SHE SPENT A LOT OF TIME, TO CAL’S MIND, WANDERING around, taking what appeared to be copious notes and a mammoth number of photographs with her tiny little digital, and muttering to herself.

He didn’t see how any of that was particularly helpful, but since she seemed to be absorbed in it all, he sat under a tree with the snoring Lump and let her work.

There was no more howling, no more sense of anything stalking the clearing, or them. Maybe the demon had something else to do, Cal thought. Or maybe it was just hanging back, watching. Waiting.

Well, he was doing the same, he supposed. He didn’t mind waiting, especially when the view was good.

It was interesting to watch her, to watch the way she moved. Brisk and direct one minute, slow and wandering the next. As if she couldn’t quite make up her mind which approach to take.

“Have you ever had this analyzed?” she called out. “The stone itself? A scientific analysis?”

“Yeah. We took scrapings when we were teenagers, and took them to the geology teacher at the high school. It’s limestone. Common limestone. And,” he continued, anticipating her, “we took another sample a few years later, that Gage took to a lab in New York. Same results.”

“Okay. Any objection if I take a sample, send it to a lab I’ve used, just for one more confirmation?”

“Help yourself.” He started to hitch up a hip for his knife, but she was already taking a Swiss Army out of her pocket. He should’ve figured her for it. Still, it made him smile.

Most of the women he knew might have lipstick in their pocket, but wouldn’t consider a Swiss Army. He was betting Quinn had both.

He watched her hands as she scraped stone dust into a Baggie she pulled out of her pack. A trio of rings circled two fingers and the thumb of her right hand to catch quick glints of the sun with the movement.

The glints brightened, beamed into his eyes.

The light changed, softened like a summer morning even as the air warmed and took on a weight of humidity. Leaves budded, unfurled, then burst into thick green on the trees, casting shade and light in patterns on the ground, on the stone.

On the woman.

Her hair was long and loose, the color of raw honey. Her face was sharp-featured with eyes long and tipped up slightly. She wore a long dress of dusky blue under a white apron. She moved with care, and still with grace, though her body was heavily pregnant. And she carried two pails across the clearing toward a little shed behind the stone.

As she walked she sang in a voice clear and bright as the summer morning.

All in a garden green where late I laid me down upon a bank of chamomile where I saw upon a style sitting, a country clown…

Hearing her, seeing her, Cal was filled with love so urgent, so ripe, he thought his heart might burst from it.

The man stepped through the door of the shed, and that love was illuminated on his face. The woman stopped, gave a knowing, flirtatious toss of her head, and sang as the man walked toward her.

…holding in his arms a comely country maid. Courting her with all his skill, working her unto his will. Thus to her he said, Kiss me in kindness, sweetheart.

She lifted her face, offered her lips. The man brushed them with his, and as her laugh burst like a shooting star, he took the pails from her, setting them on the ground before wrapping her in an embrace.

Have I not told you, you are not to carry water or wood? You carry enough.

His hands stroked over the mound of her belly, held there when hers covered them. Our sons are strong and well. I will give you sons, my love, as bright and brave as their father. My love, my heart. Now Cal saw the tears glimmer in those almond-shaped eyes. Must I leave you?

You will never leave me, not truly, nor I you. No tears. He kissed them away, and Cal felt the wrench of his own heart. No tears.

No. I swore an oath against them. So she smiled. There is time yet. Soft mornings and long summer days. It is not death. You swear to me?

It is not death. Come now. I will carry the water.

When they faded, he saw Quinn crouched in front of him, heard her saying his name sharply, repeatedly.

“You’re back. You went somewhere. Your eyes…Your eyes go black and…deep is the only word I can think of when you go somewhere else. Where did you go, Cal?”

“She’s not you.”

“Okay.” She’d been afraid to touch him before, afraid if she did she’d push them both into that somewhere else, or yank him back before he was done. Now she reached out to rest her hand on his knee. “I’m not who?”

“Whoever I was kissing. Started to, then it was you, but before, at first…Jesus.” He clamped the heels of his hands at his temple. “Headache. Bitch of a headache.”

“Lean back, close your eyes. I’ll-”

“It’ll pass in a minute. They always do. We’re not them. It’s not a reincarnation deal. It doesn’t feel right. Sporadic possession maybe, which is bad enough.”

“Who?”

“How the hell do I know?” His head screamed until he had to lower his head between his knees to fight off the sudden, acute nausea. “I’d draw you a damn picture if I could draw. Give me a minute.”

Rising, Quinn went behind him and, kneeling, began to massage his neck, his shoulders.

“Okay, all right. Sorry. Christ. It’s like having an electric drill inside my head, biting its way out through my temples. It’s better. I don’t know who they were. They didn’t call each other by name. But best guess is Giles Dent and Ann Hawkins. They were obviously living here, and she was really, really pregnant. She was singing,” he said and told her what he’d seen.

Quinn continued to rub his shoulders while she listened. “So they knew it was coming, and from what you say, he was sending her away before it did. ‘Not death.’ That’s interesting, and something to look into. But for now, I think you’ve had enough of this place. And so have I.”

She sat on the ground then, hissed a breath out, sucked one in. “While you were out, let’s say, it came back.”

“Jesus Christ.” He started to spring up, but she gripped his arm.

“It’s gone. Let’s just sit here until we both get our legs back under us. I heard it growling, and I spun around. You were taking a trip, and I quashed my first instinct to grab you, shake you out of it, in case doing that pulled me in with you.”

“And we’d both be defenseless,” he said in disgust.

“And now Mr. Responsibility is beating himself up because he didn’t somehow see this coming, fight off the magickal forces so he could stay in the here and now and protect the girl.”

Even with the headache, he could manage a cool, steely stare. “Something like that.”

“Something like that is appreciated, even if it is annoying. I had my handy Swiss Army knife, which, while it isn’t up to Jim Bowie standards, does include a nice corkscrew and tweezers, both of which you never know when you may need.”

“Is that spunk? Are you being spunky?”

“I’m babbling until I level out and I’m nearly there. The thing is, it just circled, making its nasty ‘I’ll eat you, my pretty and your big, lazy dog, too.’ Rustling, growling, snarling. But it didn’t show itself. Then it stopped, and you came back.”

“How long?”

“I don’t know. I think just a couple minutes, though it seemed longer at the time. However long, I’m so ready to get gone. I hope to hell you can walk back, Cal, because strong and resilient as I am, there’s no way I can carry you piggyback.”

“I can walk.”

“Good, then let’s get the hell out of here, and when we get to civilization, Hawkins, you’re buying me a really big drink.”

They gathered their packs; Cal whistled Lump awake. As they started back he wondered why he hadn’t told her of the bloodstone-the three pieces he, Fox, and Gage held. The three pieces that he now knew formed the stone in the amulet Giles Dent had worn when he’d lived at the Pagan Stone.