The Serpent in the Stone

CHAPTER Sixteen

Ian spent the rest of the afternoon catching up on his notes. After that, he decided to pack one last crate for the day. Unused tent gear joined extra camera lenses in their padded case. He wedged a few books in the remaining space, then hammered the crate shut.

That about covered anything he could do to occupy himself with something other than ritual sacrifices. Hour by hour, he found himself more convinced that he, Faith, and Sara should be as far away from Hvitmar as possible. Even his work couldn’t distract him anymore.

When he turned around, his gaze landed on a wolf standing at the edge of his camp. He flinched reflexively, even though he knew it was Sara. “Hey, gorgeous.”

She twitched an ear, and her tongue lolled in a brief lupine grin. She loped forward with her muzzle to the ground. Ian watched, fascinated, as she wound between the camp chairs and nosed at the beer bottles. In spite of her disparate lack of fear around a human establishment, he almost forgot she wasn’t a real wolf. She moved like one, sounded like one, and sure as hell looked like one. He resisted the urge to grab his camera.

Finished with her explorations, she padded over to him. He took an instinctive step backward. She laughed that toothy wolf laugh again and slowed to a stealthy walk.

What the heck was she doing?

In the next instant, she dodged closer and snatched his pant leg in her teeth. She jerked on it, then bounded away with her tail high in the air.

Ian stumbled, but stayed upright. “Hey!”

She bolted around the camp chairs and came to a skidding halt beside one of the large crates. To Ian’s amusement, she lowered her forequarters to the ground in the quintessential canine play-bow.

Laughing, he stalked toward the crate. “This isn’t fair. You’ve got four legs.” He feinted a jump around one side of the crate. When she raced around to avoid him, he flung a hand out to grab at her from the other side. She sprang into the air and disappeared around the corner of the large shipping box again.

Ian crouched behind it and peered around the corner.

Nothing. “Where’d you go?”

He felt a tug on the back of his T-shirt and spun around.

The wolf bounced backward. He lunged, and caught her by the forepaw with a laugh.

It occurred to him then that he was holding onto a living, breathing, untranquilized wolf by its leg. Startled, he let go of her.

She must have seen the surprise in his face, because she cocked her ears forward, and her tongue lolled again. Lowering her shaggy head, she thrust her nose under his hand.

Ian almost yanked his hand back without thinking. He let his fingers skim along her muzzle, over the broad forehead, and behind her large, triangular ears. He took a deep breath. She even smelled like a wolf—that dense, dusty scent of heavy pelt and wilderness. He laced his fingers through the coarse guard hairs of her ruff, and into the soft, wooly undercoat.

Never, never stare down a wolf, he remembered someone telling him when he’d volunteered with the Yellowstone packs. But she looked up at him, and in her eyes he saw only Sara. He smiled. “This is unbelievable. Sara, you’re beautiful.”

She slipped out from under his hands and backed away. Ian watched the lupine shape blur around the edges, then resolve into that of a crouching woman in a faded navy sweatshirt and jeans. No matter how many times he saw her do that, it amazed him.

Sara beamed at him and sat back on her heels. “You’re not so bad, yourself. When was Luis here?”

“Luis?”

“He’s all over the camp. In the chair, on the beer bottles—”

“You smelled him?”

“Yeah. People smell, much as they’d like to think otherwise.”

Ian gaped at her. “Do you have any idea how cool that is?” Then, because the curiosity was killing him, he asked, “What do I smell like?”

She dimpled. “Like chalk, sweat, and beer, right now. Been climbing?”

“That’s flattering.”

“If it’s any consolation, you smell good to me.” She got to her feet. “How about one of those beers?”

“Sure.” He got up and dusted off his jeans.

They moved to the camp chairs. She took a beer from the carton, then popped it open. Ian propped his foot on the makeshift stool, then removed his climbing shoes. “Tag, huh?”

“I used to play tag with Faith all the time. She got so she’d tag me just before climbing a tree, so I couldn’t reach her.”

He laughed. “Well, good. Now I know how to beat you.”

“I don’t see any trees around here,” she pointed out, looking smug.

“I’ll figure something out,” he shot back, just as smug. He settled back into his camp chair. Recalling what Luis had told him earlier, he studied her face. She looked paler than usual, with dark smudges under her eyes. He frowned. “You haven’t been sleeping.”

