The Immortals III: Gavin

by Cynthia Breeding

  “That will be fine, Miss Whitney. As I was saying, since the ancient Celts also practiced religion based on alignment with nature, this is a place where we can start looking, especially since this was also gold-mining territory.”

  Chloe placed the tip of her finger between her lips and nibbled on a nail, contemplating. “Just so I have things straight—We’re looking for a centuries-old platter made of gold that a guardian of a secret society brought to former gold-mining country to hide in plain sight?”

  Gavin riveted on Chloe’s pliant lips sucking softly on the tip of her fingertip, making it glistening-wet, like another part of her body would be if only he could—with an effort, he forced his gaze away. “It may sound strange, Miss Whitney, but returning the gold to an area where other gold lies buried may, indeed, be the perfect hiding place.”

  She seemed unaware of the burgeoning tension he was feeling and continued nibbling. “And supposedly this platter has some kind of special energy or power that is aligned with the season of autumn and connected with cardinal direction of west and ties in with Tarot cards?”

  He could hear the skepticism in her voice. It did sound weird, but he was not at liberty to divulge the true scope of the relics’ powers and the extent of destruction that would happen if Balor found them first. “That is correct, Miss Whitney.”

  She grinned. “Cool! My mother will absolutely love this!”

  Gavin blinked, not sure he understood. “Your mother?”

  “Well, yeah. She reads the Tarot.”

  He had the sinking feeling he was going to be seeing a lot more of Chloe’s mother than just an introduction.

  * * * *

  Chloe craned her neck and stared through the heavily-tinted windows as Gavin drove through Coloma heading toward Marshall Gold Discovery State Park. “It looks like a ghost town,” she said.

  “It is a ghost town for the most part,” Gavin answered. “The sign said the population was 529.”

  “This whole area was booming with 300,000 people after gold was discovered,” Chloe said. “I Googled it last night after dinner.”

  Like studying history was what she wanted to do knowing Gavin was in the room next door. They’d had a pleasant dinner in Weaverville and the glass of wine she’d ordered had mellowed her to the point where she had hoped she might get Gavin’s interest in spite of the “rules” he’d laid out. After all, what red-blooded American male wouldn’t recognize the romantic setting of the majestic Sierra Nevada mountains with a nearly full moon rising like a huge silver ball in a black velvet sky? The air on the veranda was crisp and cool—what more would a guy need to put his arm around a girl to keep her warm? Especially if that girl was standing as close as she dared without falling onto him? Gavin had been oblivious to it all, acting like a perfectly proper Brit, escorting her to her room and insisting she lock the door once she was inside. So much for hoping he might want to come in for a nightcap. Or something else.

  “Here we are,” Gavin said as they pulled into the parking lot of the park and took his sunglasses from the visor.

  “Are you sure you need those? It’s overcast.”

  His dark eyes met hers for a moment before he slipped them on, his face becoming a mask to her. “They make my eyes feel better.”

  “Whatever.” Chloe stepped from the car and accepted a map from a volunteer dressed up as a miner—a young miner with shaggy brown hair, but kind of cute.

  “The mill is the first thing everyone wants to see,” he said and pointed toward a trail. “Just follow that.” He glanced down to her short skirt and boots and gave her a friendly smile that was just a bit seductive. “If there’s anything I can do to help, let me know.”

  “Thanks,” she said, aware that Gavin had come up behind her. “Maybe I can ask you some questions later.”

  “Sure thing. My name’s Carl. I’ll be here.”

  “Chloe. Thanks again.” She gave him a smile and started down the short trail. Gavin made a sound that almost sounded like a growl, but she wasn’t sure.

  “You shouldn’t be talking to strangers,” Gavin said.

  Chloe stopped so suddenly that any other man would have bowled into her, but Gavin had the agility of a big cat. She glared at him wishing she could see the expression behind his shades. “Is that another rule?”

  His jaw set. “Yes.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since just now.”

  She nearly gaped, not believing what she heard. “You can’t just go ordering me around. Who do you think you are?”

  “I am your guardian, Miss Whitney. You will do as I say.”

