Fire on the Island (27 page)

Another one
bites the dust.

Isla backed up
until she found herself pressed against Jeremiah's back. When he tried to speak
to her, he had to shout over the sounds of battle. "They just keep coming.
I think we might be in trouble here."

Nodding, Isla
glanced worriedly around them. "Agreed."

Finally her
gaze rested on Marduk, and what she saw astonished her. It appeared as though
he was dusting demons with a mere thought. The sight gave her a little spark of
hope, and an idea.

Nudging
Jeremiah with her elbow, Isla made eye contact with him over her shoulder.
"I have a plan. I have to get to Marduk. Cover me?"

At his nod, she
started slashing her way through the fray, dispatching demons left and right while
Jeremiah defended her back. When they finally reached Marduk on the other side
of the cave, Isla pulled him aside while Jeremiah guarded them.

"That
hands-free thing you've got going on? Can you teach me that?"

"Well, of
course, but now's not exactly the time," Marduk answered.

Isla rolled her
eyes and shook him softly. "Now is the only time we've got. What if we
join our energies? Maybe we can end this."

Marduk tapped
his chin as if he were pondering this, while Jeremiah slashed another
auchrim
that had advanced on them. "Uh, guys, if you've got a last-minute Hail
Mary play, now's the time!"

Nodding, Marduk
grabbed both of Isla's hands with his, forming a circle. "It's worth a
try. Isla, I need you to close your eyes and concentrate on expanding your energy
to fill the cave. To pull off something this big, we'll need to use a
spell."

The words were
disembodied—his lips never moved as he spoke them.

"Per
gyrum terrae, aerem, ignem et aquam, Domina magna virtus tua implico nobis
minatur exitium."

He raised his
eyes to Isla's face, silently willing her to repeat the spell. Together they
chanted, hands clasped tight, until Isla could feel the power bubbling up from
the deepest recesses of her soul, like a hot spring in a frozen tundra.

The pressure
was so great inside her head and her heart that she thought she would explode
from it. It was almost painful. Just when she thought she couldn't possibly
take it anymore, that she would surely be burned to ash by the enormity of the
energy, something inside her snapped.

A wave throbbed
through the atmosphere, radiating out from their circled bodies. It was so
powerful that
it felt
like a
seismic ripple. All around them, demons began to burst apart, one after
another, shattering like glass in an explosion. The others instinctively ducked
as if they would be hit by shrapnel. When the air finally cleared of dust and
debris, Isla sagged into Jeremiah, and he tucked her against his side. She
noticed that he'd had to slip his other arm around Marduk's shoulders to keep
him from collapsing as well.

When the two of
them had recovered enough to stand on their own, Isla smiled up at Jeremiah.
"It worked! We did it."

Grinning,
Jeremiah bent his head to kiss her sweetly on the lips. "Yeah you
did."

Their reverie
was cut off by the sound of Amy's shrill scream. The three of them whipped
around, searching the dark cave with their eyes to determine the source of her
distress.

One
auchrim
had survived. Its corporeal form was that of a young male, dressed in jeans and
a t-shirt. Isla gasped as she realized that the thing had a death grip on
Kieran's face. The boy's head lolled limply as the creature's claws dug into
his flesh. His eyes were glassy and unfocused, fixed on the creature's face.

"Kieran!"
Jeremiah shouted, trying to get his attention as the
auchrim
leaned in
closer and bared its teeth.

"Shit.
Shit!
"
Isla hissed. When Jeremiah sent her a questioning look, she explained herself.
"Kieran left early last night. We didn't know he was coming today, so he
never learned how to defend himself."

Cursing under
her breath, Isla turned back to the scene, and watched as a single tear rolled
down Kieran's cheek. “What should we do?” she asked, at a loss as to how to
help her friend without causing the demon to attack. A muscle ticked in Jeremiah's
jaw as he turned steely eyes to her. "Distract him."

Without waiting
for an answer, Jeremiah backed up slowly to fade into the darkness that
swallowed the edges of the cave.

Swallowing down
her worry for Jeremiah, Isla cautiously inched closer to where the
auchrim
held Kieran captive. Holding out her hands, palms up, in a gesture of
submission, she began speaking softly to Kieran.

"Ki, just
listen to me. Clear your mind, then imagine yourself in the place where you
feel safest." She wasn't sure if Kieran could hear her, but the demon's
attention was focused on her instead of Jeremiah, so she hoped that would prove
to be the diversion he needed.

"Fight
him, Ki. Don't let him take you." When she tried to step closer, the
auchrim
hissed and gripped Kieran tighter. Freezing, Isla looked around frantically for
something—anything—to use to help free her friend.

Suddenly, the
creature was jerked back hard, stunned into dropping Kieran and thrown bodily
against the cave wall. As it tried to stand, Jeremiah pushed it up against the
cold stone and closed his hands around its throat.

He would have
rung the life out of the demon, Isla was sure he'd intended to, if she hadn't
come up behind him and placed a hand on his tense shoulder. "Just finish
it," she said, her voice thick with exhaustion.

Removing one
hand, Jeremiah unsheathed his bowie knife and drove the point home.

Callum and Jack
propped Kieran up between them as the group exited the cave and Isla followed,
eager to be well away from an obvious hotspot of
auchrim
activity.
Wanting to put some distance between themselves and the traumatic episode in
the cave, the eight of them made their way down to the rocky shore.

Isla took
comfort in the circle of Jeremiah's arms as she looked out across the cool,
grey sea. Further down the beach was a cluster of cairns—stone altars erected
by travelers as memorials and landmarks. Somehow it calmed her to know that
others had come and gone along the same path they'd traveled, and survived.

