Key of Light k-1

by Nora Robets

  "I take that sound of relief to mean you got the pictures."

  "I did. I felt like an international art thief. I guess I have to give Moe points for being the main distraction. So, tell me what you thought of them."

  "They're slick, smart, and full of secrets. But they don't seem crazy. They're used to money— real money. Used to drinking tea out of antique cups brought in by a servant. They're educated, cultured, and a little snobby with it. The place is full of stuff—fancy stuff. They've only been here a few weeks, so they didn't furnish those rooms locally. They had it shipped in. I should be able to track that."

  Frowning, he tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. "She went goony on Moe."

  "What?"

  "She turned into a puddle the minute she saw him. I mean, he's got a lot of charm, but she melted. I have this impression of her from inside. Cool, confident, aloof. The kind of woman who's sexy because she knows she's in charge. Strolling up Madison Avenue with a Prada bag on her arm, or running a board meeting in L.A. Power, money, brains, and looks all wrapped up in sex."

  "I get it. You thought she was sexy."

  "Last checkup, I had a pulse, so, yeah. But you should've seen her face when Moe jumped out of the car. All that polish, that sheen just vanished. She lit up like Christmas morning."

  "So, she likes dogs." "No, it was more. It wasn't the coochee-coo that some fancy women do with dogs. It was fall down on the ground, roll in the grass, and gut-laugh. So why doesn't she have one?"

  "Maybe Pitte won't have one around."

  Flynn shook his head. "You're more observant than that. The guy would slice open a vein for her if she asked him to. Something strange about the way she got Moe to shake hands. Something strange about the whole deal."

  "No argument. I'm going to concentrate on the painting, at least until one of us comes up with a different angle. I'll leave you to try to pin down Rowena and Pitte."

  "I've got to cover a town hall meeting tonight. How about we get together tomorrow?"

  He maneuvers. He herds. She remembered Dana's words and shot him a quick, suspicious look. "Define 'get together.' "

  "I'll adjust the definition any way you want."

  "I've got four weeks—less now—to find this key. I'm currently unemployed and have to figure out what I'm going to do, at least professionally, for the rest of my life. I recently ended a relationship that was going nowhere. Add up all the above, and it's very clear I don't have time for dating and exploring a new personal relationship."

  "Hold on a minute." He pulled off to the side of the windy road, unhooked his seat belt. He leaned over, took her shoulders, and eased her over as far as her own belt would allow while his mouth ravished hers.

  A rocket of heat shot up her spine and left its edgy afterburn in her belly.

  "You've, ah, really got a knack for that," she managed when she could breathe again.

  "I practice as often as possible." To prove it, he kissed her again. Slower this time. Deeper. Until he felt her quiver. "I just wanted you to add that to your equation."

  "I was an art major. Math isn't my strong suit. Come back here a minute." She grabbed his shirt, yanked him to her, and let herself go.

  Everything inside her sparked. Blood and bone and brain.

  If this was what it meant to be herded, she thought dimly, she could be flexible about her direction.

  When his hands clenched in her hair, she felt a stir of power and anxiety that was as potent as a drug.

  "We really can't do this." But she was tugging his shirt out of his waistband, desperate to get her hands on flesh.

  "I know. Can't." He fumbled with the buckle of her seat belt. "We'll stop in a minute."

  "Okay, but first…" She brought his hand to her breast, then moaned as her heart seemed to tip into his palm.

  He shifted her, cursed when he rapped his elbow on the steering wheel. And Moe, delighted with the prospect of a wrestling match, squeezed his head between the seats and slathered both of them with sloppy kisses.

  "Oh, God!" Torn between laughter and shock, Malory scrubbed at her mouth. "I really, really hope that was your tongue."

  "Ditto." Struggling to get his breath back, Flynn stared down at her. Her hair was sexily tousled, her face flushed, her mouth just a little swollen from the assault of his.

  With the flat of his hand, he shoved Moe's face away and snapped out a curt order to sit. The dog flopped back on his seat and whined as if he'd been beaten with a club.

  "I wasn't planning on moving this fast."

