Chapter 37

Rafe parked the truck as close as he could to the cemetery and opened Juliet’s door. They’d stopped by Pops’s trailer to get the cemetery keys and switch cars. While there, she’d changed into the jeans, T-shirt, and field jacket she’d thrown into the car before coming out to the Isle. Rafe had also found snake boots in the barn.

He got out and opened her door.

“I wish I hadn’t forgotten my own boots,” Juliet said. “These are too big.”

He scrounged through the back of the pickup and found Gerald’s duffel while Juliet adjusted the boots with ladybug faces painted on the toes.

He concentrated on the weapons. “My momma loved ladybugs.”

“I miss her,” Juliet said softly.

“I miss her, too.” He’d take the shotgun, his handgun, the machete, and two knives. “Do you have your gun?”

“In the pocket of my field coat.”

“Good.” Although it was beastly hot, they understood the risks of traveling on foot without jackets and boots. He slipped on his field jacket and loaded up with ammo and flashlights. He gave her a backpack he’d filled with water and more ammo. Once he slung the shotgun onto his back and held the machete ready, he took her hand and led the way.

A minute later, she said, “Is it true you were flogged once a month?”

He stopped and stared at her. “What are you talking about?”

“Sarah gave me a book. It had a chapter on ancient Druid warriors.”

Rafe’s snort startled nearby birds. “Hume’s History of England?”

“How’d you know?”

He shook his head and kept walking. “I’ve read it. And no, I wasn’t flogged every month for a year. I can’t imagine how that’d go over with the brotherhood.”

“What about the Hunt? What’s that about?”

“Juliet—”

“This situation can’t get much worse, and I’ve a right to know.”

She had a point, and he was tired of being evasive. “The Hunt is the last training period before a recruit is accepted into the brotherhood. He’s chased through the woods in the middle of winter, naked, with a staff as a weapon. And his hair, which he was forced to grow during the training period, is plaited.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s how they did things during Roman times. He has to hide, evade, and take out as many hunters as possible. Every branch he breaks and noise he makes, even each hair that’s out of place, is counted against him. But, eventually, he’s captured. Then he’s buried up to his chest in a pit with his nondominant arm free and uses the staff to fight off twelve men. If he wins, he’s dug up and allowed to enter the Gauntlet.”

“You’re buried naked?”

He glanced at her concerned frown. “That’s what you’re thinking about? Not the fact that he’s being attacked by twelve highly trained men at the same time and only has one arm and it’s freezing cold?”

“That’s bad too. But weren’t you worried about bugs?”

He laughed out loud. “I thought you’d be impressed. Instead you’re worried about spiders crawling up my a—”

She covered his mouth with her hand. “Don’t be crude. And I am impressed. Just wondering why that kind of training is necessary.” Her head tipped to the side. “Since you’re a warrior, I suppose you passed this training?”

He smiled wide. “Yep. Wish you’d been there. I was totally buff and hot.”

She passed him. “You’re impossible.”

“And still hot.”

She laughed, and the tightness in his chest dissipated. He’d never talked about these things. Not even with Escalus, and they’d trained together. Yet bringing them out into the open made the horror seem less…horrible. Maybe that’d been the point of the secrecy. Once you release the memories, they lost their power.

When they reached the headless archangel in the center of the cemetery, Rafe turned left. It was a twenty-yard direct line from St. Michael to the iron doors of Anne’s crypt. Rafe gave her the keys, and she flipped through the ring until finding the right one.

The doors opened easily, and he slipped the padlock into his coat pocket, trading it for a flashlight. “Ready?”

“Yes.” She threw the keys into her backpack, found her light, and used her bag to prop open the door. “Let’s do this quickly.”

He switched on the light and went in. Dust motes scattered through the beam, and his boots left impressions in the dirty floor. Juliet coughed next to him. A marble tomb lay in the center. Four pillars stood in the corners, three holding urns. “I don’t see anything unusual.”

“The urn I broke is gone.”

He swung the flashlight around. “There’s no place to hide anything in here.”

She tilted one of the urns to look inside. Then the other two. “They’re empty.”

