“It was written on the dried skins of month-old lambs and consecrated to the sacred gods. I don’t think they would have reproduced it like some cheap Regency woodcut of a bawdy-house wench.” Bobbie’s tone was scathing. Sean sighed but said nothing. Bobbie supposed he would be well within his rights to take her to task over her tone of voice, but he didn’t. Instead, he very carefully went across to where the book had last been seen. Bobbie remained where she was; she’d clearly seen the snake eat the book.
Sean was tutting in annoyance when he returned. “What kind of bally idiotic culture decided to invent an object that summoned a crazy snake, that could only be gotten rid of with another object and the correct mumbo-jumbo, and after they did that, how stupid were they to only put one flaming copy of the book in their temple?”
Bobbie shook her head trying to think. It was difficult with the threat of the snake; she was worried it might appear again at any moment. Then, the answer hit her.
“The newspaper!”
Sean raised his eyebrow again, but Bobbie moved behind him.
“This way!” She followed the trail back into the jungle, until she reached the discarded newspaper that had wrapped itself around her feet earlier.
“Do you think this will work?” Sean sounded either impressed, surprised, or both. Bobbie shrugged noncommittally, then she reached down and picked up the newspaper that someone else had so readily cast aside.
It was easy to find the correct page. Amongst the black and white stills of Gunnarsson’s smarmy face, there were images of the inside of the book. Bobbie hoped against hope that one of the images might be the pages she needed.
“Do you have a magnifying glass?” She patted her pockets as she asked. “Mine is rather compact and I could do with a decent-sized one.”
“Aye. Here.” Sean withdrew a three-inch magnifier from his pocket and handed it to her. She smiled gratefully.
“We make a good team,” she remarked. He gave her a strange look and she wondered if he disagreed. Either way, she pressed the magnifying glass against the paper, and pored over the enlarged image.
“Yes! This is it!” She punched the air. “Get out the artefact!”
Sean withdrew the eighteen-inch-long object from his inside jacket pocket, then Bobbie began reading the ancient letters. As she did, the artefact began to glow, and she stared at it in amazement.
When she had finished the words, the artefact was pulsing with a faint blue light that seemed to radiate from within.
“Now what?” she wondered aloud.
“Now, we take it to the snake,” Sean replied, striding forward with confidence.
Bobbie was glad he seemed to know what to do with the item, because she’d run out of images of the book, and couldn’t guess.
She trailed after him, and when they reached the temple, Sean shouted into the depths. “Oi! Snakey!”
Bobbie pinched the bridge of her nose and cringed as Sean called to the snake in colloquial Scots. It was the least dignified adventure she’d ever been on.
“I suppose you’re going to lull it into a stupor with a set of bagpipes you’ve kept folded in your pocket, next?” she remarked.
Sean chuckled. “Nothing of the sort. I prefer to play the fife, anyway. Oh, steady on!” He leapt backwards as the snake appeared and loomed over them both. Bobbie gasped in horror at its size.
“It must still be growing!” She took several steps backwards, but really only several miles would reassure her. The snake was at least thirty feet tall, now. Bobbie counted seven heads, still, although they seemed to be working in unison, like a hive of bees.
“Aye, well, this should stunt it,” Sean growled, then aimed the lightning-bolt-shaped artefact at the snake, and Bobbie stared in terror as it glowed brighter, then a bolt of electricity blasted toward the snake, ensconcing it in the jumping light for several seconds. The snake roared, tossed its heads as one, then fell to the ground, narrowly missing squashing Sean flat.
“Beefy beastie, isn’t she?” Sean prodded the snake with a foot. “It’s dead. I think the locals will be eating snake stew until June!”
“They’re welcome to it,” Bobbie retorted, shuddering at the idea of eating snake. She had tried plenty of other oddities on various adventures, but the taste of snake was not one she ever intended to experience.
As they watched, however, the snake seemed to fold in on itself, then turn black, at which point its form crumbled like the ashy remains of a fire.
“I wonder why the snake didn’t eat us, when it had us right there,” Sean mused.
