PROLOGUE
Present Day
Nahariya, Israel
Excerpt from the prequel, “The Crusader”
For the archaeologist and her resurrected knight, it was coming to an end.
It was difficult to see the road in the dead of night. The headlights of the jeep pierced the veil of darkness as Rory and Kieran sped south, away from the pursuing Land Rovers. To make matters worse, more clouds were gathering and the wind had picked up. Having spent more than a year in Nahariya, Rory knew a storm was approaching.
Kieran sat in the passenger seat, his left hand over his bandaged wound, taking a pounding as the vehicle lurched over the rough road. Rory knew the area well and knew that she was putting more distance between Kieran and the small hospital in the city, torn between the need to seek medical attention and the panic to be free of Corbin.
Her first instinct was to head back into Nahariya for the hospital. But Kieran wouldn’t hear of it, directing her quite firmly to return to Tel Aviv where they could catch a flight back to England. He would be fine, he insisted, once he was allowed to rest. But Rory didn’t believe him and tears stung her eyes as she struggled to steer in the darkness. To come so far and then risk losing him to an eight hundred-year-old wound was almost more than she could bear.
Her apprehension was made worse as Corbin’s fleet closed in on their old Jeep with newer cars. Rory was doing an admirable job of driving over the bumpy road that wound its way around Nahariya and eventually ended up along the coast, but the pack of jackals was closing in and she knew she couldn’t go much faster.
If she was bordering on panic, she never let on. In fact, she almost found herself wishing Corbin would catch up. At least then Kieran might agree to medical attention before the police locked them both up and threw away the key.
Twisting their way among the dusty, shadowed hills, they emerged onto a flat stretch of land and the weak glitter of the ocean could be seen in the distance. The clouds were thickening the smell of rain was pervasive. Amidst her other troubles, Rory knew the wipers of the Jeep didn’t work. In the arid land of Israel, she had never given the broken blades much thought. But she was certainly thinking of them now. Lurching over a particularly bad bump, she gripped the old steering wheel too tightly and came away with a nasty blister.
The road sloped downward, heading for the Mediterranean. Corbin’s cars were coming closer, like dogs nipping at her heels, and Rory spent a good deal of time watching the rearview mirror as the bright lights advanced. She was so involved with the approaching high beams that Kieran’s warm, damp hand on her thigh startled her.
“Sweetheart,” he murmured. “Mayhap you should stop the car. I do not believe it wise to run any longer.”
She turned to him, noting how terribly pale he was. In fact, he looked very much as he had when she had first seen him in the grave; pallid and pasty. Refusing to fight her terror down any longer, she couldn’t help the anguish in her voice.
“Oh, Kieran,” she moaned. “We’ve got to find you a doctor. To hell with Corbin and his henchmen!”
He shook his head feebly, his bloodstained hand on her leg. “Libby, I’ve been running from Simon for eight hundred years. Mayhap, I was not meant to elude him. Mayhap I should simply succumb to the inevitable.”
Simon. The man who had been both enemy and friend to Kieran eight hundred years ago, the beast responsible for the horrific wound slowly draining Kieran’s life away. Simon, reborn as the man Rory knew as Corbin and who, even now, continued to chase Kieran. Redundant history, never ending animosity. Like a reincarnated guard dog, Simon would never stop.
“No!” Rory sobbed, the tears coming. “I won’t let you. We’ve come too far for it to end like this.”
He smiled, touching her cheek and leaving a crimson streak. “It will never end between us. You and I are a part of one another, in this time or any other. We have accomplished our task and now we are finished. Mayhap it is time to allow history to fulfill its destiny.”
She ran cold. “What does that mean?”
He sighed, the oozing wound draining his energy. “It means that eight hundred years ago, I defied death with the magic of an alchemist’s potion. I cheated the natural course of life so that I could finish my sworn task. Now that I have returned to the land where the Crusades converged, mayhap death is attempting to claim me as it should have those centuries ago. The closer my enemy looms, the more my wound bleeds. I cannot believe it to be coincidence. The man was meant to kill me.”
