“You gotta start trusting us sometime,” Jake said. “If not, I’m out too. You can try to stick me back in prison if you want to.”
Nathan rubbed his chin, and Kendall heard the soft rasp of an unshaven beard. “Do you believe in curses?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
NO,” JAKE SAID.
“Curses?” Kendall asked, startled because she’d been thinking about that very thing. “Why?”
“I think I’m cursed. I think that’s what’s wrong with me, why my eyes change.”
“Granted it’s not normal, but what makes you think it’s a curse?” Kendall asked.
“What the hell would you call it?” he asked.
“She has a point,” Jake said. “It happens when your adrenaline kicks in, when you’re angry or scared.”
Kendall felt Nathan balk at Jake’s use of the word scared.
“So you’ve been studying me?” Nathan asked.
“I pay attention when there’s something next to me that can rip my head off.”
“How long has this been happening?” Kendall asked.
“I haven’t felt normal for as long as I can remember, but it’s just the last few months that the change has been happening. It’s getting worse.”
“Are you aware of your surroundings when it happens?” Kendall asked.
“You mean, am I going to not recognize someone and rip his head off?” Nathan asked, his voice dry.
Kendall shrugged. “You could hurt someone with that kind of strength, but so far we haven’t seen any sign that you’re dangerous, just protective.”
“I know what’s going on,” Nathan said. “I just can’t control my strength. Something must have happened when I was a kid.”
“Like what?” Jake asked.
“I don’t know. I can’t remember my childhood. Nothing before Fergus.”
“That’s odd. Damned odd.” Jake seemed troubled by the admission.
“I have a dream,” Nathan said. “Maybe it’s a memory, I don’t know. There are two men talking. One of them mentions a curse that must be removed.”
A curse. Like the one she might have brought on her father and Adam? “They didn’t say where the curse came from?”
“No,” Nathan said.
“Did you recognize the men?” she asked. “Was one of them Fergus?”
“I didn’t see their faces, but their voices were familiar. If I knew them, I can’t remember.”
“Did they mention a way to get rid of it?” Jake asked.
“No, but I think it’s connected to the Protettori’s relics.”
“How’s that possible?” Jake asked.
“I don’t know, but I’ve dreamed of them all my life.” His light came on, and he pulled something from his pocket.
“How do you know it’s their relics?” Jake asked. “You don’t even know what they are.”
Nathan opened a small black book and pulled out a loose page. “These. I’ve dreamed of these.”
It was the paper with the sketches Kendall had seen in Jake’s pack.
Jake turned on his light and looked at the paper. “That’s mine. You’re the one who took it.”
Kendall’s head was buzzing. Nathan had been dreaming about relics the Protettori were protecting?
“When did you take it?” Jake asked.
“When I left the inn.”
“Where did you get this?” she asked Jake.
“I found it in Iraq.”
“Iraq,” Kendall echoed. “This makes no sense.”
“Maybe it does,” Nathan said. “The page came from this.” He held up the black book. “It’s a journal I found on Thomas after he died.”
“You found a journal on Thomas? My God, Nathan, what else are you hiding?” Kendall asked.
“I didn’t want anyone to know about the curse. I wanted to find the relics and see if they cured me.”
“How do you know the page came from the journal?” Jake asked.
“I matched it,” Nathan said. He opened the journal and showed them the matching tears on the page. “It’s exact.” His light went out, leaving only Jake’s.
“There’s the Iraq connection,” Kendall said. “Thomas had the journal and Jake saw Thomas in Iraq. It must have belonged to Thomas.”
“Or the journal belongs to the Reaper. If it does, I’d bet he wants it back,” Jake said, ever the pessimist. “It would make sense that the Reaper sketched them if he’s been searching for them as long as Marco said.”
“What’s inside?” Kendall asked.
Nathan flipped through the pages while Jake shone his light. “There’s writing in some kind of code, and these sketches. Four objects. They must be the Protettori’s relics. This one,” Nathan said, pointing to the one Kendall had thought was a knife, “must be the Spear of Destiny. Two others could either be cups or bowls. I figure one of them might be the Fountain of Youth.” He tapped on the smallest of the cup sketches. “This one seems familiar.”
Kendall looked closer at the drawing and thought that it looked familiar to her too. How was that possible?
“Do you want to hold the journal and see if you can pick up anything?” Nathan asked Kendall.
She stared at the journal, afraid to touch it. What if it proved her father was the Reaper? She swallowed and took the journal in her hands. She closed her eyes and felt the leather, opening her mind to the impressions seeping from the journal.
She expected greed, evil, but the strongest impressions were desperation, loss, and love. Family. She let go of the journal, breathing hard.
“What did you sense?” Nathan asked.
“Desperation.” She didn’t tell them everything, because she couldn’t make sense of it herself. As far as she knew, her father died in a plane crash. Unless he was like Raphael and hadn’t stayed dead.
“How the hell have you dreamed about the relics drawn on these pages?” Jake asked.
“I don’t know.”
If he was Adam, and if Marco was right about the vow causing a curse, that might be reason for Nathan to dream of the relics. The men he’d heard talking in his dream could be the Protettori discussing what to do with them. But she didn’t voice her theory. It just seemed too ridiculous. Nathan’s hair was darker than Adam’s had been, though kids’ hair usually darkened as they grew older and Adam’s had always been bleached by the sun. Both of them had dark eyes, but lots of men had dark eyes. Jake did. As far as personalities went, neither Nathan nor Jake was like Adam. Adam had been outgoing, mischievous, full of laughter. Nathan and Jake were full of secrets. But they were both protective like Adam. “Tell us about the dreams,” she said.
“I don’t see the relics clearly, just enough to know that their shapes resemble these. And in the dream, I hear the men talking about a curse and that it must be removed. One of them is holding this journal.”
“There’s nothing in the journal to identify Thomas as the owner?” Kendall asked.
“No name that I could find, unless it’s written in code too.”
“Give Kendall some time with it. Maybe she can break the code with her voodoo stuff,” Jake said.
“There’s more,” Nathan said.
“What else can there be?” Jake asked.
“I found another paper in the treasure room just before we left the first time. It has the same four sketches.”
She thought she’d seen him put something in his pocket when they discovered the room.
Jake grunted. “I don’t know about any curse, but you’ve got so many secrets I don’t know how you keep them straight.”