The Lost Chalice (The Relic Seekers Book 3) Read online

  Nathan brushed her cheek with his thumb. “But now the Reaper knows. He’s the one I’m worried about.”

  “We’re going to beat him, Adam . . . Nathan.” The slip surprised them both. His eyes locked on hers, and something passed between them. Nathan wasn’t the little boy she had adored. He was a man. A handsome, powerful, and very sexy man.

  Jake.

  The name whispered through her mind, as if he were beside her, glaring at her thought. “All three of us, you, me, and Jake. Five of us, including Marco and Raphael, unless they’re retiring or something, which I hope they’re not, since we don’t have any idea what keepers and guardians really do. We’ll stop him. We have to.”

  “Let’s get the water and get out. The sooner we can get some answers from Raphael about what happened in that portal, the better.” They walked to the stone wheel on the wall, which controlled the opening in the floor that led to the fountain. It was similar to the etching in the tunnel and the tattoo on Nathan’s arm. “Do you want to open it?” Nathan asked. “Or shall I?”

  “I will.” Kendall stepped up to the wall and placed her hands on the wheel. The sensation hit her with the force of a storm. He had to find the Holy Grail. It was the only way to save her. Kendall’s head swam with the intensity of the strange thought, and her body felt as if it weren’t hers. A raw burst of energy caught her off guard and flung her aside. The sensations worsened, as if her body were separating from her head. She heard Nathan calling her name, and when she could focus, she saw him reaching for her, but he seemed to be fading. He cursed and lunged for her, wrapping his arms tight around her.

  “Bloody hell. Not again.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  JAKE TOOK ANOTHER sip of soup and stared at Raphael. No doubt about it. He was snoring. It was comforting in a way. Made him seem ordinary, not like the centuries-old being he was. Better have him snore—even fart—than walk through walls. What was a normal guy to do with that? How was a normal guy supposed to stand a chance with Kendall when Nathan was around? Adam. Jake grunted and moved to take another sip, hitting his tooth on the spoon. He frowned and put the soup down. It was bad enough when Nathan was just a handsome billionaire. Now he was a handsome billionaire who was the lost love of Kendall’s childhood, and he had superpowers. Don’t forget the damned superpowers. And here Jake was sitting in a room drinking soup while they were off exploring like they had when they were best friends. Rekindling old feelings . . . and who knew what else. This would bring them closer than ever.

  No way in hell he could beat that. What did he have in his corner? Good sex with her. Really good sex. Amazing sex. That wasn’t enough. He’d acted like an ass when he’d first met her, doubting her, coming on to her like a pervert to keep her at a distance. Which hadn’t worked. She’d seen right through him. But he still didn’t stand a chance. Kendall would probably start acting awkward and distant, and then she’d dump him. Dump him? They weren’t even dating. Not really.

  “Damn it.” What was wrong with him? He was acting like a lovesick teenager. He wished Raphael would wake up and get mad again just so he could fight someone and get this bullshit out of his head. Women were nothing but trouble.

  But Raphael didn’t wake up, and Jake sat and thought about Kendall while his heart twisted in his chest. After a couple of hours, he was getting worried, stir-crazy, and bored. So bored he was leaning over Raphael, close enough that he could have counted his eyelashes, wondering whether to hit him and wake him, when someone knocked on the door. It wasn’t Fergus’s knock. Kendall. Maybe they’d forgotten the room key.

  He hurried to the door, but it wasn’t Kendall. It was the irritating little boy who’d gotten tangled up in the search for the Fountain of Youth. The kid had found a dead body, gotten stuck in a priest hole, and witnessed a kidnapping. Apparently he was back for more. “Art.”

  “Hey.”

  “Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

  “I can’t sleep. I’m excited.” Art stuck his hands in his pockets. “I wanted to talk to somebody.”

  “I’m kind of busy.” Jake felt bad for the kid. He was annoying as hell, but Jake remembered what it felt like to want someone to talk to. He’d been lonely and closed off until he’d met Lilly, his friend at the orphanage in India.

  “Oh.” Art’s face scrunched up, making his freckles look like they were moving. “I thought you were alone. I saw Guinevere and the other knight leave.”

