Relic (The Brethren Series) (2 page)

“There you go again, believing the worst of me. You make it so
hard
to do something special for you.” She groused and rolled her eyes at his whining tone. “Now listen, I got this relic fair and square. Dr. Chappo told me I could keep this one because it has some kind of damage that makes its value much less than the others we found. But since it’s still such a rare find, I gotta ask you to keep it in a safe place. Like maybe at the bottom of our well out back. I don’t know. But it needs to be kept somewhere only you know. There are dangerous relic thieves everywhere who would do about anything to get their hands on a piece like this. We ran across them a lot over in Germany.”

I bet you’re one of them, too, damn it
. “If that’s the case, why give this to me? Why give me something I can’t enjoy seeing all of the time? I mean, I’m grateful, but this sounds a bit on the sketchy side to me. And, maybe you haven’t thought about it, but you could be putting my life in danger with this.”

“Enough with the drama, lady! There’s nothing sketchy about it at all. I promise. You’re safe. Listen, I gotta go. I have things to do before I head back to Dr. Chappo’s. I won’t be able to get together with you tomorrow. That’s why I came today. I gotta run! I’ll call you. Remember, store that relic in a secret place. See ya when I see ya!”

He kissed her quick, hugged her hard, and left like a bat out of hell.

She could scream. She. Could. Just. Scream. Not fifteen minutes after he arrived, Jared left again. No questions about Dad’s health. No idea when he would come back to give tours. Serena’d had it with Mr. Unreliable. She’d made a grand gesture of offering him a position at her company, giving him responsibility and a paycheck, and as usual, he squandered his money and showed up when he wanted. She had been ready to toss his ass out when the offer to go to Germany with some high-brow archeologist came his way. He left her a tour guide short, and no number where he could be reached.

Serena set the box down on her desk without even taking out the figurine and shook her head. She didn’t know what to do with it. She just knew that Jared was into something, and it couldn’t be good. His getting “hired” and the whole trip to Germany with this Dr. Chappo happened in a whirlwind and gave her no time to check credentials. A cursory glance at Dr. Chappo’s minute bio on the Internet didn’t produce any flags, but she still questioned his desire to have her brother join his team.
But, like Jared said, he’s a man now, and he has to live with the choices he makes
.

When she saw him again, she planned on having a serious sit down with him, and laying the deal on the line once and for all. If he didn’t like it, ‘Mr. Man’ could fend for himself. If she could show the same kind of bluster to Jared’s face as she did in her mind, and not backpedal, it’d be a miracle. Truth be told, she was his personal doormat. He was all she had, besides Dad; who sat day upon day in a nursing home after a massive stroke had left him mute and unable to tend to his own needs. So she tolerated Jared’s irresponsible ways, to a point. This latest eyebrow raiser was the last straw.

Being the owner of her own company had its privileges, one being Serena could come and go as she pleased. Since she’d already done her one tour of the day, she elected to hightail it home with the statue and figure out a safe place for it. But first, she would find out a little bit about the darn thing.

Kinda creepy that her face looks so much like mine
.

“Callie-girl,” she called out. “I’m heading home for the day. Keep things running smoothly for me, will ya?”

“Sure, no problem, Boss Lady. Hey, I got a chance to talk to your brother for a bit before you came back. He’s buzzin’. Either he’s jacked up on something or excited to see you after, what’s it been, a month?”

“More like two. God, I can’t help it. I feel like something’s up with him. I wish I knew more about this Dr. Chappo and the dig Jared helped him with. But I know he’s a big boy. I can’t baby him forever.”

“Good girl! Those hikes along the vortexes must be helping.”

“Try Spiritual Healing with Monica Rainchild. I know, it sounds hokey, but she’s really been helping me deal with all my issues, Cal. Burning a hole in my pocketbook, too, but whatever helps, right?”

“Right! See you tomorrow.” Callie ran to pick up the ringing phone. “Sikes and Sounds of Sedona, how can I help you?”

Serena walked out into the oppressive heat and around back to her Jeep. Normally, she loved the sun and the heat, but lately she ached like a thousand-year-old lady by the time her daily vortex tour ended, and couldn’t wait to get home and rest.
Maybe I’m getting sick
. No, she knew the reason. She hadn’t been sleeping well. Too much stress.

