Spell of the Highlander Page 3

  She’d made peace with that weird little trick of the eye she’d suffered on Friday—a product of nothing more than low light and exhaustion. But she was dying to know if the mirror was a genuine relic. How had the professor come across it? Was its origin provable? Had any valid dating been done? What were those symbols, anyway?

  Jessi had a sticky memory—a useful ability in her field—and several of the symbols had gotten embedded in it from her single, cursory inspection. She’d been subconsciously pondering them since, wondering why they seemed so familiar, yet somehow . . . wrong. Trying to pinpoint where she’d seen something similar before. Her specialty was the archaeology of Europe from the Paleolithic to the “Celtic” Iron Age. Though the mirror was clearly of recent manufacture, she was titillated by the possibility that the frame might actually date to somewhere in the late Iron Age.

  She knew herself well enough to know that if she took another look at the relic tonight, curiosity would get the best of her and the next thing, she’d be digging through the professor’s reference books trying to determine what the symbols were and doing her best to guesstimate a date. Been there, done that, she thought wryly. Blew an entire night without even realizing it, poring over one artifact or another, especially on those rare and glorious occasions the university was briefly entrusted with a collector’s piece for study or verification. She always paid for it double the next day. With that infernal stack of papers waiting for her, she couldn’t afford to waste any time. In and out, swift and efficient, was her plan and she was sticking to it.

  She was just reaching up to pluck the two thick volumes from the shelf when she heard the soft snick of the door closing behind her.

  She stiffened, froze midreach.

  Then snorted and pulled the first book from the shelf. A draft. Nothing more. “No way. I am not getting all freaked out on campus again tonight. That blasted mirror is just a mirror,” she told the bookcase firmly.

  “Actually, it’s not,” a smooth, faintly accented voice murmured behind her. “It’s far more than a mere mirror. Who else knows it’s here?”

  Jessi gasped and turned around so fast that the book went flying from her hand, hit the wall with a solid whump, and slid to the floor. She winced. The professor was going to kill her if she’d spindled the spine; he was funny about his books, especially his hardbacks. Across the office, in the dim light afforded by the computer, she could just make out the silhouette of a man leaning back against the door, arms folded across his chest.

  “Wh-what—wh-who—” she stammered.

  Light flooded the room.

  “I startled you,” the man said softly, dropping his hand from the wall switch.

  Later Jessi would realize he’d merely noted a fact, not apologized.

  She blinked against the abrupt increase in wattage, taking him in. His arms were crossed again; he leaned casually against the door. Tall and well built, he was extremely attractive. Longish blond hair was pulled back from a clean-shaven, classic face. He wore a dark, expensive tailored suit, a crisp shirt, a tasteful tie. His accent held distinct Slavic undertones, perhaps Russian, she mused. A young professor visiting from abroad? A speaker engaged by the university? “I didn’t realize anyone else was still in this wing,” she said. “Are you looking for Professor Keene?”

  “The professor and I have already had our time together this evening,” he replied with the ghost of a smile.

  An odd way of phrasing things; his comment passed through her mind absently, as she was still hung up on his opening gambit. She pounced on it, pursuing it eagerly: “What did you mean, ‘it’s far more than a mere mirror’? What do you know about it? Where is it from? Are you here to authenticate it? Or has it already been? What are the symbols? Do you know?”

  He stepped away from the door, moved deeper into the room. “I understand it was delivered this past Friday. Has anyone else seen it?”

  Jessi thought a moment, shook her head. “I don’t think so. The deliverymen opened it up, but other than that, just me. Why?”

  He glanced around the office. “There’s been no cleaning crew in since then? No other persons such as yourself with a key?”

  Jessi frowned, perplexed by the direction of his questions. And getting irked that he wasn’t answering any of hers. “No. The cleaners come on Wednesdays and the only reason I have a key is because I’m Professor Keene’s assistant.”

  “I see.” He eased forward another step.

  And that was when Jessi felt it.

  Menace. Rolling off him. She’d not picked up on it right away, disarmed by his good looks, curious about the artifact, peripherally distracted by her own brooding. But it was there—a wolf beneath the sheep’s clothing. For all his seeming civility, there was something cold and dangerous beneath that elegant suit. And it was focused on her.

