Read Spiral: Book One of the Spiral in Time for Free Online Page A

Some problem, my dear. My presence is requested immediately!”
    He winked and gave a courtly kiss to her hand. “Well, my dear, you’ll have to excuse me. It sounds urgent. I’ll call tomorrow, and we can talk about our clan mothers and such.”
    Germaine gave him a wry smile as he left the room. When she turned back around, Nicholas Greenwood had disappeared. “And I just made an ass of myself,” she murmured, and cringed inwardly.
    Now, Aubrey was off on some important mission, and Moira was with the Conan Ryan, ready to run him down and cast an Irish love spear into his beautiful body. Maybe she needed to take some lessons from Moira and learn how to hunt.
    Germaine was at the front of the line now and flinched as she opened her mouth to have her genetic history placed in a glass vial. A quick swab from the inside of your cheek, by a long-handled, small brush, and you were done. The longest part was filling out the form with as much family history as she knew, so her DNA could be correctly entered into computers that would sift through the numbers and, in the end, tell her which clan mother started her own line of history.
    There is something scary about delving into the past, she thought. What if it told you things you didn’t want to know? Or, almost as frightening, things you did want to know? Either way, there was no turning back.
    She silently laughed at herself and went into the hallway for another iced coke. She would go over her notes for her talk and hope for the best. Life moves on, she thought, and change is the sacred rule, whether you like it or not. A new schedule was on the door and lying on the drink table was the old one that had greeted her with its graffiti message. She picked it up and read it again.
    She folded the paper and stuck it in her conference bag: a reminder to not be so arrogant. She couldn’t run away from herself. Or her past.
    Later, the room grew quiet as the last few people left, and she stood at the window. The moonless night sky was solid black—it matched her mood. The glass reflected the brightly lit conference room and her solitary figure back at her, like a mirror.
    She felt like a small child again, alone and inexplicably frightened.

CHAPTER 3
    London
    June 5, 2006
    The ringing would not stop. Germaine slammed her hand down on the night stand searching for the offending telephone, and opened one eye. It was across the room on the desk. The sky outside was barely light, way too early for anyone to be calling.
    She stumbled to the desk and grabbed the receiver. Her head spun from the effort of getting up and the awful taste in her mouth was last night’s wine. Aubrey Clarke’s resonant voice shattered the last remnants of sleep.
    “Germaine, something terrible has happened.” His words crackled and sounded like they were coming over a short wave radio. “Come down to Maiden Castle right away. There’s been an explosion—I can hardly believe it! Someone blew a hole in the middle of the site, and there is something there.”
    The top of her head pounded with a steady pulsing pain as she tried to remember everything she knew about Maiden Castle, beyond that it was the largest Iron Age hillfort in England.
    “I thought Sir Mortimer Wheeler found everything when he excavated there in the 30s,” she said, stalling, as she tried to make her brain cells wake up. “There’s nothing left to find.”
    “Well, he was wrong. I’m telling you there’s something there. I have a feeling it’s going to be big and I need you.” The tone of his voice emphasized the last three words.
    I need you —there was no way to refuse after that. Her loyalty to Aubrey was absolute; she could only say yes. She hung up and then collapsed back on the bed. All she wanted was to be horizontal and not move, but there was no sleeping now.
    She sat up and held her head in her hands. Little pinpoints of light, like slow-moving shooting stars, passed before her eyes. Aubrey sounded more disturbed