Part 5

Chapter Twenty-Nine

"Well, goddammit."

Kaitlyn hissed and yanked her wrists hard against the metal pipe. The knots refused to budge, just like the previous several dozen attempts. "You know . . . how cliched does this get?"

Janice rolled her eyes and tried futilely to stretch out the kinks in her legs. She threw a longing glance toward her gun, which had been tossed in a far corner of the cold stone basement. "It’s not your fault, kid."

"Yeah, yeah . . . lucky for us he was too stupid to search us thoroughly, huh?" With a grimace, the linguist folded her left leg back, shoving it behind Janice and ignoring her protesting tendons.

"Ow . . . hey!" burst out Janice in a protest of her own.

"Kaitlyn!" Mel exclaimed.

"Aw, she’ll be fine. Stop whining, Covington . . . can you reach my boot knife?" Kaitlyn glanced over her left shoulder toward Janice, expectant.

"Yeah, yeah . . . I think so." Janice ignored the pain that streaked up her arms when she strained against the ropes binding her. Twisting her wrists, she probed beneath the rough leather edge of Kaitlyn’s well-worn boots, searching until her fingers brushed metal. "Got it." She fumbled the knife out, nicking the linguist’s ankle in the process.

"Hey now! The ropes, not me!" When Janice took a chunk of skin off her ankle, Kaitlyn jerked back against the pipe, knocking her hat forward over her face. Bad enough it was dark in here, but it was absolutely impossible to see a thing through thick black wool. She blinked against the itchy fabric, muttering things in French that made Mel blush.

"Come on, come on . . ." Janice flipped the knife up between her fingers and, swearing, started to saw at her binds. The robe slowly gave way beneath the keen little blade, breaking, fiber by fiber, with painful slowness. She felt the tension on the knots beginning to ease . . . a little bit . . . a little bit more . . . just a little—there! The last strand snapped against the knife, and Janice scrambled free. "That was too easy," she remarked with a cocky grin as she cut Mel free, then Kaitlyn.

The linguist got up and pushed her hat back up off her face, grinning teasingly. "Showoff."

They got the last of the ropes off and rubbed at their chafed wrists. Janice handed the boot knife back to Kaitlyn, who once again tucked it away into its sheath. "Handy thing. Thanks again, kid."

"Any time."

"Now wait just one minute," Mel interrupted primly. "How are we going to get up to the library again? We can’t use the main stairs, you know." She straightened out the oversized pair of trousers she was wearing, courtesy of Kaitlyn’s father’s closet.

"First things first," her lover replied. "Our new friend’s still outside the door."

"Not for long," Kaitlyn growled. "I’m about to go out there and give him a piece of my fist . . . tying us up in the basement like . . ." She stalked toward the door, but two pairs of hands dragged her back.

"Whoa there, Miss Confrontational!" warned Janice. "You want him alerting the whole damn place?"

"You got a better idea to get us out of here, Covington?" Kaitlyn snapped back.

"No, but I do," Mel cut in, a smile accentuating the glinting blue eyes that gazed across the basement to the ladder—recently installed in the far wall, but rather flimsy-looking—that disappeared through a dark hatch in the ceiling. "Tour of the maintenance passageways, anyone?"

It was cramped, and musty, and dark as hell . . . just like an ancient tomb, except without all the dead people. Janice felt right at home.

Except that all she wanted to do was to get the Scrolls back, and get out of there.

Swearing, she swatted a thick spiderweb out of her way and kept crawling. The beam from Kaitlyn’s army-issue flashlight extended in front of her by a good ten feet and illuminated nothing but more stone, more dust, and more damned spiderwebs before the its ragged edge dissipated into the darkness. The three kept on crawling, silent, making slow but steady progress.

After another ten minutes or so, the tunnel split into a T-shape, branching off into two passages perpendicular to the original.

"Great. Which way now?" Janice whispered.

Kaitlyn bit her lip, and urgency won out over extra caution. "Split up," she suggested. "Pick one passage, I’ll take the other. But you two stick together, got it?"

The archaeologist studied her friend worriedly. "Can you handle whatever might happen, kid?"

