Warrior’s Cross

Chapter Ten

The sun shining down on the city made the snow-covered sidewalk in the distance glitter, and the glare swirled up in shimmering trails.

Downtown Chicago was a concrete and metal maze that held in all the cold like an icebox, and just like it would roast you alive in the summer if you let it, it would freeze you solid when the wind blew. The wind off the lake was the worst, its frigid gusts enough to freeze standing water in bare minutes.

Cameron walked along the street in his heavy wool coat, duffel bag over one shoulder, cell phone in his opposite hand. “No, I don’t think so,” he was saying. “I’ve been out all day, and with this cold weather, I need a damn break!”

“Well, you should come for dinner soon. Jean-Michel is afraid you don’t like his food anymore,” Blake told him over the phone.

“He should know better,” Cameron said drolly. “Okay. Thursday. How about that?”

“Sounds good. I’ll reserve a table for us,” Blake responded happily. “How’s work going?”

“Pretty good, I guess. No complaints,” Cameron answered vaguely.

“I understand. We can talk about it at dinner,” Blake offered.

“I guess I should visit the restaurant more often,” Cameron responded, his tone gone distant and flat.

“You do what you need to do, kiddo. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“I’ll be there. Now get back to work,” Cameron said, some smile back in his voice.

“Will do.”

Cameron closed his cell phone and slid it into his pocket. He shook his head. After nearly six months, Blake was still taking care of him. Or at least trying to. Cameron had finally started rebelling in early fall.

The first few weeks had been horrible. Cameron could barely stand to be awake, much less up and moving around, and he stayed closeted in his apartment, just trying to wrap his brain around what had happened.

Two weeks after the funeral, while feeding the dogs, he suddenly remembered Smith and Wesson. A phone call to Blake revealed that the house had been emptied and sold at auction not long after Julian’s death, bought by a man overseas who had yet to arrive and claim it.

Blake himself had attempted to find the two cats, going to Julian’s house the day after his death, but he’d searched the house from end to end with no avail, and none of the staff knew anything about their whereabouts.

Preston had disappeared the night Julian was killed, and no sign of him or the cats ever surfaced. Cameron was devastated. He knew Julian had loved those cats. They were absolute monsters, so why else keep them if he didn’t love them?

He could only hope Preston had taken them with him.

After a month, Blake came and banged on his door and told him that if he refused to work at Tuesdays, then he had another job for him.

With Blake’s guidance, Cameron became a relay contact. All he did was answer a cell phone, take the message—often in code he didn’t understand—and call someone else to relay the information. He was accurate, fast, and most importantly, kept his mouth shut about it.

After the first few insanely large under-the-table payments, Cameron repainted his apartment, remodeled the kitchen, and bought new furniture for the first time in his life. He bought a new, nicer wardrobe that Miri helped him pick out. She wanted him to socialize more. He decidedly didn’t, but after a couple months, he started going out with her and some friends just to get her to leave him alone about it.

He found the distraction really did help sometimes.

After summer passed, he realized that he didn’t sit on his hands well, and he joined a nearby gym. Finding it another welcome distraction, he went religiously, and to his surprise, toned up his wiry muscles quite a bit. He also ran a couple miles on the treadmill each time he was there. The changes in his body made him feel like a different person, one that he liked, and when Blake suggested he take a kickboxing class, he went along amiably.

After a week of the class, he realized that his lie about Julian’s bruises coming from kickboxing had been pretty well-crafted after all.

Cameron hadn’t wanted to go back to Tuesdays. Ever. It had taken three months before Blake even got him up there. The foyer was the worst. The marble had soaked up the blood and been stained beyond any hope of cleaning. It had been replaced, but the new tiles were slightly whiter than the ones that surrounded it, and so they had created a decorative medallion on the floor instead.

It bore a remarkable resemblance to the warrior’s cross Cameron still wore around his neck, and it reminded Cameron of the tombs of knights laid to rest in churches in Europe.

Cameron could still see Julian lying there, though, and the bloody smear down the glass door. After he got past it and got inside the restaurant, things were a little better, but it still shook him so badly that he avoided the place unless Blake insisted.

