Stone Guardian Read online

  “Snarkiness is a very ugly trait, Laynie.” Emma shot Laynie the sternest look her current frame of mind could muster as she sank back to the floor. Her disgruntled huff stirred the remaining dust balls scurrying across the hardwood floor. Damn Laynie’s stubborn streak. When Laynie sank her teeth into something, the girl was worse than an angry bulldog. She never turned loose.

  Taking care to tuck the fluffy bedspread around the offensive steel frame that had already whacked her once, Emma stretched back underneath the bed and latched onto the wheel of the elusive suitcase. Fishing the bag between pairs of shoes and storage boxes, she blew out an irritated snort when she finally pulled it free. “Don’t you have a class tonight? Didn’t you tell me finals were coming up?” She had to get Laynie’s mind on something else besides this idiotic Internet-dating marathon. Maybe then, Laynie would settle down and they’d get in one last good visit before Emma left for the Isle of Lewis.

  Laynie’s blue eyes narrowed into plotting slits while she propped her chin in her hand. “I’m skipping class tonight because tomorrow you’re deserting me forever. Stop trying to change the subject. How many times have you complained that you’re thirty-three years old and afraid you’ve missed the mating boat? Biological tick-tock, remember?”

  “I have never said that—and a year or two is not forever.” Emma tossed the suitcase on top of the bed then dropped to all fours in search of another one. Maybe if she crawled under the bed Laynie would eventually get bored and go away. Emma surveyed the space, eyeing the level of dust and the crowded junk crammed under the bed. No. There’s no way she’d ever fit in that space no matter how much she scrunched up.

  Laynie’s voice pitched louder from her perch among the pillows. “A year or two is forever and maybe you’ve never said it in those exact words, but every time I’ve gone out on a date, I’ve seen that look in those big green eyes of yours. ’Fess up, sis. You’ve spent your entire post-pubescent life raising me and chasing your career. You’ve always focused on taking care of everybody else and never carved out any time for yourself. I might be twelve years younger, Emma, but I’ve noticed all you’ve sacrificed over the years.”

  Emma pulled out the other suitcase and flopped it open on the bed. She hadn’t missed the faint tremor in Laynie’s blustering or the moisture shining in baby sister’s eyes. Emma’s extended stay on the Isle of Lewis had been hard for Laynie to accept and lordy, Emma dreaded tomorrow’s good-byes. Her throat ached with a knot of emotions and she blinked against her own tears of pending homesickness. “You know I don’t begrudge a minute of our lives together, Laynie. You’re all I’ve got, baby sister. You know how much I love you.”

  Laynie brushed the back of her hand across her face, clearing her throat as she ducked her head. “I know. I just don’t understand why you have to go all the way to Scotland and beyond to set up some sort of children’s clinic. I mean—my gosh, Emma. Isn’t their healthcare already free anyway? I know I’m going to be busy finishing up for boards but we’ve never been that far apart for so long. All your other volunteer stints have only been for a few weeks or a couple of months at the most. Why do you have this need to take care of the entire world? Isn’t there anyone here that might pique your interest well enough to get you to cancel your trip? If I find you somebody, can’t you just stay here and find some people to save on this side of the Atlantic?”

  Massaging the inside corners of her stinging eyes, Emma swallowed hard against a renewed threat of tears swelling into a knot of emotions in her throat. How many times had they been over this? Emma sniffed back her insecurities and straightened tensed shoulders. She had to be strong for Laynie’s sake. She couldn’t break down now. “Laynie, I’m not going to the Isle of Lewis in search of some different sort of man and I’m not trying to save the entire world. I learned about this grant and decided I was interested in helping these people start their children’s clinic. As I understand it, the poor folks have to travel to the mainland in search of a pediatrician. We’ve talked about this hundreds of times. I’m going to fly you over during Christmas break. Remember? We won’t be separated the entire year.”

  “This is May.” Laynie pooched out her lower lip.