  “Guinevere?”

  “The blond woman. I guess she’s Guinevere, not the redheaded lady like I thought at first. Guinevere wouldn’t steal the chalice.”

  Brandi was the redheaded lady, and she had stolen the Blue Chalice in hopes it was the Holy Grail. But it wasn’t. “They should have been back by now. So what were they doing, the knight and Guinevere?”

  “Their heads were real close.”

  “Kissing?”

  “Yuck. No, talking. I think. Then they got in the car. The red-haired lady was watching them.”

  “Did she follow them?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Jake felt a twinge of panic. Brandi knew the location of the fountain, and she wanted it destroyed like the other relics. If she followed Kendall and Nathan, she could steal one of their crosses and get inside the temple. But Jake couldn’t see Brandi taking on Nathan and Kendall with their Protettori abilities. Nathan still freaked her out. Still . . . she had said she’d kill anyone in her way.

  Jake rubbed a hand through his hair. “I’ve got to go do something.”

  “Can I come?” Art asked.

  “No. Go to sleep. Your mom must be worried.”

  “She took a sleeping pill. She’ll be out for hours.”

  What about Raphael? He couldn’t leave him alone. He’d called Fergus earlier, but he hadn’t answered. He and Marco were probably exhausted after their narrow escape from the Reaper. Jake looked at Art. No way. Kendall would kill him if he let Art babysit Raphael. “I changed my mind. I need your help after all.”

  Art perked up. “What do you want me to do?”

  “You know which room the older men with us were staying in?”

  “You mean Merlin and the man in the suit, Fergie?”

  “Fergus, not Fergie.”

  “I like Fergie better. It reminds me of Frankie.”

  Frankie was Art’s pet snake. “You can take that up with Fergus, though I’m not sure he’ll like being nicknamed after a snake. You know which room they’re in?” Art nodded, and Jake suspected the kid knew who was in every room. “Ask them to come here and keep an eye on Raphael.”

  “Is Raphael another knight?”

  “Uh, yeah. He’s hurt. Remember your promise,” Jake said. “Secrecy.”

  Art held up his fingers in the Scout’s salute. “I’m not gonna tell anyone but Frankie.”

  Jake returned the salute, and at the last second, he clapped Art on the shoulder. “Camelot is depending on you. Hurry.”

  As soon as Art left, Jake checked on Raphael, grabbed his pack, and drove the rental car to the Tor. Nathan’s car was still parked there. Jake couldn’t think of any good reason for that. Maybe Brandi had kidnapped them. Or killed them. Or the Reaper had come back. Or maybe Kendall and Nathan were reacquainting themselves in private.

  Jake ran so fast up the long path, he was out of breath by the time he reached the hidden entrance to the mountain. Moving quietly, he followed the passageway to the engraved wheel marking the door to the secret temple that housed the Fountain of Youth. After checking to make sure he had his cross, he pushed the catch. The door opened, and Jake stepped inside.

  The place reminded him of a Roman temple, with stone floors and walls and columns throughout. The only light came from a faint glow in the floor, where hidden steps led to the Fountain of Youth. There were three rooms, the large central room, the smaller room where Nathan had been held captive by Ra
phael, and the room containing the three marble tombs.

  Statues were spaced evenly around the perimeter of the temple like an elaborate version of Stonehenge. But according to Marco, these weren’t just chunks of stone. They had once been living men, ancient guardians—like Raphael—but had been turned to sentinels. Jake didn’t know if that were true, but he knew they could kill a man.

  How they could be turned from flesh to stone and why they hadn’t died were more questions on the growing list of things Marco and Raphael hadn’t fully explained.

  “Kendall? Nathan?” No one answered. Where were they? Jake approached the wheel that opened the floor to the fountain. Kendall’s scent still lingered, so he knew she’d been here. How could he have missed them? He hadn’t seen anyone on his way here. Had they gotten trapped down by the fountain? He grabbed the wheel. It was cold against his fingers and palms. As the wheel turned, a section of the floor began to open, and the light grew brighter as the Fountain of Youth was revealed. Jake hurried down the wide steps to the pool of water, which was fed by two streams flowing from the wall into a bowl that overflowed into the pool. One stream was stained red, the other white. The light was strongest in the bowl, but otherwise it was ordinary looking. Simple. But this bowl wasn’t ordinary. It was the Fountain of Youth.

