Once Every Never (28 page)

Right. You always kiss guys you don’t care about
…

Milo’s face was so close to hers she could have kissed
him
in that moment. His blue eyes behind those black-framed glasses were filled with concern. “I’ll kill him if he hurt you,” Milo said softly. He sounded as if he meant it. It sounded like something Connal might have said.

“I’m okay,” she said. “Really. You don’t need to kill anybody for me just yet.”

Milo relaxed his grip on her and smiled. “Okay.” Suddenly he seemed to realize that he’d been kind of man-handling Clare. He let go of her and took off his glasses to polish the lenses with the edge of his T-shirt—thereby conveniently avoiding further eye contact—but it was too late. Clare could tell he’d been worried about her. It gave her a warm feeling deep in her chest.

“Come on,” he said, a semblance of his usual, easy grin sliding back into place, “I think I figured something out while you were gone.”

Inside Milo’s apartment the furnishings were sparse: a huge desk, a leather couch, and some chairs. There were also some lovingly detailed scale models of spaceships hanging from the ceiling—the Millennium Falcon and the original-series Enterprise were ones that Clare recognized—several computers, and an entire wall devoted to maps, including a large, full-colour map of Britain stuck with a handful of coloured push-pins.

“I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out what the connection was between the shimmer triggers.”

“That’s easy,” Clare said sourly. “It’s me and my super-shimmery DNA.”

Al and Milo gave her identical looks that would have been comical if Clare had actually been joking. She filled them in on what Connal had told her about Boudicca and the blood magic.

Milo whistled low when she finished. “That’s heavy.”

“That’s
crazy
,” said Al. “They think you’re, like, some kind of tribal totemic demi-goddess or something.”

“Yup.” Clare sighed. “When, as far as I can make out, it’s just the fact that Boudicca put the whammy on me in the first place that gives me any magic at all.”

“Wow. Isn’t that kind of like the time-loop paradox in that Heinlein story, Milo?” Al mused.

“I don’t even wanna know what you’re talking about,” Clare said.

“It’s sci-fi. About a guy who time-travels in loops and keeps running into himself—”

Clare held up a hand. “Stop. Seriously—I can’t even think about this stuff for extended periods. I start to feel like a puppy that chases its own tail for so long it gets dizzy and throws up.” She turned back to Milo. “Anyway. Now you know. So how does this new info play into your theory?”

“Perfectly, actually,” he said, chewing thoughtfully on his lower lip. “Like I said—I was trying to see the connections. I mean, we know—definitively now—that they’re all connected to you, but why
those
particular objects, right? The torc and the brooch … that’s easy. They’re symbolic ornaments. Worn, in part, for protection. And, as you said before, they’re personal. But the shield?”

“Right. It really doesn’t seem to fit the same profile.”

Milo held up one finger, his blue eyes sparking with excitement. “Well, in a way, it does. I think it’s a symbol, too—a sort of grave marker. But more than that.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“What does a shield do?” he asked.

“It protects things,” Clare answered. “People. Keeps them safe. Um … hidden, maybe? Am I getting warmer?”

“Bang on, in fact.” Milo’s grin widened. “Is Boudicca still safe and hidden?”

“You mean, in her grave?” Clare shrugged. “I guess—Oh, I see where you’re going with this. The shield’s magic keeps her hidden.”

“Yup. That’s my theory anyway. I figure this blood magic stuff acts kind of like the Romulan Cloaking Device on
Star Trek
.”

Clare raised an eyebrow.

Milo grinned. “Or something like that. And, at the same time, the shield itself tells us
exactly
where the grave is located. It’s like a voodoo doll—a miniaturized version of the thing you’ve cast a spell on. It’s representative. Work magic on the one, and it affects the other sort of by remote control.”

“So it hides the grave while pointing out where the grave is.”

“Or, at least, what it looks like. Yeah.”

Al wasn’t convinced. “Mind explaining how you came up with this—might I point out, weirdly contradictory—theory?”

“Something had been nagging me about this so-called shield. The round shapes on it … their placement … When we got talking about it earlier, I looked it up on the museum website. And I kept thinking it reminded me of something. I finally figured out what that is.”

