A collective gasp went up. Mothers caught up their children and held them tight. Terror filled the room.
Grant and Malcolm entered, made their way behind the altar, and disappeared into the small room that Father Rubric claimed as his own. Moments later, they emerged. Weary, bloody, and beaten. Malcolm caught Abby up in his arms. Grant rushed down the aisle, grabbed Lyla by the elbow, and steered her outside.
“Never in all my life have I witnessed such pure evil. Not even amongst the worst of men.” He squinted up at the blaze crackling across the rooftops. “Father Rubric battled it, holding the thing off as long as he could, then he…” Grant swiped the back of his hand across his mouth. He stared off into the distance as if reliving the terrible moment. “He burst into flames, Lyla. His clothes didna burn. Only the man.” He shuddered. “He never screamed or cried out. Not once. Just kept praying aloud and shouting at the evil.” Grant bowed his head and covered his eyes. “Father Rubric possessed more courage than the mightiest of warriors.”
“And we will see him honored,” she promised softly. “We will have it engraved on a headstone taller than all the rest in the cemetery.” She moved closer, wrapped her arms around him, and held on tight, trying to block out the noise of their beloved home, their way of life, crashing down around their ears.
A loud boom and shouts yanked her gaze upward. Open flames no longer appeared, but the stone blocks supporting the keep’s roof appeared charred and sooty. Either smoke or debris dust rose in a thick cloud over one corner of the fortress. That part of the roof, or possibly the floor beneath it, had collapsed.
“What will we do?” She couldn’t tear her eyes away until her husband failed to respond. His silence made her turn. “Grant?”
He sagged back against the outer wall of the church, a sheen of sweat, or maybe tears, shining through the smears of blood and ash on his face. The muscles in his jaw worked as he squinted upward at the pillars of smoke rising from the destruction in front of them. “I dinna ken what to do,” he said, forcing the admission through clenched teeth. His mouth tightening, he tore his gaze away from the devastation and stared down into her eyes. “But I will never stop protecting my own.”
He caught her up and crushed her to him. “You, my bairns, and my people are safe. Castles can be rebuilt.” He stroked her hair. The desperation in his voice made her clutch his léine in both hands.
“There has to be a way to overcome this thing.” She lifted her head and locked eyes with him. “This is our home.”
“If a holy man canna oust the thing, what can?”
She hated the defeat in his tone. “Are you saying we leave here and rebuild somewhere else? Relinquish Eadar Keep?Yourland?”
“That is not what I am saying.” He brushed the hair away from her face, then tenderly cupped her cheek in his grubby hand. “That is not what I want, but if there is no other way to keep everyone safe…” He barely shrugged. “Then what can we do?”
“I wish I was a witch.” She pushed out of his embrace and restlessly sidled back and forth across the top step of the church landing. “Maybe you have to battle something this dark with something even darker.”
With a worried glance all around, he caught hold of her arm. “Ye must not say such things. When people are this frightened, they look for the easiest thing to blame. Dinna give them cause to place it upon you.”
As much as she hated to admit it, he was right. Even though she and Abby had been accepted in this century for almost two years now, she still needed to watch what she said. “Sorry. I know better.” She patted his hand and offered an apologetic smile. “I am just so…”
“I know, dear one. I feel the same.”
The chapel door opened, and Malcolm and Abby joined them. “What next, old friend?” Malcolm asked.
His hard scowl fierce as thunder, Grant shook his head. “I’ve half a mind to piss on her grave.”
Malcolm’s eyes flared wide, their whites almost glowing in his soot-covered face. He tipped his head closer and lowered his voice. “Surely, ye jest?”
After swiping his sleeve across his forehead, Grant dropped his arm back to his side. “Aye. I jest.” He caught hold of Lyla’s arm again and turned her back toward the door. “Go inside.” He glanced at Abby to include her in the order. “Both of ye. Malcolm and I must go back into the keep and assess the damage.”
“No!” Lyla couldn’t stomach the idea of Grant risking it. “I won’t have you ending up like Father Rubric.”
Grant heaved a deep sigh as he set a weary look of dismay upon her. Without a word, he reached inside the neck of his tunic and pulled out an ornate silver cross on a heavy silver chain. “The Father blessed this and had me wear it for protection. If he had worn it, he might still be with us.”
“He gave me one, too,” Malcolm said, revealing a less patterned cross of silver hanging around his neck.
“Yet his wooden cross burned away.” Lyla touched Grant’s cross, running her thumb along its rounded edges and its slightly concave surface. Father Rubric had held this necklace so tightly, he reshaped the metal. She recalled the man clutching it in his fist while in prayer many times. There was something important here. She sensed it, but the knowledge stayed just out of reach.
“Silver,” she repeated softly, then turned to Abby. “I thought that only worked on vampires and werewolves?”
“Silver has been used for centuries because of its perceived purity and ability to detect poison,” Abby said. “Even Hippocrates found it beneficial in healing. I remember studying it at university.” Her brows rose as she stared at the cross around Malcolm’s neck. “But I never imagined any of it to be true. The bactericidal part, yes, but not the folklore about warding off evil.”
Lyla tipped her head to one side, still pondering the possibility. “It had to be the silver that saved them.” She looked from Malcolm back to Grant. “Up there on the floor while Father Rubric fought that thing, did it try to attack either of you?”
“It came toward us, then veered away.” Grant rested his hand over the cross. “I thought the thing to be angry at the priest’s chanting.”
“And that dagger of yours, the one that was blessed and tempered with holy water. Does it have a higher silver content than your other blades? I never noticed you carrying it before.”
He nodded. “’Tis silver rather than steel because it is the dagger on which my people swear their fealty.” He pulled it from the sheath in his boot and eyed it. “This blade has served many Reddoch chieftains by discovering traitors.”