  Jake was more concerned about what wasn’t here. Kendall and Nathan. Jake went back up the steps to search the rest of the temple, and he noticed something that made his heart wrench with fear.

  Raphael’s vial lay behind a table near the wheel.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE THIN METAL container lay on its side as if someone had dropped it. Was it the same vial, or did Raphael keep others here? Jake picked it up and turned it over. A single drop of water ran out, and he knew in his gut that it was the one Kendall had brought to refill.

  Jake checked the rest of the temple, putting the room with the tombs off until last. There was something about the room that made him sick. There were three tombs of black marble, which most likely held the remains of King Arthur and Guinevere, whose bones had disappeared along with the treasure that the monks of the abbey protected. Legend said their tombs were made of black marble. The third tomb was a mystery. Merlin’s? A knight’s?

  Jake felt the same twisting in his stomach and head as he had the first time he’d seen the room. Bones, that must be it. He hated them, and tombs this old must contain bones. Kendall and Nathan weren’t in this room either. There must be another room, or rooms. The Protettori loved secret rooms. And booby traps. Kendall and Nathan could be trapped somewhere.

  He searched every square inch of the place, but didn’t find them or any secret rooms. Either they’d gone exploring somewhere else, been kidnapped, or vanished into thin air.

  Vanishing into thin air didn’t seem likely, so that left exploring or kidnapping. Jake couldn’t see them exploring when Raphael was lying injured, waiting for the water. That narrowed it down to kidnapping. Nathan had enemies, as any man in his position of wealth and power would, but there were only two who knew this location. The Reaper and Brandi. The Reaper was the most likely candidate since Brandi didn’t have a cross to get her past the statues. Of course, she wouldn’t need a cross if she touched Kendall or Nathan as they passed. Jake didn’t see Brandi taking on Nathan and Kendall so soon after they had all escaped the Reaper. Brandi was scared of Nathan. Had the Reaper come back through the portal?

  The thought had just crossed Jake’s mind when he heard a whisper coming from the main room of the temple. Pulling his gun, he slipped out to see who was there. The temple was empty, other than the whispers, soft at first, growing louder and faster until they created a hum like the statues made. It gave him an eerie feeling, as if the statues were talking to each other. He took the vial and walked down the steps to the fountain again. Raphael needed water, and right now he was Jake’s only source of help, since Marco was out of his head half the time.

  Jake filled the vial and closed the opening to the fountain. Carefully holding the precious water, he started to leave the temple. As he passed the statues, he heard a sizzle. Pain shot through him like a bolt of lightning, flinging him across the floor. He lay there, unable to move as blackness descended and the smell of ozone filled his nostrils.

  When he regained consciousness, it took him a minute to figure out he was still inside the temple. His head and body felt like they were on fire. Near the doorway, the closest statue watched him with stone eyes. The statues. They must have zapped him when he tried to pass. Why hadn’t the cross protected him? He lifted his hand, the only part he could move, to his chest. The cross wasn’t there.

  He should be dead. He tried sitting up, but he couldn’t, so he lay still, gasping for breath. Something warm ran from the corner of his mouth. He touched it with his tongue. Blood. That’s why his insides felt like they’d been fried. They had. He coughed and felt another trickle of blood. He was hemorrhaging internally. He was going to die.

  He’d survived war and countless enemies, only to be killed by statues? Kendall’s face filled his mind. Her lovely green eyes, her smile, the catch of her breath as they’d made love. He’d finally tasted love and lost it. Dammit. He couldn’t leave her alone. His throat worked, and he started to choke on the blood.

  Kendall wasn’t alone. She had Nathan. He would protect her. But Nathan needed him too. They were both in trouble. Jake put his hands against the floor and tried again to push himself up. He felt something hard in his left hand. The vial of water. Moving stiffly, he raised his hand to his mouth and did the only thing he could think of. He opened the vial and drank.

