Sin and Sacrifice (34 page)

Swinging the gun back,
still crouched, he shot out the knee of the next man coming through
the doorway. With a scream, the Templar crashed to the porch where
Dragar had just been. His gun skittered away, falling off onto the
grass.

Before Dracht could move,
two bodies
hurled
out through the busted door frame, landing in a tangle of
fists and curses.

One of them had to be
Raoul. He must have cut through the house to take this last Templar
by surprise.

“
Freeze! Don't move!”
Dracht shouted. He couldn't get a clear shot.

Raoul chopped his hand
across the man's windpipe, effectively stunning him, and knocked
the gun from his fingers.

Dracht plucked the weapon
off the porch and pressed to a stand, stepping over them to check
on the one he'd shot the knee out of. The Templar rolled around on
the porch, hissing and groaning in pain.

Tucking the extra gun,
Dracht snagged a pair of cuffs from his belt and secured the
Knight's wrists. Satisfied he wasn't a threat any longer, he
vaulted the rail to the ground.

Dragar had the last man
pinned, knee in his back. From the safe house more Templars came,
another few running onto the scene across the street.

“
Get them all loaded into
the van. Benecio! You know where to take them. Have the medic on
standby.” Dragar let go of the man he had pinned when other Knights
came to take over.

Dracht surveyed the scene,
mouth a grim line. He holstered his weapon and met his father a few
steps from the stairs. The storm raged around them, soaking his
clothes through to his skin.

“
That's all of them.” He
glanced at the door where the prone Templar lay. Dracht wasn't
happy about having to shoot one of his own.

Dragar clapped a hand to
his shoulder. “You did what you had to. They made their choice,
Dracht.”

“
I know. I still don't
like it.” He knew his father felt the same way, even if he hadn't
been the one to pull the trigger. Dragar acted as a father figure
to many of the Knights whose own parents had passed
away.

“
None of us do. I would
have done the same thing if it had been you or any other in danger.
It's part of the job. Come on, let's get going. I'm sure the women
will be relieved to know that it's over.” Dragar clapped his
shoulder once more before leading the way toward a car that had
been left for them at the curb.

On the way to the
stronghold, Dracht tried to call Rhett. Three times it went to
voice mail. He left a message on the fourth try.

“
Hey, pick up once in a
while. We're on our way back. We have them all contained. See you
in ten.” Dracht hung up and slouched in the passenger seat while
Dragar traversed the slick looking streets of Athens. The storm
pounded the landscape relentlessly, muting the colors into layers
of black and gray.

At the gate, the guard let
them in. Dracht, ready to be done for the evening, unfastened his
seat belt while his father cruised slowly along the drive toward
the building.

A strange car sat parked
before the broad, sweeping staircase and Dracht peered through the
gloom to try and get a better look.

“
Whose car is that?” he
asked.

“
Can't tell. Doesn't look
like anyone we know, does it?” Dragar replied, slowing to a stop
twenty feet behind the vehicle. He cut the lights.

“
It's hard to see through
the damn weather.” Dracht flung open his door and got out. He
hadn't gone three steps when the sound of a brawl hit him over the
roll of thunder through the sky.

“
Dragar!” Dracht broke
into a run after alerting his father something was wrong. Rounding
the front of the other car, he saw bodies on the ground. Four of
them, broke into two halves. The whip of long, wet black hair told
him one of them was Alexandra. Minna must be the other, both in
lethal combat with two men who didn't look immediately
familiar.

“
Freeze! Put your hands
where I can see them!
Now!”
Dracht roared his command, the gun already out of
the holster.

Alexandra and Minna both
took advantage of the distraction. Alex cracked a fist into her
attackers nose and Minna delivered a brutal blow to a temple. Minna
rolled out from under the man who held her down, taking up a
defensive stance. She was muddy and disheveled and breathing like
she'd just run a marathon. Her sister, less graceful but no less
effective, had a harder time getting to her feet. Dracht could see
the beginnings of bruises on them both even through the
rain.

Dragar stalked onto the
scene with his weapon leveled at the men.

“
Get up! Who are you and
what are you doing here?” Dragar demanded.

The men, suits soaked
through, scrambled to their feet with their hands raised in
surrender. They stank of government. One of them had a bloody
nose.

Dracht didn't recognize
either of them.

“
He asked you a question!”
Dracht shouted over a peal of thunder. He saw the way the men's
gaze darted back and forth, as if they were weighing their options
of escape or retaliation. He would have bet his entire next
paycheck that both were concealing weapons under their
jackets.

Why they hadn't used them
on the girls were questions to be asked later.

“
Hands behind your
back.
Right now.”
Dracht drew a pair of plastic wrist cuffs from his belt and
subdued one man while Dragar did the other. Each was divested of a
gun from hidden holsters.

“
Alexandra, Minna, what
the hell is going on?” Dracht went to a different source when he
got nothing from the men. He glanced over to see both women looking
angry and wary.

“
They just came in. We
were in the office lookin' at the books Dragar said we could read,
and before you know it, they tackled us and drug us outside. We
managed to hold 'em off long enough not to be put in their car and
then you guys showed up.” Alex, a wreck of tangled hair and wet
clothes, scowled.

Minna nodded her agreement
with Alexandra's assessment of the situation. “They didn't say what
they wanted, they just grabbed us. Took us by surprise.”

After all the care they'd
taken to make the women feel reassured and safe,
this
happened. Dracht
was less than pleased.

“
Where are Rhett and
Evelyn? Christian?”

“
No idea. I don't think
anyone could hear us over the rain,” Alexandra said, flailing in
exasperation at the downpour. The guard at the gate couldn't have
heard them through the storm and his view was blocked by several
trees.