  Why? It didn’t make any sense!

  And suddenly the tiny niggling detail that had eluded her when she’d turned the key in the door swam up from the murky waters of her subconscious: It had already been unlocked! He must have been inside the office, concealing himself behind the door when she’d pushed it open!

  Keep him talking, she thought, fighting panic. She drew a careful, deep breath. Adrenaline was kicking in, upping her heart rate, making her hands and legs feel shaky. She concentrated on betraying no sign of her belated recognition of danger. Surprise might be the only advantage she had. Somewhere in the office was something she could use as a weapon, something more threatening than a book. She just had to get her hands on it before he figured out she was on to him. She snatched a surreptitious glance to her right.

  Yes! Just as she’d thought, there lay one of the professor’s replica blades on a nearby curio table. Though a reproduction piece, fashioned of steel not gem-encrusted gold, it was every bit as lethal as the real thing.

  “So how old is the mirror, anyway?” she asked, donning her best wide-eyed, I’m-not-the-brightest-bulb-in-the-box look.

  He moved again. Smooth, like a well-muscled animal. A few more steps and he’d be past the desk. She eased right a tad.

  It seemed he was pondering whether or not to answer her for a moment, then he shrugged. “You would probably place it in the Old Stone Age.”

  Jessi sucked in a breath and for just a moment, the briefest of instants, fear fell by the wayside. The Old Stone Age? Was he kidding?

  Wait—of course he was. He had to be! It was patently impossible. The earliest forms of writing, cuneiform and hieroglyphics, weren’t even in existence until the mid to end of the fourth century B.C.E.! And those etchings on the mirror were some kind of writing.

  “Ha, ha. I’m not that stupid.” Well, today, she ceded dismally, she certainly seemed to be, on just about all fronts, but normally she wasn’t. Normally she suffered only one or two stupid fronts, not this all-encompassing, blanket idiocy. “That would put it at pre-ten-thousand B.C.E.,” she scoffed, as she stole a few more inches. Had he noticed what she was doing? If so, he was giving no indication.

  “Yes, indeed it would. Considerably ‘pre.’ ” He took another step forward.

  She considered screaming but she was nearly certain there was no one else in the south wing this late at night, and suspected it would be wiser to conserve her energy to defend herself with. “Okay, I’ll go with this a minute,” she said, inching, inching. Just a little farther. Keep him talking. Dare she make a leap for it? “You’re claiming the frame is from the Old Stone Age. Right? And the carvings were added later, and the mirror inserted in the last century or so.”

  “No. The entire piece, in sum, Old Stone Age.”

  Her jaw dropped. She snapped her mouth closed, but it fell open again. She searched his face, detected no sign of jest. “Impossible! Symbols aside, that’s a glass mirror!”

  He laughed softly. “Not . . . quite. Nothing about an Unseelie piece is ever . . . quite what it seems.”

  “‘An Unseelie piece’?” she echoed blankly. “I’m not familiar with that classificati
on.” Her fingers curled, she braced herself to dive for the blade, doing a mental five-count . . . four . . . three . . .

  “Not many are. It denotes relics few ever see and live to tell of. Ancient Hallows fashioned by those darkest among the Tuatha Dé Danaan.” He paused the space of a heartbeat. “Don’t worry, Jessica St. James—”

  Oh, God, he knew her name. How did he know her name?

  “—I’ll make it quick. You’ll hardly feel a thing.” His smile was terrifyingly gentle.

  “Holy shit!” She lunged for the dirk at the same moment he lunged for her.

  When one was afraid for one’s life, Jessi observed with almost serene, dreamlike detachment, events had a funny way of slowing down, even though one knew events were really rushing toward one with all the velocity and surety of a high-speed train wreck.

  She noted every detail of his lunge, as if it unfolded in freeze-frames: his legs bent, his body drew in on itself, coiling to spring, one hand dipped into a pocket, withdrew a thin wire with leather-wrapped ends, his eyes went cold, his face hard, she even noticed the whitening around the edges of his nostrils as they flared with a terrifying, incongruous sexual excitement.