Al and Clare waited.

“Tumuli.”

“Geshundheit,” Clare said.

Al snorted, but then something sparked in her gaze. “Wait,” she said, staring keenly at Milo. “You’re talking about barrows.” She glanced at Clare and shrugged. “Hey. I watch the History Channel, too.”

Milo spread his hands wide and bowed his head like a stage magician. “I speaketh as the Maker of Maps. Dunno why it didn’t click right away—it’s not as if I spend days looking at the damn things for a living or anything!”

“Aaaand … you’ve lost me, eggheads,” Clare sighed.

Al walked over to the wall full of maps. “Barrows are heaps of earth—the technical term is ‘tumuli’—that are manmade constructs. Most of those barrows are grave chambers. Burial mounds. They’re all over Britain.” She circled a finger over an area of the map.

“Really, how do you know all this stuff?” Clare asked.

“Like I said. History Channel. Also? There’s this thing? Called ‘the internet’? You should really look into it. I think it’s gonna be a big hit.”

Clare rolled her eyes. “Right. I’ll shut up now. Carry on.”

Milo took pity on her and picked up the explanation. “Like Al said, these ancient tomb barrows are scattered all over Britain—the plains around Stonehenge are lousy with ’em—hundreds of the things, in all kinds of configurations and cluster groupings. A lot of them have been excavated or destroyed by development, but the majority just sit there untouched. I think Boudicca is buried under the one—well, a grouping of
three
to be precise—that conforms exactly to the dimensions of the Battersea Shield.”

Now it was Clare’s turn to be skeptical. “Let’s say you’re right. Let’s say the shield
is
some kind of Iron Age treasure map. How the hell are we going to find the exact configuration where X marks the spot? You say there are hundreds of these things. And we don’t even know where to look.”

“Not necessarily,” Al chimed in. “I mean, we know where to start … right, Mi?”

“Right. Let’s make the reasonable assumption that Boudicca would have been buried on or near her own stomping grounds.”

“Reasonable,” Clare agreed. “But we
are
probably talking a pretty hefty chunk of real estate, here, right?”

Al shrugged one shoulder. “Well … according to my research, the Iceni territory corresponded roughly to what is now modern-day Norfolk. So that’s kinda biggish, yeah.”

“That’s my point.” Clare shook her head. “The Roman Freaking Legions couldn’t find her tomb. And I’m pretty sure they gave it the old college try.”

Milo nodded. “From ground level the barrows all look pretty much the same. Just bumps of land. They would have had no way of knowing which one was hers.”

“But you do?”

“Well, yeah.” He turned and pointed at the wall. “See, the Romans didn’t have
aerial photography
.”

Clare blinked and saw the maps again as if for the first time. “Oh …”

“Check this out!”

Milo threw himself into the chair in front of one of the computer terminals with what Clare thought was adorably boyish gusto. She found herself doing a compare-and-contrast between him and Connal. The Druid prince was undeniably magnetic. But Milo was … kind of awesome.

Clare and Al moved to stand behind his chair.

“All I needed was to figure out the shield’s dimensions—”

“How on earth did you do that when it’s at the museum,” Clare asked, “probably under more security than ever?”

Milo grinned, pulled up a search engine, and started mouse-clicking away at light speed. The girls watched as he called up the online pictures of the Battersea Shield from the British Museum’s website. His fingers danced over keyboard and mouse and a high-quality enlargement photo of the shield popped up on the high-def screen.

“Cool,” Al said. “I’m betting you converted that graphic into a 3D wireframe model the same way you do for an aerial topography shot, right?”

Milo clicked and tapped and scrolled. “Bingo.”

“They don’t call you Wunderkind for nothing.” Al grinned.

“No ma’am, they do not.” Milo leaned closer to the screen. “Now … I can take this vector graphic and use the Heritage Society Land Monument archives to find a close topographical match. Size, shape, relative placement of the tumuli—the works …”

Clare watched in rapt fascination as Milo worked. Image after image sprang up on the screen and Milo’s long, tapered fingers made them dance as if to unheard music. It was like watching a concert pianist play. It was also, Clare thought, weirdly sexy. She had to restrain herself from reaching out and tracing the contours of Milo’s shoulder blades through his T-shirt as they slid back and forth.

