Eternity Page 2

  Before she could agree or protest, he left her standing beside the generator and disappeared into the gloom, apparently searching for something to climb up on. Emily shivered, frozen to the spot, her gaze glued to the moving beam of light. Finally, she heard the scrape of wood on stone.

  After a few moments, she heard the rattle of a chain against glass and then a weak light spilled forth, chasing some of darkness back a few feet. Blinking to get her eyes to adjust, Emily looked around nervously and froze.

  "That’s not … That isn’t … Is that a casket?" Emily gasped in horror.

  MacGregor uttered a yelp and fell off the rickety chair he was standing on.

  Chapter Two

  Nigel MacKissack drifted upward slowly toward consciousness, wondering what had disturbed his rest. There seemed to be a great deal of activity outside his coffin, things being slammed about and cursing and he frowned, feeling anger slowly penetrate his grogginess.

  O’Neal knew better than to disturb him. What the devil was he about?

  The noise finally ceased and he considered drifting off once more, but a hunger pang hit him about that time. Sighing, he realized he wasn’t going to get back to sleep unless he did something to assuage it. Feeling around for the latch, he pushed up on the lid, discovering in the process that it was all he could do to lift it.

  He was winded by the time he’d managed to shove it open. Resting for a few moments, trying to fight the alarm growing inside of him to discover he was so weak, Nigel finally managed to climb out. He had to brace himself once he’d done so.

  The first thing that caught his gaze as he looked around curiously was a broken chair. He stared at it for several moments and finally looked up at the light illuminating it.

  A candle hung from a length of rope attached to the ceiling.

  He stared at the strange sight blankly for several moments and finally realized it wasn’t a candle at all. As he moved around the casket for a better look, his kilt fell off. He looked down at the faded, dusty wad of cloth, too stunned for several moments even to think why it might have simply dropped off of him. Finally, he bent and picked it up, studying it curiously.

  It was so old it all but disintegrated in his hands.

  "Bloody hell!" Dropping the rag, he examined his shirt. It, too, fell apart the moment he touched it and he found himself standing in the chilly dungeon without a stitch of clothing on.

  His stomach protested again, reminding him that he was weak with hunger.

  How long had he slept? O’Neal was supposed to have awakened him no later than 1800, sooner if his health began to fail. And, in the event O’Neal hadn’t been able to come himself, his son was to come.

  But the clothing he’d been wearing was damned well older than fifty years. At a guess, he’d figure more than a hundred.

  Hearing noises from above, he glanced up and was distracted once more by the strange light.

  Moving toward it, he paused when he was beneath it, staring up at the glass ball. It wasn’t a candle. It wasn’t a flame at all as far as he could see. Gas? But even that had a flame and required air to burn. This thing was completely encased in glass and as far as he could see it wasn’t burning, but merely glowing and far more brightly than any candle he’d ever seen.

  "Some new contraption," he muttered, wondering what else had changed since he’d decided to sleep for a while.

  Losing interest in the light, he closed his eyes, commanding his senses, but he discovered he was too weak to detect much of anything. It was still daylight. He knew that much. He was so hungry, he was tempted to go out anyway, but in his weakened state, the sun would probably drain him of what little energy he had. Besides, he didn’t think he was strong enough to catch anything in the daylight and he didn’t just need food. He needed the energy he could only find in a living thing.

  Sighing with a mixture of weariness and disgust, he settled weakly on the stairs, waiting for dusk, listening to the activity above him and wondering who the hell was in his house.

  * * * *

  Emily couldn’t get her mind off the casket. Angus had taken off like a cat shot in the behind as soon as he’d clambered up from the floor, disclaiming any knowledge of it.

  It couldn’t be occupied, she finally decided. It would be in the ground, or a mausoleum or something, not just sitting in the basement--the dungeon, she corrected herself.

  She did her best to concentrate on cleaning the room she’d chosen as her bedroom, but just about the time she noticed that the shadows in the room were growing long, it occurred to her that she needed fuel for the generator if she didn’t want to sit in the castle in the dark. She needed a lot of things, actually.

  She was dirty from working, but she didn’t have time to bathe and get to town and back before dark. She probably didn’t have time to get back before dark if she left immediately, she thought wryly.

  Finally, she merely brushed as much of the dust off her clothes as she could, went into the bathroom to wash her face and hands and, after grabbing her pocketbook, headed for the car, making a mental list of the things she absolutely, positively had to have immediately.

  * * * *

  Nigel’s ass was cold and numb from sitting on the stone step by the time he judged that the sun must be setting. His head was also throbbing with a combination of hunger and the noise from whatever that thing was at the foot of the stairs that had been growling and coughing non-stop since he’d woken. Rising with an effort, he made his way up the stairs.

  The room at the top of the stairs, which had once been the quarters for the kitchen staff, had been transformed into a kitchen. From its condition, he was fairly certain it wasn’t anything that had been done very recently, and he wondered again just how long he’d overslept.

  He was merely curious, however, not alarmed. He had more pressing matters to attend to at the moment.

  He wasn’t really surprised to discover that his room had changed, as well, but he felt anger for the first time. "Bloody hell!" he roared. "Where the bloody hell are my things?"