“I’m all right,” she said, fast enough for him to realize she wasn’t.

He wondered if he might not be contributing to the problem. He had been keeping her up nights, but no power on earth could make him part with that. The more she was with him, the less he worried what was happening to her when she wasn’t. “Sara.”

“I’m fine. Just unsettled about finishing on time.”

A pair of specks wheeling in the sky distracted him. “I meant to tell you,” he said. “We’ve got a Hathor.”

She looked up at once. “Where?”

He stood and motioned for her to come closer. He drew her in front of him and stood at her back. Instantly mindful of her nearness, he hesitated. His thoughts fuzzed into a tempting vision of her ensconced in his camp bed, not birdwatching.

Later, he ordered himself. Scanning the approaching falcon pair, he reached over her shoulder and traced a finger in the sky. “That’s her. The bigger one.”

Sara did a little dance on her toes. “Ian, this is wonderful!”

“Yeah. I think I just got myself a permanent job, thanks to her.” The wind changed. He caught a hint of cinnamon, and inhaled deeply. She’d been eating those candies again. He revisited the image of the two of them in his tent, and pulled her back against his body. “You’re here early today.”

“I got a reprieve, on account of Flintrop being too busy to annoy me. No one’s been out of their tents all afternoon.”

Ian slid a hand beneath her sweatshirt and up her belly to her breasts, stroking the soft skin under the edges of her bra. “What do you say we forget about him and the birds, and think about something else for a while?”

She turned in his embrace to curl her arms around his neck. He loved the way she melted against him. “What did you have in mind?”

He grasped her hand and lowered it from his neck, then towed her toward his tent with an inviting chuckle. “Come with me, and I’ll show you.”

****

Another seven days passed in a flurry of activity. By now, only the hearth of the Viking ruin remained to be cleared. Numb with exhaustion and increasing worry, Sara couldn’t feel any pride in the speed of their progress. She hadn’t slept more than a handful of hours in the past few days. Work continued without incident, as if Cameron’s death had never happened. The thought made her sick.

She put her tools in a bucket and lifted it to move to the next plot. Several feet away, Faith stopped her work and stood upright. Sara felt her sister’s stare even before she turned to look. “What?”

“You need sleep,” Faith said.

“I’ll sleep after this whole thing is over.”

Faith stepped over a marker, and came toward her with a frown. “Look, I know we need to get this done, but you’re teetering on your feet.”

Sara spoke in a harsh whisper. “We have exactly three days until the full moon, or didn’t you notice that?”

“And you’re no use to me half-dead like this. Go lie down.”

Sara let her shoulders slump. “I can’t. I’ve tried.”

Faith cast a look around the dig, but the others were working steadily. She laid a cool hand on Sara’s forehead. “Are you sick again?”

Sara backed away. “No. It’s not like that. I just... Whenever I try to get any rest, I jump right up again and have to do something. Nervous energy, or whatever it is. I just can’t lie around.”

“Well, take a break long enough to go ask Flintrop where he put the electromagnetic charts. He’s in his tent.”

Sara nodded and climbed up the scaffold, over the dig wall, then headed down the slope toward Flintrop’s tent. Finding it empty, she entered, then flipped through a sheaf of charts on his camp table. Nothing there. She turned to the smaller table beside his bed, pushed aside a bottle of saline solution, then picked up a stack of pages.

“Sara. Nice of you to drop by.”

She jerked and looked to the doorway. Flintrop stood silhouetted in the late afternoon sun, wearing a smug expression that made her want to throw the papers at him. “I was looking for Faith’s E-M charts.”

Flintrop stepped into the tent, moved around the bed, then retrieved a folder from an open box. He brought the folder to her with an aggravating smile. Sara noticed his gaze lingered on his bed before meeting hers. She tried not to shrink away from him as she held out her free hand for the folder.

“I’m not going to bite you,” he said. His voice held a maddening note of purely male amusement.

She tossed the other pages on his bed, then grabbed the folder from his hand. “I might bite you, if you don’t stop staring at me.”

He laughed.

She waved the folder at him. “Did you figure out whether these were misreads, or not? They keep popping up, and I’m starting to get a little concerned.”

“The equipment is fine.” He reached an arm around her back to urge her toward the tent door, and this time, she did jerk away. “Easy, Sara. You came into my tent.”

