"That's really what this place is making you feel?" Stark tried, unsuccessfully, to hide his smile.

"Yes, asstard, it is."

Stark looked at Darius, who nodded in agreement because instead of speaking, he was obviously choosing to clench his jaw and shoot suspicious glances downward at the "spooky black waves."

"Huh." Stark quit even attempting to hide his smile and grinned at Aphrodite. "Just water and a bridge to me. Damn shame it's freaking you out so badly."

"Walk," Aphrodite said. "Before I forget you're holding Zoey, and I push you off this bridge so that Darius and I can run back the way we came, screaming or not."

Stark's grin only lasted a few more feet. It didn't take an ancient "go away" spell to sober him up. All it took was Zoey's unmoving weight in his arms. I shouldn't be messing with Aphrodite. I need to focus.

Think of what I decided to say to them and, please oh please, Nyx, let me be right. Let me say what will get me on that island. Unsmiling and resolute, Stark led them across the bridge until they stopped in front of an imposing archway made of an ethereally beautiful white stone. The torchlight caught veins of silver in what Stark thought had to be a rare marble, so that the arch glittered seductively.

"Oh, for crap's sake, I can barely look at it," Aphrodite said, turning her head from the archway and averting her eyes. "And I usually love sparkly things."

"It is more of the spell." Darius's voice was rough with tension. "It's meant to repel."

"Repel?" Aphrodite glanced at the archway, shuddered, and then looked hastily away again. "'Repulse'

is a better word."

"It doesn't affect you, either. Does it?" Darius asked Stark.

Stark shrugged. "It's impressive, and it's obviously expensive, but it doesn't make me feel weird." He

moved closer to the marble and studied the archway. "So, where's the doorbell or whatever? How do we call someone? Is there a phone, or do I yell, or what?"

"Ha Gaelic akiv?" The disembodied male voice seemed to come from the archway itself, like it was a living portal. Stark looked into the dark with bewilderment. "It'll be in the English tongue, then," the voice continued. "Your unwanted presence here is all that is required to summon me."

"I need to see Sgiach. It's a matter of life or death," Stark said.

"Sgiach isnae concerned with uze wains, even if it be a matter of life or death."

This time the voice sounded nearer, clearer, and it had a Scottish accent that was more growl than brogue.

"What the hell is a wain?" Aphrodite whispered.

"Sssh," Stark told her. To the faceless voice he said, "Zoey isn't a child. She's a High Priestess, and she needs help."

A man stepped out of the shadows. He was wearing an earth-colored kilt, but it wasn't like those they'd seen on their hurried trip through the Highlands. This one was made of more material, and it wasn't prim and proper-looking. This vampyre didn't have on a tweed jacket with a frilly shirt. His muscular chest and arms were bare as he wore only a studded leather vest and forearm guards. The hilt of a dirk glinted at his waist. Except for a strip of short hair down the center of his head, his hair was shaven. Two gold hoops glinted at one ear. The firelight caught the gold chieftain's torque he wore around one wrist. In contrast to his powerful body, his face was deeply lined. His close-cropped beard was completely white.

The tattoos on his face were griffins, claws extended onto his cheekbones. The overall and immediate impression Stark got from him was that this was a Warrior who could walk through fire and emerge not merely unscathed, but victorious.

"That wee lass there's a fledglin', no a High Priestess," he said.

"Zoey's not like other fledglings." Stark spoke quickly, afraid the guy who looked like he'd stepped out of an ancient world would de-materialize and fade into the past at any second. "Up until two days ago, she had a vampyre's tattoos, plus tattoos over much of the rest of her body. And she had affinities for all five of the elements."

The vampyre's appraising blue eyes remained on Stark without glancing at Zoey or Darius and Aphrodite.

"Yet today I see only an unconscious fledgling."

"Her soul was shattered two days ago fighting a fallen immortal. When that happened, her tattoos disappeared."

"Then it's a dyin' she will be." The vampyre raised one hand in a dismissive gesture and began to turn away.