The Serpent in the Stone

CHAPTER Twelve

The sky clouded over soon after dark, obliterating all traces of the stars and the waning moon. Sara had put out her lantern an hour ago. One by one, the other lights in the crew tents had also winked out. She hovered in the doorway of her tent, peering at the sky with a mixture of gratitude and unease.

Thunder growled. The rising wind battered against her body in fitful gusts and lashed her hair about her shoulders. The atmosphere bristled with the electric scent of oncoming lightning. A storm would keep the crew inside the shelter of their tents. No one would see them flitting about the dig site in such weather. She wished it would discourage Faith from this reckless plan.

It wouldn’t.

The restless drafts of air brought her snatches of Flintrop’s voice from inside his tent, then the sound faded, giving way to another boom of thunder. The first patter of rain sheeted across the moor, bringing Faith with it, bearing a shovel over her shoulder. Sara didn’t see her until she was almost close enough to touch. She grabbed her rain slicker, and followed her sister to the dig without a word.

They walked along the dig wall until they came to the edge of the new fault. “Right here,” Faith said, setting her shovel down. “This is where you found the skull, isn’t it? It’s as good a place as any.”

With her belly churning, Sara sat cross-legged on one of the large, flat stones. Rainwater had already soaked to her skin in spite of the slicker. “How do we do this?”

Faith sat opposite her, mirroring her position. “I’m going to lay one hand on this wall, and you’re going to hold my other. Give me ten minutes. If I pass out, or don’t come out of it, I want you to pull me off the wall. Don’t let go of me, no matter what.”

Sara held her breath and gripped Faith’s hand in response. “Be careful.”

Faith smiled. The first flash of lighting arced across the sky and illuminated her eyes as they melted into silver. “See you soon.” She laid her other hand flat against the wall, and fell into silence.

Sara began to count off seconds. The chill of the storm started seeping into her bones. Water trickled down the back of her neck. Ten, eleven, twelve...

Seconds lengthened into minutes, and still her sister gave no sign of coming out of her trance. Sara counted on.

Just past seven minutes, Faith shuddered, and her hand went slack in Sara’s. Sara shot off the wall and yanked on her sister’s hand. Slick with rain, Faith’s hand slipped out of her own. “No. No!” She threw her arms around Faith’s waist and pulled her bodily off the wall. They tumbled to the sodden ground. Sara snatched up Faith’s hand and squeezed. When that didn’t work, she slapped Faith’s cheek. “Wake up. Faith! Wake up!” Still nothing. Sara shook her by the shoulders. Rain hissed around them.

Faith’s features contorted into a scowl. Her eyes fluttered open to blink against the downpour.

“Oh, thank God!” Sara gasped out. She fell back with a moan of relief.

Shielding her face from the rain, Faith heaved herself into a sitting position. “Thanks for the pull.”

“I lost my grip,” said Sara. “I thought I wouldn’t get you back.”

“You let go? I still felt a buzzing. I thought it was you.”

“Where’s the sword?”

Faith shook herself out of her post-vision haze. She swept a hand across her face in a futile effort to clear it of rainwater, and they got to their feet. “There, under the opposite corner. Help me clear away the wall stones.” She brought her shovel to the area she’d indicated, then dropped it to grasp the top stone. She gave it a heave. It dropped with a thud to the earth beside the wall. “We have to hurry. I’m almost out of energy.”

Sara nudged her sister. “I’ll do it. Watch the tents for me.”

Faith stepped aside and shielded her eyes against the rain, looking in the direction of the tents. Lightning speared the heavens, followed by another angry roar of thunder. The storm was almost on top of them. “Not that I can see much in this,” she said. “Make it quick. If a tent blows down, they’ll come out to fix it.”

Sara concentrated on the stones at the corner of the wall, shivering as her power flowed in. She held out a hand and took a few steps back. The top layers of stone trembled and shifted. She focused harder. Her breath quickened, and even in the chilly rain, she began to sweat with exertion. Her heartbeat thudded against her ribs. The weight of the stones resisted her. She pushed again, gritting her teeth. The stones gave way at last, and toppled off the wall.

Just four more layers. Sara stepped back to make more room. Mud sucked at her feet. She shook her head, flinging locks of dripping hair off her forehead, and started again.

This was going to be a long night.

Ten full minutes passed before the next three layers of stone gave way, tumbling on top of the others. Sara exhaled, and her shoulders slumped. “I’m just about tapped. That’s all I can manage.”

