Lucifer's Crown (23 page)

He was wearing only his jeans. The corners of his mouth were soft and the light sparkled on his cheeks. He'd been crying.

Rose's heart melted. She opened her arms, wanting to comfort him, to feel his skin beneath her hands ... A noise echoed from the far end of the hall. Robin was coming to get them. He'd laugh at Mick for crying. She had to protect him. Putting her fingertip to her lips, partly gesturing silence, partly blowing a kiss, Rose turned away from the door.

No one was there. Playing games? she asked herself. Okay, she could do that, too. She'd try a little eavesdropping while Mick pulled himself together, then go back and get him.

Rose tiptoed down the stairs. The entry hall was empty. So was the gallery. In the dining room ashes littered the hearth and crumbs the tablecloth. Except for the gleam of a couple of digital displays, the kitchen was dark. The library? She didn't know where that was.

A slight draft tickled the back of her neck. She spun around. Mick was standing just behind her. “You scared the hell out of me!” she wheezed.

"Sorry, lass. I didna want you going about by yourself."

"Yeah, Robin could be lurking anywhere."

"Oh aye.” Mick's lips were tight, his eyes shadowed. Taking her elbow, he steered her into a dim back hallway. “Let's have us a recce, eh?” They stopped in front of a carved wooden door, its top not a Gothic pointed arch but a Norman round one. Mick pushed it open. It protested with a long, atmospheric squeal.

Oh, this is the old priory
, Rose told herself.
Cool!

Very cool. Once across the hollowed stone sill she was engulfed by a cold that made the rest of the house seem toasty. The air smelled like wet dog—mold, probably. An anemic white light gleamed beyond a double row of massive pillars. Ignoring the creeping sensation between her shoulder blades—it was okay, Mick was with her—she walked toward the light.

A hurricane lamp, holding a colorless candle, sat on a small table to one side of the chancel. In the center stood a massive altar, a slab of rosy gray rock with rough-cut sides. The cross on its top seemed sad and lonely, and cast no shadow on the wall. In front of the altar—oh no! Shards of the same rock lay across the floor. Some of the pieces were large enough Rose could make out the incised shapes of horsemen and dragons. Ancient pre-Christian carvings, she guessed, and maybe newer ones, a devout medieval mason adding his own stories to a sculptured rock. A megalith. A holy stone.

A vandal had hacked away all the carved pictures. Rose looked at Mick. “How could anyone do this?"

"If it was like one of those Pictish stones it was all heathen images."

"No, look there—you can just see the top of a crucifix."

"Popish pictures, then. Not the sort of things for a proper church."

Rose's brows tightened. Mick had admitted he wasn't a churchgoer. But he'd spoken so feelingly of his great-grandfather's stories. He'd known “St. Patrick's Breastplate.” How could he shrug away meaningless destruction?

Lydia Soulis and some other Foundation members had had themselves a sledgehammer party. They hadn't made the chapel holier. They'd profaned it. Destroying a work of art and history went right along with Lydia's hateful words, perverting faith into something ugly. That wasn't as bad as killing people in the name of faith, Rose supposed, but still it outraged her. “Like cutting off your nose to spite your face,” she said.

"Eh?” asked Mick.

Shaking her head in disgust, Rose turned toward the door and stepped on what had once been a white tile labyrinth. She could make out the paths, inky black gouges in the gray stone of the floor. Bits of tile lay scattered like broken teeth. The vandals hadn't even bothered to pick up after themselves, leaving the broken bits lying around like trophies. “Mick, what if Robin wants to destroy the Stone? Maybe he thinks it's sacrilegious."

Mick smiled. It wasn't the smile she remembered—his mouth curved but his eyes stayed cool. His fingertips brushed the hair away from her temple, sending a tremor through her body. “All this disna matter, does it? Just scraps of rock. Just a filthy old room, not near as nice as our rooms upstairs. Mine has a fireplace and a canopied bed. Has yours?"

Yes, it did, although the fireplace was cold and empty. But while Mick was the best candidate for the right guy with the right attitude she'd ever met, this was absolutely the wrong time and the wrong place.

"Let's go upstairs, lass. No one's about, no need to be timid. Or are you timid for another reason? I dinna mind that you've no experience. I've enough for the both of us.” Beneath the Scottish burr his voice was soft as silk. Seductive didn't begin to describe it.