Rory wept softly, shaking her head. “You’re not going to die,” she whispered. “I won’t let you. I’ll get you far away from Corbin and we’ll find a doctor who can heal you.”
“There is no one who can heal me.”
“Don’t say that!” She slammed her hands against the steering wheel, almost losing control when it leapt over a series of harsh bumps. Gripping the steering column tightly, she wrestled for control in more ways than one. “Kieran, you’re a part of me. We’re incomplete without each other. If you die, I will, too.”
He touched her face again, his expression serious. Thick fingers wiped at the tears as she struggled to concentrate on her driving.
“Oh, sweetheart,” he murmured. “Time could not keep us apart. Certainly death cannot either. I shall be waiting for you when you cross the threshold of Paradise, have no doubt. We shall spend eternity together, you and I.”
She sobbed openly, losing focus of the road. “No, Kieran,” she sputtered. “I don’t want you to die. I want you to live. I want us to get married and have children and grow old together. I don’t want you to leave me.”
He leaned over, grunting with pain and exertion, and lay his head on her shoulder. “I will never leave you. I love you with all that I am, all that I will ever be. Know this to be true, for all time.”
She tried to touch him but the road was too rough and she couldn’t risk letting go of the steering wheel. They were nearing the beach now, far away from the city proper of Nahariya.
The mob of Land Rovers wasn’t far behind. Their headlights cast flickering light on the sloping landscape of the sea. Sobbing as Kieran weakly comforted her, Rory took a turn too sharply and the Jeep nearly went over. Overcorrecting, she heard something snap and grind and the car suddenly came to a halt.
“Damn!” she screamed, beating at the steering wheel as if it would correct the problem. “Kieran, the car’s busted. We can’t….”
He smiled at her, so weakly, his gem-clear brown eyes filled with emotion. “I know we cannot run any longer. I am not meant to run any longer.” When she started to weep again, he simply collected her hand, their meager possessions, and opened the door. “Come along. I would show you something.”
She let him pull her from the car. The Land Rovers were just coming over the rise in the near distance as Kieran staggered across the sandy soil, heading for the ocean. His wound was bleeding profusely, trailing down his right leg and staining his boots. Rory sputtered and wept, following him, having no idea where they were going. But Kieran knew.
The clouds overhead were beginning to rumble and a light rain fell as they neared the crashing, rocky shore. Behind them, the Land Rovers came to a halt and soldiers in fatigues spilled forth, followed by two men in suits. Kieran and Rory ignored them, heading for an outcropping of rock overlooking the turbulent swells.
His voice was soft as he spoke, the clear brown gaze moving across the dark waters. “Eight hundred years ago, I came ashore on a beach not dissimilar to this one,” he grunted with strain as he mounted the rocks. “Thousands of men and horses bound for the Holy Land, intending to rid God’s country of the Muslim insurgents. I was one of those men and I wore the banner of England proudly.”
Rory held on to him tightly as they moved to the top of the outcropping, falling into his embrace as he sank to his knees. She was weeping so heavily she could hardly hear him, and he stroked her tenderly. His heart was aching for what he knew had to be.
“It was an awesome sight,” he murmured, his cheek against the top of her head. As he focused on the rolling sea, he said, “I came on the quest because I believed in my king, in my country, and I was determined to make both proud. By accepting the mission that would eventually end my life, I knew there was nothing more worthwhile I could ever do with my mortal existence. At least, that is what I believed until I met you. You and I are incredibly similar, Libby. Each wrought with determination, each aching deeply to find fulfillment, and each willing to jeopardize our destiny for what we believe in.”
Rory wept into his shirt as the rain grew heavier and the army of men drew closer. She could see their features now as they crossed the sand, singling out Corbin immediately. She watched as he held out his hand to the group, silently ordering them to wait as he continued forward. A bolt of lightning lit up the sky, illuminating his evil face, and Rory raised her head from Kieran’s shoulder in fury.
