Spell of the Highlander

  It occurred to her as she stood there, staring at the thing in the mirror that couldn’t possibly be in the mirror, in a room where a recent attempt on her life had been made—said room’s previous occupant having been murdered recently himself—that events of the past few days certainly qualified as bad, even by conservative standards.

  She started to giggle.

  She couldn’t help it.

  The sex-god’s dark eyes narrowed and he scowled. “‘Tis no laughing matter. Get in here and close that door. Now. There is much of which we must speak and time is of the veriest essence.”

  She giggled harder, one hand to her mouth, the other clutching the doorjamb. Time is of the veriest essence. Who talked like that?

  “For the love of Christ, wench, summon me out,” he said, sounding exasperated. “Someone needs to shake you.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” she managed between giggles. Giggles that were starting to sound just a tiny bit hysterical. “And I am not a wench,” she informed him loftily. And giggled.

  He growled softly. “Woman, you summoned me out the other eve and I did you no harm. Will you not trust me again?”

  She snickered. “I thought I was sound asleep and dreaming the other night. It had nothing to do with trust.”

  “I killed the man who was trying to kill you. Is that not reason enough to trust me?”

  She stopped laughing. There it was. He was the one who’d snapped the blond man’s neck and left him lying dead on the commons. Though a part of her brain knew it had to have been him—whether such events had transpired in a delusional world or The Real One—his remark drew her gaze to his hands. Big hands. Neck-snapping hands.

  After a moment’s hesitation, she stepped warily into the office. Another pause, then she slowly closed the door behind her.

  The giggles were gone. A thousand questions were not.

  Jamming her hands into the front pockets of her jeans, she stared at the mirror.

  She closed her eyes. Squeezed them shut hard. Opened them. Tried it twice more for good measure.

  He was still there. Oh, shit.

  “I could have told you that wouldn’t work,” he said dryly.

  “Am I crazy?” she whispered.

  “Nay, you’re not daft. I am here. This is indeed happening. And if you wish to survive, you must credit what I tell you.”

  “People can’t be inside mirrors. It’s not possible.”

  “Tell that to the mirror.” He thumped his fists against the inside of the glass for emphasis.

  “Funny. But not convincing.” Oh, that was weird, seeing him pound on the mirror from the inside!

  “You must resolve your own mind on the matter. Best do so before another comes to kill you.”

  His blasé response argued his case to her. Said he knew he was real, and if she was too dense to figure it out, it wasn’t his problem. Surely a delusion would endeavor to self-persist, wouldn’t it?

  But how could he be real?

  She had no precedent for dealing with the inexplicable. Fact-finding. All I can do is explore what’s happening, and reserve judgment until I know more.

  Toward that end, shedding light on things, she reached for the wall switch and flipped on the overhead.

  And got her first truly good look at him.

  Crimeny, she thought, eyes widening as if to drink in even more of him. The two prior times she’d caught glimpses of him, they’d been briefly snatched and the room had been heavily shadowed. She’d absorbed only a general impression of him: a big, dark, intensely sexual man.

  She’d not seen the details.

  And what details they were!

  Stunned, she looked down. Up. Down. Up again. Slowly.

  “Take your time, lass,” he murmured, so softly she scarcely heard him. His next comment was deliberately beyond her audible range, a silky “I plan to with you.”

  He was tall, stuffing the mirror from top to bottom of frame. Powerfully built, with wide shoulders and rippling muscles, he wore a fabric of crimson and black around his waist—an honest-to-God kilt, if she wasn’t mistaken—glittering metallic wrist cuffs, and black leather boots.

  No shirt. Wicked-looking black-and-crimson tattooed runes covered the left side of his sculpted chest, from the bottom of his rib cage, up over a nipple, across his shoulder, and to the edge of his jaw. Each powerful biceps was also encircled by a band of tattooed crimson-and-black runes. A thick, silky trail of dark hair began just above the navel on his ripped abs, slid down into the plaid.

  Oh, God, was it tenting? Was that a bulge lifting the tartan?

