Touch of Darkness Read Free Page A

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