The Immortals I_Lucas

by Cynthia Breeding

  Lucas’ eyes deepened to whiskey-color as he regarded the warlock. “I’ve no alibi, if that’s what you’re asking. I went for a drive to familiarize myself with the surroundings. And how did you find out that the professor was dead?”

  Sara felt the electrical charges flow through her as Michael probed Lucas’ mind. “I will not be a conduit!” She flashed the message to Michael mentally. “You must ask permission before—” To her surprise, she felt the surge of energy reverse itself and flow back to Michael. Did he withdraw the force or had Lucas returned it?

  Michael arched a dark eyebrow. “I drove out there this morning. Since I talked with Sara Friday night, I had a few questions of my own to ask. Robert filled me on what happened.”

  Sara wiped at her tears with an edge of the blanket. “And where was Robert during all this? He’s supposed to take care of him!”

  “He says he got a phone call from Parkland that his daughter had been in a car accident. The professor told him to go.”

  “Let me guess. The hospital never called?” Lucas’ face was grim.

  “No.” Michael said and then narrowed his eyes. “You said you think you know who ordered this?”

  “He goes by the name of Adam Baylor. On the surface, he runs a brokerage house in London.”

  “London?” Sara asked. “Do you think he was at Sotheby’s? Is that how he knew about the document?”

  “He knew. He doesn’t like to be seen. He probably sent one of his henchmen to bid on it.”

  Sara thought back. “There was a nervous young man there who bid on it. He kept looking back, but there wasn’t anyone there. Or at least not for long. I thought I saw a swarthy looking person with a patch over one eye—” She stopped as Lucas hand stilled on her shoulder and then dropped. “What?”

  “So he was there then.”

  Her eyes widened. “That was the man responsible for the professor’s murder?”

  “You need to call the police,” Michael interjected.

  Lucas sighed. “It won’t do any good. He cloaks himself in layers of protection. Whoever the hit man was, he wouldn’t know who really hired him.”

  “How about Caldwell?” Michael asked. “I find it suspicious that both of you happened to show up so conveniently.”

  “I asked Scotland Yard to run an Interpol check on him,” Lucas answered and smiled at Michael’s look of surprise. “Nothing definitive came back. He’s been involved in a few questionable disputes regarding some angry husbands, but nothing criminal. Anyway, Balor would never use someone who could be so directly identified. He’s far too clever to use mass communication also when he has other sources he can use.”

  “What sources?” Sara asked.

  Lucas grimaced. “The brokerage is set up to launder money and provide funds to terrorists. Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran…the civil unrest in Lebanon and Nigeria…the pending oil problem with Venezuela…the drug cartels in Mexico…you name it.”

  “But if you know this, why can’t the British arrest him?”

  “Don’t think they haven’t tried. The open set of books he keeps is legitimate. He never deals directly with the funneling of the funds. Again, layers of protection. Even those who were arrested could only give the partial names of whom had hired them.”

  “But why does he do it?” Sara asked. “And why kill an innocent old man who didn’t have what they were looking for?”

  “Because he can, Sara. Because he can. He likes inflicting pain and misery.” A hard, predatory look came into Lucas’ eyes and again, she thought she saw the angles of his face change and narrow slightly and then the image was gone. “Some men are Satan’s own spawn.”

  He didn’t have to tell her what would happen if the Hallows fell into Balor’s hands. She shuddered. He hadn’t been exaggerating. Civilization really would be destroyed.

  From her perch on the mantel, Nim began to keen softly.

  Chapter Six

  Lucas paced the floor of the bedroom in his host’s home, feeling as confined as the wolf would be in a cage. He hadn’t wanted to leave Sara alone, but her friend, Michael, had insisted on driving him back here. Damned honorable of him. Lucas hadn’t missed the guy’s attraction to her. He’d found Sara’s car keys in his pocket and he’d gone back to return them. At least the guy wasn’t there.

