Silent, he watched her dress, and then he opened the door. “After that I will go to find Draycott’s lord.” His coldness melted a little. “I do this because you ask me. And because it is, just possibly, the right thing to do. For what time I am given, I am yours to command.”
His shoulders stiff, he walked her out to the gatehouse.
AFTER HE WAS CERTAIN that Sara was safe in the gatehouse, resting in bed, Gabriel strode grimly into the rain. Looking up into the sky, he summoned the man he had hated so long.
No one came.
Once again Gabriel issued the silent words of calling.
The storm answered, wind gusting fiercely.
“By all the saints, Draycott. Reveal yourself now. I have…amends to make. Questions remain to be answered.”
Adrian Draycott walked out of the mist near a great fountain at the edge of the gatehouse. He was immaculate in white lace cuffs and a black velvet jacket, every inch the abbey’s lordly guardian. “You have me all ears, Navarre. Amends, you say?”
Gabriel paced a little, rubbing his neck. “She was right, heaven knows. But how hard to begin.” He cleared his throat. “She’s a rare woman, Sara Nightingale. How strange that I should meet her now, when there is so little certainty to anything.”
“Little is better than none,” Adrian muttered. “Don’t tell me you’ve managed to shatter that young woman’s heart so soon.”
“Never.” Gabriel paced the abbey’s courtyard, oblivious to the rain and wind. “With my heart, I vow it.”
“I am glad to know you’ve got some sense left. So why this summoning?”
“I meant to demand answers,” Gabriel said slowly. “And then I meant to argue and attack. But that way lies emptiness.” He closed his eyes, feeling the rain on his face. Feeling the physical world with aching clarity. “Hear me well, Draycott of Outremer. I release my hold over you. Whatever you did or did not do those long years past, I—accept.”
He held out one hand.
Adrian studied it, then crossed his arms. “Not good enough.”
“Be cursed! What do you want, a papal decree?”
“Sincerity. An explanation. And we’ll do it somewhere with a degree of comfort. Not shouting in the rain with a storm overhead, by heaven.”
FIRELIGHT CAST A phantom glow over the old study above the moat. Adrian leaned one arm on the mantel, watching the restless patterns of the fire he’d made. “Strange to be in mortal form again, but I might as well enjoy it.”
Reaching down, he found the singularly fine sherry that the current Lord Draycott had brought back from Spain several months earlier. He poured a glass and held it out to Gabriel. “In welcome to the abbey.”
“None for me. My wits are all askew from that last brew you gave me.”
Adrian hid a smile, then turned to stare into the firelight. “I will accept your explanation, when you give it.”
Gabriel ran a hand through his dark hair. “They came to tell me my family was gone. Your cousin had the very document with your signature, ordering their capture. They were…killed. All of them.”
“My cousin.” Adrian spat out the word. “A viper if ever one lived. He hated me for my rank. And he hated you even more.”
The Crusader’s eyes narrowed. “I had no hint of it. But why?”
“Because you were the better man and the stronger warrior. Because we were closest friends. My cousin, I learned later, was also in the pay of the bastard Philip.”
“Philip.” Gabriel spat out the word. “Sara saw the truth, that Philip ordered her taken captive. His evil knew no bounds. Yet he was clever, leaving no evidence of his involvement. I believe now that he conspired to goad me, to make me think that you had trysted with my ward. And God help me, I believed the lie so easily.” Gabriel’s jaw clenched.
Adrian’s eyes filled with anger. “He left the court in the chaos after Acre fell, and he was not seen for over a year. I found him in a muddy village near Arles, and he begged me for money.” Adrian made a grimace of distaste. “He seemed half deranged. But even deranged, he would admit nothing.”
“You searched him out after you thought I was gone, after my ward was long vanished?”
“Could I do less in the name of friendship when I had doubts of the truth?”
Navarre glared at the fire. “My apology to you now would come too late.”
“Not too late.”
The Crusader moved stiffly across the room and held out a hand. “I ask you to forgive me.”
“We were both duped, but now we will put it behind us. The angry past will be sealed.”
Their hands locked. The years peeled away, and a light of friendship filled Gabriel’s lapis eyes. “I have her to thank for bringing me to this. A miracle, if I believed in them.”
“You may learn to, my friend. Over the centuries this old house has seen many.”
Gabriel took a long breath. “What happened to her, Adrian? Did you find a trace?”
“I sent runners from Acre to Jerusalem. They followed her into the desert. She wandered, but knew how to hide. A week later a great caravan passed on its way to the east. We believed that she tried to find it.”
“And?” Gabriel’s voice was raw.
“And…we found no answer. The sand swallowed every print in a storm. The next day I sent a runner to the caravan, but none there knew of her.”
Gabriel turned, his face like stone. “So much treachery. If Philip and your cousin were here now, I’d quarter them with my sword.”
“There is no need,” Adrian said quietly. “They both suffered at the end. My cousin conspired with the king’s high counselors. For that he was convicted of treason and hung from the city walls. Philip died by his own hand six months after that. It was whispered that he had the leper’s disease.”
“Too late to help her,” Gabriel whispered. Then he turned, one brow raised. “Caravan? Bound for the east?”