Faith knelt in the mud. “You got the worst of it. We’ll do the rest by hand.” She seized one of the stones and hurled it aside.

Dropping beside her, Sara bent to the task. The storm whipped the rain, stinging, into their faces while they worked. Lightning and thunder continued their fierce argument overhead.

When they pulled the last of the stones away, Faith took up her shovel and began digging while Sara kept watch. The way the wind howled, she worried that someone’s tent would fall victim to its fury.

A little more than a meter down, the shovel thunked against something solid. “I hope that’s a sword, and not bedrock,” Faith said. “Have you got enough left to help me lift this thing out?”

“I can try. Let’s see what we’re working with.”

They scraped out handfuls of mud and tossed it away, fighting against a slide of earth and rainwater that filled the hole almost as fast as they emptied it. Sara’s fingers brushed the pitted surface of weathered wood. “I’ve got it. Quick, help me find the edges and lift.”

Together, they managed to heft one end of a long wooden box from the hole. Sara struggled to levitate it while Faith hauled on the other end. The wet earth dragged at the box, sapping the last of Sara’s power. She pulled harder. “I didn’t get this far to quit now,” she snarled.

The box gave way at last with a squelch of mud. She and Faith fell back, and the box landed on top of them. Panting, they clambered to their feet and raised the box up onto their shoulders.

“Your tent, quick. It’s closest,” said Faith, taking the lead while Sara stumbled along behind her.

They reached the shelter of Sara’s tent, and ducked inside as another volley of lightning snapped. Sara zipped shut the tent flap while her sister set the box on the table. She went to the lantern and turned it on as high as she dared, just enough to see. Any higher, and it would attract the notice of other crew members.

Standing over the table, they examined the dig site’s third find: a battered oak box, splitting with decay. Judging from how long it had lain hidden in the peat, Sara couldn’t believe it had survived. She touched the amulet hidden under her sodden shirt and wondered if, as with the necklace, there might be a reason it hadn’t aged faster.

Fragments of cloth stuck to the brass hinges and lock. The box must have been wrapped in an oilcloth before being laid in its resting place. She traced her fingers over the lid, and felt regular, shallow depressions where carved runework had worn to near illegibility. The archaeologist in her screamed for a tape measure and notebook. “I hate to open this thing without cataloguing it.”

Faith gaped at her. “Put this in writing? Are you nuts?”

“I know, I know. Let’s just open it before I lose the nerve.”

Faith picked up her shovel and smashed it against the lock. The soft brass split in two and fell to the table. “Hakon, I hope you know what you’re doing.” She opened the latch and lifted the box’s lid.

Inside rested a cloth bundle. Touching it, Sara felt a greasy residue. She’d been right about the oilcloth; whale or seal fat, maybe. “How is this not decomposed? All of it should be rotted away after a thousand years in the ground.” She lifted the bundle out. Faith set the empty box on the tent floor.

Sara laid the bundle on the table, then unwrapped it, holding her breath. She turned back the final corner of canvas. She and Faith gasped in unison.

It gleamed, even in the diffuse light of a low lantern. The sword blade reached almost three feet. In utter defiance of its age, it bore a mirror shine. The hilt’s grip sparkled with inlaid brass and copper bands. The pommel bore another inset of copper. Then Sara noticed the gently curving guards at the base of the hilt. “Serpent heads,” whispered Faith.

Sara brushed her fingers along the hand guard.

The amulet sizzled under her shirt. With a yelp, she snatched her hand back and grappled with the necklace, pulling it out and holding it away from her body. “It burned me!”

Brows aloft, Faith laid one hand on the sword and, ignoring Sara’s objection, touched a finger to the amulet. Hissing, she took her hands away from both objects. “Not burning...buzzing. That’s what I felt when I was searching for the sword and holding your hand. I felt it through you. They’re connected somehow.”

Sara pulled the neck of her shirt down. Her skin bore no burn marks. “You handle the sword. I’m not touching it again.”

“It’s almost angry,” Faith murmured. “I’ve never felt an object express emotion before.” She folded the canvas back over the sword, then picked the bundle up. “I need to take this back to my tent and try to reach Hakon. With any luck, he’ll tell us what to do with it now that we have it.” She bent and placed the wrapped sword back in its box.

“What about the hole at the dig? Someone’s bound to notice in the morning and start guessing.”

Faith frowned and shoved the box under her sister’s cot. “We’ll have to refill it.”

“I used almost everything I had. There’s no way I can rebuild that wall.”

