The Serpent in the Stone

CHAPTER Four

The nightmare again.

Ian waded through the mess on the office floor. He groped for the desk lamp, then flipped it on with a sense of dread.

He knew the precise moment when the wraith appeared behind him. A flush of frigid air chilled his back. Ian steeled himself and turned around. His blood ran like ice water at the sight of the man.

Saying nothing, the gory man staggered forward and reached for Ian’s left arm. Ian jumped backward, but the man seized his shoulder in a crushing grip. Fire shot from Ian’s shoulder throughout his body. He screamed in agony and struggled, but the man stepped forward and pinned him to the desk.

Ian’s entire being shrank into that stone-faced stare and the torture of the man’s hold. He fought against the man’s bearlike grip. Tendons in his shoulder shifted and popped. Muscles contracted. His shoulder burned as if shards of glass were being driven into the joint. The shapes in the room blurred. Everything went scorching white.

He woke in the next instant blowing like a winded horse, and reached for his left shoulder. Pain throbbed along the length of his arm. Ian half expected it to be dislocated again, but the joint felt sound. He groaned and closed his eyes. The ache faded into numbness.

This dream was getting old real fast.

He lay silent a while, drifting in and out of a restless doze, until he heard footsteps outside his tent. He snapped awake at once. After the incident with his climbing rope, every sound that wasn’t wind or birds put him on alert. He rolled smoothly out of bed and onto his feet.

The sun had risen. A shadow fell across his tent. “Ian?”

Sara.

A mental picture of her naked body, washed in gold by the reflection of the sunset, charged into his thoughts and obliterated everything else. Wrestling to push the image out of his head—and the reaction out of his body—he reached for a clean T-shirt. “Give me a minute.” Or maybe a few minutes, because all he wanted was to keep playing that image and see where it led.

He shrugged his bad shoulder purposely, letting the discomfort force his attention elsewhere. The joint tingled with the same pins-and-needles sensation he’d experienced when he woke from his nightmare. He put the shirt on, careless about his injury, then grabbed his sling and went barefoot to the tent door.

When he opened it, Sara stood there with her hands jammed into her coat pockets, looking like she wanted to be anywhere else. Her cheeks were pink, too pink to be from the exertion of her walk alone, and he wondered if she were thinking of that encounter at the inlet. Shut up about it, he ordered his body.

A backpack hung from her shoulder. She canted her head, seeming to weigh her words. “You didn’t come down last night.”

“I had to finish packing,” he lied.

She frowned. “I need your help.”

The image of the gory man flashed in his memory. Hhhhelp her. Ian jerked in surprise. He’d never ignored his gut responses before.

Something told him not to start now. He wanted to tell her to forget it, but the throbbing of his shoulder reminded him he owed her his life, whether he liked it or not. He hated being indebted to her, being forced to have anything to do with her.

But parts of him really, really liked it.

He sighed. Help her, it is. This once...then I’m out.

Her cheeks went pinker, and he saw her try to push herself past the awkwardness of their last meeting. The look on her face tugged at his sense of humor. If it weren’t for...everything...he might have laughed. “Let me get my stuff together.”

“What about your post?” she asked.

“It can wait a while.”

They walked to the eastern shoreline, where he knew it dipped close enough to sea level to admit a small dock. Sara remained silent. She didn’t seem to know any better than he what to say in the wake of yesterday.

God. Please stop thinking about that. His pulse quickened. He took a deep breath at the thought of her naked, dripping body, burned indelible in his memory by instant and painful need. He’d almost given in. A couple more steps, and he’d have torn that towel away, and damn all the reasons he didn’t want to want her.

He dropped behind her as they walked, trying to put some space between them, but it served only to give him a too-compelling view of her swinging hips.

A motorboat rested at the dock. “This is our ride,” she said.

“Where are we going?”

“Mainland. I have to find a jeweler, and quickly. I don’t want to leave the dig site too long.” She unsnapped the boat cover, then pulled it back as fast as possible.

“A jeweler?” What the hell was so important about a jeweler that it couldn’t wait? He moved to help her with the boat cover. “Why take me?”

“Faith doesn’t want to leave the dig.”

“There’s always your crew.”

She didn’t answer right away. She folded the boat cover, stowed it in the stern of the boat, then unwound the first of the mooring lines. “We need them working. My sister seems to think enough of you to suggest you come with me.”

