Yes, a real-as-can-be drawbridge with clanking, rattling chains, the creaking of stressed wood and a tremendous thud that was felt right to the bones of our feet as it came to rest in front of us. Winchester was taking the whole ancient English castle a bit too far, I thought.
A garage. A big one well lit by fluorescents, holding half a dozen cars from Aston Martins to Audis. Standing in front, hands behind his back, was the one I assumed must be Jeeves. He confirmed my suspicion when he spoke.
“Father Engle,” he said, staring up at Mike. “What is the nature of your visit?”
I took the moment before Mike answered to size up the butler. Short, maybe five-five, one hundred fifty pounds, very wide shoulders, black hair, big nose, weak chin and hairy eyebrows that looked like two caterpillars squaring off. All this was stuffed into a classic tuxedo complete with tails.
Mike took a slow step forward and I saw the butler’s shoulders tense slightly. “Sir, my business with Ms. Winchester concerns both myself and my companion.” Mike gently laid the duffel down onto the concrete. “It has to do with a certain antiquity she purchased a year ago.” A hint of movement came from deep within the recesses of the garage.
Something tweaked my ‘uh-oh’ button. I noticed Jeeves stood on the balls of his feet and then I took in again the breadth of his shoulders and the fact that his hands still were hidden behind his back. This man knew how to take care of himself and I would’ve bet my last peso that he had a pistol in his hand. This was no ordinary butler by a long shot. Right then I knew we were walking into the lion’s den smelling like prime rib.
Leslie Winchester came forward from the recesses of the garage into the light of the floods and I felt my eyes open wide in admiration. Not beautiful, but definitely a handsome woman, her once pixyish face had matured into a full blown representation of sensuality that age had not dimmed at all; in fact, my hot-o-meter was running into the red. Shoulder-length permed blond hair framed her face and her bust strained at a blue SOUNDGARDEN t-shit while her ample hips were encased in sprayed-on blue jeans. A pair of dainty white cowboy boots covered her curiously tiny feet.
“Nigel,” she crooned through nibblesome, pouty lips. “A man of the cloth is always welcome here.”
Nigel. Really? He would have been better off as a Jeeves.
“Really, madam, I must insist you stay back,” Nigel warned, mouth set in a grim line. I felt danger spill into the air, the sense you get when lightning is about to strike. Surreptitiously, I slid my hand into the front pocket of my black jeans and palmed what was inside.
“Really, Nigel, I know a good man when-” Leslie began, eyes focused solely on Mike. Maybe I moved a fraction, or she caught me out of the corner of her eye, for she suddenly swiveled her head toward me and screamed, pointing a long, blood-red fingernail. “Nigel! Watch out!”
Not good, I thought just before shit hit the fan.
Both Nigel and I made our moves at the same time; he brought the gun he’d been hiding behind his back to bear and I flung what I’d palmed in a sidearm throw as I started forward. Two quarter-inch ball steel ball bearings flew at Nigel’s skull, propelled with all the desperate strength I could muster, my heart trip-hammering in fear. The business end of his silenced pistol looming toward me like a tunnel to Hell. A Walther PPK, I observed offhandedly, how very James Bond. My lizard brain gibbered as fight-or-flight hormones flooded my bloodstream.
A quarter-inch ball bearing doesn’t seem like much-an itty-bitty little thing-but if you ever hefted one, you’d be surprised at its weight and smooth perfection. Then throw it … hard. That little ball bearing will pound into your average piece of drywall and stick. Now, imagine getting hit in the head by one. Ouch, lights out.
Unless you unload one with a wrist-rocket, it won’t kill your target, but if it hits the skull, it could put your enemy out of commission for about a week.
Nigel the Brit had better reflexes than I thought. As the two bearings left my hand, he took a half step to the side, aiming the PPK while I propelled myself forward on legs suddenly energized with adrenaline.
His first shot went wide, spoiled by a bearing hitting his left cheek with the sound of a ball-peen hammer hitting a side of beef. It rocked his head back. His second shot took a chunk out of my right ear as the other bearing sailed over his head to ricochet off the garage ceiling.
