’ve found the boys.”

“We will find them, May.” Jameson’s tone was filled with confidence.

“I truly hope so.” She took a sip, then leaned her head on his shoulder and snuggled closer.

He sensed the worry wafting off her as he brushed a kiss to the top of her head. Questions cluttered his thoughts. There was so much she hadn’t told him about those statues. Never in a million years would he have believed curses were real, until she’d proven it to him tonight. At dinner, she’d asked him to believe in the unbelievable. He’d taken a chance and trusted her even though doubt had lingered in the back of his brain. She was beautiful, talented and insightful. The women at the country club were wrong. May wasn’t crazy. Just outright smart and wonderful to the fault of loving and living her life to the fullest no matter what the cost.

Now that he had her back in his life, he planned to be a part of her future. In order for that to work, he needed to know the facts. Jameson asked softly, “May, will you tell me everything that’s going on with the statues, the curse and the MacKinnon Clan? Who is this Leod?”

May repositioned, shifting more upright, and turned to look at him. Her chest rose and fell as she took a deep breath. He could tell she hesitated, as if deciding if he should know the answers. Her expression darkened as she started explaining and he got the sense the person she spoke of was hated. “Brother Leod, as he calls himself, is a direct descendent of the man who placed the curse on the MacKinnon brothers in the first place. He believes in a sort of rite of passage from the
Book of Shadows
.”

“
Book of Shadows
?” Jameson stroked her hair, trying to soothe her angst.

“Leod’s ancestor, Hume MacGillivray, felt jilted by a woman named Tavia, who married the eldest MacKinnon, Gavin. According to Gavin, Tavia never had any feelings for MacGillivray. But he didn’t see it that way. He disappeared deep into the mountains and joined an obscure monastery. Instead of seeking solace, he plotted revenge.”

May took another visibly deep breath and held Jameson’s gaze. He read the sincerity in her eyes as she continued. “The monks were the keepers of a dark secret, which he discovered. They were the caretakers of a book of black magic, the
Book of Shadows
. It was their job to safeguard it from the likes of MacGillivray. But he found it and stole it.”

“I’m guessing the curse he used on the MacKinnons came from that book,” Jameson said.

She nodded. “From documents we found in the monastery’s archives, he forced them to pledge their allegiance to him, thus calling his order, The Brotherhood of the Sons of the Servant of Judgment. The monks felt MacGillivray slipped into insanity out of fear of the darkness that lived within the book. Apparently, he became obsessed with the book’s power and tested several of the spells. We found a notation about some sort of experiment he was performing from the book that went terribly wrong, but the monk’s documentations aren’t clear as to exactly what. Something scared him so badly he hid the book. Not long afterward, he fell down a steep stairwell and broke his neck. The monks believed the book reached out from its hiding place and killed him.”

“That’s a pretty powerful book. Why does Leod feel he’s entitled to it?” Jameson questioned. The book didn’t belong to anyone. And if it contained black magic incantations meant for evil use, then it needed to be left hidden or found and destroyed so no other nutcase like Leod could chase after it again.

“MacGillivray created a prophecy after he hid the book. It basically stated one day a descendent of his would be born with magical talents, who would rid the world of Clan MacKinnon. Once that person found and destroyed the statues, the book would reveal its hiding place to him and the power would be his for all eternity.”

“How did he have any descendents? Didn’t he die soon after hiding the book?”

“He took steps to make sure a descendent would be born. He hired several men to bring three young maidens to him. He married each in a self-administered service and forcibly had sex with them until they were pregnant. His actions went against everything the monks represented. I wouldn’t doubt if one of the monks helped him down the stairs.” She shrugged. “After MacGillivray’s death, the monks planned to deliver his wives to the closest church. The night before they were to leave, the few men loyal to MacGillivray disappeared, taking the women with them. As far as the monks were concerned, the women were in God’s hands.”

“Talk about vengeance from the grave,” Jameson quipped, giving May a smile.

“Damn, I hadn’t thought about it that way before.” She laughed as she shook her head. “Leave it to you to point that out.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” he jested. “Comic relief.”

“No, you’re more than that. You’re my best friend.”

“I think Belvedere might contest that statement.”

“He might,” she replied. “Can’t a woman have two best friends?”

“I don’t see why not,” Jameson said, leaning closer to her. Before their lips connected for a kiss, he wanted her to know one thing. “May, I intend to use every resource available to me to locate the twins. We will find them and bring them home safely.”

“I believe in you, Jameson,” May whispered against his lips, then kissed him lightly. Laying her head in the crook of his neck and shoulder, she said on a sleepy yawn, “We will find Donnell and Dour. Your determination is one of the many attributes I love about you.”

“Many attributes?” he teased in the form of a question. It warmed his heart to hear her say she loved something about him. Now if he could just get her to love all of him.

“Yes,” she answered sleepily. “You are a man of infinite wonders.”

Jameson smiled, reaching for her empty glass and setting it on the end table. One day, he hoped to show her how he felt. Unfortunately, tonight was not that night.

When the van finally stopped, Cait jerked upright. How long had she been asleep? Where was she? The slam of the doors rocked the vehicle and made her jump. Footsteps on gravel could be heard walking away. Oh god! It hadn’t been a bad dream. She really was being held hostage.

“Are ye okay?” he asked.

She shifted her head from side to side, trying to stretch the kink out of her neck. “Yeah. Just a bit stiff.”

Donnell handed her clothes to her and she dressed quickly. She couldn’t believe she’d fallen asleep in his arms. There went her brilliant plan to weaken his defenses with sex and question him. But then again, she did stay up all night the night before following the idiot of a lead that had gotten them into this predicament. A body might get tired after an all-nighter, not to mention she’d topped it off with a bout of phenomenal sex with a man who claimed to be cursed. She cut a slanted gaze his way before snapping her head toward a noise.

