The Stone of Shadows. R. A. Finley

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СКАЧАТЬ else might she have neglected?

      That troubling thought was shoved in with the many others she’d locked away for later consideration. Thoughts which, if allowed to run around now, might lead to second-guesses and panic—two luxuries she couldn’t afford just yet.

      Her worried sigh was cut off by the hard bounce of another hole in the asphalt. She squinted as the whole car began to vibrate and steering became even more of a wrestling match. Not asphalt anymore. Hard-packed dirt and stone.

      If the consequences of failure weren’t so dire, she might have thought this a grand adventure. Alone in a bucking, speeding car she could barely handle on a narrow, pitted track; racing against things she barely understood yet sought to control; leaving behind the closest friends and allies she’d ever known. Thrilling, really. If only it all weren’t so close to falling apart.

      The car splashed through a flooded dip in the road. Muddy water coated the windshield.

      She could barely see at all now.

      The odd, illuminated symbols on the controls failed to suggest to her how she might engage the wipers. Something else she’d failed to do in her haste—she hadn’t properly acquainted herself with the car.

      Another wave of fear threatened to swamp her. Had desperation caused her to do a terrible thing? “Oh, Thia,” she murmured. “I am sorry, dear.”

      Should everything go as planned, however, there would be no need to be sorry. Everything would be resolved before her grandniece could be pulled into the mire. Or so Lettie hoped. Timing was everything, and it was moving altogether too quickly these days.

      Evil was at work. An insidious evil that had slipped past all the Brigantium’s defenses to take root deep within. Yet she had no proof. She didn’t even know exactly what form it took, or who might be behind it.

      She was keeping secrets from her compatriots—her friends—because of a few groundless suspicions. It was terrifying.

      It was treason.

      But had there been another way? Things had happened so quickly, had she not given this enough thought?

      Her mind preoccupied, she took a curve too fast. The wheel shuddered in her grip as the car went wide, its right side tires tracing the edge of the rough track. When it straightened—and the car seemed content to stay on it—she blew out a relieved breath, said a prayer of thanks.

      And shrieked.

      She was about to hit a man.

      Her foot stomped on the brake, mashed the pedal to the floor as she wrenched the wheel to the right. The car shimmied, resisting, then careened off the road and down a grassy slope. The front dropped abruptly into a ditch and the car slammed to an immediate, shocking stop. The seat belt locked, holding Lettie fast as her breath whooshed out and her head whipped forward and back, then forward again. Her teeth clunked together, the hollow sound echoing through her skull.

      It took her a moment or two to pull herself together, to process what had happened and that she was no longer in motion. She bent forward to rest her head on hands that continued to grip the wheel.

      She hurt. Everywhere. Like the dickens.

      The sputtering motor died, and with the ensuing silence came a horrific clarity of thought. The man in the road. She knew him. And she should have run him down.

      Her slowing heartbeat sped again. Surely the postal form and its false trail should’ve kept Cormac occupied longer than this. And how had he tracked her so quickly, in any case?

      Sitting up, she forced her wildly trembling fingers to turn the key in the ignition. He would be furious. Her skills were nothing to his. Her only hope was to evade. She turned the key again.

      Clicking. Grinding and clicking. No matter how hard she cranked the key, no matter how hard she willed it, the motor didn’t catch. Instead, the lights went out. Next, the key jammed, refused to budge. Superior magic at work.

      “Brigid, help me,” she prayed, and scanned the vast field before her. With her blurred vision, she could just make out a cluster of lights on the distant shoreline—the harbor at Tingwall, she realized. Her intended destination. Perhaps she could run.

      “Silly old fool,” she whispered. She couldn’t outrun a normal man. She certainly couldn’t outrun Cormac. Why couldn’t her deception have lasted just a little longer?

      There was nothing for it now. Taking a pained breath, she prepared to leave the car’s illusion of shelter. Her heart raced, her muscles locked, as something deep within screamed in protest.

      She told it to hush.

      Shoving open the door, she eased her legs out over the threshold, felt a sharp twinge in her back when she turned to look up the hillside. The car hadn’t traveled all that far, she was surprised to see. That was the way of frightening events; things became distorted. What had seemed a great distance was only the matter of a dozen or so yards.

      Cormac stood watching from the edge of the road. Even without her glasses, she could see every detail of his face, from the harsh set of his jaw to the triumphant gleam in his dark, cruel gaze. What magic was he employing that enabled her to see so clearly? Such a spell could’ve saved her a fortune in lenses over the years. If she wasn’t so afraid of his present anger, she’d have asked him. They’d long been opponents, but never truly enemies—not until this terrible business.

      And, until tonight, they’d only met once before. He looked the same. Starkly handsome with a lean, athletic body. The sharp planes and angles of his face accented deep set, piercing eyes and an elegant, bitter mouth. His hair was styled differently—short and tousled, in keeping with current fashion. It must’ve cost him a fortune in some trendy salon.

      Something tickled the back of her mind, and she looked more closely at his face. Not exactly the same, she realized. His eyes were wrong. Though moonlight robbed her vision of color, she could tell the irises were too dark—probably brown, when they should have been a striking mixture of gray and blue. As unforgettable as the North Sea in a storm and just as moody. They were beautiful eyes. Why would he change only them?

      And how had he done it? According to the information on file, eye color was the one aspect of his appearance he had no control over. It was part of his nature.

      Lettie nearly groaned at her idiocy. Colored contacts were a dime a dozen these days.

      “Enough,” she told herself, and braced her hands on the door. “No more procrastinating.”

      She began to stand. Her feet sank into the ditch’s foul mud, but she managed to keep her balance as she stepped away from the car and raised her head to meet Cormac’s stare once more.

      A slow smile spread across his face. Cocky bastard, she thought. Anger flared and her mouth opened of its own accord, ready to tell him where he could stick his over-confidence.

      From behind, a woman’s arm wrapped around Lettie’s chest to pin her arms to her ribs. Crushing force pulled her off balance. She couldn’t kick at her attacker, couldn’t even stand. Clawing at the arm, she tried to twist free. Her feet slipped, slid in the mud. Something popped in her chest and she couldn’t breathe.

      She’d СКАЧАТЬ