  Malory shook her head. "I wasn't planning on moving at all. And I've always got a plan."

  "Been a while since I tried this in a car parked on the side of the road."

  "Me, too." She slid her gaze toward the pathetic sounds coming from the backseat. "Under the circumstances…"

  "Yeah. Better not. I want to make love with you." He drew her up. "To touch you. To feel you move under my hands. I want that, Malory."

  "I need to think. Everything about this is complicated, so I have to think about it." She certainly had to think about the fact that she'd nearly torn the man's clothes off in the front seat of a car, on the side of a public road, in broad daylight.

  "My life's a mess, Flynn." The thought depressed her enough to have her pulse calming again. "Whatever the equation, I've screwed things up, and I have to get back on track. I don't do well with messy situations. So, let's slow this down a little."

  He hooked a finger in the V of her blouse. "How much is a little?"

  "I don't know yet. Oh, I can't stand it." She scooted around, leaned over the seat. "Don't cry, you big baby." She ruffled the fur between Moe's ears. "Nobody's mad at you."

  "Speak for yourself," Flynn grumbled.

  Chapter Seven

  I feel the sun, warm and somehow fluid like a quiet waterfall gliding from a golden river. It pours over me in a kind of baptism. I smell roses, and lilies, and some spicier flower that cuts the sweetness. I hear water, a playful trickle and plop as it rises up, then falls back into itself.

  All these things slide over me, or I slide into them, but I see nothing but a dense white. Like a curtain I can't part.

  Why am I not afraid?

  Laughter floats toward me. Bright and easy and female. There's a youthful cheer in it that makes me smile, that brings a tickle of laughter to my own throat. I want to find the source of that laughter and join in.

  Voices now, that quick bird-chatter that is again youth and female.

  The sounds come and go, ebb and flow. Am I drifting toward it or away?

  Slowly, slowly, the curtain thins. Only a mist now, soft as silken rain with sunlight sparkling through it. And through it, I see color. Such bold, rich color it sears through that thinning mist and stuns my eyes.

  Tiles are gleaming silver and explode with sunlight in blinding flashes where the thick green leaves and hot-pink blossoms of trees don't shade or shelter. Flowers swim in pools or dance in swirling beds.

  There are three women, girls, really, gathered around the fountain that plays its happy tune. It's their laughter I hear. One has a small harp in her lap, and the other a quill. But they're laughing at the wriggling puppy the third holds in her arms.

  They're so lovely. There is about them a touching innocence that's so perfectly suited to the garden where they spend this bright afternoon. Then I see the sword sheathed at one's hip.

  Innocent perhaps, but strong. There is power here; I can feel the tingle of it now sparking on the air.

  And still I'm not afraid.

  They call the puppy Diarmait, and set it down so it can romp around the fountain. Its excited yaps ring like bells. I see one girl slide her arm around the waist of another, and the third rest her head on the second's shoulder. There, they become a unit. A kind of triad. A whole of three parts that chatter about their new puppy, and laugh as he rolls gleefully in the flowers.

  I hear them say names I know, somehow know, and look as they look. In the distance, i
n the shade of a tree that drips down with graceful branches heavy with jeweled fruit, are a couple caught in a passionate embrace.

  He's tall and dark, and there's a strength to him I can sense might be terrible if roused. She's beautiful, and very slender. But there is about her, too, a sense of more.

  They're desperately in love. I can feel that need, that heat inside me, throbbing like a wound.

  Is love so painful?

  The girls sigh over it. And they wish. Someday, they hope. Someday they will love like that— desire and romance, fear and joy all tied into one consuming entity. They will know the taste of a lover's lips, the thrill of a lover's touch.

  Someday.

  We are, all of us, caught in that urgent embrace, absorbed with our envy and our dreams. The sky darkens. The colors dim. I feel the wind now. Cold, cold as it spins around and around. The sudden roar of it screams in my ears. Blossoms tear from branches, petals fly like bright bullets.

  Now I'm afraid. Now I'm terrified even before I see the sly black shape of the snake slither over those silver tiles, before I see the shadow slink out of the trees and lift high the glass box it holds in its black arms.