Even in the poor light, there was no mistaking the stubborn set of Kaitlyn’s jaw. "Don’t worry about me," she reiterated. "We have to find those Scrolls. Now pick a tunnel to go down before I flip a goddamn coin!"

For the briefest moment, Mel felt her consciousness recede. It flooded back again, loaded with decision, before she’d even fully realized it had gone. "Left-hand one," she declared.

"Mel Pappas has spoken. Looks like you’re going to the right, kid," mumbled Janice.

The linguist pulled her hat down tight. "Take the flashlight. And this. You might need it." She handed the heavy, ridged cylindrical light over to Janice and pressed a cold, slim metal object into Mel’s hand. "I’m off. See you in the library?"

Mel looked down with some alarm at the folding knife that rested in her palm. "Kaitlyn," she protested, "I can’t take this!"

"I’ve got more, if that’s what you’re worried about. Look, Mel, you don’t have to use it on anyone, okay? I’m just saying it might come in handy. You never know."

"Well . . . all right." The Southerner reluctantly agreed, and gripped Kaitlyn’s hand briefly. "See you there. Be careful."

"I’ll worry about being careful when we get the Scrolls back," was the grim reply. "My fault we lost them in the first place." Kaitlyn crept off down the crawlway, shooting a purposeful look over her shoulder before she went.

Janice laid a hand on Mel’s shoulder. "She’ll be fine," she reassured her lover—and herself too, if she had to be honest about it. "Kid’s got more tricks up her sleeves than . . ." She trailed off, eyes widening in surprise as another connection to the Scrolls fell into place. Kaitlyn had said something about a Greek ancestor, hadn’t she . . . ?

The blue of Mel’s eyes froze her gaze and drew it in. "Autolycus?" they whispered in amazed unison.

"She was right," stammered Janice. "I don’t believe it."

Mel nudged her lover. "Genealogies can wait. We’ve got business."

"You got it. Let’s go." The archaeologist nodded and switched the flashlight over to her left hand, and the two women headed down the left-hand tunnel.

It wasn’t much longer before they saw light trickling through a gratelike opening at one side of the tunnel.

"Bingo," Janice muttered. As a precautionary measure, she switched off the flashlight and peered through the heavy iron grating. Features that resembled a large empty bathroom fought their way into her vision, past the obstructing iron.

Damn. How to get that pesky thing out without making noise? Callused fingertips traced along the grate’s outline, searching out screws and finding none. "I’ll have to kick it out . . . here goes nothing."

"Wait just a second." Mel reached out to unhook the whip from Janice’s belt.

"Hey!"

"Oh, be patient, now." The translator carefully worked the tip of the whiplash between two iron bars, securing the lash around the grating in a loose but solid knot. She took hold of the braided leather and nodded. "Now . . . go ahead."

Even in the darkness, Janice’s eyes sparkled with pride. "Good thinking, sweetie." Bracing herself against the stone, she lashed out with both feet against the grate. The first time, she felt it loosen, and on the second attempt it came free and swung back against the wall with a muffled thud as Mel pulled back on the whiplash—there must’ve been a towel rack hanging there, or something. The translator slowly drew the heavy piece of iron up into the crawlway, undid the knot, recoiled the whip, and handed it back to Janice.

They waited, holding their breath for a few moments, but no one entered. Janice worried about anyone who might be sneaking down the hallway, though. She’d feel much better to know that she could just draw her Magnum and plug any hapless idiot who blundered in, but gunshots would be a very bad idea, especially now that they were supposedly tied up in the basement.

Well. She could always through the flashlight at them if she had to. She didn’t think Kaitlyn would mind, and it’d buy her time to get her whip ready, anyway.

If the odds weren’t too bad.

Nerves. What a royal pain in the ass they can be. The archaeologist sighed and crept to the edge of the ventilation shaft. "Ready?" She received Mel’s silent confirmation. "Let’s go then."

Janice let herself drop to the tiled floor as silently as she could, gritting her teeth when pain shot up through her legs from the impact. As she moved around the bathroom, inspecting every corner and even the inside of the giant clawfoot tub, Mel landed soundlessly behind her.

