Legend Of The Highland Dragon by Isabel Cooper Page B

the wall before it could bite or sting or explode. The footsteps outside scurried off.
    The sphere was about the size of a man’s fist, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. It wasn’t hissing or ticking. It didn’t smell like smoke. Still, nobody with an ordinary package to deliver dropped it through the letter slot and ran, and Stephen doubted that Carter had any secret admirers.
    Miss Seymour might have, of course. She was a pretty lass with an undoubtedly nice figure, that mass of honey-gold hair, and a set of very red lips in her sharp little face. A man could take quite a fancy to her until she spoke, and perhaps one who had spoken to her wouldn’t have the nerve to give his gifts properly.
    The thought made Stephen curl his lip. They bred a spineless lot of young men these days, if that were the case.
    There was nothing for it. Stephen faced the east and said a few quick Latin words, invoking the Wind That Parts the Veil, and saw the world before him turn misty and gray. The desk shone faintly golden through that fog, and the bookshelves were a bluish violet, but the package stood out like a full moon, glowing an eerie, shifting silver-green.
    Stephen took a few steps toward it but made no move to touch it yet. At this distance, with the Wind at his back, he could see through both the physical wrappings and the object itself, and knew that it was no coward’s courting gift—though it would look like a harmless bauble of some sort, probably a polished crystal or a metal bowl. It would be something to keep on the mantel or to put flowers in, so that the mist inside it would have as much time as possible to disperse.
    That mist would be somebody’s eyes and ears, and a truly skilled enough magician could whisper suggestions through it. It would take a great deal of power to change a human mind that way, but one could certainly change moods, twisting a target toward despair or madness. Even if Carter or Miss Seymour had gotten rid of the thing, the mist that came out on opening the package would probably have been enough to suit Ward’s purposes.
    Even with the package wrapped, there was only a little time before the mist would begin to seep through the paper.
    Fortunately, April in London was still a chilly month.
    Stephen took off his coat and wrapped it around the sphere, careful not to let his hands touch even the outer layer of the paper. With the bundle in his hands, he stood, walked over to the fireplace, and uttered another invocation, this one to the Flame at the Center of the World.
    Then he dropped the ball, coat and all, into the flames.
    In retrospect, he thought when his head stopped ringing, he probably should have expected it to explode.
    ***
    “…and so here I am,” Mina said. She’d told Professor Carter everything that had happened the previous night, though she’d excluded Stephen’s real form. In her version of the story, he’d sent the manes packing with pistol and holy water and wanted to keep her there because she’d seen them.
    “Well,” said Professor Carter. He drew a breath and then repeated: “Well.”
    “I know it must all sound rather improbable—” Mina began.
    “How could it, my girl, when I was there for half of the proceedings?” Professor Carter chuckled, though there was as much ruefulness as mirth in it. “I may have been a skeptic at first, but the Bavarian expedition went a long way toward curing me of that, and it wasn’t the last such experience I had, either! There was a time in Jamaica—but that’s neither here nor there, is it?”
    Mina had to admit that it wasn’t. She smiled, though, as she hadn’t been able to do since she’d entered Professor Carter’s office with MacAlasdair at her side. Despite everything MacAlasdair had told her, she’d still worried that the professor would think she’d gone mad. Seeing his face animated by curiosity and without a trace of disbelief did more good for her spirits than any tonic she could think