  Striding about the room, he checked the armoire, grinding his teeth in impotent fury when he found it bare of anything but dust. It was the same when he checked the chest at the foot of the bed. Finally, he flopped down on the edge of the bed, too weak despite his anger to do much more than glare angrily at nothing in particular while he tried to figure out what to do about his situation.

  The bed creaked ominously the moment he deposited his weight on it and he held his breath, wondering if it would collapse from age.

  When it didn’t, he allowed his anger to absorb him again. He wasn’t squeamish about running about without his clothes, but it was going to be damned hard to parade about the countryside naked without arousing attention.

  After a while, he grew bored of entertaining himself with what he meant to do with O’Neal once he got his hands on him and realized that he’d been staring for some moments at a mound of what looked like it might be traveling trunks. It hadn’t dawned on him just at first because he was too furious to think straight, and also because the things didn’t look like any portmanteaux’s that he’d ever seen. He finally decided that that was what it was, though.

  Someone was going somewhere.

  Well, if O’Neal thought he’d get off that easily, he had another think coming!

  Striding toward the bags, he lifted the largest. It was surprisingly heavy for its size and he wondered if it contained clothing at all, but decided to have a look. Dropping it on top of the trunk at the foot of the bed, he examined it and saw it had a tiny latch on it.

  The latch looked like it was broken. It merely flopped around when he flicked at it with his finger, but he finally decided to see if he could get it to work anyway. Grasping it between his thumb and forefinger, he pulled at it. To his surprise, it made a strange noise and slid sideways. As it did, the contents inside, under what appeared to be considerable pressure, began to expand, pushing it even further and opening the strange case wider.<
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  It was a curious sort of thing, but he saw that there was indeed clothing inside, and Nigel decided he’d examine the odd closure mechanism later. At the moment he couldn’t think of much besides his hunger.

  The clothing was as odd as the case and the closure to the case. None of the fabrics the articles were constructed from was the least familiar to him and the clothing was only vaguely recognizable. He took the pieces out one by one and examined them.

  Clearly, it was men’s clothing, but the man must be a midget. He held up a pair of breeches, examining them with a frown and finally held them up to his waist. Either they were an odd length, or he’d been at least partly correct. The breeches hit his legs about halfway between his ankles and his knee … too long for knee breeches, too short for casual wear.

  Tossing them aside, he dug around in hopes of discovering a kilt. There wasn’t one, but at the bottom of the case, he found what he thought must be some sort of under garments. They were made of a silky fabric and too sheer, he felt sure, to be worn as outer garments. "What the bloody hell could ye cover with so dainty a patch of fabric, I’d like ta know," he muttered, holding one bright red piece up that was strung together with strings and examining it.

  Dropping the article finally, he picked up a matching red piece that looked more like some sort of harness than anything else. "Well, its fer sure tha’s na’ fer no man’s ballocks."

  Men’s outer wear and a woman’s under garments?

  Sighing with disgust, he began trying the clothes on, discarding them one by one when he discovered he couldn’t get his arm in this one, his leg in that one. Finally, he found a shirt that had no buttons at all. It didn’t even have so much as a drawstring at the neck and he wondered if he could get his head through the hole. To his surprise, the thing seemed to grow larger as he tugged it on, then small again. He pulled on the fabric, wondering what sort of fabric it was made of that it could change form so easily.

  Despite the miraculous properties of the fabric, it fit him almost like a second skin and it wasn’t particularly comfortable. Shrugging, he dug through the clothing and unearthed the piece he remembered seeing that was the same pale pink in color and made of the same fabric.

  He didn’t much care for the color. He didn’t much care for the way it fit, but at least his arse was covered.

  He couldn’t find any shoes that would fit his feet. There were probably a dozen in the second portmanteaux he opened, but he knew he’d never get his big toe in them.

  Dismissing it finally, he left in search of food. He couldn’t wait any longer. He had to have something. Once he’d fed, once he’d regained some of his strength, he’d come back and deal with O’Neal and find out just where the hell the man had put his personal belongings.

  Chapter Three

  It was already completely dark by the time Emily pulled up in front of the castle and parked. To her relief, she saw that the lights were still on, which meant that the generator was still going.

  Unfortunately, the castle didn’t boast any exterior lights. Leaving the car’s headlights on to see, she dragged a can of fuel from the trunk of the car and headed inside.

  Before she did anything else, she intended to make sure the generator wasn’t going to run out of fuel and shut off.

  It really gave her the creeps going down into the dungeon, knowing there was a casket in it.

  It’d be a lot creepier sitting in the dark in the crumbling old castle, however.

  She tried not to look at the coffin, but her gaze kept straying to it as she filled the generator’s tank. When she’d finished, she set the can down and scurried back up the stairs, chill bumps creeping up her spine.

  By the time she’d finished unloading the car, she realized that she absolutely was not going to be able to sleep in the castle knowing that casket was down in the dungeon unless she was sure it wasn’t occupied.

  Steeling herself, she grabbed up a flashlight and headed down the stairs. Her heart nearly failed her when she saw the thing.

