Page 51 of Darach

“What of Athdara Martin’s ghost? What of the master, you eejit?” The killer yanked back the hood concealing his face, which was identical to Fyn’s. “Do you even ken what I’ve endured because of you and your madness, Fyn?”

“My name, ’tis Nyf,” the hunter shouted back.

They were the same man from different times, occupying the same moment and place, Charlotte thought, relieved to know she had been correct. But even as she thought it, strange ripples rolled through the air, distorting sound and color.

Being anywhere near an earlier version of yourself would create a temporal paradox, Emery had told her. It’s the kind of thing that could tear reality apart.

The blade dropped out of the hunter’s hand and clattered on the ground. “No. No, never should I leave Scotland. Never should I come to the New World.”

“’Tis called Canada, you dolt. In your time the Carack shall prevail over the MacRoss, and kill them all, and then hold a grand celebration. Only in the morning after, when our vassals come to the keepe, they shall find every Carack dead. Your beloved master poisoned our clan, to make you laird of the dead.” The killer quickly sheathed one dagger and caressed Charlotte’s face before she could pull away. “Do you ken why I alone survived, my precious?”

“Because cockroaches like you are impossible to kill,” she said.

He backhanded her, sending a jolt of pain into her cheek and jaw. As she started to raise the sword, he grabbed her arm. “You never came to my past, you interfering slut.” He brought the hilt of his dagger down onto her wrist, dislodging her grip from the hilt. “I shifted the blame for the murders of the blacksmith and carpenter onto Struan, and the maids and the trapper onto Darach.” Ignoring the pain in her hand, she grasped at the Fire sword, but the killer simply knocked it to the ground. He smiled at her as its metallic clang echoed over and over. “The MacRoss attacked the Carack, beginning many months of war. In the end my clan won, but somehow Struan discovered the truth. I ran away from Dun Deigh that night, and hid in the cave. The master assumed me dead along with the rest of the Carack.” The killer gripped her throat. “Now you shall use that facking sword and wish me back to that time so I may save my clan.”

“I’ve already used my wish to come here with him,” Charlotte told him, bracing herself for what was about to come. “It won’t give me another.”

He grinned. “You reckon you’ve won? Yet the sain always returns to the MacRoss Clan, aye? As long as I carry the blade, then ’twill take me back.”

“You darenae return instead of me,” the hunter said, drawing a thin dagger from his belt. “’Twill end us both.”

“We shall go together, then, you wee coward, once we deal with this hoor.” The killer sighed. “I’ve ever wished to watch myself at work. Ply your blade now. Begin with these clever hands.”

Out of sheer desperation Charlotte made a grab for the hunter’s long dagger. He grunted with surprise and then punched her in the belly.

No, she thought, and looked down to see him twisting the blade buried in her body. He stabbed me.

As he yanked out the blade a huge, hot, tearing sensation pierced her and rammed into her spine, as if he had somehow cut all the way through her body. She gulped in air, unable to avoid the next thrust of the dagger but twisting so that it ended up glancing off her hip. The agony of the steel dragging across the bone as he wrenched it out again nearly made her faint.

“Hold still, you impatient bitch,” the killer said. “You need see she suffers properly before you execute her, eejit. Och, give the blade to me.”

With all the strength she had left Charlotte drove her elbow backward into his diaphragm, making him double over. As his chin hit her shoulder she brought her fist up and smashed it into his face, but somehow he held onto her, his fingers tearing at her skin.

“I was always your fate, Charlotte,” the killer said. “In this time and the past. You shall never escape me.”

Her eyes widened as she saw Darach step out of the shadows behind the Fyn from the past. Her lover saw the blood dripping from her abdomen onto the ground and his marked eye turned completely red. He bent down and picked up the Fire sword.

Please take us to my time, she had wished, as Darach had been struggling to reach her in the cave. The sain had now done exactly as she’d said, and brought them all to the future. When the man she loved met her gaze, Charlotte silently shaped with her lips the three words that she always wanted him to remember: I love you.

“I’ll cut the tendons in her legs,” the past Fyn told his future self. “She’ll no’ run away. Then I may–”

Without making a sound Darach swung the Fire sword down, moving so fast Fyn had no time to react. The blade neatly decapitated the hunter. As his headless body toppled over suddenly the hands holding Charlotte disappeared. She dropped onto her knees and looked back, seeing only an empty space where the killer from her time had been standing.

“He’s gone.” In disbelief she looked over at where Detective Logan’s body had lain, and the dark stains and crime scene tape had also vanished.

’Twill end us both.

Killing the past version of Fyn meant he would never live to become her stalker in the future. The killer had been erased from time. That would change everything back to what it should have been. Zoey, the police officers, and everyone else he had murdered would still be alive.

In this new version of the future I’m the only one who dies, Charlotte thought as she sank down onto the ground. Her body had grown so cold, and yet, so warm inside.

Love you, Zoe.

Darach dropped down beside her, putting his hands under her and carefully lifting her from the ground. She knew what he was thinking as he looked frantically up and down the alley. Her body told her it was too late for that, and that she only had a minute or two left.

“I’ve come full circle,” she whispered. “I’m so glad you’re here. I thought I’d never see you again.”

“The healers in your time, Charlotte,” he said quickly. “Where are they?”