The Red Cross of Gold I:. The Knight of Death (6 page)

The warm water in the tub felt wonderful on
his back where the tree had scourged him, though it stung a bit.
She washed his face while she talked and this was not pleasant at
all as the soap entered the cut. She blew on it as if he were a
child when he winced and then set about washing his hair with her
fragrant shampoo again bringing pain to his newly acquired bump.
Certainly he would be most beautiful when she finished. He closed
his eyes and tried to remember something, anything. Ohhhhh, ahhhh,
my lovely angel, you are most beautiful! A different voice spoke to
him. A soft, sing-song male voice with a decidedly eastern
accent.

Suddenly, he remembered where he was. The
flight had been long and nerve-wracking.

“America!” he said, interrupting her
chatter.

“Yes, of course,” she nodded. “Texas. The
best part. Like a whole other country,” she used a quote from a
popular advertisement of the day. “And you have such a cute accent.
I love that Scottish brogue. How do you do that with your R’s? Let
me see.”

She took his face in her hands and opened his
mouth, peering inside comically. While he was digesting this newest
bit of useful information about where he was and the affirmation of
his nationality, she clamped her mouth over his and kissed him
while simultaneously sliding against him. Her body was silky,
smooth with fragrant oil and felt like heaven pressing against him.
He put his arms around her and they almost sank under the
water.

“Are you stuck on threes or do you count
higher?” she asked when they had righted themselves.

“I can count. I hold a Master’s degree from…
from…” he said, somewhat confused by her question and she cut off
his thoughts with another kiss. “Why?” He finished lamely when she
let him breathe again.

“Can you count to four?” she asked, speaking
directly into his mouth.

He had to push her back to answer. “One, two,
three, four. Why?”

“Good. Let me show you.” She lowered her head
and looked at him from under her brows as she ran one hand down his
chest and his stomach, under the water. She wrapped one arm around
his neck and slipped her silken legs about his waist. “Four is a
significant number.”

“I see,” he had to agree with her though he
felt hopelessly entangled in something he did not understand.

He would think more on it later. She was too
busy showing him the significance of the number four at the moment.
It seemed that he had not had a woman in more years than he cared
to count, but with his almost instant response to her, he could not
imagine why not. Had he been in prison, perhaps? Was he an escaped
convict? Could that explain his seemingly insatiable sexual
appetite? Not to mention his gastronomic appetite. Surely, it would
not explain hers… unless she, too, was an escaped convict. Perhaps
they had escaped from the same prison… or mental hospital. He
almost laughed aloud. Insane asylum, he corrected himself
mentally.

((((((((((((()))))))))))))

Mark Andrew stood in front of the golden
mirrors above the marble counter, wrapped in a sinfully elegant,
oversized seafoam green towel, looking at his reflection in the
glass. He was shocked to see the stranger looking back at him.
Somehow, though he could not begin to imagine how, he knew that
this was not how he was supposed to look. He couldn’t say how he
should have looked, but this man was a complete and total stranger
to him. Surely even amnesiacs recognized their own reflections. He
remembered how to walk and talk and how to brush his teeth. His
dark, almost black, hair hung was shoulder length, straight and
lustrous. He had no beard, but the need for a shave indicated that
his sojourn with these two crazies had been very brief. His eyes
were so blue they shocked him as they stared back from under dark
eyebrows on either side of his long, straight nose. Blue eyes. Blue
eyes. They did not seem right. His mouth was broad and his lips
were full, but not overly feminine. He smiled at himself and saw a
nice set of white teeth.

Thank God! He hated rotten teeth. And then
wondered where that thought had come from. He had a fair amount of
black hair on his chest that trailed down his stomach and
disappeared under the towel. Overall, he was pleased with his
appearance though somewhat surprised. He felt much, much older than
he looked. With a start, he realized he had no idea just what his
age might have been though he had expected wrinkles or visible
crow’s feet at the very least. He leaned toward the mirror looking
for lines and creases in his face. There were a couple of very
slight lines across his forehead and not more than two or three
crinkles near the outer corners of his eyes. Thirty-five? Forty?
Twenty-nine? Who could tell?