They met over Anne’s tomb, and she wiped off the dust on Anne’s crypt, exposing a carving of her lily. “Do you think there’s anything in here?”

He laid down the machete, knelt, and ran a hand around the marble edges. “It’s sealed.” He used the light to trace around the bottom. It was a solid piece with no joints or obvious openings. “I can’t imagine anything was buried with Anne. That’d mean someone else would’ve been in on her secret.”

“You’re afraid to open it.”

He glanced at her and caught her smile. “I’m not big on desecrating burial sites.”

She moved to kneel next to him. “I can’t wait to tell Samantha you believe in ghosts.”

“I don’t believe in ghosts. I just don’t want to see another dead body.”

Her smile fell away, and she touched his cheek. He closed his eyes and pressed his face against her hand. “Have there been many?” Her voice sounded soft and far away.

He opened his eyes and met the brown gaze he’d dreamed about for the past eight years. “Too many.”

She kissed him gently on the lips. “I’m sorry.”

When she withdrew, he said, “Don’t be. The choices I made, along with the consequences, are mine to live with.”

She stood and ran her hand along the tomb one last time. The edges had been etched with a design. “The carvings on this tomb are intertwining yew and oak leaves. Like the carvings on the mantel.”

“And on your map.” He stood behind her and looked over her shoulders. “Except those sketches also had swords, lilies, and fish worked into the design. I get the lilies, but I wonder what the swords and fish are all about.”

“No idea.” She glanced back and held up her hand. “May I see your phone?”

He frowned. “What for?”

“Didn’t you take a picture of the map before you gave it to Nate?”

“My burner phone doesn’t take photos.” He kissed her neck, loving it when she shivered. “I assumed you took a photo.”

She pressed back against him, and he wrapped his arms around her waist. Her lavender scent, her softer body against the hard length of his, made him want to leave this place forever and go back to the apartment. He was tired of mysteries and secrets and dead things.

“Why would I do that?”

“When we were married, you were always the one snapping pictures.”

Now her eyes were closed, and she leaned most of her weight against him. “That’s ridiculous.”

“And you did take all the photos of your windows yesterday.”

“This was my responsibility?” She snorted. Delicately, of course. “You’re the one who came home with crazy stories of lilies and bowing men.”

He shrugged. “And you let me kiss you anyway.”

“We handed over our only clue without taking a picture.” She turned so he could see her narrowed eyes. And was that a slight smile? “What is wrong with us?”

He kissed her cheek. “I know I was distracted.”

She pushed him away. “Then let’s go home.”

He couldn’t agree more.

They gathered their things, and he locked up. After adjusting the shotgun, he saw Juliet standing a few feet away, her hands on her hips, staring at St. Michael. “What’s wrong?”

She pointed to the naked angel. “Sarah mentioned that Anne’s secret was protected by three archangels.” Juliet turned in a full circle. “Michael ahead of me, Anne behind me,” she stretched out her arms in opposite directions, “the other two would be on either side.”

“I’ll go right, you go left.” He kissed her quickly. “Be careful.”

It didn’t take long to lose sight of her behind two large mausoleums and a grove of pecan trees. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes. Do you see anything?”

“Not yet.” He was in the center of four limestone headstones. The only unusual thing was an empty plinth block with ELIZA PRIDEAUX 1600–1652 carved on the front. The yew-and-oak-leaf motif had been cut along the edges, interspersed with Juliet’s lilies. He walked around, seeing smaller tombs and mausoleums but no angels.

He went back to Anne’s tomb. “Where are you?”

“Over here!” He followed her voice until he found her between a crypt and an angel. Her backpack lay on top of a flat tomb nearby.

The archangel, while not as imposing as Michael, was eight feet tall on a four-foot plinth with THEODORE CAPEL 1590–1670 carved on the front. Again, yew and oak leaves had been etched, but this time with fish.

“It’s Raphael,” she said. “He’s standing on a fish and holding a staff, his angelic symbols.”

He pointed to the inscription Efficia fret quietum on the scroll in Raphael’s other hand. “This same scroll is on a relief of St. Raphael in the Doge’s Palace in Venice.”

