Immortal Hope (2 page)

Azazel lunged with a bellow of rage. One viselike hand caught her arm. Giving her a fierce jerk, he dragged her closer. She fought off a panicked scream and chanted louder, pushed her thoughts into a far corner of her mind where all she knew was the protection of the words, the power of the Almighty’s divine light.

Fury burned behind his soulless stare. “You will tell me.”

“No!”

He thrust her away like a rag doll. The power of his mighty arm flung her into the opposite wall. Searing pain split her head. An unmistakable
crack
knifed agony through her body as her ribs shattered. She crumpled to the ground with the broken whisper, “God, help me.”

“If
he
cared, he would not abandon you here. Tell me where I will find the nail, and I shall take away your pain. I care for you, witch. He does not.”

She knew better than to believe Azazel’s lies. He would remove the pain as he snuffed her life. Defiant, she gritted her teeth and struggled to her knees.

Azazel snatched her into his icy embrace. His face inches from hers, his malevolent gaze scored in to touch her soul. He set his hand over her heart. Gentle strokes aroused her flesh, his touch strangely warm and comforting. Azazel whispered near her ear, “I’ll take care of you, witch. Whatever he has promised, I shall grant in double.”

His thoughts caressed hers. Tempting. Taunting. Enticing her to yield to his wickedness. To surrender her faith and with it, grant him power. She was captivated by the hypnotic effect, and her fortitude faltered. It would be so easy to succumb. Perhaps he spoke the truth. If she revealed the relic, would he grant an eternity of peace?

“Tell me, and I shall make you young again.”

Sudden sense jarred her from Azazel’s trance. He spoke lies. Trickery was all Azazel knew. Stiffening against his tender touch, she glared through her fear. “I’d rather die.”

Thin lips pulled back in a sneer. Laughter erupted from his throat. The pitiful wails of thousands of trapped souls filled the room. “As you wish.”

Abigail screamed as his fingers dug through flesh, snapped through bone. Blood blanketed her body with warmth and poured down the length of his unholy arm. Helpless, she watched his stare spark with delight.

Unconsciousness fingered at her mind. She pushed past it and summoned the last of her strength. On a ragged breath, she cried, “Gabriel, unveil the seraphs!”

CHAPTER
1

Kansas City, Missouri

November

Things kept secret are revealed.

Anne MacPherson held the solitary High Priestess card in both hands. Her brow furrowed as she recited the tarot card’s meaning for the dozenth time. Over the years, she’d had odd cards crop up for her daily self-reading, but this one beat them all. And it hadn’t just turned up once. Beyond the solitary draw she began each morning with, she’d done several readings in between clients, and the High Priestess showed up in every one. Always in the position of what lay in the near future.

She was about to learn secrets. With the day half gone, the chances of that being true rapidly dwindled. A night of unpacking the boxes in her new house’s basement didn’t look too promising for prophecy fulfillment either.

Unless, by some odd chance, she stumbled across some mystical object the old witch rumored to have lived in the brick Victorian had stashed away. Again, highly unlikely. Especially since thieves had ransacked the house after the woman’s death. They’d even knocked in the wall searching for her spell book, according to Gabe, her boss and much-adored house finder.

“Anne?” Gabe Anderson called from the shop’s front room. “You about ready to lock up for the night?”

“Yeah.” She tossed the card on to the top of her deck and stood up. “Coming.” She gave the High Priestess another frown before she gathered her purse and jacket. Secrets.
Right.

Ducking under the heavy curtain that divided the shop’s retail section from the reading room, Anne found Gabe hunched over the counter, fiddling with a small brown box. As she approached, he tucked thick gray dreadlocks over his shoulder and smiled. “How’s your sister? Did she get back to California okay? I’ve been thinking about her a lot.”

Anne just bet he’d been thinking about her. With the way he’d fawned over Sophie last week, he probably did a lot more than
thinking
about her fraternal twin. Of course, that was the way things went with Sophie. Anne had yet to meet a man who didn’t harbor some fantasy about her drop-dead-gorgeous sister.