There wasn’t time for Words and if I had tried for one, Nigel would have used that pause to put two in my chest and one in my head. As effective as Words are, sometimes they’re just not fast enough.
Before the pain from my mutilated ear had time to register, I was within range of the short Brit, reaching for his gun hand. Without flinching he dropped the weapon and sidestepped, bringing his other arm to the party holding a fistful of K-bar.
As Leslie continued to scream in an ever annoying, piercing pitch, I dodged Nigel’s first swipe with the knife and punched him in the chest with a palm strike that should have knocked him ass over hat; instead it felt like slapping a brick wall. He gave perhaps an inch and smiled nastily.
Something about the way he held himself set alarm bells jangling up a storm. “SAS,” I guessed.
He nodded, not even breathing hard, the bastard. “Retired. You?”
“Sicarii, also retired.”
His eyes widened briefly. So, he’d heard of the Family business. Not surprising, considering that the U.S., U.K. and Russian intelligence agencies had known for generations, but it did speak volumes of his former clearance levels. You know, the kind usually reserved for heads-of-state.
“I’ve ’eard of you wankers,” he confirmed, all trace of upper crust dissolving into something that would never pass in Buckingham Palace. A nice little mouse was forming under his left eye. “Real bad arseholes, ain’t ya?”
“I do all right, Jeeves.”
He flicked a glance at Leslie, who had stopped screaming and stared at us in mute fascination. “The lady wants a proper butler, don’t she? So I gives it to ’er, an’ she pays well for it.”
“Jude!” Mike warned. “Don’t do this!”
“No dice, man,” I countered. “This has to be.”
Nigel’s grin contained enough purified wickedness to stun a rhino. “Too right, mate.” The tip of the K-bar moved in little circles. “Too right.”
Mike sighed and held up his hands in surrender. Leslie took a couple of steps toward the priest, as if his godliness would shield her from collateral damage.
The K-bar blurred toward my throat the same instant Nigel tried to grab my right arm with his left hand in an effort to draw me close for the finishing stroke. I slapped his knife hand away, earning a cut to my forearm, and managed to weasel away from his grasping left hand. Dull pain erupted from my leg where the toe of his shiny lace-ups had smacked against my right shin.
I hopped back, favoring my left leg, and took the full force of his evil smile. We had just tested each other and he was better. For the first time in a long while I faced an opponent I actually feared and, from the satisfaction in his eyes, he knew it.
Damn, I hate having to cheat.
Healing … cinnamon … Vigor and Strength … ammonia and peanuts … All the fatigue from the day vanished. Good times.
My first strike, a knife hand to the tricep, numbed his arm while my second, backed by Strength, thudded into his solar plexus, robbing him of breath. Poor Nigel stood there, bent over and trying to catch his breath when I used my hole card … Force.
I sneezed the aroma of burning insulation out of my lungs as Nigel found himself flying through the air, landing with a jarring crash on the hood of a silver Aston Martin. The hood crumpled like tinfoil and his spine starred the windshield before he flipped over the car out of sight.
“Aw, damn,” I moaned to myself. “Not the Vanquish! I love that car.”
“You bastard!” came a piercing shriek. I turned toward the source just in time to catch a full on slap from Leslie Winchester that had a heap of heat behind it. “You’ve
killed Nigel!”
Mike rushed up and tried to calm the hysterical rocker down, placing his body like a shield in front of me. Enraged, she still tried to brush past for another go. He managed to capture her in the cage of his arms.
“He’s alive, lady!” I shouted back at her as she screamed more imprecations at me, most of which were anatomically impossible.
Instantly she deflated. “Alive?” Her voice, when not shouting or screaming, was very throaty, sexy.
“Yeah.” I motioned toward the damaged Vanquish while rubbing my stinging cheek. She’d hit hard enough for my teeth to cut the inside of my mouth. For an older lady, her arm had surprising strength.
A low-pitched moan came from behind the Vanquish and the former rock diva produced a tiny eeep and ran to check on the damaged Nigel. “She sure can hit a ton, man,” I told Mike.
He arched an eyebrow. “You did mangle that poor butler.”
“Poor butler!” I exclaimed. “He’s former SAS. If I had given him an inch, he would’ve taken a mile of my precious hide.”