  He didn’t know how long he’d been out, but he wasn’t dead. Jake sat up and moved his legs. They worked. What the hell? He even managed to stand. Something rolled across the floor. Raphael’s vial. Drinking the water must have kept him alive. But without a cross, he was trapped.

  He gathered his backpack, which had been knocked off when he fell, and retraced his steps, but didn’t find the cross. Impossible. It couldn’t have vanished. He looked at the statues watching in silence. “Don’t suppose one of you has an extra cross?” he asked. Then he was struck by a thought. Assuming the tombs contained the corpses of knights, they must have had crosses. Perhaps they were buried with them.

  He dreaded going into the room again, but he had to get out of this temple so he could search for Kendall and Nathan. He looked at the first two tombs. King Arthur and Guinevere? Jake was hesitant to open those. He’d idolized King Arthur when he was a kid. It didn’t seem right to desecrate his tomb. Nor Guinevere’s. Mentally Jake was drawing a comparison to her and Kendall after the visions he’d had of the couple from Camelot while he and Kendall were making love. Since Kendall had called him Lancelot afterward, Jake was pretty sure the woman in the vision had been Guinevere. He had no concrete explanation, but he assumed he must have tapped into Kendall’s vision when he touched her.

  Swallowing his dread, he walked back into the room and looked at the first tomb. Now wasn’t the time to be courteous. If anyone would have a cross, it should be King Arthur.

  The black marble was still shiny, which was surprising. He couldn’t imagine Raphael polishing the tombs. The covering was heavy. Pushing and tugging didn’t work, so he decided he must be going about the process wrong. Using his knife, he slid the blade around the edges, searching for a catch. The Protettori loved secret catches. He was surprised when he heard a click.

  This time when he pushed the covering, it slid back without a sound. Jake looked down at the corpse inside. It wasn’t King Arthur.

  It was Nathan.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  JAKE STARED AT the body in shock. Nathan was wearing some kind of strange clothes. The Reaper must have caught them here. Where was Kendall? Pulse drumming in his ears, Jake hurried to the second tomb and, with trembling hands, used his knife again to find the catch. When the lid slid back, his heart stopped.

  Ke
ndall’s eyes were closed, but she didn’t look dead. He pressed his fingers to the cold skin of her neck in search of a pulse. Nothing. A harsh cry rose in his throat. “No, dammit. You can’t be dead.” He started to lift her out of the tomb when he noticed her fingernails. They were long. Kendall’s nails weren’t long. And these clothes weren’t right. He scoured her face and body and noticed other things that were different. The corpse’s lips weren’t as full as Kendall’s. Her eyebrows were thicker. It wasn’t her.

  He felt light-headed with relief. But who was she? He looked at the first tomb again, and felt the same shock at seeing Nathan, or his likeness. This time Jake recognized the corpse’s clothes. He’d seen them on King Arthur in a vision.

  How could that be? Unless it was one of the Protettori’s traps, a mental one to make trespassers hallucinate and go insane. Kendall had mentioned myths about men getting trapped inside the Tor and losing their minds. Or maybe he was dead and this was hell. If it was, he wasn’t planning on staying here. He needed a cross. A quick search revealed that there wasn’t one on Nathan’s or Kendall’s—he didn’t want to think of them as corpses—likenesses.

  He stepped over to the third tomb, and his stomach rolled with waves of nausea. Swallowing, he opened the tomb and looked inside. His jaw dropped. “Why the hell not?”

  It was him.

  He was so well preserved he didn’t even look dead. Like the corpses in the first two tombs, the clothing was old, but the face was enough like Jake’s to be him, or at least a brother. There were slight differences. Haircut, scars that Jake didn’t have. Was this a joke? The closer his fingers got to the body, the higher the contents of his stomach climbed up his throat, but he didn’t stop. By the time he finished searching his corpse, his stomach felt like he’d dived off a cliff. He stepped back and pulled in a hard breath. The search hadn’t helped. There wasn’t a cross in any of the tombs. He’d have to find another way out. Stomach churning, he closed the tombs. Later, after he escaped, he would figure out who the hell the corpses were.