To Love a Highland Dragon (23 page)

Maggie’s lips twitched into half a smile. “For once I agree with you.” She moved the mug to her mouth and sipped. Yes, there was definitely alcohol in the mix, but herbs and other things, too.

“Better.” Her grandmother’s mouth curved into a wry grin. “We only poison our enemies.”

Enemies!
“I’ve got to find Lachlan. Do you know where he is, Gran?”

Mary Elma’s grin flattened into lips pursed in a hard, flat line. “Yes.”

“That doesn’t sound good.” Maggie’s hands shook enough she worried she’d drop the mug.

“It’s not,” Mauvreen seconded. “Grab a seat. We need to strategize.” She flicked fingers at the cold hearth; it blazed to life. “Fires are good for many things, not the least of which is dispelling the chill shadow from fell deeds.”

Maggie sank into a deeply padded, needlepoint chair. The two witches dragged their matching chairs close. “How long did I sleep?”

“A few hours,” Mauvreen said. “You needed rest, so I saw you got some.”

“I suppose that’s why I have absolutely no memory of getting from the parlor to that bedroom I woke up in.”

Mauvreen quirked a brow but didn’t say anything. She exchanged glances with Mary Elma who said, “We can give it to her straight. My granddaughter’s a doctor. While she may have been foolish about her magic, she’s far from squeamish.”

Maggie took a large swallow from her mug. The drink had something in it that strengthened her, made her less shaky. “Give what to me straight?”

Mary Elma skewered her with bottomless, dark eyes. “Did you consummate your bond with Lachlan?”

To her dismay, Maggie felt herself blush. “Yes. More than once, if it matters.”

“Did you meet the dragon?” Mauvreen asked.

“I not only met him. I rode him.”

Mary Elma clapped her hands together. “Better and better. This won’t be as difficult as I feared.”

Maggie twisted her head from side to side to ease the iron bar of tension sitting between her shoulder blades. “Stop talking in riddles. Just tell me where Lachlan is and how I can get him back. Are we all going to go fight Rhukon or something?”

“Tell me what you know about Lachlan and Rhukon.” Mary Elma sat straighter in her chair. “In fact, start at the beginning, and tell us everything.”

Maggie raised her cup again, drank, and was surprised she’d drained it. Mauvreen plucked it from her hand, refilled it from a kettle Maggie hadn’t noticed sitting atop the hearth, and gave it back. “All right.” Maggie nodded. “A few days ago, I’d taken off some time in the middle of the day. I was walking near the intersection of…”

Her story took much longer to tell than she’d expected, since one witch or the other interrupted with requests for either more information, or clarification, over and over again. “…Anyway, that’s about it,” she finished.

“Fascinating.” Mauvreen’s brown eyes glowed.

“Yes, isn’t it?” Mary Elma agreed.

The circular conversation had sucked her dry but didn’t tell her anything she wanted to know. It grated on Maggie. She waited while the witches stared at one another, presumably communicating telepathically. She tried to listen in but couldn’t. After about five minutes, Maggie cleared her throat, but the other women ignored her. Finally, she’d had enough. “Hey! I need to know where Lachlan is. At least an hour ago Gran said there wasn’t a moment to lose. I want to get moving.”

“Oh you do, do you?” Mary Elma focused intently on her. Maggie forced herself to stare right back. “Alrighty, child. Lachlan is back in the middle of the sixteenth century. He’ll be right at home there, since he lived through those times. I imagine his castle is intact. Dragons still fly free, which should please Kheladin.”

Maggie’s eyes widened until the room lost focus. “What? You must be mistaken. How could he possibly have traveled hundreds of years into the past?”

“It isn’t as if he did it on his own,” Mauvreen cut in. “We are certain he had help. An assist from the dark side, as it were.”

Because sitting suddenly felt far too confining, Maggie bolted to her feet. After pacing the length of the room twice, she ended up in front of her grandmother and put her hands on her hips. “Can you do that?” she demanded.

“Do what, child?”

“Time travel. It’s what we’re talking about.”

Mary Elma shook her head. “No. It’s not one of my skills. There hasn’t been a witch who could bend the strands of time for centuries.”