Retrieving her shovel, Faith unzipped Sara’s tent door. “Then we’ll make it look like it collapsed. Grab a shovel.”

Thunder rumbled as they left the tent. Through the driving rain, Sara spied an approaching figure. She shouted a warning. Faith swung the shovel.

Her adversary caught it by the shaft, and its arc stopped short. Lightning speared the sky, throwing Ian’s features into sharp relief. “We have a problem. Becky’s at my tent.”

“What?” Sara peered over her sister’s shoulder at him. Alarm raced to every nerve in her body.

Ian let go of Faith’s shovel. “Becky. At my tent. I need your boat keys.”

“Are you okay? She didn’t—”

“I’m fine,” he responded. “She, on the other hand, needs a hospital as fast as she can get there.”

Faith lowered her shovel. “What happened?”

“I have no idea. I’m lucky I didn’t shoot her when she burst into my tent. She’s been burned pretty bad, but she won’t say how it happened. We’re losing time talking.”

Faith glanced at Sara. “Have you got the strength left to get Ian back to his camp?”

Sara hesitated. “I’m almost finished as it is. Any shapeshift big enough to carry him wouldn’t last long enough.”

“Are you hurt?” Ian turned to Faith. “What happened?”

“She’s tapped, and me, almost so. We’ve used too much of our power at once. Sara, can you get yourself there? Will you be able to drive the boat?”

Uneasily, Sara glanced southward, into the darkness. “A sparrow,” she murmured, “if I can fly in this wind.”

“All right, go,” said Faith. “Ian, I need you. Take her shovel and come with me. I’ll explain everything.”

Ian looked back at Sara. Another bolt of lightning sizzled above, and she saw worry on his face. He laid a hand against her cheek and kissed her, brief and fierce. An ache just as fierce rushed through her. “Come back safe.” He pulled the shovel from her hand and headed away with Faith.

She stared after him for a few seconds before realizing she was wasting time. Later. She would think about that look on his face later, because it had almost looked as if he didn’t want to let her out of his sight.

She sprang back into her tent long enough to douse the lantern, snatch her boat keys from the table, and stuff them in her pocket. Back outside, she called on the sparrow. For a few agonizing moments, she grappled to hold onto even that small demand on her power. The shape came in a flash that surprised her. She took off into the storm, fearful that she would lose the shape now that she had it.

The storm railed around her, hammering the small bird’s body with merciless power. She flew low, but even the lesser winds close to the ground forced her to fight for every inch of distance. She lost hold of the shapeshift fifty feet from Ian’s tent. Sara slipped out of the sparrow’s shape and into her human one, tumbling to the ground with a grunt of pain. She rolled to her feet and stumbled the rest of the way, then opened the tent door, dreading what she’d find.

Becky lurched off Ian’s cot and shrank back against the rear wall of the tent. She grappled for the rifle leaning against the table.

“Whoa, whoa!” Sara held up her hands and staggered into the tent. “I’m here to help. I’m taking you to the hospital—” She ground to a halt as her gaze landed on Becky’s face. Three blistering, russet burn marks crossed the redhead’s cheekbone. Another burn glared from her opposite forearm, blackish and peeling. “Oh, my God.”

Instead of speaking, the young woman dropped the rifle with a thump and began to cry. She fumbled for the bandage that had fallen to the cot and tried to rewrap her arm.

Moving closer, Sara took Becky’s chin in one gentle hand and turned it to see the burns on her cheek better. “This looks like...finger marks.” With her mind spinning, she glanced down at the woman’s arm. “What happened to you?”

Becky threw her off, shaking her head and sobbing harder.

Sara backed away a step. Part of her had trouble reconciling this tearful woman with the one who had tried breaking into her tent. Becky looked so...vulnerable. She saw why Ian had been moved to help her, and could do no less. “All right, all right. Don’t cry. We’re going to fix this. Come with me.”

Becky hunched backward, clearly unwilling to take one step out of the relative safety of Ian’s tent.

One of his windbreakers had been draped over a chair. Sara picked it up and eased it around the redhead’s shoulders. “I won’t let anyone hurt you—I promise—but we need to go now, if we’re going to get help for those injuries.” She glanced around the tent and found a protein bar lying on Ian’s nightstand. She snatched it up and unwrapped it, then took a large bite. She’d need the strength to steady the boat on the way to the hospital. The storm had lessened, but not by much.

It would be a long night, indeed.

“Come on,” she said, walking to the door.