She’d been pulling wicked long hours during the spring and the beginning of the summer without a break. After long days in the Jeep, she’d go and sit with her father in the nursing home; feeding him dinner, making one-sided small talk, and assuring herself of the excellent care by the staff. She’d cut back on both, but it didn’t help. Now, with Jared coming home with such an extravagant gift for her…. Well, she hoped everything was on the up and up. Deep down, though, she knew better. But what could she do?

While driving up the winding path to the house, she let her mind wander back through memories of her childhood. She and her brother had played their own special tag game of roadrunner and coyote in the desert landscape surrounding the house. At twilight, while watching the sun set on many an evening, she’d often tell her dad that when she grew up, she was going to ride people around showing them the beauty of the land. She’d promised to live in that very home with her husband, five kids, two dogs, two cats, and a parrot named Jim. He always raised his eyebrows and chuckled at the five kids remark, telling her that having two kids was insane enough, let alone five. But she had always argued that those dreams would become reality.

Well, with the family pretty much decimated, home became more like an empty shell than the loving home of the “old days” or what so long ago she’d imagined it to be as her future. For her, many dreams lay trapped within the very walls that had protected her growing up. Dreams of talking about first love and heartache with her mother, her parents walking her down the wedding aisle, them bouncing her children on their knees, and watching Serena become a success. All those dreams, trapped like the insulation in the walls. In fact, these days, Serena felt more at ease out in the open desert than under her own roof, where those dreams kept crying out for freedom. She shook off the melancholy feelings that threatened to take hold.

“Okay, shower first, information on the relic second, sleep third,” she told herself out loud.
As if there’s anyone around to care what the hell I do
. The shower soothed her weary body, and as she slathered on Lily of the Valley body lotion, she skirted around memories of her mother massaging the same lotion into her sun-burned skin as a child. Awakening from her reverie, she sat at her computer desk in her bedroom.

“Time to find out about our little bronze woman.”

It took some perseverance and nifty searching on the Internet, but before her hair could dry, she identified her twin in bronze.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” she murmured. “You, my dear, are a freakin’ goddess. The Celtic goddess, Sirona, for Christ’s sake! The Goddess of Healing. Can you heal my crazy mind, huh? Probably not. You’d sure save me a lot of money, though.” She chuckled and shook her head.

The relic, in its Styrofoam box, rested on her bureau. Serena shifted in her seat to look at it. Drawn like an addict to a syringe, she walked over and took the statue out of its protective case. The weight surprised her, and the coolness of the bronze sent shivers up her arms. As she held it in her hands, a growing queasiness and lightheadedness enveloped her. Her bedroom spun out from underneath her. She fell hard to the floor and blacked out.

***

“There she is, Mongrel! She’s fallen on the ground. We can’t let her escape us this time!”

“We’ve got her cornered, Cowen, never fear.” He snickered. “Look, she can’t even get up. Perfect.”

Although midnight, the moon shown as bright as the sun itself and made for easy hunting. Sirona’s predators picked up their pace as they began pursuit of her in earnest.

She’d craved a little breathing room for a long while now, some freedom of movement. No guards to watch her every move, no servants underfoot. Now, however, she found herself running for her life and regretting her impulsive decision to sneak out. Just a few more steps and she would be safe again, inside her temple. Her head ached from tripping and falling to the ground. She’d hit it soundly on the hardened earth, but knew she would be fine. A goddess, an immortal like her, didn’t need to concern herself with such trivial things as getting hurt. She could heal quickly, but needed to quicken her pace or else the menacing heathens would surely capture her.

Sirona staggered to her feet and charged ahead with all the speed of a tortoise. Her world was literally spinning out of control. She definitely didn’t feeling like her usual self, but pushed the concern to the side, trying to focus and putting one foot in front of the other. A disconcerting thought entered her mind.
I am the Goddess of Healing
!
Why am I not healing
?

