Ruth Miller took full advantage by playing the “poor widow” card. She used every opportunity to remind those around her that she had three children to feed and a mortgage to cover. After exhausting the empathy of neighbors and the sympathy of friends, she began to drink heavily and took in a string of older lovers, all of whom were verbally abusive to Sarah and her little brothers. Eventually, even the lovers left her and Ruth turned her venom on her children. She had never amounted to anything, and she was determined that neither would they. She brought up the boys to be selfish, mistrustful, and fearful. Only Sarah—eight years older than her brothers—escaped the worst of her mother’s malign influence. And sometimes, late at night, she wondered if she would ever escape this house, this life….
NICK JACOBS started when his cell phone rang.
“She is coming.” The deep, authoritative voice said the three words and then hung up. Jacobs, aka Skinner, looked at the half-eaten scone and the barely touched cup of coffee and knew he wasn’t going to get to finish them. Shoving the scone in the pocket of his scuffed leather jacket, he shifted in the metal chair and turned to look at the entrance of the British Library directly across the courtyard. He was wondering how his employer knew so much—he must have a contact inside the library—when the glass doors slid open and a gray-haired older woman appeared, moving slowly and carefully, her cane assisting each painful step. Pushing mirrored Ray-Ban Aviators up onto his recently shaven head, Skinner nudged his companion with his foot.
The hollow-eyed teenager sitting across the table glanced up quickly, then looked down at the pages spread out before him. He pulled out a crisp, high-resolution photograph and spun it toward Skinner. “Looks like her.”
“It’s her, you idiot,” Skinner snapped. He hated working with junkies; you couldn’t depend on them, and they didn’t give a shit.
“I suppose you’re right,” mumbled Lawrence McFeely, pushing his scratched Ray-Bans up on his nose. He jerked his chin in the direction of the woman, who was now heading down Ossulston Street. “The report said she’d broken her right hip,” McFeely added. “She’s favoring that leg.”
Skinner rolled his eyes. “Listen to you. You’ve been watching too much fucking CSI.” He took a deep breath and felt for the blade in his pocket. “Let’s do it, then. Get the car.”
McFeely came slowly to his feet, turned, and ambled away. Skinner ground his teeth at his lack of urgency and swore he was going to give the bastard a good kicking when this job was done. He fell into step behind the old woman, matching his pace to hers. She was moving slowly across the red-and-white-tiled square in the front of the modern library building, balancing a heavy Tesco canvas bag on her shoulder, an array of papers peeking through the top. The skinhead glanced back, looking at the glass-and-redbrick building, and wondered what she had been doing in there. The last library he’d stood in had been the school library, when he was ten, when his teacher Mrs. Geisz helped him research a project about stalactites and stalagmites. Much bloody good it had done him; he still didn’t know which was which. He remembered her saying that “one held on tight” and the other “might reach the ceiling.”
Mrs. Geisz was the first and only adult who had ever been kind to him. Bounced around among several foster homes, Skinner was a textbook case of someone who, following a lifetime of neglect, desperately craved love and attention. At twenty-six, he had only one thing he could boast about: a solid six-pack stomach and freakishly strong muscles, courtesy of working nights at a brewery in Birmingham, where he earned ten quid an hour. To supplement his meager income, he often took on odd jobs here and there. And he wasn’t fussy about the nature of the job. That was how his current employer had found him. Skinner had jumped at the chance of earning easy cash with no questions asked. The fact that he got to hurt some people in the process was an added bonus.
Skinner watched as McFeely’s tan Volvo cruised by him. It picked up speed as it moved past the old woman and pulled into the nearest available space, a hundred yards ahead of her.
Perfect. Skinner grinned, showing uneven teeth. Just perfect. This was going to be the easiest thousand pounds he’d ever earned.
JUDITH WALKER shifted the heavy bag onto her left shoulder, trying to ease some of the pressure off her sore hip. She hadn’t been conscious of time slipping by as she’d sat in the hushed stillness of the library, and now her hip ached abominably and the muscles in her shoulders had locked into a solid bar of pain. And she still had an hour-and-a-half train ride ahead of her.
Researching source material on the Hallows of Britain was like chasing rainbows. An impossible feat. She’d spent a lifetime researching the ancient objects in libraries across England, Scotland, and Wales. She had mountains of notes, scraps of legends and folktales, but no credible evidence. Lately, she’d begun to extend her research online, but now, entering the word Hallows in search engines brought up something like four million hits, most of them, as far as she could see, referencing Harry Potter. She found the odd page that listed the Thirteen Hallows; but there was very little about their individual origins.
However, this morning’s research had not been a complete waste of time. Later, over a nice cup of tea and some of the raisin scones she had picked up at the market, she would add her latest findings to the hundreds of jigsaw pieces she had collected over the years. Maybe when she looked over the material again, she would find some hint to the true nature of the artifacts and put the puzzle together.
Yet somehow she doubted it.
The Hallows had remained hidden down through the centuries. The very fact that there was so little solid information about them made her suspect that their existence had been expunged from the history books. But how…and why?
