CHAPTER 25

After yet another long, hot shower, fresh, dry clothes, and a pot of coffee, Kris opened her computer. She spent hours fighting with the Internet, which seemed determined to waver in and out and keep her from uncovering any information about the kelpie of Loch Ness.

In the end she found little more than what her brother had already told her. She had to wonder if someone—a guardian?—had erased all traces of the tale.

To the majority of the world—those who weren’t Jäger-Suchers, “secret” Interpol consultants, or nut jobs—legends were merely that. Tall tales believed by superstitious ancients. Legends weren’t true; the creatures described in them weren’t real. They were the fairy tales her mother had read, kept alive for fun and the occasional Disney movie.

So why the great purge?

Eyes burning, Kris laid her head on the back of the couch. Next thing she knew, the room was dark and someone was knocking on the door.

Figuring the caller was her brother, or Alan Mac with more stupid questions, she hit the lights and stumbled across the floor, rubbing her eyes with one hand, pulling the door open with the other. Then she stood there with her arm frozen in the air next to her face.

Liam’s hair was wet. Now she knew why. She still couldn’t move or speak or think straight.

“Can I come in?”

She should slam the door, scream, shoot him with silver.

No! The thought horrified her—because she didn’t want to kill anyone, anything? Or because silver didn’t appear to have any effect on him at all?

“Please,” he murmured. “I’ll tell ye everything.”

Kris stepped back and let him walk through the door.

A waft of cool air followed; it smelled like rain on green trees, the moon in the middle of the night, and she yearned.

Annoyed with that yearning—he’d lied to her all along; he wasn’t even human, talk about a date from hell—Kris gave in to the urge to slam the door. She expected the sharp clack to make him start, but it didn’t.

Why would it? He had nothing to fear. He was an indestructible lake monster.

Kris laughed, though the sound that came from her mouth was more of a waterlogged sob. Liam glanced at her, concerned, even took one step toward her, and she amazingly took one step toward him before she could stop herself.

What was it about the man that made him so hard to resist?

The thought that had nagged at the edge of her brain earlier tumbled free, and Kris lifted her hands to her temples and pushed. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t make the realization go away.

“I didn’t understand why I felt like I did about you,” she murmured. “Why I kissed you the first time I saw you. Why I wanted you so badly, when that’s not like me. I don’t trust anyone that fast.” She laughed and now it was bitter; she was bitter. “You seduced me. It’s what you do, what you are.”

“Kris—”

“Don’t lie to me anymore!” she cried. Then, horrified when tears pricked hot against her eyelids, she blinked until they went away. “You’re a kelpie. You seduce, then kill. So why was I special? Why am I still alive?”

He took a deep breath, letting it out long and slow. “I no longer kill,” he said.

“But you do seduce.”

“I didnae try.” He spread his hands. “But I am what I am.”

“It was an accident?”

“I havenae seduced a woman since I became this.”

Kris snorted. “Right. I just jumped you because my slut gene kicked in. Must be the balmy Scottish air.”

“There is—,” he insisted, then when she practically hissed at him corrected himself, “was something between us. It wasnae like anything I’d ever felt. I have never felt.” He lifted a shoulder. “Lust. Desire. Aye. But anything more, never. And that’s why…” He looked away, pursing his lips.

“Why what?” she demanded.

“Why I let this go on as I did. I dinnae deserve happiness, but I couldnae resist it with you.”

“You are so full of—,” she began. “You wouldn’t know the truth if it reared up from the loch and bit you.”

Why she was surprised to discover that he was a man, just like any other man—even though he wasn’t—she didn’t know. She expected lies to spill out of every mouth that she met. So why then, when she’d discovered Liam had lied, did she want to curl up and die?

“Cry,” she muttered. She would curl up and cry. She would wish to die for no man. Hell, she’d wish to cry for no man, either. Not anymore.

He gave her a strange glance, and she realized she’d said that out loud. “Never mind. You’re telling me you haven’t been with a woman in centuries.”

