“Very good.”
“I think we should go. I believe it’s time to tell him the truth.”
Marco stood. “Do we fly or take the maze?”
Nathan held a brochure in front of him and studied the entrance to the Chalice Gardens. He’d found the brochure on the ground where someone had dropped it. He was going to drink from the fountain until he couldn’t drink any more. There was also a pool. He might just jump in it and roll around for good measure. The gardens had just opened, so they weren’t busy now. He didn’t have money, but it shouldn’t be too hard to sneak inside. He waited until the woman at the gate was distracted with a group and slipped through. The woman turned and called out, but he kept going. He hurried up the path and darted behind a tree.
No one came after him, so he guessed he was safe. His mouth was dry as he followed the path to the fountain. Traditions varied on the actual source of the well, but he wasn’t going to pass up the chance to drink. If his dreams were right, this could be his cure.
When he reached the fountain and saw a couple drinking, reality set in. If this was the Fountain of Youth, there should be millions of unnaturally youthful, cured people wandering the planet. Still, he rose and walked to the fountain. There was no one close by, but he could hear voices drawing near. He knelt on the stone and leaned over, putting his mouth under the stream of water flowing from the lion’s head. The water tasted unusual. It must be the iron. That was what turned the water red. Some believed it was symbolic of Christ’s blood. Nathan drank until his stomach felt like it would burst. He heard a voice behind him.
“Mom, he’s drinking it all. There won’t be any left for the rest of us.”
“This well has been flowing for two thousand years, Art. Don’t worry, it’s not going to dry up now.”
Nathan raised his head and looked at the boy. It was the redhead who had been throwing rocks.
“Make him stop drinking. It’s my turn.”
“He’s almost finished, see. There’ll be plenty of water for you.”
Nathan started to move, but he caught sight of his hands gripping the stone and remembered knocking Kendall into the wall. He ducked his whole head underneath the flow, letting the cold water run down his neck and back.
“He’s taking a bath in the fountain. Gross. Doesn’t he know there’s a pool?”
Nathan stood and wiped the water off his face. The woman and boy gaped at him as he walked past.
“See, it’s your turn now, Art. Go on, darling, take a drink.”
“Can I stick my head in like he did?”
“No, darling. Art. Be careful. Arthur, you’re leaning too far. Arthur!”
Something nudged Nathan’s memory, but before he could figure it out, there was a howl followed by the woman’s cry. Nathan turned around and saw the boy’s legs in the air as the mother attempted to pull him out of the basin. Served the little monster right, Nathan thought. Monster. That was a sobering thought.
He ignored the strange looks he got as he walked away and headed for the Vesica Piscis, where he found two circular pools intertwined. He dipped his head in these and then continued to the healing pool and walked down into the water. It was cold, but a couple of others were also wading. No one paid much attention until he sat down in the water and lay back, letting it wash over his head. Bloody hell, it was cold. He jumped up, shivering, and hurried away. He needed to find a place to dry off or he’d end up dying of exposure. He wouldn’t need a curse to finish him off.
CHAPTER NINE
KENDALL AND JAKE used the public restrooms and cleaned up the worst of the grime from the cave. While Jake waited for Kendall, he called Clint collect to check on things at the house.
“No sign of any more intruders,” Clint said.
Clint was a good buddy. They’d known each other for years and had worked together on and off. Clint would have been with him in Iraq, but he’d been finishing up a job in Africa. If Clint had been there, he would have died with the rest of the team.
“You cool with hanging out at the house for a few more days?”
There was a pause. “No problem. You have any trouble sleeping here?” Clint asked.
“No.” He wasn’t home often to sleep. “Why? The neighbors being loud?” He couldn’t imagine that. They were all retired.
“I keep waking up freezing cold.”
“Did the temperature drop?” The weather had been mild for October when they left.
“No. But it’s freezing in here at night.”
“Turn up the heat.”
“I did.” Clint hesitated.
“What’s wrong?”
“You ever feel like someone’s watching you in here?”
“Never noticed it, but I’m not there much. Why? You think someone’s got a camera inside?”
“I was thinking more along the line of a ghost. Thought maybe your grandma was still hanging around.”
Last week, he would have laughed if anyone had said something like that. Not now. “If she is, I’ve never seen her.”
Clint dropped the subject and Jake hung up just as Kendall appeared. She still looked beautiful in spite of falling through the maze and into a haunted cave. “You fixed the tear in your pj’s?”
“I found a safety pin in the bathroom.”
“How’s your wrist?” Jake asked.
She turned it over. There was a thin line where it had been cut. “Better. I cleaned it up.”
“You need a bandage.”
“It’ll be fine. I’ve lived with worse than this,” she said. “Where do we find someone who can exchange your money under the table?”
“We’re not going to,” he said, looking across the street. “It’ll take too long. By the time we walk to town and back, the car will be here. Come on.” He took her hand and led her toward a gift shop.
“What are we doing?”
“Getting food.”
“Without money? What are you going to do? Steal it? You’re going to steal it?”
“Do you want to eat or not? It’s just borrowing. We’ll pay for it after we get money.”
“I hope you have some shoplifting skills that I don’t.”
“I do. We’re going inside that gift shop, and you’re going to distract the person running it.”
“How? Hit them, cuss them out?”
“Talk to them about the weather, or King Arthur.”
Kendall opened the door and walked inside. The woman who worked in the shop was on the latter side of middle age and had a chunky, rectangular figure and gray hair caught up in a bun. “Excuse me. Could I ask a question?”
The woman turned a friendly smile on Kendall. “Sure, dear. What’ll you be wanting to know?”
“I’m visiting the abbey and wondered what you might be able to tell me about the area, and about King Arthur, if you have a moment.” From the corner of her eye, Kendall saw Jake easing toward a section with power bars and snacks.
“Of course. I used to be a tour guide, you know, but the old legs don’t like so much walking at my age. We get scads of people coming here, everyone from history buffs to quacks. This was the site of the first Christian church in Britain. Joseph of Arimathea built it, him and Jesus when Jesus was just a boy. Joseph was Jesus’s great-uncle, and he was a metal trader who did business here. They say young Jesus sometimes came with him.
“Anyway, the stories go that when Jesus was dying on the cross, Joseph took the cup from the Last Supper, the Holy Grail—oh, I get goose bumps just saying that—and he caught some of Jesus’s blood. So after Jesus died, supposedly Joseph comes back here with some other men. They came ashore at Wearyall Hill, yonder,” she said, pointing out one of the windows. “When Joseph put his staff in the ground, it took root. That became the Holy Thorn Tree. The one out there on Wearyall Hill was grown from the original tree that Joseph planted. It was vandalized in 2010. Black-hearted bastards.”