Love Entwined

by Danita Minnis

  “You really don’t know who I am, do you?” Coty Aumoine poked Roman with the gun. “He killed my Emil.”

  This was the moment she dreaded. Maybe since she had returned from the eighteenth century. She had not known how it would play out here in France, but knew this day would come. In false hope, she had ignored her instincts, refusing to believe they would lose this game a second time. Not even Death was that cruel.

  But she had been wrong about Death. How could she think Death would be merciful in this century? It had only bided its time.

  She did not know what to say, and so lapsed into French. “Roman did not kill that womanizing bastard.”

  “Shut up, Amelie!” He commanded, and was eclipsed by Coty Aumoine’s shrill French.

  “Did you really believe Emil would leave me for you? You were just one of his little projects. You are nothing!”

  “And you are a murdering bitch!” She lunged for Coty, but only got as far as Roman’s chest.

  He was trying to stay between them, but Amelie ducked under his arm. She and Coty Aumoine hurled insults at each other like two schoolgirls, and the gun turned in her direction.

  “Whoever killed Emil Garamonde saved you from making the worst mistake of your life. I should have been so lucky!”

  “Slut!” Coty Aumoine brought the gun up with both hands.

  “D’accord, it makes sense now. All that time he was whoring behind your back, how could you take it? So, you got tired of your playboy’s antics and killed him, eh?”

  Amelie looked at Roman and braced herself for the gunshot. I love you.

  He grabbed Coty Aumoine’s wrist and pulled her down to the floor, covering her with his body. The woman kicked wildly underneath him, but could not get free.

  “Roman, no!” Amelie circled them, looking for the gun, but she could not tell if he had succeeded in taking it away from Coty Aumoine.

  The woman’s stiletto heels drummed on the floor, pounding between Amelie’s head, and immobilizing her with the macabre beat.

  “Amelie, get out of here!” Roman shouted.

  The gun went off.

  Both Roman and Coty Aumoine lay still.

  * * * *

  With the gun’s explosion still ringing in her ears, Amelie fell to her knees. When she placed her hand on Roman’s unruly curls, he stirred.

  “Mon cher.” She kissed his cheek and he turned over. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him some more.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” He got up, dragging her up with him. Blood was a stark contrast on the front of his white robe. The thick Egyptian cotton was drenched.

  She cried out and ripped the robe open. The chest hair tapering in a line down his stomach was unmarred. She buried her face in his chest, reveling in the staccato thump of his beating heart against her cheek.

  He grabbed her and held her away until she met the murder in his eyes.

  “I—I was not thinking. I just didn’t want you to get hurt.” She looked down at Coty Aumoine.

  The dark and light that mingled in exotic contrasts was much duller in death. A bright red stain was spreading out with spider web fingers across the middle of her stylish dress. Beneath her, the shining parquet floor had already darkened.

  Roman murmured something and stepped between her and the dead woman, blocking her view. He knelt down. Beautiful, long fingers with a perfect manicure lay limp in his hand. He pulled something off Coty’s wrist.

  When he came back to Amelie’s side, his eyes were dark with anger. He held out the bracelet.

  “My design.” She moved to take the dragon bracelet from the palm of his hand.

  He held on to it. “I know this jewelry.”

  “Yes, the Artisan collection. But, why would Coty Aumoine wear my jewelry? She knew about me and Emil. I was the one who didn’t know—”

  “I mean, I know these rubies. From…somewhere.”

  A closer look into his eyes and she realized fear overshadowed his anger. She was taken aback by it, didn’t know where that fear was coming from, unless…he knew something of the rubies.

  “Give them to me, Roman. I will hold them.”

  “No. I don’t want you to touch them. Ever again.” He dropped the bracelet into the pocket of his robe.

  She lunged for it, but Roman held her away.

  She shivered from the cold that was sliding up her spine. Her mind was racing now. Seeing the High Priestess Isolde’s blood rubies on Coty Aumoine brought the damning proof of her dilemma to the fore.

