by Leigh Morgan
Jesse turned his back. “Thirty seconds, Shay. I’ll be in the Rover.”
Shay ignored the wide-eyed look of awe combined with worry on his son’s face. He didn’t have time to reassure Magnus now so he winked at him, clasped him on the shoulder and said, “This is what I do. I’m good at. I’ll be back before dinner.” Magnus just nodded at him and Shay nodded back.
...
Taryn recognized the grove immediately. Something inside it called to her. Pulling Merlin after her, she entered the shade covered sanctuary. Dappled light filtered through the trees easing the dark green and shedding enough light to see clearly now, but warning that darkness would fall more quickly here than in the fields.
The grove was definitely a mystical place amid a mystical countryside. There was palpable power here for anyone awake and open enough to feel it. Taryn had always been open to this kind of power, and the drug coursing through her had supercharged her wakefulness to the point of attunement with the rhythms of the earth. The buzzing of the dragonflies was more than a sound, it was a feeling that reverberated inside her, filling her with peace and a sense of purpose.
She strode toward a vine covered stone wall. Walking along it she felt rather than saw her way. She did as Merlin bade and let her heart lead her. She found the spiral stone simply by turning her head in the right direction. It too was covered in ivy and moss. Taryn stripped some of the ivy from the stone revealing the spiral and the face of the green man above.
Her gaze went down to the grass. There was a shallow cuplike indentation next to the stone. She hadn’t noticed it the last time she visited. Neither had her father, or if he did, he didn’t mention it.
Taryn stepped closer, running one finger over the spiral, once, twice, three times. She repeated the process twice more before stopping in the center. A loud grinding of stone on stone mingled with the buzz of the flying creatures, the songs of the birds and the chirping of the crickets and clicking of the grasshoppers. The face of the green man separated from the oak leaves surrounding it, moving back into the stone, revealing a ring of stone leaves.
Taryn reached through the ring. She felt a lever about an inch wide. She pushed it and the ground under her trembled and gave way, sinking ever deeper. Grass tore and black earth gave way to an underground well. Taryn started sliding into the crevice and Merlin pulled her back from the edge.
The hole that opened was roughly three feet in diameter. A ring of iron at least six inches deep comprised the top of the well. Handmade brick lined the walls of the well, and a metal grate was clearly visible a few feet below the surface. Water from the well caressed the brick. It was unusually clear given the filtered light.
Taryn knelt with Merlin at the edge. She stuck her hand in the water, pulling out the few clumps of grass covered earth that had torn and fallen into the well. The water was cool, and once she tossed the clumps out, clear with the slightest tinge of white. An overwhelming urge to drink from it overcame her and she brought some of it to her lips in her cupped hands.
Merlin stopped her. “If you drink from this well there’s no going back. If you drink it is more than a promise, it is a covenant with the Goddess to keep her secrets safe and her message alive. Do you understand?”
The bullet tore through Merlin’s chest and lodged into her flesh, burning a path of trauma under her left shoulder before she could answer. The force of the impact threw Merlin’s body into hers, knocking her halfway into the well, submerging her face. Whether she intended to or not she swallowed a mouthful of water before she realized what was happening.
Her hand hit an extended brick and it gave way under her touch. Something cool and small and metal fell into her palm which seemingly of its own accord closed around it.
“Keep the Goddess’s secrets, Taryn. You are now the Keeper of the Light.” Merlin closed his eyes and rolled partially from her before turning to dead weight.
“Nooo.” Taryn screamed, pushing up with all her might, rolling Merlin’s unconscious body onto his side. His lower body still had her pinned to the ground and she wasn’t strong enough to push him all the way from her.
Taryn didn’t look at the object in her fist, she simply held it, fist and all, to the torn hole in Merlin’s back, so much smaller than the torn, hemorrhaging exit wound above his heart, and said the only words going through her mind. “Goddess, save him. Please. Save him. I will keep your secrets. I will share your light.”
