CHAPTER NINE
The silence. It was too loud. And the light; it was far too bright. The mere action of breathing was pure agony, as if a massive weight was sitting atop his chest. And movement… well, at the moment, that was simply out of the question. He had not the strength to move, considering all of his energy was centralized in his brain, trying to make sense out of what was happening. A most baffling, incredible happening.
His tongue was as thick as cowhide. He tried to lick his lips, but they were completely dry. No moisture whatsoever. After several minutes of unsteady breathing, he licked his lips again and noted there was a slight amount of wetness. Not much, but some.
Kieran had no idea how long he lay in limbo, hearing the strange silence around him and struggling to clear the cobwebs from his mind. He tried to recall his last thoughts and events, remembering that Simon had sent assassins to kill him and that he had sought the healing powers of a physic… no, not a physic, an alchemist. Aye, he remembered now. A shriveled old man who had forced bitter potions down his throat in an attempt to save his life.
Save, was it? Or had the man said… suspend? It was all becoming a bit clearer now. The alchemist had to suspend his life in order to save it. That much he could recall. And if indeed his life had been spared by the mysterious potions… then where, in fact, was he?
He tried to open one eye. Slowly, painfully, the lid peeled back to reveal stark white light. Quickly, Kieran squeezed his eye shut, more out of agony than out of fear for the unfamiliar surroundings. After a moment, he tried again, this time opening both eyes. Blinking rapidly in the brilliant light, he struggled to determine his whereabouts.
It was all so bright, so alien. Like nothing he had ever seen before. Walls covered with shiny green bricks and strange sconces holding equally strange tapers. He could feel his life force growing stronger, the warmth of his newly-flowing blood coursing through his veins. He wriggled is fingers successfully, feeling brave enough to move his arms. The left one moved quite nicely. But the right one refused to budge.
The clear brown eyes blinked again, turning to focus on his right side. He seemed to be lying on the floor, or at least in a bed that was very close to the ground. When his stiff neck and muddled vision fell on his right arm, he was startled to note a body lying across it. And the first thing he saw was a naked abdomen.
Kieran swallowed hard, his confusion mounting. The naked belly was surrounded on either side by black garments, a peculiar gown that looked as if it had been ripped open to reveal another garment beneath. He couldn’t tell what the woman was wearing below the waist but… aye, it was a woman. He may have been unconscious for an unknown amount of time, but Kieran still knew a woman’s body when he saw it. Half-dead didn’t mean that he was also robbed of his senses.
His gaze trailed up the woman’s torso, noting her beautiful breasts beneath the strange black shift. It wasn’t even a shift; it was far too short. He didn’t know what it was. His gaze traveled upward, drinking in a thick mane of chestnut hair and he suddenly wondered if he had died and gone to Heaven. For certain, the face beneath the tossled hair was nothing short of angelic.
A beautiful, sleeping angel. Kieran could hear her snoring and he watched her for a moment, summoning both the courage and strength to rouse her. His left hand came up very slowly as massive fingers touched the arm slung across his belly.
“My lady,” he whispered, the pain of speaking almost unbearable. “My lady, awaken if you would.”
She ignored him, snorting in her sleep and scratching at her face. He tried again.
“My lady,” he shook her arm gently. “Can you hear me? You will awaken, please. I require your… assistance.”
She didn’t move. Then, slowly, she yawned and an eye popped open. But she wasn’t looking at him; the angle of her head had her staring at his trapped right arm and lethargically, a pretty hand with painted nails came up to scratch her head.
“Damn.” An ugly word from such luscious lips.
Kieran watched as she pushed herself to her knees, the beautiful hair mussed and odd black shadows beneath her eyes. Even so, she was incredibly lovely and he continued to watch as she studied his torso, her gaze coming to rest on his left side. After a moment, she glanced at a silver bangle around her wrist.
“Great,” she muttered, pushing the hair from her eyes. “One-thirty. Bud must think I’ve dropped off the face of the earth.”
Kieran remained still, watching the woman as she moved to straighten some piece of cloth covering his privates. He could feel the material, of course, though he had yet to see it. But it was soft and warm. Like her.