“According to the pages of the book that I managed to read just now, the snake only eats virgins.”
“So you’re saying that I saved you from certain death by making love to you, earlier?” Sean asked with a wink. Bobbie giggled and made a noncommittal sound. She didn’t think this was the right moment to point out that she hadn’t been a virgin for some time.
“What do we do with this?” Sean held up the artefact. “Does it belong in a museum?”
“No. It should go back where we found it. Museums are just hoardings of things. Out here, that artefact is alive and it has a purpose.” Bobbie felt strongly about this. Sean’s gaze raked over her, and for a moment she expected him to argue, but instead he just nodded, eyes twinkling.
“Whose turn is it to dive into that cold stream first?” he asked with a grin, then nudged her ribs with his elbow. She chuckled.
“I don’t know, but I’ll race you for it,” she replied, and before he said anything more, she was streaking across the grass toward the temple’s entrance.
No man had ever outrun her. For that reason, she wasn’t expecting to hear his footsteps right behind her. But then his hands were on her waist and he’d tackled her to the soft earth. She cursed him in Latin.
“My willy is not going to turn black and fall off,” he retorted, his voice vibrating as his lips brushed her ear. He rolled her over, then she laid on her back beneath him. “There’s an Ancient Greek myth,” he began, “about the goddess Nike. She said she would only marry the man who could outrun her.”
Bobbie looked up into his eyes. “But none could.”
“Until one.” He leaned down and kissed her.
“Well, there’s no need to be saddled with a chap for whom one has to wait around every corner. If he can’t keep up, he ought to be cut loose.”
“Is that how it is, aye?” Sean raised an eyebrow.
Bobbie nodded emphatically.
“Good job I can keep up, then, is it not?”
She grinned and pulled him closer. It was a wonderful moment, although she knew it couldn’t last. Now that he had helped her finish her work here, Bobbie was certain that he would insist on taking her back to her parents.
“Any port in a storm?” she murmured, trying to bury the feeling that she was about to lose him.
“You? You’re not a port, lass.”
“Then what am I?”
He grinned mischievously and kissed her again. “You’re mine,” he replied.
Chapter Six
The return journey to Britain had taken a lot longer than the outward one. Bobbie often found that was the case, and she suspected it was because the time dragged when she didn’t have a project to work on.
At Dover docks, she disembarked the ferry with a heavy heart. The adventures she had shared with Sean were surely drawing to a close, now, and she wished they could have spent a little more time together. She was almost tempted to run away once more, to get him to chase her again. But she knew that, sooner or later, she would have to part ways with him.
They got a train from Dover into London, and while they were getting onto the London Underground at Victoria, Bobbie caught sight of a line of posters that made her stop, dead.
“Watch out!” a Londoner complained as he bumped into her. Bobbie ignored him and kept staring at the posters.
“Lass?” Sean might have said, although she wasn’t paying enough attention to know for
sure. Bobbie just pointed at the posters. William Petrie’s image was positioned with one of a man who was clearly supposed to be a Viking barbarian, and the caption read, “A real live Viking chieftain at the Royal Society. Tickets for members only.”
It was a full minute before she could speak. “Petrie. What the Dickens has he done this time?”
“Is this the Viking chap you were looking for in the cave, all those months ago?” Sean asked.
Bobbie nodded mutely.
“Look, I’m sorry that I stopped you from finding him, but you understand why, don’t you?”
She glared at Sean and stalked away from the posters, toward the northbound platform, and then she waited. Sean caught up with her easily, of course, but her heart was too miserable to rally. Today, she didn’t feel like being the sort of girl who pulled herself together in a jiffy.
More than anything, Bobbie wondered why the poster had claimed there would be a ‘live’ Viking chieftain. She made a mental note of the date, racking her brain to try to decide, of all her friends in the Royal Society, who might be able to get her a ticket to the event.
“Are you going to talk to me, lass, or is that it, now we’re in England?” Sean prompted as they got into the underground carriage together.