She heard footsteps approaching. She ignored them, closed her eyes and said the words twice more, putting every ounce of intention running through her into the words, irrevocably sealing her deal with the spirit.
When she opened her eyes she was staring at the barrel of a very big, very black, gun. The man walked with a limp. “You should have let us take you at the college. It would have gone easier for you. Now I’m going to make you bleed.”
Then, even more frightening than that, a familiar face appeared behind the man holding the gun. “Give him the cauldron, Taryn. He’ll find it anyway and I’d rather you not die in the process.”
Taryn’s gaze shifted from gun barrel to the now ruthlessly cold eyes of Lauren MacBain.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Two more men carrying guns entered the grove. All of them were aimed at her. MacBain was unarmed, staring at her without an ounce of compassion. Taryn stared back without a word, her brain trying to assess the situation and figure a way out. She was forcefully holding her upper body out of the water. She relaxed and let herself fall back into the well, flailing with her left arm as she turned and brought her right hand to her face. Quickly, she opened her palm and swallowed what was in it, sight unseen.
Once she forced the metal down her throat she allowed herself to sputter to the surface. She caught MacBain’s words as she surfaced.
“Fetch her out of there. She can’t swim and she’s afraid of the water. If you want to get anything out of her, get her out of the water.”
Taryn stared at him, letting nothing of what she was thinking or feeling show. One of the three men, not the one with the limp, rolled Merlin from her and yanked her to her feet. She immediately kicked him in the groin, punched him in the jaw just below the ear and threw a shuto, or knife edge of the hand strike, to the man’s throat. The man wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon.
The Code of Bushido, Rule 2: Gi; Justice & Morality. My morality just dealt out some justice, Sensei. And I did it utilizing Rule 3: Makoto; Complete Sincerity.
The one with the limp looked at his downed partner and said, “I’m going to enjoy putting holes in you.” Then he fired.
…
Jesse heard the first shot and took off at a run. Shay was right beside him. They cleared the glade and were approaching the stone wall when a second shot was fired. They didn’t try to hide their approach, there wasn’t time, so two shooters turned on them as they entered. Shay took the first one out with two to the heart and one to the head. They wouldn’t be getting any intel from him.
Jesse scanned the area. One man with a limp was moving toward Taryn. One man down, hands covering his genitals, unmoving. Merlin, on his back bleeding badly. Taryn on her feet blood soaking her shirt turning what was once bright yellow into sickening brown. MacBain, clutching his chest, unsteady, but still on his feet.
The man with the limp was still armed and closing in on Taryn. “One more inch and I’ll take out your knees.” Jesse said, coldly precise. The man stopped, but his gun remained aimed at Taryn.
“I’ll give you one chance to make it out of here alive.” Jesse lied. The man was dead the second he’d aimed a gun at Taryn’s head, he just wasn’t smart enough to stop breathing. “Drop your gun, step away and I’ll give you a chance to take me down. Do it and you walk. My friend behind you with a Makorov aimed at your head won’t shoot you.”
“Why don’t I just put a bullet in blondie’s brain pan?”
Jesse pulled the Ka-bar from the small of his back and threw it. It landed an eighth of an inch from the ma
n’s good leg, the reverberation slapping the side of his shoe. “Do that and I’ll skin you alive, and believe me, I’ll take great pleasure in your screams.”
The man must have believed him because he dropped his gun and stepped away. He bent to retrieve the knife, something Jesse welcomed, but Shay’s voice stopped him. “Do it and die where you stand.”
The man stepped away. Jesse was only mildly disappointed. He took one look at Taryn and lost the will to beat the man the way he deserved to be beaten. He didn’t take his eyes from his quarry, but his question was for MacBain. “Were you with them?”
Taryn answered before MacBain could. “No. He’s not.”