“I’m not looking for a liaison! I want my sister’s charts. While we’re at it, I want to know why these readings keep getting higher.” She thrust the folder at his chest.

He favored her with a long-suffering look. “Is this the way the rest of the dig is going to go? You’ve been barking at me the past two weeks. I am on your team, you know. We both want the same thing.”

Sara fixed him with an icy look. “I don’t think we want exactly the same thing.”

He threw his hands in the air, and plopped down on his bed. “All right. I’ve made no secret about the fact that I’m interested in you. Does that mean you’re going to be hostile to me for the rest of this dig?”

“I’ll tell you what,” she said, moving toward the door. “You be nice to Ian, and I’ll be nice to you.”

“Him again.”

Incensed, she spun back toward the bed. “What is it that bugs you about him, Flintrop? It can’t possibly be that he has more money and fame than you do.”

Flintrop rose to his feet. He stalked forward with a sudden, serious look that made her freeze where she stood. When he reached her, he leaned close enough for her to feel his breath on her face. His eyes gleamed. “He only has one thing I want.”

Sara felt the hair on the back of her neck stand on end, and backed toward the door. “I’ll see you later.”

She wasn’t certain, as she left, why it seemed more like she was fleeing than walking out.

Work continued at a killing pace the final three days of the excavation. The crew had given up trying to chide Sara and her sister away from their work, and did their jobs without comment.

Sara forgot everything but the mindless routine of trowel, brush, and sieve. Instead of being an amorphous mound of earth, the dig now showed the lines of wall and doorway, the contours of sleeping areas, and places where food and livestock had been stowed. She could almost see a house where the ruin stood, a familiar sensation that still gave her a chill to this day.

In the beginning of her career, as a field assistant, she’d felt like an intruder into the private lives of others. As time went on, she grew accustomed to the feeling of being watched and judged by the ghosts of the past.

She wondered offhand if Hakon was watching them now.

The thought gave her the jitters. Everything gave her jitters lately. What little sleep she could catch sapped away with simpler and simpler tasks. On hands and knees, she shook off her apprehension and continued scraping away at the circular patch over the hearth at the center of the house. The earth blurred beneath her, and she shook her head. So tired. If I could just rest for ten minutes...

“Sara.”

She jerked to attention and looked across the hearth, where Faith had paused in her digging. Her sister dropped her tools and sat back. “Why don’t you go up to Ian’s camp?”

For a moment, Sara just looked at her sister without absorbing the question.

Faith’s brow furrowed. “Ian. Remember Ian? Sara, I’m worried about you. You need to sleep.”

Guilt oozed down Sara’s spine. She’d been working through the night without telling her sister. And Ian... She hadn’t seen him in days. The only rest she’d gotten in weeks was the too-short space of time she had spent in his arms after making love to him.

Did he have any idea how she felt when they lay together in the night, silent and peaceful while the wind drifted and the ocean sighed outside?

She loved him.

I love him.

I have to tell him. She lunged to her feet.

The motion made her head spin. As her legs buckled underneath her, she registered only distant surprise.

“Whoa, easy.” Firm hands hooked her by the elbows and pulled her onto her feet.

She shook her head and looked up. Flintrop stood behind her with a concerned expression.

Faith hurried over. “All right, that’s it. Go lie down before I make you. I’m not kidding.”

Flintrop frowned. “Faith’s right. You need to take a break, even if you don’t sleep, Sara. Exhausting yourself isn’t going to help us finish the project.”

Sara heard her sister give a hmmph of surprise at Flintrop’s support. “Never thought we’d agree on something.”

Shaking her head, Sara tried pulling her arms away.

“We can get it done without you.” Flintrop hooked his hands under her arms and pulled her up. “Come on.”

She took a step and tottered again. Flintrop caught her. She didn’t have the stamina to resist as he swung her into his arms and carried her toward her tent. She fought to block out the head-spinning motion. “Will we finish in time?”

“In time for what?”

“I want to finish by tonight.”

“Yeah, I think so. What’s the hurry?”

She felt him step up onto a scaffold, then down the other side. “I will be fine,” she said. “Give me ten minutes, and I’ll be back out there.”

“You’re your own worst enemy. Did you have a reason for this deadline and the way you’re trying to kill yourself?”

She forced one eye open, but closed it again when the motion of his walking made her dizzy. She wanted to tell him she could get to her tent without help, but arguing took too much effort.