“Well, Sir Kieran, I’ve stayed longer than I should have.” She was speaking to him as she smoothed the cloth over his thighs. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep on you, but… well, it’s been a difficult few days. I suppose now I should go, though. I’ve got a lot of explaining to….”
Rory’s gaze came to rest on his face. His eyes. Her brow furrowed when she realized the lids were partially open. But she wasn’t frightened, thinking that perhaps the change in climate had caused the flesh to contract. On her knees, she moved in for a closer look, peering curiously at the half-lidded orbs. She was about to touch them when they blinked.
Poised over the corpse, Rory thought her alcohol-saturated mind was playing tricks on her. Not one to easily scare, she was attempting to clinically evaluate the phenomenon when the eyes blinked again. And the lips moved, too.
Rory’s mouth popped open. Astonished, she could hardly comprehend what she had witnessed simply because it wasn’t possible. Dead bodies didn’t move and especially bodies that had been buried for eight hundred years. More puzzled than shocked, she reached out to touch the knight’s face only to realize his skin was warm.
“Oh… God,” she murmured, staring into eyes that seemed to be focused on her. “What’s happening?”
The lips moved again. And this time, they spoke. “I… I was hoping you could tell me, my lady.”
Rory hadn’t been terrified until the dry lips issued words she could barely understand and then, it was as if her entire body became a lightning rod of horror. With a shout of panic, she bolted to her feet faster than she had ever moved in her life.
Stumbling away, she smacked into the stainless steel table in the center of the room. But the set-back didn’t stop her; still moving, she ended up banging her head against the wall in her haste. Vision clouded by a burst of stars, her horrified gaze reverted to the squirming corpse only to discover an arm pointing in her direction.
Rory screamed. She didn’t know how else to react. Kieran made a feeble attempt to calm her, struggling to sit up.
“My lady,” he rasped. “Please do not….”
Rory screamed again, huddled against the wall and incapable of moving any further. Kieran managed to roll to his side, grunting and shaken, his clear brown eyes focusing on the terrified woman.
“Please,” he murmured, swallowing hard. “I… I mean you no harm, I swear it. Only… only I know not where I am nor….”
Rory screamed in reply, covering her eyes. This time, Kieran frowned.
“Your screaming grows tiresome, lady,” he rumbled, coughing as he struggled to steady his breathing. “Moreover, the sound threatens to pierce my brain. I would kindly ask that you stop.”
Rory took her hands away from her eyes, hands that were quivering violently. Hazel eyes stared at the man wriggling on the coroner’s drawer, the disbelief echoed in the pale depths bordering on madness.
“You….” she gasped, then covered her face again. “Oh, God, I must be dreaming. I know I am. Please, Lord, if you let me wake up from this I swear I’ll never mix Long Island Iced Tea and chocolate mousse ever again. Please!”
“I can assure you that you are not dreaming,” Kieran said softly, trying to prop an elbow underneath his enormous body. “Unless we are dreaming together. And you, lady, are beyond my wildest dreams.”
“Stop it!” she yelled, trying to cover her ears with the same hands that were covering her eyes. “Stop talking to me!”
“How else am I to discover what has become of me?”
Rory digested his words, trying to determine if she had completely lost her mind. She could hear him breathing, grunting, as he moved about on the sterile drawer. After several moments of terror, she forced herself to uncover an eye to see if her prayers had been answered.
God was not listening, however. Sir Kieran was still animated, propped up on one elbow and his face gray with exhaustion. Rory continued to stare at him, recognizing the face, the body, as that of the knight. Everything was in the right place and she identified him completely. But the fact that he was alive just didn’t make any sense and her terror threatened to explode in all directions.
“I don’t believe this,” she muttered. “I just don’t believe this. This can’t be happening!”
“It is happening.”
“But it can’t!”
“Mayhap not. But it has.”
She was arguing with a corpse. Closing her eyes, Rory thought she might faint. Actually, she hoped she would. “Oh, please, God. I swear, no more drinking. Just make him dead again!”
Kieran licked his dry lips. “Lady, I refuse to die simply to quell your panic. If you would only cease your prattle and come to realize that a miracle has occurred, I am sure your fright will ease considerably.”
