Somehow she made it.
Now, groggy and nauseous, she followed Izzy into a cab through gray, rainy streets. From the cab she followed him into a big, bustling hotel.
Maddie was too tired to notice the sign. When he handed her a keycard and followed her to check her room, all she could see was a huge expanse of cool white sheets.
She yawned and gave Izzy a little wave. “Going to sleep now, Teague. I’ll give you a call when I wake up. Probably in about a week.”
He gave a dry laugh. “We don’t have a week. We’ve got an appointment scheduled for tomorrow morning.” He glanced at his watch. “Tomorrow happens to be in six and a half hours.” He glanced around the room, inspected the adjoining bathroom and then walked back to the door. “I’m right across the hall. Call me on that cell phone I left if you need anything. I’ll be back for you in six hours.”
She raised an eyebrow at his casual orders. “Okay, now I’ll ask some questions. What if I decide to run? What happens then?”
“It’s a foreign country and you don’t have money or a passport. Running would be tough. Plus, this case is challenging you and you’re not going to throw away your future on an immature, emotional need to run. But just in case the thought hits you, I’ll let you in on a secret. I’ve put a homing device on you somewhere. It’s tiny, with very new technology, so don’t hope to find it.” He gave her a wry smile. “Just thought you should know.”
He hadn’t got the door closed before Maddie picked up the nearest heavy object, which happened to be an ugly black leather binder filled with hotel details. It hit the door with a satisfying thud. “Creep,” she called out loudly. “So much for all that garbage about trust and commitment to the mission.”
Outside in the hall he laughed. “Sorry about that. But there’s trust…and there’s trust. I'm taking no chances.”
Exhaustion won out over anger.
Maddie rubbed the knot at the back of her neck and stumbled off in search of that big, soft bed.
One moment he had been caught in dreams, lost in memories of war and blood duty. And then the song of summoning had hit him, lancing through him like cold fire. He knew the pain of transition well by now, after five long centuries.
This world he found himself in was noisy and barbaric. Too many people in garments that were tight and oddly colored. The strange little boxes they held up to their ears looked ridiculous when they spoke to empty air.
But the Crusader drove away all these thoughts of discord, focusing on the gleaming silver trail. For only one reason would he be dragged from his sleep.
Honor had summoned him here.
The woman was close.
He dumped the garbage can in the cold alley and shifted through the mass of old books and stained clothes scattered on the ground. He found a loose surcoat that hung to his knees. Next he picked up a strange knitted object and leggings made from a stiff blue fabric. He shoved the garments under his arm and walked into the darkness at the end of the alley, alert to any intruders.
When he heard nothing, he stripped off his armor and tunic and hid them carefully within the leaves of an old rose bush hanging down from the floor above. He touched a petal slowly, and pain filled his eyes. Yet again the rose called to him, just as it had in every century. Once again it was his duty to obey.
Twelve roses would come. Twelve Guardians would hear their moonlit song.
And Lyon would be bound to the next rose, linked all through the remaining hours of his life and into death. Perhaps even beyond death.
The Crusader felt the brush of death every time he was pulled from his long sleep. After the pain and disorientation passed, he studied the quiet alley, aware of a sense of emptiness.
And then the swirling memories vanished. The silver thread pulled at him, dancing through the shadows in a restless trail of summoning.
Quickly, he tugged on the awkward clothing. It caused him great pain to leave his beloved sword behind, but he had no choice. The weapon would betray him as a stranger to this time.
In the darkness the silver cord danced wildly. She was so close now that Lyon could almost hear her breathe, almost smell her hair.
Almost close enough to taste their hot, dark joining.
She never would have found the monitor if it hadn’t been for the stupid British mystery on her room televShe never would have found the monitor if it hadn’t been for the stupid British mystery on her hotel television.
Maddie had slept for maybe two hours, then shot upright, totally awake. She had raided the mini-bar, then paced the room, then tried a hot bath. All had been delightfully novel experiences, since the room was luxurious beyond anything Maddie had ever experienced.
But none of those things had helped her go back to sleep.
So she had flipped on the TV and idly surfed through the channels. Every show had been a mystery. Didn’t the British watch anything else?
Half an hour later there had been a scene where an undercover officer ran surveillance by a bug hidden in a woman’s purse handle. And something about that made her get up to check the handle on her backpack.
And there it was. Teague had been right. It was unbelievably small. Definitely new technology. Maddie couldn’t wait to get it apart and see how it worked.
But not now. She was giving him no clue that she’d discovered his device. The lights and chaos of a new city lay right outside her window, the restless hum of energy seducing her like a drug. Maddie wasn’t sure if she was going to run or not. She definitely owed no loyalty to Izzy Teague.
Whatever. She figured she would walk a little and absorb the pace of London. If her jailer didn’t like it, he could go suck exhaust fumes.
“Yeah, she’s in her room. She was a wreck after the trip. She’s afraid of flying. Why didn’t anyone mention that? What? No, I’m sure she’s sound asleep.” Izzy leaned over and checked the schematic of the hotel’s ninth floor, just to be sure. As expected, the red light continued to blink on Room 906, right across the hall from his. His prototype monitoring device was working without a hitch. “But I need more data. How does the British Museum fit into the murders? I thought the curator was a specialist in documents from the Crusades.”
