Someone cleared his throat. Rosamund looked up, surprised at the interruption
Lance Mathews leaned against the end of a row of metal shelving, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyebrow cocked rakishly.
Oh, no. Lance Mathews. How had he managed to get in?
Rosamund sighed. She supposed he had smiled at Jessica. Jessica, who was so shallow she could be manipulated by a guy with blond hair, blue eyes, and a physique so very developed and easy on the eyes.
Rosamund remembered feeling that way about him, too. Now she didn’t care at all. The only emotion she felt was impatience. She’d been working for a long time translating the prophecy. An hour. Maybe two. But couldn’t he have waited ten more minutes? She was almost done.
She straightened, rotating her stiff shoulders. “Hi, Lance. I didn’t expect to see you here.”
He strolled forward, a big, handsome, conceited guy with a smile gleaming with an obscene number of white teeth. Making a fist, he pretended to clip her under the chin. “Naughty girl. You didn’t let me know you were back from Europe.”
“I just got back, and, um, I was going to text you.” If she’d thought about him, which she hadn’t, she would have hoped he’d forget her. “I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to continue our relationship. Not that it’s a relationship, but . . . I met another man and I fell in love.” Her voice wobbled.
“Where is he?” Lance looked around.
She could hardly bear the pain, but she had to speak the words aloud sometime. “He’s dead.”
“Really? Aaron’s dead?” Lance grinned. “Now that’s just good news.”
She didn’t know what to say. She was shocked. Horrified. How could this man be so unfeeling, so cold? “Lance, that’s an unconscionable attitude. I hoped that we could be friends, but not after that. Not when you care so little for my feelings, and even less for the death of a good man.”
“Honey, I don’t want to be your friend. I don’t want to be your boyfriend.” Lance held out his hands. “I just want that prophecy.”
She stared at him, and it was as if she saw him for the first time.
He wasn’t Sir Lancelot. He was a user, a grabber, someone from another organization chasing the same prophecy as Aaron. A fiery tattoo marked his chest. He was . . . “You’re one of the Others,” she blurted.
His grin disappeared. “And you’re too smart for your own good.”
“I always have been.” Although not good about keeping her mouth shut.
“I’m here for the prophecy. So cough it up.”
“I didn’t get the prophecy.” Which was true.
“You know, they tell me your mother said exactly the same thing. And look how it turned out for her.”
Rosamund’s hands and feet went cold. Her cheeks went hot. Her face went blank. “My mother? You didn’t know my mother.”
“No, I admit, I never had the privilege. But I know the people who questioned her. I know the people who finished her off.”
Rosamund had suffered over her mother’s death. She had mourned. She had imagined every scenario, both dramatic and mundane, and now, this guy said—“Are you admitting she was killed?”
“Of course she was killed. Your father knew it. I’m surprised he never warned you.”
Run. “I guess he did.” Run.
“Now, when it comes to your father’s case, I had a direct hand in his demise. I can personally assure you it didn’t go well for him when he tried to tell us he didn’t know where the prophecy was. I mean, I would have given him the benefit of the doubt. By the time we were done with him, he was pretty crazy with the pain, and he was still saying no, he didn’t know where the prophecy was. But orders are orders, and once we figured out where you were, we figured it would be kindest to put him out of his misery.” Lance smiled charmingly. “So be a good girl, save yourself a lot of agony, and give me the prophecy.”
“No.”
He leaped forward. “So you’ve got it!”
She leaped back. “Perhaps. But I wouldn’t spill a glass of water on you if you were on fire.”
“On fire? That’s very close to the truth. Look at me.” He unbuttoned his shirt and pointed to the colorful flames that marked his chest. “Look at me! Do you know who I am?”
“You’re the son of a bitch who killed my father.”
“That’s right, honey, and if you don’t give me that prophecy, I’m going to kill you, too.”
“Remember what you said. You said I’m too smart for my own good.”
“So?”
“So I know you’re going to kill me anyway.”
His mouth worked as he glared furiously at her. “You are smart. Now see how much those brains protect you from this.” Opening his arms wide, he gave off an unearthly glow, then sent a blast of light and heat toward her.
She covered her eyes, but too late.
He had blinded her.
She staggered back, bumping into the wall, banging into the gray metal filing cabinet.
“Give me the prophecy.” He blasted her again.
This time she managed to cover her face, but she smelled hair singeing—her own. Her clothes were smoking, and her skin hurt as if she had a sunburn. But when she could see, she followed her father’s final instructions.
She ran.
She dodged around the library table, and when Lance dashed toward her, she crawled under and into the stacks, fleeing down one long row of metal shelves lined with books, hearing the thump of Lance’s shoes behind her. There was a gap between this row of shelves and the next. She wiggled through and into another row, and had the satisfaction of hearing him curse as he tried to follow. She ran toward the door, wanting to get out.
