IK1 (17 page)
Authors: t
Not exactly what I wanted to hear.
“It’s what you need to hear,” her subconscious prodded her.
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
“Oh, shut up!” Then another thought rolled onto the heels of the last. Maybe he really doesn’t find me desirable! Maybe he was just doing what it took so he wouldn’t have a hysterical female on his hands! Now, that makes me mad. She tossed her chin out of his reach.
“Michael has his own suspicions about you, too.” For a moment, she thought she saw his pupils change shape and his jaw elongated. She blinked. No, he looked normal.
She must really be tired. Lucas cleared his throat, only it sounded a little like a growl.
“Your friend and I may have to have a little talk,” he said as he picked up the luggage and they proceeded toward car rentals. “But for now, maybe the things I can show you will help convince you that I’m not the bad guy. Come on.”
She was quiet as they headed out of Logan and he turned north on I-93 and then west on I-95. She needed some time to assemble her disjointed thoughts. She knew she was attracted to Lucas and she should be grateful that he had, once more, made it clear that this was to be platonic. He was exactly the type of man that was dangerous for her.
Yet her traitorous body was already reacting to being in the close quarters of the Saturn coupe they’d rented. Watching his strong hands on the steering wheel as he wove in and out of crowded Boston traffic reminded her of what else his hands and fingers were capable of. Like kneading my buttocks and pressing my belly against a really hard SEARCH FOR THE SPEAR Cynthia Breeding 73
erection. She groaned and quickly changed the sound into clearing her throat.
“Where are we going?” she asked as the small car finally turned off the freeway and headed northwest on S-225. Goddess, but her voice was shaky.
“Westford,” he answered.
“What’s there?”
He grinned. “Didn’t I tell you you’d have to wait to find out?”
She wrinkled her nose at him, determined to control her lustful fantasies and
settled back to enjoy the ride. April in the Massachusetts’s countryside was beautiful.
The grass was turning a lush green and trees were sprouting new buds of spring, which reminded her that Beltane was not too far away. She wondered if they would find the spear by then.
Lucas drove into the tiny town and parked on Depot Street. “This is what I
wanted you to see,” he said as they got out of the car.
Sara looked up at a huge rock ledge. Etched into the stone was a six foot carving of a knight with chain mail and a coat of arms. The hilt of the sword was placed over his heart and the Coat of Arms depicted a brooch, a crescent, a five-pointed star and a ship.
“It’s awesome,” she said.
Lucas nodded. “The type of helmet the knight wears is typical of the 1350’s.
And stone effigies were often made in the British Isles during that time also.”
“Doesn’t the Templar’s Round Church in London have some of these?”
He gave her an appraising look. “You do know your history.”
“Or else I watch the right movies,” she replied with a smile. “So you’re saying that this proves someone came here before Columbus? But it doesn’t prove who.”
“I’ll argue that point,” Lucas said. “Knights were often buried where they had fallen during those times. The research that has been done on this particular Coat of Arms shows that the brooch is a design used by a maternal branch of the Scottish Sinclairs.” He pointed toward the ship. “This type of galley came from the Norse and the Norse line on Orkney was the Sinclair bloodline. This shield was found to belong to the clan of Gunn, which was a branch of the Sinclairs and, in particular, it belonged to Sir James Gunn, who accompanied Henry Sinclair on his voyage to Nova Scotia.”
Sara let the information sink in. “Then you’re saying that they were here? In Massachusetts? In the 1300’s?”
Lucas nodded. “There’s a second stone with very similar carvings in the Fletcher library here. We’ll take a look at it before we head south.”
A short time later, they were back in the car and headed toward the southeastern coast. Since Lucas didn’t want to spoil his next surprise, they talked of current events, listened to music on the radio and, when they stopped for a late lunch near Falls River, got into an a friendly argument over whether the Americans who still painted black and white stripes around their chimneys in New England really were Tories as their ancestors had been.
