Emerald Embrace (41 page)

She had to relax. Had to. She had to wait. She understood. She could not help Bryan by making him have to worry about her.

She reached under the mattress for the Colt. And even as she did so, her eyes widened.

The knobs upon the double hallway doors to the room were twisting. Someone was out there.

She dug more furiously beneath the mattress. She couldn’t grasp the gun.

Then she heard a slow, persistent scraping, and realized that someone outside was digging the lock from the doors.

“God help me!” she whispered frantically. She wrenched the mattress from the bed, but there was no gun under it.

Then she knew what the hooded figure had been doing in Bryan’s room earlier, what it had stolen, and what it had been cradling to its chest.

The gun.

The weapon she so desperately needed now.

The grating sound was louder. In a matter of moments, someone would break through the door.

Martise raced across the room and unbolted the door to the dressing room, slipping inside just as the doors shattered open behind her. She hurried on into the bath and then into the hall.

She didn’t dare try to race along the corridor. There was only one route left open to her. She stared down into the ebony darkness of the stone circular stairway. She heard the footsteps behind her. Someone in pursuit…

And tore down the steps, plunging into the absolute darkness to reach the crypts of death below.

T
he darkness was terrible, eerie, and all-encompassing. Martise set her hands on the walls to guide her along the continuous curve, moving as fast as she dared. It seemed then that all she could hear was the beating of her heart and the desperate surge of her breath.

Then she paused when she heard a noise coming from behind her.

Her pursuer had come through the rooms, discovering her gone from the bedroom, the dressing room, and the bath. And now, whoever it was had come to the head of the stairs. And was descending.

She gasped in a new breath and hurried along again. In seconds she came to the arrow slit in the tower wall, and moonlight spilled in upon her. The steps just below were illuminated for her, and while she had light, she raced along them heedlessly.

And still … the footsteps kept coming. Soon, the moon would illuminate the steps for the pursuer, too.

She plunged on downward and discovered in the moonlight a small landing and a door. She realized that the door must lead to the smaller hall in this tower, the one that Bryan had mentioned, where the portrait of his ancestress Creeghan bride, in the very dress she now wore, was hung.

She threw herself against the door, but it held tight. She tried again, praying beneath her breath. But the door would not budge, and she was wasting valuable time.

She could still hear the footsteps, closer now, upon the steps.

She swore softly and raced downward again. Once more, the darkness came against her intently, heavy, wrapping around her. Still she curved around on the steps, hugging the wall, moving as fast as she could.

Then there was light. Not bright light, but pale light filtering through to the stairway. She was nearly to the ground floor, nearly to the crypt.

She hurried on. The crypt with its slabs of stone and shrouded dead lay almost before her, and beyond it, a passage. And it was from that passage that the light seemed to be coming.

She stumbled from the last step, looking desperately about for an escape route. The gate to the crypt appeared to be locked. There was nowhere to go but forward. Yet even as she took a step, a dark form loomed up before her. For an instant, it seemed that her heart ceased to beat, and she thought that one of the shrouded creatures had arisen from death to fly before her. But then she realized it must be a living creature, one clad in a dark cloak with a low hood. She screamed and turned about, facing the stairway again.

By then, her pursuer had also come to the bottom. And this figure, too, was clad in a dark cloak with a low hood … and more.

The figure wore a mask. All-concealing, blood-red and black, like a horned dragon. Tight-fitting, the mask rode just beneath the overhang of the hood. Small … terrifying. Shielding even the eyes in shadow.

“No!” she screamed, and spun again, darting to elude the creature before her and streak toward the hallway.

“Stop her!” called a husky, burring voice. “’Tis the bride returned, trying to escape her tomb, trying to escape death! She will bring down destruction upon us all.”

She screamed again as a hand knotted into her gown, wrenching her backward. She turned, and to her amazement, she stared into young Jemie’s face.

“Jemie! ’Tis me, Lady St. James—Lady Creeghan—”

“Aye, Lady Creeghan,” he agreed. “Ye canna escape the tomb, lady. Ye were buried hundreds of years ago, and ye must be buried again.”

“No, Jemie!” she cried, trying to wrench free. She knocked against a slab, and a spider-boned hand, covered in gauze, fell upon her. She shrieked and tried to spin.

And met the creature in the dragon mask. She barely looked upon it before she saw the hand rising and saw that there was a stone within it. She tried to scream, tried to duck, but it was too late. The stone struck her temple, hard. She felt the pain, and then it seemed she felt nothing at all. The light faded, and she fell, grasping onto the only hand offered to her.

The hand of bone.

It fell with her, tiny fragments littering the floor. And then darkness descended again.

    Dimly, from the darkness, she heard a scraping sound. It was slow, easy. At first she just lay there, not really conscious, but aware of the sound.

Scrape … scrape … scrape …

Then she felt the pain in her temple and, slowly, she became aware of other things around her. She was cold, very cold. And she lay upon something hard. Stone. A cold stone slab.

She opened her eyes. Pain struck her mercilessly.

There was light. A dim light, cast from a lamp not far away. She stared up at a ceiling of stone.

At her feet was a wall of brick.

Scrape … scrape … scrape …

She heard the sound over and over and allowed her lashes to fall, and then she turned her head toward the sound. She kept her lashes low, but opened her eyes, and nearly allowed a scream of terror to escape.

She had been taken from the old crypt to the new. Mary’s coffin sat no more than twenty feet away. But the wall that had been repaired had been broken down again, and one of the heavy funereal slabs had been drawn back into the crevice of the wall. The crevice where the body of the young girl had been found. The girl who had died just a year ago. The poor creature they had found in a state of partial decay …

The scraping sound was that of mortar being applied to brick by the cloaked figure of young Jemie. Slowly, methodically, carefully, neatly, he was now walling her into the crevice, burying her alive.

