If they could see in the dark...

Well, then, so could Navarre.

He chose delay over pursuit, letting the enemy come to him. He dug a spot beneath a mound of leaves, covered himself completely and lay still.

His waiting was short. The first man crept out of the shadows fifteen minutes later. Navarre saw a mask across his face, with strange, misshapen eyes. The man moved at a crouch, turning his head to right and left, peering into the darkness. The mask allowed him sight, that much was clear.

Navarre let him pass, whispering a small piece of magic to make him confident that his prey was weak and would be easily taken. But what the attacker did next surprised Navarre. He opened a small sheet of rigid paper, watching a tiny light that moved against a small map.

So this intruder knew where he was going. He had a clear goal, some kind of old document hidden inside the abbey.

Navarre watched the man put away the odd map and then he sent out his threads into the man's mind. Thoughts were Navarre's special skill after centuries in the Between World, where thoughts ran with the force of physical things. He could shape them easily now.

The man in the strange mask didn't hear Navarre slide free of his hiding place, nor did he realize a blade touched his neck.

Only with the sharp pain did he begin to struggle, and Navarre planted the seed of fear into his thoughts, building the terror. Flailing, the man tripped on a fallen branch, his mask torn away. He lunged sideways, fell facedown on the muddy bank. In the space of seconds he dropped into the swollen moat, swept away downstream.

IZZY REINED IN his impatience, staring at the tangle of stopped cars.

Another fallen power line.

Half a dozen police were out directing traffic, but despite their presence this section of the A21 was a nightmare right out of a post-apocalyptic film.

As another crew attacked a second downed line, Izzy picked up his cell phone. The signal was erratic in the storm, but so far he was running fifty-fifty on his calls. Punching in the number for Draycott Abbey, he waited through six staticky rings, finally ending in a recorded message.

He scanned his written notes, found another number, and dialed with one hand, watching a new emergency repair crew dressed in black slickers grapple with a live line.

"Marston here."

"Same stuffy accent as ever, I see. I hope you'll remember an old friend."

There was a pause, then the sound of laughter echoing through the crackle on the line. "Mr. Teague, I take it? About time you contacted your old friends in England. We haven't heard from you in months."

"Life gets busy. You know how it goes, Marston."

"No apologies are required." By habit, Lord Nicholas Draycott's highly efficient butler kept any other thoughts to himself. Past incidents at the abbey usually indicated that Izzy Teague's presence in the area involved more than a social visit.

"Since you found my cell phone number, this must be important. What can I do for you, Mr.

Teague?"

"Izzy, Marston. Don't start mistering me to death again."

"Of course, sir. Did you require Lord Draycott? If so, I'm sorry to tell you that he and the family are traveling in South America."

"No, actually I'm trying to reach someone doing research at the abbey. An American named Sara Nightingale."

"Ah. The woman from the Smithsonian Document Division."

The Smithsonian connection was Sara's current cover, Teague knew. She would be good at the role.

He'd watched a video of her at a high-level forensics conference, and she'd impressed him with her calm, organized mind and excellent knowledge of chemistry. She had the kind of tunnel vision that made for an excellent FBI agent, Teague thought wryly. "I've called the abbey and her cell phone, but there's been no answer. You're not there now, I take it."

"Sorry, I was in town stocking up on supplies when the storm hit. Heaven knows how long I'll be stuck here now. There are trees down everywhere, and most of the smaller roads are closed. I take it you need to reach her urgently?"

"That's right." Izzy didn't offer details. Marston was smart enough not to ask.

"I suppose if you have a good four-wheel drive, you could take the road through the marsh. Nothing more than a walking trail, mind you, but it will steer you away from the traffic. Then you can loop north to the abbey."

With one hand Izzy brought up a GPS screen on his sleek laptop. "Sounds like it could work. Where do I pick up this road?"

"Watch for a green trail sign about ten miles out of Hawkhurst. You'll see the entrance just beyond the stone cottage with the twin carved lions. Drive slowly past the hedge and you can't miss it."

As the butler spoke, Izzy cued in the location on his computer. "Excellent. About how long to the abbey?"

"In normal weather, twenty minutes. In this hellish broth? An hour or even more. Mind the washed-out track above Lyon's Leap though. It's a nasty go there."

"Will do. Stay dry, Marston. I'll see you...when I see you."

"Which will be as soon as I can manage it, I assure you."

The line crackled out. Izzy glanced at the stalled line of traffic and then back at the GPS screen. He was still twenty miles from the point that Marston had mentioned. Until the power lines were cleared, it was anyone's guess how long it would take him to cross that twenty miles.

Meanwhile, rain slammed against the pavement above the rising howl of the wind.

CHAPTER NINE.

NAVARRE WAS NOT SURPRISED that the second man was more skilled in hunting than the first.

Behind a bank of trees, the Crusader watched a dark figure crouch low in the mud. The man moved a small black wire at his ear, then turned and dug a spot into a wet mass of leaves, hiding just as Navarre had done.

Except Navarre had already seen him.

The storm hurled rain, and the ground oozed mud. Water spilled from the moat, which had begun to overflow its banks.

