Fire on the Island (2 page)

Jere wasn’t
sure what he had expected, exactly, but he’d assumed a ghost tour would be,
well, scary. It turned out that it was more of a history lesson than anything,
and how lame was that? Though he did think it was kind of neat that in New
Orleans the dead had to be buried in above-ground tombs because the city was
below sea level. Still, while Beau and the boys paid rapt attention, Jere was
bored. He had always been more interested in science than history anyway.

Catching a
flash of movement out of the corner of his eye, Jeremiah turned to scan the
dark perimeter of the cemetery. His view was blocked by the monstrous marble
tombs that St. Louis #1 was famous for. As it often did, curiosity got the
better of him and he stepped away from the tour group, ignoring the little
voice of caution in his head that sounded remarkably like his mother.

Already
committed to exploring, Jeremiah cast a brief glance back at the small group
gathered around the tomb of Marie Laveau. Satisfied that no one would notice
his absence, he began his exploration of the macabre matrix of New Orleans'
City
of the Dead
. Jeremiah froze when he heard the scrape of a boot heel on the
gravelly concrete. He couldn't explain why, but dread curled in his gut like a
fist, yet he was helpless but to follow.

Turning a
corner almost at a run, Jeremiah skidded to a stop when he noticed the shadowy
figure of a man leaning casually against an ancient looking pediment tomb. An
eerie fog wafted up from the ground and around him to mingle with his cigarette
smoke, and an orange dot appeared in the shadows as he took a drag. The figure
stepped through the fog slowly—like a predator—into a patch of moonlight,
causing Jere to cringe in fear. The stranger was dressed unremarkably enough,
sporting a black leather biker jacket, ripped jeans, and black cowboy
boots—although it was rather odd that he was wearing sunglasses at night. Jere
stared at the strange tattoo on the man's forehead. It looked like a peace sign
without the circle. Curious but still wary, Jere took a cautious step forward.

A wave of pure,
unfiltered evil blasted into him, and immediately a single thought stabbed
through his brain.
RUN!
He had no idea how he knew, but this was not a
man. As if in response to Jere's thought, the...
thing
...removed its
sunglasses and turned grey eyes, so pale they were almost opaque, to Jere's
face. Unable to help himself, Jeremiah stared into those bizarre eyes and
thought he saw shadows swirling inside them. The creature opened its mouth in a
gruesome parody of a smile, revealing a row of menacing serrated fangs.

Jeremiah's
heart leapt into his throat and his survival instinct galvanized into action.
As he was preparing to flee, he felt a stabbing sensation in his temples. Jere
tried to back away from the creature, who was now slowly approaching him like a
cougar stalking its prey, and he quickly realized that his feet wouldn't move.
Panicked now, Jere futilely tried harder to force his body into motion.

As the creature
approached Jeremiah and placed skeletal hands on either side of his head,
Jere's eyes rolled back in his head. Another shot of pain glanced through his
skull, jarring him back into consciousness.

So this is
how it's going to be. He's going to kill me and he wants me to feel every last
bit of it
. Jere thought
of his mama having to deal with losing one of her sons so soon after the death
of his father, and a single tear slipped down his cheek. He had to swallow back
the bile that rose when the creature tugged him closer and licked the tear off
his cheek with a snake-like tongue.

Jere's head was
swimming in the battle to lose consciousness, causing all of his thoughts to
slow as if they were wading through muddy water. As soon as it occurred to him
to test his voice and try to scream, a circle of fire erupted out of the ground
to surround the two of them. Jeremiah didn't know if he was
hallucinating—perhaps he was already dead—or if the fire was real. All he knew
was that it was close enough for him to feel the heat of it on the back of his
neck, and it burned him when stray embers landed on his bare arms.

The pain in
Jeremiah's head intensified and his whole body began to go numb. Against his
will, he again turned his terrified gaze to the creature's greedy one, where
the shadows almost appeared to be leaping out at him. Jere's vision narrowed
until all he could see were those peculiar opaque eyes, and he felt a tingling
sensation inside his head. Compelled against his will, his muscles relaxed and
he felt his mind opening to this being.

