Chapter One
“The only courage that matters is the kind
that gets you from one minute to the next.”
~Mignon McLaughlin
“Ye’ve made me proud, son. I regret only that I will not see ye take a wife and bring your own bairns into this world.”
“Ye’ll be with me, Da, I’ll get ye home, and maither will tend these wounds.”
Even as Angus offered encouragement, the warm blood from his father’s wounds gushed and bubbled between his fingers and bathed his hands in a hellish crimson. The hollow promises offered would not hold Donald Cameron to this earthly plain.
His father gripped Angus’ hand tightly and slipped a ring on his left ring finger. “My father’s ring— ‘tis now yers. Carry on the family name.” His chest heaved, “Acquit yerself with the courage and honor of yer forefathers.” Donald’s words gurgled around the blood that trickled from his mouth.
Angus bent forward and drew closer. He turned his ear to catch his father’s next words, all other sound blocked from his consciousness. “What did ye say, father?”
“I love ye, son. Tell yer mother—I’ve loved her like no other—will await her arrival—Heaven’s gate—but—not too soon, not too soon.” Angus lifted his head and watched the light fade from his father’s eyes.
Even as his father’s final breath rattled into the wind, Angus clutched the man he so desperately loved and admired to his chest. The surrounding screams of combat faded to a muffled roar until only a savage, primitive instinct to battle gods ancient and new remained. A need to barter, cajole, blaspheme, and offer promises to exchange his life for the one already departed raged in him, all to no avail. He did not wish to release the man who had given him life, trained his mind and body in the ways of family, honor, and loyalty. Finally, he laid his father down, watched the blood soak into the trampled earth as tears scorched his face, and pain more vicious than any lance ripped his heart.
* * *
A loud, whirring drone unlike anything he’d ever heard woke Angus with a start. Thick, thorny brush snagged his plaid like tenuous sharp claws. His head throbbed, and the numerous nicks and slashes on his arms and thighs burned with an itching intensity. He could discern no sounds of battle. A thick fog shrouded him. He couldn’t see more than two feet beyond his immediate surroundings. From the dull light penetrating the fog, it was pre-dawn, that hour when the sky held the faint promise of a new day but remained the color of tarnished steel.
He took several deep, calming breaths and tried to orient his mind. His thumb brushed over a ring on his left hand. His father’s ring rested there. A rush of memory assaulted him: his father falling in battle, him kneeling beside his father as he spoke his last words and wheezed his last breath.
Angus scrambled through the scrub searching for his claymore when a sudden screech of metal crashing against metal rent the morning air. He reached around him but did not find his weapon or his father’s body. The loud noises had already slipped into the mist. No other harsh sounds breached his distorted wits.
Everything about his surroundings seemed wrong, the peculiar noises, the intermittent blast of some far-off horn as though to signal the approach of a king or laird, or to usher a retreat from battle. However, no battle raged, no pounding of horses or carriages rumbled the earth, and dense fog distorted and muted what little sound penetrated his scrambled mind. The scent of salty sea, fishy and purifying at the same time, filtered through the air where no sea should exist.
Angus focused all his senses and tried to orient himself. He carefully detached his clothing from the thorny bushes around him. A hard, rough surface anchored his back. When he looked up, the image of a tall twisted tree that resembled the juniper bushes in Scotland came into focus. All its branches tilted in one direction as though a terrible barrage of constant wind had bent it low, crying for surcease. It certainly didn’t resemble the trees common to where he’d been fighting. The hill below him appeared steep and rocky, but he couldn’t see beyond three feet through the fog. The tree pressed into his back and the thorny bushes his clothing snagged on had probably stopped his fall into even more perilous danger.
Slowly, every muscle tightening against the effort, he managed to pull himself into a seated position, then scrambled onto his knees searching the area around him. He found nothing, no swords, no bodies; no other warrior’s lost weapons. No piece of evidence remained to indicate a recently fought battle. When he shook his head, the motion caused his eyes to smart as a sharp pain raced through the back of his skull. Careful probing with his fingers revealed a lump the size of a goose egg crusted with blood.