The tall Southerner tiptoed over to the door and pressed her ear against it. "Nothing," she reported in a whisper. "I think it’s safe."

"You sure?"

"As sure as I can be."

"Okay, then. Come on."

Mel nodded at Janice, took hold of the doorknob, and twisted it as slowly as she could. As soon as the latch was clear, she eased the door open just a crack, peered down the hallway, paused, and finally opened the door enough to poke her head through. A pair of bespectacled blue eyes scanned the length of the hall. "Nothing," she said again, once she was safe behind the bathroom door. "It’s clear."

Janice chewed a knuckle thoughtfully. "Any idea where we are?"

"Well, I can’t tell just from one quick look, but I guess we’re on the second floor. Now let’s go!" Mel took her shorter lover by the shoulders and steered her impatiently toward the door.

They slipped into the hallway with a stealth that would have made their ancestors proud, and headed off in search of the library and, hopefully, the Scrolls.

Kaitlyn growled at the rat that had just run across her hand and knocked it away. It hit the wall with a meaty thunk.

"Rodents. This place is crawling with rodents . . . and I don’t just mean your furry little relatives," she told the dead creature. She paused and rubbed her left knee. It was tender and a bit swollen from the hard stone. "Speaking of crawling, I’m getting damn sick of it." She’d turned so many corners now that she’d lost track and completely lost her bearings. She kept crawling down the tunnel anyway.

It wasn’t long before she came across an end to the tunnel, and a ladder that led downward. Damn. Well, it’s the end of the tunnel. What have I got to lose? She took hold of the topmost rung and let herself down.

"Velasquez." Her feet had barely hit the floor when a mocking voice behind her made her stiffen. "Don’tcha ever learn?"

Gods, she thought wildly, if I make it out of this with half a nerve left, it’ll be a damn miracle! Forcing her muscles to stay as still as possible, she reached up her left sleeve to loosen the sheathed throwing knife strapped to her forearm.

"Ah ah ah . . ." A round dropped into the chamber of the shotgun she was aimed at her back. "Hands where I can see ‘em, an’ turn around."

Swearing under her breath in Cornish, Kaitlyn complied. Sure enough, the jerk leering at her was Scarface, and the weapon in his hand was the 12-gauge shotgun. She gulped and tried not to think about the nasty hole it would likely punch through her chest.

"Finally noticed our getaway, huh?" she spat. "You bought a clue after all . . . how much’d it cost you?"

He glared at her. "Funny. Get movin’."

"Where to? I always wanted an armed escort." He’d dropped his cultured pronunciation, so the linguist threw her sarcastic comment at him in an exaggerated drawl.

Scarface lunged forward and rammed the shotgun barrel into Kaitlyn’s stomach. "Smartass! We’ve had enough’a ya, Velasquez!"

"Oh," Kaitlyn retorted, "having delusions of royalty now, are you?" She winced. Her stomach was on fire from the pain of the blow he’d just dealt her.

The savage grin she saw turned her spine to ice. "Out to the back, Velasquez. I’m gonna make sure you never get in the way again."

Kaitlyn gulped one more time and started walking, as the scarred thug gleefully prodded her with the shotgun every few steps. Oh boy. She only hoped Mel and Janice would get to the Scrolls on time.

Chapter Thirty

"Mel, I swear, how big is this place?" Janice complained. "It can’t be that hard to find the library, can it?" If the ventilation shaft had seemed long, this hallway was interminable.

Mel’s expression was slightly pained. "Do you trust me, Janice?"

Shit. "I do, Mel," Janice apologized quickly. "I do . . . I’m sorry." Amazing, how easy it was to say those words now. "Just getting edgy . . . I want those Scrolls back!"

The Southerner glanced around, then leaned forward to kiss her lover’s forehead. "So do I," she reminded Janice with a forgiving smile.

They passed an elaborately carved marble table, a reproduction of a frieze from the Sistine Chapel—Mel remembered, wistfully, having seen the original years ago as a child—and rounded a corner. Still more hallway . . . but it was much wider here, well lighted with a thick red carpet, adorned with fleurs-de-lis in gold thread, underfoot.