  Her gaze got stuck there for an awkward moment. Her eyes widened even further. Sucking in a shallow breath, she jerked her gaze away. A flush heated her cheeks.

  She’d just ogled his penis.

  Stood there, blatantly eyeing it. Long enough that he had to have noticed. Something was just not right with her. Her hormones had somehow gotten seriously out of whack. She was an artifact-ogler, not a penis-ogler.

  She forced her gaze up to his face. It was as sinfully gorgeous as the rest of him. He had the chiseled, proud features of an ancient Celt warrior: strong jaw and cheekbones, a straight, aristocratic nose, flaring arrogantly at the nostrils, and a mouth so sexy and kissable that her own lips instinctively puckered, then parted, just looking at it, as if sampling a kiss. She wet them, feeling strangely breathless. Dark shadow stubbled his sculpted jaw, making his firm pink lips seem even more sexual against all that rough masculinity.

  His hair wasn’t black as she’d thought in the dark, but a rich gleaming mahogany shot with shimmering strands of gold and copper. Half of it was caught in dozens of narrow braids, banded at the ends with glittering metallic beadwork. His eyes were burnt-whisky, his skin tawny-velvet.

  He dripped primeval, elemental power, looked as much a relic as the mirror itself, a throwback to a time when men had been men and women had Done As They Were Told.

  Her eyes narrowed. She couldn’t stand men like that. Chauvinistic, domineering men who thought they could order women around.

  Too bad her body didn’t seem to be of the same mind. Too bad her body seemed downright intrigued by the various orders possible, like: Take off your clothes, woman; let me get the taste of you on the back of my tongue . . .

  It didn’t help that he looked like the kind of man who wouldn’t take “no” for an answer, who would tolerate zero inhibitions on a woman’s part; the kind of man that, once he got a woman in bed, didn’t let her out again until he’d done everything there was to do to her, had fucked her so thoroughly that she could barely walk.

  “Summon me out, woman,” came the tight, low command laced by that sexy Scots burr. His voice was as incredible as his appearance. Deep and rich as hot, dark buttered rum, it slid down into her belly, pooling there in a slow burn.

  “No,” she said faintly. No way she was letting all that . . . whatever it was, too much testosterone by far . . . out again.

  “Then I bid you, woman, cease looking at me like that.”

  “Like what?” she bristled.

  “Like you wish to be using your tongue on me again. And on more than my back.” He caught his lower lip between his teeth and flashed her a devilish smile.

  “I didn’t mean to lick you,” she snapped defensively. “I told you, I thought you were a dream.”

  “Any dream you wish, woman. You need but summon me out.” His gaze raked over her, burning hot, lingering at her breasts and thighs.

  Heat suffused her skin where his gaze skimmed. “Not. Going. To. Happen.”

  He shrugged, powerful shoulders bunching and rippling. “Have it your way, wench. Die needlessly. Doona say I didn’t offer my aid.”

  He turned in the mirror then. The silver encasing him seemed to ripple, the black stain around the edges flowed and ebbed as if the surface were suddenly liquid, then she was beholding a mere looking glass.

  “Hey, wait!” she cried, panicking. “Get back here!” She needed answers
. She needed to know what was going on. What the mirror was; how any of this was even happening; who was trying to kill her; would there really be more assassins sent after her?

  “Why?” His deep butter-rum voice resonated from somewhere within the glass.

  “Because I need to know what’s going on!”

  “Naught in this world is free, woman.”

  “What are you saying?” she asked the smooth silver surface. She was conversing with a mirror. Alice in Wonderland had nothing on her.

  “‘Tis plain enough, isn’t it? I have something you need. You have something I want.”

  She went absolutely still. Her breath caught in the back of her throat and her heart began to hammer. She moistened suddenly parched lips. “Wh-what?”

  “You need my protection. You need me to keep you alive. I ken what’s going on, who’s coming after you, and how to stop them.”

  “And what do you want in return?” she asked warily.

  “Och, myriad things, lass. But we’ll keep it simple and start with freedom.”

