Sin and Sacrifice (7 page)

Like she was some kind of
action hero, she kicked out the screen. Moonlight gleamed off the
terracotta tiles that sloped down the short section of roof. Evelyn
went out head first, scrambling through the window frame, grasping
onto anything she could to keep herself from falling. The tiles
were more slippery than she thought they would be. The lower half
of her body slid around, stretching her out, leaving her facing the
window again on her stomach.

Not realizing Rhett was
right behind her, she gasped when he grabbed her wrist. Holding his
glittering gaze, her legs fell over the side of the roof and
dangled there. She glanced back and down to the narrow lane of sand
between the house and the fence, gauging the distance. At least the
sand would probably help break her fall.

“
Wait for me.” Just as
Rhett whispered and released her, the sound of muffled gunshots
came from the room behind him.

Evelyn let go and landed
with a grunt, falling back on her butt. Immediately, she looked
left and right for other skulking shapes in the night. She saw
none.

Rhett hurtled down like a
cat, feet first, and sprang upright with much more balance than she
had. When he grabbed for her hand she clapped it into his, biting
off a yelp of pain, and lurched to her feet. Running, they came to
the side door leading into the garage. Rhett didn't hesitate. With
a vicious kick, he shattered the lock and the door slammed inward.
He entered in a shooter's stance, gun swiveling left and right in
the gloom.

“
Get in the car.” Terse
and short, he let her go to get in the driver's side.

Running around the front,
sure that the intruder would burst into the garage any second, she
yanked at the passenger door and fell into the seat. The ends of
her fingers throbbed from the abuse she'd put them
through.

Rhett started the car and
depressed the button on the remote to roll the garage door up. He
set the gun across his lap. Reversing at high speed, he backed into
the wide alley that ran along the back of all the
residences.

Evelyn screamed when a
bullet punched through the windshield.

“
Get
down!”
Rhett bellowed. Twisted at
the waist, he braced his arm on her seat, looking backwards, and
flew in reverse down the alley.

A hail of gunshots pinged
off the car; glass cracked, threatened to shatter.

Evelyn hugged the console,
hands over her head. Something hard and plastic dug into her
ribs.

At a juncture for one of
the other homes, Rhett stomped the gas and shot them forward onto
the street.

Evelyn sat up, panting.
Shaking. “Was that them? How did they find us? I thought that was a
safe house?”

“
Hell if I know.” Rhett
looked annoyed and unhappy. Picking up the gun, he tucked it into
the shoulder holster. “I need to get in touch with my boss. We're
going to meet up with my partner and leave Athens.”

“
Leave Athens? But what
about my...friends?” She barely curtailed the impulse to call them
her sisters. The thought of leaving them sat ill with
her.

“
They'd be wise to leave
Athens, too. Since you can't get in contact with them yet, let's
hope they stay low.”

“
Where are we
going?”

“
Cairo. It's busy and I
have contacts there. Maybe these bastards won't be expecting you to
leave the country so soon and won't be watching the
docks.”

“
The docks?” Evelyn
watched Rhett instead of the road.

“
We'll take a boat over.
They could be watching the airport for all I know and I don't want
to draw attention to our movements.”

“
How do you know they're
not following us?”

“
I don't.” He dug his
phone out, pressed a button, and put it to his ear. After a moment,
he said, “Christian, it's me. They found us. Yeah. We're on the
road, heading toward the docks. Meet us as soon as you can. You
know where.”

Pushing her hair out of her
face, Evelyn looked out the window. The hour was late enough for
the traffic to run thin on the street and most of the lights they
drove through were green. She felt like there was no time to really
stop and think. No time to assess her options. She couldn't even
consult with her sisters.

Before the start of the
Crusades, there had been fourteen daughters of Eve still alive out
of the twenty-two their mother gave birth to. Fourteen women
skilled in the ways of survival and adaptation. In the very
beginning they had only known Eden, that lush, pristine place of
surreal beauty and peace. Cast out after the Incident (as Evelyn
liked to refer to it), the children of Adam and Eve adjusted to the
raw terrain of the earth. They learned to acclimate with each
decade that passed, some becoming excellent farmers, others
starting societies that would grow and expand through the
centuries. The girls had seen endless cycles of evolution, had
personally witnessed the death of Jesus, watched invasions and wars
and the rise and fall of the greatest empires on earth.

Nothing could have
prepared them for the assault they suffered at the hands of the
Knights Templar. They hadn't even known they were being hunted
until one of the sisters managed to escape and tell the tale of
torture and interrogation. The Templars wanted a radical cleansing,
a systematic purge. They wanted
all
the daughters dead.

Evelyn had never understood
how the Church could condone such heinous acts and atrocities. But
the Templars took their orders directly and thus, the sisters had
no alternative than to believe they'd been targeted. Perhaps it was
the reason the Knight who had interrogated her gave; the daughters
were suspected to be passing evil across the earth. Servants of the
serpent.

The first murder—because
that's what it was in Evelyn's mind—happened not long after the
siege on Jerusalem by Saladin. Eurijah, with her exotically dark
skin and sparkling, dark eyes, had been found dead in her humble
cottage. Signs of torture riddled her body.

Once living communally in
the same city, the sisters scattered to the winds with a plan to
meet up in the one place the Templars were unlikely to ever find
them: Eden. It became their safe haven, the one place they knew the
Knights couldn't follow them into. And so, year after year, they
made a pilgrimage to meet there. Over time, when the space between
deaths expanded to decades and centuries, they banded together
again.

“
You okay?” Rhett
asked.