Becky gave a shudder, but nodded and followed Sara outside.

Sara plodded along, rubber-kneed. She reached the boat by sheer stubborn will. “I may need you to drive it, if I lose consciousness.”

Becky’s brows shot up.

“I’ll be all right. It’s just exhaustion. I ran all the way up here.” When Becky answered with a look full of questions, Sara bit her tongue. She turned aside to pull back the boat cover. No time—and no idea where to start—for explaining how she’d raced almost a mile to get to Ian’s tent.

The ocean raged. She wondered how on earth she and Becky were going to get to the mainland in this tempest. Better that than linger on the island, but she worried about Ian and Faith every second she was away from them.

She and Becky hadn’t gotten very far into open water before Mother Nature made good on her promised ferocity. The boat pitched to and fro like a child’s plaything. Sara clenched her fists on the steering wheel and called on her power again, using telekinesis to stabilize the craft as best she could. It had scarcely any effect against the tumult. Her head swam. Lights danced before her vision. She couldn’t lose it now. What would happen to Ian and Faith if she didn’t get back to the island?

Becky stretched a bandaged arm toward her. The redhead’s hand clapped over her own on the wheel. A surge of power ran through Sara’s hand, and the boat steadied in the churning water. She looked up in amazement.

Becky’s eyes were silver.

Sara passed out.

****

Light. Silence. No rain. Am I dead? Sara struggled to make sense of her surroundings. “Becky?”

A white-coated figure ducked into her frame of vision. The bleary image resolved into a smiling brunette. “Hello, there. You had us worried.”

“Becky,” she said again. Her head reeled with jumbled images of the Viking sword, Faith, lightning, and Ian. She sucked in a defiant breath and forced herself into a sitting position. “Where is she?”

“You should get more rest. Can you tell me your name?”

Sara felt the shivery influx of her powers beginning to return. Some of her strength came with them. “Where is Becky? I need to see her.”

“Miss, please get a little more rest. You were very dehydrated—”

An alarm beeped, and the hospital P.A. system kicked on. “Code Blue, Unit One-Four. Code Blue, Unit One-Four—”

The nurse moved toward the door. “I have to leave. We have an emergency on the unit. If you need anything, you can put your call light on, and one of the aides will respond as soon as possible.”

Sara nodded as if this sort of thing happened to her every day. The nurse hurried from the room.

As soon as the woman was out of sight, Sara swung her legs out of the bed. She wore a hospital gown. An IV tube had been attached to the back of her hand. She touched her fingers to her throat.

Her bare throat.

Trying not to panic, she ripped the IV out of her hand, then launched herself out of bed. Her clothes were nowhere to be seen. She wondered with a thudding heart whether they’d gotten rid of the amulet, too. What the hell had happened when she passed out?

She crept into the hall, but it looked like everyone had raced off to handle the emergency. The woman at the nurse’s station was on a call. Sara crept around the desk for a peek.

The amulet rested on top of a phone book with its leather lace coiled around the stone pendant. Sara’s breath spilled out of her in rushed relief. She picked it up with a silent prayer of thanks, and looped it back over her head.

Now what? She paused, uncertain, expecting the nurse’s station attendant to see her and chivvy her back to her room.

A nurse emerged from a staff room down the hall, and hurried away in the opposite direction. Making sure no one noticed, Sara eased into the room and closed the door.

Phew. Now the little matter of the hospital gown.

She found an open locker and—oh, thank God—a folded set of scrubs within. Once changed, she ducked out of the room and started down the hall.

She found a directory listing the location of the burn unit, then followed the signs to another wing of the hospital. Becky’s name wasn’t on the board at the burn unit’s main desk; not surprising, if she hadn’t been able to speak. Sara snatched a lab coat from its hook in another staff lounge, then proceeded to check each room as she went down the hall. Some of the patients looked up in curiosity as she passed, and she murmured greetings that she hoped sounded professional. Any second, someone on staff would fail to recognize her, or notice her lack of a badge—or a patient would code—and her hunt would end in a sedated return to bed.

She found Becky at last in a room near the end of a hall. The young woman lay sleeping in the midst of an army of machines at whose purpose Sara didn’t want to guess. Her arm and face had been bandaged. Sara crept toward the bed. “Hey.”

Becky’s eyes flew open. When she saw Sara, her shoulders slumped in relief.

“What did you do to me on the boat?” Sara whispered. “You did do something, didn’t you?”

