England. No wonder he’d kept disappearing when she’d been imagining him as Aragorn—silly her! She was having a dorky historical fantasy, not a dorky sci fi/fantasy fantasy!
“All righty then,” Alex said happily, squeezing the hand that still held hers, “I’m ready. I’ve come back to you.” Still grinning, she braced herself, sure she’d figured out her dream version of the Gordian Knot, and everything would clear right up in an instant.
“It won’t be that easy, daughter of man!”
The new voice blasted Alex. Whoever had her hand dropped it, and, thrown off balance by the force of the voice and by the absence of the comforting presence that had anchored her in the dream world, Alex stumbled backward. And there was nothing behind her. Her arms windmilled, but she couldn’t stop herself from falling…falling…falling…
“Hey there, Ms. Patton! You’re awake now—everything’s okay.”
Alex jerked away from the old guy whose big, beefy hand was resting on her shoulder.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. It’s just that you were making some real strange noises and I thought you might be having a doozy of a nightmare.”
Alex blinked up at the man—thinning gray hair, silver unibrow, lots of nose hair—and reality rushed back into her frazzled brain.
“Oh, Mr. Thompson, you startled me.”
“Were you having a bad dream, dear?” Mrs. Thompson, a plump woman who looked as if she’d be the perfect grandma, peered down at Alex over her husband’s shoulder.
“I—I guess I was. I don’t really remember.” She stood abruptly, brushing nonexistent dirt and grass from her khaki work pants. “I can’t believe I fell asleep,” she said, trying not to sound as disconcerted as she felt—especially when she realized she was the center the half dozen city folks’ attention.
“Sweetheart, you’ve been out like a light for the better part of two hours!” boomed Mr. Meyers, a retired butcher from Tulsa.
“Oh, Frank, leave the girl alone. I was just thinkin’ how tired she looked while we was hiking up here.” Mrs. Meyers, who insisted Alex call her Trixi, patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry. We all need our beauty sleep.”
“Okay, well, are we ready to head back?” Alex said, wishing she could crawl under the nearest rock.
“Yep, sure are! And I’ll bet you can set a quicker pace than you did on the way here, after that nap you took!” Mr. Meyers chuckled and slapped Alex on the back.
Thankfully, none of the tourists were staying the night, so Alex’s duties were done after she deposited the group in the prairie gift shop. Still feeling out of sorts after the weird repeated dream, she decided to indulge herself in one of her favorite pastimes—watching old BBC Masterpiece Theatre specials on her widescreen iMac. She’d popped some extra-buttery popcorn, poured a huge glass of iced tea—no wine today!—opened her new Netflix envelope and was just getting ready to pop disc one of The House of Elliott into her computer when the screen bleeped, telling her she had a new e-mail. Without really thinking about it, Alex clicked on the logo and saw that the new mail was from [email protected].
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding,” she muttered at the screen. With an annoyed jab, she clicked on the e-mail.
There was one line, which read: If you want to find out more about this, come to Flagstaff. It was signed A. C.
Alex glanced up at the address block and saw that there was an attachment. She almost didn’t click into it. What could Carswell possibly send her that she’d want to learn more about? But, grudgingly, Alex had to admit she was curious. She clinked into the attachment.
The symbol that filled the screen had her breath catching in her throat.
It was the sapphire S design from her dream.
Chapter 4
It took her too damn long to dig around in her address book and find the number to the Project Anasazi headquarters Tessa had given her months ago, when she’d first tried to talk her into joining Carswell’s team. Alex wasn’t at all surprised when the professor answered the phone herself.
“Where did you get that design?” Alex asked without any preamble.
“Alex, it’s good of you to call,” said the professor smoothly.
“Where did you get that design?” she stubbornly repeated.
“As I explained in the e-mail, if you want to know more about the symbol you’ll have to come to Flagstaff.”
“That’s bullshit!”
“Nevertheless, that is the deal.”
Alex drew a deep breath and got a handle on her temper before she spoke again. Then, in short clipped sentences, she said, “I do not know why you’re doing this. I will not join the project. My answer there will be the same as my answer here.”
“I’m doing this because we need you. The world needs you, Alex.”
“That’s just more bullshit! The world? I can’t save the world. Find someone else—someone who’s more like Tessa.”
“It’s you we need for this particular mission.” When Alex didn’t respond, Professor Carswell continued softly, “The symbol is important to you. I can tell you that.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Alex could hear the smile in her voice. “Because you’re not the only freak around.”
Alex snorted.
“Come to Flagstaff. It’ll change your life,” said Professor Carswell.
“I don’t want my life changed,” Alex insisted.
“Don’t you?”
There was a long silence on the line and then Alex heard herself saying, “Is that ticket still at Tulsa International?”
“What’s woad?” Alex asked Professor Carswell. She was sitting across from the professor in her office at the Time Raiders headquarters in Flagstaff, staring at a beautiful sketch of the S design the professor had scanned into the computer and sent to her. Only this original had been drawn on the outline of a human face. The face didn’t have any detail—it was just a frame for the swirling S pattern that spread from the man’s forehead and cheekbones, down to the side of his neck and even onto his torso.
Alex thought she’d never seen anything so exotic, beautiful or compelling.
“Woad is a powerful tattoo that ancient Celtic warriors used to adorn their bodies.”
“That’s an ancient tattoo?” Alex continued to stare at the design as if she was trying to see the man behind it.
“Well, there is a rather boring academic debate about whether the Celts actually tattooed the images on their bodies, or whether they were painted on. This particular image once adorned