Janice’s eyes widened. "Swanky."

"Ostentatious," declared Mel. "Janice . . . look!" She pointed ahead of them, to where a broad square of light spilled onto the carpet from an open doorway.

The two women moved quickly now, almost running across the sound-dampening carpet toward the doorway, past more of Michelangelo’s Biblical scenes. Skidding to a halt just before the doorway, Janice peered into the room and caught an eyeful of wall-to-wall bookshelves that reached nearly from floor to ceiling. Her green eyes glinted. "Mel, I love you."

A warming look from ice-blue eyes sparkled back at her. "I know."

"Ow . . . hey, easy, I’m going!" Kaitlyn complained, stumbling as the shotgun muzzle left another bruise on her back. That’s gonna look nasty later on!

Scarface ignored her protests and opened the sliding door—probably the same one they’d found on their first break-in attempt, with their luck—before shoving Kaitlyn out into the yard.

The linguist was aching all over, and blood trickled into her left eye from the cut she’d gotten when she’d tripped on the stairs and hit her head on the edge of a particularly rough step. And it hadn’t helped much that her captor had just kicked and prodded at her until she’d gotten back up.

Out here behind the house, the grounds were vast—even in the stark light of the waning moon, Kaitlyn couldn’t make out the gates. She grimaced when another jab from the shotgun sent pain screaming through her body.

The house itself was just a low, dark outline in the night by now, barely visible behind Scarface, who’d leveled the gun at her head and was grinning widely.

Bastard. He has the audacity to smirk at me like that, a time like this? Maybe it was entirely the wrong time for this, but Kaitlyn was getting annoyed. "You know, with a cannon like that they’re still gonna hear you in there," she bluffed, jerking her chin toward the Gothic silhouette.

Scarface snorted. "Doesn’t matter. No one else will. ‘Sides, nobody around here’ll object to seein’ ya outta the way. Won’t be long now, but I’m feelin’ nice . . ."

"Really? That’s a first," Kaitlyn drawled, hoping that sheer bravado would cover up the sickening feeling crystallizing her guts.

"Shaddap! Or I might change my mind! You got one last request, Velasquez, ‘fore I off ya, so what’ll it be?"

"Well . . ." Her tired brain raced frantically. One last chance . . . I better make it a good one.

Mel and Janice slipped into the library and quickly ducked behind a wide desk. In the center of the room, two men were bent over the scrollcase, trying to make out the inscription that a young Southern belle had translated with such ease.

So the Scrolls were safe for now—it looked like they wouldn’t be destroyed until after they’d been deciphered. It eased Janice’s mind a bit, and she was about to relax against the desk . . . but a flash of bronze against the far wall caught her eye and kindled a new rage in the pit of her stomach.

"Mel, look!" The pattern was right . . . the era matched up . . . she knew that design. She’d spent a futile, maddening half year searching for it.

Mounted in a glass case against the wall hung the tattered remains of a black leather gambeson and what could only be Xena’s armor.

Mel’s hand tightened around her partner’s wrist in a nearly bone-crushing grip. To the left of the display was another identical case. This one contained Gabrielle’s Amazon leathers, the Queen’s Mask, and her staff.

"The plundered tombs at the ’40 Amphipolis dig . . . it was them?" the archaeologist whispered furiously. "They stole all the goddamned evidence!"

"C’mon, ya no-good piece of unnatural trash, what’ll it be?"

The accent was really starting to grate. The pronunciation was horrendous and nasal. Kaitlyn suddenly remembered a disastrous incident when she’d been fifteen. It had hearned her a whole lot of trouble—and a hell of a tongue lashing—back then, but it just might save her now . . .

"In that case," she said slowly, "mind if I have a last smoke and drink?"

Scarface gave her a superior stare. "Eh . . . go ahead. Enjoy yer filthy little vices one last time, an’ make it good."

"Oh, believe me . . . I always make it good." The graduate student snarled wordlessly and reached inside her trenchcoat for the lighter in her pants pocket.

"Hey." Scarface gestured at her with the shotgun. "Toss the gun first. I know ‘s in there."