Just when
Jeremiah thought for sure he was about to be consumed—in body or soul, he
wasn't sure—the creature was abruptly jerked out of the fiery sphere and the
flames dissipated. Trembling violently, Jere tested his legs, and sure enough,
they were working again. Knowing he should take off running like a bat out of
hell, but unable to tamp down his morbid curiosity, he cautiously looked around
to see if the creature was still nearby. Turning slowly in a circle, Jeremiah's
eyes locked onto an astonishing scene.

A tiny,
dark-haired woman had petite hands locked around the creature's throat, and a
radiant glow emanated from the contact. She swiveled her head around to look at
Jere, and surprisingly he recognized her as the gypsy tarot card reader he
often saw in Jackson Square. He usually avoided walking too close to her table
because she looked at him like she knew too much—he never knew why that scared
him so much, but it did.

There was
something different about her tonight, Jere realized. She was dressed in a gold
and white silk robe and had a trio of nesting circles that covered most of her
left cheek that he had never seen before. Baffled by the appearance of the mark
and the way it seemed to writhe and glow on her cheek, Jeremiah started to back
away.

"
Ne
t'effraie pas
," she said to him.
Don't be afraid
.

"
Je
suis ici pour vous protéger
."
I am here to protect you.

Before Jeremiah
could puzzle out how he could understand her perfectly when he didn't speak a
lick of French, she turned her gaze back to the creature, and ghostly blue
flames leapt out from her eyes to lick at the creature's face. The creature let
out a mournful howl and disappeared in a burst of smoke that smelled of flint
and death, leaving nothing but a small white serpent slithering on the ground.

The gypsy woman
picked up the snake and tucked it into her knapsack, then turned milky white
eyes back to a terrified Jeremiah and winked. Having tested the limits of his
consciousness to take in the impossible, Jere's brain finally checked out and
he dropped like a stone.

A groggy, fuzzy
headed Jere awoke minutes later, finding himself curled up at the foot of one of
the massive tombs. Unsure of how long he had been out and anxious to return to
his friends, he dusted himself off and shot off like a bullet to rejoin the
tour group. He was ready to get the hell out of that cemetery and never look
back.

Jeremiah's red Chuck
Taylors slid to a stop when the tour group came into view, crowded around
another tomb. Not wanting to alert anyone to his absence, he crept up silently
to stand behind Drew and Josh, trying to hold in his panting breaths. Beau
turned to study him and chuckled.

"Dude,
tell me this is not actually scarin' you."

Jere looked
down at his toes and mumbled, "Nah. Just not feelin' so good." It was
all he could do not to run screaming to the car and lock himself inside.

Concern
replaced the amusement in Beau's face, and he nodded. He tapped Josh on the
shoulder and motioned for the boys to follow. "Let's get outta here. This
is totally lame. Besides, it's almost over anyway." Not wanting to be
considered lame for wanting to stay, Josh and Drew trailed behind Beau when he
placed a hand on the back of Jere's neck and urged him forward. Normally
Jeremiah would protest cutting the tour short on his account, but he couldn't
bring himself to stay in the cemetery one second longer.

Once they were
loaded up in the car and on their way back home, Jeremiah was finally able to
relax slightly. He leaned his head on the cool glass of the window, closed his
eyes, and went over the events of the night, trying to sort through the
details. He remembered the strange entity and the gypsy woman, but details that
should have been crystal clear were now hazy, as if seen through a dream. He
tried harder to remember until a piercing throb in his skull caused him to back
off. The analytical, science-nerd part of his brain took over, and he tried to
figure out a reasonable explanation for what little he remembered.
What was
that thing? What was it trying to do to me?
There were too many questions
and frustratingly few answers. Jere knew without a doubt, however fuzzy the
details, that the gypsy woman had saved him from some kind of horrible fate. He
wondered how she had come to be in the cemetery and how she had known what to
do to help him.