  She shook her head. “Uh-uh. No way. I don’t know the first—”

  “You know all you need to know,” he cut her off flatly. “You know you’ll die without me. Think not to constrain me. I’ve been stuck in this bloody frigging mirror far too long for civility. This glass is the only prison I’ll suffer. I’ll no’ be allowin’ ye to be buildin’ another for me, woman.”

  His brogue thickening, he spat the final words. She swallowed. Audibly. Her mouth had gone so dry that she heard tiny things crunch as her Adam’s apple rose and fell. She cleared her throat.

  Suddenly there he was in the mirror again, looking at her, silver rippling like diamond-spiked water around him.

  That sexy, arrogant mouth curved in a smile. If he’d meant it to be reassuring, she thought, shivering, he’d missed the mark by a mile. It was a smile full of leashed power and chained heat. Barely leashed. Barely chained.

  It occurred to her then that, had she gotten a good look at him the other night, she would probably never have released him, whether she’d believed herself to be dreaming or not. The killer she’d thought so terrifying was no match for this man. They weren’t even remotely in the same league. Breaking the blond man’s neck had probably been as easy for him as absently swatting a fly. Whatever he was, he had something more. Something normal people just didn’t have.

  She fumbled behind her for the doorknob.

  “Let me out,” he said, low and intense. “Say the words. I will be your shield. I will stand between you and all others. ’Tis what you need and you ken it. Doona be a fool, woman.”

  Shaking her head, she turned the knob.

  “Will it be nay, then? Prefer you to die? Over me? Just what is it you fear I might do to you that would be so terrible?”

  The way his heated gaze was lingering on certain parts of her made quite clear some of the things he was thinking about doing to her.

  Which of course made her think about them, too, in great detail. And there she was, wet-pantied again. What on earth was wrong with her? Had her ovaries somehow gotten stuck in a permanent ovulation cycle? Were her eggs firing indiscriminately and constantly—and in some perverse, inversely proportionate fashion—with greater enthusiasm the worse the man seemed for her?

  Yanking open the door, she backed out into the hall. “I need to think,” she muttered.

  “Think fast, Jessica. You’ve not much time.”

  “Great, just great. Every-freaking-body knows my name.” With a fierce little scowl, she slammed the door so hard the frame shuddered.

  “The next one he sends after you may arrive any moment,” came his deep burr through the door, “and will be more sophisticated than the last. Mayhap it will be a woman. Tell me, lass, will you even see death coming?”

  Jessi gave the door an angry little kick.

  “Doona venture far. You’re going to need me.”

  She gritted something rude at the door that he shouldn’t have been able to hear, but he did. It made him laugh out loud and say, “A physical impossibility, woman, or, believe me, most of us ‘asshole men’ would.”

  She rolled her eyes and didn’t bother locking it this time.

  As an afterthought, she plucked off the rest of the police tape, balled it up, and stuffed it in her pocket.

  Maybe she’d get lucky and somebody’d steal the damned thing and get it out of her hair.

  OPTIONS

  1. Go to police. Tell all and request protection.

  2. Get in touch with original delivery company, ship mirror back, hope that fixes everything.

  3. Flee country.

  4. Check self into mental hospital and trust, with lockups and padded walls, they’re safer than regular hospitals.

  Jessi finished the last of her coffee, pushed aside the mug, stared down at her pathetic little list, and sighed.

  She was still feeling shaky in the pit of her stomach, but compiling her list of options had calmed her a bit and forced her to take a realistic look at a completely surreal situation.

  Number four was out: it reeked of casting one’s fate to the wind and, when all was said and done, if she had to be in a car wreck, she’d prefer to be the one driving when it happened—control of one’s own destiny and all that.

  Number one was out. The police would laugh her right out of the station if she tried telling them she knew who’d murdered their John Doe: a tall, dark, and broody sex-god who was after his freedom, who just happened to be inside a ten-thousand-year-old-plus mirror, who might also be a ruthless criminal that had been . . . er, paranormally interred inside said mirror for the . . . er, safety of the world.