  Evil had undoubtedly followed them into this century.

  How much did Roman know? Did he know that she was once as evil as Emil must have been? God, how could she ever tell him? “We…we have to call the police,” She sagged against him. Roman picked her and started across the living room floor toward the hall leading to the bedroom.

  “I am sorry that you had to see this.” The indigo storm in his eyes cleared to anguish. “You could have been killed. Don’t ever do that again.”

  A strange noise made him turn in the direction of Coty Aumoine’s body. The dead woman was grinding her teeth. Her heel kicked the floor.

  Amelie jerked in his arms and they both stared at the black fog that slid from Coty Aumoine’s mouth. It curled around her face and hovered there before rising to the ceiling.

  They were rooted to the spot as the fog dissolved into the air.

  He walked slowly back into the living room and sank down onto the sofa, holding her in his arms.

  In silence, they waited, but Coty Aumoine did not move again.

  She held him. “We are free now.” In her heart she knew that was a lie, and worse, she had a feeling he knew it as well.

  He fished in his pocket and fingered the dragon bracelet. “I took it off her wrist.”

  Amelie could only stare at what she had produced. The beautiful ruby bracelet’s links connected in gold, meeting at the center in a delicate ruby dragonhead. The headstone had an unusual luster and seemed denser than the others. The bracelets came in various whimsical designs. Some dragons had wings encrusted with diamonds. Others were just stylized eyes of a dragon with the body snaking around the wrist.

  “I’m taking the Artisan Collection off the market,” Roman said.

  She sobbed helplessly against Roman’s chest. She didn’t even know how the bracelet worked or what effect it had on its bearer. She couldn’t remember anything.

  They live forever…But how did the rubies make one live forever?

  Someone was banging on the suite door.

  The police were starched, efficient and solemn as they went about their work.

  Amelie and Roman supplied all the answers to their questions, except for one. They could not say how Coty Aumoine knew they would be in France, at Château Jeune, when only Roman’s house staff had been privy to the excursion.

  After several hours of questioning, they were offered another suite on the other side of the hotel, but neither of them wanted to finish out their stay. They left Château Jeune that night.

  He wanted to take her home to Yorkshire and go on to Bijou alone, but she wouldn’t hear of it.

  Coty Aumoine’s knowledge of their whereabouts in France and her choice of jewelry made Amelie more determined to go to Bijou and see what other threats waited for them, if any.

  They spent the night at a quaint bed and breakfast on the other side of the Seine.

  She tossed and turned in bed, listening to Roman in the sitting room on the phone with Dylan. There would be a recall of all unsold product in the Artisan Collection and further distribution was suspended immediately.

  But what of the product already delivered to the consumer? Emil hired her for these special designs that were being sold at all the major retailers. The Artisan Collection had been in stores for months and its sales were reviving Bijou’s faltering numbers.

  Chapter 5

  Asnières-Sur-Seine, France – May 5, 1988

  Bijou’s tinted glass walls glin
ted gold in the morning sunlight.

  Months ago, she had thought it a beautiful building resembling the gilded columns of a perfume bottle. Now its corners seemed sharp as a dagger, the tinted glass lit from within like the fires of hell.

  Dylan met them at reception. He grinned through the introductions and thoroughly embarrassed Amelie, making her think that Roman had talked about their…relationship, for lack of a better word.

  They had not actually spoken about what was happening between them. She had no words other than to blurt out her love—and she wasn’t prepared to do that just yet. Not when he had no idea just how much they had been to each other in the past, or how evil she was so very long ago. Would he love her once he found out she was the High Priestess?

  Coty Aumoine’s strange death was one more reason not to tell Roman of her love. She had no idea what that black fog was and she was beginning to wonder who she was. She knew who she was in this life, knew her parents and where she’d been raised, but there was so much more than just this life. She had to know more before she was seriously involved with Roman. She did not want to hurt him.