Drawn out of her reverie,
she glanced over. “I just don't want anyone else to
die.”

Chapter Four

The fifteen minute drive to
the docks passed without incident. Rhett made two more calls to set
up transportation across the Mediterranean and one to his boss.
Evelyn listened while she stared out her window, arms protectively
crossed over her middle. She half expected men to start running
from shadows whenever they stopped at a red light and the tension
gave her a headache. The bullet holes in the windshield were a
constant reminder of the danger.

At the docks, Rhett parked
the car and reached into the back for a jacket. As they got out, he
pulled it on over the holster, both guns tucked into their sheaths.
He scanned the area in quick glances, on the lookout for trouble.
Evelyn had nothing but the clothes she'd worn to sleep in. The
temperate weather allowed her to go without a coat and not be
uncomfortable.

Feeling strangely
vulnerable, she met Rhett at the front of the car. The vehicle
looked like they'd just been through a minor war zone. More bullet
holes riddled the wheel wells and hood. She thought they'd been
lucky not to get hit.

The sensation of being
hunted by unseen things in the night made her crowd closer to
Rhett. She hated not knowing where or when someone might
strike.

He led her along the
swaying dock past anchored boats and bigger yachts, some with low
running lights outlining their shape. Water lapped lazily against
the hulls, a deceptively soothing sound that might have lulled her
into complacence if they hadn't just been shot at.

Rhett stopped in front of
one with tiny blue lights affixed to the decking.
“Aristo?”

She stood beside him,
glancing warily up and down the dock. It seemed empty of everyone
but them.

The yacht, with the
name
Selena Marie
scripted on the side, had three decks and appeared well kept.
It gave Evelyn the impression of comfort and speed rather than
bloated luxury. Blue and white striped deck chairs lined up near a
table with an umbrella that had been closed and tied off. Smoked
glass sat beyond that, hiding any inner layout and décor from
view.

A dark haired man,
buttoning his shirt with haste, pushed through one of the glass
doors. He blinked in a way that made her think he'd just tumbled
out of bed.

“
Mister Nichols. Ma'a--”
Aristo cut his greeting short when he saw Evelyn's battered
state.

Even in the dark, she knew
her bruises were easy to see.

“
I need you to take us to
Cairo,” Rhett said, ignoring the man's reaction. “Christian should
be here any minute. This is Miss Grant. Evelyn, Aristo.”

Evelyn smiled a tentative
greeting. Aristo speared a hand through his thinning hair and
bobbed a polite nod. He reminded her of a bird; tall, thin,
somewhat angular, with a hook in his nose and overly prominent
features. Countless hours under the sun had baked his skin into
something of a mahogany hue.

He gestured for them to
board the yacht.

Rhett helped her onto the
lowest deck while keeping a sharp eye on the night around them. She
noticed he grimaced twice and questioned him when he hopped aboard
behind her.

“
What's wrong? Is someone
out there?” She felt like her words echoed over the water even
though she whispered.

“
I don't think so.” With a
hand guiding her at the low back, he urged her past the lounge
chairs and in through the glass doors.

Done in a black and white
theme, the spacious parlor sported couches arranged in a square.
Striped pillows adorned the cushions and swags of alternating
material covered the ceiling. Warm yellow light glowed from
miniature lamps and several original looking paintings lined the
wood paneled walls. Glass made up one wall by itself, overlooking
the lowest deck and part of the dock. It was more lavish than she
would have guessed.

Rhett stalked to a wet bar
set up in the corner and fished around the cooler for water. He
brought her a bottle and had one in hand for himself.

She noticed a streak of red
on the plastic and raised it for a better look. Frowning, she
asked, “Is that...blood?”

“
Don't worry about it.” He
cracked the cap off his water and tipped his head back for a long
drink.

“
What do you mean—is it
yours?” Her gaze snapped from the bottle to Rhett. He looked like
he always did in the short time she'd known him. Strong, whole,
hale.

After he swallowed, he met
her eyes. “We'll be leaving the second Christian gets
here.”

There was another streak on
his bottle. Evelyn's eyes narrowed. “You're bleeding.
Where?”

“
I just said it's fine.”
Capping the bottle, he turned away and set it on the short, glossy
counter. When he stretched his arm, it pulled the coat open just
enough for the light to glisten off a damp spot on his
shirt.

She tugged the edge of the
jacket aside to get a better look. A swatch just above his hip
stuck to his skin. A tear in the material exposed an oozing
wound.

“
Oh my God. You've been
shot.” She felt a stab of instant guilt. He'd gotten this because
of her.

“
It's just a graze. No
need to think twice about it.” Rhett brushed the injury off like it
was nothing.

Evelyn didn't let him off
that easy. “I'm sure Aristo has a first aid kit--”

“
I don't need
anything--”

“
Stop interrupting me. Yes
you do. It'll get infected and if you don't peel the shirt away,
it'll dry like that and then you'll have to rip it off.”

She set down her water.
Snagging the top of his jacket, she peeled it off his shoulders and
down his arms. He exhaled in exasperation but allowed her to do it.
Maybe he realized she wouldn't leave it alone until he caved to her
demands. Tossing the coat over the bar, she went around behind it
to search for a kit. Barring that there was whiskey. At least it
would clean the wound.

“
Take off your shirt,” she
ordered.

Rhett arched his brows.
“You don't need to be so push--”

“
Take off your
shirt.”

The holster slid down his
arms first, and he put that on the floor. Then he stripped the snug
shirt up over his head. It smeared small stripes of blood across
the hard plane of his stomach and up his side toward his armpit.
“If you wanted to see me half naked, you could have just
asked.”