“It went to meet an emissary from the court of the great Khan, escorting merchants home after their years in the Khan’s employ. She might have found her way to meet them, who can say?” Adrian shook his head. “It would explain her persistence here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sara has found a great treasure, my friend. Its location was hidden in old shipping records and maps. Here at the abbey she found details that no one else thought to check. Most uncanny.” He pointed to a book open on a nearby table. “You’ll find an ancient copy of Marco Polo’s book there.” He raised a hand and the book’s pages turned beneath his thought.
When Gabriel didn’t speak, Adrian glared at him. “What bothers you now? That she is not only beautiful but ingenious in her work?”
Gabriel lifted the old book, his face lined and uneasy. “You think me a true fool? Not that at all. But great treasures bring great greed. There were intruders already in the darkness. I fear this news is known. Sara will not be safe here.”
Adrian picked up his sherry and studied the fire. “At least here she will have two Crusaders to protect her. All in all, I think it will answer very well.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
EDWIN HARDING was tired.
The prior weeks after the kidnapping had been a nightmare, and now he was worried about his agent in England. Sara Nightingale’s cell phone switched to voice mail with every call, and no one answered the landline at the abbey.
He checked his watch.
Teague should have made contact by now. What in hell had happened?
He looked up at the sound of a knock at his door. Raymond Doer, head of the Bureau’s Office of Internal Compliance, stood in the hall, a folder in his hand. “Sorry to bother you, Edwin.” He looked troubled. “But you need to see this before I leave. It has to do with Agent Nightingale.”
Harding controlled his impatience. “Is something wrong?”
Doer moved inside. After a moment he closed the door behind him. “Her field laptop was taken in for routine security updates, and the tech in charge called me l
ast night. He found two bugs. Someone has access to all the info in her laptop.”
Harding felt a prickle at his neck. “How long have the bugs been in place?”
“According to the tech staff, probably three weeks. It had to be after their last security sweep.”
Long enough to provide all the details of her current assignment, Harding thought.
Harding gave Doer a distracted wave and turned to dial Izzy Teague, praying he would reach Sara before things got any worse.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
TWENTY MINUTES LATER Sara sat in the gatehouse listening to the howl of the wind. A notebook lay open on her lap, but she was too tired to move.
Memories of Gabriel’s rough hands and warm mouth stirred her memories, making her skin flush. She wanted him again. She wanted to make up for all the lost years and shattered dreams.
She closed her eyes, remembering the stunned look in his eyes when she’d told him she loved him. Did the man truly believe he was entitled only to hate and be hated? Anger could end, she firmly believed, and everyone had a chance for redemption.
She was determined to teach him how true this was, to make him laugh and remember how to dream again.
Fighting exhaustion, she pulled back the velvet curtain, looking out the gatehouse window at the stormy sky and hoping that Gabriel’s errand of reconciliation was a success. Changing hatred back to friendship would never be easy, but it was the only way to free him from the past that still clung to him like an oily shadow.
Like the shadows that had nearly taken her.
Sara shuddered at the memory. In her job she saw evil, violence and greed every day, but never such evil as the things that had gripped her.
And yet the world remained, and her duties remained. Though she was exhausted, she needed to try to contact Harding and check on the status of the man he had told her would be arriving at the abbey. She wouldn’t be able to relax until her documents and information about the island of Korcula were turned over to safe hands.
But she couldn’t stop thinking about Gabriel. She took a deep breath and tentatively reached out, following the trail of her memories. Feeling more than a little odd, she closed her eyes and tried to focus.
Warm skin. Callused hands.
Gabriel, where are you?
For a moment there was only silence. Then Sara felt the caress of phantom hands on her shoulders. His mind brushed hers. We are almost finished. Yes, our breach is mended.
I’m very glad. She put her smile into the thought she sent him. And now, if you don’t mind I have a call to make.
Very well.
I also have important documents to check in the library. Other maps—my notes. I worry about another gust or a broken window.
She felt his resistance instantly. Stay there. Do not leave, Sara. I will be—
Their contact fluttered like a flame in the wind. Frightened, Sara stood up, her notebook dropping to the floor. Gabriel?
STANDING AT THE SIDE of the abbey, Navarre pointed up to the roof. “The gate is opening again, as I feared. I can feel the pull of the darkness. It’s affecting us, too. I could barely reach Sara. Watch how the storm moves toward the abbey.”
“I’m afraid it is so,” Adrian murmured.
“This is no human storm, Adrian. It has already crossed between the two worlds. We have little time to stop what has begun.”
Navarre heard the ring of hooves. Ferrant loomed up the muddy slope at the back of the abbey, eyes wild. “Yes, my friend. I can use your strength, too, if you will.”
The horse threw back its head, pawing the wet earth.
“And so to war,” Adrian said grimly. “As it was those centuries before. It must be so. No one will be allowed to destroy my abbey.”
Navarre ran a hand along his destrier’s mane. “One choice. One chance.” His face was grim. “I must shift the dark gate to a place of hallowed ground. There it will be sealed forever. Have you such a place, Adrian?”
