A.K.A. Goddess (33 page)

He clapped the opposite hand to his injured arm. Blood spurted from between his fingers. “You traitor-loving bitch!”

Traitor-loving? “Tell me what’s going on,” I warned him, “and I might let you keep putting pressure on that until an ambulance shows up.”

“Mag…” gasped Lex from behind me, and my throat tightened in warning. I whirled, dropping into a low lunge, and struck. The man who’d just rushed my back fell on my sword. Literally.

His fall yanked it from my grip. I let it go and rolled sideways, kicking out as another one—the man who’d been crumpled on the stairs?—attacked. His ankle snapped under my feet. He fell to his knees. I stood and double-kicked him in the chin, knocking him out. Maybe killing him. I didn’t bother to check.

Behind me, a heavy blade clattered to the floor—Lex was spent. I dove in that direction, slid on the blood-soaked wood floor to Lex’s feet, grabbed his fallen saber in both hands.

Then I rose slowly between him and these last two threats.

“I asked you people a question,” I panted. “Why?”

“Dr. Sanger,” purred Lex’s latest opponent, his French accent equally familiar. “You only delay the inevitable.”

“René de Montfort? I thought we’d moved beyond masks.”

“Kill her,” groaned college boy. He’d stayed on his knees, losing too much blood despite putting pressure on his arm.

Lex, my heart mourned. Nobody held pressure on his wounds. He was dying, maybe dead. No matter his secrets, no matter our differences, it would be a far greater loss than any grail.

Life was more important than objects. Always.

Even his. Especially his, no matter what I’d told myself.

“It will be my pleasure,” said de Montfort, and stepped back to take a fencing stance.

Raising my eyebows, I feigned a similar stance. It’s not that I’ve never fenced regulation style. I just choose not to.

“En guarde,” he said, allowing our blades to touch—and I just kept mine touching his. When he swung, mine swung with his. When he thrust, mine circled and unbalanced it. He did all the work. My saber’s blade just rode his.

I could feel his frustration in his increasingly hard, choppy movements. “Fight, damn you!”

Funny, that he didn’t even see what I was doing as fighting. “Nope,” I said. “That’s your game.”

Furious, he lunged. My blade slithered around his—and skewered his throat, under the ski mask. Deeply.

I pushed harder, just to be sure.

De Montfort stiffened. Coughed. Fresh blood dripped across the saber. He fell first to his knees, staring at me through his pale, warrior eyes.

“My game,” I said firmly, yanking my saber free with both hands as he fell, “is stopping you, you piece of shit.”

Suddenly, the room seemed to echo with silence. Or my pulse. Even college boy lay still. I spun back to Lex, where he hung, unconscious—and still on his feet.

“Oh, no,” I murmured, unhooking his arm from the rails, taking his full weight to ease him toward the floor, into my arms. I lay the sword beside me, just in case.

He was soaked in his own blood; I’ve never seen so much. The deepest wound was the first, under his ribs; I pressed a bare hand against it, across his blood-soaked jersey. But he was also oozing blood from a chest wound, and from defensive slices on both arms. “Don’t be dead.”

His beautiful, hazel eyes cracked blearily open, fixing on me. “Not…dead,” he murmured. “Not…yet.”

His front door burst open. “Security!” I heard Sam yell. “Everyone down! Everyone—oh, my God!”

He’d just gotten a look at Lex’s bloody apartment. He continued in, sweeping with his gun.

“We need a medic!” I yelled, a surprise sob breaking in my voice. I brushed Lex’s hair back from his blood-smeared forehead, then kissed it. “You’ll be okay, do you hear me?”

Sam bolted toward us, saying something into his headset, followed by other gunmen. Our gunmen. I listened only to Lex.

“Go,” he gasped, barely audible. “Before…”

He struggled to take another breath. I hadn’t imagined the gurgle. I didn’t imagine the bubble of blood from the corner of his mouth, either. Now that the fight was over, panic threatened to overwhelm me. Threatened—and failed.

I come from a long line of very strong women.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I said.

His head jerked—his exhausted attempt at shaking it, no. “Before…police. Get the cup.”

“Don’t try to joke,” I scolded him. “You’re no good at it.”

He scowled, looking annoyed when Sam opened a box beside us. Sam pushed my hands away to press bandages onto Lex’s wounds. “Mr. Stuart? Are you still in danger, sir?”