“I swear—”

“Bullshit,” she said matter-of-factly. “You might not be human, but you’re still a man, or at least you have all the parts, and no sex for a millennium or two isn’t possible for your breed.”

“I couldnae,” he said. “I had hurt so many and, in the night, they haunted me.” His eyes met hers, and she felt again that odd shimmy in her chest. Must be too much coffee. “I was never at peace. Until I found you.”

She wanted to believe him so badly she ached. She knew he was lying, and still she wanted to forgive, to take his hand and let him pull her into his arms.

“Just tell me your story,” she ordered. “Leave my stupidity and your tricky dick out of it.”

His brow furrowed at her words, but instead of questioning them, he began to speak. “I came into being when the earth was new. I am of the fey.”

“You’re a fairy,” Kris said. “Right.”

“Not as ye think of them now, no. Fey is an ancient term meaning ‘bewitched’ or ‘enchanted.’ I appeared right here, on the loch as I am now, full grown and knowing my place. I was Unseelie, a malicious being; I took joy in what I was and what I did.”

“Seduce and kill.”

“Aye. I was a monster. I was born one.”

“Not born,” Kris said. “Not really.”

“I dinnae know what else to call it. I was delivered to the earth, and I remember nothing before I was me.”

“Enchanted, bewitched,” Kris murmured. “By a great big witch, or maybe a god.”

“Maybe the God.”

“You think God would unleash something like you?” Kris asked, then paused. She was constantly amazed at the things put on the earth by whatever force had put them there. A seducing, shifting, serial-killing kelpie?

Why the hell not?

“Go on,” she said.

“I was two natured.”

“Aren’t you still?”

He nodded. “But then I wasn’t human.”

“You still aren’t,” she muttered.

His face tightened—a flinch—before he continued. “I looked like a man, but that was just glamour. Magic to make me appealing.”

“Are you magicing me now?” Kris demanded. That would explain why even though she knew what he was, she still couldn’t stop staring at him. He was just too damn pretty.

“No need. I am human,” he insisted. “At least beneath the moon.”

“Beneath the moon,” she repeated, another piece clicking into place. “I’ve never seen you in the sunlight.”

“Ye have.” He lifted his chin to indicate the loch. “At dawn ye’ll find me there.”

“Monster by day, man by night?” she murmured. “That’s a little backward.”

“ ’Tis part of my punishment, my curse. Human beings live in the light. But not me. Never me.”

His voice was bereft. She couldn’t blame him. Never was a very long time.

Kris straightened. He might say he wasn’t working his voodoo on her, but something was going on. Why else would she have any sympathy for him?

“You drowned a witch’s daughter,” she said. He’d drowned a lot of daughters. Hundreds, maybe thousands. But the last one was the one who had changed everything.

“Aye. I didnae know, of course, who she was.”

“Would that have stopped you?”

“Doubtful. Though the curse was terrible. Is terrible,” he clarified. “But no more than I deserved.”

“She cursed you to be Nessie by day and a man by night,” Kris said. “What’s so damn bad about that?”

“She gave me human understanding. Morals. A conscience. Once I killed for the joy of it. Now…” The eyes he turned to her brimmed with agony. “I remember everything I did. All the time.”

Kris began to see the beauty, and the horror, of his curse.

Liam put his hands to his head and pressed as she had done earlier, as if he could make the memories, or perhaps the voices, stop. “Every woman. Every word. The begging, the pleading, my laughter. How it felt to touch them, to know what I would do to them in the end and to want that end as much as they wanted me.” He dropped his hands, now fists, against his thighs, pounding to the beat of each word. “I was a monster.”

She couldn’t argue.

He took several breaths, forcing his fingers to uncurl before he continued. “I’m moon cursed.”

“Seems to me that beneath the moon you aren’t cursed; you’re…” She waved her hand to indicate his beautiful face and gorgeous body.

“She cursed me to eternal torment beneath the moon. To understand the pain I gave, and feel it myself for all time. When I’m Nessie, I can think, but not like this.”