He didn’t miss that she left her own opinion unspoken. What had he done to garner Faith’s confidence when he’d hardly talked to her, while Sara remained evasive? He started on the other mooring line. “What do you want a jeweler for, anyway?”

“My necklace, the stone one. I’m fixing it.”

“Was it broken?”

“There are two pieces missing. I’m having them put back in it.”

An unaccountable chill passed through his body. She could have seen a jeweler by herself, at any time. One-handed, he worked the mooring line free, then coiled it onto a cleat. “Why can’t it wait?”

She gestured to the dock and moved to the steering wheel. “Give us a push, will you?”

Ian reached over the edge of the boat and gave the piling a shove. The boat drifted away from the dock.

Sara keyed the engine. It rumbled to life, idling in the water. She waited until Ian sat down to ease away from shore, then took her own seat. “My father gave me the necklace. It’s important to me.”

True, he was sure, but not the whole truth. Sara stared forward along their course, spine rigid, mute as a statue. He rubbed his shoulder. It still prickled, more a discomfort now than actual pain. “I’ll bet. That’s why we’re rushing off to Mainland.”

She answered only by opening the throttle. The boat shot forward. Ian sighed and held on for the ride.

****

The Mainland telephone directory listed four jewelers in their vicinity. The first was closed. The next two refused to do the work in less than a week. The fourth shop didn’t look promising, either.

Ian mistrusted the appearance of the people passing back and forth along the street in front of the shop. Most of them streamed out of a sad-looking pub two doors down. He didn’t want to speculate on the nature of the other buildings mashed together cheek by jowl on either side of the jeweler. “I’m guessing this part of town isn’t in the tour books.”

The grimy shop window bore a sign that read Buy, Sell, Repair in faded red script. Its door hung open as if waiting for them. Sara headed across the street with a decisive gait. He shook his head and followed.

Inside, the shop didn’t improve upon first impressions. They rounded a short counter just inside the doorway. Clutter of every sort swarmed along the shelves and cases. A radio stuffed between stacks of old books droned out a staticky racing broadcast.

The weedy, grizzled man behind the counter glanced up when they entered, then went back to puffing on his cigarette over the newspaper. Ian saw a few gruesome knives in the cases and speculated at their previous use. He bent close to Sara’s ear and whispered, “If this is a jeweler’s, I’m the king of England.”

Sara turned her back on the shopkeeper and murmured, “Just follow my lead, okay?”

She turned around again, and Ian wondered why she didn’t move forward. She stood still a moment, just looking at the shop’s proprietor. He was about to ask why she waited, but she walked to the counter, withdrew a leather billfold from her pocket, then slapped it down.

The man snapped to attention and dropped the stub of his cigarette on the paper. It began to singe a hole in the sports page. He patted at it with frantic motions, gave up, then doused it with the half pint of beer sitting beside the cash register. “Whassis?” he blustered, sopping up the mess with a dirty handkerchief plucked from his belt.

“This should be sufficient to pay off your substantial gambling debts, plus a little more to renew your good standing at the pub, Mister MacRae.”

The man’s bloodshot eyes narrowed at her. “Why?” he shot back, which Ian took to mean Why would you want to help me?

Ian would have liked to know that and more, himself. How the hell did she know the shopkeeper had gambling debts?

“Let’s just say I know your creditors, and I’d hate to see them ruin your good looks. Do you want it, or not?” she asked.

Ian watched the man’s gaze shift from the billfold to the gap in the counter, and then to the shop door. He slid into the gap and blocked it with a casual air. When the man gave him a dirty look, Ian answered it with a philosophical tilt of his head.

MacRae turned his sneer back on Sara. “What do you want out o’ me?”

Sara set her locket on the counter, followed by another, golden one. She reached into her pocket once more, then set the last item down. Her hair swung forward so that Ian couldn’t see her eyes. She took her hand away. The stone necklace rested on the stained wood. “I want you to fix this.”

MacRae peered at the amulet as if he expected it to jump up and bite him. “What kind o’ trinket you got there?”

She showed her teeth. “A birthday present.”

The man grunted and scooped up the lockets.

“I want you to melt those down into oval beads,” she said. “One goes in one side of this necklace, and one in the other. You give me my present back in one piece, and”—she picked up the billfold and stuffed it back in her pocket—“I give you your pretty face.”