"Oh, good. You’re learning. You might make a decent thug someday after all, eh?"" Kaitlyn countered with a superior stare of her own, but pulled the Colt automatic from its holster and tossed it aside anyway. "Happy now?"

"Not yet, but once yer done with that . . ." The unspoken promise lingered in the air.

"Then as much as I hate to say it . . . thank you." Kaitlyn fished out her lighter with one hand and simultaneously retrieved her cigarette case with the other, flipping a Dunhill from the slim silver case and into her mouth in one motion. Lighting it with a flourish, she put the accessories away into the pockets they’d come from, and brought out her hip flask.

"So," she began conversationally, "since you’re going to kill me anyway, mind telling me what your boss is up to, stealing the Scrolls?" She took a long drag off her cigarette, watching the glowing outline creep a little closer toward her fingers and suppressing the urge to flick off the ash left in its wake.

Scarface snarled. "What do you think I am, stupid?"

Kaitlyn shrugged, took another drag, and watched the ash lengthen. "Actually, yes, I did, but anyway. Can you blame me for being curious?" She popped the cap off her hip flask and swirled it. "What with your bunch following us around and all . . . smashing up my house and threatening us . . . couldn’t help but wonder, y’know." She exhaled a cloud of smoke and tossed back a gulp of scotch.

The thug looked at her. "If you’d cooperated in the first place, we wouldn’t have had to." He sounded almost sulky, like a child.

"Cooperated?" The ash had burned about halfway down the cigarette by now. "Yeah, well, I like to give people a hard time." She started to pace a bit, edging herself a bit closer to the thug on every round.

"Shows." He noticed the smoke wisping between Kaitlyn’s fingers, and the rapidly burning cigarette. "Aren’t you gonna flick th’ash off that thing?"

"Oh yeah, that . . ." Kaitlyn pulled in a mouthful of smoke so fast it made her throat tear, blew it hard into his face, and lunged forward, knocking the ample hot ash into Scarface’s eyes. A quick flick of her wrist at the same time doused the front of his shirt with alcohol. "Thanks for reminding me!" She jammed the lit cigarette into the scotch-soaked fabring and jumped back as it caught on fire.

The thug howled in agony as the flames licked up to sear his clothing, his limbs twitching in mindless reaction to the pain. His arm jerked up, the shotgun muzzle pointed into the sky, and Kaitlyn spun, whipping a vicious kick into his jaw. He winced, and the shotgun went off, cracking the night.

Another kick knocked the discharged weapon from the thug’s hand, and a hard uppercut dumped him, unconscious, to the ground. Kaitlyn swatted the flames off her pant leg, cursing, and rolled the man onto his stomach to extinguish his burning clothing. She scooped up the shotgun quickly and cracked him in the head with it, giving him a disgusted look before grabbing her own handgun off the ground and sprinting back toward the house.

"Well, Dad," she announced to the wind, "seeing as how I’m still alive now, I hope you don’t mind having had to paint over the scorch marks in the living room that one time. But still . . ." The linguist heaved a martyrial sigh. "Now, like then, it was a damn waste of a good Glenfiddich."

Mel and Janice, still crouched behind the desk, heard the gunshot and the scream. They tensed in shock and looked at one another.

"I hope Kaitlyn’s all right," Mel whispered.

"Wasn’t her voice . . . she should be okay . . . oh no, you don’t!" Janice exploded from a whisper to a full-out bellow and launched herself from behind the desk, hurtling toward the two men, who’d grabbed the scrollcase and started to run at the sound of gunfire. She yanked the whip from her belt, threw her arm forward, and sent twelve feet of braided leather hissing through the air to wrap around the ankle of the man carrying the scrollcase.

Janice pulled back hard, knocking both her victim and the other man to the ground and sending the scrollcase flying into the air. "Mel, catch!" She grabbed the case and tossed it to her partner, who fielded it like a natural.

Mel clutched the scrollcase and wheeled for the door, only to see three men charge in from the hallway—where they’d come from, she didn’t think she wanted to know. "Maybe not . . . oops!" She ducked the arm that swung at her and stomped on the foot that, she hoped, was attached to the same body as the arm was.

