Chapter 15

The winding stone staircase went on forever but Joanna had to admit, after their enlightening chat at what seemed like at least a hundred stair steps ago, the climb wasn’t all that bad.

He loves me. She replayed Grant saying those words over and over in her mind. A ripple of contentment washed across her. And he’d meant it. She’d felt the sincerity of every syllable. So many people played fast and loose with the word love. But not Grant. He’d struggled to tell her, prying his feelings free as though revealing some deep, dark secret.

Maybe that’s what this mysterious hike was all about. Maybe he was just taking her to some private grotto that he’d never shared with anyone before because it was so difficult for him to express his feelings. Joanna relaxed with every step. That had to be it. Her overactive sense of self-preservation fueled by the town’s silly rumors about some sort of strange MacDara family secret had kicked her paranoia into overdrive. This little outing was just Grant’s way of finding out if she felt the same about him and if they had a future together. I have got to stop being so paranoid.

“The platform is just after this turn. Mind the loose rocks on the grating.” Grant held the lantern overhead slightly in front of her, lighting the last few feet of the staircase.

A steel platform, about three feet deep and six feet wide, was chained and bolted to the cave walls. It was partially embedded in the limestone, creating a landing at the top of the stone staircase. The platform led to a set of metal doors that reminded Joanna of elevator doors, but there were no buttons or panels of any kind.

“There’s an elevator here?” Joanna stepped gingerly onto the steel grating, swallowing hard when the metal shifted just a bit with her weight. She latched hold of one of the support chains and held on for dear life. They’d climbed a long way up to get to this point. She didn’t want to slip and take the express route down. “Where does it go and how do you open it? There’s no control panel.”

“It’s no’ an elevator,” Grant said as he stepped onto the platform beside her.

The grating groaned and shifted and the rock-on-metal scraping noise made Joanna grab hold of the chain with both hands and wrap one leg around it. “Shit! Is this thing safe?”

Grant chuckled. “Aye, lass. Safe as a mother’s arms.” Grant held the lantern higher, squinting at the wall just past Joanna’s head. “I’ll need ye t’switch places with me, though. I hafta, t’reach those stones to open the door.”

“Switch places?” Joanna looked down at the platform. There was barely enough room for them to stand side by side. How the hell were they supposed to switch places? She resettled her grip on the chain and hugged up closer to it. “You’re gonna have to figure out something else because I’m not about to let go of this chain.”

“Verra well then.” Grant placed his right foot tight against the back of her heel and snugged his left foot in between the toe of her shoe and the rock wall. Straddling her, he leaned across her, stretching to reach over her head.

“What exactly is it that you’re doing?” All she could see was his massive linen-covered chest. Normally, she quite enjoyed that view, liking it even better naked. But the possibility of plummeting down through the darkness had effectively caused her libido to pack up and leave.

“I am…” Grant held the lantern higher with his left hand, leaned in even closer, and maneuvered with his right. Whatever he was doing, it was rocking the platform and she wished he would stop. “…unlocking the doors so we can enter the tunnels.”

“Hurry up before I puke.” She didn’t care where the tunnels went or what they looked like as long as they were solid. There was definitely no going back the way they came. At least not for her.

The muffled sound of grinding gears and shifting metal made Joanna close her eyes and take deep breaths to keep from passing out. I can do this. I’ve got the chain. I’m not falling. I can do this. The thick, heavy chain she’d coiled herself around started vibrating. “Son of a bitch. Grant, what are you doing?” If she got out of here alive, she was going to kill him.

“There now, lass,” Grant said in a soothing tone paired with a gentle kiss to her forehead. “Open yer eyes. ’Tis all well and good now, aye?”

Joanna barely cracked open one eye and peeked out from behind the shield of her arm. The double metal doors had opened, revealing a softly lit passage. A safe, solid-looking passage encased in military bunker–like sheets of riveted metal. Joanna dove in, rolled across the space, then pressed her back against the wall farthest from the opening. Heart racing, breath coming in quick gasps, she leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Solid ground. Under her butt, against her back, and under her hands. Thank you, Jesus!