Izzy didn’t make written notes as he talked. He was too well trained to betray any secrets. All his notes were mental, carefully categorized and entered as he skimmed through the electronic files that had been arriving ever since they’d reached London.
His local handler, a stranger with no sign of emotion and absolutely no sense of humor, cleared his throat. “I’m relaying every file as it arrives, Mr. Teague. You must be aware that very high levels of security clearance are involved here. A Member of Parliament is involved, as are two U.S. Senators. Each file has to be cleared separately, and that is taking some time.”
“Hurry things up. I have a meeting with my contact at the museum tomorrow. I want to be fully briefed before that,” he said curtly.
“I will pass that information on. A team will be ready to pick you up at the hotel at 7:00 A.M. You’ll be fully briefed before the meeting. The girl will be given a separate briefing, of course.”
The man’s flat, emotionless voice made Izzy irritated. “She’s not a girl. She’s nineteen and she’s old enough to get killed in the armed forces.”
“Death comes to us all, Mr. Teague. Age has nothing to do with it.”
The phone clicked off. Izzy muttered an oath and stood up, stretching cramped muscles. He hated working these complicated bureaucratic jobs with multi-levels of security oversight. He did his best work alone, one man with one focused objective, but he didn’t often have the luxury of working that way.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw a movement on his computer screen. He spun around and saw the red flashing light from Angie’s tracking device begin to move. Why hadn’t he been watching? The light was already halfway down the corridor, descending fast, probably via the main elevator bank.
He grabbed his jacket and cell phone and powered of
f his computer. The small, high-tech unit slid into a backpack that he swung over one shoulder. He’d warned her not to run. When was she going to grow up?
He closed his door and glanced up and down. Once he was sure the corridor was empty, he pulled a room key from his pocket and slid it into Maddie’s door.
The lights were on. Her paper bag was on the bed.
But her backpack was gone and the room was empty.
He swung the door shut and sprinted toward the elevators. As the doors closed he grabbed his cell phone and watched the light zigzag through the basement and then return to street level. Then it began to pick up speed.
Izzy scowled. He wasn’t the only one who would be watching the device. His handler would be receiving updates too. That gave Izzy about an hour to find Maddie. After that it would be too late to undo the damage.
Maddie pulled back into the shadows outside the hotel’s staff exit and glanced at her watch.
Suddenly the elevator door opened. Izzy Teague sprinted out, scowling, right on time. It had only taken him four minutes to follow the homing device.
He glanced down at his cell phone. So the sleek unit was equipped with some sweet technology, Maddie thought. She watched him sprint outside and cross the street, following the bus with the hotel maid whose bag Maddie had opened. The security monitor was now hidden in that bag. The bus picked speed and roared through a green light toward Piccadilly Circus.
Izzy Teague was right behind it.
Maddie didn’t walk with any particular plan in mind. She was savoring the sheer novelty and energy of London at night. Buses roared past and it began to rain.
She would have liked to stop for coffee, but she didn’t have any cash, as Teague had so helpfully pointed out. No credit card either.
She shoved her hands into her pocket, shivering in the damp air. London was colder than DC. As the temperature began to fall, the number of people on the streets thinned. She walked on in the night, listening to distant car horns and sirens, feeling her steps merge into the rhythm of the city at night.
Across the street she saw an ornate metal gate above a high stone wall. The metal designs were intricate and very old, and for some reason they called to her. She had nothing else to do anyway.
A hint of fog drifted through the trees beyond the gate, and Maddie’s eyes froze. The gray waves poured over the old stones, almost transparent.
And it was normal fog, Maddie noted. Only dampness and precipitation. Not the other kind of fog, the kind that left her white faced and shaking.
She crossed the street, admiring the stone carvings of ornate roses mounted on some kind of old shield. Heraldic, isn’t that what it was called? More of that Medieval stuff. That made Maddie remember the weird question Teague had asked her about the Crusades. What did the Crusades have to do with national security?
The night was silent and she slowed her steps, reaching up to trace the intricate petals of a stone rose. Some kind of a figure was carved above the rose, she saw. An animal? A man?
In the darkness it was impossible to tell.
Fog curled around her hand, veiling the wall, and Maddie drifted into an odd reverie. There were no sounds of footsteps or people nearby. She felt no sense of danger as the fog parted for a moment and she looked down a long row of ancient trees, where neat gravel paths wound past old metal benches. Ornate clay planters held lush roses that spilled across the ground, perfuming the cool air. Maddie meant to keep walking, to turn around and find her way back to the crowded, noisy streets near the hotel.
But she couldn’t. The shadows, silky and deep, called to some forgotten memory. She climbed the old cobblestones and walked into the shadows.
She had walked for three minutes before she realized this was no park. It was a beautifully tended graveyard. There was just enough light from the streetlights behind her to pick out the inscription on a nearby headstone
Emma Weatherstone. Beloved wife. Devoted mother.