The redhead gave a faint, groggy nod. She lifted a hand to her throat and tapped it with a regretful look.

“You can’t speak?”

The woman shook her head. Wayward, flame-red curls fluttered against the pillow. At a sound in the hallway, her features contorted in fear, but it was only a cart going by. She turned back to Sara with the same anxious expression, and it took on a pleading note.

Sara laid a hand over Becky’s ice-cold one. “Do you know what a ‘conduit’ is?”

Becky frowned.

Sara pursed her lips, deciding how to continue. “A conduit is a person who has no paranormal ability of her own, but can amplify the power of others. Do you realize that’s what you are?”

The young woman nodded.

Sara paused. Her insides echoed that look of anxiety on Becky’s features. She took a long, shuddering breath, then asked, “How did you know I had telekinesis?”

Becky shook her head this time, which Sara took to mean that she hadn’t known until their speedboat ride. A thousand questions clamored to be asked at once. She struggled to remain calm. “All right, this is very important. I won’t say a word, but I need to know. Was someone forcing you to use your ability when Cameron was killed? Is it the same person that hurt you?”

The young woman’s frightened gaze flashed around the room as if she expected her assailant to be there. Her eyes welled with tears, and she looked back at Sara with her breath hitching.

A cart rumbled outside the door. She and Becky jumped in unison. A nurse entered, pushing the cart ahead of her, and stopped when she saw Sara in the lab coat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were in here, Doctor.”

God, I need to get back to the dig and make sure everything’s okay, Sara thought. “I was just on my way out,” she said. “Miss Palmeter, I want you to contact my office as soon as you’re discharged, and speak to Holly Robbins. She’ll arrange for your further care. Don’t forget.”

Becky nodded, conveying that she understood she was to go to the Gemini offices upon her release. Sara backed away toward the door, wishing desperately that she knew more of Becky’s side of the story.

The redhead turned her attention to the nurse. Frantic for more information, Sara made sure neither of them saw, then let her eyes change.

What she read in the frightened woman’s thoughts made her back hastily out the door into the hall. She pulled off the lab coat and dropped it on the floor. It couldn’t be.

Oh, God, Faith and Ian, alone at the dig with this.

A step, and another, and in the next moment she broke into a flat run.

****

Ian stripped off his muddy shirt, brooding, staring at the rifle propped against the table. Thunder still pounded the heavens outside. Three weeks. Three weeks of cat-and-mouse on a remote island until they could do anything at all.

He hadn’t felt right about leaving Faith alone, but she’d sworn she was under protection, and that she had work to do with the sword she’d found. Ian had his reservations about how much protection a long-dead Viking ghost could provide. Restless, he paced the length of his tent.

Through the rumble of the storm, he heard the thump of fast-approaching footsteps. Picking up his rifle, Ian went to the door flap and drew it back.

Sara stood there shivering, hugging her arms close against her body, teeth chattering. “T-Thomas Callander.”

Ian grabbed her by the arm and pulled her inside. “Callander, the guy who’s working on your team?”

She nodded breathlessly. Rainwater dripped in steady rivulets down her face. “Just before I left the hospital, I read Becky’s mind.” He saw her hesitate, and then she plunged ahead again. “Ian, Tom Callander’s a telekinetic. I think he’s behind Cameron’s death.”

Ian stiffened as the implications hit him full force. He remembered his father and the horrible day that had wrecked his disillusioned, young life.

And then he thought of the woman standing before him now. Oh, God. “Sara, Callander works for Lambertson, doesn’t he?”

“What are you saying?” she asked, icy warning in her tone.

“I’m saying that if he’s involved, how do you know Lambertson isn’t? Callander is on loan from Eurocon, am I right?”

She shook her head fiercely. “No. Lamb wouldn’t do this. He wouldn’t. He’s a friend of Cameron’s family. A friend of my family.”

Ian bristled. “I don’t trust anyone anymore, and that includes Lambertson. He was there with everyone else when Cameron died, and now he’s conveniently gone home.”

She stepped back toward the tent door. He took a corresponding step forward. “Sara, listen to me. Faith told me he got you the job here because he knew Shetland was your father’s life’s work. He was one of your father’s best friends. He’s in a perfect position to know about that amulet, and maybe the ley lines, too.”

He reached for her hand, but she snatched it away. The words he didn’t say hung in the air between them: Maybe Lambertson is responsible for your father’s murder. Pained, Ian raked his fingers through his rain-damp hair and moved away from her. “You’d better go see Faith. She’s waiting.”