“Bull’s eye.”

Clare and Al crowded in on either side of Milo and stared at the results.

“Ordnance Survey Map reference number TL586453.” Milo leaned back in his swivel chair, crossing his arms over his chest and looking extremely pleased with himself.

“Bartlow Hills …” Al breathed the name as if it were a magical incantation.

Clare was thunderstruck.

Images of the Bartlow Hills, a group of three hillocks—tumuli, as Milo and Al had called them—swam up on the screen. The middle image rotated at a stately pace, giving Clare a three-dimensional aerial view of the barrows. She gasped, astonished at how closely the contours of the landmarks seemed to correspond with the Battersea Shield. Milo overlaid a transparent image of the shield on the rotating topography and Clare could see how the high-domed bump, or “boss” as Milo called it, in the middle of the ancient artifact, and the two smaller, swirling roundels top and bottom, over-laid the grass-covered humps almost exactly.

“X marks the spot,” Milo murmured, calling up an information page on the site as the girls stared at the monitor. “Wanna know what’s even weirder? Those three hills just happen to be the only ones left out of a whole group of barrows that were plowed under to make way for an old railway line back at the turn of the century. The three Boudiccan Tumuli—that’s what I’m gonna call them—remained untouched when the others were levelled. Almost as if they were—”

“Protected by magic!” Al and Clare exclaimed in unison.

“Right. And nowadays the English Heritage Society doesn’t let developers just go around levelling those suckers, so there they sit. I’m willing to bet that our redheaded girl slumbers deep beneath, just waiting to be found.”

Clare shivered. “That is not exactly an unchilling prospect.”

“Nice use of the double negative.” Al elbowed Clare and grinned.

“Thank you.”

They could see from the aerial shot of the tumuli that a wooden staircase had been constructed up one side of the highest hill so that tourists wishing to climb to its summit could do so without contributing to erosion. Other than that, the barrows looked relatively untouched.

Queen Boudicca’s burial site.

Clare tore her gaze away from the screen and hugged her elbows. In the back of her mind she thought she heard a throaty voice, like the harsh croak of a raven, calling her name. She knew what she was going to do. What she
had
to do.

21

“Y
ou don’t have to go back again. You
know
Milo’s right.”

“I know he’s
probably
right. I need to be sure.”

“Why? So you can go tell Morholt where to dig?”

Clare sighed and looked at Al, who stood between her and the rosewood box. Al only ever got this snappish when she was truly freaked out about something. She wasn’t angry with Clare, she was afraid for her.

“No, Al,” she said. “I need to be sure so that I can tell Morholt to dig anywhere
but
there. You know he’s not going to give up on this anytime soon. And if we know—absolutely know—the exact whereabouts of the tomb, we can do everything possible to protect that place. We just need to make sure it’s the
right
place.
I
need to make sure.”

“Are you really able to direct your shimmering that closely, Clare?” Milo asked from where he leaned on the edge of his desk, arms crossed over his chest and a faint frown on his face. He wasn’t happy about the idea of Clare taking another shimmer trip either, she could tell, but he also hadn’t said anything to stop her. She kind of appreciated that. “I mean, do you think you can manage to hit the barrows at the right time?”

“I can try. Hey—the last time, Al said ‘flaming arrows.’ And what did I get?”

“Yeah,” Al muttered. “Really sorry about that …”

Suddenly Milo was across the room and gripping Clare’s arms. Hard. “Listen to me, Clare.” His stare seemed to stab through to the back of her skull. “You
listen
to me. I’m not going to stop you from doing this. It’s your gift and you have every right to use it as you see fit. I also know that you seem to need to go back there for … well, for whatever reason. That’s fine. But you’d damned well better promise me you’ll be careful. You’ve been luckier than you’ve had any right to expect, but I don’t think you can exactly place your faith in people who see you as some kind of blood-magic vending machine.”