Sighing, she
pulled away from Jere and faced the rest of their small band of searchers.
"Callum, Jack, take Kieran home. He needs to recover. Girls, you go with
them. Jeremiah, Marduk, and I will go on toward Machrie and see if we can make
it across to the Clauchland Hills before dark."

Callum began to
protest, but Isla held up a hand to silence him. "I won't risk any of your
lives any longer. But if I don't keep going, all that we've been through today
will have been for nothing. Please."

"All right
lass, we'll go on. You don't radio in by nightfall? We come get you.
Understand?" Callum said.

Smiling, Isla
kissed him on the cheek. "Got it, boss. Take the trail up to the top of
the bluffs. It will be an easier trip for Kieran."

Nodding, Callum
took up his position under one of Kieran's arms with Jack opposite him. Kieran
gave a weak smile, and they set off for home.

And then there
were three.

~~~

Strange that
their battle seemed to have waged on for hours, but when they emerged from the
caves, it was only mid-morning. Once free of the caves, Isla, Jeremiah, and
Marduk took the walking trail that led to the top of the cliffs in a gentle
sloping incline. Grateful for the brief respite to their grueling journey,
Jeremiah wrapped an arm around Isla's shoulders and smiled down at her.

"Those were
some pretty amazing pyrotechnics y'all pulled off back there."

Marduk feigned
shining a medal on his chest. "No big. All in a day's work in my
world."

His
lighthearted jibe surprised an indelicate snort out of Isla. Jeremiah chuckled
and shook his head. "Seriously though, are y'all going to be okay to
continue?"

He was happy
that Isla appeared to give his question at least a little thought before she
answered. "You know, I really feel fine now. It's like getting up and
moving helped restore the lost energy.

Jeremiah
pondered that as they made their way through the fields of low, mossy grass and
grazing sheep.

Around noon,
after making good time traipsing over the moorland, they came upon the Machrie
standing stones. Tall and majestic, the ancient sandstone monoliths stood
silently guarding the old, ruined farm buildings beyond.

Isla stepped
into the circle, turning slowly and raising her face to the sky. "I don't
feel anything bad here. This is a place of peace," she said softly, then
blinking as if she had surprised herself.

Satisfied that
the stones were not guarding a
locus
ready to rain demons down on them,
they stopped for a brief rest and some food. A breeze blew in, swirling around
the three of them, bringing with it the cool October air. Marduk looked over at
Isla and she shivered at the look in those pale eyes.

"Samhain
draws near," he said.

Nodding, Isla
cuddled closer against Jeremiah's side, breathing deeply of his woodsy,
masculine scent. "What do you think Alastore will do now?"

Marduk shrugged.
"There is no way to know. He may lay low, gather all of his strength for
the battle on Samhain..."

"Or he
could come at us with all guns blazing, hoping to weaken us enough for him to
win easily," Jeremiah supplied. Standing, he dusted himself off and began
repacking his rucksack. "We'd better get going if we want to make it to
the hills by nightfall."

"Are you
picking up any signs of the missing people?" Marduk questioned Isla.

Isla shook her
head as she slung her pack over her shoulder. "Not a thing. Not even a
latent track. I just figured we’d head toward the old fort at Dun Fionn, as
it's rumored to be a hotbed of paranormal activity on the island."

"We need
to go then, we'll lose the light fast." Jeremiah looked over his shoulder
at Marduk. "Why don't you go furry for a little while and do a little
recon up ahead. Double back and warn us if you see anything out of the
ordinary."

The young man
sent Jeremiah a grateful smile that told him he'd been having trouble holding
the wolf back. While Marduk poofed into the shape of his silvery wolf, Isla and
Jeremiah trudged onward.

By
midafternoon, they had reached the Clauchland Hills forest. Isla led the way on
the forest walk that ascended to the summit of Dun Fionn from the dirt footpath
they had been traveling on—an intermediate hike, much welcome after the strain
they had endured that morning. As they entered the canopy, she noticed how much
darker their surroundings were with the trees blocking the sun.

Isla and
Jeremiah reached the summit just as the sun was beginning to sink below the
trees. The curtain of forest parted to reveal a large stone cairn that marked
the ruins of the old fort. They, along with several man-sized boulders, were
nestled in a carpet of cool grass.

Unable to resist,
Jeremiah kicked off his shoes and sighed as his toes sank into the lush green.
From the old fort, he could see the waves crashing against the rocks down below
in Brodick Bay.

To his left,
Goat Fell, the sleeping giant, loomed a great shadow in the failing light.
Closing his eyes, he breathed deep of the fresh mountain air mixed with sea
spray that was so unique to the island itself.

He smiled as
Isla's arms, delicate yet impossibly strong, wound around his waist, and she
rested her chin against his shoulder.

"This is
one of my favorite spots," she said reverently. "Whenever I feel
alone or lost, I come up here to be with the mountains and the sea. It just
puts things in perspective. You feel it too."

He nodded,
turned, and pulled her into the circle of his arms. He tilted her face up to
his and placed a kiss on those full lips. Briefly, his fingers sank deep into
her ebony curls, and he deepened the kiss, unable to prevent his body's
reaction to her.

Sighing, he
pulled away, trying to remind himself of why they were there. "Getting
anything?"

"Not a
whisper. I'm beginning to imagine Alastore laughing as he watches us through
some sort of crystal ball as we trudge along on our merry wild goose
chase."

"Maybe.
But what else can we do but sit on our hands until Samhain?"

She didn't have
a good answer for him. It galled her that she didn't have any answers at all.
And, as the sun finally cast her last shadow in the fort, she realized that
they were out of time for the night.

"There's a
small clearing under the canopy, just beyond that last boulder. That will be a
good place to make camp."

The clearing
was indeed small, providing them with just enough room to pitch their hike tent
and build a small campfire.