  “Laynie, come on. Give me a break. You know I’m going to miss you so much it’s already breaking my heart. Don’t do this to me. You’re twenty-one years old and ever since Mom and Dad died, you’ve always acted older than your years. Don’t give me grief now, please?” Emma shook out another shirt and smoothed it across the bed, averting her eyes away from the damning accusations flashing from Laynie’s eyes.

  “That one’s mine. You can’t take it.” Laynie pointed at the shirt draped across the rumpled bedspread.

  “The pink one’s yours. I bought this one. Remember?” Emma rolled up the shirt and neatly tucked it into a corner of the suitcase, then selected another one from the pile across the bed.

  With an evil grin, Laynie plucked the garment from the suitcase and waved it in circles over her head as she darted out the door. “Yeah but those stripes make you look fat. It looks so much better on me.”

  The thud of Laynie’s footsteps pattering down the hallway triggered a stronger attack of homesickness in Emma’s already aching heart. “I’m gonna miss you too, baby sister.” With a heavy sigh, Emma swallowed hard and stretched across the bed to grab another shirt.

  Chapter Three

  A low rumbling tremor thundered into his slumbering awareness, pulling him from the soft inky depths of the unnatural sleep. Torin struggled against the suffocating darkness, thrashing through the numbing confusion swaddling his mind like a woolen fleece. The shrieks of his clan shook through the stillness. He forced his eyes open, sucking in great gulps of air as he sought the unseen foe.

  Damn the Cailleach. She had kept her word and had not allowed him to embrace death. She had paralyzed his body and trapped his essence in an accursed realm of stillness. Torin rolled to a crouching position and patted a hand against his thigh. Where the hell was his blade?

  The cries of his clan reached a horrific pitch. Their panic surrounded him, crescendoed into a wailing beast summoning him to action. Enough of this damnable curse! The Cailleach would toy with him no more. His hand froze where the familiar leather sheath should’ve encased his upper leg. His gaze moved to the cold, still body levitating in the foggy void before him. Torin’s hissing breath stirred the swirling vapors. By all the powers, he’d never dreamed he’d someday face the stiffened form of his own corpse.

  Torin edged away from the inert body just as a deeper-pitched roar shattered the air around him. Lifting his head to the sound, Torin held his breath as he searched through the void for the source. He knew that moan disturbing the peace of this darkness. ’Twas a wicked beast he’d battled many times. Arach threatened his clan.

  “Return me, Cailleach. Arach has breached the threshold and moves toward m’land.” Torin straightened from the defensive crouch and stretched to his full height. The soft black loam of the void swirled around his knees, completely obliterating his lower legs from sight. No footprints. He left no mark in the smoking blanket of soil rolling across the ground. She’d completely severed his spirit from his body when she’d spelled him into the darkness. Damnaigh the spirit woman! “Return me to my body, Cailleach. Return my soul so I might defend my people against the demon.”

  “No. ’Tis not time. I warned ye there would be a cleansing.” The harshness of her voice sliced through the emptiness like a frigid cutting breeze.

  Frustration overcame the sense of uneasiness already pounding in his chest. He had to protect his clan from Arach’s destruction. By the time the beast grew bored with torturing his people, they’d long for the blessed escape of death. “My people will suffer much before they die. We have served ye well for eons, mighty Cailleach. I canna believe ye’d condemn them to such a cruel end. Return me so I might close the portal before the beast breaches the last of the stones.”

  A heavy sigh whispered through the stilln
ess, stirring the barest movement of air into the inky darkness. “Your clan must pay for the path it chose long ago. I can stomach them no longer. But you, my chieftain, you I will not destroy. I have decided to set ye upon another path, a path of hope that joins with another gifted one of my choosing. The two of ye shall redeem the bloodline of the guardians. The clan of the mystics will be reborn. The world shall change much before I allow ye to walk upon it again, my fine chieftain. The stagnant reality ye left long ago shall benefit from this cleansing. Return to your slumber, mighty Torin, for ye willna see your land again until the proper time.”