Patient, Navarre lured the second attacker out of his hiding spot with the imagined sound of clumsy, frightened footsteps running down the hill. It was a trick Navarre had learned well: always give your prey the thing he wants most.

Even if it was no more than an illusion.

And this man Navarre wanted alive, not lost in the flood like his companion, so he drew him on, making him feel confident. The force of the stalker's thoughts was nothing before Navarre's. The Crusader had come from a different world, where thoughts had physical form. He shaped them easily now: reckless confidence. Then a careful image of sleep. Finally Navarre drove the man up the hill toward the abbey's stables, which would make a safe cell for his captive until dawn.

Thunder cracked. Something made Navarre halt, his captive motionless and silent. A heartbeat later, lightning flashed overhead and a heavy branch hurtled down exactly where the two men would have walked. Navarre's skin prickled, little hairs rising at his neck. Something about the maelstrom felt nearly familiar, as if he had met such violence of nature before.

For all his effort, he could not remember when or where. Even his magic had its limits. And more important than the storm were the answers he meant to wring from Draycott now.

His patience was at an end.

RAIN POUNDED AT THE abbey windows. Sara did not hear, caught in a bright, hot place where blood welled over desert sand, where knights raced under the moonlight and her death had already been written.

Images ran like fog, slipping through her fingers. They left her cold, trembling. She wanted to run from them, though she had never run from anything in her life.

In this place there was blood and death, hot sand and a wind full of strange spices. There was a sharp beauty that called to her soul, but a greater calling came from the danger.

She had no one to trust. Even now Philip's men hounded her, barely hours on her heels after her escape from the nightmare of his captivity.

The trunk. The terrible heat of her prison.

Shuddering, she forced away the memory. If she could only find a safe place to rest, even for an hour....

Her eyes blurred. There was no rest in the night.

Not for one who had disobeyed a king-and escaped his mad son.

NO LIGHTS BURNED in the stables.

Navarre opened the door to a windowless room near the back and tossed his captive down on cold tiles. As a precaution, he picked up the small pack woven of black fiber, which the man wore around his waist.

Then he probed the man's thoughts.

Why have you come here?

The map. Upstairs in the library.

What about the woman?

I will kill her when I have what I need. She knows too much....

Navarre's eyes hardened. Who sent you to do this?

His captive moved restlessly. I do not know. It was arranged by phone. No names were given.

Navarre shoved the man facedown. Then he sent a final thread over his captive's mind and barred the door from the outside.

At the stable entrance, his great horse waited, calm and regal. There was nothing skittish in his movements now, no sense of further danger.

"So the troublemakers are found," Navarre murmured. "But who sent them here?" He stood silent, testing the currents of the night.

No other attackers followed. Were they here, Navarre would have felt their traces. He was skilled at finding signs thanks to the Bedouins who had taken him in for nearly a year after he was lost in a caravan. After his return, some in Outremer had called him heathen. Despite his lands and titles, most had called him worse than that. Only one had accepted him for the man he was.

And that woman of flashing fire and rare courage was forbidden to him by the whim of a king.

Navarre shook away the images, feeling old despair mingle with new fury. Caught between two times, he felt past and present flow together, merged in the chaos of the storm.

The wind was like a fist, hammering the trees as he crossed toward the darkened gatehouse.

Trying not to remember...

But the scream of the wind brought another wave of memory and the vision of a woman lost to him for centuries. The pain nearly crushed him, but he strode on through the wind. Draycott had shattered everything he cared for in his life. Now Navarre would bring this great estate to rubble.

After that would come the greatest blow.

Not death. Nothing so simple. Instead his enemy would be delivered through the barrier, taking Navarre's place in the twisted loop out of time.

He closed his eyes to lost joy and focused on revenge.

THE WIND HOWLED, driving sand into her face.

She struggled forward with the sure knowledge that her pursuers were a mere hour behind. Her cloak whipped at her head and she prayed the storm's fury would hide her steps.

Forbidden or not, her lover would come for her. She pinned her whole being on her trust in him.

And if Navarre did not come, she would die here in the endless sand, suffocated and buried. At least she would be free of Philip's evil hands.

She closed her mind to fear.

Drawing her cloak around her, she struggled on through the storm.

DRAYCOTT WAS STILL ON the roof where Navarre had set him, rigid and unmoving. With a hissed rush of words, Navarre brought his betrayer awake and back into time, back into the fury of the storm.

"What-"

"Silence. You're here by my wish. Don't waste the little time I give you."

Draycott's eyes filled with fury, but there was cool intelligence there as well. He bowed his head by a fraction. "As you wish."

"I want answers. Who is the woman? What binds her to you?"

"She is a visitor to the house. Here for work and no more."

"Liar."

"My thoughts are open to you." Draycott stood taller. "Read them now," he snapped.

"So I will, betrayer. Your deepest tricks won't hold against my mind."

And Navarre probed deep, found layers of memory heavy with love for this great old house. The force of it set Navarre back. Love for a house was not what he'd expected to find.

Yet a woman held sway in that powerful, complex mind, too. A woman with gentle eyes and a calm voice by the name of Grey. Draycott had sent her away for her safety at the solstice, Navarre saw.

She was not the woman from the roof.