Authors: Susan Squires
“
Is there anything I can get you?” Kemble asked.
“
If you could call a courier to take the blood samples into the lab, that would be great,” she said in a low voice as the others made their way from the room.
“
How about I get a lab set up in the office wing here?” Kemble asked.
Dr. Tanet looked surprised.
“You’d need a technician, equipment. . . .”
“
Make me a list and I’ll have it arranged within a couple of hours.” Kemble might look tired, but he also exuded determination. Jane was so proud of him at that moment.
As he closed the door on Dr. Tanet and Brian, Kemble drew her in against his side. The rest of the family was gathering in the living room. Kemble pushed her up against the wall where the family couldn’t see them. Nothing had ever felt so
sustaining as his hard body against hers. She looked up at him, which was a good thing, because he was already descending for a kiss and he took her mouth with a need that wrenched something inside her. His tongue penetrated her mouth as if he was memorizing her from the inside out. She was drenched with longing. Running her arms up over his shoulders, she kissed him back, willing him to understand just how much she loved him, needed him, would be there for him in any circumstances, even though she’d never told him that.
“
God, Jane. If I didn’t have Miles to see and a laboratory to set up on no notice, you would be in danger of a very demanding session of lovemaking.” His voice was a raw growl.
“
I’m going to hold you to that promise, later,” she whispered to him.
With a wrench they broke away from each other. He was blinking rapidly. They were apparently both shell
-shocked by the instant conflagration between them. Jane felt a little guilty. How could she be thinking about sex with Kemble when his father was so ill? A guilty look crossed his face as well.
“
Sometimes,” she whispered, “sex is like an affirmation of life in the midst of illness.”
He sho
ok his head, chuckling under his breath. “You are too wise for my own good.”
“
I think you’ve got that quotation wrong,” she said doubtfully.
He grinned at her then sobered.
“Once we get settled I . . . I need to talk to you.”
That sounded ominous.
“In the meantime, I need to get busy.”
“
Of course.” She nodded. “I’ll see to the family.” Even though what she really wanted was to ravish the eldest son. Or hear what he had to say to her that made him look so serious. Was he having second thoughts about their marriage? It didn’t seem so from his kiss. But something must be wrong between them.
*****
“What?” Morgan snapped. “What did you say?” Mumbling bad news didn’t change it.
Jason cleared his throat nervously.
“They’ve moved him to the estate,” he repeated.
“
How can they just take a man who’s in a coma home?” she railed.
“
They’ve got a doc going out there. They apparently equipped a room in the house in a matter of hours last night. . . . How I don’t know. They took him out by ambulance at five in the morning according to the log.” Jason was practically babbling for a man of such few words.
“
You should have been there. You could have. . . .” She stopped pacing. What could they have done? An attack in the middle of a hospital that was busy at all hours of the day?
She stilled herself. She didn’t want to take them out piecemeal anyway. Her brain started to click over.
Maybe this was better anyway.
“
Hardwick!”
He stuck his head in through the doorway to the room they were using as a temporary office in the hotel suite.
“Get Phil back from Santa Barbara. He’s to bring the girl with him.” She turned to Jason. “Get me a schematic of the Breakers.” Both men disappeared to do her will.
“
Rick?” she yelled.
The young man who could
rust metal was new to the Clan, but would be useful. He came galloping down the hall from the bunkroom they’d set up when they took over a whole floor of the Mondrian. “Gather the others and send them in,” she said. “You go check the weapons.” He looked surprised. And he didn’t move.
“
Go!” she hissed, making sweeping movements with her hands. “Jason, get the list he gave us of the powers each one of them have. Once we breach security we have to take out the cowgirl who can send everyone to sleep, the one who can melt metal, of course and the girl who does . . . whatever it is she does to reality. They’re the dangerous ones.”
“
What about the kid with power over water?”
“
He’s not going to bring a wave down over the only home he’s ever known. Now get going. I want pictures of the dangerous ones to circulate, so our crew will know who they are.”
As Jason turned on his heel, Morgan
went to stand in front of the three precious objects on the big dining room table. She would take the Wand. If they had that, they didn’t really need the Sword. And she was loath to let even her most loyal followers wield it. Loyal didn’t mean they couldn’t be tempted by power. What about the Cup? What did it do? Was it a weapon like the other Talismans, or was its use primarily to amplify the powers inherent in the Clan DNA? Better leave it in the limousine if she wasn’t sure. It might work against her if she somehow triggered its power incorrectly.
Morgan felt herself slide into something that felt like a
trance or a vision. She could see the dominoes of her future falling away, each knocking over the next in a series of events that would bring her to her triumph. Tonight the Tremaines would die in their own house. There would be no one to stop her the way they’d foiled her last assault on the European banking system. The smile rose up from her belly to her lips. Then she’d start down the list of all those dead warriors Hardwick had found, step up the search for the Pentacle, and bring that sweet boy out of the monastery in Greece. As each domino fell it brought her closer to that final gateway beyond which her power was limitless, her riches uncountable, and her body eternal. She would be a god in every sense of the word. Millions would worship at her feet. And most important of all, she’d never grow old and feeble again.
Immortality.
Wasn’t that what every human craved, and had since time immemorial?
