CHAPTER 27

“Kris!”

Her brother ran out of the woods. His gaze went to the water. But only a few swirls, a few bubbles, remained. Still, one look at his face and Kris knew he’d seen the whole thing.

“I won’t let you hurt her,” she said.

“Kris—”

“I’ve never asked anything of you in my life, Marty, but I’m asking this. Don’t call Edward. Just let Nessie stay Nessie. Let Dougal stay dead. Make up whatever the hell you have to. Forge whatever you have to forge; I don’t care.”

He lifted his hand to her face. “Dougal hit you.”

Kris shrugged. She was getting used to black-and-blue.

“I’d have killed him, too,” Marty muttered. She looked at him suspiciously. “You really think I’d turn Liam in to Edward?”

Ah hell. He knew.

“How do you—?”

“Dougal left a note telling us where he was. I’m not sure why.…” He looked around, saw the camera in the shadows of the trees. “Hmm,” he said, brain obviously percolating. “Anyway, Liam became Nessie and got here a lot quicker than me.”

“Not that much quicker,” Kris muttered. “Did you break the land speed record?”

“Nearly.”

“Will you leave Liam alone, even though he just killed a man?”

“Dougal was more of a monster than I’ve seen in a long time. Creepy, sneaky bastard. I’d have had to hire the ‘fix it’ guy to kill him anyway. Way I see it, Grant just saved me the trouble.”

“What about Edward?”

“I’ll tell him I took care of the problem.”

“And if he finds out you’re lying?”

Marty winced. “Let’s just hope he doesn’t.”

Kris felt terrible asking her brother to lie, and to Edward Mandenauer. But what choice did she have?

“We could tell him the truth,” Marty ventured.

“Which is?”

“Benign lake monster. No reason to kill it. Like you said: Let Nessie stay Nessie.”

“You think Mandenauer will go for that?”

Marty sighed. “Probably not.”

“Then keep this to yourself.”

“All right. But Kris—”

Kris stared at the water, waiting for the familiar dark humps to appear, but they didn’t.

“You can’t have any kind of life with him.”

Kris forced herself to look at Marty. “Why not?”

“He’s a monster.”

“You just said yourself—Dougal Scott was the monster. Liam’s just…” She glanced back at the loch. “Liam.”

“Hell!” Marty muttered.

“What?” Kris’s gaze flicked around the clearing; she peered into the trees, half-afraid she’d see Mandenauer coming out of them.

“You’re crazy about him,” Marty said. “No going back now.”

“No.” Kris watched the water again. “There isn’t.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Love him,” she said. “It’s all I can do.”

*   *   *

Marty cleaned up the scene. He seemed pretty good at it. Really, there wasn’t all that much to take care of. He retrieved a few shell casings, along with Dougal’s camera and tripod.

“I doubt anyone’s going to come along anytime soon. If they do…” He shrugged. “It’s not like we have a body to dispose of.”

“What about Dougal’s disappearance?”

“He’s a serial killer. No one’s going to care.”

“No one knows that.”

Marty’s face hardened into one she didn’t recognize. No longer the brother she remembered or even the man she was coming to know, but the Interpol agent who dealt with crap like this every day. “They will when I get done. I’ll say I pieced the truth together, then confronted him. He flipped, tried to kill me; I shot him, and he fell into the loch.”

Kris had thought to keep everything quiet, but loose ends were better tied up. It wasn’t as if they’d be blaming an innocent man for crimes he hadn’t committed, and the victims deserved justice; their families deserved to know what had happened to them.

Together Marty and Kris made their way to his rental car. It wasn’t an easy trip. Through the trees, down a nasty slope, across a craggy hill, Kris was leaning on her brother heavily by the time they reached what constituted a road in this part of the loch.

He helped her into the passenger seat and she must have fallen asleep, because the next thing she knew, Marty had rounded the bend near the cottage. Alan Mac sat on the porch. Kris groaned. All she wanted was to go back to sleep.

“Don’t worry,” Marty said. “The constable will be so inundated with the work this mess is going to cause, he won’t have time to bother you.”

“He’ll need a statement.”

“I already took it.” Marty stopped the car. “All you have to do is sign. Once I type it up.”

Kris put her hand on her brother’s. “Thanks.”

“I’m not going to disappear on you, Kris.” His eyes, so like her own, were earnest, and for the first time in a long time she believed every word that he said. “I promise.”

“What the hell?” Alan Mac pounded a huge fist on Marty’s window.

Marty winked, and they got out of the car.

As Alan Mac was a guardian and would no doubt hear the truth from Liam anyway, Marty told it. Together they got their stories straight while Kris continued to stare at the loch. She couldn’t help herself; she needed to see Liam. But he didn’t appear.

The constable assured Kris that Jamaica would be okay. She’d come out of her coma and named Dougal Scott as her attacker. He’d have been in big trouble even if he hadn’t kidnapped Kris.

“Why would he leave her alive?” Kris wondered. “She’d seen him.”

“She should have died.” Fury suffused Alan Mac’s pale face. “Anyone other than her would have.”

“Magic?” Kris guessed, and he nodded.

“Idiot had no idea the power he was messing with. He’s lucky she didn’t incinerate him.”

“That would have required a sacrifice.”

“Something she would never do again.” Alan Mac looked away. “I wouldnae have been so generous.”

