A.K.A. Goddess (31 page)

“Because you’re an idealist.” When he pulled his chair up to the desk, beside me, our knees bumped. I moved mine.

“I think part of me suspected you had secrets, all along,” I said. “That could be why I never stuck with an engagement.”

No matter how desperately I’d thought I loved him.

He typed, saying nothing. I knew from experience that him saying nothing meant he was more upset than usual.

“That,” I said, “and that I was keeping secrets, too.”

He nodded, then slanted a searching glance toward me, then went back to typing. “For what it’s worth, I don’t deal in stolen art. I buy it—and yes, there is a marginal difference,” he added, before I could protest. “It’s not stolen specifically for me. And if I didn’t buy it, it would just vanish into someone’s private collection, never to be seen again.”

I looked pointedly at the armory around us.

“Most of the really good stuff, I donate to museums. Anonymously. Or occasionally I give it to a girlfriend.”

“I want to believe that,” I admitted.

“I suppose it’s my fault you can’t.” But he said that with quiet resignation, this time. Then he leaned back from the computer, turned the screen toward me. “There. Is that it?”

I looked at the screen—and pressed a hand to my new vesica piscis necklace, recognition flaring within me. “It’s my grail!”

Whoever had done the digital photography had taken pictures from all angles, then set the display so that the white cup slowly rotated, revealing each piece of the carved Melusine story as it turned past. I could use the mouse to turn it faster or slower, to look at the smooth top or tail-knotted bottom.

“It’s beautiful,” said Lex, very close to my cheek.

“It’s perfect,” I whispered. Beside the picture were links—history, background, appraisal, and bid. I clicked on history first, and gasped. “The bitch used my notes!”

The very notes I’d given Catrina Dauvergne, to prove the legitimacy of the Melusine Chalice, were now neatly posted for prospective buyers! The background link offered some of the photos I’d taken with my disposable camera, in the Fontevrault Sanctuary before its destruction. And under appraisal…

“It says it’s worth no less than $300,000,” I whispered.

Lex quietly asked, “Do you have that much?”

Only then did I remember that he’d already put up a third of that in bona fide. I dug into my purse for the cashier’s check I’d brought with me and, equally proud and worried, handed it to him. “Lil’s mom has raised $600,000 so far.”

He looked impressed. “That’s a lot of investors.”

“Not investments. Donations.” I smiled at his surprise. “She knows a lot of well-off people—mostly women—who took her word that some underfunded scholars needed it.”

Admiration became suspicion. “That’s crazy.”

“A surprising number of women will gladly risk being wrong on the mere possibility that it could end up wonderfully. So is this enough money?”

He looked at the computer, at the clock beneath. Five minutes left. “It depends on who else is out there bidding.”

“So we have a chance?” At his nod, I could have kissed him.

I deliberately didn’t, focusing on more important matters. I might actually get my chalice back! Sofie, Lil and I already had a plan for getting it out of the country, and where to hide it once we did. Since our putting-it-on-immediate-display plan had turned out so badly, we’d needed one.

The clock said 1:57 p.m. “Click on the bid link,” said Lex, and I did. A message appeared stating that the auction would not begin until 2:00. “That’s okay. We’re just testing it.”

“I don’t think I could have done this without your help,” I admitted. “I’m partly grateful and partly annoyed.”

1:58 p.m. “Why annoyed?” he asked, his tone nonchalant but his close, hazel gaze caressing my face.

“Because I wanted to be able to do this myself. Not just because I’m connected to a powerful man.” Then again, the priestesses at Fontevrault had been well connected and strong in their own right. Was I thinking too either/or, here?

He sat back. “Maggi, you found it in the first place. You and your…Grail Keepers…raised the money yourselves. How do you think I feel, being relegated to tech support?”

Now I did kiss him—on the cheek. Wise or not, I wanted to do more. From his long, shaky inhale, he wanted more, too. But we both had more self-control than that.

I smiled into his eyes, and felt hope for him.

Then the laptop clock turned to 2:00, and I clicked on the link to bid.

A box opened up, like an Instant Messenger screen floating over the larger picture of the grail, with a name in brackets. [Percival.]

“That’s us,” said Lex. “Cute.”

“You didn’t choose it?” In Arthurian legend, Percival is the classic Grail-quest knight.