  Not that he could blame McCain. It had taken every bit of centuries-old will power to convince himself that he was just being supportive, massaging her neck. What he really wanted to do was slide his hands down her arms and around her waist and pull her up against him. He’d cup and knead her breasts while he nuzzled her neck and kissed that vulnerable spot just below and behind the ear lobe and then let his hands slide down her ribs to her belly and press her back… The wolf growled menacingly and he shook his head in agitation. Better not to think about Sara. The beast wanted out, hungry for the blood of the person who’d murdered the old man. Enraged, the wolf could easily mistake the powerful emotion of lust for something else.

  And lust is what he felt, he told himself. Nothing else. Certainly not anything like love. There was no room in his long life for love, not when he had to recreate himself every fifty years and his lover grew old and withered away. Besides, he had allowed himself to love once—in only a worshipful way as a knight to his sworn lady--but the results had been disastrous on a whole fledgling nation. He became a hermit for a long time after that. And then he found the Templars.

  Still, Sara was powerfully alluring. Her body was soft curves that he wanted pressed against him while he ran his hands through the cloud of silken hair. With the wolf’s keen nose, he could pick up her unique womanly scent from across the room. And yesterday had been nearly over-powering. Grief did that, he supposed. Her shields had been down.

  And that surprised him too. He’d blocked McCain’s mind probe, but it had channeled through her. There was something a little bit mysterious about Sara. The herbs he’d found—he hadn’t seen crushed mistletoe since the Druids worshipped in oak groves. The symbols of the Sacred Feminine—as the goddess Brighid was referred to in these times—scattered around her apartment suggested something that ran deep below the surface of personality and beautiful looks. He’d known the faerie, Nimue, since Arthur’s time. She didn’t attach herself to anyone unless they had a Gift.

  He paused in his pacing and thought of his sister, Brighid, the bestower of Avalon’s Gifts. The painting on Sara’s wall had startled him, for it was a rendering of Avalon, a place he didn’t know if he would ever see again. He had lost his own sun-god divinity when he came to Earth, so only Brighid could part the mists for him now. And with the Christians, Muslims and Jews at each other’s throats around the world, the gentler teachings of the Goddess path were receding deeper into shrouded veils of secrecy.

  It was a blood-thirsty world, this twenty-first century. The Mongols, Romans, Huns, and Saxons had been brutal. The World Wars and Vietnam had taken lives, but this… This was Balor’s triumph. He had finally gotten the perfect combination. Suicidal terrorists in countries that had the capabilities for weapons of mass destruction.

  And Balor was close. First the wolf attack and now the murder. He doubted that Sara had gotten ill on one drink. He suspected that Caldwell had slipped something into it, although he couldn’t prove it, since Sara had refused to go a doctor. Drugging women to make them compliant disgusted him. Strike One, as the Americans said. If Caldwell were somehow linked to his grandfather, that would be Strike Two. Gavin was still working on that. If Lucas ever found out that Caldwell was behind the slaying of that old man, he would release the wolf with pleasure.

  But first the Hallows must be found. After the murder and whatever had transpired at lunch with Caldwell, he didn’t want to leave Sara alone. He knew she had a gun, she’d showed it to him before they left, but a gun wouldn’t stop Balor.

  He’d have to take her with him. But how he was going to manage to keep things platonic, when even now his cock grew hard thinking of her, he didn’t know.
/>   * * * *

  “So it was going to be a little ‘afternoon delight’, yes?” Baylor asked Caldwell from the recesses of the hot tub in the private men’s club of his hotel.

  Caldwell fidgeted with the jacket he’d taken off, the steam from the water forming beads of perspiration on his forehead. “The drugs were working. She’d agreed to let me take her home.”

  “And you let Ramsey get in your way.” Again. He was getting tired of the Templar. Something would have to be done about him.

  “I didn’t have much choice.”

  Baylor contemplated him with his good eye while he took a slow sip of cognac. Waited long enough until he could see sweat rolling off Caldwell’s face and staining the armpits of his shirt.

  “Warm?” he asked impassively.

  “Yeah. It’s…it’s hot in here.” Caldwell stammered.

  They keep the room at a friggin’ sixty-eight degrees because of the tub. He knew damn well why Caldwell was sweating. He had failed him. And men paid for that. Caldwell knew it.