She shrugged. “Sophie’s fine. She has some charity gala coming up right after Thanksgiving. I guess the emcee canceled at the last minute, and she’s been tearing out her hair to replace him.”

“Well. Maybe this will cheer her up.” Gabe pushed the small box in front of Anne.

She glanced down and squinted. Gabe’s elegant handwriting covered the wrapping with fancy loops and swirls. He’d addressed it to Sophie’s Malibu home. Anne groaned inwardly. Just what she needed—her boss fawning over her sister. “What’s this?”

“One of these.” He reached under the counter and produced a clunky gold bracelet. “I found this when I was in St. Louis yesterday. Since you’re doing your doctoral thesis on the Knights Templar, I thought you might like it.”

Wrinkling her nose, Anne took a half step back. Gabe had an uncanny way of picking up old objects that had some misplaced spirit attached to them. For a man so in tune with the metaphysical world, he sucked at reading energy. Gingerly, she took the bracelet between thumb and forefinger and held it at arm’s length.

When a vision of some previous owner didn’t immediately assault her, she closed her fingers around the ornament and brought it closer. What she had mistaken for gold was brass. Veins of black patina etched out a series of intricate scales around the large loop, forming two serpentine heads that joined nose to nose. Two small rubies served as eyes. Atop the smooth heads, two inlaid crimson crosses identically matched the Templar mark in her basement door. Though meticulously crafted, the artistry was crude, and the piece obviously held a tremendous amount of age. “St. Louis?” She held it up to the light, assessing the odd play of color in the snakes’ scales. Energy rippled beneath the metallic surface, a pulse Gabe had evidently missed. Yet it laid dormant, content to keep its identity hidden. Not too terribly threatened, she tried the trinket on.

Gabe’s weathered features crinkled with a mischievous smile. “Yep. You like it?”

“It’s interesting.” And too big for her wrist. The heavy piece rested at the base of her thumb. If she tucked her thumb against her palm, she’d bet it would fall off without encouragement. She tested the theory, dismayed when the bracelet tumbled to the floor.

A quiet chuckle made her glance up. Gabe shook his head, amused. “It’s not a bracelet, Anne. It’s an armband. And it’s quite old.”

“Armband?” Curious, Anne picked up the adornment and slipped it back on. She pushed it over her elbow and higher, until it came to a neat, snug fit above her bicep. “How old?”

Gabe winked at her. “You study it tonight. Tell me later.”

His meaning went unsaid. He knew if she studied it long enough she could identify those who had possessed it before. Doing so would take time and concentration, however. A task better left to late-night entertainment after she unpacked her boxes. And after she caught up on the research she’d neglected for the last two weeks.

“Okay.” She tapped the package. “This is the same thing?”

“Black eyed, but yes.”

Anne fingered the serpents’ tiny gemstones. Fitting. And just like Gabe. Red to match her hair, black to match Sophie’s. She dropped the package into her purse.

“By the way.” He turned around and punched in the store’s security code. “I have to leave town for a while. I’m not sure how long.” He slid her a sideways glance that set Anne’s instincts on alert. She reflexively stiffened.

“I know things are tight financially right now, Anne. I’ve arranged for you to receive your usual weekly pay, but I’m closing the shop for a while.”

Anne’s eyebrows lifted. “What? I can run things here, you know. I don’t feel right about taking money I haven’t earned.” Despair tightened her chest. Though she didn’t feel comfortable with the generous offer, she had more important things at stake. Two weeks ago, she’d run into a stranger with a particularly old soul at the library. When the woman discovered Anne read past lives, she begged for Anne’s card and promised to come in for a reading. Anne felt certain the woman had some link to early medieval France, and since meeting her, Anne had been unable to think about anything else. If Gabe closed the store, she would miss the opportunity to discover what was essentially a firsthand account of the exact era her thesis depended on.

Gabe shook his head as he took her elbow and guided her toward the front door. “No. Take some time for yourself. I know the semester is in full swing at the college. You’ve got papers coming in from your students, I’m sure, what with Thanksgiving break next week. You can relax and really move into the new house too.”