Maybe Mick isn't the right guy after all
, Rose told herself with a stab of disappointment ... They'd talked about a lot of things last night, but she'd never told him about her bed and fireplace fantasy. And she'd sure never told him she was a virgin.

His smile grew into a grin so wide his teeth gleamed moistly, as though he was going to go for her throat.
Oh, shit!
This wasn't Mick. She should have realized that five minutes ago.

In one sinuous movement he reached behind her neck, opened the clasp of her necklace, and pulled it from beneath her sweater. “Hey!” Her voice echoed harshly from the vaulted ceiling.

He held the medal before his face, the gold and blue winking in the sickly light. “You dinna believe in this foolishness, do you? It's only cheap metal and paint, not even decent artwork."

"I believe in what it symbolizes.” She grabbed for the necklace.

"And you so intelligent, too.” He tossed it toward the dank crater at the center of the broken labyrinth.

"I'm intelligent enough to recognize that you're not Mick!” She turned to get the necklace and smacked face-first into an invisible barrier, a sheet of vapor so cold goose bumps broke out on her arms.

The smooth voice behind her, no longer burred, said, “Well done, Rose. You've caught me out, haven't you?"

Double shit. She turned slowly back around.

Robin was no longer dressed in his dark suit and striped tie. He was wearing tall boots, snug leather pants, a white silk shirt and a green cloak embroidered with gold thread in serpentine Celtic interlace. His smile was sardonic. His eyes glittered green in the pale light.

"Who are you really?” Rose asked, trying to be mad rather than scared.

"I told you the truth. My name is Robert. Affectionately nicknamed Robin. And I am a prince."

"Yeah, right.” She tried to back away, but the cold held her immobile, as though she were locked in a stone sarcophagus. Cold oozed from the floor, deadening her legs, her back, the nape of her neck. She glanced toward her medal, a tiny glint of gold and blue beside the jagged black hole.

When she looked back Robin was wearing a brass crown rimmed with green stones. One setting, the one above his forehead, was empty. “My father's crown. From time to time I try it on for size.” He took a step closer. Rose's nostrils filled with a musky, moldy odor, rotting roses and gardenia with a bitter afterglow of sulfur. “You want adventure, don't you? You want romance. But you'll never have either until you break free of that faith which has failed you."

"My faith drove away the ghosts at Housesteads."

Robin laughed. “No, I sent them away, to show you that I care for you. A lovely young woman like you deserves better than a naive boy like Mick."

"No.” Her lips and tongue were so cold she could hardly speak. She pressed against the barrier. It didn't yield.

"Why do you cling to your so-called purity? Because of a worthless old story? Don't you realize how far behind you are? All your friends are enjoying life and you're sitting alone. I can be your adventure, Rose."

Some of her friends were pretty darn sorry they'd rushed into “enjoying life.” But yes, she did feel left out. Just last summer she'd broken it off with a guy she liked, but who thought waiting was dumb ... Her thoughts whirled away like snowflakes. “M-Mick's upstairs."

"I'm not selfish. I sent him someone to amuse him. Did he think of you? No. He leapt on her as soon as she walked in the door, no questions, no discussions, just that friction of flesh against flesh that is the natural inclination of human beings. The birthright of us all."

Rose shook her head. Not Mick. No. She grasped at another snowflake. “Thomas and Maggie are coming after us."

"You led them straight to the Stone, didn't you? I warned you they were up to no good, Rose. And now you've helped them."

She writhed. That wasn't quite right, but it wasn't wrong, either.

"I am the man of your dreams, Rose. Lancelot to your Guinevere. Uther to your Igraine. The spirit who fathered Merlin on a princess of Wales. The Holy Ghost to your Mary.” His hands cupped her upper arms, his thumbs teasing the roots of her breasts. “You want me, Rose. You want to learn what I can teach you. You don't want to cling to a faith that demands sacrifice and shame when what you deserve is pleasure."

Chills trickled down her back, teasing, caressing, even though his fingers felt like icicles. She wondered if his other body parts were icy as well—that's what the old witches said when they were bullied into confessing they'd slept with the ... Suddenly she heard Thomas's voice:
... the emerald that fell from the crown of Lucifer when he was cast out of heaven.