It was, and it gave her a chance to back up and kick the man sharply in the shin. Janice, meanwhile, was busy with the first two men. She’d be on her own.

The tallest of the three, an ugly character with a hooked nose and dirty, stringy hair, eyed Mel’s ill-fitting trousers and oversized black shirt with scornful amusement. "Doing your part for the country, are you, Rosie the Riveter?"

Mel’s face hardened, and for a moment she looked every inch her ancestor, right down to the danger that radiated from her gaze. "More so than you are," she told him levelly, over the pained yelp that came from where Janice’s roundhouse punch had just split open someone’s chin. She lunged forward on pure instinct and drove her free elbow into his face, winced as she heard his nose crunch, and ducked past his two buddies into the hallway.

"Back . . . back . . . go back, Mel!" Kaitlyn was barreling down from the far end of the hallway, blood on her face and a shotgun in her hand. Hot on her heels were four more thugs.

The translator needed no further prompting. She turned and bolted back for the doorway, creating a rather spectacular domino effect as she crashed headlong into the three thugs who’d decided to linger in the doorway.

Kaitlyn tore into the room about then, her pursuers right behind. The linguist pivoted and swung the shotgun like a club, catching two of them across the chin. Another vicious jab planted the butt of the firearm into one thug’s stomach, and when he doubled over, Kaitlyn slammed it across the backs of his knees.

The stringy-haired thug had recovered and was reaching out to grab Mel, when leather wrapped stingingly around his wrist and jerked him around—straight into the path of Janice’s fist.

"No one hurts my Mel, you got that?" the blonde spitfire told him savagely, just before dispatching him with an uppercut.

"Thanks, love." Mel grinned and tripped up another thug.

"Welcome." Janice’s eyes glinted, and without missing a beat, she brought a foot up into the thug’s chest, knocking the wind clean out of him.

Kaitlyn jumped onto the shoulders of the man she’d downed and used him as a springboard onto the tabletop. Her right leg lashed out, and a pair of brass bookends quickly found its way into two more men’s chests.

She was on the upper ground here. Having the upper ground is a good thing; you gain a better vantage point than your enemy. And from the tabletop, Kaitlyn caught a glimpse of the display case that hung over the library door.

A long, slightly curving, samurai-style sword, with rudimentary lightning patterns etched into its blade, glinted at her from behind the glass. Above it, a silver torc was similarly mounted, tiny rubies glittering in the eyes of its eagles’-head terminals.

"Son of a bitch," she breathed as the shock of recognition ripped through her. There was no mistaking that design.

Rhonwyn’s torc, and her sword Lludchen.

Chapter Thirty-One

Mel, still clutching the scrollcase, saw Kaitlyn standing transfixed on the tabletop, completely oblivious to the man sneaking up behind her. Move, come on! she pleaded mentally, annoyed at seeing the dynamic young woman standing so uncharacteristically stock-still. Kaitlyn’s hands were hanging at her sides, her eyes glassy and her mouth gaping in sickened shock.

Poor girl. She obviously hadn’t taken too well to finding her ancestor’s belongings in Dobson’s possession. And at any other time, Mel would have let her live through her shock at her own pace . . . but a thug was drawing a bead on the linguist right now.

Mel had opened her mouth and was about to shout a warning when a fist just as unexpected came crashing into her face and sent her flying into one of the display cases.

The pain from her impact against the second display case was lost in the tingle of sensation that flooded through her body. Glass shattered, and the sound of Janice’s grunt as the archaeologist crashed into the last remaining case was muffled by the weight of bronze and the smell of old leather falling over the Southerner’s head.

Familiar.

She was dimly aware of feathers tickling her neck, but it was the feel of the hardened length of wood, pulsing with a curious energy, that triggered memory, and her fingers closed easily around it in a practiced grasp. Instinct and training flooded back in the space of a breath, and the bard leaped to her feet, brandishing her staff.

"Xena!" she barked, glancing down at the crumpled figure beside her. "Get up!" No time to wonder why they were dressed as they were; the men advancing on the prostrate form in the doorway would show no mercy to their prey.

"I’m here, Gabrielle." The warrior stood, and brushed the shards of glass off her body, ignoring the cuts on her arms and back.