But Lance backed out of the gap. She heard his shirt tear, heard him yell, “You bitch. You’re going to fry!” He sent a blast of fire toward the shelving between them.
The heat sent her staggering sideways. Books, precious codices, rare manuscripts, began to smolder.
She hated Lance Mathews. Somehow, she was going to make him pay. For the books. For Louis. For her mother. For her father. Most of all, for Aaron. He was going to pay for what the Others did to Aaron.
She picked up speed. She was almost there—
And Lance rounded the corner in front of her, cutting off her escape. He looked different. Wild, angry, his face contorted and his hands like outstretched claws. “Give me the prophecy!”
She backed up. “No. I’m not helping the murderous bunch of devils who killed my parents, and I will not betray the love of my life.”
A shadow coalesced behind Lance and took form as a man: a man with hair so black it shone with blue highlights, with proud, high cheekbones, narrow nose, and broad, stubborn chin.
“Aaron,” she whispered.
He leaped on Lance’s back, sending him staggering.
“Are you talking about me?” As Aaron hooked his elbow under Lance’s chin and jerked, his voice echoed down the aisle. “Am I the love of your life? Because if that’s the truth, you’ve made me the happiest man in the world.”
Chapter 37
Rosamund stood frozen, staring. Aaron clung to Lance’s back as Lance careened around the room, choking, gasping, trying to dislodge him.
Was Aaron a ghost? He seemed real enough. He fought like a man, and a man who was aiming to win.
Lance clawed at his arm.
Aaron jerked his arm against Lance’s throat.
Lance gagged. His color changed from pale to bright red, and his eyes grew bloodshot and wild.
He staggered backward, slamming Aaron into the metal bookshelves.
In a surprising lack of stamina, Aaron dropped like a rock and hit the floor.
Then she realized—this was a trick by the Others. They would do anything to make her betray her knowledge, including bringing the dead to life. In a fury, she pelted back toward her table, back toward the precious notebook. She would hide it. She would throw it away. Somehow, she would keep it out of the greedy,
sleazy hands of the Others.
And she would not hope, would not believe, would not love that man who fought Lance for her.
Behind her, Lance gave chase. His voice was no more than a croak. “You bitch, you said he was dead!”
“He is!” she shouted. “Don’t pretend otherwise.”
In the next row, she saw Aaron running beside her. “Come through at the next crossover,” he said.
Yeah, right. She picked up speed, burst into her work area. She ran for the table, her eyes fixed on her open notebook. Behind her, she heard the men collide. She snatched up the notebook and turned in time to see Lance throw out his arms and blast Aaron with heat and light.
Aaron stumbled back toward the stacks, his fingers over his eyes, smoke rising from his hair and clothes. Livid bruises extended along the side of his head and over his forehead. Bruises discolored his hands. This man had been badly hurt, beaten by rocks that slammed him with all the force of a cave’s malevolence.
No. No matter how they tricked her, she would not believe he was alive.
Lance backed toward her, grinning at Aaron. “I’ll see you dead. I’ll send you to hell.” He blasted him again.
Rosamund couldn’t believe Aaron had returned to life. She had been there when he died. She had held him while his body cooled.
Yet if he was one of the Others, why was Lance trying to kill him?
How could Aaron be alive?
From the corner of her eye, she saw something move on the left. Two men, men she recognized. She had passed them in the corridor as she and Aaron had escaped from Louis’s château. They had walked with Fujimoto Akihiro. They were his assassins.
From the right, she caught another movement. Two more assassins, and behind them, Fujimoto Akihiro himself.
Rosamund could think of only one reason why Fujimoto Akihiro and his assassins had arrived in the basement of the Arthur W. Nelson Fine Arts Library in her antiquities department.
They were following Aaron . . . to kill him.
They believed he was alive.
Hope, ridiculous, meaningless, irresistible hope bloomed in her heart.
The memory of Dr. Servais popped into Rosamund’s mind. The look in the woman’s eyes when Rosamund said, “Aaron sacrificed himself for me.” And Dr. Servais had replied, “When the time comes for a man’s life and actions to be weighed, a sacrifice like that is a very great thing.”
Could it be? Was it possible?
Yes. Somehow, a miracle had happened. Aaron was alive.
Rosamund dropped the notebook on the library table.
Lance lifted his arms to blast Aaron.
She picked up the heaviest thing she could find—her mother’s stone tablet. A thousand years of history and fifty pounds of weight gave it heft, and she felt every ounce as she heaved it over her head. She yelled, “Lance, Aaron’s not that easy to kill!”