Every fiber of her body trembled with more than cold. With terrifying knowledge. With soul-deep horror. With desire so strong her spirit melted and ran like candle wax, blistering her senses and then congealing.

His hands kept her from sagging to the floor. His odor seeped into her chest. His cold breath stirred her hair and the frosty aura of his body radiated through her clothes. She saw the vaults beyond his head and a light moving across the windows and the tiny cross insignificant against the dishonored stone. The warm vapor of her breath rose before her eyes and then dissipated, as though it had frozen, too.

Robin's lips on her cheek were so cold they were hot. His tongue probed the corner of her mouth. Prickles of electricity raced through her body and she shuddered. But it wasn't a shudder of cold or of revulsion. It was a shudder of delight. Somewhere deep in her gut a small flame, like a pilot light, licked toward him. That flame was capable of warming even him. That's what he wanted. He wanted her to want him.

She did want him. And if she took him, then every belief she held would be a lie.

Rose couldn't move her body, but she could turn her face away from those lips and that sharp-edged tongue. “No,” she whispered. “It doesn't matter whether I want you. It matters whether I want my integrity. Whether I choose my faith."

He stopped.

"Blessed Virgin Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.” Something popped like a soap bubble. Robin released her. The barrier behind her broke open. She lurched back, and leaped toward the center of the shattered labyrinth. “My soul doth magnify the Lord,” she said, her voice gaining strength, “and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior."

Robin stared at her, eyes blazing and fists clenched.

"For he that is mighty hath magnified me, and holy is his name and his mercy is upon them who fear him.” Something moved in the darkness at the end of the nave. Rose grabbed up her medal and spun around.

Mick, the real Mick, walked slowly up the aisle holding his knife in front of him. Its tiny blade reflected the feeble light. So did his eyes as they looked from her to Robin and back. How long had he been standing there? Not that she'd done anything ... She'd stood there not doing anything, that was the problem.

Mick was beside her. His knife scraped along the tiles. His shoulder braced hers. His voice spoke: “I gird myself today with the power of the Trinity...” A warm breeze wafted up from the encircling furrows. The tiles shifted like blowing leaves.

"Don't be stupid,” said Robin, but still he retreated a step. “Take what I offer you. Choose the easy way. Or else I'll have to..."

"No,” said another voice, a strong, clear voice that rang through the chapel. The bright beam of a flashlight sent the shadows reeling.

Thomas came walking down the aisle, Maggie at his side. No, Maggie was in front of him and he was holding her back. That's what the light in the windows had been, the headlights of a car coming along the driveway. They'd found her note. Thank God and the Blessed Mother and all the saints in heaven, they'd found her note.

Robin sneered, “Give over, Thomas. You're not strong enough to confront me."

"I am now,” Thomas said.

With a vicious curse, Robin made a slashing gesture.

Sparks swirled around Thomas and then winked out. He stopped, shook himself, and smiled. Rose had never seen such a brilliant smile, joy radiating so brightly from his face that it repelled the darkness.

Maggie looked up at him with a grin of her own. “All right! Yes!"

"Always the vandal, aren't you, Robin?” Thomas started walking again. “You can't create, so in your jealousy you destroy. But some stories are too strong for you."

Robin's face was stark white with rage. He lifted his hands. Cold flames licked upward from his palms and shredded into nothingness. “Stories? My people reject stories, and take pride in their ignorance. A fine jest, isn't it, that their pride leads them to me."

"Not a jest,” Thomas said, “but a tragedy."

Sarcastically Robin bowed, accepting the compliment.

"Stories illuminate the dark corner in which you hide. For the ancient language, the ancient images of our Stories, are the most powerful relic of all.” Thomas's hand traced the sign of the Cross. “
In nomine patris et filii et spiritu sancti, ite
. Depart, begone!"

The last word fell as heavily as a stone over a tomb. Tiny lights like corpse-candles played in the folds of the green cloak. It swirled, and man and cloak vanished, leaving random sparklings that slowly, one by one, winked out. The scent of rotting flowers welled outward and disappeared on a gust of cold air. For a long moment the chapel was filled with a profound silence. Then, distantly, Rose heard again the murmur of the sea.