“Each laptop has its own sign-in.” Then Lex said, “This is good. If we’re the only ones in the auction…uh-oh.”

Another name appeared—Lancelot. Then Galahad. Then Kay.

Letters typed across the screen. [Kay] 1

“That’s not one dollar, is it?” I asked grimly.

“No. We’re dealing in hundred thousands. They’ll clarify that on the final bid, to make sure nobody was confused.”

“What if I wanted to bid in between—”

[Lancelot] 1.5

“Oh,” I said, and typed in my own bid of 2.

[Galahad] 2.5

[Kay] 3

I quickly tried 3.5 and hit Enter. There.

[Kay] 4

When Lex lightly touched my fingers, to keep me from typing more, I glared at him. “What are you doing?”

“Don’t appear too eager,” he advised. “They’ll give us three chances before a sale is made, and we might as well see how far it goes first. Look. Lancelot has already dropped out.”

[Galahad] 4.5

[Kay] 5

[Galahad] 5.5

Then the number sat there, on a quiet screen, unchanging. $50,000 less than the Grail Keepers had raised. Kay had apparently given up. When I moved to type my bid, Lex didn’t try to stop me.

[Percival] 6

I held my breath. This was my grail. I’d found it, I’d rescued it, and I was a Grail Keeper. I should decide what happened to it.

After a long moment of waiting, a new log-on name appeared.

[Administrator] The bid is $600,000. Going once.

“Yes,” I whispered, all but praying.

[Galahad] 6.5

No! Lex’s steady voice cut through my upset. “I already put down a hundred bona fide. Use that. Go to seven.”

“And owe you a hundred thousand dollars?”

“You think Lilith’s mother can’t raise that much more?”

[Administrator] The bid is $650,000. Going once.

I didn’t like it. It felt wrong in too many ways, including a tightening in my throat that may or may not have been Melusine-inspired. But when the words Going twice appeared, I couldn’t have stopped myself.

[Percival] 7

I leaned closer to the screen, then closer yet…

[Galahad] 8

“I hate Galahad!” But I pushed the laptop away from me, my heart aching. That was it. I was done.

“He has good taste, anyway,” mused Lex, looking at the screen when I refused to. “Going once.”

“That’s all I have. More than I have. Almost a million dollars.” Damn it. “I fought the good fight, anyway.” Crap.

Lex turned the laptop toward himself and typed something. I didn’t have to look to see that he, as Percival, had just bid 8.5. I looked anyway.

“Don’t do it,” I warned him. “I don’t want to owe you.”

[Galahad] 9

[Percival] 10

Lex hadn’t even stopped at the halfway mark, that time—he’d just barged over the million-dollar line. “So don’t owe me,” he said. When Galahad bid 11, Lex upped it to 12.

Double what the Grail Keepers had raised.

[Galahad] 14

“He’s suspicious,” noted Lex softly, typing 14.5.

“Don’t owe you?” I watched over his shoulder. 14.7 “This is too big for a gift.”

“It’s not a gift.” 15. 15.3. “We aren’t dating, remember?”

[Galahad] 15.5

I shook my head, wary. “You’re buying it for yourself?”

[Percival] 16. For a long moment, nothing happened.

[Administrator] The bid is $1,600,000. Going once.

“Maybe I have my own uses for it.”

“You? It’s my chalice!”

[Administrator] The bid is $1,600,000. Going twice.

“I’ve got a million more than you that says—damn it.”

[Galahad] 16.3

[Percival] 16.5

“Will you donate it to a museum?” I demanded, uncertain.

“Out of the goodness of my heart?” When Galahad went to 17, Lex typed in 17.3, increasingly grim. “Not this time.”

I’d hated him getting this way—competitive to the point of cutthroat—even before I’d known he was with the Comitatus. Now…

I slid my foot toward the DSL modem on the floor, to hook my toes under the cable. If worse came to worst, I could always—

Lex’s foot knocked mine away. “Don’t do it,” he snarled.

I looked at the screen. Galahad had just bid $1,750,000.

“If you destroy this cup,” I said, “I might just kill you.”

“Screw this,” he muttered, and typed in 18. “You might try. What makes you think Galahad isn’t the one out to destroy it?”

I hated this! I hated not trusting him. I hated him not listening to me. I hated being made powerless because I didn’t have endless money. All that kept me from imploding was my Tai Chi and goddess training.