Bobbie bristled at the insinuation that she was being churlish, so she merely glared at him and looked out through the black window, trying not to feel like her heart was being torn apart. This was the last time she would see Sean before he went back to whatever he did when he wasn’t chasing after her, and she didn’t want it to end with this frosty atmosphere, but she didn’t know how to talk to him right now.
She felt worse that she had been so self-centred every time she was around him that she hadn’t even asked him what else he did with his life. He deserved someone better than her; someone who could treat him properly instead of dragging him along in her slipstream. Why, oh why had she taken him for granted this whole time? And now she was about to lose him, forever, and she couldn’t even tell him, because he might not feel the same way, and her heart wasn’t ready for that kind of rejection on top of the burning pain of seeing Petrie trample upon her career once more.
He leaned over and grabbed her head, then turned it to face him. She narrowed her eyes at him.
“Tell me what you’re feeling,” he ordered in his sternest voice.
“I’m never going to see you again. And Petrie has a Viking. And I was so close to getting that Viking. And I know you saved me from gun runners, but all the same, Petrie has my Viking. And I don’t know what to say to you. I feel that I’ve treated you badly. I don’t want to be mad at you after all that happened, but… oh, damn, Petrie has my Viking chieftain. And he’s claiming it’s alive.”
“How can that be?” Sean frowned. The carriage stopped and the doors opened, then several people got off. Bobbie and Sean were alone, now, save for an old woman reading The Telegraph and seemingly minding her own business.
Bobbie forgot her mixture of strong emotions as the mystery pulled at her logical brain. “I’m not sure, but I’m rather hoping that I can get into the Royal Society to find out. Are you going to stop me?”
Sean looked at her for a long time, then his gaze softened. “No. I was supposed to protect you. I can’t imagine anything dangerous happening in the centre of London in a building full of people with more money than names.”
“And they do have a lot of names,” Bobbie mused. She smiled softly. “Thank you for not trying to talk me out of it. Now, I just need to get a ticket.”
“Actually, lass, I think I can help with that. My pal Stuart has a lifetime membership, along with his infirm parents, who cannae go. I’d bet anything they’ll have tickets.”
“You’re brilliant!” Bobbie declared, then threw her arms around his neck and kissed him on the train, much to the irritation of the old woman nearby who kept clearing her throat pointedly and glaring at them over the top of The Telegraph. Bobbie and Sean ignored her.
* * *
On the evening of Petrie’s big presentation, Bobbie was pacing outside the Royal Society, waiting for a man she hadn’t met to recognize her somehow and hand over a ticket. As it got closer to the allotted time, and more people had gone inside, she wondered if he’d forgotten, or not found her, or decided to remain at home for the evening.
“Roberta!” A plummy man’s voice made Bobbie’s insides churn. She looked up and saw her rival, William Petrie, flanked by two of his friends.
“Good day, Petrie,” she boomed in the voice she usually reserved for the hunt. If nothing else, she insisted on being a good sport. Anyway, she was British. Both of those facts culminated in a desire to be deathly polite to the man she hated.
“Moping around out here in the hope of cadging a ticket from someone?” he teased. The man had no class, whatsoever, and Bobbie hated that.
“Bobbie! Great to see you! Mwah, mwah!” To Bobbie’s immense surprise, she found herself ensconced in an overly familiar greeting from an exceedingly tall man dressed from head to toe in tweed, and who had a faint and refined Scottish accent.
“Hullo,” Bobbie said, not needing to feign pleasure at someone being here to extract her from the awkwardness of speaking with Petrie.
“Billy boy! Can’t wait to see your exhibit! It’s going to be talk of the town, aye?” The man’s voice was like a blanket that silenced any argument or correction, and Bobbie watched in great amusement as Petrie, struck dumb for once, merely nodded.
“I bid you good day, Roberta,” he said stiffly, then touched his hat and went inside. The moment he was out of earshot, Bobbie burst out in peals of laughter.
“You must be Stuart,” she said, when she could finally speak again.
“Aye. And where’s Sean?”