  She was aware of her own body in a similar dichotomous fashion. Though her heart thundered and her breath came in fast and furious gasps, her legs felt made of lead, and the few steps she managed seemed to take a lifetime.

  His lips curled mockingly and, in that sharp-edged smile, she saw the sudden stark certainty that even if she managed to arm herself with the small blade, it wouldn’t matter. Death waited in his smile. He’d done this before. Many, many times. And he was good at it. She had no idea how she knew, she just knew.

  As he closed in on her, wrapping the leather-cased ends of the wire around his hands, the silvery glint of the minor, leaning against the bookshelves beyond the table, caught her eye.

  Of course—the mirror!

  She might not be able to best him in a physical struggle, but she just happened to be smack between him and what he wanted!

  And what he wanted was highly breakable.

  She practically fell on top of the curio table, shoved aside the dirk, and closed her hand instead around the heavy pewter base of the lamp next to it. She whirled to face him at dizzying speed, backed up against the mirror, and hefted the lamp like a baseball bat. “Stop right there!”

  He stopped so abruptly that he should have fallen flat on his face, which spoke volumes about how much lethal muscle was under that suit—oh yes, she’d be dead if he got his hands on her.

  “Take one more step and I’ll smash the mirror to smithereens.” She brandished the lamp threateningly.

  Was that the sound of a sharply indrawn breath behind her? Followed by a muttered curse?

  Impossible!

  She dare not turn. Dare not take her eyes off her attacker for even a moment. Dare not give in to the sob of fear that was trying to claw its way up the back of her throat.

  His gaze darted over her shoulder, his eyes flared, then his gaze latched back on her. “No, you won’t. You preserve history. You don’t destroy it. That thing is priceless. And it is as old as I said it was. It is conceivably the single most important relic any archaeologist has ever laid eyes on. It debunks thousands of years of your so-called ‘history.’ Think of the impact it could have on your world.”

  “Mine personally? Gee, like, uh, none, if I’m dead. Back off, mister, if you want it in one piece. And I think you do. I think it’s not worth a thing to you broken.” If he was going to kill her, she had nothing to lose by smashing it into a gazillion silvery little pieces; no matter that her inner historian violently protested such sacrilege. If she was going down, she was taking whatever he wanted with her. If she was going to be dead, by God, he was going to be miserable too.

  A muscle worked in his jaw. His gaze skidded between her and the mirror and back again. He tensed as if to take a step.

  “Don’t do it,” she warned. “I’m serious.” She shifted her grip on the lamp, prepared to swing it into the mirror if he so much as breathed wrong. If nothing else, maybe they’d struggle atop the shards of glass; he’d slip, cut himself, and bleed to death. One never knew.

  “Impasse,” he murmured. “Interesting. You’ve more spirit than I’d thought.”

  “If you are wishing to live, lass,” came the deep, rich purr of a brogue behind her, “best summon me out now.”

  A chill shuddered through her entire body, and the baby-fine hair at the nape of her neck stood up, quivering on end. Just like on Friday, the room felt suddenly . . . wrong. Not quite the size and shape it was supposed to be. As if a door that by all conventions of reality couldn’t possibly be there had suddenly opened, skewing the known dimensions of her world.

  “Shut the hell up,” her assailant clipped, his gaze fixed over her shoulder, “or I’ll smash you myself.”

  Dark, mocking laughter rolled behind her. It made her shiver. “You wouldn’t dare and well you ken it. ’Tis why you’ve not rushed her. Lucan sent you with precise instructions. Bring it back intact, nay? The mere possibility that the mirror might be shattered makes your blood ice. You know what he’d do to you. You’d be begging for death.”

  “Huh-uh, no way,” Jessi whispered, eyes going wide. She could feel the blood draining from her face, knew she’d gone white as snow. “Not believing this.” She took a shaky little breath. “Any of this.”

  Logic insisted there couldn’t possibly be anyone behind her. And certainly not anyone inside a mirror, for heaven’s sake!

  But her gut was of a different opinion.