  Uh-huh. Wow. Even she thought she was nuts with that one.

  That left numbers two and three as potential solutions. The way she figured it, fleeing the country and staying out of it forever—or at least until she was reasonably certain she’d been forgotten about—would cost a whole lot more than trying to ship the thing back, even with the exorbitant price of insurance figured in, and Jessi had to believe that if she just returned the relic, whoever was after it would leave her alone.

  After all, what was she going to do? Talk about it, for heaven’s sake? Tell people about the impossible artifact once it was gone? Totally discredit herself and ruin any chance she might one day have of a promising future in the field of archaeology?

  As if.

  Surely she could persuade them of that, whoever they were. Anyone with half a brain would be able to see that she’d never, in an Ice Age, talk.

  She glanced around the university café; the cushioned wood booths were sparsely populated at this time of night, and no one was sitting near enough to eavesdrop. Pulling out her cell phone, she flipped it open, dialed Info, and got the number for Allied Certified Deliveries, the name she’d seen emblazoned on the side of the delivery truck.

  At 8:55 P.M., she didn’t expect an answer, so when she got one, she sputtered for a moment before managing to convey the purpose of her call: that she’d gotten a package she wanted to return, but she’d not been given a copy of the bill of lading, so she didn’t know where to ship it back to.

  Making no effort to mask her irritation, the woman on the other end informed her that the office was closed for the day, and she’d only answered because she’d been talking to her husband when their call had been dropped, and she thought it was him calling her back. “Try again tomorrow,” she said impatiently.

  “Wait! Please don’t hang up,” Jessi exclaimed, panicking. “Tomorrow might be too late. I need it picked up first thing in the morning. I’ve got to return this thing fast.”

  Silence.

  “It was really expensive to ship,” Jessi shot into the silence, hoping money would keep the woman on the line and motivate her to be helpful. “Probably one of the more expensive deliveries you guys have done. It came from overseas and required special handling.”

  “You going to pay to reship, or you trying to stick it to the ship
per?” the woman asked suspiciously.

  “I’ll pay,” Jessi said without hesitation. Though she loathed the thought of spending money on something she would end up with nothing to show for, at least she’d be alive to pay it off. She had a downright scary amount of credit on her Visa; it never ceased to amaze her how much rope banks were willing to give college students to hang themselves with.

  “Got an invoice number?”

  “Of course not. I just told you, I don’t have the bill of lading. Your guys forgot to give me a copy.”

  “We never forget to give copies of the BOL,” the woman bristled. “You must have misplaced it.”

  Jessi sighed. “Okay, fine, I misplaced it. Regardless, I don’t have it.”

  “Ma’am, we do hundreds of deliveries a week. Without an invoice number, I have no way of knowing what delivery you’re talking about.”

  “Well, you can look it up by last name, can’t you?”

  “The computers are down for the night. They go off-line at eight. You’ll have to call back tomorrow.”

  “It was an unusual delivery,” Jessi pushed. “You might remember it. It was a late-night drop. A recent one. I can describe the guys who brought it.” Swiftly, she detailed the pair.

  There was another long silence.

  Then, “Ma’am, those men were murdered over the weekend. Garroted, just like that professor man that’s been all over the news. Police won’t leave us alone.” A bitter note entered her voice. “They been acting like my husband’s company had something to do with it, like we got shady dealings going on or something.” A pause, then, “What did you say your name was again?”

  Feeling like she’d just been kicked in the stomach, Jessi hung up.

  She didn’t go straight to him.

  She refused to do that.

  The thought of such a swift show of defeat was too chafing.

  The past few days had been a study in humility for her. Not a single thing had gone according to anything remotely resembling The Jessi St. James Plan For A Good Life, and she had the bad feeling nothing was going to for quite a while.

  So she stubbornly toughed it out in the university café until half past midnight, sipping still more coffee that her frazzled nerves didn’t need, savoring what she suspected might be her last moments of near-normalcy for a long time, before caving in to the inevitable.