Page 48 of King Among the Dead

He stood and went back to the shelves; she recognized the row where he kept his collection of books about King Arthur. “Did you know,” he said, selecting a tome and paging through it, “that historians give great credence to there actually having been arealKing Arthur? Not the medieval figure of myth, but a warlord. Very old. A British king who fought against the Saxon invasion.”

Rose didn’t ask if his interest in the topic stemmed from his own name; she had a feeling that was how it had started, and wasn’t going to reduce him to the trivial.

“One of his knights,” he continued, resuming his seat, “a warrior named Derfel, turned to the cloth afterward. He ended up being sainted.” He turned this book toward her, too, laid it atop the other, replacing her view of the final battle with several photos; one of a painted saint, one of a small, gray stone church in a grassy cemetery, and one of a strange wooden figure of an animal – without a head.

“Thomas Cromwell had Saint Derfel himself removed from the church in Llandderfel, but the stag he sat astride remains there, installed on the church’s porch.

“Every saint has his own supposed miracles.” His voice went smoky. “Saint Derfel is said to be able to fetch damned souls back from hell.”

She shivered when she met his gaze. He was completely serious – and why shouldn’t he be? He’d seen a conduit in the flesh. Twice. One had killed his brother, she’d surmised. He believed that one of King Arthur’s knights had the power to journey into and back out of hell. She’d long since stopped questioning him, so she supposed she believed it, too.

“Anyone in particular you want to fetch?”

He glanced away, and when their gazes broke apart, she realized how much tension had swelled up between them, because it was suddenly gone. “No. No, I–” Grim smile. “I like to think Simon didn’t end up there. Supposing heaven’s better.” He tilted his head back and forth. “But it’s a way – it’s an entry point. I’ve been looking for those for years now. In case…” He closed the book, and set it off to the side. “Anyway,” he said, briskly, and she realized he was self-conscious. “I thought we’d try the shooting range today.”

~*~

Shooting, it turned out, was the easiest skill to master. It took practice, as did everything, but once she’d learned to allow for the recoil, had learned how to use each gun’s sights and account for each individual weapon’s accuracy, it wasn’t hard to shred the center out of a paper target, eject the mag, reload, and do it all over again.

Within two weeks, she’d become proficient with all the handguns in Beck’s arsenal.

“Which do you prefer?” he asked one afternoon, when she’d set the .45 aside and hooked her ear protection down around her neck. He was looking at the array of guns laid out on the table beside her, but lifted his head to fire an intensely curious look toward her. Her answer mattered to him, though she wasn’t sure he’d reveal how much so. “Gun or knife?”

Guns were lightweight, portable, and allowed a person to keep a distance between themselves and their attacker. There was far less risk of getting hit, or grabbed, or stabbed when wielding a gun, and it packed a punch that didn’t rely on a person’s physical strength. A gun was a tactical advantage for someone like Rose, and her answer should have been immediate.

It was immediate – but it wasn’tgun.

“Knife.”

He stilled for one brief moment, breath held, fingers splayed across the table. She watched his pupils expand. Then he nodded and turned away. “May I ask why?” So polite, to cover how delighted he was. She could tell, though. Couldfeelthe glad shiver that wanted to ripple down his back.

Her own breath wanted to hitch and stall, the air shifting, sparking. It continued to amaze her how the atmosphere could change like that, bristle and crackle with tamped-down energy after just a look. The way a question could heighten her awareness of him to a level that was sweetly sharp – and that felt reciprocal.

“A knife…” How to say it. She wet her lips, gaze fixed on his profile, the dark sweep of his lashes against his cheeks. She’d only used a knife on a man once, but the memory lingered, fresh and heated, always ready to leap to the surface of her mind; always present in her fingers, and arms, and a faint, ghostly throbbing in the back of her head. One mention sent her back there, to the man gasping, and the blood splattering hot across her bare feet.

She swallowed and tried again, palms tingling, pulse throbbing. “When I used the knife, I knew thatIwas the one who’d stopped him. He was going to hurt you – and me. And he – he didn’t even expect it. He lookedsurprised, when I stabbed him.” She could hear the wonder in her voice, knew it showed on her face.

If he would only look at her…

And then he did, a slow turn of his head, hair falling half-across his face, eyes gleaming through the strands. His mouth was set in a tight line, but it wasn’t displeasure. She couldn’t pin down his emotion, but she knew it wasn’tbad. That he didn’t disapprove of her way of thinking.

“I knife is intimate,” he said, voice low. “A gun is a useful and necessary tool. But when you use a knife, you get blood on your hands. A kill can’t be clean with a knife.”

She held his gaze, and nodded.

He grinned, teeth sharp. “That’s my girl.”

She started to step toward him–

And he turned away. Went to fetch more targets from the wall-mounted cabinet. “Have another turn with the Colt,” he said, voice back to normal, his back to her. “I’ve tinkered with the sights, and I think it’s stopped pulling so hard to the right.”

“Okay.” Inwardly, her joy dimmed. Her pulse and her breathing and the fizzing excitement of a moment ago settled back down – the way it should. Beck wasn’t interested in her being his girllike that.

She knew that, and told herself so repeatedly, but, still – it always stung a little to be reminded.

FIFTEEN

Kay had asked, in the early days, when her birthday was – it had been a conversation between the three of them over dinner one night, Kay expressing concern that, should Tabitha’s body be found, paperwork pertaining to her fostering of Rose might be found also.

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