Kingdom Come (3 page)

Corbin aimed the gun at Kieran's head. "You have interfered for the last time," he said with malice. "I don't know who you are and I've no idea why you insist on calling me Simon. But if killing you is what it takes to accomplish my goal, then I shall. Now, I will ask this only once; will you go peaceably?"

"With the lady at my side?"

"No."

"Then you have your answer."

Corbin cocked an eyebrow. "Very well, hero. Have it your way."

A gun went off. Rory screamed and screamed, her voice echoing violently off the rocks. But even as she continued screaming, she realized that Kieran had not been shot. He was still on one knee, his arms outstretched, watching Corbin fall face-first into the sand. Bud, David, Kieran and Rory all stared in astonishment as Darlow, the meek little British embassy man who was standing just behind Corbin, lowered the small caliber revolver in his left hand.

Darlow felt the stunned gazes as he continued to look upon the man he had just killed. He was rather stunned himself; where he had once been allied with Corbin now, clearly, he was not. This crazy adventure that had all started when he had received a call at the Embassy in Istanbul stating that an English knight from the Third Crusade had been discovered by an American archaeologist had been the wildest ride he had ever taken. Wild and oddly supernatural.  He looked up from the body in the sand, his attention directed at Rory.

"A man like Corbin only understands violence. I've known enough Corbins in my lifetime to know that. And I simply couldn't let him kill your knight in cold blood," his gaze found Kieran. Weakly, he shook his head. "I don't know why I believe you are who they say you are. But I do. How did you come back to life?"

Kieran wavered dangerously, falling on his rump as Rory dropped to his side, supporting him. The disbelief, the disorientation glazing his expression, was blatant.

"Through the miracle of love," he murmured, barely heard above the driving rain. "My... my lady and I will not be separated. I thank you for your assistance."

Darlow simply nodded. The gun dropped in the sand beside Corbin as if Darlow no longer possessed the strength to hold it. Being a law-abiding man, he couldn't understand what had provoked him into murder, only that he feared for Kieran's and Rory's lives, for all their lives. He knew that the evil filling Corbin would never stop until someone stopped it. Until someone stopped
him.

"You killed him," Dr. Peck’s voice was filled with awe and perhaps a bit of jealously. "By damn, Darlow, you
killed
him."

Darlow turned to him. "I realize that and I don't particularly care. I was protecting the knight from Corbin's crazed assault and I am confident any jury will find that I did it to protect us all," he glanced over his shoulder at the lady and her knight, once again in a tight embrace as rain and lightning exploded around them. "He's a madman, you know. I just couldn't stand by and allow him to commit cold-blooded murder. And he would have, too. Can't you see that the lady and her knight cannot be separated?"

Bud simply stared at the man who had been willing to kill for the power of love; odd how Sir Kieran Hage seemed to provoke the strongest of emotions wherever he went. Glancing to the sand where Corbin lay, he realized that it was finally over with the man. But the fact remained that Kieran was very ill and the need to get him to a hospital took precedence over all other thoughts at the moment.

"Come on," he motioned to Darlow and to the soldiers who had thus far stood silent and basically unmoving. Even the Marine who had been aiming his weapon at David had lowered it. "We've got to get him to a doctor. There's a small hospital not too far from here, about an hour up…."

Bud never finished his sentence. A huge burst of lightning suddenly lit up the sky, a jagged bolt crashing down on the outcropping of rocks where Kieran and Rory were huddled. Chunks of rock went flying and even as Bud screamed Rory's name, trying to protect himself from the white-hot projectiles, he knew his cries were in vain. He knew, before the smoke even settled, that she never heard him.

If you go, I go with you.

She had.

CHAPTER ONE

January, Year of our Lord 1192

“Libby,” came the soft voice. “Wake up, sweetheart. Open your eyes and look at me.”

Libby
. The name Kieran had given her because he thought her given name wasn’t suitable enough for her ‘comeliness’, as he had put it. Rory was somewhere between the fog of lucidity and the black depths of unconsciousness, hearing him call to her in the darkness. She could hear a familiar voice calling to her and at some point, realized there were gentle taps against her cheek. Then someone had her by the shoulders and carefully shook her. 

The buzz in her head lessened and she became more aware of her surroundings. But her brain was swimming, her heart pounding.  When she tried to open her eyes, everything was spinning.

“Oh… God,” she gasped, trying to steady her breathing. “What… what happened?”

There was a brief silence. “I do not know.”

After a moment, Rory opened her eyes as the world started righting itself.  The most brilliant night sky she had ever seen was staring down at her and she blinked, struggling to orient herself. A big face, handsome and granite-jawed with gem-like brown eyes, suddenly loomed in her vision.

“Are you well?” Kieran asked gently. “Do you hurt anywhere?”

