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Also, unlike the other volumes that were simply labeled by Roman numerals, this one merited its own title:
The Book of the Sin Siriche Du.
    Or, loosely translated from Gaelic—she was capable of that much—the book of the darkest/blackest elf/fairy.
    She’d found the creature she’d seen tonight: Adam Black.
    The earliest accounts of it were sketchy, descriptions of its various glamours, warnings about its deviltry, cautions about its insatiable sexuality and penchant for mortal women (
“so sates a lass, that she is oft incapable of speech, her wits muddled for a fortnight or more.”
Oh, please, Gabby thought, was that the medieval equivalent of screwing her brains out?), but by the approach of the first millennium, the accounts became more detailed.
    In the mid–ninth century—near 850 A.D .—the thing had gone on a rampage, meddling with mortals for the seemingly sole purpose of inciting fury and causing battles to break out all over Scotland.
    Thousands
had died by the time it was done amusing itself.
    Numerous sightings had been made of the thing watching, smiling, as blood ran on countless battlefields. For a time it hadn’t been just O’Callaghan women who’d seen it; it had made no effort whatsoever to hide itself, and her ancestors had gathered the tales of those myriad sightings, recording them in great detail.
    By far the most dangerous and unpredictable of his race . . .
    No other fairy had ever dared such blatant, cold-blooded interference with humankind.
    The clock on the mantel chimed the hour, jarring her. She rubbed her eyes, startled to realize that the night had sped by and it was already morning. The first rays of sunlight were pressing at the edges of the drapes that, late last night, she’d pulled tightly across the windows. She’d been up for well over twenty-four hours straight; it was no wonder her eyes felt so gritty and tired.
    His favored glamour is that of an intensely sexual Highland blacksmith. . . .
    Her gaze drifted back to the book in her lap, opened to a sketch of the dark fairy.
    Uncanny. It was the very image that had occurred to her when she’d first spotted it. Was it possible, she wondered, that there really was such a thing as genetic memory? Knowledge passed from one generation to the next, imprinted in one’s very DNA? It would go a long way toward explaining why the moment she’d laid eyes on it all kinds of alarms had gone off inside her. Why she’d thought instinctively of a blacksmith, as if in the deepest, darkest reaches of her soul she’d instantly recognized her primordial enemy. Enemy to countless O’Callaghan women before her.
    The sketch didn’t begin to do it justice, though it captured the unmistakable essence of it. Sighted in medieval times and sketched at a place in the Highlands called Dalkeith-Upon-the-Sea (where it had allegedly killed a young Gypsy woman), it was all muscle and arrogant sexuality, clad in a kilt, standing at a forge near a copse of Rowan trees, before a magnificent, medieval castle that loomed in the background. Strong hand wielding a smith’s hammer, its arm was flexed in midswing. Its hair was flying about its face in a dark tangle that fell to its waist. Its lips were curved in a mocking smile.
    She’d seen that smile tonight. And a worse one still. One far more . . . predatory. If possible.
    Her gaze fixed on the heavily inked and underscored admonition beneath the sketch:
    AVOID CONTACT AT ALL COST
    “Oh, Gram,” she whispered, a sudden, hot burn of tears stinging her eyes, “you were right.”
    She had to leave.
Now.
     
    Twenty-two frenetic minutes later, Gabby had changed into jeans and a tank top and was ready to go, running on pure adrenaline, in lieu of much-needed sleep. She couldn’t leave the precious books behind—she didn’t know if or when she’d be able to return, and they simply had to be preserved, by God, she
would
have children to pass them down to one day—so she’d packed them.
    While she’d