ODIN STONE

By

Marie Morin

© copyright October 2005, Marie Morin

Cover art by Jenny Dixon, © copyright October 2005

ISBN 1-58608-626-x

New Concepts Publishing

Lake Park, GA 31636

www.newconceptspublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

The Odin Stone lies just outside the circle of stones known as the henges that dot the island of England, built so long ago that no one really knows what the original purpose of these monolithic stones were. Of these mystical places, Stonehenge is the most well known.

Legend has it that an oath made on the Odin Stone can never be broken.

Chapter One

The car began its usual dance of death as Anna pulled to a stop beside the guard shack of the gated community. Coughing, spluttering and belching noxious gas from the tale pipe, it idled like an animal in its death throes, the engine shuddering so violently it bounced the entire car up and down hard enough to rattle her teeth together. Slipping the car into park, Anna put a foot on the gas pedal and eased down on it until the engine idled a little more smoothly and ceased threatening to die altogether. As it stopped sputtering and coughing, her fear of being stranded at the gate and having to be pushed out of the way subsided and the cold sweat that had popped from her pours dried in the scorching heat of the late summer’s day in the deep south.

The guard looked Anna over suspiciously after he’d examined her business card.

“Wait here. I’ll need to call Ms. Bridgewater and verify your appointment with her.”

Anna nodded, tamping her irritation. He was new and she hadn’t been to see Liz in a couple of weeks. She checked her gas gauge while she waited. Alarmed when she saw the needle dropping before her eyes, she eased off on the gas pedal, trying to calculate just how much gas she’d put in the car and how many miles she’d driven since. The gas gauge wasn’t very accurate, which was why she always kept a gas can in the trunk with a gallon of gas in it, but if the tank went dry, she wasn’t certain a gallon would get her to a gas station.

The wealthy families that lived in the gated community she was trying to get in to didn’t want anything so low class as a gas station within miles of their mansions for fear they might catch a view of it if they happened to glance out of one of their windows.

“She was expecting you at 3:00 sharp,” the guard said disapprovingly when he passed her card back to her.

“I had car trouble,” Anna retorted sharply, losing her cool when the comment suggested she might have to turn around and drive back to the city without even seeing the woman. “If she’s too busy to see me, she’ll have to make another appointment, but it’ll be at least a month before I can get back out this way.” Or maybe never, she mentally amended because if she didn’t get paid it was going to be tough coming up with gas money for another trip.

The guard looked a little taken aback by her reaction. “She said to come on back to the house.”

“Good.” Snatching her ragged business card from his fingers, Anna stuffed it into her jeans pocket and put the car in gear. She’d been too agitated to realize she still had her foot on the gas, though. The car bucked like a bronco, giving her instant whiplash as it jolted forward with a screech of bald tires and nearly died again when she slammed her foot down on the brake.

Thoroughly rattled by now, Anna shoved the car into neutral, gunned it a couple of times, and then put her foot on the brake before she put the car in gear again and chugged away from the guard shack. “Die on me you piece of shit and I’ll set fire to you right here and walk back,” she muttered under her breath as she fought the car around the first turn and gunned the engine again.

Between the horrendous heat and humidity, and frazzled nerves, she was wringing wet by the time she pulled up to the speaker outside the gates of the Bridgewater mansion and pushed the button. “Anna Lindstrom,” she answered when a female voice with a Hispanic accent responded to her buzz.

The only acknowledgement was a mechanical whirr as the electronic gates began to open slowly inward like a theater curtain going up. Impatient with the delay, Anna studied the gates until they’d opened wide enough to admit the vehicle she laughingly referred to as a car and shot forward, almost taking out a bed of snapdragons beside the curving driveway. The gate that protected the service entrance was already open, she saw with relief when she finally reached the mansion itself and drove past the main entrance. Driving through the wide arch, she parked the car beneath the only shade she could find and dragged in a breath of super heated air, trying to calm her nerves a little before she got out. Grabbing up the bottle of tepid water she’d brought with her, she took a long drag at it and leaned out the open window to pour a small puddle in her palm to cool her heated face a little. It didn’t help much, but the upside was it didn’t take long to dry either and she didn’t feel quite as sticky. Twisting the cap back on the bottle, she set it down on the seat and crawled across to get out of the passenger side.

The driver’s door hadn’t opened in several months. The handle on the passenger door was threatening to give up, too. Pretty soon she was going to have to climb through the window to get into or out of the damned car.

She counted her blessings. She was short and small boned, and thanks to her diet, or lack thereof, looked like someone from a third world country. If it came down to having to climb out a window, it wasn’t going to be that difficult even though the car was a miniature compact that looked like a kiddy car--or more accurately since it looked like it would fall apart in a strong breeze, a clown car from a circus act.

