Caldwell looked at him oddly. “You don’t believe any of this stuff is real, do you? Maybe I should buy her a broom!”
Baylor curbed his impatience with the man’s stupidity. Let him think witches flew about the night sky. He’d learned his lesson well at Camelot, seducing Arthur’s sister, Morgana. He hadn’t realized her power until she held his body paralyzed and tortuously teased for hours. Ironically, it had been the holier-than-thou Galahad who had accidentally interrupted her playtime, but Baylor had limped about in pain for a week. He’d never made that mistake of underestimating a real witch again.
It was better that mortals didn’t know how many kinds of supernaturals there were, roaming about. Let them think werewolves and vampires were the stuff of fiction, that the elementals and the old goddesses and gods didn’t exist. Or that he had been one.
“Which goddess?” he asked again.
Caldwell frowned, thinking. “Brenda, or something like that.”
Baylor tensed. It couldn’t be. “Do you mean Brighid?”
“Yeah! That was it!” His face brightened. “I remember thinking about that old French actress, Bridget Bardot. Wonder if she’s still around?”
He didn’t bother to answer. If the bitch were a true follower of Brighid, Baylor had his work cut out for him. Brighid—his own goddess granddaughter—had tossed him out of Avalon. He would have to exercise caution, something he rarely did. He also had an answer to a centuries-old problem. Sara Kincaid would be his ultimate revenge.
Chapter Eight—Theories
When Sara arrived at the mansion the next morning, Lucas was already working at the computer in the study. Sunlight streaming in the window caught strands of tawny hair that dipped just past his collar and turned the hair to molten gold. The bronze tone of his skin made her think of a golden god again as she stepped through the doorway.
He looked up at the sound of the door closing. “I’ve been Googling for churches of Mary Magdalene,” he said as he rubbed his neck. “There are thousands of links about her, but very few churches are actuallynamedafter her in America.”
Sara peered over his shoulder at what he’d written on a notepad, trying not to let his clean, soap-and-leather male scent make her take leave of her own senses again. It took most of her will power not to finger the gold chain that was visible above his collar and pull the cross out. But her questions would have to wait.
“Mary Magdalene Church of Divine Gnosis,” she read. “That sounds interesting.”
“It’s on-line,” Lucas answered. “Hard to hide a Spear in cyberspace.”
“What about this one?” she pointed to another entry, every nerve fiber aware of his closeness.
“It’s an Orthodox mission church,” he replied. “They have temporary quarters in a Knights of Columbus hall in Fenton, Michigan. Again, not established enough for a Spear to be hidden.”
She looked at the rest of the short list. Nothing on the East Coast that would indicate a “dawn” setting. Then she remembered something. “Let me have the keyboard,” she said.
Lucas stood, letting her have the chair. He leaned over, one hand braced on either side of the armrests, his warm breathtickling her ear. How was she supposed to concentrate like this? Sara just hoped her hands wouldn’t shake. She Googled “Black Madonna.”
“More Gnostic information,” he commented as she scrolled down. “And a whole lot of New Age stuff too. Where are you going with this?”
She shook her head as she added “Churches” to the search. “Black Madonnas are scattered all over Europe, especially France,” she said, “and they always relate to Mary Magdalene. I’m checking to see if there are any in the United States.”
“Try that one,” he said as he pointed to a link.
It turned up two statues. One was a shrine in Missouri built in 1938 and the other was dedicated to Our Lady of Czestochowa in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Sara felt a rush of excitement as she read the article and then realized that the building had been dedicated in 1958. “It’s too new,” she said dejectedly. “For the verse to make any sense, the building would have had to exist at least a hundred years or so.”
“Or the plans for it would have needed to be known,” Lucas added. “It took Sinclair five years to plan Rosslyn and over forty to build it.”
Sara clicked off on the computer. “I may have been wrong,” she said with even more despondency. “If the manuscript was written in the sixteenth century, how many buildings over here are three hundred years old? This isn’t Europe.”
Lucas massaged her shoulders, rubbing the tight spot near the right side of her nape. “Don’t get discouraged. I have a feeling that whoever brought the Hallows over here was perhaps more gifted than an ordinary person.”
She tilted her head, giving him more access to her neck. Talk about gifted and not ordinary. Goddess, how did Lucas know that spot always tensed up when she got stressed? His hands were pure magic, but the warmth that was flowing to other partsof her body were casting a different kind of spell. One that made her want to tug his hands down to knead her breasts while she ravaged his mouth. Or opened his zipper and wrapped her hands around him…
“How’s that? Feel better?” As if he read her thoughts, he stepped back.
Reality check. He wants to keep this platonic. Get a grip.“Yes, thanks.” She tried to keep her voice calm as if she received massages from men who looked like golden gods every day. “What did you mean that the person was more gifted?”
Lucas moved to a chair near her and sat down. “What I meant was that Sinclair would not have given the Hallows into the care of someone who didn’t have some kind of extra protection.”
“You’re talking beyond guns and swords and guards?”