Unable to come
up with any theories to explain his frightening encounter, Jere sighed and
stared out the car window. His heart rate had finally returned to normal and
the trembling had stopped, but he knew the events of Halloween '91 had changed
him in ways he couldn't yet imagine.

Chapter
Three

Isla drove her
battered, old pickup truck down the dirt road that led from her cabin to the
office of her company, Expeditions, located in the small village of Lamlash.
The business was housed in an A-frame cedar building that nestled into the
landscape at the foot of one of the great hills on the island. To the left of
the building were canoe and kayak racks, and on the right were three sheds that
stored equipment and apparel for various outdoor excursions.

Isla was
dressed for work in cargo trousers and a black tank top, and she had braided
her curly, black hair into a thick rope to keep it out of her way, but also to
cover the mark on her neck. To her way of thinking, the fewer people who saw
it, the fewer questions there would be. Swiping at the thick fringe that framed
her jade green eyes, she entered the lobby, waving at two of her guides who
were looking at maps and going over the schedule for the day's events.

"G'morning
girls. How's the day looking for us?" After ten years of living on the
island, Isla had picked up the lilting country brogue.

Brynna, a young
Irish girl with flaming red hair and green eyes, was the first to speak.
"Mornin’ boss lady!" Brynna knew Isla hated to be called
that—especially since she didn't make it known to the public that she was the
owner of the company—which was exactly why the impish girl said it. Isla never
failed to be touched, and slightly surprised, by the good-natured ribbing when
she got it.

Their American
import, Amy, spoke up next. "I've got two sea kayaking tours, Bryn has a
half-day cycling trip, and Kieran will be taking a group up to the summit of
Goat Fell."

"Who's got
office duty today?" Since they both preferred to be outdoors, Isla and her
manager, Callum, alternated running the office and leading excursions because
someone had to stay back and check in customers.

"Looks
like Callum pulled the short straw today. You have two waterfall tours on the
books today, one at ten and the other at three this afternoon, both to
Glenashedale," Amy answered. Glenashedale was Arran's tallest waterfall,
towering at over 100 ft, and it was one of Isla's favorite hikes to lead.

"Lovely!
Is Callum in the break room?"

"Yeah, he
said come on back when you got here. He's got some news."

Interested to
find out what gossip Callum had to share, Isla turned the corner and headed
back to the small kitchen the staff used as a break room. He was worse than the
little old ladies in the church knitting circle.

Callum, her
best friend and business partner, sat at the kitchen table staring into his
coffee. Isla didn't miss the slight twitch of his mouth and the sparkle in his
eye that always gave him away when he had something interesting to share.

Pulling out a
chair and turning it backwards to straddle it, Isla tapped Callum's tanned arm.
"Spill it. What've you got?"

His
dark-skinned face split in a huge grin, revealing even, white teeth, and his
blue eyes twinkled. "We've rented out our summer cabin for two months!
Some fancy American author needing to find himself, or some such thing. Who
really cares why?"

"That's
wonderful, especially this late in the season. That will be a nice chunk of
change for you and Jack. Maybe you can finally run away together!" Jack
was Callum's partner of twelve years. Callum always talked about how they were
going to make it big and ride off into the sunset. Their vacation home in
Lochranza, on the northern coast of the island, was just one of their many ways
of doing so.

"When will
your tenant arrive, then?"

"If all
goes to plan, he'll be arriving on the ferry tomorrow afternoon. I've also got
him booked on a hiking tour on Saturday. I threw that in as part of the rental
agreement, hoping it would sweeten the pot."

"Who's on
hiking on Saturday?"

Callum cleared
his throat and fixed his eyes to a point on the wall to the right of Isla's
face. She had a sinking feeling that this would turn out to be one of Callum's
many plots to
socialize
her. Bless his damn fool heart, he meant well,
but he didn't entirely understand why Isla kept to herself.
"Callum...," she said in a warning tone.