Kris heard admiration in his voice. She tilted her head, narrowed her eyes, then smiled. Maybe something more.

“Without a sacrifice, how did she have the power to save herself?” Kris asked.

“Blood magic,” Alan Mac said. “Less powerful, but effective enough to keep her breathing until someone else could.”

“Blood?” Kris began, then understood. Jamaica had used her own. There’d no doubt been plenty of it. “Ass,” she spat.

“Aye,” Alan Mac agreed. “If he wasnae dead, I might have killed him myself.”

“I don’t understand why he hurt her,” Kris continued. “Dougal knew Liam was Nessie. He didn’t need Jamaica to tell him.”

Alan Mac snorted. “As if she ever would.”

“Then why?”

“She suspected Dougal was up t’ no good, and she confronted him. But crazy folk are wily, and he—” Alan Mac’s voice broke. He remained silent a moment, cleared his throat, and continued. “She should have come t’ me. But the woman takes her guardian duties seriously.”

“She took the same vows you did,” Kris pointed out.

“That’s exactly what she said.”

At last Marty and Alan Mac left. Kris tried to sleep but was unable to. Even when darkness fell and the night stretched on and on, she sat at the window with her gaze on the water.

But Liam didn’t come.

As dawn threatened, she left the cottage and went to the loch. Sooner or later he’d show up.

She’d be there when he did.

*   *   *

Liam watched Kris watch the water. He hadn’t planned to go near her again. She’d nearly died because of him. If she had, he wasn’t sure he’d have been able to go on.

Although he had no idea how not to.

But when she came to the shore he found himself drawn from the trees where he’d always blended so well with the shadows. Perhaps if he let her tell him to his face that there was no chance for them, maybe then his foolish heart would cease to yearn.

Liar, he thought. He was no more able to stay away from her now than he’d been able to the first night they’d met.

She looked up as he approached. Liam stumbled, from both the beauty of her smile and its existence. Shouldn’t she be frowning, shouting, perhaps throwing things?

“Kris?” he whispered.

“You saved me.” She took a step toward him, but he stiffened and took a step back.

“I killed a man.” He clenched his fingers into fists. “I enjoyed it.”

Kris tilted her head. “You think that makes you a monster?”

“I didnae have to be made a monster. A monster is what I am.”

Not even a rustle sounded from the grass as a third voice disturbed the gloaming: “Tell me more.”

Kris cursed, her gaze going past Liam. “Do you ever knock on a door, walk up a road, wait for a damn invitation? Or do you always lurk about, then appear from nowhere with a gun?”

Liam didn’t need to turn to know that Edward Mandenauer had come.

This time for him.

*   *   *

Kris’s heart was pounding so fast she nearly missed the old man’s response.

“I hardly appeared out of nowhere. And if I didn’t lurk, I’d never find out anything at all.” His gaze went to Liam, who still had his back to Edward, eyes on Kris. “For instance, the identity of a monster that has just killed a man.”

She saw the intent on Edward’s face and threw herself in front of Liam as the gun came up.

“Kris.” Now Liam turned, picking her up bodily and hoisting her out of the way. “He can’t hurt me.”

“No?” Mandenauer’s bushy white brows lifted. “How very interesting.”

“He’s done nothing wrong,” Kris said softly.

“Killing a man and enjoying it is not wrong?”

“He ended a serial killer.”

“Kudos,” Mandenauer drawled, faded gaze still on Liam as if he were the last slice of dessert at a chocolate buffet. “It is not the killing I mind so much as the enjoying of it.”

“Dougal Scott was a serial killer,” Kris said. “We may never know how many people he murdered. He beat Jamaica Blue nearly to death, and he planned to kill me, film it, and blame Nessie.”

“Diabolical.” Edward still didn’t lower the gun. “Unfortunately, I cannot let a monster that has killed remain on the loose. He may have developed a taste for it.”

“He didn’t,” Kris said.

“Nevertheless—”

“I won’t let you hurt him.”

Edward managed, just barely, to keep his lips from twitching. “My dear, you won’t be able to stop me.”

“I won’t have to. His curse does that.”

The old man’s eyes glittered. “How so?”

“He was cursed to eternal torment. If he can be killed, not very eternal.”

Liam continued to hover, tense and ready, between Kris and the ancient Jäger-Sucher.

“Remarkable.” Edward stared at Liam as if he were a fly in a web. “We will have to find a place to study you. A more controlled environment.”

Liam sighed. “All right.”

“Like hell!” Kris stepped in front of him again. Again he moved her out of the way. “He’s not putting you in a fishbowl. He’s not going to experiment on you like he’s Mengele,” she spat.

Edward’s eyes narrowed.

“I am a monster, mo bhilis. I have killed. Not only today, not only Dougal, but hundreds and for centuries.”

“Shut up, Liam,” she said, but her words held no heat. She heard the truth in his voice even before he admitted it.

“I’ve wanted to die for a long time now.”

She turned, taking his hands, staring into his face. “Even now that you have me?”

Hope lit his eyes, but it faded fast. “Believe that I love you. But ye’ll never know for sure, and neither will I, if what ye feel for me is true or a result of my magic.”

“I feel it; doesn’t that make it real?”

He shook his head.

“Come along now,” Edward ordered.

“He can’t. It’s—” Kris glanced past Liam’s shoulder, and her eyes widened.

“Liam,” she whispered. “The sun.”