The Unforgiven (12 page)

“See what?”

“That arc of electricity. It came from the stone.”

“I saw nothing.”

“Let me hold it,” Maddie pleaded. “I’ll show you.”

“Ms. Durant. Clearly you’re overtired.” He folded the chamois around the piece. “Why don’t you retire to your bed. I’ll see to the relic.” His fingers closed around the bundle.

He doesn’t see anything,
Maddie thought. But did he
feel
it? Did he feel what she did when she looked at the disc? When she touched it?

The thought brought panic. She couldn’t leave, couldn’t let him hide the disc away. If she did, she would never see it again. She’d been a fool to hand it over to him. She’d found it. It was
hers
. She had to get it back.

Rather than retreat to the door, she took a step forward. “What are you going to do with it?”

“Photograph it, of course. Measure it, and make a log entry. Then it’s going into the safe. Tomorrow, early, you and I will
go to the dig. You’ll show me exactly the spot where it was found.”

“You can’t lock it away.” Maddie’s voice shook. “You can’t hide it away in a vault or a museum. The relic’s mine, Dr. Ben-Meir. I found it.” She held out her hand. It was shaking. “I want it back.”

Ben-Meir stared. “Ms. Durant. You’re talking nonsense.”

Her rational brain agreed. She had no right to the relic. The artifact represented the pinnacle of the archeologist’s career. It was the means by which he would regain the respect of his peers.

No! It’s mine. Mine. Mine, mine, mine.

Panic. Blinding, unreasoning panic. She didn’t care how hard and long Ben-Meir had worked, or about the professional ridicule he’d faced. She couldn’t let him have it. She lunged for his hand. She pried at his fingers, tore at the chamois cloth.

“Ms. Durant! Really!”

“Give it to me! Now!”

She dug her fingernails into his wrist, deep enough to draw blood. Ben-Meir grunted with surprise and pain. His hand spasmed; he swore. Maddie snatched the prize away. Relief crashed through her.

The archeologist stared down at the blood welling from the gouge on his arm, then up at her. “I cannot believe you did that. Ms. Durant, have you gone insane?”

The chamois fluttered to the floor. Maddie backed away, cupping the disc between her breasts. “I told you it was mine. Mine. I found it.”

“Ms. Durant.” He advanced slowly, palms raised, as if approaching a wild animal. A trickle of blood dripped down his arm. She stared at the dark red line, transfixed.

“Yes, you found it.” The archeologist spoke softly, without threat. She wasn’t fooled. His aura was pulsing, bright with
anger. “You are the first person to touch the disc in thousands of years. I am sure it feels as though it should belong to you. But it does not. It is not mine, either,” he added when she opened her mouth to protest. “This is public land. You know that. The relic belongs to my country. To its people. To all Jews, all over the world. It is our heritage.”

She made no reply.

“Enough. Give it to me.” His tone had turned brisk.

“No.” She hugged the disc fiercely. Warmth seeped from the gold, from the stone, into her skin. “No. Never.”

Ben-Meir continued talking, calmly, firmly, his slow steps herding her toward a corner of the hut. Her eyes darted to the door. She’d never make it past him to freedom.

“Ms. Durant!” He was angry now, very much so. “Have you heard a word I’ve said? Answer me!”

She stared at him blankly.

“I heard you were feeling ill yesterday. Dehydration can affect the brain. I understand that. So just give me the relic. Give it to me now, and I’ll forget this episode ever happened.”

He held out his hand. He was very close now. Too close. The disc’s heat intensified. It burned her chest, her hands. The pain made her dizzy. Tingling sensations ran up Maddie’s arms. She eased the disc from her skin.

He must have thought the gesture was one of surrender. His hand shot out; his fingers closed like bands of iron on her wrist.

“No!”

She tried to snatch her arm back. He dragged her closer. She struggled, to no avail. His free hand pried her fingers back, one by one, and wrenched the disc from her grasp.

Something tore inside Maddie’s chest. She bent double, gasping. A black hole of despair gaped inside her rib cage. She’d failed. She’d . . .

“What the hell—?”

Her head jerked up. Ben-Meir stood motionless, staring down at the disc. The ancient gold tossed white sparks into the air. The red stone spat a beam of light directly into the center of the dancing pattern. That light splashed onto the archeologist’s face, and Maddie had a fleeting impression of blood.