Nan, her favorite foster mother, had always been fond of saying one could find a silver lining to anything if one looked hard enough. Growing up, all being undersized had meant was that any time she took it into her head to try to defend herself, she usually ended up getting the shit kicked out of her.

She was pleased that she’d finally found a silver lining.

She didn’t doubt that she was on camera, but she scarcely gave it a thought as she raked her fingers through her hair and straightened her clothes.

It was amazing the things one could get used to with repetition. Abject poverty had a way of freeing a person from embarrassment over the ‘little’ things.

When she was satisfied that she was as presentable as she was going to get, she headed for the kitchen door and pressed the buzzer. A maid appeared after about five or ten minutes, just long enough to emphasis the fact that she was not important, and for the sun to begin scorching her back and buttocks through her clothes.

She shivered as she stepped into the climate controlled interior of the house. After the heat of the afternoon and being cooped up in her hot car for the long drive out entering the house was like stepping into a freezer. Her skin all over her body puckered and tightened, forming goose bumps on top of goose bumps.

By the time she was shown into the great room, she was clenching her teeth to keep them from chattering together.

A blond woman of indeterminate age wearing a brightly colored lounging jumpsuit awaited her. Curled on an ornate, overstuffed chaise that sat before the long row of French doors that opened onto a wide back patio, her fingers were tapping impatiently on the arm of the chair. “You’re late,” Ms. Bridgewater said chidingly by way of greeting.

“Sorry. I had a little car trouble.”

The woman’s thin, exquisitely maintained brows rose a notch as if in surprise.

She shouldn’t have been. Every time Anna came she was late and it was always because she’d had car trouble.

“Maria, get Ms. Lindstrom something cold to drink. She looks like she’s about to have heat stroke. What would you like?”

“Water, thank you.”

Waving the maid off, Liz Bridgewater sat up in her chaise, drawing her legs up and indicating with a gesture that Anna should take a seat on the couch that sat at an angle to her chaise.

Anna looked at the couch a little doubtfully. Her clothes were still damp and the couch was white. “I’ll just stretch my legs a minute if you don’t mind,” she said after a moment. “I’ve been driving for hours.”

Liz’s eyes narrowed speculatively. “So--you had another appointment?”

Anna glanced at the woman sharply. She might have known the woman would interpret that to mean that she’d been kept waiting for another client. Irritated, Anna decided to ditch the polite lie. “No. But the heat index is about a hundred and ten outside. My air conditioner is on the fritz, and I’m sweaty. I thought you might not like it if I got anything on your couch.”

To her surprise, Liz chuckled. “Sit down. I’m not worried about it. Maria never has enough to do around here. She can clean it if you get anything on it.”

Blushing, Anna sat. The rich were always so incredibly rude. More accurately, she supposed it was that they never seemed to realize they were being totally insensitive.

She pushed the thought aside. Today she was going to get paid and that meant she wasn’t going to have to sleep in the car tonight. That was all that really mattered.

Maria returned with the glass of water and carefully placed a coaster on the coffee table before she set the glass down. Anna’s throat instantly closed as her gaze zeroed in on the tall glass. Reaching for it as soon as the maid moved away, she took a couple of quick gulps. It was icy and brain freeze instantly set in. She set the glass down, resisting the urge to drain it and idly rubbing the pain between her eyes.

“You had some new pieces you wanted me to look at?”

“Just one.”

Anna’s heart dropped to her toes. One. She’d driven all the way out here and she might not even get enough money to pay her damned rent up to date.

With an effort, she pushed the thought from her mind as Liz picked up the case that lay on the table next to her chair and held it out. Jumping up from the couch, Anna moved close enough to take the case the woman held out, then returned to her seat and settled the box on the coffee table in front of her before she sat again. For several moments, she simply stared at the case, feeling tension coil tightly inside of her.

Whatever was in the box must be powerful, she decided. She rarely got this kind of vibe only from being close.

Was it whatever lay in the box? Or was it just that she was still jumpy from the ordeal of getting to Ms. Bridgewater’s and worried now about how she was going to make rent?

She hardly ever felt uneasy about a reading any more, unless the piece had a particularly nasty history.

Scrubbing her clammy palms against her equally damp jeans in a lame attempt to dry them, she unfastened the latch and flipped the top back. The heavy wooden top slammed jarringly against the coffee table, which under other circumstances would have made her cringe. She scarcely even registered the noise or the possible damage.

She could do nothing but stare at the necklace inside, trying to catch her breath.

