Chapter 191: Singing Stones
*They’ll call to yeh, lass. The first time will hurt like a bitch. But the first time they sing to yeh, yeh’ll forget that pain. Because what yeh’ll experience then, will make you want to die. – Moira*
Arrangements were made. Flight plans were approved. More guards were sent to Fort Augustus.
The menus were made. Orders submitted. Karan would help if Zee or Stevie had any problems. Mia would step in if needed.
They would leave early Wednesday at two in the morning. First they would drive out to Boston. Then a six-hour flight to Aberdeen. Give or take thirty minutes. More on the give side. And with time zones, it would end up closer to eleven hours.
“I’ve never flown a day in my life.” Knuckles said when Toad told him how long the flights would be.
“You’ll still be able to say that.” Toad said slapping him on the back. “It won’t be a full day.”
If he had just been his woman’s uncle, Knuckles would have told Toad to fuck off. But he was club president. And ultimately, he was Knuckles boss. He stayed quiet. But sure as hell pictured it in his mind.
As if he knew what the younger man was thinking, Toad laughed as he walked away.
For the last several days, Nessie kept rubbing her chest. Over and over. More frequently. More urgently. When asked about it, she would give a sad smile and shake her head dismissively.
“The Pull. It’s getting stronger.” She would sometimes say. Other times, she would say nothing.
She was becoming more restless at night. Sleep was fitful, when she would sleep at all. And she was constantly on edge.
By Sunday she was a complete and utter wreck. Nessie didn’t sleep at all that night. Tuesday was worse.
Along with rubbing her chest, Nessie would occasionally flinch as if in pain. Doc described it best when he said that she seemed to be acting like a junkie needing a fix.
“The Stones are pulling at her.” Siobhan explained. “Something big is about to happen to her.”
“What?” Knuckles demanded.
“I don’t know. I can’t reach Moira and Grams is dying.”
“Would that have anything to do with it?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” It seemed to be the answer that Siobhan was constantly giving these days. “I don’t know.”
Nessie was unsettled after dinner and opted against girls’ night. Although everyone assured her that Magic Mike was a good movie, she couldn’t bring herself to sit still during it.
She sat in the kitchen with her cards. Flipping over a card, an electric shock ran through her causing her to drop the card without ever seeing it. Bending over to pick it up, a searing pain exploded in her head.
Her vision darkened for a moment before becoming bright white. When it returned to normal, or as normal as it was going to get at that moment, it was blurry and undefined.
The soft touch on her shoulder and cold kiss on her cheek, told her what she already knew. Standing on unsteady legs, Nessie began to make her way out of the kitchen and along the back hallway to the chapel.
Stumbling along, clinging to the walls when she was not bouncing off them, the pain in her chest amplified. It was made worse by the nausea and excruciating pain in her head.
The ever-increasing hum in her head made it all unbearable.
By the time she made it to the hallway outside the chapel, she could barely hold herself up. Lollipop and another prospect, Jude, knelt before her crumbling form. They were mouthing something to her but she could not hear them.
The two prospects looked at each other as a heartbreaking scream of a sob was pulled from a woman in the front room.
“Knuckles!” Nessie yelled over the noise that only she could hear. Except even her voice had been stolen from her and what she thought was a scream was barely above a whisper.
Lollipop nodded and went to the door and broke the cardinal rule. He opened the door during church.
“Knuckles.” Lollipop said as Nessie writhed on the floor in pain.
“Fuck.” Knuckles said moving to the hall and his woman. He sat on the floor and gathered her to him. “I’m here babe.”
Siobhan came around the corner with tears streaming down her cheeks. “Aye, mum, she knows. Love yeh, too.”
Siobhan looked from her niece to her middle son. Understanding clicked with him and he opened his arms to her. She buried her face in his neck and cried as he held her.
Toad looked away from his wife and son to answer the call from Scotland. Moira told him that Grams was dead. Then he wrote down the herbs that she listed off to make a tea for Nessie. He gave the list to Cookie and he went to find Karan.
An hour later, once Nessie was settled on a couch with women surrounding her, Knuckles went into the bar for a drink.
“How is she?” Werewolf asked as Knuckles drank his beer.
“Hurting. In all sorts of ways.”
“Knuckles.” Siobhan said quietly. He turned to face her and as he started to offer condolences, she shook her head. “You know what’s going on with her, don’t you?”
“The Stones are singing.”
“Aye. You know what has to happen now?”
“She has to go to them.”
“You both have to go. Do you know why she has to go them pure?” Siobhan asked with a slight accent. He shook his head no and she gently cupped his face between her hands. She gave him a small smile before saying something in Gaelic.
