Draycott Everlasting: Christmas KnightMoonrise

by Christina Skye

  He had no more left to give up.

  THE WIND CRASHED and banged at the old shutters.

  The crack-crack of wood hammering against stone tore at Sara’s thoughts as she struggled to the doorway. She turned to walk outside—and her foot stopped in midair. Nothing visible blocked her, but her body refused, no matter how she willed it. There was no passing beyond the threshold.

  Damned man. Damned house.

  She closed her eyes and rubbed her face, struck by exhaustion. There was a sensible explanation here somewhere. She just hadn’t found it yet. With all her will she fought her memories of Navarre’s hands, surprisingly gentle on her face.

  Her struggle brought more memories.

  The moon like a sickle in an indigo sky. Hot winds, hot skin and a lover infinitely persuasive, all too gentle. She didn’t want to remember any of that.

  But suddenly her old world composed of task forces and document assessments seemed to close in on her like a tunnel. How long had it been since she’d eaten cotton candy with sticky fingers or walked barefoot on a white-sand beach? How long since she’d seen her own smiling reflection in a lover’s eyes?

  Her fingers clenched shut. When had she lost sight of her own joys? How had her life become so narrow and governed by routine?

  And why had it taken Navarre to show her that?

  Staring at the framed abbey maps on the wall, Sara thought of her assignment, but now the old maps and yellowing captain’s logs seemed part of someone else’s world. Some new part of her mind hungered for hot nights and soft sighs, her hands raking a man’s skin in passion.

  And the man in those reckless visions was Navarre, softer somehow, smiling when she least expected it, conquering her with his ability to see deep and true into her heart.

  Sara bit back a soft moan. Had she gone completely mad, driven to the breaking point by the stress of the past months? Was everything that had happened at the abbey an intricate hallucination?

  Navarre held the answers.

  And he was the last person she could trust to tell her.

  All thoughts of the Dalmation Coast and Marco Polo’s family home on the island of Korcula seemed to bleed away to nothing. Even now some part of Navarre stirred in her mind, making everything else seem empty and without meaning. How had he shattered the quiet order of her life, reducing her to this creature who chased shadows?

  The man was unhinged, and she would be unhinged, too, if she allowed herself to believe in these hot fantasies he had created so well.

  She needed to leave. Sara reached for her coat, then froze. No coat. No briefcase. Her cell phone was gone, left back on the library table. Even if she found it, it would be out of power by now. She grabbed the phone on the nearby chest, but the line was dead.

  She had to find a way out of this room. Wind hammered at the roof, and something pricked at her neck. “Is someone there?”

  She heard no answer except gravel cracking at the window. She felt the weight of Navarre’s anger, which seemed to be part of the storm outside.

  And then…

  Nothing.

  All sense of the man seemed to drop away from her like a stone into a dark well. There was no feeling of contact at all.

  She moved to the door, reached out a tentative hand.

  His bonds were gone. Nothing held her.

  Free, she swept up her blanket against the storm, then crept silently toward the gatehouse foyer, braced for the lashing rain as she ran across the broad courtyard to the main house.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  SARA WENT FIRST to the roof. Struggling against the wind, she tried to rouse the motionless estate manager, but neither words nor gestures seemed to reach him. There was nothing else she could do except call for help.

  Back in the library, she found a penlight in the desk and tried her cell phone.

  A small bar marked only a little remaining battery time. The landlines were still dead, too. She would have to drive to the village for help.

  The wind howled as she strode to the door. But something held Sara there, uncertain.

  It called her to the last of the maps left for her by Nicholas Draycott. They were still spread out on the long table, clear in the beam of her penlight.

  The fragile paper showed the outlines of the island of Korcula with a row of hills outstretched like the wings of a bird. Their curve was very clear in Sara’s modern topographical map, kept nearby for reference. Then she saw the single word on the fragile paper, barely visible after age and handling.

  Gerenge.

  In Mongolian the word referred to a mark of protection given to favored travelers by Kublai Khan. The Polos, Sara had always suspected, had carried just such a token of favor on their return journey. The name on Nicholas Draycott’s rare, fragile map could hardly be a coincidence.

  This island held the Italian’s treasure. She was sure of it.

  Her heart hammering, she gripped her cell phone. After a long burst of static, she finally connected.

  “SAY THAT AGAIN. You found…” Static hissed and crackled loudly. “…repeat that, Agent Nightingale. Your connection…terrible.”

  “I said, it’s on the Dalmation island of Korcula. There’s a hill called Gerenge on the northwest side of the island. Two historically dated maps from the abbey confirm details I suspected from the logs.”

  “You think…authentic?”

  “They are definitely authentic. I needed them to fill in the missing pieces. My other documents were incomplete, but the Mongolian word was the link I needed.”

  Over another burst of static, Sara heard Harding’s quick, sudden laughter. “Fine work…anyone else but you would have taken a month….” More static crackled. “…have a man there before morning. I’ll need…calculations…pack up all the maps for safety.” Static cut across the lines. “The storm…bad, I take it?”

  “Conditions are serious, sir. The power is out and I expect there will be flooding all over this area.”