Jesse nodded and said, “Catch.” Jesse tossed the weapon without taking his eyes from his prey. He saw MacBain catch the Glock in one hand out of the corner of his eye, almost wishing he hadn’t taken to the time to safety the weapon before throwing it. There was a hell of a lot more to MacBain than the man presented to the world, but since Taryn trusted him, the most expedient thing to do was trust him too. Jesse didn’t have time for anything else. He had to get to Taryn and he could already hear sirens in the distance. That was one problem with shooting people, it tended to draw unwanted attention.
Jesse moved toward the man. Taryn’s tormentor didn’t move forward or back, he just waited for Jesse to come to him. That was a big mistake, but then, the man didn’t strike Jesse as an Evans scholar. He was tall, a good four inches taller than Jesse and he had Jesse by at least thirty pounds.
“Keep coming asshole. I haven’t killed anything today and the day’s a’wasting.”
Keep talking asshole. The more time you spend talking the more brain cells you burn.
Jesse calculated that the man’s reach was greater by maybe three inches with his arms and since he wouldn’t be kicking that meant Jesse had the advantage all the way around. He was quicker, lighter on his feet and one hell of a lot more determined.
When Jesse was just out of the man’s punching range he faked a jab to the man’s face and delivered a punishing Thai kick to the back of the man’s good knee, shattering what was left of the bone structure. The man fell hard, his whole body shaking with shock.
He reached for another weapon and Jesse waited until he palmed a blackened serrated edge knife that was about five inches long. Jesse kicked it out of his hand and then stomped on his wrist, shattering that too.
Jesse didn’t believe in leaving enemies behind broken and bleeding. They tended to heal and come after you, but he heard Taryn call his name and he couldn’t stomach killing the man in front of her. Besides, the smarter play was to let the man live and find out who hired him, and why. Jesse didn’t believe for a moment that this team was anything but the hired help.
MacBain made it to Shay’s side and took his Makorov. “Can you get me a bill of sale dated at least six months ago and put it in the safe at this address? The code is on the back of this card.”
Shay’s simple, “Done,” was answer enough.
“Do it fast. Then take Jesse’s weapons and get the hell out of here. I’ll deal with the authorities.”
Jesse hadn’t moved from the man on the ground. He disarmed himself, giving all of his weapons to Shay. It would be much easier for an ex-SAS officer to explain his way out of shooting an American on foreign soil than it would be for him or for Shay. Shay collected the weapons and disappeared into the fading light without a sound, leaving no trace that he was ever in the grove.
Taryn moved to the standing stone. MacBain watched her every move. She pushed the lever in the hole and the green man was once again encircled with his wreath of oak. The hole closed as the earth moved, covering the well. Taryn took the clumps of dirt and covered the patches of bare earth that remained as well as she could. Then she pulled ivy and sections of moss from the wall and stamped them into the ground. It wasn’t perfect, but anyone who wasn’t looking for the well would never know blood had been spilled there to protect it and the spring.
“MacBain, you’ll be explaining what happened here or you won’t be explaining anything again. Ever. Am I clear?”
MacBain looked at Taryn who was now bent over Merlin, trying in vain to wipe away the blood pumping from his still beating heart. “Don’t threaten me, Mohr. You’ve got more to answer for than I do. At least while I was watching over her no one had to die.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Taryn wasn’t sure how she felt about being back in Wisconsin. Merlin was getting around, even though he still walked with a cane. He seemed to enjoy that since every young woman, and most of the pretty young men he met, went out of their way to open doors for him and otherwise fawn in a way that made him smile. That had Taryn wanting to kick the unnecessary cane out from under him. Her assistant was a pain in the ass, but she was so happy to have him alive and smiling, that she let her irritation go. It was a completely new concept for her, one she wasn’t sure she wanted to get used to.
Jesse made it through the police questioning without much hassle. All of the wounds he inflicted were deemed defensive, which technically they were. The man survived in a hospital two days before a previously unknown heart condition killed him. Since it had nothing to do with his wrist or his knee, Jesse wasn’t questioned any further.
