Lowell lifted his burden, disappeared behind a standing stone, and then began to run.
CHAPTER 25
“Where is she?” David demanded, returning to the spot not ten feet behind him where Shawna had stood just seconds before.
His brother and Sloan were quickly at his side.
“She’s gone!” Sabrina cried.
“She can’t be,” Skylar protested.
“My God! She couldn’t have gone far,” Hawk said.
Alistair came rushing up. “David! I lost her. I was trying to get her to come back by Skylar and Sabrina. I’ve searched?—”
“There!” Skylar shrieked suddenly. “By the altar!”
David looked. His heart grew heavy. Felt as if it was pierced by a thousand knives.
Something lay upon the altar.
David rushed through the crowd.
A body, covered in a dark cloak, dripping blood, lay upon the stone.
“No, God, no!”
David’s voice was a fierce, sharp cry that rang to Heaven. He reached the altar, ripping away the cloak, then staring down with both amazement and relief.
It was not Shawna.
Mary Jane, her maid, lay upon the altar, the blood from the gash at her throat spilling upon the stone.
“It’s not Shawna,” he said. “Oh god, it’s not Shawna! We’ve got to find her!” he cried. “We’ve got to find her quickly.”
“It’s the witches!” Old Ioin called out.
“Nay, it’s not!” Edwina shouted furiously. “Yet it is someone who would have us take the blame for what is evil!” She spun to David. “Indeed, we must find her, quickly.”
But the crowd had grown ugly. Bizarrely costumed men and women, masked and plumed, began to toss her between them.
“Witches! Witches! Witches!” began a chant.
David leaped upon the foot of the altar stone, firing his gun.
The chant was silenced.
Edwina was released.
“My wife has been taken. I will find her. And if I discover that any one of you knows what has happened here and does not aid me now, I will kill you with my bare hands. I promise.”
“There!” Alistair shouted suddenly. “There, David, look! See! There are a number of them, hooded, cloaked figures, all but hidden in the darkness. Heading for the cliffs.”
Indeed, there were a number of cloaked figures, huddled together, nothing more than a mass of shadow in the night, hurrying toward the cliffs by the loch.
And suddenly disappearing.
For a moment, he stared in disbelief. He had lived in the damned cliffs. He had made a lair in a cavern. He had explored the mines and the tunnels…