She had never seen anything quite like it. After a few stunned moments, she collected herself and dragged her gaze from the gleaming gold and jewel encrusted piece and looked at Liz Bridgewater.

Liz was sitting forward eagerly on the chaise now, her eyes almost feverish with excitement. “It’s authentic, isn’t it?”

Anna studied the older woman, realizing belatedly that she had noticed far more tension in Liz from the moment she’d come in than ever before. She’d just thought it was annoyance about her being late. Apparently, she’d misread the reason behind Liz’s tension.

It occurred to her then that if Liz hadn’t been so anxious, she most likely would have refused to honor the appointment on the grounds that Anna had been a good thirty minutes late in arriving.

When she saw a flicker of impatience entered the woman’s eyes, she looked down at the necklace again, wondering at her reluctance to touch it. From out of no where, the temptation to refuse to read the piece had coiled in her stomach like a knotted fist. The piece was probably priceless, but she’d handled other pieces that were likely just as valuable and, despite the intricacy of the design, and its antiquity, it did not appear particularly fragile.

It didn’t matter if it was. It didn’t matter if touching made her ill, faint or gave her nightmares. Short of stopping her heart and relieving her of all her worries, she had to read it.

Without answering Liz’s question, she took another gulp of water, wiped her hands on her jeans again and reached out to touch the piece. A jolt went through her instantly as her fingers made contact, as if she’d grabbed an electrified fence. Gasping at the magnitude of images and emotions bombarding her, Anna jerked her hand back.

“What is it?” Liz demanded in a harsh whisper. “You saw something, didn’t you?”

White faced now, Anna turned toward the woman, but her mind was focused inward and she scarcely registered Liz or the room around her. Images moved around her mind’s eye in a kaleidoscope of blurred colors. Torn between a reluctance to touch it again and some strange compulsion that made it impossible not to, she reached a shaking hand into the box again after a moment and grasped the piece more firmly. She would’ve thought it would be impossible to feel more than she’d felt before, but the shock that went through her the second time seemed almost to stop her heart in her chest before it set the muscle to racing at a frantic pace. Again, she was bombarded by a myriad of images and an avalanche of formidable emotions. This time, however, because she had gripped the piece in her palm, she could not fight the images off. They poured into her so rapidly she began to feel as if she was drowning.

* * * *

She jumped all over when the door crashed open, banging back against the stone wall. Around her, her maids tensed, too, a chorus of sharp gasps emphasizing their starts of surprise.

No one relaxed when they saw that it was the lord. In point of fact, she tensed even more, searching his face for some sign that he suspected, that he was angry with her.

He surveyed the room briefly, but his gaze lit almost at once upon her where she sat on the bench before her vanity table, dismissing the other women as if they were no more than a part of the room’s furnishings. His harsh face softened perceptibly and she almost sagged with relief. “My lady,” he said, nodding, his voice gruff, loud in the chamber.

It was a voice accustomed to roaring over the noise of battle; the cries of the dead and dying, the howls of fury and growls of exertion of fighting men, the clang of metal blade against blade and bone and flesh, and the terrified and furious screams of war horses. He had difficulty taming it to a more civilized timber.

Ignoring the nervous women who skittered out of his way like a startled flock of birds, he strode purposefully across the room to loom over her. “What is all this, then? Ye did not hear my arrival?”

She looked up at him uneasily wondering if her relief had been premature. “Aye, I did, my lord. I did not want to go down until I had made myself presentable.”

He grunted, but some of the tension seemed to ease from him. “I would have been--pleased if ye’d come to greet me below like a wife anxious for her husband’s return. I would not have been left to wonder then if ye’d missed me.”

He shifted uncomfortably under her steady gaze, as if he’d suddenly become aware that she seemed more unnerved by his return than pleased and was seeking something to say to break the tension. His eyes lit at last on the tub before the hearth. “Ye’ll catch yer death bathin’ in the dead o’ winter,” he said gruffly.

“I wanted to be pretty for you,” she said hesitantly.

He knelt beside the bench, his movements a little stiff, as if the motion pulled at his recently healed wounds. “Ye can not improve upon nature, my lady. Yer as near perfect now as makes no difference atall,” he said, his voice gravely now with a different emotion as he settled one gauntlet clad hand upon her shoulder.

She shivered.

He frowned, looking down at the gauntlet suspiciously. “Is it cold then?”

“Aye, a little,” she responded, trying to ignore the dried blood upon it and wondering if it might soil her gown.

Removing his hand, he pulled the gauntlet off and tossed it to the floor before removing its twin. “My hands are worse,” he said, flexing his fingers and rubbing his hands together in an attempt to generate some heat.