“I’d love to go to Venice.” She touched the angel’s face. “Is it as romantic as it seems?”

“I didn’t go for the romance.” He took her hand and held it against his heart. “We’ll go there for our second honeymoon. After lots of wine and a dinner of bigoli in salsa, we’ll walk the streets and eat meringues. You’ll love them. They’re bigger than Calum’s head.”

She hit him in the chest with her free fist. “We never went on a first honeymoon.”

He caught that hand and kissed it too. “We honeymooned in Charleston.”

“One night at the Mills House Hotel. And we didn’t leave the room.”

He raised an eyebrow. “We were busy. Like last night.”

She yanked her hands out of his and cupped his face. “We need to focus.”

He covered her fingers with his. “I found a plinth block on the other side that probably held another angel. It has Eliza Prideaux’s name carved into it along with lilies.”

“Eliza was Theodore Capel’s wife and Anne’s mother. And the map’s decorations were yew and oak leaves combined with swords, fish, and lilies.”

Rafe glanced back toward the statue of St. Michael hidden behind many crypts and trees. “Swords are the angelic symbol of Michael, fish are the angelic symbol of Raphael, while lilies are the angelic symbol of…”

Juliet grabbed his arm, her eyes widening into brown pools. “Gabriel.”

Rafe ran a hand over his head, trying to work this out. “Gabriel lived in the manor.”

“My daddy moved him in when I was six.” She squinted at Raphael. “But why?”

Rafe knelt and ran his fingers along the bottom carvings until he felt a metal pin. When he pulled, a spring-action hinge popped and a door opened. He dragged out a steel box, and she lifted the top. Inside, wrapped in canvas, was a stack of yellowed, folded documents, and a manila envelope with Juliet’s name on it.

He handed her the envelope while he looked at the documents. They were very fragile and crumbling maps. He rewrapped them so they wouldn’t disintegrate.

“Rafe, look.” She’d opened the envelope and laid the contents on the ground to show him the scrawled signature of King Charles I of England. “My King’s Grants.”

* * *

Juliet gripped Rafe’s hand. “This means the vial could be in Gabriel or Michael.”

He stood and adjusted the weapon on his back. “Stay here while I check Michael.”

Before she could protest, he disappeared. She wasn’t sure she’d ever get used to the graceful way he moved. Next to him, she felt like a clunky cow. She sighed and put the decrepit documents in the box. Luckily the grants weren’t as fragile.

How could she be holding documents signed by King Charles I that’d been touched by Anne? And her father? Each grant was folded in thirds and still held the remains of the royal wax seal. Although Juliet could make out the names on the grants, including the King’s and Theodore Capel’s, the rest of the writing was in a beautiful yet hard-to-read script.

“Don’t move.” Rafe’s harsh command made her freeze.

A second later, something whizzed by her head and cut her ear.

Rafe yanked her up and wrapped his arms around her. “Are you alright?”

“I think so.” She pressed her face against his chest. His heart beat faster than hers, and she held on, hoping to ease his fear as well. Although she’d no idea what he was afraid of. “What happened?”

He sprinkled kisses on her head, her nose, her cheeks until he found her lips. When he released her, he said, “Storm’s coming.”

A clap rumbled, and she looked up. The tree canopy hid the sky, but she could feel the rising static. Something dripped down her face, and she touched her ear. Her fingers came away red. “Why am I bleeding?”

He pointed to the tree behind her. She turned, still within his arms. There, held against the trunk with its head almost severed by Rafe’s knife, was a diamondback rattlesnake.

Her legs wobbled, and he tightened his hold. “I never heard him.”

“He wasn’t moving. But his head was raised. He must’ve been sleeping in the tree.”

The diamondback rattler was the most venomous snake in Georgia. “Thank you.”

He rested his cheek against her head and rubbed her lower back. “I’m sorry I cut your ear. He was about to strike.”

“I don’t care. It doesn’t hurt.”

He kissed her again, this time with lingering pauses and rising pressure that mirrored the growing storm around them. “Please, Rafe. Let’s go home.”