In a fury, Lance turned, arms outstretched, ready to fry her.
She swung the stela right at his head and smashed his pretty face.
The stela shattered, then disintegrated. With the horror of a trained antiquities librarian and the anguish of a daughter, she grabbed for the dust as it flew through the air. “No. Oh, no!”
But the stela was gone, the writing vanished.
And all because of Lance.
With loathing, she looked down at him and realized—even if she had known what would happen, she still would have hit him—for Aaron. She kicked him and in a harsh whisper said, “You don’t get to win here. This is my Sacred Cave.”
Chapter 38
The four assassins circled Aaron. Rosamund shouted, “Look out!”
Aaron pulled his hands away from his eyes.
She leaped to help.
And something huge, heavy and alive hit her from the side and slammed her face down onto the table. Someone grabbed her arms in brutish hands and twisted them behind her.
Her knees collapsed, the joints in her shoulders and elbows on fire from the strain. She screamed in agony and rage.
Someone bent close, put his head on the table beside her, and breathed garlic and rot in her face. “This is just the beginning, pretty girl,” he said, and jerked her arms again.
It was Louis Fournier’s security guard, Joscelin Deschanel, the guy with the cold, cruel face, the brute who had publicly accused her of Louis’s murder.
“You!” She could scarcely speak for the pain. “What are you doing here?”
“I came in with them.” He jerked his neck toward the fight she could hear going on behind them.
“You work for Fujimoto Akihiro?”
“No. But I was sent along to make sure nothing goes wrong this time. No matter what happens, I’m to clean up the mess.” And he smiled.
His smile was horrible.
He was going to make sure they all died.
“You want to watch?” He swung her off the table and, still holding her arms, dropped her to her knees.
She closed her eyes, battled the pain, then opened them. Because she did want to watch. She couldn’t stand not to watch.
Aaron fought. He climbed the bookshelves, reached the top, and shoved against the next bookshelf until it fell with a roar that scattered books and slammed two of the assassins to the floor.
Fujimoto screamed curses at his men.
Deschanel chuckled to hear them shriek in pain. “Smart. Good fighter,” he said to her. “Too bad about him.”
“You can’t kill Aaron,” she said. Oh, God, please make it true.
“I can kill anyone.” Deschanel spoke English, but with a harsh accent, and he had no inflection in his voice. He might as well have been discussing accounting.
She knew she shouldn’t bring it up. She was afraid an accusation might anger him. But she had to say it. “You killed Louis.”
“I did. I was ordered to do so. I’m going to kill you, too. More orders. But with you, I can take my time.”
She couldn’t think of that. And she wanted to know—“Who gives you your orders?”
“I don’t know.” After a thoughtful pause, he added, “But I’m scared of him.”
“Scared of him.” Who, or what, could ever scare this monster?
Still in that reflective tone, Deschanel said, “Your boy’s hurt. As soon as they can get their hands on him, he’s done. There. See?”
One assassin caught Aaron as he tried to climb another bookshelf, and jerked him to the ground.
The impact made Aaron go limp for a crucial second.
The other assassin followed up with a kick to the ribs.
Aaron caught his foot and flipped him.
The assassin rolled, came to his feet, and tackled Aaron.
Then they had him. He groaned as they hauled him up to a standing position, and gasped as they punched his belly, over and over, heavy motions that drove deep.
Rosamund flinched as each blow landed, then stared as Fujimoto ran forward, yelling like a samurai warrior.
A wave of fetid breath once more washed over her as Deschanel said, “Watch this. The Jap has got one great revenge planned.”
With a flourish, Fujimoto opened his trench coat. From a specially built pocket inside the lining, he pulled an eighteen-inch samurai sword.
Rosamund was appalled. “Is he crazy? He can’t use a sword here in the library. He can’t—” He can’t kill Aaron before my eyes. She tried to spring forward.
Deschanel laughed and moved her arms higher.
She felt her shoulder dislocate; the bone came out of the socket in one slow, torturous movement. Red spots swam before her eyes; she thought she was going to throw up.
All the while, that hateful voice droned. “Fujimoto has a thing about being a samurai—fat chance he could ever be one. He’s short and weak, and refuses to practice his self-defense. But samurai beheaded their enemies, and he thinks that’s cool.”
Rosamund was barely hanging on to consciousness.
She suffered such agony. She wrestled with such fear. The
tension, the anguish and the pain made her want to scream, and scream, and scream. But she couldn’t. She didn’t dare. Aaron was totally focused on Fujimoto and the sword, and if he could even have a chance of getting away, she couldn’t distract him.
Aaron didn’t look worried. He stood insolently, laughing a little as he said, “A little dramatic, aren’t you, Fujimoto?”
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