“Ye should have stopped to warm yerself before the fire, my lord,” the lady said chidingly.

He grunted, his dark brows pulling together in a scowl. “I’ve nae seen ye in a month,” he said slowly. He seemed to notice the distaste in her expression and looked down at his armor self-consciously. “I should have made myself more presentable before I came to ye.”

She sent him a look that agreed with his assessment but relented as he began to turn away. “Nay! Ye were right to come straight up, my lord. It’s my place to see to yer comfort. Let’s get ye settled over by the fire and get the armor off and I’ll bathe the muck of the road off ye. Ye’ll feel better in no time.”

He stood with an effort, his expression vaguely offended, but he moved to the chair his lady had indicated and stood docilely while she and the maids removed his armor piece by piece. When he had been stripped down to his chausses and surcoat, the maids gathered the pieces of armor and left to take it to the armory to be cleaned and repaired, leaving the lord and his lady alone.

He watched her with the hungry eyes of a predator as she crossed the room and dug in his trunk to find fresh clothing for him, but he made no attempt to touch her until she seemed satisfied that he was clean. He was shivering when he climbed from the tub and she began to rub him briskly to dry him.

Before she could help him dress in fresh clothing, however, he scooped her into his arms and carried her to the bed. Tossing her to the mattress, he fell upon her like a starving man. His palms were rough, chafed from his gauntlets and the cold as he caressed her body with them, following the path his hands blazed with his lips, filling his senses with her.

She uttered a sound of protest when he dropped her to the bed and covered her body with his, but in a few moments she was writhing beneath his touch excitedly, uttering little whimpers and gasps of pleasure.

The sounds set his mind on fire, unleashing the little restraint he’d placed upon himself. Pushing her gown up to her waist, he pulled her thighs wide and settled his hips between them, entering her in almost the same motion. A guttural sound of pleasure erupted from his throat as he drove his turgid flesh into her heated depths. Mindless with need now, he began to thrust and retreat from her body at a furious pace. “Ah, love, it’s been too long. I canna hold it,” he growled.

She gasped, raking her nails along his back as she went rigid and then began to jerk as her body found release. Her convulsions sent him over the edge. He thrust jerkily as her body milked his of his seed and lay heavily on top of her, breathing raggedly.

After a moment, he struggled to relieve her of his weight, settling beside her and running a hand caressingly over her. “Ye’ve missed me, as well,” he muttered, his voice still rough but threaded with pleasure.

“Aye. Tis a black sin the way my body craves yers,” she gasped.

He came up on one elbow. “Yer my wife. There’s no sin it.”

She looked unconvinced. “Yer men’ll be wonderin’ what’s become of ye. We should dress and join the others in the hall.”

“They’re not so witless they won’t know what’s become of me,” he said, chuckling. He got up though after a moment and moved to collect the clothing she’d lain out for him, watching her as he pulled them on.

Making a face at the stickiness between her legs, she rolled off the bed and moved to the tub to clean herself before she returned to the bench and sat once more, combing her hair.

When he’d dressed, he looked around for his pouch. Hefting it for a moment, as if weighing the coins within it, he crossed the room to stand behind her. Setting the pouch upon the table, he loosened the ties and pulled something bright from it. The gleam snared her gaze and she turned to look. Her eyes widened with wonder as the jewels caught the firelight and winked at her.

She gasped, one hand flying to her throat. “It is--beautiful.”

“Not nearly so beautiful as the woman it was made for.”

Dragging her gaze from the necklace, she looked up at him. “It is not....”

He looked confused for a moment. Finally, he frowned. “Nay. Tis nae pillage. I drew the design myself and had a goldsmith make it for ye.”

He was still frowning as he settled the piece of finely wrought gold encrusted with jewels around her smooth, white throat and grappled with the catch. “My fingers are too thick and clumsy fer so fine a thing,” he muttered.

“They are still stiff with cold,” she contradicted him. “Let me try.”

“Nay. This once, I’ll place it on ye myself.”

He looked relieved when he had managed to work the catch. Settling his large hands heavily on her shoulders, he kneaded them as he stared at her wavering reflection in the looking glass, as if he could not be so near her without touching her in some way. After a moment, he released his grip on her, leaving her to admire the reflection while he dug in the bag again.

A sharp cry of excitement erupted from her when he thrust his fist before her face and then turned it, uncurling his fingers so that she could see what lay in his palm.

“Ear rings?” she said a little breathlessly. “Oh, but my ears are not pierced,” she added, disappointment threading her voice. “Pierce them for me so I can wear the set.”