  “Then take off your clothes and join me,” he said.

  “Ah…no, thanks. Maybe I could just wait for you outside?” Caldwell took a step backward toward the door.

  “It wasn’t a request.”

  Caldwell stared at him and for a moment, Baylor actually thought he might refuse. Adrenaline surged through him. None of his quarries ever got away. By the demons he commanded, was his prey going to give him cause for chase? He needed to be brought to heel. He lifted the patch over his eye slightly and turned toward the man.

  Caldwell doubled over in pain, clutching his belly. “My god, I feel like a knife has been run through me,” he gasped.

  Baylor smiled benignly and settled the patch back over his eye. “Sorry. It must have slipped.”

  Caldwell wasn’t stupid. It didn’t take him long to figure it out. He hung the jacket on the back of the chair and took off his shirt and pants. Pulling off his socks, he started to step into the tub.

  “Alan. You know the rules.” He took another sip of brandy while he watched the man’s emotions play over his face. Surprise. Shock. A flash of anger. Resentment. Caldwell had never been disciplined before. This might be even more enjoyable that he had thought.

  “I’m waiting.”

  Caldwell looked a little desperate, but surprisingly his voice was calm. Baylor gave him a mental point for that. This game was going to be fun.

  “I prefer getting naked in front of women, not men,” he said.

  “Apparently you aren’t too successful with that,” Baylor answered and was pleased when the other man winced. “I want to make sure you really are a man. If you are, then maybe I’ll let you try to take the girl again. You know what to do.”

  Baylor could feel the strength of the other man’s hatred and it nourished him as he inhaled it. Perhaps he should make Caldwell fondle him instead. He had no preference on who gave him release when he wanted it. And he was beginning to want it.

  “I think I may bend the rules a little, just this once,” he said pleasantly and suppressed a smile at the relief on Alan’s face. He finished off the drink and set the glass down beside the tub. “Since you’re acting like an adolescent about taking your skivvies off, you can pump my cock instead. If you succeed in jacking me off, I’ll know you can probably make a woman come.”

  In a flurry of movement, the briefs went flying and Cantwell began masturbating, his eyes closed, his face red.

  “Ah. Humiliation. I like it,” Baylor said. “Shall I finish for you?”

  Caldwell didn’t answer but jerked harder and faster until with a groan, his seed shot out. Baylor laughed as he sank into the tub.

  “You could at least thank me.”

  Caldwell opened his eyes to mere slits. “For what?”

  “Oh, come now.” Baylor stopped and gave a short bark. “I forgot. You just did. But the thanks should be for letting you obtain your own pleasure without the pain that I usually require.”

  He grunted.

  “Hmmm. You are most unappreciative,” Baylor admonished. “Well, that bit of chastisement was for disappointing me. I had wanted to see a video of the bitch being screwed. Hard. You were right. She has nice tits. “This,” he said as he reached over the edge of the tub to pick up something, “is going to be a reminder that you didn’t get the copy that I asked for.”

  Caldwell’s eyes widened as he looked at the cilice Baylor was holding. The spikes on the leather belt would penetrate the flesh when strapped on his thigh and tightened. “God Almighty, where did you get that?”

  Baylor gave him a cold smile. “Actually, I find it highly ironic that some Christians think their benevolent God wants them to use this. It really is more of a devil’s tool. I’d nearly forgotten about this device. It was kind of Dan Brown to bring it up in his book.” He stroked the smooth leather slowly and sensually and then turned it over to run his fingertips over the points. He rubbed a drop of blood off one. “I sharpened them to make it more effective,” he said and held it out. “Do you want to put it on or shall I?”

  “If I refuse?”

  Baylor touched his eye patch. “How much pain can you take? The cilice would seem a merciful weapon.”

  Caldwell took a deep breath. “I know you can cause harm when you lift that eye patch. I also know you like making the victim suffer slowly. But what good am I to you dead or totally incapacitated?”

