Touch of Darkness Read online

  He needed to be there now, to see whether Hardwick had found the box Rurik had been searching for, the box containing a far greater treasure than gold.

  "Wow. Just . . . wow." The girl's eyes were big and worshipful, and she offered her hand reverently. "I'm Sarah."

  He shook it.

  "Why do you have nightmares?" She smiled at him, and rubbed her fingertips over his white knuckles.

  "Because I'm . . . afraid to fly?" Ridiculous, of course, but better than telling the truth. "You poor thing." She smiled at him again. It took that second smile before he realized—he had a nineteen-year-old making a pass at him. He jerked his hand out from under her touch. He glanced over to see if the dark-eyed grandmother had noticed.

  Of course she had. She was glaring knives at him, her heavy black and gray eyebrows meeting over her narrow nose.

  Sarah leaned toward him. "I could be a big help to you at your dig."

  He averted his gaze, and mentally urged the pilot to put the damned plane on the ground. "I would love to have you, but we only hire experienced archaeologists. Besides, aren't you meeting someone?"

  She shrugged. "Just my church group."

  So she was nineteen, part of a church group, and trying to seduce him.

  Great. Just great. He'd grown up knowing he was going to hell. He just hadn't realized the handcart would be doing 120 on the Road to Hell Autobahn.

  "A church group is exciting."

  "Exciting?" Her voice rose incredulously. "Have you ever been part of a church group?"

  Why, no. No, he hadn't. Churches didn't exactly welcome a family like his.

  The plane jolted as the wheels hit the runway—he was almost out of here. "Are you going to Paris? You'll love it. Grand cathedrals. Nice little churches."

  Not that he'd ever been in any of them.

  He got on his feet before the flight attendants

  opened the door. "Some great choirs. Don't forget to go to Rome. The Vatican's there!"

  Another place he'd taken care to stay far away from.

  While Sarah struggled to get her bag out of the overhead, he grabbed his carry-on and muscled his way past her.

  His mother would have killed him for being such a jerk, and his brother would have died of laughter. But my God. An underage kid making a pass at him—that officially made him a dirty old man at the ripe old age of thirty-three. He hurried toward baggage claim. A nineteen-year-old made a pass at him, and Tasya Hunnicutt couldn't get away from him fast enough. He'd gone home to his folks' place for the Fourth of July celebration that had started out great and ended in Swedish Hospital in Seattle, and at the same time, the tomb he'd been painstakingly excavating opened itself to reveal the glint of gold. What a bitch of a month it had been. Now it was going to take him a hard day of driving along increasingly narrow roads to get to the ferry at John O'Groat's and from there to the Outer Orkneys, and he'd be lucky if, when he made it, a gale hadn't kicked up, keeping the ferry in port.

  Not that he hadn't been amazingly lucky since he started the dig. There'd been storms, of course—one didn't go through the winter in northern Scotland without some blistering cold winds and freezing-ass rain, but he'd had to knock off only a couple of days, and he would have had to stop work on Sundays, anyway. If he was a superstitious man, he would say that the dig served some higher purpose.

  He hadn't been a superstitious man when he'd started working the site. He was now.

  Grabbing his bag off the carousel, he headed toward the car-rental counter, got the keys to a MINI Cooper, then stepped outside and put on his sunglasses.

  "A beautiful day."

  He turned to find the old woman from the plane standing beside him. She was short and stooped; the top of her head barely reached his shoulder. "Yes, it is." Which in Scotland even in midsummer was pretty amazing.

  "But there's a change coming." Her voice was husky, heavily accented . . . and not Scottish. She sounded almost like his father—Russian or Ukrainian.

  "Really?" He scanned the skies. "Are the forecasters predicting a storm? Well, it's not surprising, is it? After all, it is Scotland."

  "A change in the earth."

  "Huh?" He looked back at her.

  "I can feel it in my bones." Her dark, dark eyes scrutinized him from head to toe; she saw beyond his clothes and skin, down to his bones, and she saw nothing that pleased her. "There's an upwelling from hell, and heaven's finger stretching down from the sky"—her voice dropped to a whisper—"and when the two collide, everything will be different."