  Her gut sensed “Man” with a capital “M” behind her, and he was throwing off all the heat of a small, fiery forge at her back. Enough that it made the sides and front of her feel abruptly cold. Made her neck ache with the effort of keeping her gaze fixed firmly on her would-be murderer, and not turning to gape at the looking glass. She could feel him behind her. Something. Someone. Caged power. Caged sexuality. Whatever was behind her was formidable.

  “Doona turn, woman,” he—it—whatever it was—counseled. “Keep your eyes on him and speak after me—”

  “I’d advise against that,” the blond man warned, locking gazes with her. “You’ve no idea what you’d be letting out of that mirror.”

  Jessi took another shallow breath. She could sense the blond man’s tightly leashed fury, knew if he thought, for even a split second, that she might not actually break the mirror, she was dead. She was afraid to so much as blink, afraid he would lunge during that brief moment of vulnerability. And there was something behind her that couldn’t possibly be there, at least not according to any laws of physics she understood. Admittedly, there were many laws of physics she didn’t understand, but she felt confident enough of those she did to protest faintly, “This is crazy.”

  “‘Crazy’ would be letting him out,” the blond man said. “Step away from the mirror. Do as I say and I’ll see to it he doesn’t harm you.”

  “Oh, like I’m believing that. Now you’re my protector?”

  “Summon me out, woman. I am your protector,” came the command at her back.

  “This isn’t happening.” It couldn’t be. None of it. Her mind was incapable of processing it, and the sensation of dreamlike detachment was increasing exponentially. She felt as if she were standing, bewildered, on a stage set, as actors played their parts around her, and if somebody had a playbill with one of those helpful little plot synopsis thingies, she sure hadn’t gotten to see it.

  “He will kill you, lass,” rolled the deep Scots burr behind her, “and you know it. You doona ken the same of me. Sure death or a mayhap death, ’tis a simple choice.”

  “And that’s supposed to be reassuring?” she snapped over her shoulder, to whatever it was that was there that couldn’t really be there.

  The blond man smiled coldly. “Oh, he’ll kill you, and far more brutally than I. Step aside and I’ll let you live. I’ll collect the mirror and leave. I give you my wo
rd.”

  Jessi shook her head from side to side, once. “Leave. Now. And I won’t smash the mirror.”

  “He won’t leave, lass, ’til you’re dead. He cannot. He is bound to serve one who would punish him were he to leave you alive now that you’ve seen the Dark Glass. I’ve no means to convince you to trust me. You must hang your bonnet on faith. Him. Or me. Choose. Now.”

  “He was imprisoned in such a fashion because he is a ruthless killer that couldn’t be contained any other way. He was locked away for the safety of the world. It took the power of formidable Druids—”

  “Woman, choose! Repeat this: Lialth bree che bree, Cian MacKeltar, drachme se-sidh!”

  Jessi echoed the strange words without missing a beat the moment she heard them.

  Because she finally understood what was going on.

  She was right—none of this was happening.

  What was happening was that she’d let herself in Professor Keene’s office and, rather than going to the bookshelf as she’d thought, she’d sat down for a moment on the plush leather Chesterfield sofa to rest her eyes. But she’d ended up getting too horizontal. And she was currently snoozing soundly away, having the most bizarre of dreams.

  And everyone knew nothing mattered in dreams. One always woke up. Always. So why not let the man out of the mirror? Who cared?

  She echoed the odd incantation twice, for good measure. Brilliant golden light flashed, the heat behind her increased markedly, and the room suddenly seemed too small for all that was in it. The sensation of spatial distortion increased almost unbearably.

  The lamp was plucked from her limp grasp and placed elsewhere. Strong hands closed on her waist from behind. Lifted her from the floor and swept her aside. Deposited her behind him, sheltering her with his body.

  She caught scent of him then—God, had she ever smelled such a scent? The female muscles deep in her lower belly clenched. He bore no chemical traces of aftershave or deodorant. Nothing artificial. Just pure man: a blend of sun-warmed leather on skin, a kiss of something spicy like clove, a touch of sweat, and the raw, unspoken promise of sex. If male sexual dominion had a scent, he reeked of it, and it worked on her like the ultimate pheromone, bringing her nipples and groin to intense, painful sexual awareness.