"You're on
hikes for Saturday, love. Please don't be mad, you just always seem to me more
comfortable around tourists than you do around locals—"

"With good
reason."

"Yes, of
course. No arguments there. So what would it hurt to get to know a tourist who
will be around longer than a week? You might like him. Hell, he might even be
good looking. Even you have to scratch that itch occasionally."

"Callum!"
she exclaimed, swatting him in the shoulder. He twirled a lock of sun-streaked
blond hair and widened his eyes innocently. The bell on the front door jangled,
signaling the arrival of the first tour group of the day, and Callum made his
graceful escape. "Duty calls!" he shouted as he disappeared down the
hall.

Shaking her
head and chuckling to herself, Isla put Callum's forgotten coffee cup in the
sink to wash it. She knew Callum loved her and didn't want her to be alone, but
all she wanted from this American was his business and for him to stay out of
trouble on her tour.

~~~

Isla sat bolt
upright in her bed, sweating and trembling, still in the grips of the
nightmare. She could still feel the hand in her hair, the knife at her throat.
Flailing her arms madly to get away from the imaginary threat, she scrambled
back across the bedspread to flatten her back against the headboard.

Taking great
gulps of air, reality finally started sinking in. She was alone in her cabin in
Arran, in her own bed, with her two cats, Atticus and Smitty sitting side by
side, regarding her curiously. They were both Savannahs, a large breed closely
related to bobcats and often highly expressive.

"What?"
she replied to their questioning looks. "Never heard of a nightmare
before?"

Flicking his
tail like a rattlesnake, Smit gave her his back and jumped off the bed. Atticus
rose to follow,
glancing
back
at her before leaping gracefully to the floor. Her alarm clock chose that
moment to start screeching to signify that, yes, it was indeed time to get up.

Pushing sweaty
bangs out of her eyes, Isla swung her legs over the side of the bed and padded
to the bathroom. "Talkin' to me cats now," she said to the empty
house. "I'm the crazy cat lady. Pure dead brilliant."

After brushing
her teeth and tying her hair back, she headed out of the bedroom, when she
paused to look at the full-length wall mirror beside the door. A long, jagged
crack ran from the top of the glass to the bottom and smaller cracks branched
off to create a web of broken glass.

"Now how
in the hell did that happen? Great, need a new mirror now, too."

Trudging
through the open great room and into the adjoining kitchen, Isla filled the tea
kettle and set it on the stove. She thought she would need something stronger
than tea after the night she’d had, so she got out her french press and coffee
grinder as well. As she reached for the sack of coffee beans, her hand skimmed
across the steam piping out of the spout of the teapot.

Yelping, Isla
jerked her hand away and then whirled around when a framed photograph came
crashing down from the wall. Isla blinked, looking at the picture, then at the
tea kettle, then back at her hand. Shaking her head, she returned to the
mundane task of grinding beans and making coffee.

Atticus prowled
around her legs while Smitty leapt onto the kitchen island and settled in for a
nap in a sun spot. "Maybe I'm losing it. People have been calling me crazy
for years, maybe I'm just finally living up to it." After slowly sipping
her allotted one cup of coffee, Isla gathered her gear for the day's tours and
stuffed it all in her rucksack, grabbed her keys, and headed out the door.

Out on the
stone porch, Isla turned her face to the sun and breathed deep of the fresh
island air. She started down the porch steps but froze at the bottom when she
saw a shape at the edge of the woods. Shading her eyes with her hand, she
strained to see what sort of animal would come out of hiding in broad daylight
with a human about.

She sucked in a
sharp breath when she realized it appeared to be a grey...wolf.
"Impossible," Isla whispered. Everyone knew that wolves had been
hunted into extinction in Scotland back in the 1700's. And even if there were
still wolves on the mainland, how would they get to the island? Swim?

Taking a few
seconds to admire the creature, she took in the light grey, almost white fur, soft
sky-blue eyes rimmed in black, like eyeliner, and three black strips of fur
around the wolf's neck. Isla thought this wolf had to be the most unusual
animal she had ever seen, but it could pose an extreme danger to the islanders
if it was a predator gone rogue.

Making no
sudden movements, Isla side-stepped to her pickup as the wolf calmly watched.
Locking herself inside the vehicle, she shifted into reverse and backed out of
her gravel drive by muscle memory, her eyes never leaving the mysterious wolf.