“Go away!” she shouted. “Go away and leave us alone!”
Corbin came to a halt several yards away. “I’ve come a very, very long way for you, Dr. Osgrove. I won’t leave without you. You’re in very big trouble for grave robbing, among other things.”
She simply shook her head. “I’m staying with him.”
Corbin shoved his hands into his pockets as the weather worsened. “You’re both coming with me, I’m afraid. You’ve got a good deal of explaining to do.”
Kieran heard him, the familiar voice of a man who had trailed him for centuries. But he ignored the man for the moment, focused on the delicious warmth of Rory in his arms. Warmth, he suspected, he would not be experiencing much longer.
“The night I sought the alchemist, there was a storm very much like this one,” he said softly, feeling Rory’s grip on him tighten. “An angry storm, cursing the fact that I intended to defy death. It is not strange that a storm has gathered here tonight to witness what I evaded those centuries ago.”
Rory tore her gaze away from Corbin, focusing on the ashen features of her beloved knight. Tears were still pouring but the sobs had faded. In fact, she seemed to be calming in spite of everything and she forced a smile, kissing him with a painful sweetness.
“If you go, I go with you,” she said in a tone he dare not contradict. “If death is going to take you, then it is going to take me, too. You said yourself that God brought us together and I just can’t believe that He would allow us to be separated after everything we’ve been through.”
Kieran’s normally even expression laced with emotion. “My sweet Rory,” he murmured. “I do not want to leave you now, not even for a moment. But I cannot deny the wound steadily draining my life. I suspect my true destiny is at hand. Now that the Christ’s Crown of Thorns has been found, there is no longer any reason for me to live. But there is every reason for you to live. You must live. You must pay tribute to this love and duty that we have shared.”
She shook her head, her composure making a weak return. “I will pay tribute by being at your side, for always. Don’t deny me this, Kieran. I am nothing without you.”
He didn’t have the energy to argue. The rain was coming down in sheets and lightning filled the sky. He began to kiss her, tenderly at first, but with a growing passion as if knowing this would be the last he tasted of her in this world.
Corbin and his men watched, so involved with the scene before them that they failed to notice a rickety old Jeep cresting the distant rise. One headlight was out, but the wipers were working as it bounced over the rough road. The vehicle loomed closer, eventually coming to a halt behind the cluster of Land Rovers.
“Don’t go any closer, Corbin!”
Rory’s colleague, Dr. Bud Dietrich, was out of the car before it came to a complete stop. He and another colleague, Dr. David Peck, raced across the wet sand, struggling to gain traction. Corbin heard the shout, turning to the source of the voice and muttering a silent curse. Bud continued to move towards him, aided by David when the man threw a punch at an intrusive Marine and sent the soldier sprawling.
“Do you hear me?” Bud shouted above the wind and rain. “Leave her alone. Leave them both alone!”
“Dr. Dietrich,” Corbin said slowly. “I am not surprised to find you here. But you must know you cannot help her any longer. I’ve come for your young associate and I demand to know what has become of the corpse she stole. What secret did it possess that she insisted on breaking the law to obtain it?”
Bud paused several feet before him, the rain lashing his face. After a moment, he gestured to the huddled pair on the rocks.
“You want to know what secret it possessed?” His voice was steady. “Take a good look at that man in Rory’s arms. There’s your secret, Corbin. The living corpse of Sir Kieran Hage, a real honest-to-goodness knight from King Richard’s Crusade. We excavated him out of that grave in Nahariya, but he wasn’t dead. He was in some kind of suspended animation brought on by an alchemist’s potion. The guy was trying to save his life after he was wounded but the alchemist ended up putting him into some kind of stasis instead. Don’t you get it? That man is Sir Kieran Hage.”
