The Crusader ("The Crusader" Prequel to "Kingdom Come") (18 page)

"Dammit,
Rory!" He went after her. "Listen to me, will you? We'll go see him
tomorrow!"

"I
don't want to go see him tomorrow, I want to see him now," she said as she
continued to walk, feeling the familiar sting of tears. "And I don't want
you to come with me."

"Why
not?" he demanded.

She
whirled to him, still walking, almost tripping as she marched backward.
"Because you just don't understand. You said yourself that Sir Kieran has
turned me into something you don't recognize. Well, maybe I don't want you to
recognize me. Maybe I don't want anything to do with you!"

She saw
his face go pale in the moonlight. "What in the hell is that supposed to
mean?"

Her eyes
filled with tears; angry, bewildered tears. "I don't know." She
turned around again, maintaining her brisk pace. "Just... leave me alone.
I have to do this."

"Then
I have to, too."

"No,
you don't," she practically shouted. "This is my obsession, Bud. It
has nothing to do with you and I don't need your constant presence confusing me
even more."

He
stopped. She kept walking. "Rory?" he called after her, his voice
strained. "Honey, don't walk away. Please."

She came
to a halt. After a lengthy, heart-wrenching pause, she turned to Bud with tears
on her face.

"I'm
sorry, Bud," she whispered. "I'm sorry I don't love you. I'm sorry
I've made a mess out of your life. But this is my obsession and mine alone and
I refuse to allow you to involve yourself further. Please go back to the hotel
and let me work this out myself."

He
simply stood there, watching her with more grief than he could have possibly
imagined. "I've made my own choices, Rory. If my life is ruined, it was my
decision to make. And I don't consider loving you a mistake."

She
sobbed openly, struggling to collect herself. After a moment, she focused on
him once again.

"I
think the only man I love has been dead eight hundred years," she
whispered. "It's difficult to describe and even harder to explain, but I
love him like I could never love you. I'm sorry, Bud. I really am. I wouldn't
hurt you for the world."

He
sighed slowly, struggling against his own emotional outburst. "You don't
love a corpse, Rory. You love his stories of valor, the chivalry he represents.
Or maybe you're infatuated with him because you think he holds the key to your
crown. When you get over all of this, you'll see what I'm offering you. You'll
see that no one can love you like I can."

A taxi
came by and Bud hailed it. Moving to Rory, he grasped her gently by the arm and
marched her over to the waiting cab. But not before he forced her to look him
in the eye.

"Go
to Middlesex Hospital," he whispered huskily, watching the tears stream
down her face. "Say your good-byes to Sir Kieran and get this out of your
system. And when it's all over and done with, come back to the hotel and I'll
be waiting. I'll wait for you as long as it takes."

He
kissed her hard, knowing that, for a brief moment, she responded to him. But
just as he felt her body relaxing in his embrace, he released her and
practically shoved her into the cab. Handing the driver a ten pound note, he
directed the man to Middlesex Hospital.

Bud
watched the taxi as until is disappeared from view. Heading back for the hotel,
there were tears in his eyes.

***

Even
though visiting hours were over, Middlesex Hospital was a busy place. Rory
stumbled from the cab, hardly noticing when it pulled away as she made her way
to the main entrance. It was locked but she wrestled with the doors anyway as
if somehow they would miraculously open.

Sniffling
and wiping at her perpetually running mascara, she took a deep breath and
struggled to regain her composure. A clear-head was the only way she was going
to be able to do what needed to be done, and she squared her shoulders as she
reviewed her options.

Options
that included slipping in through the always-open emergency room. The waiting
room was packed with football players, or Rugby as she knew it, waiting for
medical attention. The nurses were focused on keeping the two teams apart, the
injuries apparently the result of a nasty fight, and Rory was able to slip past
with little trouble.

Losing herself
in the sterile halls, she found her way to the elevators and located a hospital
directory. Easily enough, the morgue was in the basement and she slipped into
the next available cab.

The
basement was dimly lit, smelling strangely of wet earth. Rory stepped from the
elevator, her senses peaked as she emerged into the corridor. Glancing to both
ends of the long hall, she could hear voices and then a door slam as someone
entered an office far down to her right. Deciding to go in the opposite
direction of the activity, she went to the left.

She
tried not to make any noise as she moved down the corridor, her shoes making
soft clicking noises against the muted tile. Walking on tip-toes, she passed a
series of doors, noting they were either building maintenance or the lavatories
by their sickly white plaques.

Reaching
a "T" shaped intersection, she was about to take the path to her left
again when something to the right caught her attention. About midway down the
softly illuminated hall was a large pair of swinging doors. Even as Rory made
haste to identify the doors by the sign affixed to the right panel, she could
see from a distance that she had succeeded in locating the morgue.

The
doors were unlocked. Rory cautiously pushed into what appeared to be a waiting
room, cold and unfeeling with green vinyl chairs. There was a security door in
front of her, a glass window in the top portion of the panel allowing her to
see into more halls of white. To her left, the receptionist's window was locked
for the night. Peering into the small office, she was met with files and
neatly-arranged desk.

Taking a
deep breath, she knocked on the window. She almost expected to see one of the
Israeli security guards make an appearance, but she realized bitterly that the
Israelis had not accompanied Sir Kieran to protect him personally. It was his
possessions they were concerned with, the priceless artifacts that had already
been transferred to the University of Sussex. If the guards were anywhere, it
was at the university sleeping on the floor beside Sir Kieran's assets.

Clearly,
artifacts were the only thing the Hage family was interested in. Sir Kieran was
to be buried in disgrace while his property was displayed by his selfish
descendents. Rory realized that if she had been aware of their true motives,
she would have gladly turned over the artifacts if only they would have left
her the corpse. She didn't care about the valuables; she never had. All that
had ever mattered to her was the knight.

