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able to call him, that she was able to wait until he ran out on the roof so he had to watch her jump."

"Where are you going with this?"

"I'm not sure. But it might be worthwhile to have Cybil do a search on her, a genealogy. What if she's connected? What if Carly was on one of our twisted family trees?"

"And Fox just happened to fall in love with her?"

"That's the point. I don't think any of this just happened. Cal, have you ever been in love-really in love- with anyone before Quinn?"

"No." He answered without hesitation, then took another contemplative sip of coffee. "I can tell you Gage hasn't either."

"It uses emotions," she pointed out. "What better way to cause pain than to use love against one of you? To twist it like a knife in the heart? I don't think she was just infected, Cal. I think she was chosen."

Chapter Fifteen

THAT NIGHT, THEY READ, AND FOR THE FIRST time in many pages, the first in the many months that had passed for Ann, she wrote of Giles and Twisse.

It is a new year. What was has passed into what is, and what may be. Giles asked that I wait until the new to make record of what came to be in the old. Do such turnings of time truly form shields to block the dark?

He sent me away before I ever had birth pangs. He could not do what he had determined to do with me besidehim. It shames me that I wept, even begged, that I would hurt him with my tears and my pleas. He would not be swayed, nor would he send me from him weeping.He dried my tears with his fingers, and pledged that if the gods were willing, we would find each other again.

At that moment, what did I care for gods, with their demands, their fickle natures and cold hearts? Yet my beloved had pledged to them before ever to me, and so I was no match for gods. He had his work, his war, he told me, and I-and he put his hands on my belly and the lives growing in them-had mine. Without me, his work would be nothing, and his war would be lost.

I did not leave him weeping, but with a kiss as our sons squirmed between us. I went with the husband of my cousin, away from my love, the cabin, the stone. I went away on a soft night in June, and as I did, he called these words to me.

It is not death.

There was kindness in my cousin's house, such kindnessI have written on other pages. They took me in, kept my secret even when it came. Bestia, the Dark. Twisse. I lay in fear and in pain on the cot in the small loft of their little house. It came in the lie of a man while my sons began their struggle toward life.

I felt its weight on my heart. I felt its fingers gliding through the air, seeking me, like the hawk seeks the rabbit.But it did not find me. When my cousin's husband would not go with him, would not join him with torch and hate on the journey to my love, to the cabin, to the stone, I felt its fury. I think I felt its confusion. It had no power here.

And Fletcher, dear Fletcher, would be spared what would come to the Pagan Stone.

It would be tonight. I knew it at the first pain. An end that was not an end, and this beginning. These tied togetheras Giles wished it, as he willed it. Let the demon believe it was his work, his will, but it was Giles who turned the key. Giles who would pay for opening the lock.

My sweet cousin bathed my face. We could not call for the midwife, or for my mother, whom I longed for. It was not my beloved who paced the room below, but Fletcher, so steady, so true. As the pain built until I could no longer hold back my cries, I saw my love standing by the stone. I saw the torches lighting the dark. I saw all that happened there.

Was this the delirium of birthing, or my small power? I think it was both, the first strengthening the other. He knew I was there. I pray this is not merely the wish of an aching heart, but truth. He knew I was with him, for I heard his thoughts