Maddie leaned closer, trying to make out the date. 1620? Was that possible? Could this place be almost four centuries old?
Then the words vanished, swallowed up in a fresh wave of fog. Too late, Maddie realized this was not like the other fog.
This was the cold signal, the dark warning that came from her nightmares.
There was no other way to describe it. Maddie had lived with these strange bursts of intuition since she was four. The fog came without reason or warning, a cold blurring that began at the edge of her vision and slowly crept closer, blanketing her senses in a warning of death.
The fog had never once been wrong.
She turned and would have run back toward the entrance, but the fog was worse there, moving over the ground in a dense wall like an iceberg, headed straight toward her.
In growing panic she swung around and scanned the paths that led deeper into the darkness. On an instinct, she pulled off her boots and shoved them under her arm. So her steps would be muffled. Wincing as the cold bit at her feet, she ran over the uneven stones. Her toe struck an uneven stone, but she couldn’t stop. The fog was billowing up, more dense than she had ever seen it. No longer gray, its white restless fingers held ugly flecks of black.
Maddie’s heart pounded. She ran along a grassy slope toward a small ridge that overlooked the path. Below her the fog lapped higher, nipping at her feet.
At the top of the slope, Maddie lost her balance in the wet grass and sprawled forward. Her head struck the edge of an elaborate mausoleum. She pushed to her feet, trying to clear her thoughts, gripping the old stones.
Angry voices cut the night, followed by the tap of running feet.
Not good, Maddie thought.
There had to be someplace to hide. Maybe beyond the grass, where the light from the overhead streetlights did not penetrate. She moved along the rough wall, feeling her way blindly by the sharp outlines of designs that were probably names and dates and even noble crests.
The voices were closer now. She saw a beam of light flash over the slope, swallowed up by the gray fog that no one could see but her.
She had to find a place to hide.
Her elbows struck a recess in the wall and she slipped inside, wedging her body back as far as she could. More steps appeared to lead downward. There was no time to hesitate.
As the fog piled up at her feet, she followed the steps down into the darkness.
When Maddie looked back, she saw that the fog had stopped at the very edge of the mausoleum or crypt or whatever it was. She took that as a good sign.
Damp, musky air poured over her shoulders from a hidden crevice. She shivered, one shoulder pressed against the wall to guide her down into the darkness.
“She was here a minute ago. I saw her right over there past the bench.”
“A single girl out here alone? It’s a cemetery, fool. We’ve got more important things to think about. Our buyer should be here any minute. Go get into position. No slipups tonight. Too much lucre involved.”
Maddie’s heart pounded. Buyer for what? Did they have a drug deal planned? That made good sense. Not many witnesses would wander into a graveyard at night.
Only an idiot like Maddie.
She felt a little dizzy, and she leaned back against the cold stone. Her fingers trembled as she felt the curved shape of what might have been a flower. How had everything gotten so out of control?
“Just let me look one more place. You don’t want any witnesses tonight, do you?”
“Damn right. Go on. Make sure we’re alone.”
Maddie bit down a ragged breath as she heard footsteps tap over the stone path only a few feet away from where she hid. If the man shone his flashlight downward, he couldn’t help but see her.
Maddie touched the wall and felt the outline of the stone petals. All her choices had run out.
The only way was down.
With the sound of footsteps ringing in her ears, she inched forward along the narrow, uneven steps, through leaves and debris, the air musky with mold and
dampness and the weight of death.
She dropped down two steps, no longer careful of her footing. A flashlight beam danced over the stone staircase, focused on the spot she had left only seconds before.
Maddie drew her body into a tight ball, sinking down behind what felt like an ornamental chair carved into the wall. She felt the curved outline of a chair leg with another flower that seemed to hold the petals of a rose.
Maddie felt disoriented, as if she had been here before.
Impossible of course. She grimaced, watching the flashlight beam crisscross the stones and stop on a pile of dead leaves. To her horror, Maddie realized her bare foot was outlined in the light.
“Got you, damn it.” The man’s voice was hoarse with excitement. Maddie pressed backwards, her hands to the wall, but there was nowhere to go. The wall behind her was solid. There were no openings.
“Think you can follow us and roll us for our money, do you? Or maybe you’re after the drugs.” A shadow rose up before her as the man came slowly down the steps. The flashlight traced her foot and leg. “She’s over here,” the man called harshly.
Where now?
Something rumbled deep in the ground beneath her. Musty air swirled up carrying dead leaves. And then, though it made no kind of sense, Maddie felt the brush of hard skin. Fingers locked tightly around her arm.
She was jerked backward with a hard snap and carried down into the bowels of an open grave.
“I told you it was a woman, Pike. I saw her in the light, clear as day.”
Small and fat and angry, the man shone his flashlight down the ornate stone recess decorated with a carved chair and a vase of granite roses.
Nothing moved now. His companion snickered. “Ain’t nothing down there, fool, and our buyers are waiting. Get your head out of your arse and get back over to the meet point.”
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