Yielding overcomes unyielding. Don’t always meet force with force. Everything doesn’t have to be a competition.

I didn’t have to play his game. I only had to sit back and figure out what it was—then go around it.

[Galahad] 19

No decimals. The boys were getting impatient, were they?

[Percival] 20

Lex had just bid two million dollars.

For a long moment, nothing happened. Then,

[Administrator] The bid is $2,000,000. Going once.

We were both holding our breaths.

[Administrator] The bid is $2,000,000. Going twice.

Lex glanced at me coolly. It made me wonder how much of this he’d already set up…though surely if he’d, say, hired Galahad, they wouldn’t have chased the price that high. Would they? Unless he was making a different point, maybe showing off.

[Administrator] Sold for $2,000,000. The auction has ended.

The IM screen vanished and the laptop beeped as Lex received an e-mail.

I slumped while he read it. He accessed some kind of on-line bank account and rapidly typed arrangements.

When he logged off, the silence between us was suffocating.

He broke it first. “I couldn’t let him get it.”

“You don’t even know who he was.”

“At least you’ll know where the cup is,” he said.

“So you did it for me? I already told you I wouldn’t take it as a gift, so why did you want it?”

He spread his hands. “Leverage.”

“Leverage…” I had a bad feeling about this. “With me?”

“Just because I won’t donate it anywhere doesn’t mean we can’t come to a business arrangement.”

“Right. What have I got that you would pay two million dollars for?”

Lex took a deep breath. Then, squaring his shoulders, he said, “Marry me.”

I hit him—and this was no “four ounces of strength against a ton of force,” calculated Tai Chi strike. This was a backhanded smack across his handsome face, swinging his head to one side, as hard and as personal as I could make it.

Maybe he’d half expected that. Other than turning back to face me, his hazel eyes cold, he didn’t move.

I did. I was up and out of that damned War Room in an instant, striding toward the kitchen table for my purse. “You spoiled, selfish bastard. You can’t take no for an answer, can you? You just can’t stand it that there’s anybody in this world who won’t give you just what you want just because you want it.”

“It’s not that,” he said softly, and I spun to face him. He stood outside the den. A wash of sunshine gave him a deceptively angelic aura. “It’s bigger than that. Bigger than us.”

“What is?” My whole body was clenched with fury. “No, wait, you can’t tell me can you? What a great basis for a marriage. How could I possibly refuse?”

“It…” He swallowed hard. “It doesn’t have to be permanent.”

“Even more tempting! You know what? I’m not going to kill you. Along with finding and saving every single goddess grail out there, and putting them together into an, an arsenal of empowerment that you people can’t even imagine, I’m devoting myself to something else. I’m going to uncover every single sick secret you and your Comitatus have vowed to keep hidden.”

I spun for the door, flipping open my cell phone, pressing the speed-dial for Lil.

“It’s about feminine power,” said Lex. “About balance.”

I spun back, alert. He looked deliberately at the phone, but I didn’t disconnect, not for him. When Lil picked up, I said softly, dangerously, “Come get me downstairs.”

Then I hung up. My own person. Leaving his sorry person.

“What I need to do,” he tried quietly, intently. “It’s important. I wish I could tell you more, but God, Maggi, it’s so very important. And I’ve found I can’t do it alone. No one man can. No one woman can. There has to be balance. I need you.”

“Without any idea what you need me for? Go screw yourself.”

“Then date me. Just for a year or two.” Something in my expression must have worried him, because he added, “Not for real. We don’t need to…I mean, no sex. Unless you wanted it of course—okay, no sex,” he edited quickly. “But we’d be a couple.”

“And in return for my escort services, you give me a two-million-dollar goddess grail,” I challenged.

“It’s the only thing I’ve found that might tempt you.”

Go figure. Another line I wouldn’t cross.

I flipped him off. Then I turned away, my throat tightening unbearably….

My throat tightening unbearably? Danger!

I spun back, ready to dodge, expecting to find him aiming a gun or throwing a knife. A movement from the spiral stairway above him told a different story. I wasn’t the one in danger.

I screamed my warning as I ran toward him. “Lex, look out!”

He turned, eyes widening, raising a defensive arm even as a figure in a black ski mask leaped down on to him—and shoved a blade deep into Lex’s ribs.