Could he see the phenomenon at last? He must. His hands were shaking.

Maddie could never quite remember exactly what happened next. She recalled a blinding flash, an exploding force. Her body flew backward, curiously light in the air. She heard no noise. Her ears felt clogged. Dr. Ben-Meir might have shouted, but she couldn’t be sure. The back of her head smacked something hard. Everything went black.

Cade smelled crimson anger and sky blue astonishment. And fear. Murky, sour yellow, paralyzing fear.

The window of the work hut blazed bloodred. A wave of magic swept past, hot wind on the desert, lifting his hair, searing the breath in his lungs. What the bloody hell?

He abandoned stealth and ran. It had already been well after midnight when he separated Dr. Ben-Meir’s jeep from the two other vehicles in the car park and pushed it noiselessly out of the camp. He’d left it about a mile up the road and jogged back to the camp on foot.

He didn’t need the jeep, of course. He could have Maddie far away from here, and quickly, without it. But he’d thought she’d have an easier time of it if she didn’t have to face the truth of what he was—what
she
was—so abruptly.

He approached the hut, now dark and silent like the others. None of the other archeologists’ huts or laborers’ tents seemed to have been disturbed by the hot surge of magic.

It couldn’t be Maddie’s magic. Not for days yet, until—
if
—she completed her transition.

He didn’t pause to knock. Wrenching the door open, he plunged inside . . . and drew up short, stunned by the scene that greeted him. It wasn’t anything he could have predicted.

Sulfur and ash assaulted his nostrils. Maddie crouched against one wall, clutching something to her chest. Her eyes were wide and unblinking, but—physically at least—she seemed unharmed. Cade couldn’t say the same for Ben-Meir. The archeologist lay flat on his back, arms and legs flung wide, eyes open and staring. His neck was bent at an impossible angle.

Blast it! This was a complication he just didn’t need. With a troubled glance at Maddie, he went down on one knee and pressed two fingers under Ben-Meir’s jaw.

Dead.

Maddie didn’t move a muscle. He doubted she was aware of anything in the room. Her expression remained blank even when he sank into a crouch before her and waved a hand in her face.

“Maddie?”

He took her hands and pulled them away from her chest. Surprisingly, she didn’t resist. He stared down into her cupped palms at a primitive gold disc set with a fractured red stone. The piece was tarnished and dirty, as if it had recently come from the earth. The sulfurous scent of blood magic clung to it.

Hell. What was this? A Watcher amulet? Where had it come from?

“Maddie.” Cade grabbed Maddie’s upper arms and hauled her to her feet. Avoiding the ornament in her hands, he touched her chin, lifting it until their eyes met. “Maddie,
caraid
, can you hear me? Can you see me?”

He pressed his finger to her pulse and spoke a single jarring
word. The magic caused a shudder to pass through her, and she blinked.

“Cade?”

His shoulders sagged on a flood of relief. She was still with him.

“What’s . . . what’s happened? I feel . . . I feel so strange.”

“Don’t fight it,” he said. “Just breathe.”

He pivoted her body as he spoke, intending to block her line of vision to Ben-Meir’s body. But he didn’t execute the maneuver quickly enough.

“Oh my God. Dr. Ben-Meir!” She strained against Cade’s restraining arm. “We’ve got to call an ambulance.”

“No use,” Cade said. “There’s nothing they’ll be able to do. He’s dead.”

Maddie sucked in a sob and buried her face against his chest. “Dead? But . . . why? How?”

He held her close. “You don’t remember,
caraid
?”

“No. No, I . . .” She jerked her head back, shoving against his chest. The amulet burned his skin. He hissed a curse and held her at arm’s length.

“Was it you?” she demanded. “Did
you
do it? Did you kill him?”

“Me? I wasn’t even here.”

Her odor of panic spiked; she fought his control. “I don’t believe you. Let me go.”

“Not bloody likely. Come on. We’re leaving.”

“Yes.” She sucked in a sob. “We’ve got to wake the others. Hadara, Ari—”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no? Of course we do.”

“They’ll wake up soon enough on their own. In the meantime, I’m getting you out of here. And you’re going to come with me quietly.”

She stared. “You
did
kill him.”

“I didn’t. But that’s neither here nor there.” He grabbed her wrist and hauled her to the door.