“Why bother with Nessie? Why not just curse you to live in human form, tormented and immortal?”

“Forever is a long time. Time heals, they say, though I havenae found that. But what if someday enough has passed, and I put my sins behind me? I could have a life. The life denied her daughter by me.”

Understanding dawned. “But you can never have that life if you’re a huge, slimy lake monster whenever the sun shines.”

“Aye,” he said.

“Nice curse.” Very clever.

“There is something about being confined to the scene of yer crimes,” he continued, “walking the same land where ye did such horrible things, swimming in the loch where those bodies still lie, charged to protect what ye made a graveyard, that makes it all seem like yesterday.”

“You can’t leave?” Kris asked.

His gaze became distant. “Ye know the few land sightings of Nessie?”

“What about them?”

“Sometimes the memories, the loneliness, the voices became too much, and I would run. But as soon as the sun bursts into the sky, I flop to the earth and roll around like a one-legged cow.” His lip pulled back in a disgusted snarl.

And the curse became cleverer and cleverer.

“You’re a shape-shifter,” Kris said. “Yet silver doesn’t hurt you?”

“I was cursed to eternal torment. If silver can kill me, there’s nothing eternal about it.”

Sympathy flared again. To be in agony, to know it would never end … She was surprised Liam hadn’t snapped and started killing people just so Edward would—

Kris caught her breath. Had he?

“I can see every thought cross yer face,” he murmured. “I havenae begun killing again; this I swear.”

“Oh, well, if you swear,” Kris said. “Then you must not be lying.”

“I’m not. I was standing next to ye when we saw the woman drowning. I saved her as I saved you.”

He had. And since he couldn’t leave—or so he said—he hadn’t been mimicking legendary beings in Botswana. Although there could be two killers—

Kris’s head began to ache.

“Does Mandenauer know?” she asked.

“Who I am? No.”

“About your curse? That you can’t be killed?”

“Also no. I always hope that on one of his visits he’ll attempt the right way to end my existence. If anyone can do it, he can.”

“He’s tried to kill you?” Kris asked.

“Now and again he’s caught a glimpse, taken a shot. I am good at hiding. Mandenauer is equally good at seeking.”

“But you haven’t— You said you didn’t…” Kris paused, then blurted, “If you haven’t killed anyone, why does he want you dead?”

“I have killed. Centuries ago, ’tis true, but I killed nevertheless.”

That didn’t seem right. Didn’t everyone, everything, deserve a second chance?

And here she was thinking favorably about him again. Him and his damned mojo were messing with her mind.

Liam was a killer. Just because he hadn’t killed recently didn’t mean he wouldn’t do so again. Maybe he’d reformed, but would that reformation cause all the women he’d drowned to suddenly arise?

“Mandenauer hasn’t made the Loch Ness Monster a top priority,” Liam continued. “Which might be why whoever is killing women is trying to blame Nessie.”

“Why?”

“To force him to increase his efforts and end me once and for all.”

“Who did you piss off?” she asked. “Besides me.”

Liam’s lips twitched, though his eyes remained sad. “Hard to say. Dougal’s never cared for me.” He lifted one shoulder. “But he doesna know that I am the monster.”

“Who does?”

“Only those with my brand.”

“The tattoo. Your guardians.”

“Aye. Alan Mac, the Camerons, Jamaica, Johnnie MacLeod.”

She’d missed the pub owner. “Where’s Johnnie keep his tattoo?”

“Ye dinnae want to know.”

Probably not.

“Jamaica,” she began. “She’s a witch.”

“Aye.”

“She said she no longer practiced, but I had to wonder once I looked up Obeah if she was perhaps—” Kris stopped. It sounded foolish even in her head.

“What?” Liam appeared completely confused.

“Sacrificing people to—”

“Obi?”

“Or you.”

“Me?” Shock spread over his face. “No. I would never— She would never. Jamaica came here broken, horrified by what she’d done. I dinnae think she could kill again, even to save herself.”