Something eerie and
uncomfortable slipped along Dracht's skin. One glance at his father
told him he had the same inclination.

“
Benecio. Contain the
group you have and gather every available Templar. Get back to the
stronghold immediately,” Dragar said into the headset. He yanked at
the arm of the man he held, forcing him up the steps toward the
double doors.

Dracht didn't have to tell
Alexandra and Minna to follow. He shoved the man he held in the
same direction, bulling him through the double doors. The echoing
effect of the stronghold brought him a sound that chilled his blood
to the bone.

A sharp clash and hiss of
swords reverberated through the chamber.

Rhett parried Christian's
thrust, twisting the blade in a counter roll that forced his
brother to back-step and withdraw. The grip on the hilt of his
sword was slicker than he liked, but he'd fought in worse
conditions than these. It would not be a hindrance.

The blood dripping down
into his eyes might be, however.

Fighting off inner dismay
and frustration, he prowled the same section of sand between
Christian and Evelyn. He refused to give up any ground there,
wouldn't let his brother have a clear shot at the girl. That he
even had to consider Christian might do her harm threatened to
upset his usual steel equilibrium.

With a puff of sand kicking
off the back of his boot heels, he thrust straightforward.
Christian blocked, arching the blade in a half circle, taking his
own sword around with it. Rhett retreated only two steps and came
in at another angle, driving Christian back. They were, and always
had been, well matched in the ring.

He realized that it had to
be his brother who'd informed their pursuers where they would be
going, and where they were staying. It made sense now, the boat
finding them after Crete, the frozen bank accounts, the men in Port
Said. Christian had been tipping them off all along.

Rhett couldn't fathom who
'they' were yet. It was only a matter of time though. He would have
his answers come hell or high water.

With a hard clang, their
blades clashed overhead. Rhett slid his down along the edge, trying
to circle close to the wrist and disarm his brother. Christian saw
it coming and whipped a strike at his shoulder, risking a jab in
the chest for his effort.

Rhett danced back just time
time; steel glinted low and to the right, barely missing his
arm.

“
Getting slow in your old
age, brother,” Rhett taunted, never taking his eyes off him.
Christian didn't take the bait, parrying forward with a flurry of
fast footsteps and ringing blows of metal on metal. Rhett blocked
every one, anticipating the moves. He knew he had a slight
advantage of age and experience, but he didn't for a second let the
knowledge distract him from the fact that Christian had become a
desperate man. It leveled the playing field, because while he might
anticipate his brother's moves, he couldn't predict them. Christian
was likely to take risks he might not normally take.

As if Fate wanted to prove
him right, Christian did something he wouldn't usually do. Between
one thrust and the next, he crouched, spinning, and picked up a
handful of sand. Rhett, busy avoiding the blade, only realized too
late what the grabbing hand he saw in periphery meant.

A cloud of sand hit him
straight in the face, blinding him, blotting out his
adversary.

Evelyn's scream warned him
that Christian was moving to strike.

Everything seemed to slow
down; time, her breathing, the beat of her heart. She watched the
sand hit Rhett head on and an involuntary scream ripped from her
throat. It didn't take a genius to understand that he'd be blind
for a few precious seconds. Time enough for someone skilled in the
craft of swords to deal a killing blow.

Would Christian really kill
his own brother? Evelyn, for the first time in her life, wanted to
confront the violence instead of run from it. She wanted to rush
out there and distract Christian, give Rhett back a fair
advantage.

Christian didn't cut Rhett
with the blade; he swooped in with the hilt and his fist, intent on
delivering a blow to the temple. That was Evelyn's first hint that
Christian didn't want to end Rhett's life. Whether that blow would
have ever landed, or whether she would have helped or hindered by
intruding was left up to anyone's guess. Rhett, in a surprisingly
agile, intuitive counter, clanked his sword against the base of
Christian's. It contacted just above the hilt, making Christian
grit his teeth and grunt in pain.

She saw his blade falter
and realized Rhett had struck that close to Christian's hand for a
reason. It bought him a second to sweep his foot out and catch his
brothers at the ankle. Christian stumbled back, off balance, while
Rhett, fighting to see, charged forward. The very tip of his sword
glided down Christian's and in a swift arc, Rhett twisted the
weapon right out of his brother's fingers. It flew off to the side
and Christian landed on his back, staring down the shining steel of
Rhett's blade.

Evelyn, so tunnel visioned
on the altercation, didn't realize someone else was there until
Dragar's voice boomed through the room. It rivaled the thunder
blazing across the sky.

“
Rhett Sagan, what the
devil is going on here?”

Sagan? Evelyn, even in her
distress, was caught off guard by the last name. It had been
Nichols on his credentials. She recalled Dragar telling her his
last name was Sagan in Egypt however, and she'd never made the
connection until now. Nichols was as fake as Rhett's CIA
status.

Dragar and Dracht, having
come in on the end of the fight, seemed uncertain who had
instigated it.

Rhett never looked away
from Christian's eyes. “I don't know. Christian's decided to be
stubborn. He isn't talking. Get up.”

Christian slowly climbed to
his feet. He and Rhett stared each other down, but Christian said
nothing.

Evelyn met Rhett's eyes,
just for a moment, before he herded Christian over toward Dracht
and Dragar, the latter whom appeared to have aged ten years in the
few minutes he'd been standing there.

Minna and Alex wore their
confusion and mistrust openly. They made their way over and Evelyn
hugged first one and then the other. She saw the men Dracht and
Dragar had with them, men with their hands bound and injuries on
their faces, and knew they had been in their own altercation with
her sisters. They didn't look like Templars to her, though she
couldn't have said exactly what the distinction was.