  She dared threaten to destroy his clan and in the same breath, avow to join him with another? The crone dared breed him like a favored stallion? “I need no other to survive this existence nor will my clan need to be rebuilt if ye allow me to stop Arach’s destruction. I have walked the path of foolish matchmaking once before. I willna walk it again.” Torin straightened taller and lifted his chin. The Cailleach would heed his words this time. “I canna believe my clan has erred so much as to deserve the punishment of one such as Arach. Return me now so I might save my people. They’ve served ye well, old woman. Dinna condemn them to such a cruel fate.” Torin’s jaw cracked with his clenched teeth. Surely, the Cailleach just tested him. Surely, she’d never condemn every member of his clan to such a horrible fate.

  “No. The time of your clan is over, my chieftain, but I havena forgotten what few good things they did. The truest ones who didna stray from my path shan’t go tortured or unrewarded. I shall gather the best of your people to my breast and shelter them in the next realm. There will I keep them ’til the time comes for me to summon the choicest of my followers to walk the land again. Return to your dreams until I call ye. The next time ye wake from my spell, I swear to ye, I will set ye firmly upon the path of your true destiny.”

  “No,” Torin growled. His head sagged forward against his chest as the Cailleach’s spell settled across his back like a weighted cloak. He flexed his arms and strained against the constricting pressure folding around his body. The crushing force methodically closed down his senses as he fell to his knees.

  “No!” he roared, teetering off balance. Helpless frustration hammered through him as he crashed to his side. A scream of refusal caught in his throat as the spell increased in strength. He strained forward, forcing heavy eyelids open against the power of the dark cloud closing in around him. He spread his hands through the powdery softness of the cool dank loam swallowing him into its depths. A numbing coldness brushed across his awareness. He shuddered at the familiar tingle stinging across his flesh. His outstretched hands passed through the soil, not marring the smoothness of the ground. Rolling to his back, he reached out for the cold stiff form of his body lying stretched across the bleak darkness, arms crossed over the chest. If he could connect with his flesh, perhaps he could conquer the darkness. He battled to keep his eyes wide, thrashing as the pull of the magic sealed around his awareness. Blinding whiteness forced his eyes shut and a deafening roar closed his mind.

  Chapter Four

  When her feet touched solid ground again, her lips would follow to kiss it. Emma hissed in a shallow breath between clenched teeth. She swallowed hard against another wave of nausea steamrolling across her body. A cold sweat peppered her upper lip as she pressed a trembling hand to the clammy skin of her forehead. She’d never gotten this airsick before. Would this flight from hell never end?

  Thank goodness, she had a window seat. She slumped against the curved wall of the vibrating plane, squishing her sweat-soaked travel pillow into a less uncomfortable wad beneath the crook of her jaw. More turbulence. If the plane jarred like that one more time, she’d need a thirty-gallon garbage bag to hold the contents of her stomach. Screw that dainty airsick bag the flight attendant had shoved into her hands.

  Stornoway. Emma opened her eyes as the announcement sounded over the crackling intercom. Hallelujah and hell yes! Please tell me we’re touching down. The drone of the engines pitched into a higher whine and the change in altitude forced a quick swallow to pop the pressure in her ears. Thank goodness, they were landing—or at least headed in a downward direction. At this point, she didn’t care which way this misery ended. She just needed relief. One way or another.

  The jarring bump against the tarmac eased the suffocating clench of airsick tension gripped around her chest. The skidding wheels and roaring reversal of engines slowing the plane sang to her churning innards. She just might get through the final leg of this trip without vomiting her dignity.

  Emma held her breath until the plane lurched to a complete stop. Eyes closed and head pressed back against the cushioned seat, she vaguely listened to everyone else milling around in the aisle. Saliva returned to a manageable level in her mouth. The nausea faded to a bearable twinge now that the motion had stopped. Pulling her eyes open, she straightened and peered through the cloudy window. So this was it. Her new home for the next year or so. Her tender stomach gurgled an anxious response and added a burning flip-flop of anxiety into the back of her throat.