~~~

Isla was still
rattled when she rushed into Expeditions headquarters like the devil was on her
heels.

"Oi,
where's the fire, lass?" Callum called from behind the check-in desk.
"You're over an hour early, don't worry!"

Still panting,
Isla walked up to the opposite side of the desk and slapped her palms on the
glass surface. "Oh. My. God. You won't believe what I saw up at the cabin
this morning," she exclaimed, her brogue more pronounced in her
excitement.

"What's
that?"

"A wolf. A
fucking wolf, Callum!"

"Bollocks!"
Callum rolled his baby blues at her, and turned his attention back to the
appointment book.

Annoyed, Isla
snatched the ledger from his hand and waved it in his face. "Hand to God,
Callum. Cross me 'eart and all that. It was there just staring at me from the
edge of the woods when I left for work!"

"Sweetie,
you know there aren't any wolves in Scotland. Haven't been for centuries, much
to the disappointment of the conservationists."

"Yes, I
know. I thought the same thing when I saw it, but it was there just the
same!"

Callum flicked
a skeptical look at her, and she could tell he didn't believe her. "Well,
wolf or no wolf, the show must go on. You have a hike in an hour and ten.
Remember that my tenant, the good doctor himself, will be on this one, so make
it good. We want him to come back."

"Aye, we
do," Isla agreed, waving at Amy who had just entered the room. "And
bring his money with him."

She patted
Callum's shoulder, and then turned to the other woman. "I'm going to take
a quick climb in the cave before the troops arrive. Belay for me?" Amy
nodded and followed her through a door off to the right of the lobby that led
to
the cave
, Expeditions' indoor climbing room.

The unique
structure looked exactly like its name implied—a cave. All four walls and
ceiling were covered in simulated rock and also indoor rock climbing handholds.
Isla was an expert climber, and she loved using the indoor structure for
exercise, but when outdoors, she preferred rock scrambling, a type of climbing
rocky faces using nothing but the body.

Jeremiah was
half an hour early for his hiking tour. This was more due to a need to explore
his surroundings without the bustle of tourists about rather than any kind of
punctuality. He pulled his rental car into the parking lot and unfolded his
long legs from the compact vehicle. He turned in a slow circle to survey the
landscape. The Expeditions office was a lovely log and stone structure nestled
into the valley created by the three small mountains that surrounded it.

Whistling, Jere
stuffed his hands in the pockets of his cargo shorts and ambled about the
grounds, checking out kayaks and poking his head in equipment sheds. Finally he
pulled open the heavy glass door to enter the lobby. The room was charming, all
wood paneling and natural log benches. Since no one was around, he walked
around to study the framed maps of Arran on the wall.

Jeremiah turned
as the man he recognized as Callum, his new landlord, strolled into the lobby
from somewhere in the back. "Oi, Dr. Rousseau! Welcome to Expeditions. I
trust you settled in alright yesterday?"

Jere had
arrived on the Caledonian MacBrayne ferry at three in the afternoon yesterday
and Callum had been waiting for him. Jere had followed him up to Lochranza to
find the cottage he had rented, and they had sat on the porch and talked a bit
over a pint. Callum liked the younger man, and one never knew when you could
use a friend.

"Jeremiah,
please. I settled in just fine, thanks. The place is gorgeous."

"Ye're a
bit early, the rest of the group won't show up for a little while. Make
yourself at home."

"Mind if I
look around?"