The wound above his eye was not deep and
looked healthy enough after the bath. No sign of infection… yet. It
would heal without being sewn. He shuddered at the thought. Wounds
in the area near the brow bone, no matter how small, usually
produce copious amounts of blood and may or may not leave a scar
depending upon the complexion of the man. His face was either
deeply tanned or he was dark complected. Shouldn't leave a
noticeable scar. This thought came in the form of a sonorous voice
that echoed hollowly in his head, accompanied by a tiny flash of a
scene wherein he sat in a small, stuffy indoor amphitheater,
watching an old man in a blood-stained apron examine a grotesque
corpse lying on a porcelain table. A doctor? Was he a doctor?

He checked his hands for calluses or other
telltale signs of his occupation and looked closely at the rings
again, but no further memories assaulted him. His hands were
smooth, nails trimmed and clean with the only discernable calluses
in the web of his right hand and palm just below his little finger.
He could find no significant scars, no tattoos, but there was one
very pronounced scar on the right side of his stomach just under
his ribcage. About two inches long and a quarter inch wide. The
skin there was darker and slightly elevated by old scar tissue. It
had the appearance of a knife wound or primitive surgery, perhaps?
But there were no signs of the scars created by the crude stitching
that usually accompanied such surgical wounds. Why primitive?
Whatever had caused it must have been painful.

‘Save me, O God; for the waters are come in
unto my soul.’ The scriptural passage just seemed to pop into his
head from nowhere along with a vision of black water and a
yellow-eyed rat. He stepped back from the mirror instinctively and
the vision disappeared.

When his head cleared, he tried to look at
his back and the Pixie came at once to his aid, checking him
over.

“It’s going to be all right, Mark Andrew,”
she told him as she ran her hands over his back. “There are only a
few scratches. That was very mean of Maxie to do that, but we
didn’t know how you would react when you woke up. I didn’t know he
was going to tie the ropes so tight. And I've reported his actions
to Valentino. He shouldn't have hit you or kicked you.”

He turned suddenly, grabbed her by her upper
arms and looked into her bright blue eyes. He felt as if he should
be able to read her mind somehow, but he saw only surprise in her
eyes at the rough treatment.

“Why am I here? What do you want from me?” he
asked her angrily. “You have to tell me. You didn’t bring me here
to decorate your boudoir.”

“I didn’t bring you here, Mark Andrew,” she
told him. “You brought yourself here.”

“I don’t understand. That’s not how I
remember it.” He let go of her and shook his head. “I didn’t tie
myself up and then drive myself here at gun point. Your ugly friend
did that.”

“Valentino wants you here,” she told him.
“Valentino wants to ask you some questions, that’s all.”

“What kind of questions? Who is Valentino?”
he asked and went in search of his clothes. She hurried after
him.

“About the key and about your brothers,” she
told him. “Remember? Your eleven brothers?”

“I dunna ’ave a key and I dunna ’ave eleven
brothers, Madame,” he grumbled as he pulled on his pants and
grabbed his shirt. “I need t’ be goin’.” His suddenly pronounced
brogue shocked his ears as much as his eye color had shocked his
senses earlier. None of this was right.

“Where are you going?” She asked him. “Maxie
won’t let you leave.”

“Let ’im do ’is warst, lady,” he told her and
went to the door bare-footed. “I canna stay ’ere. Ye’re wastin’ my
toime and toime is precious.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

She began to cry and he stopped to look at
her in surprise.

“You can’t leave! You have to stay. Maxie
might shoot you and Valentino will be mad at me for it. She’ll
blame it all on me.”

“I don’t know any Valentino other than Rudy
and he’s dead,” he told her, trying to resume a more civilized
tone. “For that matter, I don’t know you either.”

“But…” she sobbed in her hands and fell
sitting on the bed. He went back and pulled her hands from her
face.

“Please don’t cry, lassie.” He bent to look
in her eyes and felt the electric charge of attraction when she met
his gaze. Her eyes were beautiful even full of tears. He would have
to pray mightily for forgiveness if he ever got back to… back to…
“For God’s sake, tell me your name, lass. I can never ask God to
forgive us if I can’t even tell Him your name.”

