Blackthorne (The Brotherhood of the Gate Book 1) (24 page)

One of the senior council members, Belvedere—one of seven of Arthur’s knights to have survived the ages of chosen battles of the organization and not retire into humanity to live out life as a mortal man—had been openly amused by Pearl’s boldness and had challenged any who would oppose her membership to a duel. Jack had his suspicions about how Pearl had gotten Belvedere to take up her cause but had kept them to himself. Belvedere did like the ladies.

The tall man seated in the direct center of the dais rose to pass judgment on the brothers Blackthorne. Lord de Molay looked well for a man who had been burned at the stake several hundred years ago. A kingly man among kings, his words held power. De Molay held Jack with his piercing gray eyes as his deep baritone filled the room. “There is no punishment for the breaking of the vows to leave the order in this age. It has been long accepted that our brethren would weary of unending war and wish to leave our halls to seek the companionship of a wife. Embracing mortality once again is understandable, Blackthorne. But placing your trust in the hands of a junior member of the order to take over your duties—a junior member only because of your own sponsorship—is negligent. A negligence that you have paid for with the life of your young bride. The Brotherhood shares your blame. We allowed Manius Blackthorne into our ranks and gave him our trust. We were not vigilant and share your guilt. The council requests that you once more give up your mortality to stand with us against the day that the evil done by your kin rises from the ashes again to strike.”

Saying nothing, Jack closed his eyes and bowed his head, signifying his acceptance of the wishes of his lord. She was gone. She told him not to follow.

And Manius. His spoiled little brother. He took him with him at their father’s request to battle in the holy land, trained him, parented him, fought with him, loved him even, despite the ever-present petulance of the younger man. And was betrayed.

De Molay, who resembled a muscular saint in his chain mail and groomed beard, turned toward Manius. The other Blackthorne did not move or turn his eyes from the knight about to pronounce his doom. “Manius Blackthorne, you have committed the worst treachery: the theft, desecration and loss of a holy relic in pursuit of power. You planned to open a Gate of Hell itself in your misguided attempt to exploit the skull of the ancients. You are guilty as well of the multiple murders of women in the American town known as Cripple Creek, the perversion of the demon blood, and finally—the rape and eventual death of your brother’s wife. Have you anything to say before I pronounce your doom?”

Manius’ gaze didn’t waver from his brother’s face. His eyes began to glow with red light, and heat poured through the hall. “Decades of bowing to you and your ‘brethren,’ Jack,” he hissed. “You made me a half knight living in the shadow of your perfection. How does it feel to be half a man now Jack? She was good, you know. Soft, tasty. She didn’t scream once…” The sword Jack pressed against his throat stopped Manius’ goading abruptly. Jack’s body finally began to shake with rage, but his sword arm and eyes were stone. He could see Pearl out of the corner of his eye, dressed from head to toe in green velvet and a magnificent hat that obscured the view for all seated behind her three rows back. She had a horribly eager look on her lovely face, silently begging him to end the pain for them both.

“You do not deserve our father’s name.”

Manius spit into his brother’s face, daring him to thrust the blade home.

“Hold, Blackthorne.” De Molay commanded, stepping in to push the sword away from the neck of the demon man. “This is not your task. The oracle has announced a new prophesy concerning you and your brother and we cannot ignore it.”

Jack shook his head in disgust as Pearl rose to her feet in outraged protest. “The oracle? You mean that old hermit that you keep in the tanning shed?”

“Karl deserves more respect than that from you, Jack. He was one of us once. And he has dreamed of the destruction of one of the gates.” The leader of the council swept his hand over the assembled members and continued in a voice loud enough to be heard all the way out to the aforementioned tanning shed. “Manius has corrupted the blood so cannot be exiled as a human. He is a true vampire and will be buried in the cemetery of the town of Cripple Creek near the gate with a stake through his chest to hold him in his imprisonment until he rises again to be the instrument of the Gate’s destruction.”

At these words, the room erupted in a chaos of shouting and gestures. The gathered crowd was aware the gates were supposedly indestructible. The world would be burdened with their presence forever.