  "It’s empty. If anyone was in it, it would be in the ground. It wouldn’t have just been left out like that."

  She didn’t feel very reassured.

  Finally, she edged her way toward it slowly, as if something might suddenly spring out of it.

  The lid was surprisingly heavy. She had to set the flashlight down and use both hands to lift it. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end when she finally managed to lift the lid, and she jumped back.

  The lid promptly slammed closed and the noise nearly scared her witless.

  Dragging in a deep, sustaining breath, she struggled and finally managed to open it again, pushing it back until it was balanced on it’s hinges.

  Steeling herself, she picked up the flashlight and flicked it over the interior. To her relief, she saw it was empty except for some rotted pieces of cloth. She was about to set the flashlight down and close it again when the beam caught a glint of something in one corner. Curious, she trained the light on the spot. Her heart seemed to stand still in her chest.

  It was a gold coin!

  "Oh my god!" Emily whispered, caught between hope and disbelief, wondering if it was only a button and her mind was playing tricks on her. Moving to the end of the casket, she reached inside and picked up the round, golden object, studying it closely. It was a gold coin! Minted in the early 1700’s! Excited now, she thrust the coin in the pocket of her jeans and examined the coffin more carefully to see if there was another coin.

  She didn’t see any, but she wasn’t about to give up without checking it out thoroughly. Setting the flashlight down on the lumpy fabric that covered the bottom of the casket, she tugged at the material that had been tacked to the sides. It was rotted. The tacks held, but her finger hung in a tear of the fabric and it shredded. As the fabric came away, coins poured out onto the bottom of the casket.

  Emily stared at the coins, too stunned even to think for several moments. Finally, a sound that was half sob, half laugh tore its way up her throat. "I’m saved," she gasped weakly. "I’m saved!"

  Slowly, it flooded into her mind that the coins were gold, and ancient. They could be worth a lot of money. "I’m rich!" She laughed giddily, then covered her mouth. "Is it mine?" She thought it over, but she couldn’t remember any ‘ifs, ands, or buts’. The paperwork had said the land, the buildings and anything on or in them were hers. She began to dance around the coffin, laughing and crying. It was hers, hers, hers! She wasn’t going to starve to death. She wasn’t going to lose everything she’d put into it. She must have at least enough money to make the place livable, maybe even more than that. Maybe it was enough she could pay off the loan and she wouldn’t have to turn it into a bed and breakfast after all?

  She’d made several circuits around the casket when it occurred to her to wonder when and how the money had gotten there. She stopped, frowning, but it didn’t seem likely it could have been anything recent, like a drug deal. It had been in a secret pocket in the lining of the casket and the material was rotted with age.

  She didn’t think it was likely that whoever had originally owned it would still be alive, or coming back to get it.

  Angus had seen the casket, though. He was bound to talk about it. She couldn’t count on people not being curious. She could have local kids sneaking in here while she was out, just to have a look.

  She had to move the gold to a safer place. She couldn’t just leave it sitting in the coffin, in broad view.

  She went back to examining the casket and discovered that the coins were sewn into pockets all the way around. There was far too much to try to carry it in her jeans pockets. After studying the fabric in the coffin for several moments, she realized it was too rotted to use. Finally, she lifted up her T-shirt and formed a pouch. By the time she’d collected roughly half of the coins, the neck of her T-shirt was stretched down to her nipples.

  "This isn’t going to work," she muttered.

  She couldn’t bring herself to leave the coins even fo
r a few minutes, however. Taking her T-shirt off, she tied a good knot in the bottom and began dropping the coins into the neck. When she had all the coins in it, she could barely lift the thing. Grunting and groaning, she finally managed to lift it out of the casket and began to struggle toward the stairs with it, wondering where she was going to hide her treasure.

  She was sweating profusely by the time she made it up the stairs to the kitchen. She had to set her makeshift bag down and rest. When she’d caught her breath, she began searching the room for a likely looking hiding place. Nothing she found made her feel particularly secure, however. Finally, she decided to keep looking. She wasn’t going to be able to rest until she’d found a really safe place to hide the coins where she could be sure her security wouldn’t just vanish as abruptly as it had appeared.

  After lugging the coins from room to room, she finally decided that even if she’d found a spot on the ground floor she wouldn’t have been able to sleep for worrying that someone might break in during the night and find them. She stared at the stairs for several minutes, wondering if she could possibly make it up them with the bag full of heavy gold coins. Finally, she decided the safest thing to do would be the ‘child’ climb.

  Placing her butt squarely on a step, she pulled the bag up to the step below her and then moved up another step. It was slow going, but at least there wasn’t much risk of having the coins overbalance her and send her tumbling down the stairs.

  By the time she’d worked her way to the top, she’d decided to see if she could hide the coins in the mattress, at least temporarily. There were holes in it already. She could just drop the coins in the holes after she’d counted them so that she knew how many she’d need to retrieve once she found a better spot.

  She was dragging the bag by the time she reached her apartments, no longer able to lift the heavy thing at all. Groaning with effort, she pushed the door open and backed across the room until she reached the bed.