Placing one on the vanity, he lifted the other and caught her earlobe between his thumb and forefinger, pressing the shaft into her skin until she winced as a tiny droplet of blood appeared. He dropped the ear ring abruptly. “I’ve nae the stomach for it,” he growled.

She looked at him with a mixture of disbelief and surprise. “Ye’ve no trouble atall cleavin’ a man in two,” she said with a chuckle.

His gaze flickered over her face. “I’ve nae love for my enemies or the king’s enemies. Tis nae the same.”

She gave him a strange look and then glanced around the room for her maids. Seeing that only her sister had returned, she summoned her. “Elspeth, you must do this for me so that I can wear the set. My great brute of a warrior can not bring himself to pierce my ears,” she added with a chuckle.

Elspeth’s gaze went immediately toward the lord. She frowned at the flicker of hurt she saw his eyes, quickly hidden, before he turned and strode back to the fire to stare at the flames broodingly. “It is precisely because he is not a brute that he can not bring himself to inflict pain upon ye,” she hissed angrily. “For shame, Anne. He is a good man, a most noble man. He tries so hard ta win yer affection. Ye do not appreciate him as ye should.”

Her eyes narrowed with anger at the rebuke. She had not missed the look that had crossed her younger sister’s face as she watched her husband’s retreat. “And ye appreciate him more than ye should,” she snapped angrily, slapping her younger sister.

* * * *

She was crying so hard she could barely speak but only part of her distress was for her own loss. The greatest pain and fear was for him. It crushed her to see his pain. It terrified and bewildered her to watch the man she had always thought of as invincible crumble before her eyes, weeping like a lost child. “She is dead! Please, my lord. Let us take her home and lay her and the babe to rest.”

The look he turned upon her made her knees give way beneath her. “Nay! She is not dead. She sleeps,” he roared, furious at her suggestion. “Look. Her soul lingers still. She is as beautiful as ever. Death has not taken her. Her flesh is soft. She is warm.”

She stifled her sobs with an effort, lifting her gaze to look at her sister in the flickering lights of the torches that surrounded the great stone altar where her body had been lain. She could not understand herself why death had touched her sister so gently, why she looked as if she was merely sleeping, but she knew her sister had ceased to breathe many days ago now. She had been holding her sister when the breath left her body in a long sigh as the pain left her, never to return. It was true that she had not grown stiff with death. Her flesh was as smooth and unblemished as it had been in life, but she was not warm with lingering life. She was nigh as cold as the stone she lay upon.

“Ye are ill, my lord,” she said more gently, pleading with him to see reason. “Even I who loved her dearly can not fathom the depth of yer loss, for I know how ye cherished her, but we can not stay here. Let us take her home. Please. It does no good to continue to pray over her. She will not come back. She is gone.”

He ignored her plea, his gaze focused inwardly as if he was trying to barter with death for the soul of his beloved wife.

Despair filled her. She felt as if her own life was slowly draining away from her every moment that she had to endure watching his suffering, for she felt his pain as keenly as she felt her own. “She would not want this. She would want ye to go on with yer life to find what happiness ye can for yourself.” She didn’t know if that was true or not, but she knew she would have felt that way.

“Leave me. Go to my captain and tell him to take the men to the keep. I will stay with my beloved until she wakens. I can not take her from here. Ye must see that. The power of the old gods lingers here among the standing stones. They keep her soul here.”

She stared at him hopelessly, fearfully. It was almost more than she could bear to see his pain. Please, God. Do not punish him any more. He is a good man. He knows not what he says.

He would die here with his beloved wife. Already the snow had begun fall and he refused to leave her side to eat or to sleep. His eyes were fevered, red rimmed. He was growing thin before her eyes.

His grief had taken his mind and she could think of nothing to do for him.

* * * *

A sob tore its way from Anna’s chest, leaving her throat raw and aching from the pain. It took an effort of will and focused concentration to make her fingers uncurl from around the piece and drop it back into the jewel case.

She leaned back against the couch dizzily when she’d finally managed to let go, gasping for breath, trying to force her galloping heart to slow down before she passed out.

An icy splash of water jolted her back from the brink of unconsciousness, snatching the air she’d been struggling for from her lungs. For many moments she could only gasp hoarsely, blinking against the water that rolled down her face and chest. Finally, she reached up with shaking hands and wiped the water from her eyes.

Liz stood over her, the now empty glass still in her hand. “What the fuck happened? What did you see? Tell me, damn it!”

Anna stared at the woman blankly, fighting to thrust away the images that almost seemed to linger in the room still, as if the past had been transposed over the present. She tried to collect herself. Minutes passed before the images at last faded and the world righted itself. “I don’t--I didn’t catch it all,” she muttered weakly, her voice faintly hoarse as it issued from a throat still raw with pain. “There was too much, too fast.”