  Words boom out. Though I press my hands to my ears to block them, I hear them inside my head.

  Mark this time and mark this hour when I wield my awful power. Mortal souls of daughters three forever will belong to me. Their bodies lie in eternal sleep, their souls imprisoned in this glass. The spell will hold sure and deep unless these things come to pass. Three keys to find, to fit, only by mortal hands to turn. Three thousand years in which to learn. An instant more and souls will burn.

  This test, this quest, to prove a mortal's worthiness. With these words I wind them, and with my art I bind them. These locks I seal and forge these keys, and here hurl them to the hand of destiny.

  The wind dies, and the air goes still. There on those sun-washed tiles, the three girls lie, their eyes closed as if in sleep, their hands clasped. Three parts of one whole.

  Beside them is a glass box, its clear panels leaded at the seams, its trio of locks glinting gold. Warm blue lights dance frantically inside it, seem to beat against the glass walls like trapped wings.

  Three keys lie scattered around it. And seeing them, I weep. Malory was still shaky when she opened the door to Zoe.

  "I got here as soon as I could. I had to get Simon off to school. You sounded so upset on the phone. What—"

  "Dana's not here yet. I'd rather just go through this once. I made coffee."

  "Great." Zoe put a hand on Malory's shoulder and simply lowered her into a chair. "I'll get it. You look like you still need to catch your breath. Kitchen that way?"

  "Yeah." Grateful, Malory leaned back, rubbed her hands over her face.

  "Why don't you tell me how your date with Flynn went the other night?"

  "What? Oh. Good. Fine." She dropped her hands, then stared at them as if they belonged to someone else. "He seems almost normal without his dog. That must be Dana."

  "I'll get it. Just sit." Zoe hurried out from the kitchen, heading Malory off before she could rise.

  "Okay, where's the fire?" Dana demanded. Then stopped, sniffed. "Coffee. Don't make me beg for it."

  "I'm getting it. Go sit with Malory," Zoe added under her breath.

  Dana plopped down in a chair, pursed her lips, and gave Malory a long, hard stare. "You look terrible."

  "Thanks so much."

  "Hey, don't expect hugs and kisses when you get me out of bed and over here within twenty minutes and on one cup of coffee. Besides, it's reassuring to know you don't roll out of bed looking perfect. What's up?"

  Malory glanced over as Zoe came back with three thick white mugs of coffee on a tray. "I had a dream."

  "I was having a damn good one myself. I think it involved Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and a really big vat of dark chocolate, and then you called and interrupted it."

  "Dana." Zoe shook her head, then sat on the arm of Malory's chair. "A nightmare?"

  "No. At least… no. As soon as I woke up, I typed it out." She rose now and picked up papers from the table. "I've never had a dream with so much detail before. At least I've never remembered details so clearly after I woke up. I wrote it down because I wanted to make sure I didn't forget anything. But I'm not going to. Anyway, it'll be easier if you both just read it." She handed them the typed pages, then took her own coffee and paced to the patio doors.

  It was going to be another beautiful day, she mused. Another beautiful late-summer day with clear skies and warm breezes. People would walk around town, enjoying the weather, going about their business. Their normal, everyday chores in the normal, everyday world.

  And she would never forget the sound of that dream-wind, the feel of that sudden, bitter cold.

  "Wow. I can see why this shook you up." Dana set the pages aside. "But it's pretty clear where it came from. Flynn told me you guys went up to see the painting again yesterday. All of this is on your mind, and your subconscious just flipped you into it."

  "It's scary." Zoe rushed to finish the last few sentences before she got up. Walking over, she rubbed her hands on Malory's shoulders. "No wonder you were so upset. I'm glad you called us."

  "It wasn't just a dream. I was there." She warmed her chilled hands on the coffee mug as she turned. "I walked into that painting."

  "Okay, honey, take it down a notch or two." Dana held up a hand. "You're overidentifying, that's all. A strong, vivid dream can really suck you in."

  "I don't expect you to believe me, but I'm going to say out loud what's been in my head since I woke up."

