Guardian of the Moon Pendant (12 page)

“Prove it,” she demanded, “by letting me go!”

Leigheas continued with her task, placing one of her gnarled hands on top of Fergus’s forehead and the other on his heart, trying to calm him, but his body continued to shake violently.

Slu hopped into the great room, a spiky wood club clutched in his hairy hand, waving it in the air, muttering, “I’z knock ‘em out cold.”

“What?” shrieked Izzy, her
cheeks flaming
.

“No, Slu!” said Blane testily, throwing his hand down.

“What the hell is that thing anyway?” Izzy said through gritted teeth.

Slu hung his head low and wobbled away, dragging his club behind him down the stone hallway.

Smoke steamed from Blane’s nostrils. “He’s a Fachan!” Blane scolded Izzy. “I doona know where you’ve come from, lass. But here in Dunvarghan Castle they are family and are ne’er to be called a thing!”

Izzy rolled her eyes and sulked in her chair.

Blane took a quick inhale through his nose, breathing it out slowly, trying to maintain control. “Izzy,” he said coolly, gesturing toward Fergus
’
body jerking violently, “will calm yer man down, so Leigheas can remove the venom?”

Izzy scowled, her lower lip pouting – she always did that when she felt gypped –her body tightened up a bit. Her fists clenched,
her arms tugging at the
vines, testing the heather’s grip. Finally her shoulders sagged, and she murmured, “Yeah.”

Blane gave another signal to the heather pixies, slowly releasing and unraveling Izzy’s bonds.

Izzy rushed to Fergus’s side, a different look on her face, a worried one that I had never seen before. She knelt beside him, wiping away the drool from his mouth. “Fergus!” she sobbed, “look at me!” Stroking his cheek with the back of her hand, “Remember what you said to me in the cave? ‘
Tis easier to run, harder to stay and fight?’
Well, you better not be running now, Fergus! You better fight, Fergus, fight!”

Fergus’s eyes skidded to Blane, his nostrils flapping as he breathed heavily, in and out in labored breaths, his body still trembling nonstop from the pain.

Izzy pursed her lips to the side, angling her head back at Blane. “Seems like he doesn’t like you either,” she commented snidely.

I caressed Blane’s arm again, tugging at it softly. “We’ll go into the library while you do your work.” I mentioned to Leigheas, guiding Blane away, her arms glowing with a golden energy, a hot white light beaming out of her hands and into Fergus, her gummy mouth opened wide, clamping down hard on Fergus’s neck, sucking out the poisonous green venom.

Blane and I entered the library, lined with mahogany bookcases and four gold framed paintings, a roaring fire warmed the room, flickering soft light off Blane’s face,
the
agonizing screams echoing from the
Great Hall
soon trailed off as I closed the door, leaving us alone.

Blane didn’t look at me. He crossed the room to an ancient mahogany serving bar, straight for a crystal canister filled with single malt whiskey next to the roaring fireplace.

“There is hope for the lad,” he nervously, his muscles tensed pouring the amber liquid into a beveled glass, shooting the spirit down in one gulp.

I felt as if he was hiding something from me, his body was stiff. I clasped my fingers together, strolling around the room. I wasn’t going to let it affect me, so I continued on with the conversation. “He’s a very determined man.”

“Aye,” pouring more whiskey into his glass, “that he is.”

His powerful back rippled in the fire’s light, unyielding, hiding
his face
from me. Now, I knew he was concealing something, but what? I strolled over to the paintings, hanging pristinely on the walls, studying them, trying to figure out who this man was that kept on rescuing me and yet not allowing me to know him at all.

“I wanted to thank you for your help,” I said, observing the first painting of a man with a long crooked nose, pointy yellow teeth, an iron pike clutched in his rangy hands, a bloodied cap dripping down his frail frame. A small golden plate at the bottom
of the painting
read: Bloody Baron. I winced at the portrait and continued. “For everything you’ve done so far for me.”

