Beyond the Highland Myst(322)
Live through Lisa's death? No. But in recompense for taking her mortality he would give her the perfect future with her family. It would be his way of making amends.
* * *
Circenn materialized at dawn on the day of her graduation. Swiftly he scaled the wall surrounding the Stone estate. Swiftly he punctured the wheels on the small machine to prevent it from moving. Then he regarded the bigger machine irritably. Which one is a Mercedes? he wondered with a scowl. Moving quickly, he punctured those wheels, too. But what if they changed the wheels? What if they had new wheels somewhere in their keep?
He glared at the keep, then he glowered at the machines for a long moment, holding them personally responsible for hurting his woman. He struggled against an intense desire to creep into the home and peer down at the sleeping eighteen-year-old Lisa he hadn't yet met.
"Stay away from her. You are so dense sometimes, Circenn," Adam's bodiless voice mocked. "You still don't understand the power you have. Why are you trying to harm the machines, when you can simply make them go away? For that matter, why did you appear outside the gate and climb the wall, when you might have appeared within the gates?"
Circenn frowned. "I am unaccustomed to this power. And where would I send them?"
"Send them to Morar. That should be interesting." Adam laughed.
Circenn shrugged and focused his newfound center of power. He closed his eyes and visualized the silica sands of Morar. With a small nudge, the machines disappeared.
If they landed on the isle of Morar with a soft woosh of white silica sand, only one mortal was there to see it, and she hadn't been surprised by anything in quite some time.
* * *
"Our cars have been stolen!" Catherine exclaimed.
Jack peered over his newspaper. "Did you look for them?" he asked absently, as if a Mercedes and a Jeep could be overlooked.
"Of course I did, Jack," Catherine said. "How are we going to get to Lisa's graduation? We can't miss her big day!"
* * *
Circenn tugged the cap low on Adam's forehead, stepped back, and grinned. "Perfect."
"I don't see why I have to do this."
"I doona wish to risk being seen, nor dare I trust myself to see her. I doona know that I could restrain myself, so you must do it."
"This uniform is ridiculous." Adam tugged at the crotch. "It's too small."
"Then make it bigger, O powerful one," Circenn said dryly. "Quit procrastinating and call their number. Tell them the cab is on the way."
"But they didn't call for one."
"I'm counting on whoever answers to think someone else must have."
Adam arched a brow. "You're good at this."
"Call."
Sure enough, Catherine assumed that Jack had called and ordered a cab to arrive at precisely 9:00 A.M. When it appeared, Jack assumed that Catherine had called. In the fuss over filing stolen-car reports with the police and the insurance company, neither thought to ask the other.
* * *
"What's next?" Adam asked, rubbing his hands.
Circenn shot him a dark look. "You seem to be enjoying this."
Adam shrugged. "I have never before manipulated in such fine detail. It's quite fascinating."
"Cancer. She said her mother was dying of cancer," Circenn said. "We doona even know what kind. I suspect this is not going to be as simple as making two machines disappear. We must find a way to prevent her from catching this disease, and from what I've read, they doona seem to know what causes it. I've been flipping through these books all night." He gestured to the medical books scattered across his desk in the study at Castle Brodie.
Adam picked up several and scanned them. THE CINCINNATI PUBLIC LIBRARY was stamped on the spine. "You pilfered from the library?" Adam said with mock dismay.
"I had to. I tried to borrow them but they wanted papers I didn't have. So I went back when they were closed, and a security guard—they protect their books even in the future—nearly attacked me before I'd finished finding what I wanted." He sighed. "But I'm no closer to discovering how to prevent the disease. I must know what type of cancer she had."
Adam thought for a moment. "Are you up to some more nocturnal raiding? I believe there are no more than a half-dozen hospitals in her city."
"Hospitals?" Circenn's brow furrowed.
"You really are a medieval brute. Hospitals are where they treat the ill. We will go to her time and steal her records. Come. Sift time, and I will be your faithful guide."
* * *
"She has cervical cancer," Circenn said softly, glancing over his shoulder at Adam, who was reclining on the desk in a private office at Good Samaritan Hospital. "Listen to this: The diagnosis was severe dysplasia. Over time it became advanced invasive cancer. They refer to something called cervical intraepithelial neoplasia" His tongue felt thick over the strange words, and he pronounced them very slowly. "The notes indicate Catherine might have been diagnosed in time to prevent the cancer had she had something called a Pap test. The notes indicate that Catherine told the doctor her last Pap test was eight years before they diagnosed the cancer. It seems cervical cancer is caused by a type of virus that is easily treated in the early stages."