She’d been about to do something just before the collapse. What was it? Her head ached with trying to remember. Her thoughts drifted.

“You’re a lot more approachable when you’re half-asleep,” Flintrop murmured, bringing her awake again.

Lacking enough energy to glare at him, she settled for a long look of disgruntlement before closing her eyes again.

He pulled a blanket up over her, chuckling. “One of these days, you’re going to figure out I’m not half bad.”

Several minutes passed, and sleep danced just within her grasp. She forced conscious thought out of her mind, and reached hopefully for oblivion. Just as she hovered on the threshold of rest, it slipped away from her as it always did. Her body thrummed with the need to be awake, to be active, to do something. She whimpered in desperation.

“What’s wrong?”

Her stomach turned over with the nausea of fighting to still her singing nerves. In her turmoil, she forgot that the voice belonged to Flintrop. She curled into a ball on her side. Can’t sleep. Can’t be awake. Can’t function. What’s wrong with me? When had this started?

She saw a man’s shadowy face in her mind, dark-haired and blue-eyed. With her thoughts roiling in the middle ground between sleep and wakefulness, she couldn’t remember who he was, except that she wanted wildly to go to him. Safety. “Help,” she whispered.

The cot sank as someone sat beside her. A hand stroked her hair. “I’m right here, Sara,” the voice soothed. “What is it?”

The buzzing sensation rang in her ears, and she clamped her arms over her head, trying to squeeze it out. “Stop. Please make it stop,” she begged the shadowy apparition. “Help me.”

Whoever sat beside her gripped her shoulder. “Sara. Come on, snap out of it.”

His voice distracted her from the buzz surging through her body. Was that him? Shaking, she turned blindly toward the voice.

“Flintrop, I’ve got her. Go back to the dig,” she heard a new, female voice order.

Clarity swept though her. She seized it, fearing it might slip away again. “Faith. Jesus, Faith.”

Flintrop stood up, dividing a look between her and her sister. “I’ll radio for a chopper. She doesn’t have a fever, but she’s losing it, Faith. She needs medical attention.”

“She needs me. Just go back to the dig.”

“Are you nuts?”

“I’ve got it handled. Go,” Faith demanded.

“Like hell.”

Sara cradled her aching skull. “Stop. Please.” She teetered on the edge of the cot. “He’s not... He was helping me. I think.”

Both of them turned to stare at her.

Faith recovered first. “Flintrop, if you want to help, clear the hearth. Let me worry about my sister.”

He cast a doubtful glance in Sara’s direction. With an irritable jerk of his shoulder, Flintrop spun and left the tent.

Faith sat down as soon as he was gone, and laid a cool hand on Sara’s forehead. “I don’t know how much use this is going to be, but here goes nothing.”

Sara struggled to shut out the bass-drum pounding of her head. “What are you doing?”

“Hopefully not asking for trouble. Sit still. I’m going to read you.”

Sara seized her sister’s hand and yanked it away from her forehead. “Don’t!”

“What do you mean, ‘don’t?’ This isn’t funny anymore. You’re scaring me.”

“It’s not... You shouldn’t. Just don’t.”

“Sara, you can’t keep this up. It’s not like you, even when you’re working hard. Something’s wrong.”

Sara shook her head, sliding back onto the cot away from her sister. She lay back down with a sigh. “Just give me a little while, and I’ll be back out to help.”

“You’re staying put if I have to strap you down. I’m getting Ian.”

Sara didn’t hear her leave.

****

Faith headed up the slope at a fast walk, hugging herself. What’s the matter with her? If it’s the ley line, why isn’t it happening to me? She chewed at her lip, wishing she could contact Hakon for help. She’d been unable to reach him for days, and that made her almost as uneasy as Sara’s mysterious illness. She should have let Flintrop radio a chopper, but she couldn’t afford to be without her sister tonight.

“Where is she?” came Ian’s voice, snapping her out of her thoughts.

She looked up to see him marching down the slope toward her. “How did you know—”

He kept walking, and she turned back toward the dig with him. “Is she hurt?” he demanded.

“She’s exhausted, Ian. Tonight’s the deadline, and—”

“Are you still planning on going through with this insanity?”

“What choice do we have? It’s too dangerous not to close the ley line. Why do you think we’ve been working so fast?” She broke into jog, outstripping his lengthy stride. “It hasn’t been for fun.”

