Spell of the Highlander Read Online Free PDF Page A

be! It was patently impossible. The earliest forms of writing, cuneiform and hieroglyphics, weren’t even in existence until the mid to end of the fourth century B.C.E .! And those etchings on the mirror were
some
kind of writing.
    “Ha, ha. I’m not that stupid.” Well, today, she ceded dismally, she certainly seemed to be, on just about all fronts, but normally she wasn’t. Normally she suffered only one or two stupid fronts, not this all-encompassing, blanket idiocy. “That would put it at pre-ten-thousand B.C.E. ,” she scoffed, as she stole a few more inches. Had he noticed what she was doing? If so, he was giving no indication.
    “Yes, indeed it would. Considerably ‘pre.’ ” He took another step forward.
    She considered screaming but she was nearly certain there was no one else in the south wing this late at night, and suspected it would be wiser to conserve her energy to defend herself with. “Okay, I’ll go with this a minute,” she said, inching, inching.
Just a little farther. Keep him talking.
Dare she make a leap for it? “You’re claiming the frame is from the Old Stone Age. Right? And the carvings were added later, and the mirror inserted in the last century or so.”
    “No. The entire piece, in sum, Old Stone Age.”
    Her jaw dropped. She snapped her mouth closed, but it fell open again. She searched his face, detected no sign of jest. “Impossible! Symbols aside, that’s a
glass
mirror!”
    He laughed softly. “Not . . . quite. Nothing about an Unseelie piece is ever . . . quite what it seems.”
    “‘An Unseelie piece’?” she echoed blankly. “I’m not familiar with that classification.” Her fingers curled, she braced herself to dive for the blade, doing a mental five-count . . .
four . . . three . . .
    “Not many are. It denotes relics few ever see and live to tell of. Ancient Hallows fashioned by those darkest among the Tuatha Dé Danaan.” He paused the space of a heartbeat. “Don’t worry, Jessica St. James—”
    Oh, God, he knew her name. How did he know her name?
    “—I’ll make it quick. You’ll hardly feel a thing.” His smile was terrifyingly gentle.
    “Holy
shit
!” She lunged for the dirk at the same moment he lunged for her.
     
    When one was afraid for one’s life, Jessi observed with almost serene, dreamlike detachment, events had a funny way of slowing down, even though one knew events were really rushing toward one with all the velocity and surety of a high-speed train wreck.
    She noted every detail of his lunge, as if it unfolded in freeze-frames: his legs bent, his body drew in on itself, coiling to spring, one hand dipped into a pocket, withdrew a thin wire with leather-wrapped ends, his eyes went cold, his face hard, she even noticed the whitening around the edges of his nostrils as they flared with a terrifying, incongruous sexual excitement.
    She was aware of her own body in a similar dichotomous fashion. Though her heart thundered and her breath came in fast and furious gasps, her legs felt made of lead, and the few steps she managed seemed to take a lifetime.
    His lips curled mockingly and, in that sharp-edged smile, she saw the sudden stark certainty that even if she managed to arm herself with the small blade, it wouldn’t matter. Death waited in his smile. He’d done this before. Many, many times. And he was good at it. She had no idea how she knew, she just knew.
    As he closed in on her, wrapping the leather-cased ends of the wire around his hands, the silvery glint of the minor, leaning against the bookshelves beyond the table, caught her eye.
    Of course—the mirror!
    She might not be able to best him in a physical struggle, but she just happened to be smack between him and what he wanted!
    And what he wanted was
highly
breakable.
    She practically fell on top of the curio table, shoved aside the dirk, and closed her hand instead around the heavy pewter base of the lamp next to it. She whirled to face him at dizzying speed, backed up