The hands came away from her face. “Miracle? What are you….” Her conversation with the dead man was continuing. But if she was going to lose what was left of her mind, then she might as well go all the way. “What damn miracle? You’re suppose to be dead!”
“I realize that. But, as you can see, I am very much alive.” Failing to push himself into a sitting position, he fixed her with his weary gaze. “But we shall discuss my awakening when I am feeling well enough. Unless you plan to huddle against the wall like a weakling for the rest of your life, I believe I could use your help to rise.”
The mere idea was ludicrous. “Rise? You can’t rise!”
He sighed, ill and disoriented. “I can and I will. It is apparent that the alchemist’s potions have completed their task and I shall live to see another day.”
Rory stared at him, her mind still refusing to believe but her heart strangely willing to accept it. In lieu of more full-blown panic, at the moment she settled for complete bewilderment.
“But… I don’t understand.” Her soft voice trembled. “What alchemist?”
His eyes were remarkably lucid. “An alchemist who promised to heal my wound and preserve my life. Although I will admit I did not believe in his powers, the evidence is obvious. The man and his potions have wrought a miracle.”
Slowly, Rory shook her head. “I dug you up myself. You’ve been dead and buried for eight hundred years.”
She could see the shock in his expression as he absorbed her statement. “Eight hundred years?” he repeated softly. “Do…do you mean to tell me that the alchemist’s potion kept me suspended for eight hundred years?”
“Something sure did.”
He continued to stare at her, his ashen face glazed with disbelief. “What year is this?”
“1996.”
“And… and where am I?”
“London.”
Kieran tore his gaze away, closing his eyes to the impact of her information. Feeling strangely empowered by his astonishment, Rory stood on quaking legs.
“Shocking, isn’t it.”
He opened his eyes, dulled with fatigue and distress. “Nay, lady, not shocking. Unbelievable.”
Her gaze continued to linger on him, her composure making a slow return. “Now you know how I feel,” she muttered. “I just can’t believe… Good Lord, this has to be a dream. A nightmare. Corpses just don’t get up and walk away!”
He sighed again, making another attempt to right himself. “I am not a corpse. I am Sir Kieran Hage of Nottingham, Viscount of Dykemoor and Sewall, and I was put to sleep by an alchemist who promised to heal my mortal wound with his magical potions.”
He was really struggling. Sweat was beading on his brow as he pushed himself up, his entire body shaking with effort. Even if Rory remained terrified and confused, she simply couldn’t stand by while another human being suffered so obviously. Corpse or not, Sir Kieran needed help and instinct demanded she give it.
He was about to teeter over again when she moved forward, grasping his left arm to prevent him from falling. He was incredibly solid, heavy, and she pulled hard to help him recover his balance. But he could not maintain his equilibrium without help, panting and gray, and she clutched his shoulders to steady him. Somewhere in the process, Rory wound up lodged between his tree-sized legs and before she could move to a less intimate position, Sir Kieran fell forward against her chest.
Her arms went around him automatically. Considering she was embracing a living corpse, Rory’s first reaction should have been one of repulsion and she did indeed experience a strong surge. But she fought it, torn between the wonder of what was happening and the sensation of his living, breathing body in her arms.
“Oh, God,” she moaned, feeling the stiffness of his hair scratching her chin. “I’m holding a dead man.”
Kieran’s swimming head was pressed to her chest, the fuzz on her sweater tickling his nose and the pounding of her heart loud in his ear. “Trust me, lady, I am not dead. But at this moment, I surely wish that I was.”
Rory closed her eyes, feeling him hard and warm in her arms and struggling to come to grips with his resurrection. The clock on the wall was ticking loudly and she glanced up; it was nearly two o’clock in the morning. She knew she couldn’t stay in the morgue all night with a living corpse, but the question of what to do with him wasn’t easily answered.
In fact, she was just beginning to ponder that question when she thought she heard voices. Her heart skipped a beat; senses peaked, she thought she heard more noise and immediately, her mind went into overdrive as she realized her grace period was over. If there was ever a time to leave, it was now.
“Damn,” she hissed, trying to move away from Kieran to see what was happening. He clung to her with one arm, trying to keep himself steady with the other against the sterile drawer.