They went on in silence for several yards. When they reached camp, Faith went to her sister’s tent without stopping.

“What’s he doing here?” asked Flintrop from his position inside the dig.

“Don’t start,” Faith snapped. “He’s here to see Sara.”

“She’s asleep.” Flintrop stood upright, brushing earth from his hands. “Finally.”

“Oh, thank God.” Faith could have kissed him. Almost.

“Hopefully, she’ll stay out for at least a few hours, if no one disturbs her,” Flintrop added, casting a pointed look in Ian’s direction.

Faith felt a charge of sheer hatred in the air around Ian. She winced in empathy and took his hand. “Don’t.”

Ian hissed outward through his teeth.

Flintrop came toward them through a gap in the ruin that had once been a doorway. “Faith, the crew’s got something up at the hearth I think you should look at. We found a bowl.”

A bowl. Forgetting their feud for a moment, Faith headed toward the ruin, urging Ian with her.

“What are you doing?” Flintrop asked, seeing her propel Ian into the confines of the dig.

“Never mind what I’m doing. He’s not bothering Sara, is he?”

“What are you doing?” Ian murmured in her ear.

Michael turned around, cradling the bowl in his hands. Faith reached for it.

Ian sucked in a breath, and then covered it with a cough. Puzzled, she caught him staring at the bowl. He shot her a warning look and glanced around the ruin. Faith saw him taking quick measure of the layout, and realized that he was comparing the modern-day structure to the house he’d seen in his dream. His gaze swept back to the bowl.

She realized then why he didn’t want her to touch it. This was the sacrificial bowl he’d seen in his dream. The one that had held Aesa’s blood.

The world went off-kilter for a few seconds.

Faith pulled a cloth from her back pocket and unfolded it, then held it out for the bowl. Michael gave her a long look of bewilderment, but set the artifact in the cloth. She folded the edges over the bowl, trying not to notice the discolored stains on its rough concave surface. With a curt word, she sent the crew back to work.

“Waverly,” Flintrop called, coming up behind them.

Faith saw Ian tense for another battle.

Flintrop dusted his hands off on a rag. “Why don’t you stick around this evening? We’re almost done, and we were going to celebrate.”

“You’re giving me permission to be here?” Ian’s voice remained even, but Faith felt waves of hostility radiating from him.

“Look, I know we haven’t gotten on well, but it’s the end of the project. I’m willing to let bygones be bygones if you are. Stay, if you have the time.” Flintrop held out a hand.

What’s this? she wondered. Ian must have been thinking the same thing, because he stared at Flintrop’s hand as though he were contemplating a venomous snake. After a tense moment, he shrugged and shook Flintrop’s hand. The two didn’t take their eyes off each other, in spite of the friendly gesture.

Flintrop released Ian’s hand, then stepped around them to continue work. Faith adjusted the wrapped bowl in one arm and took Ian’s sleeve with her free hand. “You can help me.”

“Sure.”

Faith headed away from the ruin with him in tow. “This is the bowl, isn’t it?” she asked once they entered her tent.

“Yeah.”

Faith grunted and set the bowl on her camp table. She turned to her trunk for a pair of work gloves.

“Sara hasn’t been up to camp lately,” he said. “What the hell’s been happening down here, Faith?”

She sighed. “I’ve never seen her work this hard. She doesn’t sleep, she barely eats. For once, I find myself liking Flintrop, since he’s managed to get her to rest for the first time in God knows when. I’ve been wondering if it isn’t the ley line affecting her—”

“It would do something to you, too, wouldn’t it?”

“I thought so, too, but so far I haven’t felt a thing. You’d think today, of all days...” She trailed off with her skin crawling.

“What do you need my help with?”

Sitting at her camp table, Faith pulled on the work gloves, then unfolded the cloth from around the ceremonial bowl. “I want everything you remember about your dream. Between you and this bowl, I might get enough information about closing the ley lines. I need you to anchor me while I read it. This is important, Ian. Do not let go of me while I’m reading this thing. It’s a sacrificial relic, and without an anchor, I might not make it back.”

His eyes went stony. “Bullshit.”

“Either I do this with you, or I try it by myself. Your choice.”

With a dubious look at the uncovered bowl, Ian sat down and began recounting the nightmare.