“But—”

He cut her off with a hard stare. “No arguing. You’ve let your research slip to make time for this store of mine. You’ve got an interesting theory, and I won’t see you jeopardize your PhD.”

Steering her through the exit, he pulled the front shade and locked the door. He leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Go on home. Enjoy a paid vacation. Get that thesis finished. Tell me what you learn about those crosses and how they came to be there when I get back.”

Before she could stutter another protest, he shut himself inside his car. With a hearty wave of his hand, he started the ignition.

Anne grumbled as she unlocked her Honda Civic’s door. Sometimes Gabe Anderson could be the most frustrating man on earth. She’d worked for him for a year—long enough to learn when he set his mind to something, there was no changing it. With a heavy sigh, she slid behind the steering wheel and tossed her purse onto the passenger’s seat.

He was right on several accounts. She
did
have a stack of research papers waiting on her desk. There wasn’t much else she could do with the house once she finished her unpacking. Fresh paint and wallpaper adorned all the walls. In her favorite colors too—a surprise Anne had gushed over when Gabe first took her to view the Atchison, Kansas, landmark. He was also right about the financial aspect. She counted herself lucky the house had stigma attached to it. Yet while murder dropped prices, the payments left little bargaining room in her budget.

Then there was the matter of her thesis. When she’d developed the premise that the Knights Templar were deliberately sabotaged by the medieval Catholic Church, it had seemed an easy statement to prove. Using the accepted theory that the Templars found something beneath the Temple Mount, she was able to prove their early rise in power tied directly to the Church and backers within the clergy. She’d even been able to nail out proof that the same rise in power and unique freedoms the Templar Order enjoyed came from hush money. In addition, enough evidence lurked between the lines of recorded fact to prove their last grand master was the Church’s pawn. But with most of the documentation about the Order’s demise lost to time, her driving theory hinged on discovering
what
the Order had found—something no one in history had ever been able to discover. As such, her paper was at a dead standstill, unless she could find the evidence through the metaphysical.

If she didn’t manage to prove the statement by Christmas break, Dr. Phillip Knowles would retire, and she could kiss the position as head of the History Department good-bye. As Dr. Knowles’ protégée, and the foremost expert on medieval France despite her relative youth, it had been conditionally promised to her.

She turned the key and backed out of the alley lot. Sometimes she hated the drive back to Atchison. But working at a Catholic college dictated she hide her association with the occult. And she loved guiding people through spiritual journeys. She used the cards as a mask to her true talent, which came with touch. One clasp of the hand with the appropriate focus, and she could see her clients’ past, present, and immediate future. More than once, she’d made a
real
difference to people in need.

Then there was the fact that twice she’d found trinkets in Gabe’s store that held some attachment to the Middle Ages and the Knights Templar. The possibility she might find a piece that would answer, once and for all, why the Church had eradicated the Order kept her driving back and forth.

Maybe this bracelet would tell her something important. She’d spend some time with it when she got home. If it told her anything, she could justify putting off grading papers for another night.

The miles passed as she envisioned the bracelet’s possible originations. Egypt, Rome, China … all favored the serpent in some portion of culture. But the Templar cross dated the thing as more modern. Only, by the time the Templar reigned, snakes had lost their divinity, assuming instead the symbol of the devil. Had the bracelet been some sort of alms or payment given to the Order? It wasn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility they would have marked it with their insignia to keep something so obviously old within the membership.

She chuckled. What would Gabe say if he knew the tattoo on her ankle bore a striking resemblance to his gift? Two intertwined snakes, both circling her ankle in opposite directions. Although hers were black and lacked the curious crosses on their heads.

Still laughing to herself, she swung past Atchison’s post office and dropped Sophie’s present into the drive-through box. Her sister would get a kick out of the thing. While she hated to listen to Anne babble about the Templar, Sophie loved anything old. Anne would ask to change bracelets with her later and see if her sister’s had anything important to share.

Inside the two-story, brick Victorian, the smell of fresh paint welcomed Anne home. She inhaled deeply, searching for the lingering undertones of vanilla that mingled with the aroma. She’d never been able to identify where the scent came from, but it hung in the air, a comfort each time she walked through the door.