Grant squatted down beside her, amusement written all over his face. “Good now, aye?”

“You think this shit is funny?”

“Absolutely not,” Grant responded in a serious tone, but Joanna could see impishness sparkling in his eyes. He held out his hand. “Come. Ye’ve caught yer breath. Time t’finish this day’s journey.”

Taking his hand, Joanna pushed her way up the cool, smooth wall at her back and stood. The metal doors slid shut with a shushing thud and a mild wave of claustrophobia washed across her. She lifted her chin and took in a deep breath through her mouth. I’m okay. There’s plenty of air. She swallowed hard and looked around. Wire cages covered bright incandescent lightbulbs mounted close to the ceiling. The lights marched down both sides of the tunnel, placed no more than four feet apart, leaving no opportunity for shadows to gather anywhere in the passage. The slightest movement of cool air brushed across her face. She shivered and hugged closer to Grant’s side. “Where exactly are we?”

“Do ye ken the mountain that rises behind Castle Danu?”

“Where the explosion was a little over a year ago?” Joanna remembered the explosion caused by the film crew Sadie used to work for before she married Alec. It had blown away a good chunk of the mountain and forced the MacDaras to close Highland Life and Legends early in the season—putting a lot of people out of work. It had been a dark time for both the town and the MacDaras.

“Aye. The same.” Grant slowed as they came up even with a bronze plate engraved with several odd-looking symbols. The plaque was mounted between two of the wire-caged lights, and Joanna didn’t recognize the strange symbols etched across its surface.

Grant studied it for just a moment, then pointed in the direction they were headed. “A bit farther and then we take the tunnel to the left. I wasna certain. It’s been quite some time since I was down here.”

The fact that Grant might not remember where they were going did nothing to ease the nauseating knot of “oh shit” tightening in the pit of Joanna’s stomach. Her self-preservation paranoia was back in all its jittery raw-nerved glory. This little jaunt had gotten too weird to be some kind of quirky romantic rendezvous. Joanna stopped, pulled away from Grant, and backed up against the wall. “I’m not going any farther. You’re scaring the living shit out of me. What the hell is this place? Some underground nuclear facility or something? Is your family some kind of secret contractor for the DOD?” They were strategically positioned here in North Carolina. No one would ever suspect Highland Life and Legends to be a covert military facility for testing secret weapons.

“DOD?” Grant repeated slowly, staring at her as though she were speaking in a language he didn’t understand.

“Department of Defense.” A twinge of maybe-I-just-overreacted-a-little-bit pricked at the back of her mind like a bad memory. But she couldn’t help it. The hidden cave. The climate-controlled steel tunnels. I mean, damn! she defended to herself. She widened her stance, leaned tighter against the wall, and folded her arms snug across her chest in an attempt to tone down her pounding heart. “I’m not moving. Explain this place. Now.”

Grant looked down at the floor, scrubbing the back of his neck as though trying to massage away one hell of a headache. Finally, he raised his head. Unsmiling. Face etched with weariness. He looked like a man with the weight of all eternity yoked across his shoulders. “Yer standing in the secret tunnels that run through the bowels of MacDara Mountain. There are four entrances to the tunnels. All secret. One for each of the brothers and known only to those within the clan that are trusted with our secrets.”

“Secrets?”

“Aye.” Grant nodded, lifting his chin to a defiant angle. “The tunnels lead to the chamber holding the goddesses’ most sacred gift to all mankind—the blessed Heartstone. It has been my clan’s duty, since the time when clans began, to keep the stone safe. We were trained by the goddess Scota, the war goddess, to use the four weapons the goddess Bride forged for us to aid in keeping our sworn oath. We are the Highland protectors, sworn to protect mankind from itself.”