Slamming the glass down on the coffee table, Liz snatched the jewelry box up, fastened it and strode from the room. “Pull yourself together,” she snapped angrily as she disappeared through a doorway at the opposite end of the room.

Shaking with reaction, Anna tried to do as she’d been told, but she felt weak all over. Her head was pounding almost nauseatingly as if she’d fallen and cracked it against something.

Her shirt and the front of her hair were soaked from the water Liz had dashed into her face. Wiping ineffectually at the water, Anna pulled the soaked, freezing material away from her skin, more than a little tempted to wring the excess water on the floor as anger finally sparked to life. It was only the thought that she couldn’t afford to piss off her main meal ticket that stopped her.

Leaning forward, she braced her forearms on her knees and allowed her head to droop, her eyes closed against the spinning blackness that still threatened.

She stiffened when she heard Liz’s brisk returning footsteps on the tiles and sat up just as Liz flung herself down on the chaise once more. “What the hell was that all about? Theatrics to convince me you’re a bonafide psychic? I would’ve thought we’d moved beyond that sort of thing by now!”

Anna reddened with anger. She didn’t bother trying to deny the accusation, however. “The piece dates back to the dark ages. It’s European--English, I think, but I couldn’t be certain.”

Looking slightly mollified, Liz leaned forward again, eagerness replacing the anger from before. “So I was right? It is authentic?”

Anna nodded, still struggling to regain her composure. “I’m sure of that.”

Liz giggled excitedly. For several moments Anna thought she would clap her hands like a delighted child. “You wouldn’t believe what I got it for!” she exclaimed in a breathless whisper.

She was wrong. Anna had no trouble believing Liz Bridgewater had acquired the necklace for practically nothing. Liz collected ‘hot’ rocks. Most of the pieces she’d ‘read’ for Liz had been stolen from another collector somewhere in the world, or a museum, and sold on the black market.

She was almost as certain that Liz knew they were stolen as she was that Liz didn’t realize that she knew it. “It’s priceless,” she responded, because it was true, and also because she knew Liz would be thrilled no end to hear it.

She was also almost positive that the necklace had never been on any market, black or otherwise. It had been stolen from a tomb--and that fairly recently. She didn’t think Liz would want to know that, though. She didn’t care where the pieces came from, but she didn’t like it if Anna suggested ‘bad vibes’ were attached to it.

“I’m sure. The jewels alone make it tremendously valuable,” Liz retorted with an air of supreme satisfaction.

Anna stared at her with a touch of surprise, realizing that Liz had no conception of the real value of the necklace. “There was--a great tragedy in the history of that piece.”

Liz waved that away. “Don’t tell me it’s haunted, or bad luck, or something like that. I’m not about to part with it.”

“I wasn’t suggesting that you should. I just thought you might want to know.”

Liz studied her assessingly for several moments, but apparently her curiosity got the better of her. “What did you see?”

Anna covered her face with her hands, trying to sort through the images and come up with something, anything, concrete. “The woman it was designed for was beautiful. It was a gift to her from--some man who was close to her. Her husband, I think. He loved....” She paused, frowning as she realized that the emotion had been so powerful that ‘love’ sounded far too tame. “He worshiped her. When she died....”

“When she died?” Liz prodded.

“He was inconsolable, devastated--he went mad.”

Liz shivered. “I knew I didn’t want to hear it.”

Anna lifted her head and looked at the woman. She still felt weak, shaken, and faintly ill. She also felt a need to look again, to try to grasp the images that had poured through her mind too fast for her to fully assimilate them. “I could tell you more if I could just have another reading,” she said tentatively.

“No! I put it back in the safe. I’d just as soon not know anymore.”

Dismay filled Anna. The need to touch the necklace again grew stronger, almost like a hunger. “But--I might be able to pinpoint the time line when it was crafted a little better.”

Liz shrugged. “Dark ages--that’s close enough. Besides, I don’t think you’re in any condition for another reading. You still look like you’re ready to pass out.” Reaching into the pocket of the lounging robe she wore, she tossed a banded stack of bills toward Anna. The stack landed on the couch beside her and Anna stared down at it in surprise.

The band around it was stamped with a 500. Either it was only a partial stack of twenties or Liz was feeling especially generous. She usually only paid a couple of hundred when Anna had three or four pieces to read, and that very grudgingly.

Like a sleepwalker, Anna picked the stack up, folded it and shoved it into her jeans pocket without counting it. She never counted it. Either Liz paid her what she asked for, or she didn’t. She wasn’t in any position to argue if Liz short changed her and they both knew it.