“What is the matter?” he asked, looking at her with great brown eyes that seemed to worsen her shaky nerves.
Seeing that he wasn’t in imminent danger of toppling, Rory remained silent as she slipped to the door leading into the hall. The receptionist’s desk was several doors to her right and she swore she heard the voices again. Muttering another curse, she hastily collected her purse.
“I’ve got to go.”
He managed to cast her a long, suspicious glance. “Go? Go where?”
“Out of here,” she hissed. “Before I’m discovered. If they find me….”
She suddenly looked at him, realizing what she was saying. Kieran’s brown eyes were on her, great pools of amber set in his pasty face. After a moment, she sighed. “Oh… damn. What am I going to do with you?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Do what?”
Torn, Rory simply shook her head. “I can’t just leave you.”
He apparently agreed. “If you go… surely I must. You seem to be the only one who can help me discover why I have finally awakened.”
Her indecision was momentary and she quickly retraced her steps. “Come on,” she whispered, intending that he should stand.
He looked at her doubtfully. “As you can see, lady, I am having difficulty sitting much less standing. I am not going anywhere at this moment.”
Rory fixed him in the eye; whether or not he was the result of too much alcohol or a blooming insanity, she simply couldn’t leave him behind. If he was discovered, he could look forward to spending time in jail for breaking into the morgue he had once been a customer of. And until this situation was settled, Rory could not, in good conscience, let him out of her sight.
“You’re going to have to stand unless you want to explain your presence to the cops,” she said, realizing that but for the towel, he was stark naked. “But first, I’ve got to find you something to wear.”
As if the thought hadn’t occurred to him amidst all of his other concerns, Kieran glanced down at himself to note that only a small square of cloth separated him from complete nudity.
“Where are my clothes?”
She looked at him, an expression of disgust crossing her delicate features. “Your loving family took them, I suppose. Wait here until I see what I can find.”
He opened his mouth but she was gone, disappearing down the hall. Kieran sat on the metal slab, his balance returning and his strength making a weak resurgence. Slowly, with great effort, he braced his feet against the floor.
It took him three tries before he propelled himself up from the drawer. Once he was on his feet, however, the room rocked dangerously and he stumbled into the green-brick wall. The small towel protecting his privates came off in the interim and when Rory came rushing back into the room a short time later, Kieran found amusement in her startled expression.
“Oh… here.” She held out an odd green garment, keeping her face turned away. “Put this on.”
Kieran staggered toward her, weaving as he took the peculiar hose from her outstretched hand. “What is this?”
“Pants,” she said, noting from the corner of her eye that he hadn’t moved to put them on. Daring to turn her face slightly, she met his perplexed expression. “They’re pants, for heaven’s sake. Put them on!”
He was still frowning when a thought suddenly occurred to her. “Hose,” she clarified and she could see his features relax in understanding.
She turned her back as he pulled on the green scrub pants. When he began fumbling with the ties, Rory turned around and roughly cinched them up. Kieran grunted.
“God’s Blood, lady, your touch is most genteel.” He tugged at the pants where were a bit too constricting as Rory held up the green scrub shirt.
“Put this on,” she demanded.
He complied, hardly able to fit into the roomy scrubs for all of his enormous size. The only shoes she had been able to find were the protective green scrubs that covered the doctor’s shoes but she had him put those on as well, unconcerned with his appearance so much as she was simply eager to get him dressed. The voices were gone for the moment but she was certain they would return, and her sense of urgency was gaining speed.
“Let’s go.”
“Go where?”
She didn’t answer, merely grabbed him by the hand. Kieran could only move very slowly and even then it was with a good deal of effort. Like a man who hadn’t used his muscles in eight hundred years. Rory felt as if she was towing a barge, slow and lethargic and awkward. They made it up the hall and to the security door leading into the waiting room. She was about to unlock the door when she saw that it had a combination release. Sighing with frustration, she directed Kieran into the receptionist’s destroyed office.
“We’ve got to climb out,” she said, pulling him toward the window. “Watch the glass; it’ll slice your feet. Can you make it?”
Kieran glanced at the window, the desk, running clumsy fingers through his cropped hair. “Go first, my lady. I shall follow.”