Oh my God. I’ve stumbled my way into a cult. “I see.” She didn’t know what else to say. Panicked thoughts of are they dangerous, are they crazy, and but he said he loved me battled it out in her head. What the hell was she going to do now? Especially since she was currently trapped who knew how deep inside the guts of MacDara Mountain. “So…uhm…is that all?”

Grant frowned at her, one sandy brow quirked higher than the other. “What d’ye mean ‘is that all’?”

Joanna shrugged. “So…the MacDaras are a secret…group. Like the Masons. Right?”

“Nay, lass.” Grant slowly shook his head, staring back down at his feet as he did so. “We are no’ members of the Masonic Lodge and ’tis quite a different matter of which I speak.” He scrubbed a hand over his face as though attempting to wipe aside his weariness. “We are an ancient druid clan—and I mean ancient in every aspect of the word.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I am Grant Danann MacDara. Second son to Clan MacDara. Born in the year 882 A.D. in my beloved Scotland. My family and I were brought forward in time by the goddesses Danu, Bride, and Scota to save both us and the beloved Heartstone from the invading Northmen that had breached the walls of our keep. We arrived here, in this time, approximately sixteen years ago.”

Joanna stared at him. Confusion, uncertainty, and a general feeling that her knees were about to buckle battled for supremacy over her. “I…I just don’t know what to say to that.” Joanna swallowed hard. What bothered her most was that Grant was dead serious. He was totally vested in every word he’d just said. She could see it in his eyes. “I…uhm…you…all that can’t possibly be true.” Maybe they used some kind of hallucinogenic drug in this cult. What he’d just said could not be so.

“Aye, lass.” Grant sounded lost and very sad—as though his heart was breaking. “I ken how ye might struggle to believe all that is MacDara. ’Tis why I wished to show ye…” He waved one hand, encompassing the entirety of the tunnels and beyond. “ ’Tis why I wished t’show ye all this so it might help ye understand the truth of it.”

“You’re saying there really is a Heartstone?”

“Aye.”

“And it does what?”

“Protects mankind by fostering hope. Ensures that love, creativity, and the need to make life better never disappears from this world. The great stone ensures none of those powerful energies are ever lost.”

“Show me.” What else could she say? Joanna hugged herself and started walking in the direction Grant had pointed out earlier. She felt sick. Angry. Hurt. She wanted to sob and scream until she puked. She’d done it again. Found a real loser to latch on to—a crazy-ass, possibly drug-using—or if he didn’t use drugs now he probably needed to start—loser. Son of a bitch. Am I fucking cursed or what?

They walked in silence until they reached some futuristic-looking door embedded in the roughed-out wall of stone. Apparently, this was the end of the line, the bottom of the bat-shit crazy rabbit hole. Joanna hoped like hell there were some damn good magic mushrooms beyond that door. Maybe then she’d believe this shit as much as Grant did.

Grant stepped in front of her, centering his body between the double doors and stretching to flatten his palms on the squares of red glass mounted high on either side of the entrance. Infrared panels that scanned handprints. And yet, these were supposed to be ancient Scots from the ninth—or was it tenth—century. Yeah, right. How the hell did that make any sense? Joanna sucked in a deep breath, then huffed it back out. Never in a million years would she have guessed that today would play out this way.

Red lines zipped up and down each panel, scanning Grant’s palms. As soon as the lights disappeared, Grant lifted his face to a black square of grating positioned above the door. Clear and strong he said, “Spero.”

“Spero?” she asked.

“Aye,” Grant replied with a somber glance in her direction. For obvious reasons, the man couldn’t quite seem to make eye contact. “ ’Tis Latin for ‘hope.’ ”

Joanna snorted out a humorless laugh. She couldn’t help it. The magic word to open the door was hope. Considering the fact that all her hopes for a future with Grant had just been shot straight to hell, how ironic was that?

The heavy gears on the front of the door shifted into motion, one gear spinning one way while the larger gear behind it turned in the opposite direction. Loud clicks ratcheted and echoed as all the pieces of the lock fell in place.