Bobbie frowned in surprise. “I didn’t know he was attending this evening.”
“‘Course I am, lass. What else would I do on a fine day like today? One must attend these little talks, whether one wants to or not.”
Bobbie looked up in surprise and saw Sean strutting toward her.
“You’ve literally just heard someone say that, haven’t you?” Bobbie teased. Sean nodded.
“Here’s your tickets, we’re sitting together, so let’s go and get a good seat,” Stuart said. The three of them went inside, and found that most people had taken up the middle seats, leaving some choice positions at the very front. Bobbie wanted to have the best view of Petrie as he showed off his Viking.
They made polite conversation amongst themselves while they waited for the talk to begin, then two assistants wheeled a table onto the stage. It had what looked like a shrouded body on top of it. Bobbie’s breath hitched in her throat.
Then, looking smug as ever, Petrie appeared, striding oleaginously across the stage until he stood beside the table.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I thought I should say a few words about myself before we commence,” he began. Bobbie inwardly groaned. Of course he was going to take this opportunity to waffle. She tried to look interested while he droned on about his early childhood, his days at Eton, his mother’s steadfast belief that he would go on to do great things.
Luckily, seven years at a girls’ boarding school, where half the teachers were hot-air balloons, meant she had vast experience at remaining stoic in the face of absolute boredom and pointless speech.
Sean, on the other hand, was getting restless, and Bobbie suppressed a giggle when he whispered into her ear, “If Petrie’s head gets any bigger he won’t be able to walk through the main doors when he tries to leave!”
After an interminable twenty minutes, Petrie finally exhausted the topic of himself.
“And now, let us consider the Vikings,” he began. When Bobbie groaned, she heard the sound repeated around the room by bored adults. If this was what it was like to be a member of the Royal Society, she was rather glad that she’d never been successful.
Petrie talked for another twenty minutes about the Vikings, and Bobbie was much amused wh
en the famous Viking historian Wolfrun Diettrich took to the stage, interrupting Petrie to correct his many inaccuracies. Petrie, however, was too arrogant to let that faze him, and when Diettrich returned to his seat, Petrie nodded with a sickly grin, then pulled back the sheet on the table.
Bobbie frowned as a murmur went up around the room. There was no live Viking. Beneath the sheet, there was just a collection of yellowed bones, mottled with black from where they’d been found.
“As you can see,” Petrie bellowed over the crowd, “This is a not-quite-intact skeleton of the Viking chieftain Ralagok. I found his remains in a cave near Malmo.”
Bobbie gritted her teeth and tried to let the fury subside.
“I also found reference to a special elixir, rumoured to bring dead Vikings back to life. It does only work on Vikings, but the reason remains unclear.”
Probably because of the specific burial practices of Vikings, Bobbie wanted to scream.
She watched in morbid fascination as Petrie picked up a silver stein and held it out for the audience to see. “This drinking stein is the only thing the elixir works in.”
A hush fell over the audience, then, and Bobbie was on the edge of her seat as Petrie poured the contents of the stein over the old bones on the table. Then, there was a high-pitched sound that filled the room and shook the chandelier above her. She stared at the table in shock, for before her eyes, bones were being covered in muscle, then blood vessels; organs were growing themselves; then, skin and hair knitted everything else together.
The audience collectively gasped in surprise. A couple of women shrieked and fainted, but not until they’d seen the whole thing.
Bobbie was riveted to the spot as the person—if that was the right word for it—on the table sat up. Then, she couldn’t help laughing. A tangle of long, matted blonde hair spread out from a finely chiselled face with high cheekbones. Two large breasts hung down and the rest of the woman was hidden by shapely legs. She looked wildly around the room, and Bobbie felt a rush of empathy. It wasn’t especially pleasant to be a young woman inside the Royal Society, and being naked on a stage had to be even worse still. While Bobbie’s own discomfort came from knowing she would never be accepted here as anything other than someone’s wife, she was sure the young woman on the stage was wrestling with more immediate problems.
Protected by the Scotsman (Stern Scotsmen Book 2) Page 9