Passing him a look suggesting that she had little faith in his ability, she climbed onto the windowsill and jumped through. Just as she turned to encourage Kieran, he was already in the window, leaping to the floor with enough power to rattle the walls. Startled, not to mention strangely impressed, Rory cocked an eyebrow at him for lack of a better response.
“You move very well. For a dead man.”
He sighed, his massive body sagging. But the gleam in his eye as he focused on her was anything but weak. “I shall be far more impressive when my strength has returned fully.”
Rory didn’t doubt him. In fact, as the minutes passed, she found herself able to think on Kieran’s resurrection without succumbing to bone-numbing shock. He had explained, briefly, and perhaps his logic had been enough support against her doubt. Even if none of it made any sense, she realized that nothing about Sir Kieran Hage had made sense from the beginning. And perhaps that was the greatest mystery of all.
The corridor was silent as Rory took Kieran’s hand again. But he seemed particularly slow, even for him, and she paused with frustration.
“What’s wrong?” she hissed.
He looked very serious, a bit of color returning to his cheeks. “Where is my sword, my armor? I will not leave without my possessions.”
Her face softened somewhat. Where to begin? “They’re not here,” she whispered. “Your family took them, just like they took your clothes.”
His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “My family?” he repeated. “But you said… it has been eight hundred years since….”
She nodded, glancing around nervously. “Your descendents.” She pulled on him, pleading for him to follow. “Look, there will be time enough for explanation later for both our sakes. But right now, we’ve got to get out of here.”
She started to turn away but he stopped her. “I will not go anywhere without my weapon. Where did my family take it?”
“To the University of Sussex. But unless you want to fight four Israeli guards with submachine guns to get it, you’re going to have to forget about your sword.”
His face hardened. “I cannot. I must have….”
She squeezed his hand to silence him, shaking her head. “Please trust me, Sir Kieran. You can’t have your sword back. It’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s locked away in a vault. It would take an army to break into the university. Now, please, we’ve got go!”
She took a step forward, realizing yet again he was refusing to follow. When her anxious gaze returned to him, struggling to keep her annoyance at bay, she was struck by his puzzled, if not disappointed, expression.
“I will… trust you if you say my weapon is unreachable,” he said quietly. “I have no other choice at the moment. But there is something else I must know; you mentioned something earlier, a phrase I found most strange. You said that you ‘dug me up’. Why would you do this?”
“Because that’s what I do. I’m an archaeo… oh, please, can’t I explain this later? We don’t have time for this, Sir Kieran.”
Rory started to lead on but once again he stopped her. She was verging on an irritated response when a flicker in his brown eyes cooled her rising storm. “You have called me by name, twice,” he said softly. “Do we have the time that I might know your name?”
“Rory,” she said, feeling her cheeks flush under his close scrutiny. “Rory Osgrove.”
“Rory?” he repeated with distain. “’Tis a man’s name. Far too unsuitable for your beauty.”
She was insulted and flattered at the same time. “It was my great-grandmother’s name.”
He snorted. “The fashion of names has always eluded me. I once knew a woman named Jamie. Named for her father, James. Most strange.”
Rory couldn’t help but smile. “Jamie is a very common female name. And so is Taylor and Mallory and Brooke.”
He cocked an eyebrow. He had the most beautiful eyebrows. “How disgraceful. Women are not mean to have a man’s name else God would have named Eve something as unsuitable as Jehosephat. What else are you called?”
Rory couldn’t believe she was standing in the hallway of a London hospital debating names with an eight hundred year old man. “My grandfather used to call my Shorty,” she said snappishly. “Is that better than Rory?”
He allowed the insolent tone to go unpunished. “It is not. And you are not short. What else?”
Rory sighed; she wanted to leave. He wanted to discuss an appropriate name. Finally, she rolled her eyes in frustration.
“I don’t have any other name,” she said. “My name is Rory Elizabeth Osgrove.”
“Elizabeth,” he repeated, rolling it off his tongue with his wonderfully strong accent. “Much more suitable for your comeliness. I believe I shall call you Elizabeth.”
“Whatever.” She moved him down the hall, heading for the elevator banks. Even though his balance had returned and his coordination was much better, still, he seemed to be dragging. Rory turned to see what was delaying him this time when she notice he was peering at the lights.