It would be hers. The future belonged to M
organ Le Fay, starting tonight.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“
Apologies, Mrs. Clark,” Kemble murmured as the nurse huffed out the front door. “It’s a little difficult for my mother to let anyone else take care of the family. I’ll see that your superior gets a first-rate report from us.”
Rita didn’t deign to answer.
His mother had dismissed the nursing service. Kemble ran his hands over the stubble on his chin. It was too painful for her to realize she needed a nurse to help tend him. When his mother got hysterical and angry, they all saw the writing on the wall. Jane and Keelan had practiced with the crash cart, the suction machine. They knew what to do if Senior flat-lined—the paddles, the injection of epinephrine. They knew the dosage of
Succinylcholine
needed to induce paralysis for tracheal intubation if they couldn’t unblock an airway that had gotten clogged. Kemble was surprised at Keelan’s fortitude. He wasn’t surprised at Jane, of course.
So here they were, at two a.m., on their own with a man in a medically induced coma due to brain trauma. Had he been insane to bring Senior home?
At least everyone was under the same roof. Maggie and Tristram were occupying Keelan’s old room with Jesse. He didn’t want them even as far away as their apartments over the garage. He was actually surprised when Tristram didn’t argue on that one. Tristram’s old room had been turned into the gym
some time ago. Lanyon was down there now. When Kemble looked in on him, he was working out with such ferocity Kemble was afraid he was going to burst a tendon or something. Jane was on duty with Senior. Keelan and Devin were out back on the terrace. If he couldn’t surf, at least Devin needed to hear the waves breaking on the cliff below. Being cooped up here was probably even harder on him than the rest of them. Water was his life. Tamsen had gone to bed, finally. He hoped she got some rest. He glanced up the stairs. He’d better check on Drew and Michael. He trudged up the stairs to Drew’s old room and knocked on the door.
“
Come in,” Michael growled. He sat up in bed, naked to the waist.
“
Did I wake you?” Kemble said as he slid into the room.
Michael
shook his head, and switched the bedside light on. Drew was lying next to him, curled up in a little ball, her eyes shut tight. That looked bad. She’d been deteriorating all day. Her control of her visions was fraying with all the strain.
Kemble just looked at Michael.
Michael rubbed Drew’s back and gave her a pat, murmuring something soothing. Then he rose. Kemble motioned him over to the window, well away from the king-sized bed with the indigo duvet covered in crescent moons and stars.
“
Getting worse?” Kemble asked.
Michael nodded.
“She’ll get some control back eventually. But right now they’re just crashing over her.”
“
More funeral?”
“
Not so much. Just flashing images. Black starry nights she thinks are important, a huge fire with neon lights, some building that looks like a monastery or a church or something, a beach with Tammy on it, some guy who looks like you but isn’t.”
“
Wow.”
“
The list goes on. That’s the problem.” Michael actually looked like shit. “If only I could do something for her.” He made as if to pound the wall, but stopped short. “Damn it!” His voice drained away to despair. “How much longer can she take this?” He took a huge breath. “Sorry.”
“
I think I almost know how you feel. Hard to not be able to protect her from that.”
“
You come to see if I could Find the Chalice?” He shook his head. “They must have that guy who can Cloak things hiding it. I’m getting nothing.”
“
I know.” Kemble pressed his lips together for a moment. “Actually, I came up to consult you about something else.”
“
Okay.” Michael sounded wary.
“
Hey, not trying to get out of responsibility here,” Kemble assured him. “It’s just . . . well, I can see where Morgan might have known the Cup was in the exhibition. They could have traced it to Charlemagne, starting with that French manuscript that was stolen. Once she knew it belonged to Charlemagne, the rest is self-evident. But how did she show up just after we’d disabled the security and essentially opened the door for her?”
Michael chewed his lip.
“Guess that’s too much of a coincidence.”
“
What do you think?”
“
Pretty much what you do. That’s bad.”
“
I know.”
“
Edwards? I’d hate to think. . . .”
“
One of his men, I’d guess, or. . . .” Kemble hesitated to say it.
“
Not one of the family.”
“
No.”
“
Did Miles know? He was here to sign the papers for Redmond Industries.”
“
That was the day before.”
“
I guess it must have been Edwards’ men, then,” Michael said reluctantly. “Or. . . .”
Kemble
didn’t want to say what he was thinking any more than Michael did. But all thought of betrayal faded as he felt something drain away inside him. The room receded. Michael looked far away. A humming in Kemble’s ears, unnoticed in the natural course of the day, was very loud in the stillness surrounding him. Then it sighed into silence. Kemble felt the energy in his body go with it. The room around him faded. He was there, in the helix of code, as it collapsed. He reached for the wall to steady himself.
“
What’s wrong?” Michael asked, from the end of a long tunnel.
What was
wrong? He reached out with his mind, searching for the broken code. “The security system,” he choked, “just went off.”
“
My God,” Michael said, looking around, suddenly alert.
Kemble ha
d to get hold of himself. They had little time to prepare. He shook his head, hard, and pounded the wall. The room shuddered back into focus. He blinked at Michael. “Get Drew down to the wine cellar. Use the back stairs. Collect Kee and Dev on your way. They’re out on the terrace.” Michael was already in motion. “I’ll alert Tris.” He lunged for the door without waiting for an answer and pounded down the hall.
“
Tris!” He shoved open the door to Kee’s old room.