The man named Michael sighed and looked out into the distance before turning his enigmatic stare back to him.“You are charged with another task.A bigger task that will require much of you.”
“Have I not given enough?”He indicated his prone body with a weak sweep of his hand.
“There is more you can give.The treasure will never be completely safe.It needs a guardian.”
“Nay.”His head fell back.“Find another more worthy.”
“There is no other.”
“I don’t want this.I want to die.”
“You want to be withher,but that is no longer possible.”
Michael stood over him, hands on hips, eyes sparkling in the shadows.The anger returned, sharp and hot.Hotter than the fever that had burned through him.
No longer possible.As if it ever was.As if he’d ever had a chance of meeting her in heaven.Heaven wasn’t for sinners and he’d been a fool to think otherwise.Even so, he’d allowed himself the possibility.It dogged his every step from France to Scotland.It burned in his brain and ate at his soul.
“You are needed here.”Michael’s expression softened, as if he felt his patient’s pain and longing.“You are charged with protecting the treasure for all eternity.”
“Nay.”Nay.He did not want this.
“If the treasure is discovered by the wrong people, there will be war as we have never seen, pestilence and death.Everything as you know it will be gone.”
“You are speaking of the Apocalypse?”
Michael did not answer.His silence was answer enough.
He would not accept that he was the only man standing between life and the end of the world.The only man for the rest of eternity?Nay.
“You will encounter those who want to take the treasure from you, who will do anything to have it.You alone know where it is buried, but only the key can break the seals.”
“What is this key you speak of?”
“You will know when you find it.”
He shook his pounding head.“You speak in riddles again.”
Michael lowered himself to one knee and folded battle-scarred hands over his bent leg.“The key will reveal itself in time.For now you need to protect the treasure.You have been given eternal life to do so.Death cannot claim you.”
He stared at his rescuer turned jailor, anger and desperation and defeat churning inside him.“You lied.”
Michael cocked a brow in question.
“Thisishell.”
Chapter One
Present Day
“I have an appointment with Christien Chevalier.”Lainie Alexander boldly looked into the skeptical eyes of the man guarding the doors to The Chevalier—the most popular nightclub in Milwaukee.
“Right.”He crossed beefy arms over a barrel chest and cocked a cynical eyebrow.
“I’m serious.Our appointment’s in fifteen minutes.”
The bouncer resembled a large block of wood with a shaved head and pool-table legs.And when he stared her down with those narrowed, beady eyes, like he was doing now, he was intimidating.But Lainie tried not to let the intimidation affect her.She squared her shoulders and hiked her purse up on her shoulder.
“I’m not making this up.”The line of people behind her muttered.They hadn’t exactly been nice since she bypassed them and marched to the front of the line.She ignored them, hoping a lynch mob wasn’t forming.