“What are you doing now?” she demanded.
He pointed to a bulb, touched it, and drew his hand back sharply. “What is this device?”
She grasped him by the arm once again and pulled him along. “They’re called light bulbs.”
He seemed to ponder her explanation as she pushed the button for the elevator. He was about to ask her how such a miracle worked when he suddenly noticed the glowing elevator button. Rory was nearly shoved to the ground in his haste to examine it.
“How does this light?” he demanded, thumping at the plastic. “Where is the wick?”
Rory watched him, her irritation fading. Looking at the world through eyes eight hundred years old would certainly be a remarkable thing. Even though she remained confused in her own right, still, she had always possessed an open mind. Hence her devotion to biblical relics the conventional world believed to be myth. Keeping that in mind, she tried to imagine what Sir Kieran must be feeling. Thrust into a world that didn’t understand him. That he didn’t understand.
But maybe that was the point. Whatever the reasons for his return to life, her natural acceptance of life’s unexplainable things told her that somehow, some way, her knight had indeed become real. It still didn’t make any sense. But maybe it wasn’t supposed to.
Kieran was still examining the elevator button when the doors suddenly opened. A man dressed in blue hospital scrubs almost bumped into Kieran as he emerged from the elevator, excusing himself politely. Rory grasped Kieran as he watched the man stroll down the corridor, pulling the knight into the vacated car. Kieran was still pondering the strangely-clad man when the elevator lurched.
“God’s Blood,” he gasped, touching the walls as the elevator rose two floors. “What is happening?”
Rory smiled faintly. “Nothing to panic over. It’s an elevator. Just like stairs, only without the exertion.”
He looked at her, uncertainty in his eyes, when the car came to an uneven halt. Kieran emerged from the elevator struggling with his equilibrium again as Rory directed him out the way she had come.
“I do not think I like elevators,” he said frankly, rubbing his stomach.
She had him by the hand as they reached the emergency room, hardly daring to hope that they would escape unmolested. She had been positive the voices she had heard in the morgue had been employees who had discovered the break-in. But no police had been forthcoming and Rory nearly shouted with relief as they entered the large emergency ward, the wide doors to freedom straight ahead.
Until a nurse stopped them; rather, stopped Kieran. “Thank God you’ve come, doctor,” the woman said urgently. “We’ve our hands full with the football players and have hardly been able to dispense medical care because of their constant fighting!”
Rory opened her mouth before Kieran could speak. “I’m sorry,” she said quickly, realizing the woman had mistaken him for a physician in his green uniform. “Dr… uh, Hage was just going home. He’s been on eighteen hours. You understand, of course.”
The nurse looked desperate. “Oh… I’m sorry,” she said, listening to the roar of the football players grow louder. “We put out an emergency call for all available doctors in the building and I assumed… well, he’s still in scrubs and I thought….”
Rory shook her head again, tightly gripping Kieran’s massive arm. “I’m sorry. Dr. Hage is going home.”
Suddenly, one of the football players shrieked like a wild man and leapt from his chair, rushing the man across from him. The entire waiting room erupted in turmoil and the nurse detaining Kieran turned toward the mass, pleading for calm. Rory tried to use the chaos to their advantage by pulling Kieran to the automatic doors, but he was unwilling to follow. Gently, he removed her hand from his arm.
“Remain here,” he said calmly. “This will take but a moment.”
Rory opened her mouth to protest but it was too late; for a man who had been moving laboriously slow not moments before, Kieran suddenly came to life. As orderlies and nurses struggled to restrain one or two men between them, Kieran began tossing men aside as if they were no match for his incredible strength. One man, two men, several ended up thrown back into their seats, dazed by the massive doctor’s brutal bed-side manner.
Fact was, he hardly raised a sweat. By the time he was finished, nearly two dozen men had been forcibly calmed. As Rory and a host of amazed hospital employees looked on, Kieran steadily informed the rugby players that if he was forced to return to quell the situation again, they would need more than a doctor. They would need a grave-digger. There wasn’t one person who didn’t believe him.