She spoke pleasantly enough, but the underlying menace in her tone made Ian’s skin crawl. He hadn’t thought her capable. He hadn’t wanted to think so.

Of course she was capable. He itched with the desire to be anywhere else. Away from this insanity.

Away from her.

The shop owner divided a guarded look between Sara and Ian. “Who are you people?”

She held out her hand for the lockets. “If you’re not interested—”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Good.” She beamed. “We’ll wait in the pub, then, shall we?”

They entered the Rampant Lion to the roaring din of arm-wrestling customers at one end of the bar. Smoke lay thick on the air, mingling with the pungent odor of unwashed bodies. Ian bought two cups of coffee and set them on the table at the back of the pub, well away from the impromptu test of manhood. He sat down across from Sara. “What did you do to that guy in the pawn shop?”

“What makes you think I did something to him?”

“I’ve never seen a guy cave under pressure that fast, is what.”

She studied him. “I thought you didn’t want to know anything about me.”

He took a swallow of his coffee. The stuff stung his tongue like battery acid. Watching Sara, he set the cup carefully down. He already knew more about her than he should have. Some things, more than others. He closed his eyes, and her naked figure haunted him once more.

They passed an uncomfortable hour looking over everything in the pub but each other. They ordered another pair of drinks and a small meal. The arm-wrestlers declared a champion, a brawny mountain of a man who ordered a pitcher of beer to celebrate his own victory.

At last, Sara gave a soft sigh that he probably wasn’t meant to hear. “I’m sorry if I—”

He banged his mug down on the table harder than he intended. “Don’t do that.”

Lines appeared between her brows. “You aren’t even going to let me apologize?”

“What for?” He hunched his good shoulder.

“For making you change your post.”

“You didn’t make me change anything,” he said. “That was my doing.”

“Well, then, for delaying your departure,” she snapped.

Something in her tone made him look closer at her. She touched a finger to an old beer stain on the table’s grainy surface, avoiding his gaze. Sitting in the middle of a rowdy pub, with shouting people on her left and right, she looked desperately lonely.

He spoke without meaning to. “I like you, Sara.”

Her gaze flashed up in obvious surprise.

He glanced away. The admission surprised him, too. And did a few other things he didn’t want to think about. “I can’t be whatever it is you’re looking for,” he added gruffly. “I’m not that guy.”

“What makes you think I’m looking for something in you? I’m here for an excavation. That’s it. If you want to leave— No, wait. You are leaving.”

He backed away from the remark the same way he would from an unpredictable creature. “Why don’t we go see if that necklace is ready? I’ll pay our tab.”

“I’ve got it. Just go check on the necklace.”

He opened his mouth to snap a response, but thought better of it. Glad for the excuse to get away from her for a moment, he left the pub and went back to the pawn shop. He wished it didn’t feel so much like a retreat.

The radio had been turned off. The shopkeeper wasn’t at the counter, but Ian heard shuffling noises from the now-open doorway behind it. “Hello?”

MacRae swaggered out with a dirty handkerchief in one hand and a set of keys in the other. When he saw Ian, his eyes went wide. He covered it fast and looked around, presumably for Sara.

Ian didn’t like the relief on MacRae’s face one bit. Even from this distance, he could smell beer, and he wondered just how many the man had tossed back. “Is the necklace ready?”

“Oh, it’s ready. Not for you, though.”

“I know. She’s coming with your money.”

The man tossed the handkerchief down. He reached into his back pocket and produced a gun.

Ian froze.

MacRae gave him an unpleasant leer. “Not for her, either. I’m sure that trinket’s worth a bit more’n she’s paying me. So you’ll be leavin’ without it, I think. I know antiques when I see them.” He twitched the barrel of his pistol toward the doorway and advanced around the shop counter. “You snobby rich kids think you’re gonna come in here and threaten me, you got a nasty surprise coming.”

“Whoa. Jesus. Hold on a second here, mister.” Ian held up his good hand and backed up a step.

“Out with you. This gun’s loaded, ’case you were wondering, and I’ve got no problem usin’ it.”

Ian heard a low growl. He looked behind him with a quickening pulse.

A wolf rounded the corner of the counter near the door, ears flattened and teeth bared in the shop owner’s direction.

MacRae’s eyes bulged. The gun faltered in his hand. “What the hell you doing, bringin’ animals in my shop? Get that thing out o’ here!” He raised his gun again.