“Merry. Meredith,” she said tearfully.

“All right then, Meredith. I’m going to pray
for you when I get home and I’ll never forget you, I promise, but
you must understand the concept of kidnapping? You and your big,
ugly friend have kidnapped me and brought me here against my will.
That is a crime in every country in the world. If you will let me
go now, I promise not to say a word about it to anyone other than
my priest. Thank you for the beef and the wine and the… bath. Now
let me go peacefully.”

“And what about you? Kidnapping is a crime,
sure, but what about intent to commit murder? You came here to kill
Anthony. What about that little detail?” she asked. Her tone had
gone from bewilderment to indignation.

“I don’t know what you are talking about. You
have me confused with someone else. I don’t know this Valentino and
I have no idea who Anthony is.”

“And where are you going to go without
shoes?” She asked and looked down at his feet. “You don’t even have
shoes. You’ll cut your feet.”

He looked down at his feet, remembering the
pecan shells and rocks in the drive. Now she sounded like a
concerned nursemaid. He sighed in defeat and headed for the door
only to have her drag him back, covering his face with desperate
kisses and more tears.

((((((((((((()))))))))))))

Maxie had watched the entire scene play out
on the monitors in the security office under the stairs. Merry was
a fool. A lovely fool, but a fool, none-the-less, but he was not
complaining. It had almost been as good for him as it had been for
the dipshit. Better than renting a video and just one of many perks
he enjoyed as part of his job, though he doubted that Miss
Valentino would approve of the monitor he had installed in Merry’s
bedroom and the fact that he’d had to borrow it from the verandah.
Now, the dipshit thought he was just going to waltz out the door
and leave Miss Priss crying, not to mention, leave him in deep
trouble with Valentino, if she came home and found the over-sexed
Scot gone. How grand it must feel to have a woman as beautiful and
rich as Miss Sinclair begging for more!

He picked up the shotgun and checked to make
sure it was loaded before locking the door of the monitor room
behind him. On the way upstairs, wondered what Valentino would say
if she knew her ‘little girl’ had banged the guy four times in the
past three hours. He knew who this guy was supposed to be, but
sometimes Valentino’s bullshit was just too crazy for him.
Immortal! Bullshit! There was no way this idiot was going to get
past the shotgun. No matter what Valentino had told him. He rounded
the stairs and headed up toward Merry’s room.

He loved his job. Where else could he have
gotten such first rate live show and be paid to watch it? And the
guy wasn’t bad looking either. A hell of lot better than that
little wimp, Anthony, had been. Merry hadn’t even gotten to first
base with that little faggot. It didn’t matter that Valentino’s
ditzy blond bitch teased him mercilessly; at least she paid
attention to him. That was all he needed to make him happy. When
they were tired of playing with this one, he might have a chance at
him as well, but that would remain to be seen.

He waited in the hall for Ramsay to come out.
He didn’t have long to wait. Ramsay opened the door and stepped
into the hall as if he owned the place. He didn’t pause until Maxie
pushed himself away from the wall and stepped in front of him.
Ramsay looked him dead in the eyes, causing him to shudder in spite
of the shotgun between them. Maxie could hear Merry sobbing inside
the bedroom.

“Now why’d you want to go and hurt her
feelings like that, dipshit?” He asked and prodded him in the
stomach with the barrel of the gun. “That ain’t very nice.”

“Step aside, sir, or I will be forced to kill
you. Not that I wouldn’t enjoy it, I am simply in a hurry, but I
believe God would understand if you press the point,” Ramsay said
coldly and lowered his head slightly.

Maxie’s laugh died in his throat as the Scot
made his play for the weapon, disarming him before he had time to
register what had happened. The gun was simply in Ramsay’s hands
with the barrels pointed directly at his face. Maxie swallowed hard
and took a step backwards, looking at him in dismay. Mark smiled
wickedly at him and pulled back one of the hammers. The blood
drained from Maxie’s face as the trigger clicked into place.

“Back!” Marked ordered him with a slight jerk
of the barrel.