The bricks already rose at least three feet from the ground.

She tried to move, and discovered that she was tied to the slab by ropes that held her hands above her head. Desperately, she began to tug at them. They tightened about her flesh.

Jemie placed another brick upon the wall and smiled at her. “Ye mustna leave the tombs agin, ye know. Ye mustna. ’Tis the living ye harm when ye do.”

She bit her lip, trying to stay calm. Even if he managed to wall her up, there would be some air. And Bryan would discover that she was gone, and he would come for her.

Unless Bryan was the figure in the dragon mask.

She fought down the rising hysteria and began to move her wrists, scraping the rope against the rough stone and praying Jemie would not notice. Then she spoke to him, firmly, quietly.

“Jemie, I am not any ancient bride. I am wearing this gown as a costume.”

Jemie smiled. “The dragon laird said that ye’d be wily as a fox, tryin’ to trick me poor mind.”

“Jemie, there is no dragon laird. I swear it.”

“Aye, there is! He brings us the harvest from the sea, and if we disobey him, the crops themselves will rot, and the sheep will die.”

“Jemie, Jemie! Someone is using you, can’t you see it! Those poor ships are no man’s harvest! Your dragon laird is a wrecker, just using you. Ah, Jemie, you’re not an evil lad!”

“Nay, lady, I am not evil!”

“But what you’re doing is evil, can’t you see that? I am Martise. Mary’s friend. Mary Creeghan. Jemie, remember Mary? She was kind to you, so kind.”

He stopped his work and looked at her with a troubled frown. She kept moving her wrists. She could feel the rope fraying.

“Aye, I remember Mary,” he said.

“What happened to Mary, Jemie?”

He waved the hand with the trowel in it. “Mary, poor Mary. She came running down the stairs on the night of the full moon. And she ran into the dragon laird, and she screamed and she fell. She was dead, he did say, and so no sacrifice would be necessary for a long time. She was a Creeghan bride, given to Castle Creeghan. She would look after us for some time.”

Martise closed her eyes. So Mary had died of fright. Heart failure, yes, but brought on by terror. She had been murdered as simply as the girl who had been bricked into the wall.

Just as she was being buried now.

“Jemie, stop this nonsense. Laird Creeghan will be furious with you. He’s a Christian laird, Jemie, and he’d be furious with this paganism!”

He gazed at her sadly and her heart seemed to freeze. Whether he was or wasn’t, it seemed that Jemie at least believed Laird Creeghan was the dragon laird.

“None is greater than the dragon laird,” he told her.

She swore, suddenly furious, tears stinging her eyes.

Poor Jemie! Someone had worked piteously upon the weaknesses of his mind, and used him cruelly. More desperately, she worked upon her ropes. She jerked hard as another brick fell into place. The rope burned her wrists, but she ignored the pain. She wrenched hard again, and one wrist was free.

Jemie had not yet noticed. He set another brick upon the last. She spoke again while she worked frantically to sever the second tie. “Jemie, you were in the woods, weren’t you? You were meeting there.”

“Aye.” He paused, looking troubled again. Then he stared into her eyes. “You came. And he said that you must be found.”

“He? He … who?”

Jemie smiled. “The dragon laird.”

“The head of your group of twelve?” she asked.

“Oh, nay, lady! ’Tis not twelve. Well, there be twelve of us followers, and then the dragon laird. He is the thirteenth. The laird, you see, and we are the twelve disciples.”

The rope broke free. She leapt up from the slab and threw herself against the brick. The wet mortar gave, and the bricks fell back down upon a startled Jemie.

“Nay, lady! Ye canna escape yer tomb!” he cried with true distress.

He was lunging at her, trying to stop her. Martise eluded him, leaning against the fallen brick. Her fingers closed over one, and as he pounced again, she brought it down upon his head. To her amazement, he sank down before her. She stared at him and dropped the brick. “Oh, Jemie, I am sorry!” she murmured.

She stepped away from him and hurried to the gate. To her relief, it was open. Within seconds she could run up the stairs to the great hall above and find help.

If there was any help to be had! Twelve of them … and the dragon laird. Twelve apostles and the laird himself. Aye, witchcraft, but witchcraft in truth? Or a pretense of devil worship to trick the poor unwary like Jemie?

Who were the twelve? Dear God, was the entire household involved? Or the village? Who did she dare trust? She had to leave the crypts.

Martise swung open the gate and started into the darkened hallway. She heard footsteps, and stared down the corridor toward the tower that faced the ancient crypts.

They were coming. Two of the figures, silent, secretive, furtive, were coming down the hallway. She could not make the stairs.

She sprinted across the hallway, the white medieval gown flowing behind her, and reached the wine cellar. She tore frantically at the gate, and it gave to her touch. She slipped inside, closed it, and hurriedly slipped behind a rack of wine. She heard nothing more.

Someone swore.

They had discovered Jemie, she thought. And the fact that the Bride of Creeghan had risen again.

She flattened herself against the wine rack, praying they would not come for her. She heard running footsteps, then their sound faded as they ran in the opposite direction. But it was only one set of footsteps, she thought.

One of the cloaked figures remained in the crypt. She still could not make the stairs.

She turned and saw there was light coming from the rear of the cellar. Quietly, she walked toward it.

The costume trunks had been dragged away from the wall, and the wall itself had turned, baring a foot-wide opening and a passage beyond.

“Martise!” she heard her name called in an urgent whisper. Then it was shouted. “Martise! If you can hear me, come out. It is Ian. Martise, dear God!”

Ian! He was down here, one among them, seeking her out. Calling her by name.