Corbin cocked an eyebrow, water dripping from his eyelashes. “Bloody Hell, Dietrich. Do you take me for a fool? Surely, you don’t think I’d be stupid enough to believe such an idiotic story.”
Bud shrugged. “Idiotic or not, it’s the truth. Rory didn’t steal the corpse or rob the grave because Kieran Hage isn’t dead.”
Corbin continued shaking his head, holding up a sharp hand. “Ridiculous, Dietrich. I will not listen to any more of this.”
“Would you listen to me, then?”
A soft voice floated up beside him. Corbin glanced over to see Darlow looking rather stunned. After a moment, the representative from the British Embassy, who had come to claim the excavated crusader, fixed Corbin in the eye. “I told you I saw the corpse,” he said quietly. “And that man on the rocks resembles the knight I saw most definitely. It’s… it’s truly amazing.”
Corbin stared at Darlow, noting the sincerity in his voice. Sincere or not, however, it didn’t erase the fact that two grown men were trying to convince him to believe in the tale of a resurrected knight from the Third Crusade. His jaw ticked with irritation as he returned his attention to Bud.
“I will not listen to this any longer,” he growled. “Dr. Osgrove is coming with me and her monstrous bodyguard will be placed in the custody of the Marines.”
On the rocks, Rory and Kieran were listening to the exchange. Kieran was failing, his grip on Rory loosening as she embraced him tightly. On her knees with Kieran’s head clasped to her breast, her anguished gaze locked on to Bud as another bolt of lightning streaked across the sky.
“Bud,” she called. “Kieran’s dying. We need to get him to a doctor immediately.”
Bud’s brow furrowed as he took a couple of steps towards the rain-slicked rocks. “What happened to him?”
Rory started to cry again, the tears falling so easily. “His wound,” she sobbed. “The wound we thought originally killed him, the one the alchemist sealed up. He reopened it somehow.”
Bud leapt onto the rocks, almost slipping but managing to keep his footing. He was suddenly beside the two lovers, separating them gently. Bud groaned softly when he saw Kieran’s blood-soaked shirt.
“Oh… Christ,” he muttered. “He’s bleeding all over the damned place, Rory. You were a Pre-Med student; what do we do?”
She shook her head. “Other than try to stop the blood flow, there’s nothing we can do. He needs a surgeon.”
“That’ll take time.” Bud’s eyes flicked nervously to Darlow and the Marines. “We’ve got to get him out of here.”
She sniffled in response as Bud suddenly noticed the bloodstained box between them. Kieran was holding it tightly and Bud couldn’t take his eyes off it.
“Hey,” he nodded his head at the small, wooden case. “Dave told me about the crown. Is… is that it?”
She gazed sadly at the box. “Yes.” She blinked, tears splattering with the rain. “Christ’s Crown of Thorns, the object we were searching for when we found Kieran’s grave. It wasn’t buried with him like we’d hoped, but he remembered where he had hidden it so we dug it up. But I swear I’d give it back if it would make Kieran well again. It’s just not worth the heartache it’s caused.”
“There was a man who thought differently, once.” Kieran’s voice was faint. “He believed it worth dying for.”
“Well, I don’t,” Rory snapped. “It’s not worth your life. God, I wish you’d never found the damned thing.”
Bud put his hand on her shoulder in a gesture of comfort and also to prevent her from spiraling out of control. Now was not the time for hysterics with Kieran bleeding to death. Tearing his gaze away from the holy treasure he had spent over a year of his life searching for, Bud’s ice-blue eyes focused on the dying man.
“How ya doin’, pal?” he asked, a ridiculous question considering. “Looks like we’ve got to get you to a hospital.”
The knight shook his head weakly. “’Tis of no use. Now that my task is complete, I am to die as I should have eight centuries ago.”
Bud fixed Kieran in the eye, a man he should hate for stealing Rory away from him, but a man he found he could not hate. When they had excavated Kieran from his grave those weeks ago, there was no way of knowing how Rory and the knight would have been drawn together, both in death and in life. There was something in the man’s nature that earned Bud’s respect in spite of everything. A determination and a sense of duty that Bud himself would have liked to have possessed.