Shiny whites cut through his moustache. “Never saw you scared before. I have to admit, you sure looked like you got knocked down a peg there for a second.”
Leslie, who was crooning sweet nothings in Nigel’s battered ears, was helping the groaning butler to his feet. “You think there’s something going on there?” I whispered, holding a hand to my stinging ear. A hole the size of a dime had been torn open by Nigel’s bullet and was bleeding freely.
Mike stared at the couple staggering toward us. “If there wasn’t anything before, there will be soon.” He squinted at the limping Brit while handing me a white hanky. “Can you do something for him?”
“You asking me to perform magic?” I raised my eyes toward the heavens while holding the hanky to my leaking ear. “ ‘And the sun will be darkened and the moon will be as blood.’ Surely this must be the end times.”
A ham-sized fist punched me in the arm. “Don’t be a dick.”
I shook my head and rubbed my arm where he’d hit me. “Didn’t know priests could be so violent.” Leslie and her pet butler made their way around the Aston, him sporting a bruised and bloody face while she kept a death grip on his arm. Briefly I pondered the strange things that bring us humans together and why it seemed that only when things were at their worst were we at our best.
Nigel and his new love bunny headed deeper into the garage, so Mike and I followed, catching up to the pair before they could reach a large oak door banded with iron that looked as if it had been a prop in a Robin Hood movie. “Wait a second,” I urged, cutting the two off at the pass.
“Don’t you hurt him!” Leslie hissed. I mean, really hissed. You read about people hissing their sentences, but this was the first time I’d experienced it. Kind of cool in a scary, creepy sort of way.
I held up a hand while cupping my ear with the other. The hanky was heavy with blood. “Easy there, Ms. Winchester. I only want to help Mister … Nigel here, if you let me.”
“You tried to kill him!” she screeched with enough force to drive nails through my ears.
Nigel stared at me with the one eye that wasn’t puffed shut. “Mum, if ’e wanted to kill me, ’e would ’ave, wouldn’t ’e?”
“Your Liverpool is showing,” I grinned.
“Well, it’s me old home, innit?”
“Love your accent.” Before he could reply I clapped a palm on the top of his black hair (gray at the roots, I saw) and used Healing.
The result was dramatic, to say the least. Back arching, he stood on his tippy toes for just a second before slamming his heels back onto the concrete.
“Nigel? Are you all right? Did he hurt you again?” Leslie shrieked. I’d begun to wonder if this voice was the norm, if she reserved the sexy one for special occasions. If so, I didn’t envy Nigel.
Nigel waved her off. “It’s okay, mum. Whatever he did, I feel ruddy marvelous. It’s a miracle!” he marveled, hopping from foot to foot. I noticed that his speech had reverted to the oh-so-proper Jeeves mode.
Leslie stared at me with wide, wide eyes. “What did you do?”
Mike came up from behind. “Why don’t we discuss everything over some tea?”
Nigel nodded. “Yes, that is brilliant.”
Muttering a Healing that stemmed the flow from my damaged ear, I nodded in agreement.
Chapter Twelve
Jude
“Why did you scream when you saw me?”
Righteous question, I thought. Usually women don’t react to me like that. Sighing, I blew softly into my cup of Earl Gray and waited for an answer. Thanks to Healing my ear was fine, not even a scab.
The butler, happy to be healed and saying that I’d cured his bad knee as well, had led us through the Robin Hood door and into the house/castle.
Leslie might have fancied herself a fourteenth-century lady, but her place belonged squarely in the twenty-first. Black and white checked marble floors, Persian rugs, warm wood and glittering crystal. And the kitchen, oh my! The kitchen would have Bobby Flay drooling like a bloodhound. A stainless-steel fridge the size of Buick, a pantry that could double as a bedroom and a separate freezer unit large enough to hold a cow or three.
“I’ve been having … dreams. Bad dreams and you, or someone who looks like you, was in them.” Leslie took a sip of her tea. She rested her elbows on the polished surface of a mahogany table large enough to seat twelve comfortably. “They started about a year ago, but stopped about five months ago.”