  Baylor’s adrenaline surged again. By the Unseelie Court! The man had balls. He hadn’t had anyone stand up to him—really stand up to him—since Hitler. And Adolph had truly considered himself a god of equal stature. Pity. Ultimately, it cost him the war. Baylor refused to consider anyone an equal. But still, he enjoyed a game of cat-and-mouse with someone who had guts.

  “What good are you to me now?”

  “I can still get the copy.”

  “How? If she gets sick again, she won’t blame it on a drink.”

  “I have a key to her place.”

  Baylor raised an eyebrow. “How did you get that?”

  Caldwell allowed himself a small smile. “I didn’t know if I’d need it at some other time so I decided to take the precaution of making an indention when I put her keys in my pocket. A little modeling clay is a good thing to carry.”

  “Hmmm.” Yes, his friend Adolf would have liked this man. “Perhaps I can reserve judgment for a bit.” He laid the cilice down on the floor.

  “I can get in tonight if you want,” Caldwell said.

  “No. Not so soon. That damnable Ramsey will be hovering over her for a day or two. And if she goes to Nova Scotia the copy will no doubt go with her. See what you can find out at Smith’s first. No sense in taking the risk of getting caught for nothing. I don’t tolerate mistakes well, as you know. Don’t fail me this time.” His hand just barely touched the leather belt.

  Caldwell went just a shade pale. “I won’t fail.”

  * * * *

  Sara was more determined than ever the next morning that Lucas would take her with him. Professor MacDonald wasn’t going to have died for nothing. She stomped down the hall to the library and opened the door.

  Lucas stood by the window, looking out at the gardens that were carefully tended. With the sunlight filtering in, it cast him in golden shadow, making him look like a bronzed Celtic god. She caught her breath at the broad expanse of his naked shoulders, and then realized he was wearing a tan polo shirt drawn tight over hard muscles. Better not think about Lucas nude. She had a mission to accomplish.

  “If you think I’m going to stay here in Texas while you chase down the Hallows, you’re wrong,” she said a little too loudly.

  Lucas turned away from the window, his amber eyes seeming to glow in the sunlight. “Good morn to ye, too, lass.”

  Did he have to look so devastatingly irresistible? Mission, remember? “Sorry,” she said in a softer tone. “It’s just that I have to do something to avenge the professor. And I can’t stay home while—“

  “Yo
u may come.”

  Come? Did he have to put it like that? Muscles clenched deep in her belly as she of his shaft deep inside her, thrusting hard. She felt herself blush. Stop it! “What made you change your mind?”

  He gave her a slow, lop-sided grin. “Maybe I just thought I was fighting a losing battle and decided to surrender.”

  She didn’t think he lost many battles, but the thought of him “surrendering” gave her imagination whole new ideas, like listening to him moan in earnest as she slowly licked the length of his erection and then teased its head with the tip of her tongue. Stop! That lop-sided smile wasn’t helping matters. It could melt glaciers. Big ones. Hello? Remember the Three Losers? Don’t fall for a sinfully wicked smile again! She lifted her chin. I’ll just keep this businesslike. She sighed and mentally zipped his pants up. She was glad that Nim had stayed home. The faerie would have given her a good poke.

  “Good. I’m glad that’s settled. When do we leave?”

  “Not so fast.” Lucas sat down at the small table and motioned for her to join him. “Let’s take a look at these verses again.”

  He shuffled some papers while she took a seat. “I think the lines that your friend brought up, makes it pretty clear that we need to look for the spear first,” Lucas said as he handed a sheet to her. “But I don’t know about the second one. Roses climbing to heaven? There are hundreds of thousands of trellises in gardens everywhere. And a Druid’s tree would be an oak. Pretty common.”

  Sara studied both verses for several minutes. “Hmmm. Dawn could mean that the spear could only be seen in a certain light, perhaps.” She looked at the second verse and suddenly recalled Michael’s calling of the quarters during the full moon. She sat up straighter. “Directions,” she said. “I think that’s a clue.”

  “Huh? Ye doona make sense, lass.”

  “Yes, I do! What direction does “dawn” come from? East. Are you familiar with the Tarot?”

  “Fortune-telling?”