Rory gazed up at him, his head back-dropped by the blazing night. She reached up, touching his stubbled cheek as she struggled to orient herself.

“Kieran?” she labored to sit up, looking around as she did so. “What in the hell happened?”

He helped her to sit up, his clear brown eyes scanning their surroundings. “I can only surmise,” he said softly. “The last I recall, we were on the beach and a storm was upon us.”

“The
beach,
” Rory suddenly gasped, turning to him and trying to gain a look at his torso. “Oh, my God, you’re bleeding to death.  Let me see....”

She fumbled around as he straightened up so that she could see his shirt. But he had already inspected his abdomen for the wound that had been draining his life away only minutes ago; it didn’t exist any longer. It was gone, he was whole, and he had awoken with a pounding head to the sound of surf.  His sense of confusion was only matched by his sense of shock.

“Kieran, your wound,” Rory continued to hunt. She finally unbuttoned his shirt, revealing his magnificent chest and muscular form. Running her fingers along his taut stomach, she shook her head in shock and awe. “There’s nothing there.  What happened to your wound?”

“I do not know.”

“What do you mean you do not know? We didn’t imagine it - you were bleeding to death just a few moments ago,” she look back to his belly, frustrated and in disbelief. “But … where in the hell did it go?”

Kieran could only shake his head, his eyes still scanning their surroundings. He had the oddest sense of déjà vu and could not explain why.  Rory, still clutching the open ends of his shirt, began to look around, too.

“Where is everybody?” she asked. “Where are Bud and David? And Darlow? Where did they go?”

Kieran rose from a seated position into a crouch. He could see a village in the distance, flames from fire and burning torches casting heavy smoke into the air. His heart began to pound, this time from excitement and apprehension; it occurred to him that he recognized the distant village.  He recognized the watch towers rising out of the sand bluffs.  He never thought he would see those sights again.  It was almost too much to believe.

He turned to Rory. “What do you remember last?”

She blinked her brilliant hazel eyes, a color between green and golden brown that both captivated and captured.  A thick fringe of lashes and tilted ends gave her a very feminine and sexy expression. At the moment, however, those miraculous eyes were very muddled.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Precisely that; what do you remember last?”

She rubbed her forehead, irritated, sick. “I don’t know… probably the same thing you do.  The beach, the storm, blood all over the damn place, and then… then.…” She sighed heavily, fear joining the other sensations she was experiencing. “Everybody seems to have vanished. Why did they just leave us here alone? And what in the hell happened to your wound?”

Kieran would not let her lose focus. “Think hard, Libby. Is that all you remember? Simply being on the beach outside of Nahariya?”

She nodded, not entirely sure what he was driving at. Then, her eyes flew open wide. “Wait a minute. There was a storm and a lightning strike.  It was so close to us that I could feel the heat. I remember… I remember screaming because I thought we were going to get fried.  But you blocked out the heat and then… wow, then I remember darkness.”  She looked up at him imploringly. “What do you remember?”

He met her gaze, studying her beautiful face in the starlight. “I remember the same,” he said softly. “I tried to protect you from the lightning. I could feel the heat searing my back and I, too, thought we were dead.  Then it was dark… and I awoke to a blanket of stars across the clear night sky.”

Instinctively, they both looked upward, studying the dense dusting of stars across the blackness.  Rory still rubbed her aching head, struggling against the pain and disorientation.

“My God,” she whispered, again looking to their surroundings. “Do… do you think that we are dead?  I mean, do you think that lightning killed us and this is some kind of afterlife?”

He looked back over his shoulder to the village in the distance. “From what I believe, there is no pain or suffering in the afterlife.  And my head aches something fierce.”

“Mine, too,” she agreed, noticing what he was looking at. “I always thought Heaven was a place of angels and pearly gates. That doesn’t look like Heaven over there.”

He lifted an ironic eyebrow. “Nay, it does not.”

She suddenly grabbed him fearfully.  “Kieran, what if we didn’t go to Heaven. What if that… that’s Hell over there?”

The last words were hissed as if she had just uncovered the most hideous truth.  She fell back onto the rock, her hands over her face as Kieran tried to keep her from smashing her skull against the stone.  She wasn’t feeling well or thinking clearly; that much was certain.  He was feeling moderately better and believed he had all of his faculties, which made the conclusion he was swiftly reaching that much more amazing.

“Calm yourself, Lib,” he said steadily. “I do not believe that is Hell. In fact, I do believe I recognize it.”

Her hands came away from her face.  “
Recognize
it?”

“Aye.”

She sat back up again, weaving unsteadily even in a seated position. Her gaze fell on the village in the distance. “How in the hell would you recognize that?”

He wasn’t quite sure how to tell her. “Because that is Nahariya.”

“No, it’s not.”