Voices echoed in the distance, softly at first but growing louder as they got closer. The sound of many footsteps followed. The grind of the lift lowering at the rear of the van made her skin crawl. It marked the impending moment of facing the leader of their captors.

She lifted her arm to shield against the bright floodlight filling the cargo space. She blinked to focus. The sight that fell upon her eyes made her gasp. A rather large, barrel-chested man with scraggly red hair stood directly in front of the door. Behind him stood two of the men who had taken them captive. On one side of the redheaded man’s head, the hair looked as if it had been scorched in a fire. The hair on one arm was missing and the skin seemed singed, with an angry red hue on his forearm. One of his eyebrows was gone as well, giving him a very strange, yet scary appearance.

The fact he made no effort to hide his face made Cait ill at ease. Did that mean he meant to kill them? She stood and squared off with the man. There was no way she was going to make this easy for them. She held her chin tilted and refused to let the redheaded man’s menacing stare shake her.

“I demand to know what’s going on.” Cait hoped the nervousness twisting her insides didn’t sound in her voice. She felt the heat of Donnell behind her and knew he had her back, which gave her a bit of strength to face this redheaded goon.

The platform rose with him on it. He clasped her waist, lifted her as if she weighed nothing, turned and dropped her off the side of the platform. It wasn’t a far distance so she managed to land on her feet, but not before her cell phone bounced free of her pocket. Before she could grab it, one of the bad guys stepped on it, shattering any hope of contacting help. She turned her glare on the asshole who’d tossed her off the lift. He glared down at her and growled in a thick Scottish brogue, “You be learning nuttin’ from me.”

Donnell plowed into the man, took him completely unawares and knocked him off balance. The man flailed his arms, trying to grapple for a hold on something as he fisted Donnell’s kilt. They both fell off the lift, landing in a heap at Cait’s feet. She jumped back. Quickly, Donnell pushed up and straddled the man before he could move.

“Ye don’t treat a lady like that. Don’t ever touch her again,” Donnell threatened as he gripped the man’s shirt with one hand and poised the other to strike if necessary.

“Whatcha going to do about it?” the man spat as he struggled to punch Donnell.

In a move that would have wowed an audience at a wrestling match, the burned man managed to dislodge Donnell. They sprang to their feet, swinging at one another. The man hit Donnell square on the cheek, opening up a cut under his eye. He didn’t even stumble. The blow was hard and would’ve knocked over a normal person. But Donnell was far from the norm. He didn’t falter, instead he puffed his chest and squared off, taunting his opponent.

“
Mi
piuthar
—sister—hits harder than ye do.” The pair was close to the same height but the bad guy was much stockier than Donnell. The others gathered around, egging on the fight, spouting obscenities and placing bets on who would win, the man they called Roy or Donnell.

Cait took the opportunity of this distraction to look around for anything she could use as a weapon. She hurriedly backed her way to the front of the van. What she was going to do, she had no idea. If she made it into the driver’s seat, she might be able to use the van to threaten to run the group over. Donnell could jump in and they’d make their escape. It was a flimsy plan at best but it was all she had for the moment. Her hand didn’t make it to the door handle before a fireball shot across the hood and exploded. Cait stumbled backward and fell onto her derriere.

A person dressed in the garb of a monk limped toward the van. The dusky skies of early morning haloed his head, giving him a spooky, emissary-of-death appeal. The only body part showing was his bony hands. His fingertips glowed. Remembering what the guy at the bar had shared with her, Cait guessed the man beneath the robe had to be Brother Leod. Her informant insisted this Leod person had an arsenal of tricks he used to convince his followers he had magical powers. One of these being he somehow managed to produce fire from his hands.

If this Brother Leod weren’t crazy, she’d find that interesting if he wanted to be a magician instead of ridding the world of the MacKinnon brothers and seizing control of some mythical book of black magic spells. All this she wasn’t sure she’d believed at the bar but seeing this magical monk wannabe in person put a bit of reality in her current surreal situation.

When she jumped up, spun around and hurried toward Donnell, several men were restraining him and wouldn’t let her too close. Now along with a growing bruise on the side of his face and a cut under his eye from earlier, he was sporting a bloody lip. She never saw anyone move as fast as the oversized goon named Roy. Roy was at the monk’s side immediately. The leader from the warehouse stood stoic beside the rear of the van with a gun pointed at Donnell. From the looks of Roy’s face, Donnell had gotten in a few decent punches.

The monk didn’t get close enough for Cait to get a good look at him. The hood hid his face. His voice sounded weak and gravelly. “Take them to the holding cell.”

The hooded men jumped at the command and were ushering them toward what looked like a huge mound rising from the earth. Cait and Donnell both tried to resist. The leader from the warehouse stepped in front of them and landed a hefty blow to Donnell’s gut with his one good hand. His other hand was clutched to his chest, obviously severely discolored and swollen from being broken by wheelchair guy at the warehouse. Donnell tried desperately to break free of the men holding him.

“Ye coward,” Donnell spat. “Face me in a fair fight and see if ye win.”

With a maniacal laugh, the man pulled the gun from where he’d tucked it in his waistband and hit Donnell in the side of the jaw with the butt of it. Donnell’s head snapped to one side before it hung low and he shook it as if trying to gain his bearings. Cait broke away from her captors and cupped his face in her hands. Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth and his gaze had a dazed and confused look, much like a boxer’s after several rounds in the ring. She turned and took a step toward the crazed monk.

“I want a word with you, Leod,” she demanded. “I want to know why we are here and what you plan to do with us.” A pair of strong hands banded above her elbows from behind immediately halted her.