  This time she felt her mouth drop open and she snapped it shut. Then she narrowed her eyes and tilted her head. “You didn’t like that guy flirting with me?”

  “I did not assume he was flirting.”

  “No? I can recognize when a guy is interested, hard as that may be to believe.”

  A muscle clenched in his already tight jaw. “Miss Whitney. I am merely trying to protect you. We have no idea if we are being followed or by whom.”

  “Now you’re going to go all James Bond on me, like we’re living out some kind of international espionage plot?”

  “We may very well be doing just that.”

  “Give me a break. I know you said some nasty guy named Adam Baylor is after the relics, but you also said he wears an eye-patch. Haven’t seen too many of those around.”

  “He does not do his own dirty work, Miss Whitney. I thought I had made that quite clear earlier.”

  “Okay. So you suspect some nice college kid who works at a national park to be his henchman?”

  Gavin gave an exasperated sigh as though he were dealing with a particularly dense child. “One never knows, Miss Whitney.”

  “Are you suspicious of everyone you meet? Geez, maybe I’m one of the bad guys, too.”

  A corner of his mouth turned up. “You are not. I had you checked out before we left.”

  “You what?”

  “I am an investigator with Scotland Yard. It goes with the territory. Now, I believe we are here to either find or eliminate one more place where the platter might be. Shall we proceed?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer, leaving Chloe staring at his back. How dare he run stats on her? How dare he? I am your guardian. Guardian? That sounded so medieval. I am merely trying to protect you. She felt the anger lessen. She couldn’t remember any man ever saying that. Not that she needed protection. She really doubted she was in any real danger.

  Still. Maybe she should consider it a compliment of sorts. At least from him. She observed him as he walked on ahead. He did have a very nice, broad back—not to mention muscular thighs and tight buns.

  But he really had to lose that male chauvinist attitude. She grinned to herself. Gavin had met his match—he just didn’t know it yet.

  * * * *

  Gavin couldn’t imagine what had possessed him to react like that to a college kid. Anyone who wasn’t blind could see Chloe was an attractive woman, even if she did have spiked, orange hair and neon-pink nails. He’d kind of even become accustomed to her quirky way of dressing, although that tiny sheath of a skirt with those platform boots was new. Anyone else wearing it would look like a hooker—on her it was just—just Chloe.

  But that didn’t mean that Carl guy had to ogle her.

  “Wait up!” she said as she clunked along the gravelly path toward him. He wasn’t sure how she actually walked in those things and half-prepared himself to catch her if she tripped, but she kept her balance.

  “This is impressive,” she said when she reached his side.

  Gavin frowned. “What is?”

  Chloe gave him an arched look. “This…” She waved her hand. “Sutter’s Mill. Or at least a replica of it.”

  He’d hardly noticed where he was standing. A lack of situational awareness was not good in his line of work. Chloe was getting to him. “I suppose so. We need to see the museum.”

  “Wait a minute. Just
think. Less than two hundred years ago nothing was out here, except Indians and a few Californios—”

  “Who?”

  “Spanish-speaking Anglos. This was all a part of Mexico. Sutter planned to be a farmer until his foreman, Marshall, found a tiny piece of gold in the American River. Sutter didn’t even want anyone to know, but that didn’t last long. The rest is history.” She tilted her head at him. “I thought you Brits were interested in history what with all your castles that go back to the 1300’s.”

  Farther back than that, Gavin thought. Camelot existed in the sixth century although it had been a wooden hill-fort that the Normans never reinforced with stone. He had almost forgotten that two hundred years was a long time for mortals.

  Chloe looked around the park and the distant mountains. “Finding the gold pushed the pioneers westward and helped settle our country, but it’s kind of sad it was at the expense of the Modoc Indians.” She took a deep breath. “But then, that’s the way most of the United States was settled. It doesn’t really make it right though.”

  Gavin didn’t think he’d ever heard be this serious, except about her friend, Jake. “It’s the way of it, Miss Whitney. England is mired in bloody battles, even amongst its own nobles, to say nothing of the wars with Ireland and Scotland.” If he shut his eyes, he could still hear the cries of men and screaming horses trapped between the two streams of Bannockburn while the Templars—as Bruce’s elite cavalry—rode them down. It had been his first battle since he’d been turned.