Grant took hold of the steel bar running across the gears and forced the doors open. He shoved them back against the walls, latching them at the top to prevent the hydraulic pistons at both the top and bottom of each panel from pulling the doors closed.

“Pretty high-tech for a group of ninth-century Scots.” She had to say it. She couldn’t help it and didn’t even attempt to hide the bitterness in her tone. He’d hit her in the heart and from the looks of things, the emotional beating wasn’t even close to being over. “Or did your goddesses do some kind of hocus-pocus to set your clan up with this sweet security system?”

“Today’s descendants of the druid clans that faithfully served us in the ninth century remain faithful and true to the oaths their ancestors swore. The druids are many in this world. Engineers. Scientists. Doctors. Craftsmen. Ye would be surprised just how many exist but keep their identities secret. They’ve sworn their loyalty to the MacDaras, the Heartstone, and the goddesses—and they keep it.”

“Sounds to me like a hell of a lot of swearing. I can definitely relate. I kind of feel like swearing myself.” Joanna almost cringed at the hurt on Grant’s face. Almost. The best defense she had against her own pain was to lash out and be a bitch. “So how is it that I’ve never heard of all this Heartstone-legend Highland-protector stuff? I’ve heard of druids before—the original tree-huggers that also happened to dabble in human sacrifice, right? Why is this the first time I’ve heard about you and your family? Seems to me that your bunch would be some of the first superheroes. Aren’t you?”

“Joanna…” Grant reached for her, the pain in his eyes and his voice twisting her heart until she thought it would explode. “Please.”

“Please what?” she snapped. “None of this makes sense. It’s like a bad joke and I’m the butt of it. I admit it: I’m an idiot. I trusted you and now look where it’s gotten me. Get me out of this damn place. Now.”

“Once ye’ve seen the stone, I’ll take ye out. I swear it.” He looked at the rear of the chamber, then pointed. “Please. Perhaps it will make everything clearer t’ye, aye?”

“Fine.” Joanna pushed past him, charging across the chamber with short, clipped steps. He wanted her to see this rock? Fine. She’d look at the rock. Then they’d leave and she’d never speak to him again.

Motion-activated panels of light switched on as Joanna crossed the room. The blue-white squares inset in the ceiling and walls flooded the chamber with a blinding brightness that chased away any chance of shadows.

There stood the infamous rock and what had to be the best reproductions of medieval weaponry she’d ever seen stored on the racks on either side of it.

Joanna slowed as she neared the rear of the chamber. The air was different the closer she drew to the weapons and the stone. It had a strange feel to it. Prickly. Super-charged. Almost as though lightning could crackle through the room at any moment. She rubbed her hands together, half expecting static electricity to pop and spark around her fingertips.

“The hammer is my specialty,” Grant supplied from across the room.

The hammer. A hulking beast of a weapon that looked more like a blacksmith’s anvil mounted on a stick. The same sort of Celtic knots and glyphs that were on the bronze plates in the tunnel were scrawled across the sides of the hammer. Joanna pointed at the band of symbols. “Does all that mean anything or is it just to make it look pretty?” She cringed at the sarcasm dripping from her tone. She couldn’t help it. This weird revelation and the crushing realization that there would be no future with Grant had reduced her to behaving like a cornered wounded animal.

“They’re blessings for protection,” Grant answered quietly.

“I see.” Joanna slowly moved down the line of weapons hanging in the racks on either side of the Heartstone. A spear with a shining silver head and blackened swirls that looked like flames licking up the staff. A wicked-looking sword big enough to easily behead an enemy. A bronze shield covered with the same Celtic blessings as Grant’s hammer, but scarred and dented as though it had seen several battles.

The closer she drew to the stone, the more uncomfortable, the more tense she felt. It was as though the air pressure in the chamber was changing. Instinctively, she swallowed hard and fast, trying to make her ears pop like she did whenever flying. She pressed hard where her jaws hinged, trying to massage away the unpleasant sensation of some unseen force squeezing her head. Something’s gone wrong with the air system in here. “Grant, we’ve got to get out of here.” She tried to turn to step away, but she was locked in place directly in front of the stone.