She’d been dismissed.

Pushing herself to her feet, Anna looked around a little vaguely, still seriously disoriented, and finally moved away from the couch.

There were water stains on the cushions she’d just vacated, but most of them were from the half glass of water Liz had ‘revived’ her with.

Her shirt was still sticking to her.

“I expect to have something else in a couple of weeks,” Liz called out when Anna had reached the door to the hallway. “Call me?”

Anna nodded, resisting the impulse to tell Liz that the necklace was part of a set. She didn’t know why she was reluctant to tell her--If Liz knew about them she would be hot to find them and there could be a reward in it for Anna if she helped to locate the other pieces--but she found that she was loath to divulge the information.

“Try to be on time, next time. I had to reschedule my training session.”

Nodding again, Anna left the great room and met up with the maid in the hallway. “Could I use the bathroom?”

Maria’s lips pursed. She looked Anna up and down as if she thought she would taint the bathroom--or maybe she suspected Anna would steal something? Finally, grudgingly, she pointed to the door of the service bathroom just off the kitchen.

Anna wilted weakly onto the toilet when she finally managed to peel her damp jeans down to her knees. She didn’t need to relieve herself nearly as badly as she needed a few minutes to collect herself, however, and stayed put until some of the weakness seemed to leave her wobbly knees. The second time she heard the maid pause by the door to listen, she got up and struggled with the thick, damp jeans again.

Her reflection in the wide mirror over the lavatory gave her a jolt. Her pupils were dilated so wide that only a thin sliver of the gray/green irises was visible. Her complexion was still ashen, throwing her dark hair and brows into uncomplimentary relief. Thanks to Liz’s quick thinking, her bangs and the tendrils that had escaped her tieback and surrounded her face were slick and stringy. Wet, it looked almost black.

Her shirt had finally begun to dry, or she’d grown accustomed to the sogginess and her body heat had warmed it. The shirt looked as if she’d slept in it. Her jeans, in the bright lights from the bathroom vanity, showed stains.

The maid probably thought she was dirty.

Sighing, she turned the water on, washed her hands, and then switched to cold water and splashed the cooling liquid over her face until she felt a little better. The maid looked her over suspiciously when she left the bathroom and headed for the back door. As she let herself out, she glanced back in time to see the maid step to the doorway and check the bathroom to see if anything was missing.

A weak surge of anger flickered in her briefly, but as she stepped outside she felt as if she’d stepped into a blast furnace and she was instantly distracted by her discomfort. When she’d climbed in her car and settled behind the wheel again, she turned the car on. She didn’t need a key. She’d lost her keys several months earlier, which was when she’d discovered the lock on the steering wheel was broken and all she had to do was turn it to start the car.

It made her uneasy. It wasn’t much of a car and she doubted anyone would want to steal it, but she was going to be on foot if they did because she wasn’t going to be able to work enough to buy another one any time soon.

The slogan, ‘driving is a privilege not a right’ popped into her mind and made her angry as it did every time she thought about it. It was a pretty safe bet that whatever brilliant politician had come up with that slogan thought manual labor was a Mexican farm worker and had never worked for minimum wage in his life. A privilege? Eating was a privilege too, she supposed. It was pretty damned hard to work without a car, or to buy food and shelter without a job.

The government had come up with an absolutely brilliant plan to eliminate poverty in the US. They were going to legislate the poor to death.

Deciding she’d allowed the car to ‘warm up’ as long as she could afford to, she dismissed her frustration over the helplessness of her situation, turned the car around and headed out again.

She ran out of gas about halfway back to the city and had to pull off and empty the contents of her gas can into the tank.

Nobody stopped.

She supposed she must look like a serial killer.

It took her ten minutes of pumping the gas pedal to finally get enough gas in the carburetor to start the car again.

When she got back to her apartment, there was an eviction notice tacked to the door--which was padlocked.

Sighing, she dug the bills from her pocket and counted out enough money to pay for several weeks, stuffed the remainder back in her pocket and went to beg the proprietor to let her stay for a little while longer. He eyed the bills suspiciously and held them up to the light to check them for authenticity, demanding another week’s rent.

Anna held onto her temper with an effort. “That’s the two weeks back rent and an advance on next week,” she said tightly.

“Yeah, but you’re always behind,” he growled.

“And this costs you extra?”

“It costs me extra aggravation. Pay up or go.”

She was tempted to demand her money back instead, but she knew he wouldn’t give it to her now that he had his grimy hands on it. Besides, there weren’t a lot of places that would let people pay by the week and there weren’t many places that would let you rent at all without a credit check, and what little credit she had was all bad.