I glanced back at Blane, still avoiding me, his palms pressed firmly on the table, tensing his sinewy shoulders. I moved onto the next portrait, a dense grove, ranged
with sprouting oak trees, lush and
green with vibrant vegetation, squinting hard I could see faces in the trees, and in
its
center
,
tumor-like features imprinted into the bark of the largest tree. The gold plate at its base read: Ghillie Dhu.

I stepped back, staring at Blane, his hand rubbing the back of his neck. I cleared my throat, hoping he would turn around and look at me. It came of no good. He was still ignoring me, sipping on more whiskey. “Like I said before, thank you for saving me, Izzy, and Fergus,” I added, turning back to analyze the third painting. A skinless rider mounted on a hairless horse, its fibrous muscles raw and exposed, black blood pulsing through its yellow veins, a hybrid between man and beast. The plate read: Nuckelavee.

I gasped, horrified.

“How disturbing,” I whisper
ed
under my breath.

Blane’s torso swung abruptly around, rushing to my side. “I didn’t mean for you…” he said trailing off.

“What is that dreadful thing?” I asked pointing to the hideous creature.

Blane’s body brushed against me, cradling me as if he was protecting me, gliding his hand lovingly up and down my arm, his stroke warm and inviting, erupting goose bumps all over my body as I melted from his touch.

“The most feared faery in all of Scotland,” he said. I could feel his hand trembling as the heat from his body enveloped me. “The Nuckelavee is the devil of the sea.”

“Oh.”

I felt his grip tightening on my skin as if he never wanted to let me go. My heart fluttered. I was torn between the man of my dreams and the man I already pledged my heart to. Edgar never made my heart do loops like this. He never made me feel this special.

“Those are your tasks, lass,” he said somberly, “to recharge the Moon Pendant.”

I cringed inside.

The fourth painting was the MääGord standing stones, charged in electricity, swirling around in a fireball of illuminating lights.

Blane pointed to the first painting with a fiendish man, dripping in a bloodied cap, crouching before a medieval stone tower. “The Bloody Baron’s tower is where you’ll recharge the element of air,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone as if he wasn’t fazed by an evil looking man clutching onto a
n
iron pike. He moved to the second painting. “The Ghillie Dhu’s grove harnesses the power of the earth,” he said tapping the oily painting
brush
stroked with dark looming trees. He moved to the third portrait, framing a fiery eyed skinless horse with a half torso of man, sticking out of its saddle, covered in raw flesh. Blane flinched. “The third is the Nuckelavee, which guards the element of water.”
He stepped toward the fourth painting. “Aye and the last is the element of fire done when the full moon aligns with the MääGord standing stones.”

I felt the blood drain from my body.

Blane backed away from the portraits. “The Nuckelavee is the task yer mother and yer great aunt failed at.”

“Failed?” I suddenly felt sick to my stomach.

“Yer mother escaped,” he said flatly, “but yer great Aunt Rose was not as lucky.”

Blane’s body stiffened at the mention of Aunt Rose.

“How do you know this?” I asked facing him, gazing into his crystal blue eyes.

His eyes averted from mine, hanging his head down low, fighting back her memory. “I was there,” he said, biting the inside of his lip.

“You were there?” I repeated, doubting what he had said. He looked as if he was in his twenties, young and virile.

Blane inhaled deeply, lifting his gaze to mine. “Aye, I am a Sentinel of Light,” he said, closing the distance between us.

I blushed lightly, feeling an intense magnetic pull to him.

“It is one of my duties to protect the Guardian of the Moon Pendant and the borders between the realms of Man and the Fae.”

“You’re too young to have been around when Aunt Rose was here,” I informed him with a flirtatious giggle, stepping in, wanting to be closer to him, the heat from his body keeping me warm.

“I was commissioned by Danú herself,” he said, leaning in, his thumb stroking my jaw bone and then gently lingering over my lower lip. “Five centuries ago I swore an oath, to her and I am bound by it until I die.”