Maggie digested the words. “What I just heard was it’s not on the current menu of magical skills, but it’s something we could do in the past.” Her grandmother nodded. “Is it something I could learn?”

I can’t believe I said that. I’m not equipped. It’s too dangerous. I could die somewhere, lost in time…

Mary Elma got to her feet, moved to Maggie’s side, and draped an arm around her waist. “All those things in your head are true. Even if you’d taken to magic when your moon blood first flowed, you’d have a hell of a road mastering time travel.”

Thoughts jumbled into eerie kaleidoscopic images. “Someone understands the mechanics of time travel,” she said slowly, “because their casting moved Lachlan.”

“The Celts,” Mauvreen muttered with a bitter edge. “They don’t often use it, but they figured it out millennia ago. At least I think they did. Scuttlebutt for the years I’ve been around has been that they at least know how.”

“Idle rumor,” Mary Elma broke in. She rolled her eyes. “But probably with more truth in it than not. The Celts aren’t big on sharing their secrets with witches.”

Even if she hadn’t been a witch, Maggie wasn’t at all certain Ceridwen, Gwydion, or Arawn would help her. “Lachlan mentioned some sort of council gathering to plan a war strategy.”

“Hmph. You didn’t mention that when you told us what you knew,” Mary Elma snapped. “What else did you leave out?”

“Never mind that.” Mauvreen flapped her hands at the other witch and returned her attention to Maggie. “Do you know
where
they’re meeting?”

“Somewhere outside Inverness.”

“Close enough,” Mauvreen muttered. “Let’s go. The local witches will know about it, even if they’re not included.”

“We can take my car,” Maggie offered.

Her grandmother snorted. “We’ll get there our own way. It’s much faster.”

“Yes,” Mauvreen said. “Come here. Mary Elma and I talked about this while you were asleep. We’re going to share blood with you. It will hasten the development of your magic, particularly in light of your carnal connection with Lachlan.”

Fear and indecision pounded through her. “Once I do this, it’s like signing the coven’s pledge, isn’t it?” Her ambivalence about her witch heritage banged against her like an out of control tsunami. Never mind what she’d told her grandmother about racing to coven headquarters to sign on.

The two witches closed on her, one from either side. “That darkness that nearly had you in my yard,” Mauvreen hissed. “It hasn’t left. It’s still here. The other side needs you here and Lachlan right where they chucked him.”

“You don’t have enough power to do this on your own,” her grandmother said sternly. “Not even close. Even if you studied twenty hours a day, you’re years away from marshaling enough power to be more than a hedge witch.”

“By that time, the damage Rhukon, the Morrigan, and the red wyvern have done to Earth will be so extensive, it will be impossible to reverse.”
Mauvreen spoke into her mind.

Picking up the telepathic thread, her grandmother continued.
“You feel torn because darkness sits just outside these doors. It’s bending your mind with subtle suggestions. Mauvreen and I have ways of dealing with it, but you’re vulnerable. You need our blood. It’s a shortcut and cheating—”

“And breaking every coven’s rules,”
Mauvreen cut in.

“But we deem it necessary. And so we are willing to risk censure and punishment at the hands of our peers,”
Mary Elma finished.

Maybe it was the drink, maybe the power oozing from her grandmother and Mauvreen, but Maggie heard raw truth in their words. In that moment, she kissed her old life, the one where she wore neat, tidy lab coats and enjoyed being called doctor, goodbye. Her crusty, judgmental grandmother was bending the rules for her. The least she could do was cooperate wholeheartedly. “I’m ready.”

Mauvreen pulled an ivory-bladed knife from her skirt. She cut deep into the ball of her thumb and then into Mary Elma’s. A small part in the back of Maggie’s mind rebelled at the blade that couldn’t be sterile and at the prospect of opening herself to blood borne illness, but she stifled it.

I did it when Ceridwen joined Lachlan and me. When I’m done with this, I’ll have magic to heal myself.