  The troubled haze of a stormy horizon stretched across the tiny window at her shoulder. Rock-strewn hillsides, stark and mottled in muted tones of greens and browns, cowered beneath a fierce blue-white sky. A plume of smoke, black and twisting, rose from an indiscernible point off to the right of the plane. The roiling column of angry clouds appeared to spill from between the base of two faded blue hillsides. Is that how they cleared the hillsides here? Emma squirmed to a better position, trying to locate the origin of the blaze shooting tongues of orange flames through the pockets of blackened smoke. From the look of the spiraling clouds rolling ever higher, the inferno seemed to be raging out of control.

  Emma studied the smoke-filled horizon, then glanced down at the Isle of Lewis brochure poking out from the rear pocket of the seat in front of her. The fire looked to be in the direction of the circles of prehistoric stones. Pulling out the pamphlet, she spread it across her lap. Emma had scoured the Internet, gathering all the information she could find about the island. She found the place fascinating, especially the part about the ancient stone circles of Callanish. Emma brought the colorful brochure closer to her face, squinting at the small print beneath the pictures of the mysterious landmarks.

  There’d been an odd familiarity about those silent monoliths. Quite puzzling since she’d never seen them before. She promised herself that before she hunkered down and immersed herself in the start-up of the clinic, she was going to explore those ancient gardens of stone circles and see if standing inside the eerie memorials created the same weird sense of déjà vu as the photos.

  “Excuse me, miss. Will ye be leaving us now or no’?”

  “Oh sorry. Guess I got lost in my thoughts while I was waiting for everyone else to do what they needed to do.” Emma scooted from the seat, yanked her carry-on out of the overhead compartment, then sidled her way up the aisle. As soon as she stepped outside the plane, a whirling gust of wind slammed against her face with nose-tingling ocean scents of the island. Emma filled her lungs with the cool crisp air, then shivered with disgust. Ugh. The unmistakable, fishy-brine tang of seawater swirled around her face like a suffocating scarf. Emma snorted against the undeniable scent of a large body of water. Familiar talons of fear clamped down on her chest and squeezed until she nearly gasped. Damn. She hated water. Tightening her jaw and her grip on her bag, Emma white-knuckled her way down the rubber coated aluminum steps leading to the tarmac.

  She straightened her shoulders and forced herself to suck in another deep breath. Get a grip, chick. What did you think surrounded the freakin’ island—blueberry Jell-O? It had been ten years since the accident; she had to get over this thing about water.

  Emma hurried into the airport and slogged through all the security checkpoints. Pulling out her itinerary, she scrolled through her notes, searching for the names of her assigned greeters. What were those names? The Seacrest Foundation had arranged her grant and lodging, tendin
g to everything involved in her stay on the Isle of Lewis. Where in all this chaotic mass of information had she read the names of her sponsors?

  “Would ye happen to be Dr. Emma Maxwell?” a lilting voice chirped behind her.

  “Of course she’s Dr. Emma Maxwell. How many other people do ye see standing in this godforsaken waiting area that could be a young lady doctor from the States? Have ye finally gone off yer gourd, woman?” A gravelly voice sputtered and grumbled from the same general direction of the first cheerful question before Emma had a chance to turn.

  The sudden vision of a pair of fussing magpies triggered an involuntary grin. Emma turned. She couldn’t wait to see the pair of bodies attached to the bantering voices.

  “Mind your manners, ye old fool,” a rosy-cheeked woman of mature years hissed at a pot-bellied old man. He fidgeted just out of her reach, making his frame of mind clearly known with skulking looks from beneath the bill of a worn cap. After darting a glance in Emma’s direction, the woman edged sideways then popped the grumpy man across his stooped shoulders with the clenched loop of her purse strap. Turning to Emma, she bobbed her head until the tight gray curls twisted around her plump face trembled with an excited frenzy. “Never mind my husband Alfred.” She paused and fixed a warning glare in Alfred’s direction over the tops of the pearlized glasses perched on the end of her nose. “He’s just a bit off his feed today because he’s missing his favorite program on the telly. We’re the Duncans. I’m Moira and ’tis our utmost pleasure to meet ye and welcome ye to Lewis.”