When Kris thought back on what she’d seen in Jamaica’s eyes as the woman related her past, she had to agree. “I guess I can check her off the list of suspects.”

“You thought Jamaica was the serial killer?”

“Right now, I think everyone’s the serial killer.”

Silence fell, but it didn’t last long, since Kris—as usual—had more questions. “It’s not like you need a guardian to protect you from silver bullet–wielding Jäger-Suchers. What do they do?”

“They make it seem like I belong. So no one suspects, aye? I have a room in one of the Camerons’ properties. I work at MacLeod’s on occasion. Alan Mac is helpful if someone ever questions my background.”

“You better have him do something about a passport and a license. When my brother checked you out, he didn’t find any. Nowadays, everyone’s got a number.”

“I’ll tell him.”

Kris tightened her lips. Why was she helping him?

“Where did you get guardians?” she asked. “The witch certainly didn’t post them to keep you safe.”

“No, she didnae,” he agreed. “Hundreds of years ago I saved some children from drowning. Their families, in thanks, promised to guard me all of my days.”

“Same families?”

“Aye. One dies, another takes their place.”

“What if one leaves?”

“They dinnae.”

“Because they can’t? Like you?”

“They arenae cursed. They can leave. They just…” He spread his hands. “Dinnae.”

Loyalty. A concept Kris admired, even if it was loyalty to an eternally cursed monster.

“None of them have any idea who might hate Nessie enough to end her?”

“It could be anyone, Kris. If we believe that our killer is the same killer that’s been using legends as a signature, then this isnae personal.”

“Random killer,” Kris muttered. “They’re always so easy to find.”

“I’ll find him. Ye need t’ stay out of it. Go home, Kris. Where ye’ll be safe.”

The idea of flying off to Chicago, leaving behind a serial killer and her broken heart, should have had Kris throwing everything into a bag and catching the first flight out of Inverness; instead it made her struggle to breathe. She didn’t want to go; she couldn’t.

“I’m not leaving my brother to face this alone,” she said.

“Yer brother doesnae need yer help. In fact, havin’ ye here can only hurt him.”

“Why?”

“Did ye notice he’s stoppin’ by daily? If not to protect ye from the big bad man who’s bedding his baby sister, then t’ make sure ye dinnae end up in the loch. If ye werenae here, he could concentrate on his job.”

If she weren’t here there’d be no one to swear that Liam wasn’t a monster. Well, he was a monster. Just not the monster they were searching for.

And why did that matter? By his own admission he was a killer. If he got caught in the cross fire while the others were hunting a serial killer, would that be the worst thing?

Yes, if after killing Liam they then stopped looking for the real culprit.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said.

“I didnae think so.”

Kris should probably tell her brother and/or Edward everything. At least then there would be no “accidents” with the silver bullets, although from what Liam said, bullets would be as worthless as feathers.

Kris tilted her head. If she told them that Liam was unkillable, what would they do? Proceed to find a way to kill him, since an immortal self-professed “monster” would not be something either one of them was prepared to leave alone?

Perhaps they’d take him from the loch and put him in a great big glass “Nessie bowl” where they could study what made him tick for …

“Eternity,” she whispered. Maybe she’d keep what she knew to herself. For now.

“I know ye can’t forgive,” Liam said, “and I dinnae blame ye. I didnae mean to lie, but it’s—”

“Habit.”

“Would ye have believed me if I told ye what I was when first ye arrived?”

He had a point. She’d have written him off as a lunatic. Still—

“After you saved me in the loch, after I said I’d seen Nessie, that I wanted to prove she existed and I wanted…” She paused remembering that she’d asked him to help her. Talk about inviting the fox into the henhouse. “You could have told me,” she finished.

“Aye,” he agreed, and that was all. He made no excuses, and she liked that. There was no excusing a lie, and trying to do so only made the untruth glare ever brighter.

“You should go. I need—” She rubbed her forehead. “To think.”