"About time." Emerald eyes sparkled purposefully, and together they approached the men from behind.

He’d seen the shotgun hurtle into the air when his blow landed, flying to smash open the glass case above the door and dumping its contents to the ground. The kid in the fedora lay unconscious in the doorway, where she’d fallen after his kick had knocked her off the table.

Easy target. The others would make short work of her.

But from where he stood, he couldn’t see the kid’s fingers twitch and reach out for the hilt of the sword.

He never saw what happened next, anyway; a piercing cry filled his ears just before a flying scissor kick took him down.

Xena landed on the table and quickly somersaulted off again, keening her battle yell and hitting the ground next to Gabrielle, whose staff had already laid low two of the men. She’d grabbed one more by the front of his strange shirt and was about to introduce his throat to the heel of her hand when a familiar, unexpected voice spoke.

"I believe this is mine?"

The tone was cultured, level, well-modulated. Rhonwyn? There was no doubt about the accent, the intonation. But the appearance was something else altogether.

The young woman who spoke in Rhonwyn’s voice gripped Lludchen in the Druid’s singular way, and a silver torc dangled from her left hand. Slowly, she spread the ends of the ornament and fitted it about her throat. Ruby-eyed eagles glinted at Xena and Gabrielle there, in a pale imitation of the fire burning in the girl’s eyes; a fire like only Rhonwyn possessed.

The two remaining men stood motionless, held at the mercy of the swordpoint and the steely look aimed at them. Rhonwyn glanced past them and smiled. The smile was an expression so unique to the young Druid that Xena and Gabrielle recognized her despite her completely unfamiliar features.

"Hello again, old friends," Rhonwyn said, in her typically deadpan way, as though this encounter weren’t taking place in the middle of a fight.

Gabrielle grinned. "Good to have you back."

"Just like ancient times," came the wry response. In a move as quick as her sword’s namesake, Rhonwyn lashed out with the flat of Lludchen’s blade, dropping one man with a blow to the temple just as Xena’s fist let fly into the last man’s face.

"Hey, Xena?" asked the bard uncertainly.

"Yeah, Gabrielle?"

"What are we doing here?"

The warrior shook her head. "You know, I’m not quite sure, but . . ." The faintest of sounds caught her attention, down the hallway somewhere. "Wonder about it later, ‘cause I think I hear more coming. No, wait . . . just one." She tensed to spring.

"Blessed Brigid!" exclaimed Rhonwyn. "Will they never have done?"

Ice-blue eyes caught and held the Druid’s. "No," Xena told her grimly. "I hate to say it, but some people will never learn."

"What is the meaning of this?" Dobson’s voice exploded into the library. Shock grew on his badly bruised, haggard face at the sight of the downed men strewn across the floor. His head was still throbbing, his nerves frayed from the disastrous encounter on the Housatonic backroads and then the drive back here.

Xena advanced on him menacingly. "You tell me," she said. "I want to know what you’re doing with Gabrielle’s scrolls"—she held the scrollcase up in his face—and what in Tartarus you plan to do with them."

Dobson fell back a step or two. This formidable figure wasn’t the genteel Southern aristocrat he’d confronted at the University of South Carolina, but someone else entirely. And if Melinda Pappas had managed to trounce him so thoroughly, he didn’t want to find out what this woman could do to him now.

He felt sick. All his efforts to eradicate Xena from history were exploding in his face. He’d gotten the artifacts, he’d gotten the Scrolls—and yet, despite all that, here she was before him, in the flesh . . . with that partner of hers . . . mocking him!

"How?" he gasped raggedly. "I don’t understand . . . I thought I took care of everything!"" Near hysterical from stress, he started to run, but the young woman was there with Rhonwyn’s torc about her throat and the Druid’s sword leveled at him. He spun back, but Gabrielle’s staff was there, held in a ready grip by the bard’s descendant, poised to strike.

Xena strode toward the man, six feet of danger and barely controlled fury. "Apparently not," she purred. "But I’m gonna find out what it was you thought you took care of, you got that?" The warrior smirked. "’Cause in between the three of us here, I don’t think you have much of a choice. So you tell me: what’s the idea here?"

