A.k.a. Goddess

“Sure,” I say. “Lex.”

He almost smiles. He has preferred “Lex” ever since.

Alex was a victim.

Lex is a survivor.

Chapter 4

S tanding in line for customs, my backpack slung comfortably over one shoulder, I caught glimpses of Lex’s long suit coat half a line ahead of me. Surely he was just being chivalrous with the blanket and chocolate? He wasn’t spying, living up to his archvillain moniker, was he?

Could he possibly do both?

It wasn’t lack of time or opportunity that kept me from asking. Nor was it cowardice or embarrassment. We’d been lovers at one time, remember?

Nope. I held my tongue because I couldn’t think of a way to confront him without tipping my hand. On the very low chance he’d seen my notes, at least he hadn’t taken any; I’d checked that on the plane. Better to err on the side of discretion.

Especially while guards stood by with automatic weapons.

By the time I left the secured area, Lex was greeting yet another reason for not trusting him.

His cousin Phil, CEO, prince regent of the family business.

Phil Stuart was stocky and harsh-featured, right down to his crooked nose. He purposefully wore his tawny hair too long. His suit was more expensive than Lex’s, but not as understated. Phil was the kind of businessman who put the filthy back into filthy lucre—and yet Lex was one of his staunchest supporters.

Having someone save your life with his own bone marrow will do that.

I turned to scan the waiting crowd. Aunt Bridge’s assistant would be a college-age girl, right? I noticed one young blonde, but she threw her arms wide to greet my Discman seat mate and they began making out, right there in the airport. Okay, probably not her.

I felt either Lex or Phil watching me, but didn’t want to look paranoid by turning. I continued studying the crowd. When I saw my name on a piece of cardboard, I looked up.

Oh, my…goddess.

The person who held it was older than standard college age by about a decade.

He was also a guy.

Other than being tall—lanky, really—the man holding the sign that read “Magdalene Sanger” could have been the anti-Lex. He wore broken-in jeans the way only cowboys and Europeans can, and a loose T-shirt. His shaggy black hair looked finger combed, and he didn’t seem to have shaved that morning. When his gaze met mine, I saw his eyes were a bright blue.

They smiled at me in welcome, even bluer. And yet something in that smile seemed unapproachable. Amiable but off-limits. Probably married…even if he wasn’t wearing a ring.

Then he lowered the sign to step forward and greet me, offering a slim, bony hand, and surprised me further.

Because he wore a prominent crucifix around his neck. And his quiet greeting as he ducked his head toward me, in a thick Celtic accent, was “Circle to circle?”

“A guy Grail Keeper?” I asked Aunt Brigitte as soon as Rhys Pritchard politely left us alone at the Hôpital Américain de Paris. He’d said he would bring back tea.

“It is not impossible,” my great-aunt murmured from where her folded bed propped her up. Her neck was in a brace, her arm in a cast. One of her eyes had swollen purple, to match the side of her face. It hurt to look at her, but I looked at her anyway, gently holding her free hand. If she could survive the beating, I could survive the evidence of it.

“His mother is from a Welsh line of Keepers,” Aunt Bridge continued. “As she taught his sisters the stories, he learned them as well. Would you have had her exclude him just for being a boy? Would you have me do so?”

“No! I just would have thought he’d be a bit too…”

I didn’t stop myself in time.

“I’d be a bit too what?” teased Rhys, peeking in the cracked door. His smile didn’t falter as he carried in two cardboard cups of tea, letting the door swing shut behind him. “I would have knocked, but my hands were full.”

“I’m sorry,” I said immediately. “I was being nosy.”

He put the other cup of tea on the rolling table that spanned Aunt Bridge’s bed and retrieved her straw from a plastic cup of water. “No offense is taken.”

“Not just that, but…” Might as well admit it. “I’m sorry, but I was going to say, too Christian.”

Rhys and Aunt Bridge exchanged a significant look.

“What?” I demanded, immediately suspicious.

“Beliefs need not be exclusive. You know that I’m Catholic myself,” said my aunt, despite how badly she’d been treated after her divorce in the fifties. “Almost every cathedral built in medieval Europe was named Nôtre Dame for a reason. Not just to praise the Virgin, but to fill a void left by the banished goddess worship.”

“I know,” I said. “I was jumping to unfair conclusions.”

Rhys hitched himself onto a table, since I had the room’s only chair. “Are you a goddess worshipper, then?”

I hated that question because I hated my own less-than-logical answer. “I’m not sure.”

He took a sip of tea, clearly surprised.

“I’m still figuring it out. In the meantime…calling it research feels safer.”

“You’re quite the honest woman, aren’t you?”

Some days I believed that more than others. “Are you studying the goddess grails along with Aunt Bridge?”

“My main interest,” he admitted, “is the Holy Grail.”

I could hear the capitalization, even in speech, and put down my tea for fear of spilling it. “The Holy Grail? The cup-of-the-Last-Supper, sought-by-King-Arthur’s-greatest-champions Holy Grail?”

“That’s the one,” he said, with that great lilt of his. “Like in Monty Python, but with less inherent wackiness.”

I grinned.

“Rhys believes that his grail may be hidden among the remains of the goddess culture,” said Aunt Bridge.

“The church did try to suppress the Grail legends along with other heresies,” he agreed. “The Templars. The Cathars. The Gnostic gospels. I’m merely seeking the truth.”

Or maybe he meant, the Truth. “And you honestly think you’ll find the cup of the Last Supper was hidden by old goddess worshippers?”

“British legend holds that Joseph of Aramathea brought the Grail west, after the crucifixion,” he told me. “But the French have a different legend.”