“Check the roof,” I said, and one of Sam’s gunmen bolted past us, up the stairs. “That’s how they came in. A few may still be alive. I think this is all of them, but…but I’m not sure.” Breathe. “They didn’t use guns, Sam. We wouldn’t have survived if they’d used guns. I don’t know why…”

Or did I? Blades have history. Blades are ritualistic.

Blades spill blood. As if the death is secondary.

“Maybe they didn’t want to make the noise, Ms. Sanger.” Sam put my hand on one of the bandages, to keep pressure.

“I think they could have afforded silencers,” I murmured.

Sam ignored that, wiping blood from Lex’s mouth. “You hang on, Mr. Stuart. The ambulance and police are coming.”

Lex’s hand fumbled toward me; I caught it.

“Five o’clock,” he gasped. “JFK. Terminal 1. Air France.”

“I’m not leaving you,” I warned him.

Again his head jerked a weak negative. “VIP lounge,” he continued, coughing blood. “Reserved Room C. Say…expected.”

Another man hurried in, wearing casual clothes but carrying a black bag. Even after a year’s absence I recognized Dr. Joe Cooper from the fourth floor.

“Lucky you caught me,” he told Sam, kneeling beside Lex and pulling out a stethoscope. “I was on my way out. Maggi, some people in the lobby are making a hell of a fuss to see you.”

“They’re my friends,” I told Sam. “Send them up.”

He snorted and shook his head.

I said to Lex, “See? We’ll send Lil after the cup.”

“Can’t…protect it.” His lips pressed together, as if maybe he was trying to smile. “Not like you. The password…”

Dr. Cooper eased me gently but firmly back to press an oxygen mask over Lex’s nose and mouth, turning on a miniature tank. “You’ll have to stay back, Maggi. His lungs are damaged. He desperately needs air.”

Lex glared and pushed the mask away.

“Lex,” warned Dr. Cooper, but Lex was looking at me, willing me to come closer, to hear what he had to say.

So getting the cup was worth more than even two million dollars to him, was it? What he had to do was so very important, he’d said. And it was about female power. About balance.

About everything I’d fought for all this week. Damn it.

I bent closer and kissed him. “So what’s the password?”

“Nuada,” he whispered back, on what sounded like his last breath. New-what? At first I didn’t recognize the word, had no idea how I’d spell it.

Dr. Cooper pushed the mask firmly back over Lex’s face and held it there. Lex’s eyes looked increasingly desperate….

Then it clicked. “Nuada of the Silver Hand? From Irish mythology?” Arthurian legend, I would understand. Or Scottish mythology. Even goddess legends. But an Irish king?

Lex’s expression eased, and his eyes fell shut.

I brushed the hair off his forehead again, trying to soothe him with my touch. It’s traditionally been the role of women to sit by sickbeds day in and day out, to tend to the dying. Maybe that’s why I felt such a strong, instinctive need to stay right here…despite what might be his dying wish and my living one.

But I’d started a job. Time to finish it.

“Joe,” I said evenly to Dr. Cooper. “How bad is it?”

“He needs emergency surgery,” he said. “But…Maggi, if you know his family priest, you might want to call him, too.”

Of course! “One of my friends, downstairs, is a priest, Sam. Father Rhys Pritchard. Please send him up.”

Sam reluctantly gave the command through his headset.

“Go,” muttered Lex, eyes closed, muffled under the mask.

“Soon,” I assured him. “Not quite yet.”

Dr. Cooper said, “You need to stop talking now, Lex.” Under his breath he muttered, “I can’t believe he’s still conscious.”

Lex caught at Sam’s arm, slanted his gaze at me. “No…police.” Then, before Sam could dismiss that as impossible, he added, “Maggi. None.”

Sam whistled. “That’s a tall order, Mr. Stuart.”

Lex said something like, “…pay you for…”

Spoiled and selfish, just like I’d said. And to judge by the ache in my chest, seeing him like this, I still loved him anyway…just like I’d once vowed.

Rhys pushed inside and hurried across the room to us. “Maggi! Good God in Heaven, what happened? Are you all right?”

I surged up into his concerned embrace. It felt wonderful, for a moment, to be hugged in strong, healthy arms by someone who didn’t smell like blood. But I couldn’t savor it. When I glanced down at Lex, his hazel eyes had opened to scowl at us. I laughed. Possibly dying, he still had time to be jealous?

Just because I loved him didn’t give him that right.

“Rhys Pritchard,” I said, “this is my old friend, Alexander Stuart. The one we’ve been talking about. Lex, this is my new friend, Father Rhys Pritchard.”