Defiantly, Dobson blustered, "You expect me to tell you? Back off, woman!" He spat out the word as if it were the most vile invective he could imagine. "You never deserved to exist in the first place, and I won’t let you—"

Fingers jabbed into his throat, and his head began to tingle with numbness. He choked, straining for breath, glaring angrily in her general direction as his vision began to blur.

"I’ve just cut off the flow of blood to your brain," the level voice informed him. For the first time, he noticed that there was no trace of a Southern accent in the woman’s speech. "You got about thirty seconds to tell me what the big idea is, or you’re gonna die a very nasty and painful death. So you better skip the color commentary." Xena glanced at the blonde woman on her left. "Gabrielle, you take it from here."

"My pleasure," the bard coolly responded. She watched as Dobson fell to his knees, trying desperately to draw oxygen into his lungs. Oxygen that wouldn’t reach his brain anyway, not until Xena released the pinch. "Make it to the point," she told him. "What have you done to sabotage the project, and why?"

"Journal . . . on the desk . . . has all the information," Dobson managed. "Don’t want records of you in history . . . make women think they’re our equals . . . or worse, our superiors . . . glorify your immoral lifestyle . . . undermine great Christian traditions!"

"That’s enough," barked the warrior, disgusted. "You’ve said a mouthful."

Dobson was dimly aware of the fingers at his throat again, though he couldn’t feel them—and then he could breathe. Sensation returned to his brain with every gasping, oxygen-laden breath, and he collapsed to the floor, overwhelmed and oblivious to the hardwood staff hovering overhead as unconsciousness took him.

"Hey . . . how’d he . . .?" Janice put a hand to her aching head and stared down at Dobson’s prostrate form at her feet. "What the hell?" Gabrielle’s staff was in her hand—moreover, it was intact—but she couldn’t remember picking it up in the first place.

"Oh my." Mel rubbed her eyes and blinked. "I hate how that feels."

"How what feels?" Janice shook off the disorientation, darted over to her lover, and wrapped a supportive arm around her. "You okay, sweetie?"

"I’m fine, but . . . but this is how it felt . . . that last time!" The Southerner’s eyes were full of amazement.

Something clicked in Janice’s mind. "Back at Ares’s Tomb. Son of a bitch!" she marveled. "Is that what happened? That means . . . but Gabrielle’s spirit’s never taken over my body before. Why now?"

"My guess is that you were ready this time." Kaitlyn was surprised to find herself behind the desk, a leatherbound book in one hand and Rhonwyn’s sword in the other; the last thing she remembered was a haymaker to the jaw that had sent her flying across to the other side of the room. She took a seat in the huge, comfortable recliner, trying to drive the lingering haze from her brain. "Maybe," she mumbled, burying her head in her hands, "since you’ve learned to accept her as your ancestor . . ."

"Makes sense," conceded Janice. She glanced at the weapon she held. It seemed to tingle in her grasp. "And something about the staff too . . . you think?"

Kaitlyn flashed a somewhat sleepy smile. "Covington, think about it . . . how the hell else could wood possibly be that well preserved after so many years, unless there was something special about it?" She paused. Is that the subjunctive case? "Unless there were something special. Whatever."

The archaeologist chuckled. "And you, kid, are something else. Speaking of something else, Rhonwyn get in there anyhow, do you know?"

"I think so." The linguist nodded. "My memory winked out about fifteen minutes ago. Last I knew, I was getting my clock cleaned. Now, I’m standing here holding a sword and a journal."

"Read the journal, then," Mel suggested. "I vaguely recall hearing Dobson say that everything we needed to know would be in it."

"I’ll give it a look." Kaitlyn laid the sword across the desk in front of her and cracked open the journal. She wrinkled her nose; it smelled like dust and old, musty paper, and wasn’t the most pleasant aroma in the world, but she tried her best to ignore the scent and started to read instead.

"Yeah, and while you do that—hey!" One of the men stirred, and Janice leaped over to crack him in the head with the staff. "Mel, come on and help me find some kind of rope or something to tie these guys up."