As if thinking would make her mind stop whirling and her heart stop hurting. But having him here wasn’t helping, either. Having him here made her remember every kiss, every touch, every thought and hope and dream, followed by the knowledge that they had all been a lie.

And that she would never kiss or touch him again.

“I’ll be close by.”

“You always are.” Which should be creepy but somehow wasn’t.

Then he was gone, leaving behind a great big empty Kris wasn’t sure she’d ever fill.

*   *   *

The middle of the night and Kris surfed the Net. Probably something she’d be doing a lot of in the middle of the night from now on.

When she couldn’t sleep. When she was long gone from here. When she woke up missing him.

“Idiot,” Kris muttered. “He’s a moon-cursed lake monster. What kind of future did you have?”

Another water-soaked laugh erupted. How was that for a star-crossed romance? Next time she’d pick a man who didn’t shape-shift.

Kris shook her head. She couldn’t believe she was having this conversation with herself. But then, could she really have it with anyone else?

“He said he’d never seen Nessie,” she muttered.

To be fair, he hadn’t seen her. He was her.

“He seduced me.”

How horrible. He’d encouraged her to have great sex. He’d made her scream. What a bad, bad man.

“Not a man.”

In that case, at least he wouldn’t leave her like almost everyone else she’d ever loved.

Love? Kris rubbed her face. She didn’t love him. She couldn’t love him. He definitely didn’t love her.

But Kris remembered Liam’s face when he touched her, and there’d been something there. Something that had made her insides flutter.

She’d felt things for Liam she’d never felt for anyone else. She’d told him things she’d never told anyone else. If she was honest, and considering her policy on honesty she’d better be, she didn’t want to run away and never see him again.

But she still wasn’t sure if what she felt was real, and if her feelings had been brought about by magic, weren’t they just another lie?

Her e-mail binged. Kris clicked on the icon. When she saw the e-mail address, she leaned closer.

JAMAICA@JAMAICABLUE.COM

“Where have you been?” Kris murmured, and opened the e-mail.

HEAR YOU’RE LOOKING FOR ME. COME TO THE STORE BEFORE I OPEN. JUST YOU AND ME. WE NEED TO HAVE SOME GIRL TALK. I’LL BE THERE AT 5. BEHIND ON THE PAPERWORK.

Kris glanced at the time. Only a few hours to go.

What could Jamaica have to tell her? Kris didn’t think the woman would break her vow and reveal Liam’s true identity, not that it mattered, since Kris already knew.

However, once Jamaica heard that, then maybe she’d be able to shine new light on Kris’s dilemma. As a guardian, the woman must know a lot about the being she guarded. Perhaps even if he could make someone fall in love.

Kris dozed on and off, jerking awake every twenty minutes, afraid she’d see the sun shining in, discover the day half-gone and her opportunity to “girl talk” with Jamaica gone. Which meant at 5:00 A.M. Kris already stood outside the coffee shop.

No one answered her knock, so she pressed her face to the glass. A circle of golden light spread from the back room. Flickering shadows gave the impression of someone moving to and fro—Jamaica doing paperwork.

Kris tried the door, which wasn’t locked. Probably not the brightest idea with a serial killer on the loose. She’d mention it to Jamaica.

In the gloom, she dodged chairs and tables. It wasn’t until she stood a few feet from the office that she heard the strange sounds.

Heavy breathing. Splashing. Then the screams.

She took the final steps into the room at a near run, then stared at the television, transfixed. It only took an instant for her to recognize the incident on the loch playing across the screen. The woman going under, bobbing up. The figures on the other side, too far away to really see.

“What the hell?” she murmured as something big hit the water and moved quickly across.

Even though she knew Nessie was coming to help, Kris shivered. From this angle, it didn’t appear that Nessie was helping the woman at all. From here, it looked like Nessie was killing her.

A shuffle sounded behind her. “Jamaica, where did you—” Kris turned.

It wasn’t Jamaica.