  “Let me worry about that. You get…sleep…whole lot of people will want to shake your hand. I’ll be the first to…” His words were swallowed up.

  “Sir, there’s something else. The estate manager has been hurt. Things are—strange. I can’t—”

  Static filled the line and she lost the connection.

  She rubbed her forehead, feeling frightened and seriously out of her depth. She was an expert at electrostatic document imaging and infrared luminescence. She had highest skill ratings in marksmanship and surveillance, but the things she faced in this ancient house were beyond her understanding.

  A tree branch scraped against the library’s front window. Wind howled, tearing at a loose shutter on a higher floor.

  A branch broke free and shattered the big window, raining glass over the floor. Sara gathered the priceless maps and swept them into the safe beneath the desk as curtains of rain hammered the room.

  Against the restless sky she saw movement. Oily, clawing movement. Darkness twisted.

  In a second the shapes were all around her, sliding through the window, over the sill and across the floor. The phone was still in her hands with only a slight charge left. She redialed with shaking fingers, heard a burst of static and then Harding’s voice, sounding surprised.

  “Nightingale, why—”

  She had to warn him. “They’re all around me, dark things. Things that I can’t describe. Tell whoever you send to be careful. Watch the roof and all the windows. They—”

  Pain knocked her backward.

  Her fingers opened and the phone fell.

  STRIDING TOWARD the stables, Navarre felt a sudden sense of pain. A weight centered at his chest.

  More intruders?

  He opened his senses, filling his mind with the movements around him, from moat to towers. He found no men crawling through the mud and no sign of vehicles racing from the distant road.

  He turned, looking back at the darkened house, and the force of malevolence struck him like a blow. Dark forms spilled ove
r the high stones in a flood, focused on the shattered window of the second-floor library.

  Lightning clawed through the sky. Navarre saw the outline of a woman caught in their demonic train.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE.

  Nothing could cross the warding of his sword. His sword was Damascus steel, perfectly forged. There were laws to the dark world, laws that bound its insatiable inhabitants, and Navarre had learned those laws well during his sojourn among the shadows.

  But the evidence of his inward eyes was clear, the roiling shapes growing. Even as he watched in disbelief, their malevolence seemed to feed on the storm’s fury.

  Suddenly the black wave twisted. He saw the woman shifting along the wave, and his heart dropped. He raised a hand, tracing a command over the storm, but his spell bounced back, rebuffed. In the cold flare of a lightning burst Sara looked out over the darkness, saw him, struggled to raise an arm for help. The force of their eyes locked and sent energy surging, strong enough to bind them close and free her.

  She tilted and screamed, plunging to the ground.

  Desperate, Navarre looked away. As soon as the bond between them snapped, she was wrapped up in the black wave as before, pulled roughly and inexorably toward the roof.

  He could not do what he had to alone. There had to be three to work the circling magic. The woman would be one. The third would have to be his sworn and mortal enemy. But how could he release Adrian, even for the space of a few minutes, after so many years of waiting?

  Hatred battled logic, spilling out to cloud Navarre’s mind. What point in helping this world that was not of his time?

  High above he sensed Sara’s struggles, her broken sound of pain, and the black, churning entities that swelled around her.

  Revenge called to him, part of his being.

  But Navarre found he could not allow the dark its sway. With an oath, he ran toward the house. His revenge would wait.

  NAVARRE FOUGHT his way through the storm, one more shadow in the swelling darkness. Finally on the roof, he found his footing on the slick stones and brought Draycott awake in a stream of words that left sparks of blue-gray energy.

  The abbey’s guardian ghost staggered, squinting into the rain, one hand raised in shock. “Who—”

  “Navarre, that’s who unbinds you. Now that you’re free, don’t waste our time with questions. They have Sara. If we tarry, they’ll have your precious abbey too, along with everything else within eye’s reach of this roof.”

  “They?” Draycott ran a hand over his face, staring at Navarre. “Those things like smoke, you mean.” He muttered a harsh oath. “So many of them. I’ll hold them back with a spell of shielding.”

  “No use. This storm feeds them, and we haven’t much time.”

  “Then I’ll call the cat, Gideon. Together we—”

  “No.” Gabriel’s face was grim. “It will take the three of us to block this power.”

  “Sara is a mortal. What power has she to offer?”

  Navarre didn’t answer for long moments. “Her power is to me,” he said gravely. “She grounds me, if I will it. With her, my energy will be tenfold.” His muscles tightened. “If I will it so.”

  “And what is the cost of this grounding?” Draycott asked, always astute.

  “The link between us cannot be dropped afterward. Once bound, we will always hold the awareness of each other.”

  “Even in death?” Draycott asked quietly.

  “Especially in death.”

  Navarre spun, watching the edge of the roof. “There’s no more time. Once she is within their world, she will be lost forever. After that others will come, flush with their success. They will pour through and their energy will create…” he stopped, shook his head “…disturbances beyond describing. The loss of this place. Perhaps even of this piece of your world, and all souls within it. I won’t have that on my conscience.” He glanced at Draycott, his eyes unreadable. “Will you stand beside me at my right arm? As we fought those long years past on Crusade?”