De Molay steered Jack away from his brother to stand off to the side, along with Pearl. Manius was led away without a struggle, his red eyes never wandering from his hated brother’s face. Pearl visibly shook with fury at the fate of the murderer of her sister and the instrument of her own fall from humanity. “How can you do this? He’ll be back…he will never stop trying to destroy his Brothers and rule.” Her voice broke and she stared at the lace of her gloves, eyes bright.

The voice of the elder Blackthorne brother was hoarse when he spoke, heavy with the need to destroy the man who had savaged his wife. “The gate can’t be accessed without the skull of the ancients that is that gate’s key. Raven hid the thing. She was a powerful witch, de Molay. You will not break her spell to find it.” His lord’s next words froze his heart.

“I won’t have to. Because Karl has seen Raven’s return. She is another instrument of this gate’s destruction. On the night of the Gate’s making, exactly 10,000 years from its birth, a woman will throw it down. A witch who has wed one of the Brotherhood. She will be back.”

Blackthorne awoke violently, tangled in the white sheets of Rhi’s bed. Frantic, he sat up and dug through the bed to find her small warm body and pull it close. She was here. He wouldn’t be left without her again.

Her eyes opened and she gently stroked the scarred skin on the backs of his hands.

“What are you thinking?” he asked her softly, tightening his grip.

“I’m the woman here.
That’
s
my
question to ask.”

“Then ask me.”

Rhi turned her face upward to stare at his profile. “Ask what? Ask you about us? Slyly query you about a future together? I’d prefer to not do that.”

“Why not?”

She sighed and placed one hand tentatively on his cheek. His stubble was harsh to the touch. It scratched her sensitive “dealer’s” fingertips as she ran them down his jaw line. “Because not everyone who deserves a happy ending
gets
a happy ending. So, for now, let’s not talk about a future or fairy tale. I’m fated not to have those. I’ll take right now and be content.”

Blackthorne kissed her hair and resolved to make at least this moment count as a fairy tale ending for her.

»»•««

Nate Evans awoke with sunlight on his face, the suffocating scent of straw in his nostrils and a ginger cat the size of a small dog sitting on his chest. Startled, he jolted up to examine his surroundings. The cat coolly leaped backward to balance perfectly on his blanket-covered legs. He had managed the night before to make it to Pam Douglas’ barn after taking a torturously long route through the back woods and snowy fields of the Pike’s Peak region. Besides several frantic pauses to cut through barbed wire fences, he had stopped only once at a friend’s house to steal a gas can from the shed. He’d would pay for it later, if he lived that long. He could feel the presence of something terrible in the woods, a black evil that was hot on his heels. The feeling had departed the moment he flew like a bat out of Hell past the fencepost that marked the beginning of Pam’s property.

Pam was the most logical person to run to, Nate figured, mainly because he knew she wouldn’t blink an eye when he recounted the story. She would give sanctuary to a murderer if she knew the killing was just and—between her and Bobby Wayne—there was enough firepower on the hill above Horse Thief Gulch to force feed peace to the Israelis and Palestinians.

“Get off of me, Captain. This is my bed.”

“You know, Nate, you could have knocked on the door and slept inside. I know Captain Hook and the Lost Boys are nice to snuggle with but between the cats and all the hay a guy could get the sneezies. Houston was on the couch but you might have been able to squeeze into Katie’s bed since she’s gone. You sure as hell weren’t going to get into
my
bed, however.” Pam stood framed in the smaller door cut into the larger double doors of the barn, her arms crossed and one eyebrow raised as she examined the makeshift bed Nate had created for himself in a pile of hay. “By the way, you look like shit.”

“I feel like shit.”

“Want to talk about it?” she queried as she pulled the plastic garbage can lid off the makeshift kitty food bin near the door to scoop out a few bucketfuls.

“Not yet,” he said as he sat up and rubbed at his eyes. It was early and he was not sure whether what had happened the night before was real or was some kind of residual effect to the peyote he had tried the week before. “Did Houston leave anything to eat in your house?”

