Page 54 of Dark Seduction

“I’ll nay be seduced to the dark side, Claire,” Malcolm said, his gray eyes flashing. “I’d die by me own hand first.”

“That is not reassuring.” She hugged herself. “I keep thinking about life back at home. About the hints Amy was always dropping whenever the news featured another pleasure crime. Did she know something? Or did she guess?”

“I dinna ken yer cousin, Claire.”

“MacNeil said I am going home. He didn’t say when.”

Malcolm looked away from her, his face set in harsh lines.

She seized his arm. “When I do, I have to protect my cousin and her children somehow. I need to tell her the truth about evil.”

Malcolm grasped her elbow. His eyes blazed. “I must ask ye, how will ye protect them, Claire?”

Claire hesitated. That was a damn good question. “Can you teach me how to fight—no, kill—the bastards?”

He stood there, looking very unhappy with her request. “I dinna think so.”

But Claire barely heard. Now that she understood the world she lived in, she had damn well better be able to protect herself. This was a world at war, and Malcolm was right. There was no safe place to hide. She was terrified, but fighting back was better than hiding. Surely, with some skill and a lot of wit, a human could take down demons.

He was lurking. “Nay! Yer a woman, and a mortal one, at that! Ye have no powers!”

She realized there was no other choice. It was do or die, literally. “They murdered Lorie and my mom. I’m strong. Teach me how to kill demons. You said yourself that Moray dispenses powers from the Duaisean. Why can’t I be given powers, too?”

“We be Masters, not magicians! We’re born with our powers, Claire. They be in our blood! An’ we dinna ha’ the Duaisean, Moray does. Even if we did, its powers be fer the Masters, an’ only the Masters!” he exclaimed, flushing. “Ye might be able to kill the lower Deamhanain like ye did the other day. Ye might even find a way t’ kill Sibylla. But a real Deamhan like Moray will read yer thoughts! If ye somehow managed to attack him, ye’d have to stop his mind, otherwise he’ll suck yer life dry, laughin’ as he does so.”

Claire trembled, getting the unspoken message. She’d be sexually seduced, too. “How can I stop a powerful demon’s mind?”

“Well, let’s see,” he mocked furiously. “Ye can wield a sword an’ behead him, or stab him through the heart!”

A demon had to be instantaneously killed, she thought. “What if I managed to make him unconscious? He couldn’t entrance me then or take my life.”

“Nay! I willna ha’ ye fightin’ demons. I’ll do the fightin’ fer ye.”

Like hell, Claire thought. “Teach me to use a sword.”

“It takes years o’ practice! An’ even so, ye dinna have the strength to sever a man’s head from his body.”

“Shit,” Claire said. “And damn it, too.” But she could do this. Carotid arteries could be slit. Hearts could be punctured. So could lungs. Wrists could be cut. There was no choice. “I’m going to do this, Malcolm, with or without your help.”

“I shouldna ha’ told ye the truth.”

It was too late, Claire thought. Images were flashing in her mind now. The medieval world, the modern world. A world at war…demons and Masters…

A terrible idea began. Eyes wide, she looked up at Malcolm. “Malcolm.”

He stared back with dismay.

“I want to find the demon who murdered my mother.”

CLAIRE FOLLOWED MacNeil down the very short nave of the chapel, which was set behind the church and apart from it. She hadn’t noticed the chapel upon first entering the monastery. The stone building was centuries old, the ceiling low and round. Claire immediately saw the shrine.

A recess was set in the stone wall behind where the altar had once been and an ancient iron reliquary was there, trimmed with gold, the design Celtic. Claire’s pulse pounded.

As they stepped up to the shrine, their footsteps echoing, Claire became aware of the power and beauty that cloaked the chapel, heavy and tangible, weighing down the air.

Claire faltered as MacNeil went to the reliquary. There was something so silent and so deep in this church, so vast, so awesome. And if it wasn’t God’s presence, what was it?

She met MacNeil’s gaze and he smiled at her, clearly aware of what she was feeling. Because the ceiling was so low, he stood stooped. “The Masters make their vows here, Claire. Yer feeling more than eight hundred years o’ power an’ grace.”