The wolf vaulted forward with a snarl and plowed the man over. They barreled into a table, spewing books and stereo equipment that crashed to the floor. Ian heard the shopkeeper scream, but didn’t stop to think. He raced through the gap in the counter into the back room.

Another door stood at the rear of the tiny room. Through its small, filmy window, he saw an alley stretching away. The stone pendant lay on a messy workbench. Ian snatched it up and jammed it into his pocket. He jumped back into the shop doorway, hearing growls and human cries. “Come on! There’s a way out!”

The wolf sprang through the gap in the counter, and they ran for the back door. Ian shoved it open and bolted outside. The wolf’s breath churned behind him as it followed.

Just before they reached the corner of the alley, a gunshot blasted behind him. He ducked instinctively and heard a yip. Ian looked back, but the wolf kept coming. They raced around the corner together and flew down another long series of alleys until he thought they’d escaped their assailant.

He skidded to a stop behind a run-down hotel, clammy with sweat. F*ck! What the hell just happened? He glanced down at himself, shaking with shock. No blood, no bullet holes, holy crap what had he gotten into?

The wolf galloped into the alley, then its forelegs buckled. It somersaulted head over tail and lay still in the dirt.

For a second, Ian bent double, gasping, unable to trust his senses. When the wolf didn’t move, he stumbled toward it.

And then he stopped, because the creature’s outline began to glow. Its shape blurred, changed somehow. He couldn’t be sure what he was seeing. The animal shape stretched, distorted, resolved itself into a prone woman, and then solidified.

Sara. Without a shadow of a doubt this time. His world flipped over, and he felt sick.

She clutched her upper arm with the opposite hand, her eyes shut. “Did we lose him?” she panted.

Ian staggered backward, heaving for breath that wouldn’t come.

She opened her eyes. They faded to hazel, glassy with pain. Even though he’d seen it happen, he wanted to disbelieve it. His skin prickled. The hairs on his arms stood on end.

She labored into a sitting position, then withdrew her bloodstained fingers from her arm. He heard footsteps shuffling down the alley behind them.

Whatever had just happened, an explanation would have to wait. “Come on, you’ve got to get up,” he said. “How bad are you hurt?”

“It’s a scratch. He missed...mostly.” When Ian reached reluctantly for her hand, she pulled it away. “I can get up by myself.”

He hated to admit it, but relief washed through him at her refusal.

She lumbered onto her feet, and they started running again. They emerged from the alley into the street out front, still breathless. She slipped into the crowd and he jogged alongside her.

Sara took off her jacket to examine the bullet wound. She threw the coat under her arm, then clapped her hand over the wound again to staunch the bleeding. “Tell me you got the necklace back.”

“Yeah. Want to tell me why we’re getting shot at for your birthday present?”

“You ask a lot of questions for someone who wants nothing to do with this.”

Fury exploded through him. “I think I have a right to know, Sara!” He scanned the crowd to be sure they weren’t being followed, then stopped walking.

She went a few steps farther, hesitated, and then came back.

Pedestrians and cars alike rushed up and down the street, minding their own business. Ian reached into his pocket and held up the necklace, lowering his voice to a hostile whisper. “If I’m going to be shot at, I should damn well know what you are, and what this is. I’m not playing games with my life, and you aren’t, either.” When she reached for the necklace, he jerked it out of her reach, and stuffed it back in his pocket with a stony look.

She sighed, and the fight went out of her eyes. “Not here, and not now. I’ll tell you”—she winced and gripped her upper arm once more—“anything you want to know. Later.”

“You had better,” he said, and marched away without waiting for her.

****

Sara threw her coat over her shoulder to hide the blood while they took a taxi back to the pier. Ian sat rigid in the back seat, as far from her as he could get without wedging himself against the door. They didn’t speak to one another at all.

Once they boarded the motorboat, she dropped her bloodstained coat and started the engine. Ian sat in the other seat—still looking like he’d have preferred a few extra miles between them—and they sped away from Mainland.

A good way past Unst, he said something she didn’t catch over the noise of wind and motor. She lowered the throttle just enough to shout, “What?”

“Cut the motor!”

She glanced around. They were still in open water. “Why?”

“Do it!”

Gritting her teeth, she did so, then lobbed the anchor over the edge of the boat. The craft bobbed in the waves. Her ears rang with the sudden absence of noise.