The blade stung when it cut her. Mauvreen pressed Maggie’s bleeding flesh against her grandmother’s, and then the witches traded places, and she shared Mauvreen’s blood. Power flowed into her, heady in its strength and scope. Bits and pieces of castings ran into her mind and formed cunning patterns, deceptive in their seeming simplicity. Senses thrown wide open, Maggie felt like a child of the universe when the witches finally withdrew their hands.

It’s like I plugged into a motherboard, and it’s filling my circuits with knowledge.
A wild, untamed intensity raced along her chakras. When she realized she could identify all her body’s psychic power points, laughter bubbled from her and filled the room.

Her grandmother laughed along with her, but it held a grim edge. “Yes, it’s a bit like that. We’re giving you everything we can because before this is over I fear you’ll need every scrap of it and more.”

“It is done,” Mary Elma intoned.

“Yes, it is done,” Mauvreen echoed.

Maggie glanced at her hand, expecting to see an open, oozing wound. Smooth, pink skin met her questioning gaze. The women had used witch magic to heal them. There wouldn’t even be any kind of scar. “How—?”

The corners of her grandmother’s mouth twitched. “We mingled healthy cells with the cut ones until they all looked the same.”

“I finally understand why you weren’t thrilled about me going to medical school. What you do is a whole lot more sophisticated than modern medicine. I suppose I always knew that at some level, but I never let myself appreciate what it meant. ” Maggie took stock. “I feel…more alive than I’ve ever been. Like I could do anything.”

“Well, don’t get too cocky until you sort out all that magic we shared,” Mauvreen murmured.

“Yes, you wouldn’t want to paint yourself into a corner,” Mary Elma said. “If you’re ready, we need to leave.”

Maggie walked back to the parlor and picked up her bag. “Sure.” She called over her shoulder, still marveling at the miraculous transformation realigning her body and its abilities.

“Get back in here and watch carefully.” Her grandmother sounded like her old, grumpy, imperious self. “You’ll lend your new power to our traveling spell, so you can understand how it works and how we come out where we want to.”

It didn’t take long, perhaps only moments, before Maggie found herself back on the outskirts of Inverness in front of a crumbling medieval cottage. This time she wasn’t fooled, and she focused her third eye on it. Its lines wavered, straightened, and formed a tidy, stone lodge with a broad front porch and the low lintels that gave away its origins as seventeen or eighteen hundreds. Mauvreen disappeared inside.

“Why do all of you hide your houses?”

Mary Elma eyed her with more than a touch of asperity. “Last time I checked, you’re now one of us. So the operative question would be why do we—?”

Maggie flapped her hands at her grandmother. “Yes. Fine. I’d like it a whole lot better if you just answered my questions and skipped the lectures.”

“The beginnings of wisdom are knowing which questions you truly need the answers to. We hide our homes for the most obvious of reasons. So people will leave us alone.”

Maggie thought about it. Though she hadn’t been privy to any but the most perfunctory ceremonies, she’d always suspected blood sacrifices were involved in the ones she’d been barred from.

Blood. Chanting. Robes. Nudity. Group sex. No wonder they, er we, wouldn’t want witnesses…

Mauvreen emerged from the house with a broad grin and told them the Inverness coven knew exactly where the Celts were meeting because they’d been invited. Mary Elma wiped a triumphant smirk off her face, and for the first time, Maggie picked up her grandmother’s thoughts which ran along the lines of,
It’s about fucking time they appreciated us.

Different kinds of magic,
Maggie thought.
Who knows, maybe there’s untapped synergy here.
Drunk on borrowed power that made her feel she could conquer the world, Maggie mentally rolled her eyes at her automatic foray into scientific inquiry.
It’s going to take time,
she told herself,
to integrate who I am now with who I was.

“Well?” Mary Elma snapped her fingers, and Maggie’s head popped up. “Don’t you want to come to the meeting?”

“Of course.” She trotted to her grandmother’s side. An image filled her mind, and she pushed on it just like she’d done when they’d used magic to leave Mauvreen’s. Once her mind view cleared, she was in a large, richly appointed room with candle chandeliers. People, presumably Celts, milled about in small groups. The scarred, wooden floor was scattered with large, colorful cushions. Ceridwen sat near one end of the room stirring her cauldron and muttering, her brows drawn into a single, frowning line.