  "Sure." He edged sideways down the curb. "Well, I've got a long ways to go, so good-bye!"

  "Godspeed," she answered.

  Crazy old lady.

  He squeezed himself into the driver's seat, and drove off.

  How did he always attract the crazy ones?

  But when he looked in the rearview mirror, she stood watching him. A ray of sunshine touched the silver in her dark hair. Irresistibly she reminded him of his mother, and the vision that had changed his life.

  And a shudder crawled up his spine.

  Chapter 2

  Sunshine. Temps in the seventies. No wind. Not a hint of rain, and none in the forecast.

  Rurik stood on the bow of the ferry—he was the lone passenger—and waited for his first sight of the Isle of Roi.

  Yesterday, he had driven like a madman through the Scottish Lowlands, broad expanses of nothing, interrupted by golf courses, industrial towns, and whisky manufacturers. His own fatigue had forced him to stop in Inverness and crash in one of the bed-and-breakfasts, then rise early today to drive the Highlands, Braveheart country, crisscrossed by tiny one- and two-lane roads that twisted and turned, where his top speed was a crawl and he stopped for sheep crossings.

  But even that delay had been minor. By afternoon, he'd made it to the northern coast of Scotland. It seemed as if the elements conspired to bring him to the dig as quickly as possible.

  There's an upwelling from hell, and heaven's finger stretching down from the sky, and when the two collide, everything will be different.

  His mother had said something like that, but unlike the weird old woman, Zorana was not weird or old or given to enigmatic statements, unless one considered Load the dishwasher, you big lummox—I didn't give birth to you so I'd have another man to wait on enigmatic.

  From behind him, the ferry's first mate advised, "Ye'll na' get to the isle faster by pushing."

  "Duncan. Hey, how are you?" Rurik grimaced as he shook hands with the weathered Scot. "I can't help pushing. I should have been there the whole time."

  "Aye, ye stay here day and night and as soon as yer back is turned, yer team pulls the tablecloth out from under the china." Duncan joined him at the rail and stared at the choppy water. "Do ye know how many tourists we've transported in the last four days?"

  "How many?"

  "Enough to swamp the boat." Beneath his gray, trimmed beard, Duncan's lip curled in disdain.

  "If the team had kept their mouths shut—"

  "Ye canna' contain the rumor of gold, my friend. That's not changed in the last ten thousand years. Gold brings the greedy to gawk and covet."

  "They didn't have to call a damned press conference." That was what stuck in Rurik's craw—seeing Kirk Hardwick on camera, expounding on the fabulous treasure of gold and knowledge.

  "Hardwick does like his wee fait of attention and with ye gone, he's had it."

  "I'll bet." The first hint of a shadow appeared on the horizon. The Isle of Roi.

  "When I tell the American tourists the island is only seven miles across, and that there are no cars, they look as if my wit has escaped me." Duncan's shrewd eyes watched as the island took shape—flat on one end, rising slowly to a tall cliff on the other. "And the reporters! Squawking and laden down with cameras, each one trying to slip Freckle and Eddie a tip to carry their gear."

  Rurik glanced back at the two crewmen. "Did they rake it in?"

  "They liked the money. They didna' like
being treated like the village idiots."

  "How many reporters are there?"

  "Four—two from Edinburgh, one from London, and a German from some international news service. Enough to write one decent story, ye'd think, but I've yet to see one." Duncan faced Rurik, leaned against the railing, and crossed his arms over his chest. "Now, when that sweet-faced dark-hair lass starts awritin', then we'll see something."

  Rurik played dumb. "Who?"

  Duncan wasn't buying it. "Ye know who."

  "Tasya?"

  "Nay, I dunna' know Tasya. I mean Hunni."

  "Tasya . . . Hunnicutt." Everyone called her Hunni, and she responded easily to the endearment, smiling at everyone, charming men, women, and children alike.

  Rurik couldn't bring himself to use her pet name so casually. It irritated him—she irritated him—like a grain of sand in a clam.