Finally, after nearly half a year, Cameron felt almost like his ordinary self. He still lived alone in the remodeled condo with his four dogs, who each stood about nine inches high, fully grown. He still read a lot and listened to jazz on an Internet radio station. He still cooked for himself and watched DVDs and liked to dress sloppily and sit around the apartment.

It was only sometimes that he couldn’t handle being alone and had to call a friend for company to get his mind off what he’d lost. That friend was usually Blake, because he knew what Cameron was going through. Julian Cross had been a hard man to find and an even harder man to lose.

There was a soft knock on the door, almost drowned out by the noise inside the apartment. The only reason Cameron heard it was because the dogs suddenly careened out of the kitchen toward the door.

With a soft, inquisitive grunt, Cameron set the pork chops he’d pulled out of the fridge in the sink and headed to the door. Out of long habit he looked through the peep-hole first. There was no one in the view, but another soft knock followed as he peered out.

Cameron frowned as he pulled back from the door. He wasn’t sure he liked this. Why wouldn’t someone stand in front of the door?

Sometimes he could be too paranoid, he told himself. The building had security, after all. Shaking his head, he flipped the deadlock and opened the door a bit, standing half behind it.

“Hello, Cameron,” a soft, accented voice greeted from beside the door, its source still out of sight.

A breath caught in Cameron’s throat, and his fingers clenched on the edge of the door. That voice. It was so close to...

How could someone be so cruel? Anger flaring, Cameron threw the door open so hard it slammed against the wall as he stepped out into the hall to see who was deliberately yanking his chain. “Who the hell do you think...?”

Arlo Lancaster leaned against the wall next to the door, hands stuffed into the pockets of his pea-coat as he watched Cameron with dark eyes. He had an ugly scar along his left eye; it had to be the shot Julian had taken that he’d hoped killed him. He smiled wickedly when he met Cameron’s eyes.

Fear made Cameron go cold all over. This was a nightmare he’d tried very hard not to think about. He couldn’t even manage to protest when Arlo ushered him back inside his apartment.

“You’ve changed things since the last time I was here,” Lancaster murmured from behind him as he closed the door.

That statement chilled Cameron to the bone all over again, and he was sure it showed, because he could feel the blood drain from his face.

He shifted uncomfortably and took a few wooden steps away from the other man. “New paint,” he said as his mind started scrambling. What was he supposed to do? There was no one to help him, and no one to miss him for at least two days, when he was supposed to show up at Tuesdays for dinner with Blake.

Lancaster nodded and grinned. “Where is he?” he asked politely.

Cameron’s mouth went dry and pain shot through him like lightning. “He’s dead,” he answered in a choked voice.

Lancaster’s lips curved into a slight, almost fond smile as he nodded his head thoughtfully. “Hasn’t contacted you after all, has he?” he murmured almost to himself. “Good thing I have a Plan B,” he told Cameron with a wry grin. “I’ll take you with me, anyway. My bet is he was just done with you, but you know. Can’t be too careful. Would you care to put food out for the animals before we go?” he offered in amusement. “You may be gone quite a while,” he added dryly.

Cameron’s stomach twisted. “What for?” he asked. As he started thinking about it, the hair on the back of his neck prickled. Could Julian really be alive?

Lancaster’s smile melted away, leaving him looking hard and dangerous, even more so when a gun appeared in his hand. “I don’t care if your animals starve,” he snarled. “Move.”

Cameron nodded slowly, clenching his hands when they started to shake. “The food’s in the kitchen,” he said, gesturing slightly before he started moving, watching Lancaster. “Should I pack a bag?” he asked as he poured out extra food and water.

Lancaster gave a derogatory laugh. “We’ll buy you a toothbrush,” he drawled as he kept the silenced gun trained on Cameron. “Now assume the position, my friend,” he ordered with a wave of his free hand at the nearest wall.

Cameron’s shoulders snapped back. “Excuse me?”

“Hands flat on the wall, feet apart,” Lancaster barked impatiently. “Get moving, Jacobs.”

Keeping his eyes on the gun, Cameron moved as instructed, though his chin stayed turned to watch Lancaster as his palms settled against the wall, and he widened his stance carefully.