“Well, tha’ explains my muddled state,” he grunted.
A gust of wind swirled down the hill, lifting the thinning fog to expose what looked like a trail of sorts several yards above him. He scrabbled up the cliff grabbing onto thin seedlings and sharp scrub to gain purchase. Finally, he anchored his foot against a small boulder and thrust himself onto the path. Crouched in a defensive position, he stilled, taking in the unfamiliar sights and sounds. A whirring drone sounded above him again. Just as he looked up, the clouds parted, and a monstrous, silver bird with twirling head-wings soared over his head then disappeared into the clouds. The sight momentarily froze him to the ground.
“What the bloody hell is tha’?” No answer came. Defiantly, he raised his fist into the air. “Angus Brian Cameron, last living son of famed Highland warrior Donald Cameron, is no’ afraid of ye.” A wave of dizziness threatened, bile burned the back of his throat, and every aching muscle tensed. He ran his hands along his side locating the dirk still belted there and to his sgian dubh strapped to his left bicep.
“’Twould be better to have my claymore to hand, but one must make do with the weapons available.” His voice sounded gruff yet hushed as the fog whipped another thick lash of mist over the ridge. He unsheathed his dirk. Ignoring torn flesh and blood that oozed from numerous injuries reopened in his haste, Angus moved in a semi-crouched position darting behind bushes, trees, and boulders toward the path. Just as he reached a point where he could see over the ridge ahead a large, black horseless carriage roared into sight. It came to a screeching halt throwing dust and pebbles from beneath shiny silver wheels.
The rumble ceased abruptly, and doors flew open as four young men emerged from the beast’s belly. He ducked behind a cluster of trees and dense bushes. The young men cajoled good naturedly, twisting their torsos and stretching their limbs, then headed in his direction at a slow trot. The men wore long, dark-blue trews, white, tight-fitted shirts, two with leather jerkins opened down the front. Curiously, no weapons adorned their torsos. Hidden from their view, he let them pass listening to their peculiar speech. English. Some form of English, but in a dialect he’d never heard before. The cadence and words made no sense to him.
A few moments later, two men riding creatures clad in metal plating, roared into the clearing. The beasts they rode were about the size and height of a Highland pony. The hulking brutes riding them wore black clothing and thickly heeled boots. Silver chains crisscrossed shirts stretched across broad, muscular torsos, and their leather jerkins gleamed with pointy stud-buttons. Heavy silver chains also swung from their belts. They walked away from their beasts, placing white sticks into their mouths. A sudden flame erupted from their fingers, and they lit the white sticks, sucking deeply and blowing smoke into the air. Tobacco, a base habit shunned by his father in agreement with King James VI of Scotland, who deemed it the devil’s vile workings on man. But how had they issued fire from their fingers? He knew their type, puffed-up arrogant swine whose swagger promised nothing but trouble. Still concealed, he watched them carefully and tried to catch their words.
The one closest to his hiding place grumbled roughly, “I’ve been watching —everyone leaves—shielded—Wednesday—empty—easy bust...”
The other one answered as he ground his smoke-stick under his heel, “Yeah, easy—. Let’s meet—watch—few weeks...”
Angus could only catch every few words and those he heard, made little sense to him.
The men turned in unison, remounted their black and silver beasts, and kicked their heels toward the dirt causing the creatures to bellow in response. They spun in a half-circle hurling dirt and debris from beneath flashing wheels then sped out of sight.
Angus quietly slipped back to where he had crawled onto the path and searched the area again for his missing claymore, for his father’s body, for any evidence of the battle he’d fought. He found nothing. Bruised and bloodied his body now tenser than in the heat of battle, he sank into the dirt behind a boulder and cradled his head in his hands.
“Hell! I’ve landed in hell!” He could make no sense of anything he’d seen or heard. Bone weary exhaustion overtook him as he leaned against the boulder and tried to remember how he’d arrived at this terrible place.