Then she spied the streaks of blood oozing from the gash in her shoulder. She put a hand to the wound and hissed. “I thought I stopped it.”

“Yeah, well... No, you didn’t. Don’t you have a first-aid kit on this boat?”

“The guys must have taken it with them down to the dig,” she said.

Ian muttered something she was grateful not to hear, then removed his sling and shucked off his T-shirt. Using his teeth and good hand, he tore a couple of strips off the bottom.

She noticed him using the hand of his injured arm also. Not well, but using it. He was healing really fast. Strange.

“Come here,” he said.

She didn’t. His naked torso was every bit as broad and well-defined as it had looked under the thermal shirt when she reset his shoulder. Fine hair dusted his chest. She struggled not to stare and lost.

He held up the pieces of torn shirt. “Do you want to keep bleeding?”

Gull cries drifted overhead in the cool air. She shook out of her daze and leaned toward him, presenting her arm.

He knelt on the floor of the boat beside her chair. He laid a strip of cloth over the wound and wrapped it with fast, economical motions, as though he didn’t want to touch her any more than necessary. She couldn’t blame him. This morning when he woke, she doubted gunfire had been on his agenda.

She started to apologize, but he had finished and sat back in his seat. “That should hold it for a while.” His gaze found hers. “I want some answers.”

It was work to hold that stare. She tried glancing away, but the only alternative was his body. She snapped her attention back to his face. “Aren’t you going to freeze out here like that?”

He reached behind the seats for her coat and held it up with a question in his eyes. She shrugged, and he draped it over his shoulders. “I’m all ears.”

Ah. Therein lay the reason for this mid-ocean pause. “Out here where you think I can’t get away from you.”

“Can you?”

“Yes.”

Ian reached into his pocket and withdrew the amulet. With a hard look at her, he dangled it from his fist over the edge of the boat. “Can you now?”

She twitched, wanting to lunge for the necklace, but stayed seated by sheer force of will. “What makes you think I wouldn’t throw you overboard?” she said in a rush.

His eyes burned with a look that infuriated her even as it made her heart beat faster. “Why would you have caught me at the cliff instead of letting me fall, if you wanted to get rid of me?”

She sucked in a long breath. Hearing him speak of her abilities aloud brought it home:

Someone knew. There could be no more hiding. As much as that realization terrified her, a sense of relief flooded her body, so strong that it made her want to cry.

Someone knew.

He studied her, hard-eyed, suspicion traced in every line of his posture as if he were watching a venomous snake for the moment of attack. She bit her lip, just managing to stop a flood of tears. She’d be damned if she let him see her crumble.

“What—exactly—are you?” he demanded.

Alarm bells clanged at the hostility in his voice. She had to force her voice past them. “You’ve seen me shapeshift. I can read minds sometimes.”

“I’ve got time for the long version.” He put the necklace back into his pocket. The shuttered look on his face raised panicky flutters in her belly.

She drew a long breath. “Telekinesis. I caught you with telekinesis.”

“How did you get telekinesis?”

“It’s not like they hand it out in stores! It just happened one day. I didn’t know what it was, and I was too scared to tell my parents. I was afraid of it for a long time.”

“And now you’re not.”

His flat, blunt words stabbed at her heart. He might as well have slapped her down into a seat in an interrogation room. They traded stares. “Yeah. Now I’m not.”

“When did your father die? How did he die?”

Her thoughts flew to the amulet in Ian’s pocket. “What has any of this got to do with my father?”

“Maybe nothing. Could be more. This stuff might be genetic.”

Icy dread crawled across her skin. This time, she did hug herself. “I’m done talking to you.”

Quick as lightning, he reached forward and snatched the boat keys from the ignition. “This necklace has to be important if you’re willing to risk being shot to fix it, Sara. That’s not even going there about you risking me being shot at. You’re not getting it back until you talk.”

She felt naked. Worse than she had at the inlet. Then, she’d seen desire in his eyes.

Now, she saw only hatred. “This isn’t about me,” she said, startled. “It’s about you.”

“Never mind me,” he snapped.

“What is it?” she asked. “What happened to you?”

“How did your father die?”

Pain and betrayal surged anew through every cell in her body, and that little girl from twenty years ago gave a silent wail of outrage. “He. Was. Murdered.”