  “Or us,” Chloe said with a small smile.

  “What?”

  “Us. Remember the little war called the Revolution?”

  He really had to stay focused. “Of course. You Yanks were a self-sufficient lot even back then.” He looked up at the old mill. “Perhaps it was best gold was not discovered until you were free of us.”

  “Guess so or I’d be talking with a funny accent.”

  Gavin gave her a quick look only to see that she was teasing. He smiled, feeling some of the tension ease that had been building up. He wasn’t given to frivolity, but perhaps keeping the conversation light would stay his thoughts from straying to places where he shouldn’t be going with her.

  “If you think I talk funny, you should hear some of the regional accents over there. I daresay you would not be able to understand the English.”

  “Try me,” she said impishly.

  And, as they made their way toward the museum, he did, alternating between the deep burr of the Scots, the lilting brogue of the Irish, the heaviness of the Welsh and the sliding slur of the Cockney.

  Chloe laughed, mimicking him with almost perfect inflection

  Gavin found himself laughing too—something he hadn’t done in decades.

  * * * *

  “We’re not exactly on a roll,” Chloe said as they headed toward San Francisco the next morning.

  Gavin glanced at her scouring over information she had printed off the Internet last night. “We had to start some place. Did you really expect we would find the platter immediately?”

  “I guess not.”

  He smiled as he eased the car into the heavy traffic on Interstate 80. “Divine intervention rarely happens.”

  “Maybe my mom can help since she reads the Tarot.” Chloe giggled suddenly. “Not that she’s divine or anything. She’d have a real hoot if anyone referred to her like that.”

  “Tell me about your mother.” The more he knew about Chloe’s mother, the better he could be prepared for any potential match-making the woman may have in mind.

  Chloe folded the papers and stuck them in her oversize, leopard-print hobo bag and relaxed against the seat cushion. “Maybe I’m prejudiced, but my mother has always been unique. Different from other moms.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, first of all, she didn’t have me until she was in her thirties. She always told me she was waiting for just the right time when all the stars were aligned.”

  “Stars?”

  “Yeah. Astrology stuff. Mom was a Hippie.” Chloe looked at Gavin. “Do you know who they were?”

  “I recall there was some kind of youth movement over here that involved a lot of drugs and anti-violence, anti-establishment rhetoric.”

  “Flower power,” Chloe said. “Mom said a lot of it started with young people against the Vietnam war and not wanting to be drafted into the military.”

  Gavin frowned. “Men did not wish to defend their country?”

  “They didn’t see the need for bloodshed and violence. I guess they saw the war as something that politicians and big corporations were making money off of—kind of like those Occupy Wall-Street people did a few years back. Of course,” she continued, “Timothy Leary introduced LSD along with his message to ‘tune in, turn on, and drop out’ and the Pill became available so I guess it was a perfect storm of its own making.”

  “And your mother was a part of this?”

  “Mom ran away from home at age fifteen to join the Summer of Love here in San Francisco. She’ll be glad to tell you about it.”

  Gavin had a mental image of some sixtyish woman with gray hair trying to relive her past—or what she could remember of it if she was involved in the drug culture. The psychedelic world had hit England hard too.

  “What about your father?”

  An expression of sadness fleetingly passed over Chloe’s face and then it was gone and she shrugged. “I don’t know who my father is.”

  That admission startled Gavin so much, he almost veered into the next lane. A driver honked his horn angrily as Gavin steadied the car. “I am sorry. I did not mean to pry, Miss Whitney.”

  “It’s okay. Mom said it could have been one of three men.”

  He glanced over. “Have you thought about getting DNA testing done?”

  Chloe shook her head. “Mom tried to locate all three once she found out she was pregnant, but the parties were pretty wild in those days and most kids just went by first names. They drifted, too. She never was able to find any of them.”

  “That’s a shame. Did she eventually marry?” Gavin found himself hoping, for some unknown reason, that Chloe had at least a step-father in her life.