“I mean, it’s not like they’re terrorists or anything,” Sara said as she took a bite of flaky baked cod.
Lucas’ mood sobered. “Terrorists. Balor has managed to take a peaceful religion and turn it into something monstrous.”
Sara tilted her head. “You say his name strangely. Baa-lor. Is that the Scottish way of saying it?”
SEARCH FOR THE SPEAR Cynthia Breeding 74
He hesitated. “Aye. You could say that. Adam Baylor may very well be named
after the Celtic god of the evil eye.”
She creased her brow, thinking. “Wasn’t he cursed to be killed by his own
grandson so he tried to keep his daughter from getting pregnant only she did anyway and he threw the baby into the sea? And a sea god rescued the child?”
“So the story goes.”
“Ah, well,” she said, “that story has been passed along in other myths too.
Taliesin, the Great Bard, was said to have been given to the sea. There’s even a version of King Arthur gathering boy babies and setting them adrift in order to make sure his incest-begotten son, Mordred, was killed.”
“Arthur would never do such a thing.”
She looked at him, puzzled. He looked so serious. To lighten his mood, she
laughed. “Were you there?”
He started and then he smiled. “That would be hard to do, wouldn’t it?” He
picked up the check. “Let’s go. I still have things to show you.”
They drove a short way to where the Taunton River emptied into Assonet Bay.
On the east side of the bay, Lucas pointed out a large rock with symbols inscribed in it that were of the same style used in the inscription on the knight’s effigy. “It’s called Dighton Rock. More mid-1300’s,” he said. “Do you remember Longfellow’s Skeleton in Armor?”
“That was about a Viking warrior, wasn’t it?”
“Longfellow’s version. The skeleton of a knight in armor really was found here.
It was actually preserved until the mid-1840’s when a fire destroyed the museum. One more thing,” Lucas said as they drove on.
They stopped in Newport, Rhode Island, near the water and got out. A round
tower of gray stone greeted Sara.
A series of eight ten-foot-high arches rose from the ground with a floor built across them. The walls of the tower itself were three feet thick.
“What is it?” Sara asked. “Who built it?”
Lucas shrugged. “It could have been an early lighthouse. There’s a hearth of sorts in the middle of the floor.” He pointed to the ledges around the edges. “There are torch holders there. Maybe it was used as an astronomy center of a solar/lunar indicator.” He squinted up against the sunlight to look at it. “Some say the Vikings built it. But its design is the same as the Templar churches, round with eight arches.”
“So you think the Templars were here? That the spear may be here?” She felt a slight shiver begin in her spine. Could they really be that near?
He smiled. “No spear. The place has been too cleaned out. But the Templars …
I think Henry Sinclair was here. He was the guardian of the treasure. The symbolism of the tower is strong. Eight is the number of infinity and the circle never ends. I think he built this to let a future seeker know that the Hallows are eternal and that they are here in the United States.”
“So where do we start to look now?”
Lucas shook his head. “The clue must be in the verse.”
“Where roses climb to heaven …” Sara said. “Roses are symbolic of the feminine and ancient goddess worship. Roses are found in various carvings at Rosslyn Chapel.
Templar descendants built that.” She rubbed her temples, sure that another vision SEARCH FOR THE SPEAR Cynthia Breeding 75
headache was coming on and wondered if Lucus would massage her head again like he’d done before. His touch really was magic. Stop it. Don’t spoil the day with fantasizing about something I can’t have. Shouldn’t have. Can’t have … stop it!
He was looking at her strangely. “Are you feeling all right?”
She took a deep breath. “I’m okay. My head’s just spinning with all these
thoughts. The Sinclair tomb at Rosslyn—the Guardian’s tomb, I think you called it—had a sword and a tall chalice engraved on its top with the face forward and the rose cross plainly visible. A rose cross. The rose is also the symbol for Mary Magdalene. Didn’t the Templars dedicate their churches to her?”