  "Ah, is that her real name?" Duncan said. "I didna' know." The hell he didn't. He saw right through Rurik's pretended indifference.

  "So she's here." Rurik would see her again, see her for the first time since he'd completed his carefully plotted seduction and they'd spent the night in Edinburgh together.

  "Brought her across this morning. She said she would have been here sooner, but she was finishing the photos for her story in Egypt. She's a traveler, that one is."

  That's for damn sure. A man would have to nail her feet to the floor to keep her in one place. "She hasn't been here long. Good."

  "There's na' harm in the lass."

  No harm? Rurik remembered all too clearly the harm she'd done him. The scent of her skin, the sound of her husky laughter, the sensation of her heated body against his, her taste . . . "She's too damned nosy for her own good."

  "In a charming way—but then, I've got the hots for her." Duncan put his hand to his chest and sighed like a lovelorn lad.

  Rurik clasped the rail as tightly as he could. He had to, or he would strangle Duncan.

  Duncan rattled on. "There isna' a man on the island, barring that nancy-boy reporter from London, whose compass doesna' point north at the sight of her."

  "She's got a bony face."

  "She's got a face?"

  Duncan's incredulity caught Rurik by surprise, and he laughed. Of course, Duncan was right. Why should any of the guys care what her face looked like?

  Unfortunately for Rurik, he couldn't get Tasya's face out of his mind.

  Her short hair was so black that in the right light, like in the pub after a hard day's work and a few hours' drinking, the highlights shone with all the colors and gloss of a raven's wing. Her cobalt eyes were surrounded by Snuffleupagus eyelashes, absurdly thick, sooty, and long. When she blinked, her lashes fanned the air, and when she looked at Rurik, her electric blue gaze sent a shock along his nerves.

  And to be fair, her face wasn't really bony— sculpted would be a better word, with a broad chin that she used for emphasis—she lifted it when she was stubborn, turned it away when she had no intention of listening, pointed it at a guy when she wanted to make a statement.

  When it came to her body . . . well, okay, Rurik understood why the guys made moaning noises about woodies and making a hole in one. She looked like a fifties film goddess, with generous breasts— Rurik gave her a C, and that wasn't a grade—a tiny waist, a glorious flare of hips, and great legs. Long, muscular, great, great, great legs. All of that was packed into about five feet five inches of dynamic action.

  Cover all that with a nun's habit, leave nothing but her face peeking out, and no man would even notice her—except for him.

  So, of course, Duncan promptly contradicted Ru-rik's wistful thinking with, " 'Tis her lips. . . . She makes a man think of sins performed sinfully, slowly, and often."

  That perfectly described Tasya and her lips and the sex. . . . "She's a distraction."

  "Aye, that she is," Duncan fervently agreed. "But she doesna' use her wiles for evil, Rurik. She'd na' do anything behind yer back."

  Rurik had been unfair about her character. Probably. And for his own reasons. But when Tasya Hun-nicutt observed the dig, it wasn't her passion for him that made her blue eyes grow gray and intense. He would swear she had more on her mind than making sure she got good photos and wrote the inside story. "She knows too much about the site."

  "Ye mean, she knows as much as ye do," Duncan said shrewdly.

  God forbid. Rurik stared at the oncoming island.

  "She is a reporter, and her employer does fund the dig, so maybe it's her job to know too much." Duncan clapped his hand on Rurik's shoulder. "If ye ask me, ye should just harpoon the Hunni and stop sulking."

  Rurik whipped his head around and glared.

  "It's not like the rest of us are getting any. Ye're the only one with any chance at all. Now, if ye'll excuse me, Cap'n MacLean'll be wanting my assistance bringing the ferry in." Duncan headed for the bridge, grinning.

  Rurik faced the island, but he saw Tasya—and his destiny.

  The Isle of Roi was shaped like a bony forearm, with the elbow end elevated out of the water. Thetomb was on the high side, not far from the cliffs and a hundred-foot drop into the sea.