  “I will.” Draycott watched black wraiths begin to swarm across the edge of the roof. “I trust your strength is as good as ever.”

  At the edge of the roof, the woman was lifted, her body caught on restless waves of shadow. Her eyes were huge, filled with fear as she tried to twist free. When she saw the two men, she lashed out with wild strength. “Stop them.”

  “We’ll need your help,” Navarre growled. “Raise your hand to me. Hold your eyes on mine until you feel my energy.”

  “Hurry,” she rasped, struggling vainly. “I think I’m about to be someone’s dinner.”

  Far more than dinner, Navarre thought. But he forbore to mention that.

  “Keep your eyes on me. Heed only my voice. Let everything else fade, Sara. Only my eyes and voice…nothing else matters.”

  As he spoke, Navarre caught her gaze and let the force of his summoning link envelop her. Her face went paler still.

  And then her body went rigid. The link snapped tight between them, and Navarre knew the wave of thoughts and sensation that raced along that binding way. With it would come the flood of memories from long centuries. “You,” she whispered. “I remember. You and I—We were…”

  He ignored her panicked look, intent on building the bond until it grounded him for what he had to do next. When the bond was tangible, a silver outline against the shadows, he reached out one hand to her. “Take it.”

  She took a sharp breath, her eyes huge. When she was close enough, their fingers linked, and the very air seemed to crackle between them. She swayed and lurched upright on the roof.

  “Well met.” He turned to Draycott and felt the man’s strong, cool grip. “Do not let go,” he ordered both of them. “No matter what you see. No matter what you hear. Close your hearts and minds to whatever things they offer, for they will offer you much.”

  Even as he spoke the true storm began, a rage of fury and longing as the beings sensed they were about to be denied their prey. Images rained down on the three bound together, images that tugged hard and called to the soul’s deepest yearnings. Unlimited power. Unlimited life. Unlimited adventure.

  “Come with us,” the voices whispered. “Never alone. Never failing. Our power will be your power in worlds without end.”

  “Hold,” Navarre repeated, his voice hoarse. “Only hear my voice. Feel the strength of our circle.”

  He was less immune than the others, for he had come from the Between World and he knew the taste of its power. The things of the dark crawled in search of any weakness, any hint of temptation. Navarre felt them skitter and claw up his legs, over their linked hands, hammered by rain and wind not of any mortal sky.

  The three of them were engulfed in shadows. Sara shuddered, battered by the wind.

  “Hold to me,” Navarre said, his voice raw with strain.

  Any weakness now would betray their circle.

  The shapes swarmed over Draycott, then turned. With a low roiling hiss of glee, they swelled over Sara in a wave of oily black.

  “I’M SLIPPING—” Sara grimaced, terrified as the weight of shadows moved, pushing her toward the roof’s edge. How did the other two stand this foul sense of invasion?

  “I can’t hold any longer.” She felt her fingers tremble, giving way.

  With a rough phrase of reassurance, Navarre gripped her hand and pulled her toward him, while Draycott offered his counterweight. As the men strained against the unnatural wind, Sara felt Navarre tighten their bonding, letting his energy flood into her, making them one. His mind settled into hers, taking over every corner and secret place. Color washed her face as she felt their contact become total. Hot and intimate, his thoughts poured through mind and muscle, bone and spirit. Nothing was closed between them.

  She saw through his eyes and her own, felt his arrogance and the edge of his fear. Through the link, she also felt the cool steel of Adrian’s mind and the duty of long centuries in protection of this house. Now that d
uty was turned, forged into the weight that anchored their circle.

  And over that rose the blue-gray force of Navarre, the fierce power that locked them together as one. Sara wondered desperately if it would be enough.

  SHE WAS GROWING WEAKER. The darkness had centered its attack on her now.

  Through the link, Navarre felt Adrian’s arrogant strength. He felt Sara’s growing fear, and over that her sense of uncertain wonder at the joining.

  As the hammering force of the attack grew, he filled her mind with images of heat and joy, drawn from their past. The distraction would hold her against the dark things, he prayed. To his infinite surprise she answered with images of her own, sharper still. Rich and true, they were drawn from her own memories.

  Remember, she whispered, brushing him with her thoughts.

  Yes, he remembered well that particular night. They had stolen from the camp and found safety in the tent of Navarre’s friend. Away from prying eyes they had learned the joy of each other’s touch.

  By the saints, he remembered too well, feeling his body grow heavy with desire.

  “You learn swiftly,” he grated.

  “I appear to have an excellent teacher.” But she spoke through gritted teeth, trying to ignore the howl of the wind and the gravel flung in her face. “H-how much longer?”

  Navarre drew her mind tighter as she swayed in the rain. “I cannot see.”

  He said no more. It took all his strength to fight the temptation to slip just a little and become part of that swirling, infinite power that welcomed him so intensely. The call of the dark was sweet, so fierce he could taste the limitless corridors of the shadow world that welcomed him by name.

  That knew his weakness and his deepest temptations.

  Join us. Be at ease, Gabriel of Montford and La Varenne. Make your home here, great warrior.

  How sweet to let go, to slip back into that infinite belonging.

  Dimly he felt hands clenched around his. Someone called his name.