  “No. Mom always said that the universe had given me to her and whoever the father had been was just a means to an end.” She looked sideways at him. “That’s kind of romantic, isn’t it?”

  Gavin thought he detected a hint of wistfulness in her voice. God’s blood. It didn’t sound ‘romantic’ to him at all, but then, romance had long since eluded him. Maybe the mother had tried to put a positive slant on the situation. “Were you happy?” he asked.

  Chloe turned her huge, aquamarine eyes on him and he wondered if he’d asked the wrong question, but then she smiled.

  “Oh, sure. Mom always made sure we had enough to eat and a place to stay and she discussed things with me. Asked my opinion. Most kids had all these rules they had to follow, but I had lots of freedom.”

  Freedom wasn’t always the best thing for a child, but perhaps it explained Chloe’s independent free-spiritedness. “It sounds as though you were close. Where does she live now?”

  “Mom stayed in Frisco after the Hippie thing ended. She still lives near Haight-Ashbury. The area has been renovated and she rents a loft. She still writes poetry and works in a little shop around the corner reading Tarot.

  Gavin refrained from asking if her mother still thought she was a hippie too. It didn’t sound like she had matured too much over the years.

  But maturity was the last word he would have used once they’d arrived at stately Victorian where her mother lived. Or, more ironically, ‘maturity’ might have been the most appropriate word to use.

  The woman who answered the door looked not much older than Chloe, although with cosmetic surgery any woman could maintain a youthful appearance.

  But this woman didn’t need that. She hadn’t aged since Gavin had seen her last—in King Arthur’s court.

  Chapter Fifteen

 
Guinevere. Gwenhwyfar’s half-sister who could have been her identical twin. Gavin watched her covertly as she and Chloe exchanged hugs. He had never considered that any of the women from Arthur’s court were Immortals. He wasn’t even sure if any more of the knights existed, having only met Lancelot during Templar times.

  Except for the modern clothing, Guinevere hadn’t changed much. She still wore her honey-colored hair long, her hazel eyes were fringed in naturally dark lashes, her generous mouth pink enough not to need lipstick. Like Gwenhwyfar, she had an unaffected beauty that only grew in the eyes of the beholder.

  She had wrecked havoc at Court.

  Not that it was her fault entirely. Half the knights were infatuated with the queen and most have them had mistaken Guinevere for Gwenhwyfar on more than one occasion, since they often delighted in dressing the same. Most of those hoaxes had been the queen’s idea, he suspected, to divert unwanted amorous attention, but it hadn’t always played out well. Guinevere had been light-hearted and playful, which led to rumors and accusations that eventually made Arthur send her away.

  Gavin had just achieved knighthood and thought it un-chivalrous to ban her from court, although even at his young age, he was aware of troublesome quarrels brewing among the older knights.

  Guinevere looked at him now, her smile friendly, no trace of recognition in her eyes. “I’m Jennifer. Please come in.”

  ‘Thank you.” Disconcerted, he followed them in. A small kitchenette, the single counter littered with mail was to his right. At the end of a very short hall was the bathroom. To his left was a small living area. Guinevere—Jennifer now—hadn’t recognized him. Of course, she probably hadn’t even noticed him back then. He’d barely turned seventeen and both his hair and eyes had darkened after he was turned. Still, he wondered if she knew who she was. Maybe he was only meeting a reincarnation of her.

  He took the seat she gestured to…a well-worn, but surprisingly comfortable rocker. An eclectic assortment of furniture filled the room: different styles of small tables sat beside equally mismatched chairs and a sofa covered in a dark blue throw emblazoned with silver stars and half-moons that probably doubled as a bed. Various sizes of candles in different states of meltdown decorated a round glass table-top whose pedestal was a dragon. Sandalwood incense wafted from a small metal bowl perched precariously near the edge. Gavin looked around. A bookcase lined one wall, its contents mostly strewn-about, battered paperbacks, along with several astrological charts. Another wall held framed posters of Sixties icons: Beatles, Stones, Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Doors. Gavin wouldn’t have been surprised if there were black lights and beaded curtains somewhere too.