Lucas nodded. “Go on.”
“Well, then. Wouldn’t it make sense to start researching churches in the U.S.
that might have been dedicated to Mary Magdalene? How much higher can a rose climb than to become a saint?”
“You may have something there,” Lucas said with a hint of admiration.
Sara nodded. “And Mr. Smith has a vast collection of stuff related to the
Magdalene. He got hooked when he read Holy Blood, Holy Grail.” When Lucas raised an eyebrow questioningly, she shrugged. “My boss has eclectic tastes. This one appealed to him because, as he said, “who else but the Catholic Church could pull off casting a woman first as a whore and then making her a saint?” He even has copies of various paintings done of her. Maybe if we could trace one of them to an actual church here in America or ones that have black Madonnas like they do in Europe ... Oh!” She grimaced and rubbed her left temple as the sudden pain struck.
Lucas was beside her in an instant, a steadying arm around her shoulder, the
fingers of his other hand already gently stroking her forehead, easing the pressure.
“Aye, lass. The channeling gets to be too much, I ken. Ye just relax now.
There’ll be plenty of time to sort through all this once we get back to Texas.”
She listened to the deep rumble of that beautiful brogue. She could keep this platonic. She really could. But just for one small second, she wanted to be closer to him.
It would mean nothing really. Really. She laid her head on his shoulder.
“That really feels good.”
For a moment, she felt him hesitate and then he tightened his grip ever so slightly around her shoulders. Just enough to press her breasts softly against his chest.
This was strictly one friend comforting another. That’s all it was. Really.
* * * *
interrupted until he’d at least had time to suckle one of those tight nipples or dip his fingers into her hot, wet well and then slide them along her cleft and give her at least some hand pleasure—that he wouldn’t let that happen again. And he couldn’t.
“I’ll take you home,” Michael said and reached for her bag.
Lucas picked it up first. “That won’t be necessary. I can take her home.”
For a moment, the other man studied him and Lucas got the distinct impression
SEARCH FOR THE SPEAR Cynthia Breeding 76
that those dark eyes were delving deeper into his psyche that was necessary. He brought his shields up with force and the corner of Michael’s mouth quirked up before he turned back to Sara. There was some kind of invisible power there, but Lucas couldn’t determine if it was for good or bad.
“Brianna had a … an ‘occurrence’ yesterday,” Michael said carefully and Lucas
wondered what kind of code he was speaking in for Sara immediately alerted to it as his wolf would have done.
“Is she all right?” Sara asked.
Michael looked troubled. “Not sure. You know she sometimes gets spells …”
He glanced at Lucas and then back to Sara. “She’ll feel faint and needs to rest. But this time, she got sick.”
“You were there?”
He shook his head. “Morgan was with her. She’s the one who called me. Seems like they were having tea.”
Tea? Another code maybe? “Who’s Brianna?” Lucas asked and watched as Sara
exchanged a quick glance with Michael.
“My best friend,” Sara answered and reached for the suitcase that Lucas was still holding. “I really need to go and see her. I’ll come by the mansion early tomorrow morning and we can start that research.”
Reluctantly, he released the bag. She was obviously in distress. The last thing he wanted to see was Michael put an arm around her shoulders. Hell, he’d been comforting her himself just yesterday and it irked him to see another man doing it now. And he definitely did not like the look of triumph on the guy’s face as they walked away.
Lucas glanced at his wristwatch and then pulled out his cell and dialed Gavin’s number. It would be dark in London by now. The vampire answered on the first ring.
Briefly, he told him what had happened in Nova Scotia and asked him to start the subtle pealing away of protection that Balor always kept around him. Fangs—vampire or wolf—next to the jugular could bring amazing breaches in confidentiality. He could hear the grin in Gavin’s voice as he responded. Nothing like a good hunt and release.
“Just one more thing,” Lucas added.
“Sure. What?”
“See what you can find on an American named Michael McCain. Let’s make