“A doctor can help you, but we’ve got to go now,” he said, feeling his desperation when Kieran once again shook his head. He didn’t have time to argue with the man. “Look, Kieran. Rory means a great deal to me. If you die… she’ll never be the same. No matter what we’ve been through, our differences and all, in the end all that matters is that the woman we both love is happy. Right?”
Kieran raised an eyebrow slowly, rain coating his ashen face. “Another selfless gesture, my lord. Pity I am unworthy of such respect for the misery I have caused you both.”
“That’s not true,” Bud disagreed, casting the man an exaggeratedly selfish glance. “Besides, I haven’t finished pumping you for information. I haven’t found out a damned thing about the world you come from. I’d be the first archaeologist in history to get that kind of information firsthand.”
“Then ask quickly,” Kieran murmured, licking his wet lips. “There is not much time left.”
Bud looked at Rory, seeing the desperation in her eyes. “We’ve got to get him to a hospital,” he said to her, wondering if it wasn’t already too late. “Let me talk to Corbin and see what I can do.”
He turned away from the drenched pair, sliding down the rocks until he reached the soaking sand. Shuffling across the grit, he focused on Corbin’s haughty glare.
“Look,” he said firmly. “Kieran is very sick. He’s probably dying. We’ve got to get him to a hospital immediately.”
Corbin drew in a deep breath. “Fine. I shall take them both in my custody now and will be more than happy to have the bodyguard escorted to a hospital.”
As he spoke, his right hand emerged from his pocket gripping a Beretta 9mm handgun. Bud’s eyes widened.
“What in the hell are you doing?” he hissed. “Put that damned thing away.”
Corbin aimed the gun directly at Bud’s heart. “Not a chance, Dr. Dietrich. You and your associates have taken me on a wild ride from Nahariya to England and back again. I represent the descendants of the knight’s family and they want him back, wherever you have hidden him. I’m not letting any of you out of my sight.” He turned to the men behind him, keeping the gun aimed at Bud. “Take them. The bodyguard goes to the nearest hospital and the woman goes with me.”
“No!” Rory shrieked, clutching Kieran tightly. “I have to stay with him. I won’t let you separate us.”
Corbin turned his attention to Rory, preparing to reply. Just as he did so, Bud saw his chance and lunged for the gun, receiving a butt in the face for his efforts. As he landed heavily in the sand, a Marine trained his rifle on David before the man could move. With Bud wallowing just above unconsciousness and David effectively stopped, there was no one left between Corbin and Rory except Kieran.
He knew he was dying. He had nothing left to lose by protecting the woman he loved. Somehow finding the strength to disengage himself from her tight embrace, he rose to one knee and faced the man who had plagued him like an evil curse for centuries, the one man who was responsible for all of his misery. The man who had been jealous of Kieran and the holy relic he possessed. The face Kieran remembered from eight hundred years ago, now reincarnated and standing in front of him. Even now, he was still trying to kill him.
“You will not separate us, Simon,” he said weakly, feeling Rory’s hands on his shoulders. “The lady will come with me.”
Corbin stared at him, the odd sense of déjà vu plaguing him. It happened every time he looked at the man, a sensation he was struggling to ignore.
“Don’t be a hero,” he snarled. “From the look of you, you couldn’t take a bullet wound.”
Kieran cocked an eyebrow, holding out his arms as if to embrace the world. “Is that what you wish? To kill me as you once attempted eight hundred years ago?” He shrugged his massive shoulders. “Then complete your task. Complete what you started. But know this; I have what I came for. I have the holy relic and my lady will see that it is returned to England, as I vowed. There is nothing more you can do to me to cause me any greater pain, Simon. But you can cause the lady great pain and I will not permit it. If I am to go to this hospital, then she will go with me and you cannot stop her.”
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. It was 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.