  As the ferry closed on the island, he could see more detail—the blush of summer grass, the few trees, bent and blasted by wind, the white sand beaches beneath the cliffs. The place was a haven for seabrrds; they wheeled through the air, crying of long migrations and short summers, and a single golden eagle flew high above them all, hunting . . . always hunting.

  Rurik followed its arc, his soul desperate to take flight, to soar on an updraft until he reached the sun, then tuck his wings close to his body and plunge toward the ocean, the wind so strong it filled his lungs, the exhilaration sharp, keen, fresh.

  With very little trouble, he could convince himself it was necessary. If he would just let himself, he could change his form, become a giant hunting bird. He had powers that no mere man should have, given to him by a pact made long ago between the first Konstantine and the devil.

  Rurik's father said the change brought them closer to evil, but Rurik would use it for good.

  That's what he'd told himself five years ago . . . and a good man had died.

  No matter how much he longed for the joys of flight, since then Rurik had never turned.

  Yet the power wasn't something he could lose. It was a hunger that grew every day, a craving in his gut he could barely curb—and that made it all the more dangerous.

  Now, more than ever, his hawk vision seemed the best way to watch over his vital project, his long talons and swift dives combined with the element of surprise the likeliest defense.

  Most important, he could tell himself the Varinskis had found him. . . . They had, after all, found Jasha, and it was only a matter of time before they tracked him down, too. Tracking was what the Varinskis did best—or so his father said.

  But it was what his mother had said that truly haunted him ... he shuddered as he remembered.

  He'd gone home to the Cascade Mountains in Washington for the annual Wilder family Fourth of July celebration, his first break since he'd begun work on the dig.

  That night, after fireworks were over, the guests had departed, and the bonfire had burned low, this powerful vision had seized his mother.

  And yeah, she was a Gypsy, and yeah, Rurik suspected she was a weather-worker. And yeah, their whole family was a little different from most American families—his parents had immigrated from the Ukraine and changed their name from Varinski to Wilder because the Varinskis were assassins andplenty pissed about his parents getting together, and his mother's Gypsy clan had been hot under the collar, too.

  But except for the time when Rurik was eight and he'd shoplifted that Megatron Transformer from the Wal-Mart down in Marysville and his mother had made him turn out his pockets before he even left the store, he'd never witnessed any signs that Zorana was psychic—until the night of the Fourth. Her slight body had exuded power, her usually feminine voice had grown deep and great. She'd looked at Ru
rik, and he would have sworn she could see the stains on his soul.

  She had cursed the family with her prophecy. . . .

  Each of my four sons must find one of the Varinski icons.

  Only their loves can bring the holy pieces home.

  A child will perform the impossible. And the beloved of the family will be broken by treachery . . . and leap into the fire.

  The blind can see, and the sons of Oleg Varinski have found us. You can never be safe, for they will do anything to destroy you and keep the pact intact.

  If the Wlders do not break the devil's pact before your death, you wilt go to hell and be forever separated from your beloved Zorana. , . .

  And you, my love, you are not long for this earth. You are dying.

  She'd been talking to Rurik's father, and as soon as she'd finished speaking, Konstantine had crashed to the ground, crushed in the grips of a rare disease that ate away at his heart.

  Konstantine had always been one of the most hearty, commanding men Rurik had ever met. To see him stretched out on the gurney in Swedish Hospital in Seattle, IVs poked into his arms, a shunt in his chest, tubes running up his nose—in that moment, Rurik's understanding of the world had changed.

  He had only a limited time to find the icon that would save his father's life and soul. If Rurik failed, destruction came to everything important to him. His family. His world.

  Maybe the whole world.

  The ferry took a sharp turn to the left, coming around the end of the island, and there it was, the village of Dunmarkie, nestled into the harbor and bragging of three dozen homes, a pub, and a market.

  The streets were empty.

  Rurik straightened.

  As he'd done every day for the last twenty years, the captain efficiently brought the ferry into the dock. The crew hurried about, securing her moorings, setting the gangplank . . . and then they stood there, looking uneasily at the village.

  "Where is everybody?" Duncan asked.