Hellfire Club--Lorne by Sara Mackenzie

Author:Sara Mackenzie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sara Mackenzie

Chapter 15

Lorne heard Maggie take a deep shaky breath and turned his head to look at her. She blinked, hard, as if to focus, before giving a shiver. Her hands were clenched on the wheel so tight her knuckles shone white. He could see it was getting more difficult for her to keep control of the machine, and he was beginning to wonder if they were going to get back to the cottage without crashing into the trees at the side of the road. Like Owen.

“You are unwell.” He put the back of his hand to her forehead and held it there until she shook him off. “You have a fever.”

“Probably just the flu.” She forced a laugh and gave another shudder. “That’s all I need now, a wee dose of the flu.”

He didn’t think it was the influenza. This had come on too quickly, surely, unless the influenza in this modern world was different from the one he recalled. Where was the sneezing and coughing? And there was something about the way she kept blinking to clear her sight. A memory stirred and a warning bell tolled.

They were nearly there. The machine shot through the water of the ford and climbed back out. The weather had set in now, the rain much heavier, and two wipers on the window moved laboriously back and forth, trying to keep up with the downpour. When Lorne saw the blurred image of the cottage ahead he was more relieved than he let on—in her present state he doubted Maggie would have been able to take them much further.

She turned off the engine and all he could hear was the falling rain. When she didn’t move to open her door and get out, Lorne climbed out his side and went around to open the door for her. She still didn’t move, staring forward through the window. Frowning, he looked at her, trying to remember something, something important, but he was tired and his memory was two hundred years old.

“Maggie.” Worry overrode his urgency to set off after the Destroyer. “Please, come inside.” When she didn’t move he reached in and took hold of her. She staggered once she was outside the machine and he kept his arm around her as they struggled toward the cottage door. Her long legs didn’t seem to know where they were going or what was expected of them. He was unpleasantly reminded of Owen’s strange hopping run. The demon, he corrected himself, because Owen was surely dead by now.

He’d hoped Darlington and Sutcliffe would be back, but the cottage appeared deserted. They must still be on the hunt. Perhaps they had picked up the Destroyer’s scent, where its path crossed with Owen’s, and were even now following it back through the woods to the abbey.

Maggie whimpered. She reached out a hand toward the wall but misjudged and almost fell into a potted plant.

He hauled her back up again. “Door key?”

When she didn’t answer he dug his fingers into her pocket, the place where he’d seen her put them.

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