Immortal Sins

He grunted softly. "The influence of radio and television, I expect." He glanced at her TV. "The people imprisoned there, do you know the name of the wizard who enchanted them?"

"What?"

He gestured at the TV. "The name of the wizard who imprisoned them, do you know it?"

Kari stared at him for a moment and then she laughed. "There aren’t any people trapped inside."

"But I see many of them over and over again, doing the same things, wearing the same clothes, speaking the same words, every time. Ricky and Lucy. Rob and Laura. Hawkeye and Colonel Potter. Niles and Frasier. It must be a powerful enchantment."

Kari couldn’t help it, she had to laugh. "Those are reruns. Old television shows," she explained. "They replay every week, some for years. The people in the shows are actors playing a part. Some of the sitcoms, like I Love Lucy, are over fifty years old. The people have aged, but the images you see on the screen haven’t."

He frowned. "I am not sure I understand. How is that possible?"

"Hang on a sec." Kari went to the hall closet. She returned a few minutes later with her video camera. "Okay, walk around the room, then stop and say something to me."

He looked puzzled but did as she asked.

"All right, that’s enough," Kari said. "Come here." She held the camera so he could see the screen, and then hit PLAY. "Television is like this. Moving pictures. I can play this over and over again, and it won’t change. Programs like the news are current events. The things that you watch on the news happened the day you see them, or are happening while you watch. Movies and TV are just entertainment, like stage plays back in your time, only our plays are recorded so that they can be viewed as often as you wish."

Rourke watched the short video a second time, amazed to see his image on the screen. And then he frowned.

"Truly a kind of magic," he murmured, "to be able to forever capture a moment in time."

Kari grinned at him. If you didn’t understand how video worked, then it really was like magic, she thought. And as one who didn’t have a clue, she viewed movies and her computer and practically every kind of modern technology as a kind of modern hocus-pocus. She had often looked at her music CDs and wondered how such a thing could record music that could be played in her portable CD player, on her computer, or in her car.

She looked at the camera in her hand, then frowned thoughtfully. Strange, that he didn’t cast a reflection in a mirror, yet she could capture his image on video. It must have something to do with digital technology, she mused.

"I’ll be right back." After setting the camera on her nightstand, she went in search of her cell phone.

"What are you doing?" Rourke asked when she flipped open the phone.

"Testing a theory. Smile." She took his picture, then looked at the screen, and he was there. "Amazing."

Taking a step forward, Rourke looked over her shoulder. He had not seen his own countenance in over seven hundred years, had, in fact, almost forgotten what he looked like. His brothers had all resembled their mother, but Rourke looked remarkably like his father. He had the same dark blond hair, the same striking blue eyes, the same hawklike nose and stubborn jaw.

Kari closed the phone, then sat down on the foot of the bed. "Your painting must have changed hands a lot in three hundred years."

"Yes." His prison had been owned by many people in the course of his captivity. It had hung in castles, in mansions, and once in a convent in the room where visitors waited to be announced. Though the painting had been kept in the convent only a short time, it had been a most interesting experience. Nuns both old and young had found reasons to pass through the room where his painting had been displayed. One young nun in particular had seemed particularly smitten with his image. For a time, he had hoped that she would call him forth, but the mother superior had discovered her postulant’s fascination and sold the painting.

His last owner, a rather eccentric elderly woman, had tired of the Vilnius after fourteen years and consigned him to the attic. He had spent the last fifteen years there, gathering dust, until the old woman died and the painting had been sold to the gallery where Karinna had found him.

"And now you’re free," she remarked.

"Yes." He looked past her, staring out her bedroom window. Mortal eyes would have seen little but the darkness beyond, but with his preternatural vision, he could see for several miles. "I have seen much and learned much of your world, but I want to see more, and I want you to be my guide."

"Why me?"

"Why not you?"

"Because I…because…"

Closing the distance between them, he stroked her cheek with his fingertips. "You have no need to be afraid of me, Karinna Adams. I will not hurt you."

She looked into his eyes, those deep blue eyes, and for some inexplicable reason, she believed him. She only hoped she wasn’t making the biggest mistake of her life.

Kari’s nerves were on edge by the time she got home from work the following night. She couldn’t keep her hand from shaking as she unlocked the front door. Taking a deep breath, she stepped inside. Was he here?

In the living room, she dropped her handbag and keys on the sofa table. She hesitated a moment, then went upstairs to her bedroom. She kicked off her shoes and changed into a pair of comfy jeans and a warm sweater. After stepping into a pair of fur-lined boots, she turned toward the door, only to come to an abrupt halt when she saw him standing in the doorway. He was so tall, his shoulders so broad, he almost filled the opening. He was a beautiful man, though there was nothing feminine about him.

He smiled at her as if his being there was the most normal thing in the world. "Good evening."

"Hi." She forced the word past the lump of fear in her throat. She had forgotten how big he was, how breathtakingly handsome. How scary.

"Are you ready?" he asked.

She lifted a protective hand to her throat. "Ready for what?"

He arched a brow in wry amusement. "I’ve not come to dine on you, if that is what you are thinking. You were going to show me around, remember?"

"Oh, right." She was about to tell him that she hadn’t had dinner when she realized her appetite was gone. She hoped his was, too. "I need my handbag and my keys," she said, edging toward the bedroom door.

He took a step backward and she swept past him, acutely aware of him as she headed for the stairs. In the living room, she grabbed her purse and her keys and headed for the front door.