  Woke up, she remembered, shaking with cold, with the sound of that terrible wind still ringing in her ears.

  "I was there. I could smell the flowers and feel the heat. Then the cold and the wind. I heard them screaming." She closed her eyes and fought a fresh surge of panic.

  She could still hear them screaming.

  "And I felt this, this charge in the air, this pressure. When I woke, my ears were still ringing from it. They were speaking Gaelic, but I understood them. How could I?"

  "You just thought—"

  "No!" She shook her head fiercely at Zoe. "I knew . When the storm came, when everything went crazy, I heard them calling out for their father. Chi athair sinn . Father, help us. I looked it up this morning, but I knew. How could I know?"

  She took a steadying breath. "Their names were Venora, Niniane, and Kyna. How would I know?"

  She walked back to sit. The relief of saying it all calmed her. Her pulse leveled, as did her voice. "They were so afraid. One minute they were just young girls playing with their puppy in a world that seemed so perfect and peaceful. And the next, what made them human was being torn out of them. It hurt them, and there was nothing I could do."

  "I don't know what to think about this," Dana said after a moment. "I'm trying to be logical here. The painting's drawn you from the first, and we know the legend is Celtic in origin. We look like the girls in the painting, so we identify with them."

  "How did I know the Gaelic? How do I know their names?"

  Dana frowned into her coffee. "I can't explain that."

  "I'll tell you something else I know. Whatever locked those souls away is dark, and it's powerful, and it's greedy. It won't want us to win."

  "The box and the keys," Zoe interrupted. "You saw them. You know what they look like."

  "The box is very simple, very beautiful. Leaded glass, a high, domed lid, three locks across the front. The keys are like the logo in the invitations, like the emblem on the flag flying on the house. They're small. Only about three inches long, I'd say."

  "It still doesn't make sense," Dana insisted. "If they had the keys, why hide them? Why not just hand them to the right people, and game over?"

  "I don't know." Malory rubbed her temples. "There must be a reason."

  "You said you knew the names they called the couple making out under the tree," Dana reminded her.

  "Ro
wena and Pitte." Malory dropped her hands. "Rowena and Pitte," she repeated. "They couldn't stop it either. It happened so quickly, so violently."

  She took a long, long breath. "Here's the kicker. I believe it all. I don't care how crazy it sounds, I believe it all. It happened. I was taken into that painting, through the Curtain of Dreams, and I watched it happen. I have to find that key. Whatever it takes, I have to find it."

  After a morning staff meeting that included jelly doughnuts and a pissed-off reporter who'd had her article on fall fashion cut by two inches, Flynn escaped to his office.

  As his staff consisted of fewer than thirty people, including the eager sixteen-year-old he paid to write a weekly column from the teenage perspective, having one reporter in a snit was a major staff glitch.

  He flipped through his messages, punched up a feature on Valley nightlife, approved a couple of photos for the next day's edition, and checked the accounting on ads.

  He could hear the occasional ring of a phone, and even with his door shut, the muffled clatter of fingers on keyboards. The police radio on top of his file cabinet beeped and hummed, the television squeezed between books on a shelf was set on mute.

  He had the window open and could hear the light whoosh of morning traffic, the sporadic thump of bass from a car stereo playing too loud.

  Now and then he heard a door or drawer slam from the room beyond. Rhoda, the society/fashion/gossip reporter, was still making her annoyance known. Without looking through the glass, he could see her in his mind, spitting darts at him.

  She, along with more than half the staff, had worked for the paper since he'd been a boy. And plenty of them, he knew, continued to see the Dispatch as his mother's paper.

  If not his grandfather's.

  There were times when he resented it, times when he despaired of it, and times when it simply amused him.

  He couldn't decide which reaction he was having at the moment. All he could think was that Rhoda scared the hell out of him.

  The best he could do was not think about it, or her, and settle in to polish his article on the meeting he'd attended the night before. A proposed stoplight at Market and Spruce, a debate over the budget and the need to repair the sidewalks on Main. And a rather spirited argument regarding the highly controversial notion of installing parking meters on Main to help pay for those repairs.