Pam was busy petting the dozen cats that emerged to wind around her legs. The patron saint of felines for the Cripple Creek Township, Pam had strays foisted off on her constantly. She had them spayed and got discount rates on their shots from the local vet. She managed to adopt a few out but Captain Hook and the Lost Boys simply traveled back when sent away to new homes. There were always plenty of warm bodies to snuggle up with in the sweet smelling hay in the old barn.

“Biscuits and gravy on the table inside. You sure you don’t want to talk?”

“When you get back tonight, if it’s okay for me to hang out and wait. I’ll talk to Houston, if he’s still around. Give my regrets at the funeral today. My stomach is kinda upset.”

The woman nodded to him and turned to leave the barn.

“Pam?” Nate stood up to brush the snow off. “You didn’t make sausage this morning, did you?”

“No, why?”

“I just don’t think I’ll be eating sausage again for a while. Be careful today, especially on the road when you come home tonight.”

She turned around to examine him closely. “You know, kid, I think I have the time for us to talk some. I’ve got the strong feeling you had the same kind of night I did. Let’s go in and talk to Houston.”

The snow crunched underneath her boots as she thoughtfully made her way toward the chalet-type house that was a triangular bump in the snow on the side of the hill.

»»•««

“Manius is watching all of us,” Blackthorne said as he sat on the edge of Rhi’s bed dressed in only his jeans, offering her a mug of fresh brewed coffee.

“There is no greater treasure than a man that will get up and make coffee,” she said as she leaned back and appreciated the sight of his bare chest.

After ejecting Ellie Mae from the sleigh bed in the loft, they had spent the night entangled in each other among the mounds of goose down comforters and pillows. Their passions rose together an amazing three more times before the sunrise. These erotic events precluded anything resembling sleep, other than a languorous nap here and there.

Blackthorne’s eyes were sky blue again in the morning light. They twinkled as he smiled at her, picking up her lustful thoughts.

Hey
, she thought loudly,
if the world is gonna end…I’m going to get laid as much as possible.

“He’ll not expect us to go out. It should look as if you’re doing your own thing…going to a funeral and socializing afterward. He’s expecting me to put you in a hole somewhere, probably, instead of watching you go off to eat finger sandwiches,” he said, referring to the luncheon in Marie’s honor at the
Saint Nicholas Hotel.
Blackthorne had seemed uneasy at the mention of the hotel, his eyes glazing over for a moment and then shaking it off. Rhi had been too busy looking at the way he filled his jeans to care too much about a spasm of obvious memory.

He ran a hand over her bare leg, which lay seductively on top of the comforter. “I’ll meet you at the hotel. I have some messages to send and equipment to move here.”

Curled up on the bed dressed only in a T-shirt and clutching her steaming coffee, Rhi wondered if she should tell her protector that he was assuming an awful lot in thinking he was going to be staying in her home with her.

But who am I kidding? A guardian, and a hot one at that, is a blessing Pam Douglas would beat me soundly for turning down in any form.

“I think Pam’s hoping for Rocky Mountain Oysters. They’re her favorite.” She referred to the doubtful delicacy of battered and deep fried cattle gonads that were eaten only by those hardy souls in the mountains who possessed a stomach like a ranch hand.

“You’ve got to admire a woman who enjoys her balls.” He wiggled his dark eyebrows at her. “Do you enjoy sampling them as well?”

“Cocky. I enjoyed every inch of what was offered to me last night, if that is what you were getting at.”

Blackthorne shook his head ruefully and sprawled onto the bed to nibble on her bare thigh. “You were a bit of a spitfire a hundred years ago. But you were still a prim Victorian girl. Not anymore.”

“What about the fact that I have no idea what to do with the skull once I get my hands on it? I don’t know how to destroy the gate. Or when.”

“The ‘when’ is the day after tomorrow. The 10,000-year anniversary of the building of that particular gate, according to the oracles. And the skull will turn up like a bad penny, today probably. Fate keeps maneuvering us. The skull will be here on time.”

Find the skull? I already know where it is,
she thought and instantly shielded the image from his mind.
Hey. I shielded my thoughts from him…now if I could remember how to shoot lightning bolts out of my hands, we’ll be cooking with fire.