Lex’s suspicion eased, and he blinked a wary hello.

“Pleased to meet you, Stuart,” said Rhys. “Though I’m sorry it’s not under happier circumstances.”

“I’ve got a favor to ask,” I told Rhys. “But it’s a huge one. It would mean you not being there to get the cup.”

“You want me to accompany your friend to the hospital,” he guessed, too easily. “Of course I will.”

“He might…” I swallowed, hard, against the possibility. “He might need you officially. If you can still do that….”

“I can, Maggi,” said Rhys. “I can still hear confession.”

I turned to Lex. “Him you can tell secrets to. That’s my deal. If I go, Rhys stays with you until I get back.”

Lex’s lips moved weakly. I bent closer, moved his oxygen mask momentarily back and asked, “What?”

“Trust…him…?”

I smiled into his eyes, sliding the mask back into place. “More than I trust you,” I told him honestly. Lovingly.

His eyes smiled back at me, then closed.

And…I couldn’t leave him. I wouldn’t. To hell with the Melusine Grail. Women could just go on empowering themselves the way we have over the last thousand years, one woman at a time.

But I was fooling myself. So I stood.

“Ms. Sanger,” warned Sam. “If you’re going…”

Rhys gave me a quick, hard hug, energy I needed. “You know it was never the goddess grails I was after, don’t you?”

I knew. He wanted the Holy Grail, in any form he could find it. Including Lex and his mysterious bloodline.

Sam handed me off to Ed, who led me down the fire stairs as emergency sirens howled nearer.

I sensed her, the grail, as soon as Sofie drove us onto airport property. The sensation felt…it felt like landing in New York had, barely a day before. Like a homecoming.

I’d washed at the security station; then Aunt Bridge had tended my cut arm en route. Thank goodness we had a lot of luggage, so I could change into clothes without bloodstains! Lil had made some important telephone calls. We were ready.

We parked outside Terminal 1 and headed to the block reserved by Air France, tucked between Air Afrique, Alitalia, and Austrian Airlines. Who knew Austria had its own airline? From there I could practically follow the call of the grail, instead of the signage, to the nearest VIP lounge.

Once upon a time, all such lounges lay inside the main security check. Now that you can rarely get that far without a boarding pass, some airports have made them more convenient.

“I’m expected in Reserved Room C,” I told the guard outside the lounge, as if I belonged. My posture dared him to deny it.

He checked paperwork, then moved a security rope, allowing us into the comfort and privacy reserved for public figures and first-class passengers. The chairs were more lush here. The sound was more subdued. Drinks and refreshments were laid out for the taking.

Sofie, who was a civilian today, looked around us. “So this is how the other half lives,” she muttered. “And to think—last time I flew, I was happy they gave me a box lunch.”

I went to Reserved Room C, knocked and walked in.

Sofie stayed outside to stand guard.

The gentleman who rose at our entrance looked supremely unremarkable. Even his expensive suit was understated. His eyes narrowed at the sight of three women.

“I expected one guest,” he said, once the door closed.

“All for one,” I said, with the coolness that comes from just having stared down—and dealt—death. “One for all. Do you have my package?”

“Are any of you police?” he asked.

Sofie had warned us to expect that question—it had something to do with laws of entrapment. That was another reason she stayed outside.

“No,” I answered. No one in the room, anyway. “Are you?”

He smiled. “No.” Then he lifted a leather case onto the room’s one marble-topped desk. The laptop computer was already plugged into a data port, beside a phone.

“I trust,” he said, unlatching the case and lifting out the alabaster cup, “that you will find the merchandise acceptable.”

Melusine’s energy washed over me, before I’d barely gotten a look—more than acceptable. I took it first, low and flared and ancient and beautiful. I turned its weight in my hands—and, oh, yes. This was it. My grail had made it back to me.

“Oh, my…” murmured Lil, who hadn’t seen it before now.

I carefully handed it to her, turning back to our friendly art smuggler. “I’m satisfied.”

He typed some information into the laptop, then faced it toward me. Transaction pending, the screen read. That transaction being the transfer of $2 million from one numbered, foreign bank account to another. Password required.

N-U-A-D-A, I typed carefully, and hit Enter. Why Nuada…?

Beep. Transaction completed. Please make a note of your confirmation number….

“Thank you,” said the unremarkable gentleman, with his hard-to-place accent. He logged out of the bank site, then shut his computer and tucked it into a padded case. “It is always a pleasure doing business with your family.” He meant the Stuarts.