Before she could reach sanctuary, the brutes were upon her. One of them grasped her neck while the other tackled her feet. In a heaving mass, they tumbled to the ground. Sirona’s breath escaped her as the thugs landed blow upon blow. Writhing, she cried out in pain, confounded that the assault could be affecting her in such a mortal way. When she finally stilled, they wrapped her arms and legs in ropes, gagged her mouth, and hoisted her onto a wagon. She watched her temple and village shrink away in the distance.

Where are they taking me
?
Into the mountains
?
Do they know they’ve captured the one being that will make them invincible, immortal
?
They must. This is not good. Not good at all
. As the thought skittered through the recesses of her mind, she succumbed to the unaccustomed pain of the peasants’ assault and blacked out.

***

Sirona clawed her way back to consciousness, aware only of an incessant throbbing behind her eyes, and a dawning fear that she may not be so immortal after all. Another more disturbing thought occurred to her. If this were so, she may not live long enough to see her dream come true, to start a family with her husband, Raphael. She had recently married one of the Brethren Saviors; an angel, and her one and only love.

“So, you are awake. That is good. Let me make introductions,” one said nonchalantly. “I am Cowen and this is Mongrel. We have a request of you. We hope you will oblige.”

She grunted at his bizarre manner. As though he really thought she would take him seriously. Ridiculous! He removed the gag from her mouth, propped her body up to a sitting position on the ground, and awaited her response. Taking deep breaths and letting them out slowly, she struggled to gain some semblance of composure.

“You can’t be serious, heathen. You expect me to grant you anything after the beating I’ve taken from you, not to mention the fact that you’ve stolen me from my home?
Never
.”

Cowen stood before her with arms opened wide, preening like a proud peacock. “Oh, but you see, once you grant us what we want, we will let you go free. You are immortal, so you can go on living forever. We just want our share in that way of life, you see. So if you’d be so kind and bestow your gift upon us, we’ll no longer be a bother to you.”

Her anger boiled over at their audacity. “You…you want me to give you the gift of regeneration? I won’t do it!” she screeched. “You hear me, I won’t!”

“Oh, but you will, Goddess, because the only other option for you is a most
unfortunate
death.” Her heart skipped a beat as he stared straight through to her soul with Evil’s fiery red glint in his eye. He looked over at Mongrel, whose eyes reflected the same possession, and they laughed.

“That’s impossible.” She cleared her throat and muttered dismissively, “I cannot die.”

“Oh, my dear, you
have
been misled if you believe so. If you don’t yield to our request, you shall indeed find out how much. Mongrel! Give her a little taste of what we mere mortals fear most.”

Mongrel lifted Sirona from her seat and tossed her without a care against the wall of the cave. She heard a furious snapping, like tree branches breaking from strong winds. Blinding light knifed through her skull, beckoning tears as bones shattered.

She cried out for mercy.

“Will you grant us your gift?” Cowen purred.

“No, I can’t,” she whispered through her agony and astonishment. “I won’t.”

“By the Gods.” The miscreant scrubbed his face with his hands and paced around her broken body. “Mongrel, look for the mark, man. Look for the mark!”

“Where would it be?” He slunk over to Sirona’s broken body as she fought for every shallow breath.

“It should be by her right shoulder, idiot. Master’s only told us a dozen or so times already! Now look!” Without ceremony, Mongrel quickly ripped the jade-colored gown from her right shoulder. She wondered what her birthmark, a golden scar in the shape of a scepter, had to do with anything.

“I found it!”

“Good, now let me have a look at her.” He pushed Mongrel aside as he approached Sirona with a contemptuous glare. “How dare you deny me such a simple request? If you won’t give me your gift, then no one will have the opportunity either. Such a shame and a waste not to share your bountiful gifts with your followers.” He spat on her, and she flinched. “I give you one last chance to do the right thing. Give us your gift or die.”

“
An feidir le heinne cuidiu liom
? Can anyone help me?” she whispered in hope of an answer, but felt no presence.
Where is my love’s connection to me
? “
Graim thu, anam chara.
I love you, Raphael, my soul mate.” With tears now streaming down her cheeks, she raised her voice and spoke clearly. “I choose death, heathen, and when my soul returns, my life shall be renewed while your body rots in the ground with maggots feasting on your flesh!”