Returning to his open-mouthed companion, Kieran took Rory by the hand and, for a change, pulled her toward the large double-doors. Once outside in the chill London air, she came to a stop.
“Why did you do that?” she demanded softly.
He faced her, feeling the brisk breeze like a rejuvenating slap in the face. His strength, his vigor was returning rapidly, and he was amazed at how well he felt. Better than he had felt in eight hundred years.
“Do what? End a minor brawl?” He shrugged. “Would you prefer that I allow it to escalate and destroy the entire room?”
She shook her head, slowly. “I… of course not. But the way you handled those men….”
He turned away from her sharply when he heard the honk of a horn. Witnessing an automobile for the very first time, his eyes widened dramatically as he pointed to the passing vehicle.
“God’s Blood,” he gasped. “What was that?”
“A car,” she said, shaking off the visions of his amazing strength when she realized he was unconcerned with her astonishment. As if such a thing happened every day which, to him, it probably did.
“A car?” he repeated, watching as another went by, and another. “What is this car, Libby?”
“Libby?” she looked at him curiously.
He watched a bus go by, instinctively standing back to allow the vehicle a wide berth. “I told you I did not like the name Rory. Libby is a familiar of Elizabeth and I like it.” He was still staring at the bus. “What was that monstrous car?”
“A bus,” she replied, rubbing at her temples as the jackhammer started again. It was two o’clock in the morning and they needed to find shelter for the night. But not back at the Parkwood; Bud was waiting for her and Rory wasn’t sure how she was going to explain the appearance of Sir Kieran. Until she could sit the man down and discover the reasons behind his return to life, she wasn’t about to tell Bud anything. Just a phone call to let him know she was all right would have to suffice for the time being.
Kieran continued to watch cars drive by, amazed, as Rory wrapped her arms around her body to ward off the night’s chill.
“Come on,” she said, moving down the sidewalk. “I’m cold and I’m tired. We’ve got to find some place to stay and… well, figure this out.”
He trailed after her, almost stepping in front of an oncoming Jaguar until Rory pulled him back onto the sidewalk. Feeling the iciness of her hand, he was distracted from the incredible concept of cars.
“My lady is chilled,” he said, holding her hand in his massive palm. “A bit of mead and a soft bed will see you warmed.”
Rory looked up at him, way up, realizing that he was taller than Bud had originally estimated. She was coming to think he was closer to six feet five inches in height, although she could not be sure. All she knew was that the man in life was far larger, far more imposing, than he had ever been in death.
“I don’t think they make mead anymore,” she said, shivering involuntarily when his thick arm went about her shoulders. “But as for a warm bed, I’m all for it. Right after I make a call.”
He pulled her against the curve of his torso; she was truly a tiny little thing, sweet and soft and round in all of the right places. Aye, she was quite pleasing.
“Libby?”
“My name is Rory.”
“And I say it is Libby. Who must you call?”
She didn’t reply for a moment. “I’ve got to call a… friend.”
“What must you call her?”
She sighed. Then she laughed. “It’s easier to explain when you see what I’m talking about.”
He nodded faintly, watching another car go by before returning his attention to the strange, smooth cobblestones they were walking on. “Libby?”
“My name is not… oh, hell. What?”
“Who awakened me from my suspended state?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. But I intend to find out what, exactly, is happening around here.”
Kieran was silent a moment. “Did you kiss me?”
Rory paused, stopping to look at him. His arm fell away from her shoulders as they faced each other beneath the haunting moonlight. “Why… what kind of a question is that?”
“Answer me. Did you kiss me?”
She lowered her gaze, looking embarrassed and defiant at the same time. “I did. But I was saying good-bye to you. I had a good reason.”
A slow smile spread across his face. Reaching out, he collected her hand in his big, warm palm. “Then it is you.”
She cocked an eyebrow, warily. “What is me?”
He continued to smile, his twinkling brown eyes driving daggers of excitement deep into her heart. After a moment, he brought her hand to his lips and kissed it softly, tucking it into the crook of his elbow as they resumed their walk. Rory was still lingering on the kiss.
“Nothing, sweetheart,” he murmured, gazing up at the moon, the trees. “Forget my foolish statement.”
She tried. But she couldn’t.