Adrian studied the shadowed walls and nodded slowly. “There is an old spring beneath the gatehouse fountain. Legend holds that St. Alban rested there and the fountain sprang up at his hand.”
“For our sake, pray that the legends are true. Come. We will need St. Alban’s goodness tonight,” Navarre said flatly.
Adrian moved in front of him. “One thing you neglect to tell me. How do you intend to move this dark gate? It cannot be an easy thing to manage.”
“With my body. They want me back, you see. Very badly.” Navarre did not meet Adrian’s gaze. “If I call to them with open welcome, they will come,” he said grimly.
“The risk,” Draycott whispered. “If we mistake by even a moment, you will be Taken….”
“There is no other choice. Someone has told me I am a man who should use my strength to make the right choice, so I make this one now.” Navarre pulled his cloak back, revealing a tempered steel Crusader’s cross at his neck, a larger copy of the piece Sara now wore. “If you have holy relics, summon them now. In this battle, every weapon must be used.”
“What about Sara?”
“In her room,” Navarre said. “She wants to help, but she will stay as I have told her. I feel danger all around us. We must hurry.”
SARA STAYED BY THE window, hoping for a sight of Gabriel or Adrian Draycott. The storm seemed to pick up force with every gust, and two trees beyond the moat had already snapped.
She had had no more contact with Gabriel, but she sensed him nearby. She could feel the deep force of his concentration.
Gabriel, what are you doing?
Static. Emptiness. Gabriel?
Soon…
With the touch of his thoughts, she felt a wave of relief. At the window, she eased back the curtain and then froze.
Two dark shapes moved along the side of the gatehouse. Both of them wore night-vision goggles and carried automatic weapons.
Sara struggled to take in this new threat. No possibility that these were friendly visitors. Harding’s contact would not have arrived with such stealth.
Gabriel, be careful. There are men—
He was back in her mind suddenly, drifting like a warm wind. We have seen them. Stay where you are.
Sara felt the cold weight of his fear. And then his thoughts broke into a hiss.
What can I do to help? There must be something.
There was an echo. Stay…stay…
Sara was still out of sight at the window, hidden by the velvet curtains, when two more figures moved up the slope from the far side of the drive.
She leaned against the cold wall and forced herself to think calmly. To act like the professional she was trained to be.
Gabriel and Adrian had skills she couldn’t hope to equal, and she had come to accept their magic as real. They had already seen two of the intruders, if she understood Gabriel right. But would the two of them be equal to four men, all well equipped? Modern weapons had power and range that a Crusader couldn’t hope to understand.
She stood undecided, her heart pounding. She had told Gabriel she would stay, because he feared for her safety. But she had also sworn to perform a job, and her responsibility was clear.
She couldn’t sit passively and hope for success. Adrian and Gabriel might be outnumbered. Even with their magic their bodies were physical now. They could bleed and die.
She tried her cell phone, but the batteries were completely dead. Tossing the unit down on the bed, she tugged on her clothes, then searched in her drawer. With her service revolver loaded and holstered, she climbed a flight of stairs and inched silently outside. At the third floor of the gatehouse, a balcony overlooked the front and inner courtyard. Crouched out of sight behind its stone railing, she crept to the balcony’s far side.
She made out one figure flat on the ground beyond the fountain, invisible to anyone on the first floor. The other three men had vanished.
Gabriel? Tell me what is happening.
Wait in safety, Sara.
Nothing more came through.<
br />
I’m on the third-floor balcony. There are two more men now. One is beyond the fountain with a rifle. You—
Sara froze at a creak below her. When she looked over the edge of the balcony she saw a tall figure moving through her room, one floor below.
How had they found her room so fast? It didn’t make sense.
In the sudden flare of lightning she saw the man pick up her cell phone from the bed. Sara realized they had some kind of tracking device on the phone.
She was being tracked at close quarters. Her only hope of safety was to keep moving.
Carefully she drew back against the balcony wall. Over her head a narrow metal staircase led up to the roof. A stone arch connected the gatehouse roof to the main house.
Sara knew surveillance protocol. A sniper would search out the high ground and use a scoped rifle to monitor all activity while his teammates methodically subdued opposition in the terrain below. Sara assumed they had blueprints of the abbey as part of their careful preparation, which meant they had a route to the roof.
From her own mission preparation she knew there was only one door from the main house that led out to the roof. That was where she would be.
Panic sliced down at memories of the nightmare things that waited there, but she had no choice. With her gun holstered, she climbed the slick rungs of the ladder up toward the roof.
GABRIEL STARED AT THE man lying behind the conservatory. Twenty yards away, Adrian had dropped a second intruder, using a broken tree branch.
Neither man had suspected they were being watched, thanks to Navarre’s skills. But this unholy storm had affected even his magic. And if the storm continued to gain power…
Suddenly Navarre froze.
Sara?
Something was moving on the roof. Dark and unsettled, the gate had roiled back to life, feeding on the storm’s growing energy. He looked down at the man breathing haltingly at his feet, focusing as he drove his mind deep in search of answers.
“No,” he growled. “Not Sara.”
Draycott Everlasting: Christmas KnightMoonrise Page 44