I felt a knot developing in my throat. The man of my dreams was older than the country I was from. How could he have been over 500 years old and look 25? I had a thousand questions lining up in my head, but the only thing I could ask was, “Why do you help us?”

Blane smoothed back a wisp of my hair, sending shivers down my spine into the tips of my toes. “It is my oath. I am sworn to protect you, Guardian.” My body was on fire with intense emotions surging through me, I ached for him to kiss me.

My heels lifted up, balancing on my tip
py-
toes, leaning up for a kiss, lips parted, inches away from his velvety lips, open for whatever was coming our way.

“But,” he said, his whiskey breath fanning my face. I sighed, tasting his breath and drank it in. “We can ne’er be together, lass.” He pulled away from my quivering lips. “A Sentinel of Light is forbidden to marry a Guardian.”

My heart split open. It felt as if a dagger was plunged deep into its core, slashing it around wildly, side to side, and digging in until it stopped beating.

Blane backed away from me, removing the warmth of his body from my side.

I suddenly felt the icy chill in the room.

Blane raked a hand through his hair, his jaw tensed. “Sometimes it is not what we should do,” he stated, pausing briefly. “It is what we need to do.” His brilliant blue eye
s
flicked to
ward
me. “I will accompany you for each task, Guardian.”

“Thank you,” I said, feeling dumb for thinking that we could be something more.

“You will have to charge the Moon Pendant yourself,” he said matter-of-factly.

“I understand.” My head lowered, staring at my dirty boots.

Unexpectedly, Blane shifted toward me, his hands bracketing my face, lifting my spiritless heart and gazing into my eyes. “Know this, Anabel. I will protect you with my life.”

Blane leaned down and softly kissed my forehead.

I felt his sincerity but once again my heart shattered, knowing that we could never be together as we returned into the Great Hall.

Leigheas was crumpled in the corner, her body an ashy color, and the brilliant light within her had faded. Her body had weakened dramatically after Fergus’s healing.

Blane crouched down next to her. “Thank you my friend,” he said, taking her hand and squeezing it. “Hang in there, Leigheas. Sunrise will come soon enough, and you will be renewed again. Is the venom all gone?”

“Can’t say,” she wheezed, lolling her head to the side, “there was more than I thought.”

Fergus bolted upright from his wooden chair, freed from the heather pixies, his eyes squinting at Blane. “You complete and total tit,” he spat. “You left John behind!”

“Yeah, Braveheart,” added Izzy, her arms banded around Fergus, trying to hold him back.

I was beside myself. Why would Fergus and Izzy be so ridiculous?
“Blane saved both of your lives,
” I reminded them, fist balled on my hips.

“Don’t you get it?” remarked Izzy, her eyes bulging, “John’s Màrmann food now!”

“Those blood-sucking bastards,” Fergus said
pissily
, running his fingers over the red markings left behind by the heather pixie’s vines, imbedded deep into his skin.

“I am sorry, lad
,
” said Blane guardedly. “There was nothing I could do.”

“We grew up together as wee lads,” he whimpered, rubbing his neck. “And now he’s gone and
me
dad. He’s still in there, chained up to be food for that demon!”

Blane sighed. I could tell he was frustrated. I knew he would never let anyone become food, nevertheless for a demon named, Lainahwyn.

Blane turned away. “It’s time to go.”

♦

Blane and I hiked ahead to the MacAlpin farmhouse while Izzy helped Fergus travel down the sodded hillside. He was still crippled by Lainahwyn’s venom and needed more time to make the journey. Besides, I’m sure he didn’t want Blane around him whatsoever.

Plumface was busy disciplining Baldtoe when we emerged into the living room, her face stern, goblin-like, her brown eyes swollen, batting her black tarantula eyelashes, her lips coated in a thick red lipstick, her fist balled and locked to her hip, a tiny finger waving up and down. “Baldtoe,” she scolded.