“Let go of me!” She twisted and clawed at him one-handed; the other hand continued to clutch the golden disc to her chest. Cade wasn’t sure she even realized she still held it.

Blast it all to Oblivion! What was that thing? Where had she found it? And how had a spell of Watcher blood magic, with its rotting, choking odor, come to be cast upon it?

“Murderer!”

She landed a hard, painful kick to his knee, and her sudden burst of strength caught him by surprise. He bent her arm—the one not holding the disc—behind her back. When she opened her mouth, he clamped his free hand over it.

Hauling her against his body, he hissed in her ear, “Don’t even think about screaming. I didn’t kill Ben-Meir.”

No, the relic she clutched between her breasts had murdered the archeologist. He’d stake his life on it. What had stopped the blood magic from attacking Cade, he didn’t know.

She bit his hand. Grunting, he pressed his other hand to her chest and spoke a single word. Her eyes went wide. A moment later her lids drooped and her body went limp. Cade removed his palm. Her chest expanded convulsively, and then she released a sigh. Her body slumped forward.

He caught her around the waist before she fell. The gold disc tumbled from her fingers and thunked onto the floor. Rolling across the uneven floorboards, it traced a wobbling path, jumping the edge of a small rug and landing on Ben-Meir’s dead body. The smell of red, rotted blood intensified.

Cade stared uneasily at the disc, loath to touch it. But he could hardly leave lethal Watcher blood magic behind for anyone to find. Bracing Maddie’s weight on one knee, he bent to retrieve the amulet.

The gold burned his fingers. He cursed, nearly dropping the thing. Snatching up a square of cloth he spied on the floor,
he wrapped the amulet and shoved it into his pocket. It lay unnaturally warm against his thigh.

Which clan’s magic did it contain? he wondered. Artur would know; he was uncanny at sensing the nuances of power. Cade wondered, too, what Artur would do with the relic. But these were questions to be answered later.

He strode to the window and looked out. The camp remained silent; the fatal disturbance had gone unremarked. With luck, Ben-Meir’s body wouldn’t be discovered until dawn. By then, Cade would have Maddie miles away. Hefting her limp body over his shoulder, he carried her off into the night.

He paused before his tent. “Lilith.
”

“
Yes, Father?
”

A smile touched his lips. “Remove your headscarf, Daughter. I would gaze upon your face.
”

Heat rushed to her cheeks, but she did as he commanded, unwinding the long cloth that provided protection from the desert sun and winds. Underneath, her long dark curls were unbound, and his dark eyes passed over her.

“
Your magic,” he said. “It shines.” Then, softly, as if to himself: “Why have I never noticed?
”

“
I am female.
”

“
Indeed.” Reaching past her, he pulled back the tent flap. “Come.
”

Her heart pounded as she preceded him into the dwelling’s antechamber. A bowl, a jug of water, oils, and perfume lay at hand. He sat on a low stool.

“
Bathe my feet, Daughter. Then tend to your own.
”

It was a familiar ritual. Kneeling, she poured water into a bowl and added three drops of oil scented with jasmine. Kneeling before him, she removed his sandals.

His feet were beautiful, large and well shaped. She placed them in the water and gently sponged them. When they were clean, she blotted them with a dry length of cloth. He nodded his approval and rose.

She took his place on the stool as he stood waiting. Quickly she stripped off her sandals and made use of the same bowl. Then, when
the water, dirty twice over, had been discarded, and the damp towel hung to dry, he lifted the flap leading to the tent’s inner chamber.

“
Come, Lilith.
”

Maddie woke with a jolt. And another. And another. It took a moment for her to realize she was no longer in her father’s tent.

No. Not
her
father. The girl Lilith’s father. A dream. It had only been a dream.

The world jolted again. She grabbed for something solid. Her hand connected with a dashboard.

She was in a car? A jeep. Dr. Ben-Meir’s jeep, if she wasn’t mistaken. The top was down. The vehicle was speeding through pitch-black desert with Cade Leucetius at the wheel. The headlights were off.

She grabbed for the safety strap. There was no moon, and the stars didn’t begin to shed enough light. Were they even on a road? They couldn’t be. The roads in Israel weren’t this bad.

The front wheels hit a rock or a rut. The vehicle bounced and shuddered. Sand whipped over the windshield and into her face. Her eyes stung and her nostrils burned. She ducked her head behind the glass.