Lancaster placed his gun in the back of his waistband and moved behind Cameron. “Move and I’ll snap your neck,” he assured Cameron as he put his hand on the back of Cameron’s head and pushed it to lower it. He began to slide his hands down the sides of Cameron’s body, then one palm moved to his chest and the other to his spine as he patted him down.

Letting his head fall forward, Cameron kept his back rigid, eyes closing as he realized what Lancaster was doing.

“Hiding anything?” Lancaster asked him in a sarcastic, teasing tone.

Cameron grimaced. He almost wished he was. “No,” he answered truthfully.

“Forgive me if I don’t believe you,” Lancaster drawled politely as he continued with the pat-down. A little bit of Julian’s professional manner showed in his protégé as Lancaster searched Cameron thoroughly and quickly.

Somewhat relieved by the clinical touches, Cameron nonetheless frowned at the wall. Lancaster stood again and backed away when he was done, giving Cameron a pat on the back to let him know he could relax.

“Lead on,” he ordered as he gestured to the door. Cameron hesitated, but the gun at his back was reason enough to make his feet start moving. When Cameron got to the door, Lancaster murmured,

“Try anything, and the dogs are the first to be shot.”

Cameron shot a look of pure loathing over his shoulder as he opened the door. “You really think he’s still alive?” he asked. “If he was he’d have... contacted me,” he told Lancaster shakily.

“Oh, yeah?” Lancaster responded knowingly. “What makes you say that?”

“He loved me,” Cameron insisted in a rough whisper. “He would have let me know he was alive.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Lancaster drawled with a slow, malicious smirk. “Love is just a word most of the time,” he claimed as he shoved Cameron out into the hall. “If you were one of us, you’d know that already.”

Arlo Lancaster roughly yanked the blindfold off Cameron’s head, and Cameron blinked in the low light, trying to get his eyes to adjust to his new surroundings. After getting into the back of a van with no windows, Lancaster had tied the piece of cloth over his eyes and trussed him up like a Christmas tree. Then they’d driven for what seemed like forever. Cameron had lost count of the turns and stops. For all he knew, Lancaster had merely driven around the block fifty times and they were still in his neighborhood. Or they could be in Milwaukee.

They were definitely in a large building, though, one with few windows and a lot of dust. It appeared to be a warehouse, long abandoned. And it was cold. Cameron hadn’t been given the option of grabbing his coat, and he was already chilled from riding in the van. It was settling into his bones, making him shiver.

The huge room was full of wooden crates, and the floor was littered with wooden shavings used for packaging. In the back there was an office, illuminated by a weak light. Lancaster shoved at Cameron’s back and started him walking toward it.

As they got closer, Cameron realized that someone else was already in the office. His breath caught painfully in his chest when he met Blake Nichols’ eyes.

Blake growled softly, tugging at the ties that bound him to the metal chair in which he sat, and he glared past Cameron’s shoulder at Lancaster. “I told you,” he said in a rough voice. “Cameron had nothing to do with any of this.”

“Well, he does now,” Lancaster answered cheerfully. He gave Cameron another rough shove between the shoulder blades, pushing him into the office. “You know how to use those?” he asked tauntingly as he nodded at a pile of opaque plastic strips that sat on the chair beside Blake.

“Yeah,” Cameron muttered. “They’re zip ties.”

“Very good,” Lancaster laughed. “Use them,” he ordered.

Cameron bristled. “You want me to zip-tie myself to the chair.”

“Yes, darling, and be quick about it, hmm?” Lancaster cooed. “I’m sure we’ll have company soon enough.”

Cameron reluctantly walked over to the chair and picked up the zip ties. “What do you want tied down?” he asked, resentment clear in his voice.

“Ankles to the chair legs, wrists to the arms,” Lancaster ordered seriously. “Be speedy about it.”

Cameron frowned but sat down with a thump and zip-tied his ankles over his jeans. He took another strap and laid it over his left wrist and pulled it closed enough that his hand could move but not pull out of the plastic loop. “Sorry,” he said unrepentantly. “I’m out of hands.”

“Cross’ loss,” Lancaster responded as he walked over and zip-tied Cameron’s other hand, tight enough that it cut into Cameron’s wrist.

“Goddamn it!” Cameron hissed, his fingers going rigid with the pressure.