  She forgot her qualms when they walked into the lab, the very moment Dylan’s grin disappeared.

  Her high heels clicked across the floor to her old workstation. “What happened here?”

  “These drawers were locked. Had to be taken apart to get into the trays.” Dylan turned to Roman. “Emil’s security director was arrested. Wouldn’t give up the code.” He nodded toward the security entrance which required a card scan. “That’s when things became interesting.”

  Various computers and scanners were set up next to the wreckage. Several men in white coats and gloves were examining rough diamonds and rubies laid out on a tray.

  These were her working gems, but something glistened in the stones that had not been there before.

  She picked up a ruby and turned the stone between her fingers. The hair on the back of her neck prickled but she was careful not to show an outward sign of distress. She placed the ruby under a magnifier as fear iced up her spine. There were no holes in the jewel. No logical way to infuse the stone with blood. Blood, it definitely was. She felt it, the warmth of it, and remembered…

  …Ceremonial drums beat, color flashed as the silken veils on her hips swayed in the dance, the cries of the dying mingled with the sounds of ecstasy as the dragon spewed blood, drenching the jewels overflowing in golden vessels…

  She looked up at Roman. “It is blood.”

  “Not exactly,” one of the men in a white coat said. “At least not blood as we know it.”

  “But it is organic.” Dylan was watching her.

  Roman came to her side and examined the ruby under the microscope. “I want to speak to Emil’s security director. It is the same as the rubies Coty Aumoine wore,” he murmured, looking into her eyes. “How did it get there?”

  Dylan stepped closer and looked directly at her. “That’s exactly what we’re trying to figure out.”

  “What is underneath this building?” She watched the men in white coats place the rubies in containers, wondering if they should be touching them.

  “Storage,” Dylan answered. “Why do you ask?”

  “No caves, or…anything of the sort?”

  “What are you getting at, Amelie?” Roman asked.

  “Will you take me down there?”

  They took an elevator down to the lowest level. Two of Cardiff Jewels’ project managers accompanied them and they rode through the storage areas in two golf carts.

  She asked to stop several times and inspected doorways and walls. An hour later, they rode back to the central elevators. There was no cavern, only what seemed like miles and miles of storage rooms. But what else would there be, now, after all this time? Eons might have passed since she was the High Priestess.

  It was so long ago, the world had changed. She did not remember whether the killing ceremonies took place on this continent or some other and yet she knew that somewhere in the world there was an ancient chamber of horrors.

  The demon lived. His blood was in the jewels.

  She kept silent, swallowing her disappointment as Roman and Dylan watched her. Though she had lived it, she could not say where the High Priestess had called forth the fire dragon.

  * * * *

  “Roman, there is something else you should see,” Dylan said. “In Emil’s office.”

  They took the private elevator to the penthouse and followed Dylan into the suite of rooms.

  “This was Michel Garamonde’s office until a massive heart attack left him comatose,” Dylan said. “Emil has occupied these offices since his father was taken home.”

  Roman walked around the office touching a knick-knack here and there. The décor was different from the modern, sterile rooms he’d seen in the building so far. This office was surprisingly to his taste, with the dark woods and burgundy of an old-fashioned boardroom.

  Velvet drapes covered the floor to ceiling wall panels, extinguishing the natural light of the almost 360º view. Bronze floor lamps were a cave-like substitute for illumination.

  Above a massive desk was…no. That could not be.

  He took a step closer.

  The canvas roll spread out on a frame protected by glass. It looked authentic.

  The colors must have been vibrant when first painted. Warriors fought on a battlefield. Two warriors had caught his eye. They were so detailed. Their breastplates were intricately drawn, identical, but he could distinguish one from the other.

  The taller one wielded an elaborate jeweled broadsword as they stood back to back, killing their enemies. And then the other warrior turned.