MacBain fell on the sword for Shay, saying the men followed him and were looking to make a quick score kidnapping a woman whose family had more than enough cash to spare. The story held. Shay’s doctored bill of sale helped, as did Lauren MacBain’s war record. Apparently he was something of a war hero in the second gulf war and he’d earned numerous commendations. Lauren didn’t elaborate on the war, neither did the authorities, but the whole mess went away without the need to bring the fountain stone or the sacred spring into it.
Taryn was grateful for small favors. She wasn’t so grateful for the way Jesse seemed to retreat into himself and away from her since they arrived back in Potters Woods. That was two weeks ago and he was still aloof.
They slept in the same bed. He even held her close through the night. But in the morning, he was gone with the light and he didn’t approach her during the day, even when she caught him watching her from a distance. It was as if he didn’t trust himself with her anymore, and that puzzled her as much as it pissed it her off.
She was the one who had to watch her friend get shot. She was the one with red blotchy skin that would eventually reveal a scar the size of a bullet hole above her heart. She was the one who had to deal with the taste of flowers and the scent of colors which, while subtle now, hadn’t entirely gone away.
Feeling sorry for herself, and her place in this new world, Taryn set off to search for Jesse. She meant to pick a fight. She didn’t want to leave him, but he wasn’t giving her much reason to stay, other than keeping her word. That she would do as long as she breathed air, regardless of how she ultimately felt about it.
Code of Bushido, Rule 6: Meiyo;Honor. I’ll keep my word, Sensei, whether it kills me or just ends up slaying my heart. I only agreed to four more weeks. My honor is worth a month of my time.
She found Jesse in the library, grilling Lauren MacBain. Lauren looked relaxed enough. Jesse looked livid. Taryn couldn’t fathom. From her perspective, Lauren had saved the day, although she grudgingly admitted she’d probably be dead if Jesse and Shay hadn’t appeared when they did.
“Why were you in the grove? What do you want with Taryn?” Jesse’s tone was all Damascus steel, no silk.
“Two entirely different questions old boy. Which do you want an answer to first?” Lauren MacBain’s tone was all silk, but there was definitely a blade hidden underneath, just looking for a reason to come out to play.
Jesse was facing MacBain, his entire body humming with energy. Neither man noticed her. “Do you love her?”
Taryn held her breath. She didn’t want to hear Lauren MacBain proclaim his undying affection for her. He did that over two years ago. Now she wanted him in her life, but at the periphery, not in the middle of it. She liked him. She res
pected him. She enjoyed his wit and his company. She just wasn’t in love with him.
Lauren set his glass of iced tea down on a coaster, ever polite, ever precise in doing the right thing. His voice didn’t waiver, but something in him shifted. He was all predator as he stood, drawing himself up to his full height, pushing out his chest, but not in the way of a peacock. For the first time Taryn saw the savage grizzly ready to attack under the sleek mild-mannered gazelle.
Lauren MacBain took a step closer to Jesse, all ice to Jesse’s barely controlled heat. “The real question isn’t whether I love Taryn, it’s whether Taryn loves me. If I thought she did, you wouldn’t be standing here, mate. I’d have dispatched you at the grove and there wouldn’t have been enough left for your mother to bury.” Lauren picked up his tea glass, hand steady, and took a sip of the liquid before setting it back down again. His every movement fluid, unhurried and so perfectly controlled.
Jesse looked ready to tear the man’s throat out, all in all, showing one hell of a lot more emotion than he’d shown her over the last two weeks.
Lauren fixed a cuff under his sport coat that didn’t require fixing. “If there ever comes a time when she doesn’t prefer you, or if I ever find that you have mistreated her or failed to love her as she deserves, I’ll be back on the front lines. If that happens, neither you nor any other force will keep me from her.” Lauren widened his stance and fixed Jesse with a stare so lethal it made the hair at the back of Taryn’s neck stand on end.
“Have I made myself clear, mate?”
Before Jesse could skin her boss, a man she deeply cared about, Taryn came into the room.
“Why did you send me on the Magical Britain assignment?” She asked, ignoring Jesse, giving him time to compose himself before he did or said something stupid.