Turning her back to him, she dug into her pocket again. She had just enough to pay for one more week and one twenty left over. Shit! Ramen noodles again.

Her stomach complained as she counted out the money into the old bastard’s dirty palm. “I need a receipt.”

He gave her a look as if he was insulted that she didn’t trust him. After shuffling the garbage on his desk for a few minutes, he finally found a tablet and tore the bottom edge off of a page that had doodling all over the top half of the sheet.

Anna examined the receipt carefully, glancing at the calendar behind his desk to make sure the weeks he’d noted were accurate and finally folded it and stuffed it into her jeans pocket. “You going to let me in now?” she asked when he didn’t so much as twitch.

He frowned, obviously irritated that he’d have to lift his saggy ass out of the chair and go take the padlock off. Finally, after digging around in his desk drawer another five or ten minutes, he pulled out a ring of keys and pushed himself up from his chair.

The effort cost him. He let out a belch that made Anna’s stomach churn.

Almost as disgusting, she saw when he had straightened that his belly roll was hanging out beneath the stained, too tight, T-shirt he was wearing, showing a good six inches of hairy belly and a belly button that looked like an abyss--except nasty because black hair surrounded the hole.

Giving him a wide berth just in case he felt the need to expel any other bodily gas, Anna followed him to the door of her one room ‘apartment’, shifting impatiently while she waited for him to find the right key and remove the padlock.

When he’d left again, she pushed the door open and went inside. It was hotter inside than outside. Leaving the door open, she set her fan in the doorway and went to open the bathroom window, hoping to pull some of the super heated air out so that the air conditioner had some hope of cooling the room to a bearable temperature before the next day.

She wanted to strip naked, but she didn’t dare with the door and window open, so she merely collapsed in a chair, waiting.

As drugging and mind numbing as the heat was, she was still wound up from the reading. While she sat staring at the fan blades, her mind kept churning away at the images. Nothing really clear emerged beyond what she’d already told Liz Bridgewater.

It confused her. Ordinarily, if she got anything at all it was pretty clear. All too often she got nothing, especially if the piece was fairly new because there was no real sentiment attached to it.

Maybe she’d gotten overload because the piece was so old?

That didn’t really make sense to her, though. As fried as her brain was from the experience, she felt that everything she’d gotten had come from one time, and only the two original owners. Either it hadn’t been handled since, by anyone because it had been in a museum, or it was as she suspected. The piece had been recovered only recently because somebody had robbed a grave.

Logically, it seemed to her that the impressions she’d gotten from the piece should have been a lot like the readings she got from something new and relatively untouched.

Except that powerful emotions were coiled around the piece, like nothing she’d ever run across--love, hate, passion, despair--and terrible pain, inconsolable grief. She felt nausea roll over her again as those emotions swept through her as strongly as she’d felt them before.

Pushing herself up from the chair, she moved the fan, closed the door and fastened the bolts. After turning the air conditioner on full blast, she trudged into the bathroom, fastened the window and stripped.

When she’d filled the tub full of cold tap water, she stepped in, gasping at the sharp difference in temperature between her body and the water. It took teeth gritted determination to sit down in the chilling water, but her body finally began to adjust and she lay back, staring up at the water stains on the ceiling while the tub finished filling. By the time she crawled out again, the water in the tub was roughly the same temperature as the room and her skin was wrinkled all over, but she didn’t feel like she might die from heat stroke.

Mopping off haphazardly, she returned to the main room and sprawled on the bed naked, dozing off almost immediately.

* * * *

Anger flickered in his eyes, dispelling the dead look that had been there for so long that she could scarcely remember the man he had been before, but it gave her no comfort. “Ye lie, madam. This can not be, for I have not once broken my vow to my lady wife. I could not, for I knew from the first moment I set eyes upon her that she had taken my heart and with it a part of my soul. Without her, I am not whole, and I will never again be whole until I am reunited with her.”

“Tis true! Ye thought that I was her. The fever was upon ye and ye did not know what ye were doing, but it happened nevertheless. I tried to stop ye. Please, do not hate me. I could not help it.”

Hope welled within her for a moment, for she could see that doubt had assailed him, that he remembered something that gave him pause. In the next moment, however, rage and contempt filled his eyes, curled his lips with distaste. “I could never have mistaken ye for her unless my mind was turned with fever. Yer no more than a pale shadow of her, and if ye did what you say, then ye tricked me into betraying my vows. This is all yer doin’! Tis because of ye that she was taken from me. Whore! Get from my sight before I am tempted to break yer treacherous neck!”