He drifted into a semi-conscious state. Maybe he’d rested for a few minutes maybe for hours, when a commotion near the clearing he’d retreated from earlier, and a dog’s anxious barks awakened him fully. Pale yellow streaks and blue sky peeked through clouds. The animal he’d heard bounded through the underbrush heading in his direction. When the large blue-grey dog came within a few feet, the animal snarled and barred his teeth in a menacing manner.
"Aye, yer a fierce beastie, but I'm no' yer enemy." He reached out his hand in a placating manner. Probably not the most reasonable thing to do in the face of a snarling dog, but the sight of a Scottish deerhound presented the first familiar sight he’d come upon since waking to this nightmare. He extended his hand in a gesture of friendship.
Just as the dog hesitantly stretched his neck to sniff Angus' hand, a woman called the animal. “Heal, Simon. Come. To me.” The beast perked his ears at her commands, but continued to assess Angus. Then he heard her light footsteps sliding over the hill’s ridge until she came into view.
A heavenly female with long, russet tresses that drifted over her right shoulder in undulating waves stepped toward him. A bright blue ribbon held her unruly mass of hair. She wore a light blue, snugly fitted shirt that matched the ribbon. It clung to full breasts tapering to a narrow waist. Skin like polished stone with a light kiss from the sun gleamed in the gathering light. Large, round, azure eyes the shade of sea shoals under a noonday summer sun and blanketed with thick lashes assessed him and left him speechless.
* * *
Angel stepped carefully down the slope toward her deerhound. “Simon, come to me,” she commanded more forcefully. As she reached to brace herself against a tree, the form of what appeared to be another dirty, ragged homeless man turned in her direction. His heavily muscled frame, imposing even while leaning against a boulder and sitting in the dirt, halted her. Dried blood crusted along his arms and legs, tangles of debris clotted through his chestnut shoulder-length hair. He wore a dark plaid kilt streaked with mud and more blood. Her breath stopped, could he be Daniel? Of course, only the man’s rugged mien and broad shoulders resembled her brother.
“Oh, Jesus, you’re wearing a kilt, and you’re injured.”
Well, that was about the stupidest response she could have made. She gave Simon another sharp command. With a whine, the dog returned to her side.
She snapped on a restraining leash. "He's not dangerous, really. I think the smell of blood has disconcerted him." She waved her hand in a vague pass toward the man’s battered body and took a step back.
"Are you in need of assistance?" The man's fierce, disturbing appearance should have caused her to run in the opposite direction as fast as possible, but she felt an unexplainable urge to help him.
"My name is Gillian Adair. My father is a doctor. You look as though you might need his help."
The man watched her; an expression of total confusion twisted his face. “Are ye my angel, then? Have ye come to take me from this hell?”
He spoke with a deep, heavy brogue. At first, she could only make out a few words. She thought he’d called her Angel. Only her family and best friends shortened her middle name, Angelina to Angel, and used it as her nickname. However, they referred to her as Angel enough times around members of the St. Andrews Benevolent Society. Could this man be a newly arrived Scotsman who recalled one of them addressing her as such? She didn’t recognize him, but covered in dirt, brush, and blood…rather a lot of dried blood, and wounds still oozing, it was unlikely she’d be able to identify him from any previous brief encounter.
Weary, haunted eyes registered a flash of fear in their deep, green depths. The sudden loud rumble of a helicopter overhead spurred the man to his feet while at the same time ducking his head. He moved with such obvious distress that he lost his already awkward perch and slid further down the steep embankment futilely snatching at passing brush until he caught hold of a sturdy bush.
If he slipped any further, he would tip over the edge and plummet several hundred-feet onto a pile of jagged rocks at the base of the embankment. Angel removed Simon’s leash, issued a harsh command to stay, and scrambled down the slope clinging to rocks and trees as she went.
She’d intended to extend the leash to help the man up, but her good intentions went awry when she slipped, fell on her back, and slid feet first in his direction.
A strong hand latched onto her arm as she tumbled past his precarious position. He pulled her up with amazing strength and anchored a muscled arm under her breasts in a vise-like grip.