Now five of the Hallowed Keepers were dead. Five that she knew about. That could not be a coincidence.
But the real question, of course, was what had happened to the artifacts they guarded. She knew that Beatrice had the Pan and the Platter of Rhygenydd. While Judith had carefully hidden her sword over the decades, Bea had displayed her Hallow proudly among the antiques in her sitting room. “Who in their right mind would know its true meaning?” Bea had chuckled. “People only see what they want to see. Tchotchkes collected by a batty old broad.”
But someone had known. And they had killed her for them.
A spasm of pain made her stop suddenly. She felt as if there were ground glass in her hip. Leaning against a lamppost outside the Levita House apartment complex, Judith turned to look back down the street, suddenly deciding that she would take a taxi to the train. From bitter experience, she knew that if she pushed on, she’d spend the rest of the day and most of the night in agony with her hip.
Naturally, there wasn’t a taxi in sight.
Debating whether to turn back and head down into Euston Road, she was abruptly aware of the shaven-headed man in the dirty jeans bearing down on her. His eyes were hidden behind mirrored sunglasses, but she could tell by his fixed expression that he was coming for her.
The old woman was swinging the bag even before the youth reached for her. It caught him on the side of the head, throwing him off balance and driving him to his knees, sending his sunglasses spinning into the gutter.
Judith screamed, her voice high and raw. And in typical fashion, no one listened. A dozen heads turned in her direction, but no one made any attempt to come to the old woman’s aid. Drivers passed, rubbernecking yet not stopping. She turned to run, but there was another youth behind her, blocking her path, his long, greasy blond hair framing a gaunt, hollow-eyed face. He was holding open a car door.
Junkie, she realized as she clutched her bag.
Her bag.
They just wanted to snatch her bag. Ordinarily she would have relinquished its contents; however, its contents were anything but ordinary. She turned back as the shaven-headed youth climbed to his feet, his face fixed in a rigid mask of hate.
She was trapped.
SKINNER WAS humiliated. He was just knocked down by
a woman half his weight and three times his age. Plus he’d torn the knee of his favorite Levi’s, skinned his hands, and broken his new sunglasses. The bitch would pay. His hand dipped into his pocket and pulled out a flat metal bar. His wrist moved sharply back and forth and the butterfly knife clicked open, the blade appearing from between the handles.
“Stupid fucking mistake,” he hissed as he pointed the knife toward her throat, the cold blade jabbing at her leathery skin. The woman hobbled backward, toward the car door.
“Get in,” Skinner hissed.
Judith struck out at him again. She knew if she got into the car, she was dead. She opened her mouth to scream again, but the bald youth punched her in the pit of her stomach, doubling her over. The junkie giggled behind her, the sound high-pitched and almost childlike.
A hand wrapped tightly in her hair, close to her scalp, hauling her upright. The pain was shocking. “Get in the car!”
“Hey—stop that! What do you think you’re doing?”
Through sparkling tears, Judith caught a glimpse of a redheaded young woman moving toward them. She tried to call out to her, to warn her about the knife, but she was having difficulty drawing breath.
Skinner spun around, bringing up the knife. “Why don’t you mind your own f—”
Without breaking stride, the young woman lashed out with the heel of her sensible shoe, catching the skinhead just below the kneecap. There was a distinct popping sound and Skinner crashed to the ground onto his injured knee, his cry high-pitched and feminine. Judith spun around and caught the edge of the car door, slamming it shut. It closed on the junkie’s fingers, tearing skin and snapping bones. His mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out.
Judith scooped up her fallen bag and hobbled toward the young woman, who reached for her hand and pulled her away without a word. They had taken a dozen steps before the junkie started screaming incoherently. Lying on the ground, whimpering in pain, cradling his injured knee, Skinner pulled out his cell phone and hit a speed dial. His employer was not going to be pleased, and that frightened the skinhead even more than his injured leg.
5
No police,” Judith Walker said firmly as they rounded the corner, distancing themselves from the assailants. Her fingers tightened on the young woman’s arm, squeezing painfully. “Please, no police.”
“But…”
Taking a deep breath, attempting to calm her thundering heart, Judith continued evenly, “It was just a bag snatch…or a mugging.”
“Just a mugging!”
“I’m Judith Walker,” the woman said suddenly, stopping and extending her hand, which forced the young woman to turn back, breaking her train of thought. “What’s your name?”
The young woman extended her hand. The moment it was enveloped in the older woman’s leathery grasp, she became disoriented, a surge of confusing thoughts and odd emotions washing over her. “I…I’m Sarah Miller.”
“It is very nice to meet you, Sarah Miller. And thanks to you, there’s no harm done,” Judith continued forcefully, allowing a little authority to seep into her voice. She continued to hold Sarah’s hand, using the physical contact to strengthen the link between them. She calmed the edgy young woman’s nerves with her gentle touch, while subtly using her skills to envelop her consciousness. It was a talent she hadn’t used in more than a decade, but she knew she needed to take control of the situation or the girl would go to the police, and she couldn’t afford that. Locking her eyes on the girl’s face, she smiled. “Now, I don’t know about you, Sarah, but I’d love a cup of coffee.”
