The Serpent in the Stone - By Nicki Greenwood Page 0,73
looked like you. I thought it was you.”
“I know, I know. Hakon told me about her,” Faith said, suppressing an empathic shudder as she recalled Hakon’s pain. “What else did you see?”
Ian turned back to the paper. “I saw them doing the snake ritual. I don’t know what they said, I couldn’t understand them. Four of them, they stood here.” He pointed to the Xs. “One of them dripped her blood into some stone bowl. They smeared her blood over the amulet, and the ley lines opened, and then... Then, I woke up.”
Agitation rolled off him in such sharp waves that Faith wondered what else he’d seen. She turned her attention to the Xs on the map he had drawn. North, South, East, and West. There had to be four. “You saw the ceremony? Ian, can you repeat anything they said, anything it sounded like?”
He shook his head. “I could hardly even hear them. There was this noise, this buzzing. It was so loud, it almost drowned everything out.” He spun away from the table to pace her tent like a trapped panther. “I can still feel it burning in my guts.”
She shuddered. “I know. I’ve felt it, too.”
He turned on his heel and flew to the cot, sitting on its edge to lay a hand on Sara’s cheek. “I can’t stand this waiting.”
She studied his hasty rendering of the ruin. “We need to dig it out. We need to end it where it started.”
He swept her with a suspicious look.
“I talked to Hakon last night,” she added. “He said we can destroy the amulet and close the ley lines for good, but it has to be done exactly at the height of the first full moon after Beltane...and it can’t be done without gifted blood.”
“No,” Ian said at once.
“You saw it yourself. Blood is what opens the ley lines, and it can close them down. Regular blood doesn’t work anymore. It has to be gifted blood.”
He rose to his feet and strode toward her, then snatched her by the arms. “Just whose blood are you planning to use? Yours?” He jerked his chin at the cot. “Hers?”
Trembling now, she murmured, “There is another one.”
He jerked her closer. “Callander? Are you crazy? What are you going to do, kill him?”
“You felt it!” she burst out, wrestling against his grasp. “Even in a dream, you felt the ley line. Do you know how much worse it will be in real life? How much worse it is? I felt it for real, Ian. I still feel it roaring around inside my head!”
“You are not doing this. We’ll find another way.”
She managed to throw his hands off. “What do you suggest? I’m out of ideas.”
“I don’t suggest murder!”
“It didn’t stop Callander!”
“Stop shouting,” interrupted Sara.
She and Ian turned as one. Her sister struggled to a sitting position on the cot. Faith seized the water bottle from the table and launched herself across the tent.
Sara took it with an exhausted, grateful look, and downed its contents.
“Are you feeling any better?” Faith asked, holding a hand to her sister’s forehead.
Sara dropped the now-empty bottle on a chair. “No.” She divided a glance between them. “Do you two want the whole camp to hear your conversation?”
Faith gripped at the woolen blanket. “We need to clear the dig, and we have three weeks to do it. How much can you pull out with telekinesis?”
“I haven’t got that kind of power. Even healthy, I haven’t.” Sara dropped her legs over the side of the bed. “We’ll have to find another way. I just need a little more rest.” When she struggled to get to her feet, Ian crossed the tent and put a bracing hand under her elbow. She swayed there. “Right now, we have to assume that whoever’s working against us wants the same thing. To clear out the dig. We’re going to help them. Then we’re going to stop them.”
Chapter Fourteen
Coming out of her fog, Sara leaned against Ian’s solid frame. Her strength began to return in halting, miserly increments.
He curled an arm around her waist and turned to her sister. “Please tell me you’re not going to try anything stupid.”
What’s that about? Sara wondered.
Faith sighed. “I’m sorry about the argument. I don’t know what to do. We have no data, no sources—”
Ian’s arm tightened around Sara. “You have Hakon.”
“I’m almost as tapped as Sara. It’s going to take me at least a couple of days to recover before I can make any contact worth getting. This