“Quit whining,” Lancaster huffed as he stood again and backhanded Cameron.

Cameron yelped in pain as his head snapped to the side with the force of the blow. When he looked back, there was a trickle of blood trailing from the corner of his mouth.

“Leave him the fuck alone,” Blake snarled.

“You should have kept Julian away from him,” Lancaster chastised as he moved away.

Blake’s dirt-streaked face reddened slightly, and he looked at Cameron guiltily. “You really think Julian’s still alive?” he asked Lancaster disbelievingly. “You don’t think he’d have shown up by now?” he practically shouted.

“I think neither one of you knew him half as well as you thought you did,” Lancaster answered as he threw himself into an old desk chair, causing it to slide and spin slightly. He pulled out his gun and began idly checking it over.

“He was my best friend,” Blake argued in a pained voice.

“Yeah?” Lancaster asked tauntingly. “Mine too,” he responded coldly as the smile on his face dropped suddenly. He stood and began pacing back and forth slowly. “You even know his real name?” he challenged. “Where he’s really from? Hmm?”

Blake swallowed with difficulty and glanced at Cameron, and then he lowered his eyes instead of answering. Finally, he just shook his head.

“Yeah,” Lancaster agreed. “No one does, Nichols. No one but Preston. And no one else will,” he claimed simply. “When I met him, he was living in London, and he was speaking German with a perfect accent,” he told them in amusement. “Finally, he came out with this random Irish one day and told me he was tired. The only person he’ll ever really give a damn about is Preston. Remember that.”

He stopped suddenly and cocked his head at Cameron, then lurched out of his chair and took an alarmingly quick couple of steps and bent closer, grabbing at the necklace around Cameron’s neck.

Cameron’s eyes widened in fear as he felt the yank on the chain around his neck. “No. Don’t...”

Lancaster looked up at him as he held the trinket in the palm of his hand, his dark eyes masked by the low light. He gave the chain a yank and snapped the clasp.

“Damn it!” Cameron hissed as the chain cut into his neck painfully, and then the comforting weight of the pendant was gone and in Lancaster’s hand. Cameron stared at it. He’d not taken it off, not once. Ever. Even after he’d pushed Julian away. Even after he’d watched them bury him.

Lancaster straightened and took a few steps away, closer to the light, as he looked at the pendant. He looked up at him again, anger flaring in his eyes as he clenched it in his fist. “Do you have any idea what this is?” he asked with a snarl.

Cameron flinched and stared at Lancaster’s hand. His eyes darted up to face the anger in the other man’s eyes. He didn’t understand it, but it frightened him more than any emotion Julian had ever displayed.

“Julian gave it to me,” he answered in a whisper.

“No shit,” Lancaster snapped as he took the pendant and held his hand up as if he wanted to throw it out the door into the empty warehouse. The emotions warred briefly on his face, but in the end he couldn’t do it like he so obviously wanted to. Instead, he looked back down at it and then tossed it into Cameron’s lap disgustedly as he turned away.

Letting out a shaky breath, Cameron looked down at the necklace that lay draped precariously over his thigh. Without thinking he strained to reach it with one hand, but there was no way to touch it. He closed his eyes and tried to calm down.

“What the hell did Jules see in someone like you?” Lancaster wondered quietly to himself as he walked away, looking out at the quiet warehouse with a shake of his head.

Cameron pulled up his head to watch the other man, who had no way of knowing Cameron still asked himself the same question, even now after Julian had been gone for so long.

“What is it?” he asked thickly, looking back down at the necklace.

He wasn’t sure he wanted to know, not from Lancaster. But to this point he’d thought it meant something only to Julian.

Lancaster turned slightly and looked back at him with obvious contempt. He looked away again, as if answering the question while looking at Cameron was just too much for him. “The stone is to be given from one warrior to another,” he answered bitterly. “It’s called a warrior’s cross. Symbolizes the fucking bond between us, and the cross we all have to bear for being what we are.”

Cameron’s brow wrinkled. He wasn’t a warrior. Not even close.

“He said it was worn for protection,” he objected.

“Yeah?” Lancaster asked through gritted teeth. “That’s what I told him when I gave it to him.”

Cameron’s head snapped up and he stared at Lancaster in disbelief.