Panic set in, ratcheting the pounding of her heart up to a breathless pace. She twisted around. “Grant!” What the hell? She’d opened her mouth. She’d screamed his name but no sound had come out. And a strange white mist had filled the chamber. She couldn’t see him. Couldn’t see the weapons. She could barely see her damn hands in front of her face. The only thing she could clearly see through the mist was the massive Heartstone in front of her.

It was three-sided. A small pyramid-shaped rock that was approximately four feet tall and about that wide at the base. Gray stone, some kind of quartz. Maybe. Striated with clear and opaque crystals. Not limestone or granite for sure. Something grainy and worn, as though it had been chiseled free of the earth at the time of creation. A familiar Celtic symbol was centered on each of the three sides. Searching for something stable to latch on to in her current sea of panic, Joanna spoke aloud to herself. “I know this one. Triple knot. Uhm…tri-something.” She swallowed hard, squinting against the mounting pressure and energy closing in around her, and doing her best to breathe. “Triquetra! That’s it.”

As soon as she’d said the word, the knot began to softly emit a warm reddish glow. A humming sound from deep within the stone grew louder as the glow spread across the three sides of the rock, covering it in a shimmering ruby-colored aura.

Holy shit. It’s gonna explode. Joanna felt an impossible-to-ignore urge to reach out and touch the Heartstone. “I must be out of my fucking mind,” she whispered as she stretched out her right hand and rested her fingertips on the rock. “This thing is…is…alive.”

And warm. She spread her fingers and pressed her hand harder onto the rough surface but instead of feeling crudely chiseled stone, her hand passed through it. Her ears popped, then filled with the howling sound of a gale-force wind. She was spinning. No. She was falling. Joanna reached out to steady herself. No. She wasn’t falling, but the rock was gone and she was no longer in the chamber. She was in a stone room, like a castle, or a dungeon or something. Block walls. No windows. No light except a flickering torch.

Voices. Grant—a much younger Grant—and some woman. Joanna turned in time to see a lovely young woman in medieval dress take Grant’s hand and press it to her abdomen as though wishing to share the movement of her unborn child. Grant was dressed in ancient style as well, and he wore the strange clothing as though he was accustomed to it. Jealousy stabbed through Joanna as she saw how they looked at each other. These two loved each other. Was the girl Grant’s wife? Then she noticed the young woman looked so sad and Grant looked so…worried.

Joanna tried to move closer, but she was still locked in place. She could hear the murmur of their voices but couldn’t make out what they were saying. And then there were loud horns and drums. Men shouting. Women screaming. Dammit! Joanna squinted harder at Grant and the young woman. They were fading from view. The woman was crying now and Grant looked as though his heart was breaking. Just as she reached out to touch Grant’s shoulder, she started spinning again.

A different room. Choking black smoke. Shouting. Crumbling stone and dust. Joanna turned in time to see a much younger Alec MacDara shouting to his brothers and handing them their weapons. Grant’s father stood at some sort of altar with his hands raised to the heavens. He was wearing strange robes and mumbling unrecognizable words.

Grant had his hammer, swinging it like it was part of his body, knocking snarling brutes back out the window just as fast as they breached the room.

“No, Grant. Don’t!” Joanna reached for him just as he climbed out the window. He’d fall. She had to make sure he didn’t fall—finally, she was able to move. She rushed to the window, leaning out to see him standing on the ledge. He was staring at something down in the courtyard, frozen, his face a deadly pale shade as though his entire world had just collapsed.

Joanna followed Grant’s line of sight and spotted her. The young woman. The girl carrying Grant’s child. She recoiled as a snarling female warrior slit the woman’s throat and threw her poor, lifeless body down into the bloody mud. Oh my God. Oh my God, no! She heard Grant’s bloodcurdling roar and reached for him just as he dove off the ledge. “Grant! Grant—no!”

Then everything went dark.