She
continued knocking on the window, realizing that there didn't seem to be a
night attendant. Glancing about the waiting area, her gaze came to rest on a
small sign located just below the receptionist's window. It was so bland and
unspectacular that she hadn't noticed it before. And when she read the message,
a smile of pure joy came to her lips.

Due
to budget cuts, there is no staff in the morgue

between
the hours of 6 p.m. and 6 a.m.

Please
use the corridor phone and ring 619 for assistance.

It was
too good to hope for. With renewed determination, she looked around the room
for something to pry open the receptionist's window when her gaze fell on the
plastic chairs against the wall. Setting her purse down, Rory collected a chair
and swung it through the window with all her might.

The glass
shattered. Collecting her purse, she climbed through the broken glass, cutting
her hand but unconcerned with the injury. All that mattered was that she was
growing closer to Sir Kieran by the minute. There was a stack of files on the
desk and she leafed through them, tossing them aside in her haste and creating
a mess. Unable to find any reference to Sir Kieran, she went to the filing
cabinet and used a letter opener to force the weak lock.

The
"H" section was devoid of a Hage file. She even looked under
"K". Frustrated, she was about to forgo the file altogether when her
gaze came to rest on a bank of stackable trays just to the left of the phone.
Peering at the file on the very top of the tray, the name she had been
searching for abruptly came into focus.

Hage,
Kieran  I.D. #DL4509384

Snatching
the file, Rory left the shattered receptionist's office in search of her
knight. She’s been in a few morgues during her pre-Med days, so she didn’t find
them creepy or weird. She had no idea where she might find her corpse and
simply stopped at the first sterile room, checking the identification number on
the first refrigerated drawer she came to. And the second. And the third.

He
wasn't in the first room. Nor had he been in the second. There was an order to
the numbering on the drawers but being unfamiliar with the system, she didn't
want to miss him by trying to guess the sequence with the numbers. A powerful
sense of urgency gripped her as she progressed, knowing it was only a matter of
time before the violated office was discovered.

The next
room Rory entered was larger than the other, a huge stainless steel table in
the center of the floor with drains placed around it. Checking the first two
rows of drawers with unsuccessful results, she came to the third bank. Stacked
three drawers high, the top two drawers didn't match Sir Kieran's number. But
the third one did.

With a
gasp of relief, Rory released the bolts on either side of the drawer, yanking
hard to pull it out the entire length. Grasping the sheet that covered the
body, she ripped it off. But her joy turned to shock the moment she laid eyes
on the corpse, a hand flying to her mouth in horror.

It was
the Sir Kieran she remembered, beautiful and massive and looking as if he was
sleeping. But his clothing had been removed, leaving him naked and vulnerable. Rory
sighed slowly, the hand coming away from her mouth as she viewed the body; they
had even taken his clothes, stripping what was left of his already-damaged
dignity. But along with her mounting anger came thoughts so unexpected that she
had difficulty believing their power.

He was
sexy. Now she knew she was going mad for thinking a dead man to be sexy. But
even though the man had been dead eight hundred years, he still possessed the
most magnificent form Rory had ever seen. As the magic of his allure took hold,
Rory couldn't help but reach out to touch his cold chest. It was broad and
wonderful and as her gaze trailed downward, she could see the wound that had
claimed his life.

Odd, she
thought through her haze of fascination. Even though it was the injury that had
presumably killed him, it appeared to be healed. Shiny, new-appearing scar
tissue. But the skin surrounding the wound was stained brown, the passage of
centuries darkening the once-red blood. Rory peered closer, thinking the
appearance strange. If the wound had killed him, as his stained clothes had
logically indicated, then the injury should not be covered with the scarred
flesh.

Maybe
that was why they took his clothes from him; to study the unusual healing that
seemed to have taken place after death. But even as she pondered the dilemma of
a post-mortem scar which, in any event, was impossible, she was pleased to see
that his wound had prevented the Hage Family's hired guns from conducting their
autopsy. Maybe the doctors had been so fascinated with his outward appearance
that they postponed the autopsy until they could discover a logical explanation
for the occurrence. An explanation Rory herself would like to hear.

It just
didn't make sense, a post-mortem scar on a dead body. But, then again, nothing
about Sir Kieran Hage had made sense from the beginning. Not his grave, nor his
lack of decomposition, nor the clues to her crown of thorns in his journal.
From the very moment she had uncovered her crusader, the man had remained an
enigma.

An
enigma with a large flaccid penis. Rory tried not to stare at it, a little
off-balance as her thoughts turned to the evidence of his masculinity.
Embarrassed, she looked around for something to cover him with, thinking that
even in death the man should be allowed a some privacy - even if the only form
of privacy was a medium-sized towel she found on the counter by the autoclave.

She felt
better once Sir Kieran was properly draped. He looked like a football player
emerging from the showers after a game. Or a Roman soldier preparing to take
his ritual bath. Shivering with the unexpected erotic thoughts, Rory struggled
to focus on the purpose behind her visit. Too much alcohol and a lack of sleep
was making her sick with thoughts bordering on necrophilia, and she moved away
from the towel to look him in the face.

It was a
face that haunted her dreams. Even in death, he was the most beautiful man she
had ever seen and she touched his cheek gently, finding herself wondering what
his voice had sounded like. Deep, masculine. Soft enough to melt a woman with
passion or loud enough to bellow orders to a thousand crusaders. Rory could
feel the liquor coursing through her veins, making her sleepy and emotional as
she tenderly touched the knight.