Lancaster stood with his back to Cameron, staring out over the darkened warehouse.

“Now I won’t feel too guilty killing the bastard,” he murmured.

Cameron knew he was trembling just as much from fear as from the cold. He swallowed thickly, tasting blood, and he glanced at Blake fearfully. Blake was watching him, and when Cameron met his eyes, Blake merely shook his head dejectedly. They were bait, pure and simple. Bait for a fish that had already been caught.

“I found Smith and Wesson,” Blake finally murmured to Cameron with a nod of his head to the corner of the office.

Cameron’s eyes trailed to the corner to see a large cage, filled and covered with blankets to protect it from the cold of the warehouse.

Through a part in two of the blankets, Cameron could clearly see long, orange fur. As if on cue, a low, throaty meow emitted from the cage, followed by another.

“He may not come for you two,” Lancaster told them grimly as he stood in the doorway with his back to them. “But he won’t leave those beasts behind,” he wagered with confidence.

“How did you find them? Where were they?” Cameron blurted.

“Preston had them,” Lancaster answered after a moment of thought. “He was easier to find than Julian,” he explained.

“Yeah?” Blake asked wryly. “Funny that, since Julian’s dead !” he shouted in frustration.

“Where Preston is, Julian isn’t far behind. I found Preston,” Lancaster continued as if he hadn’t heard Blake’s words. “I followed him. I tried to kill him, but the fucker got away,” he practically snarled. “But I did find the cats.”

“How did you know about them?” Cameron questioned. “Are they okay?” he asked worriedly, his mind grasping for something to think about that didn’t include any form of death.

“They’re fine,” Lancaster answered as he rubbed at the scratches on his cheek. “I was with Julian when he first found them,” he added as he turned around and cocked his head at Cameron and Blake. “Found them in a ditch one night. So tiny they still had blue eyes. Had to be bottle-fed. Julian saw their ears as we were driving by. He stopped in the middle of a goddamned multimillion-pound arms deal to rescue those damn cats,” he said with a sigh. “Did not make our buyer happy,” he mused. “Those cats were the reason we had to leave Ireland. It was almost worth it to watch him feed them.”

Blake snorted in apparent amusement, and he was shaking his head when Cameron looked back at him. “At least we know he never changed anything but his name,” he muttered.

Cameron’s throat tightened as he thought of Julian. There seemed to be two entirely different people inside the man he had called his lover. Lancaster and Blake both talked about a killer, a man who was brutal and relentless and possibly downright cruel. They spoke of him with both respect for his abilities and perhaps a hint of fear of what he might have been capable of doing.

But Cameron had seen a different man. A man who was afraid of handling Cameron’s puppies because they were so tiny. A man who enjoyed pretending he couldn’t tie his tie correctly because he liked to have Cameron do it for him. A man who loved those two damn cats so much, who loved him so much it nearly destroyed him when Cameron stupidly pushed him away.

“You really think he’s still alive?” Cameron found himself asking Lancaster hopefully. “Do you know for sure?” he asked in a whisper.

“I haven’t seen him,” Lancaster answered honestly, a smile pulling at his lips. “But I’ve felt his eyes on me,” he claimed confidently. “Haven’t you?” he asked tauntingly, obviously knowing the answer was no.

It seemed like they sat in that office forever before there was a sound that echoed in the warehouse. Lancaster was immediately standing once more, tense and coiled as he peered out into the darkness.

“Not exactly high ground,” Blake chastised in a wry tone. “Only light in the damn place, and you’re sitting in front of it,” he said with a cluck of his tongue. “If that’s Preston out there, you’re dead already. He was a sniper before he took to driving that Lexus, you know.”

“I’m well aware of the type of people Julian surrounds himself with,” Lancaster murmured in response. He didn’t sound at all nervous.

In fact, he sounded almost excited. “Julian won’t let him shoot me. He’s got unfinished business to tend to first.”

“Damn it!” Blake exclaimed suddenly. “Julian is dead!” he shouted again, his voice nearly cracking with the pain of saying it. “We watched him die!”

“Did you, now?” Lancaster asked in a soft, distracted voice as his eyes scanned the warehouse. He looked like a ferret, low and tense and twitchy. “You sure about that?” he murmured with an obvious smile. “You saw him bleeding. You saw him taken away in an ambulance. One that was driven by Preston, by the way.”