“Coffee.” The young woman nodded absently. “Coffee. Yes, of course.”
Judith maneuvered Sarah toward a small Italian café. Three couples deep in conversation occupied all of the tables outside the restaurant. As they approached, Judith concentrated on an American couple in matching J. Crew madras jackets and madras sneakers, who were sitting a little apart from the others, their table partially hidden by a striped umbrella. Drawing strength from the lump of iron in her bag, feeling it heavy and warm in her arms, she willed them to leave. Moments later, the preppy couple stood up, packed up their maps and cameras, dropped a few bills on the table, and walked away without glancing back.
When Judith and Sarah sat down, the older woman immediately ordered two double espressos and some almond cannoli.
Sarah was still too dazed to notice. Somewhere at the back of her mind, she felt as if she had lost something or had missed something. It was as if she were watching a badly edited movie, with frames or sequences missing. She tried to piece together the puzzling events of the last ten minutes. She had just left the bank and was heading to lunch in the café on the first floor of the library when she spotted the skinhead. He was wearing those mirrored shades she detested. Trailing the stink of unwashed flesh, the skinhead had brushed past her, eyes fixed on someone directly ahead of him. Sarah turned and immediately spotted the silver-haired old woman who was his intended target. Even before the skinhead grabbed for her and the woman screamed and swung her bag, Sarah had been moving toward them, drawn by a sudden, uncontrollable, and completely inexplicable urge to help the woman.
The bitter tang of espresso brought her back to the present. Sarah blinked, blue eyes watering, wondering what she was doing here…wondering where here was.
“That was a very brave thing you did.” Judith wrapped both hands around the thick cup to keep them from trembling and breathed in the rich aroma before sipping delicately. Although her head was bent, she could feel Sarah’s eyes on her. “Why did you do it?”
“I just…just…” The young woman shrugged. “I’m not sure. I’ve never done anything like this before,” she admitted. “But I couldn’t just walk away and allow them to assault you, could I?”
“Others walked by or looked away,” the old woman said quietly. “I guess that makes you my personal savior,” she added with a smile.
Sarah blushed, a tinge of color touching her cheeks, and in that instant she reminded Judith of her brother Peter, standing proud and tall in his green uniform, his cheeks flushed with pride. Although she’d been only a child when she’d last seen her older brother, on the night before he went off to fight in the war, the vivid image of the blushing eighteen-year-old had remained with her. She had never seen him again; Peter had been among the first British casualties of World War II.
“Are you sure you won’t let me make a report to the police?” Sarah asked.
“Positive,” Judith replied firmly. “It would waste a lot of time—yours, mine, and the police’s. I assure you such assaults are not unusual. This is London, these people often target the elderly, considering us easy marks.”
“They picked on the wrong woman this time.” Sarah grinned.
Judith lifted her bulging bag. “I think this is what they were after. And I’m afraid they would have been sadly disappointed. I’m not hiding the crown jewels in here. Just some books and notes.”
“Are you a teacher?” Sarah asked curiously, biting into her cannoli. “You look like a teacher. At least the kind of teacher I would have liked to have,” she added shyly.
“I’m a writer.”
“What sort of books?”
“Children’s books. What were once called fantasies, but are now categorized as urban fantasies. No vampires, though,” she added with a quick grin. “I don’t do vampires.” Judith finished her coffee in one quick swallow, grimacing as she tasted bitter dregs. “Now, I really must go.” She stood up quickly, then groaned aloud as a slender needle of agony lanced through her hip and she sank back onto the metal café chair.
“What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” Sarah came around the table to kneel by her side. “Did they hurt you?”
Blinking away tears of pain, Judith Walker shook her head. “It’s nothing. Honestly. My replacement hip is acting up, nothing more than that. I’ve been sitting for too long, that’s all.”
Sarah spotted a black taxi that turned onto the street and automatically rai
sed her arm. “Come on, let me get you to a cab.” She hooked an arm beneath the old woman’s shoulders and eased her to her feet.
“I’ll be fine,” Judith hissed.
“I can see that.”
Judith wanted to be left alone, wanted nothing more than to go home, climb into a scalding bath, and wash away the skinhead’s touch. She could still feel his blunt fingers in her hair, gripping her shoulder, hurting her arm. She dabbed absently at her cheek, where his spittle had stung her flesh. She knew why they’d come for her. She knew what they wanted. She also knew that they would be back. She looked at Sarah again, and for the briefest instant, the bag on the ground beside her leg pulsed a beat of heat.
The young woman’s dramatic appearance was an interesting coincidence…but Judith Walker didn’t believe in coincidence. For her, everything was wrapped up in fate. This woman had rescued her for a reason. She reached out and rested her fingers lightly on the back of Sarah’s hand, startling her. “We’ll take a taxi to the station. I know there’s a train to Bath soon. Then it’s only a short walk from the Bath Spa station to my house. You’ll come with me, won’t you.”
The Thirteen Hallows Page 3