  Roman knew what was coming next and wanted to warn the tall warrior with the jeweled sword, but he could not speak. The warrior rested a sandaled foot on his victim’s chest and pulled the jeweled sword from the lifeless body. He turned, just missing his comrade’s blade, which arched toward his back.

  He felt the bitter shock as the taller warrior raised the jeweled sword, blocking his comrade’s thrust.

  The sword swung out, knocking the other warrior’s sword out of his hand. When the jeweled sword came down against the other warrior’s helmet, he fell to the ground. Black eyes stared up at the tall warrior in hatred.

  The tall warrior towered over his fallen comrade, blue eyes iced into fury. He’d lost his helmet, and a black curl fell over one eye as he raised the jeweled sword high. A cluster of rubies was worked into the broadsword’s handle in the shape of a medieval cross. The warrior felt little satisfaction when his comrade’s black eyes dulled because he knew they would meet again. As his brother-in-arms lay dying, the blue-eyed warrior turned a grim expression toward Roman and said, “They live forever.”

  “Roman.” Dylan touched his sleeve, and Roman turned toward him. “Is everything all right?”

  “Yes.” He looked back at the canvas. “Yes, everything is fine.”

  It was just a painting on canvas now. The warriors’ helmets were in place and their swords raised high, but he had not imagined it. He’d seen the battle. He’d felt the blue-eyed warrior’s anger and betrayal when he thrust the jeweled sword into his comrade. He’d heard the warrior’s words.

  My God. I was there.

  Amelie took his hand. “Roman?”

  Frowning at him, Dylan pulled on the framed canvas and revealed a safe. Producing a piece of paper from his pocket, he entered numbers on a panel. There were leather bound volumes stacked inside the safe. Dylan pulled out the top folder and turned to Roman. “Take a look at this.”

  Roman opened the folder flat on the desk. Various photos of his father were clipped inside. They had been watching him at the office, on vacation in the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes. He’d gone with his father that time, to celebrate the victory of a successful campaign. He flipped through the folder and saw drug prescriptions for Domperidone, Haloperidol and many others.

  “What the hell is this?”

  Dylan nodde
d slowly. “Gastrointestinal drugs, anti-psychotics. Common drugs that can cause sudden heart attacks.”

  “Are you saying Michel Garamonde had my father killed?”

  “Well, of course we’ll have to investigate it, but hell, yes, I am! Uncle Giles was—”

  “On so much medication that anything could have finished him off! He worked all the time, he didn’t eat or sleep very well—”

  “Roman.” Amelie stood between them. “The authorities will see to it.”

  “What does it mean, ‘they live forever’?” he demanded.

  She took a step back and stared at him as Dylan came from behind.

  “Who lives forever?” Dylan asked. “Roman, what are you talking about?”

  Roman glared at Dylan solely because his claim of murder had a ring of truth to it.

  Amelie moved into his line of vision again and held eye contact with him until he calmed down. Her eyes pleaded with him. “Please, can we go now?”

  Chapter 6

  St. Clair Manor, North Yorkshire, England – May 7, 1988

  He was a logical man.

  He didn’t believe in ghosts, or heaven or hell, for that matter. That’s why he couldn’t understand what he thought to accomplish by standing in the middle of the attic in the dark of night, waiting for the Lady of the Manor to appear.

  “You were right. My father was killed,” he said to the vast darkness.

  He waited.

  Walking to the ship’s wheel, he peered into the gloom. “I didn’t want to believe it, but I have no choice now.” He shook his head, wiping a tear from his eye with the back of his hand. “We were a team. I thought we were invincible.”

  Remembering his anger when Chief Bryant told him about the Mercedes disappearing in a black fog, he knew they weren’t dealing with anything of this world. How could they fight it and win?

  The Lady of the Manor seemed to know more about his family than he did. Maybe she had some answers about the mysterious black fog and blood jewels.

  He walked a while among the shrouds covering his family’s past, but the Lady of the Manor would not appear to him.