“What?” Cameron blurted in confusion. Blake sat staring at Lancaster’s back stupidly, a look of what might have been hope beginning to form on his face.

“Did you see the doctor who worked on him? Did you see his body after they said he was dead?” Lancaster continued. “No, because they patched him up, hid him in intensive care under a string of false names, and carted him off to somewhere else when he was able to be moved.”

“How do you know this?” Blake asked tentatively.

“It’s my job to know these things,” Lancaster answered softly as he began to relax once more, obviously having decided the noise was nothing. “I traced him as far as I could, but that doctor didn’t know where they’d taken him. I can tell you one thing,” he went on with a cocky grin as he checked his gun for perhaps the fifth time. “Julian Cross did not die the night you thought he did. He lived at least another three weeks, even if he was mostly on his back and immobile. Whether he made it past the move to wherever, I don’t know. The doctor—before he died mysteriously in a wreck last month—told me that moving him might have killed him,” he said thoughtfully as he spun back and forth slowly in the old chair. “I guess we’ll see,” he crooned happily.

There was a loud bang in the darkness, and Lancaster was once again on his feet, standing in the doorway. He was purposefully silhouetting himself in the dim light, and Cameron couldn’t understand why.

“Julian,” Lancaster said softly into the dark.

“Where are they?” a deep Irish-accented voice suddenly demanded in response.

Cameron gasped when he heard him. Julian’s voice was shockingly close, seemingly just outside the circle of light cast from the office. It came from everywhere and nowhere, aided by the echoing quality of the cavernous warehouse. It sent chills up Cameron’s already frozen back, and he started shaking even more.

“What, no hello?” Lancaster asked Julian coldly as he remained in the doorway. Then he shook his head and sighed. “Tell me something, Cross. What did you see in this kid that I don’t?”

“This is beyond the bounds,” Julian responded calmly, the disembodied voice low and barely controlled.

Lancaster’s body went rigid. “There’s no out of bounds in this game,” he snarled in return. His head tipped, and he moved his gun to the side, pointing it into the corner. “Make a move and the kitties get it,” he warned in a flat, slightly wry voice.

“You have no idea what you’re doing,” Julian growled in a low, dangerous voice. Cameron squeezed his eyes shut against the tears that threatened. He had never heard that level of anger in Julian’s voice before, not even that last night at the restaurant. Even so shocked to hear the voice of a dead man, he was frightened by the emotion.

Lancaster’s hand tightened on the gun he held level at the cage in the corner, and then he moved his aim until the gun was trained on Cameron. “Did he really deserve a warrior’s cross, Julian?” he asked in a voice that was close to hurt.

Cameron looked at the gun, his breaths harsh as he trembled and tears blurred his vision.

The darkness didn’t respond.

Lancaster cocked the gun.

Without a sound of warning, a heavy block of scrap wood flew out of the darkness and smacked against Lancaster’s bicep with a dull thump. Lancaster jerked away from the doorway, and the gun went off, the bullet noisily hitting the concrete near Cameron’s side and ricocheting away as Lancaster grunted in surprise and pain, stumbling back and losing his hold on the weapon, which clattered to the floor.

Blake began to struggle with the zip ties that held him. “Get down, kid,” he grunted as he pushed his metal chair toward the far wall of the office. “Get down and stay down,” he ordered through gritted teeth as he tried to rock his own chair and tip it over.

Lancaster righted himself with a curse and turned to face the doorway as he pulled another gun and aimed it. Cameron gasped when Julian appeared in the doorway. He was dressed all in black, and his angry eyes shone like polished black marble. He was like a ghost, materializing out of the gloom. He stood in the doorway, angry and massive and alive .

Lancaster fired, hitting Julian square in the chest. Cameron and Blake both shouted wordlessly, but the shot merely caused Julian to stumble backward. Lancaster stared at him in obvious surprise. Julian smiled slowly as he cocked his head at the man and stepped closer.

“You wore a vest?” Lancaster asked in an offended voice as he lowered his weapon slightly. “Cheater.”

“Next time try the head shot,” Julian advised.