Mike, who sat next to Nigel, nodded. “They started after you bought that job lot of artifacts from Edgar Truesdale, is-”
“One moment,” Nigel interrupted, comfortably out of his Jeeves persona. “I was my employer’s purchasing agent.”
Leslie nodded. “I don’t travel much and Nigel is the only person I trust, so he was sent to procure the antiquities. He emailed the photographs to me of the different lots and I chose which one to buy.”
I rubbed my temples in an attempt to forestall a headache. “Lovely, but what were the dreams you had of me? Was I the villain of your subconscious?”
She couldn’t meet my eyes. “Every time I dreamed of you, I felt overwhelming danger,” she said timidly.
Strange things, unseemly and unnatural things, had been happening to me all my life, so that bit of news barely registered on my Strange Crap-O-Meter. However, Mike and I did exchange a look or two. “The Grail?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Had to be.”
“What? Do you mean the Holy Grail?” Nigel’s body tensed.
“Yes, like the Holy Grail,” I replied with a sigh.
Leslie’s head wobbled around like a bobble-head doll’s. “Seriously?”
Mike placed his hand on hers. “Yes, Ms. Winchester.”
She turned from him to me, finally able to look me in the eye. “Who are you? Why did I dream of you?” I noticed the fine crow’s feet fanning from the corners of her eyes.
“Tell them, Jude,” Mike said with a sigh. “They have what we’re looking for, so they deserve to know.”
“Mike …” I warned. “They’ll sic the men in white with the butterfly nets and wraparound jackets after us.”
“No, Jude. I’m going to have to insist on this one.” His face settled into familiar stubborn lines. “It’s the decent thing to do. The right thing.”
I groaned, “I was afraid you were going to say that.”
“What?”
“Well, Nigel,” I began. “Let me start by saying that I love your accent.” Nothing. Not a smirk or chuckle. Tough castle. “Okay, this story begins in Omaha ….”
Mike filled in the blank spots with what he’d already read, allowing us to keep the story to less than two hours. Through it all, Nigel and Leslie’s mouths opened and closed several times in surprise.
“Oh my word, I heard of the Sicarii beggars before, but we always reckoned they were a small for-hire group only,” Nigel remarked, his tea cold and forgotten. “Either tha
t or they were affiliated with those South American drug blokes.”
“How high was your clearance?”
“Been with the SAS for near thirty years, so I heard many things.”
“Gad, I nearly got my ass handed to me by an old man? I’ll never live it down.”
Leslie beamed, running a slim hand down Nigel’s arm. He didn’t seem to mind at all. “Not so old to me.” She said. An answering grin blossomed on his homely face, which handsomed him up considerably.
Mike cleared his throat. “We think the silver brooch, which is really the Grail, somehow gave you those dreams, maybe as a warning, or to prepare you for Jude’s arrival. Interpreting dreams is not an exact science, you know.”
“Leslie, you said it was me or someone who looked like me.” I took a sip of cold tea. “Think, was it me? Look at me now and think back to your dream … Are you sure it was me?”
“I think so … It’s been so long.” She worried her bottom lip in such a way that I wanted to add mine to the mix, but I’d probably have to fight Nigel for the privilege.
“Leslie, why did the dreams stop?” Mike asked.
When she didn’t answer, Nigel spoke up. “Because she doesn’t have the bloody artifact anymore,” he whispered sadly. She nodded.
I laid my forehead on the table. “Aww … Jiminy Christmas … I’d hoped this would be easy.”
“Easy? Easy?” blurted Mike. “You think what we’ve been through is easy? Elementals, serial killers and Nigel the British Mike Tyson? Not to mention that fresh notch in your ear.”
My felt like a lump of lead. “Yeah, Mike … considering that my Family is involved, this has been a cakewalk.”
“Which means?”
“It’s only going to get harder.”
“I knew you were going to say that.”
“You guys sound like Danny Glover and Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon, you know that?” Leslie hid her smile behind a slim hand.
The bloom must have faded from the rose of Mike’s teenage crush because he gave her a rather crusty look. “Thanks tons, that’s so comforting.” He snorted. “At least I get to be Danny Glover.”
The Judas Line Page 10