Read an Excerpt
Blood of Christ
A Story of the Templar Knights
By Tracey Leigh Balboa Press
Copyright © 2015 Tracey Leigh
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4525-2958-5
CHAPTER 1
"Hello?" The voice was deep and annoyed.
"D. Wyatt Coltrain..?"
"Yes?"
"Mr. Coltrain.. my name is Holly Desmond."
"Do you know what the hell time it is, woman?"
"Three fifteen in the afternoon?" The light, accented voice was hopeful.
"Well. You got the three fifteen right."
"Oh. Hell. I'm SO sorry, Mr. Coltrain." Wyatt grudgingly gave her credit for the sincerity and genuine regret he heard in her voice. "Tell me what time to ring you back. I do need to talk to you, but I'd really rather you were in a good mood when I did."
"Ms. Desmond, is it?"
"Yes..?"
Wyatt's lips twitched at the wince he heard so clearly. "You're lucky you have an accent that appeals to me. Now is as good a time as any.. I was getting up in two hours anyway."
"Please accept my sincerest apologies, Mr. Coltrain. I'm calling from Melbourne, Australia and I messed up the time conversion.." She tsked in annoyance. "Quite a bit, it seems."
"So, you're Australian?"
"I'm English, actually. But I live in Australia and have for almost five years."
"How come?" Wyatt folded one arm behind his head, staring up at the shadow dappled ceiling of his bedroom.
"I was made an offer I couldn't refuse." She told him with a husky laugh. "Are you sure this is a good time, Mr. Coltrain? I'm feeling terribly guilty about waking you up."
"What was the offer?"
"That's hardly pertinent.."
"You woke me up before dawn." He reminded her easily. "You owe me, Ms. Desmond."
"A very eccentric, extremely old gentleman left his entire library to my grandfather when he died." She told him after only a moments hesitation. "My grandfather, in turn, left it to me on the proviso that I personally catalog every item in the collection."
"And that's taken you five years?" Wyatt's brows shot up. "How big was the damned library?"
"No.. the cataloging only took me six weeks. The last almost five years have been spent reading it all. And 'vast' is the word that most readily leaps to mind to describe the collection."
"And you're calling me because..?"
"Ah. Now this is where it becomes a little sticky in regards to believability, Mr. Coltrain." She took a deep breath in and released it on a f low of words. "I have excellent, documented reason to believe that somewhere on your property is a lost archive of historically relevant artifacts, secreted away for safe keeping long before the Americas were actually settled.. in 1320, to be accurate." She listened to the silence for a long, long moment. "Mr. Coltrain? Are you still there..?"
"Buried treasure."
"Umm. Yes."
"Did Pejo put you up to this?"
"Pee Joe..?" She sounded a little bewildered. "I'm not sure what that is, exactly.. Mr. Coltrain.. I realize this is a lot to take in.. but I assure you, I'm not a charlatan or a confidence trickster. I'm an archaeologist of the highest repute.."
"God dammit." Wyatt sighed gustily, disappointed despite himself. "Tell him the accent was a bullseye, darlin', and that I'm gonna kick his ass up around his ears for making you wake me up at this un-Godly hour."
"Mr. Coltrain.. I assure you.. I don't know anyone named Pee Joe.. I can't even begin to guess how it's spelled."
"Yeah, okay. Tell him, next time, skip the buried treasure thing altogether and go straight for the phone sex." Wyatt chuckled at the gasp. "What're you wearin', darlin'..?"
"Mr. Coltrain.."
"Call me 'Wyatt'.. what color are your nipples, Holly..?"
"Mr. Coltrain."
"Don't be shy, darlin'.." Wyatt shifted against the sheets. "We're already half way there.."
"Oh, for the love of Polly."
Wyatt blinked at the dial tone, the annoyed snap the only warning he got. "Uh oh.." He went over the conversation again then snorted and hung up the phone. "Buried treasure."
Wyatt climbed from his pick up and settled his Stetson on his head. "PEJO."
"YO."
Wyatt strode around the house and saw his cousin sweating over a tipped-over ride-on mower. "Okay, asshole. Bullseye. Now, who is she and what's her number?"
Patrick Joseph Coltrain stood up and looked at Wyatt over the rims of his sunglasses, the bandanna he'd tied around his head sweat soaked. "What have I told you about starting conversations in your head and only voicing the last part out loud, bro?"
Wyatt draped his hands over his hips, his palm riding the butt of his holstered weapon, the early morning sun glinting off the silver star that marked him as the local Sheriff. "Kiss my ass. Who is she?"
"I thought you were supposed to stop smoking pot when you pinned on the badge."
"I was." Wyatt's smile f lashed and was gone. "Who is she?"
"You know more than I do, bro.. you, at least, know she's a 'she'." Pejo wiped his hands on a relatively clean rag. "I have no idea what you're talkin' about."
"So, you're gonna look me in the eye and tell me you didn't talk a husky voiced Brit into callin' me at three this mornin'..?"
Pejo dipped his chin and looked Wyatt dead in the eye over the rims of his glasses. "Yup."
"Uh." Wyatt believed him. "Oh."
"What'd she want?"
"To tell me that she thinks there's buried treasure on our land."
Pejo barked a laugh. "Okay. I can see how you'd think it was me, but seriously.. buried treasure? I'd have skipped the history lesson and given her a whole other block of instruction."
"See? That's what I said." Wyatt rubbed a rueful palm along his clean shaven jaw. "She hung up on me after I asked her what color her nipples were."
"A valid question." Pejo's chuckle was slowly deepening into laughter. "Did you get an answer?"
"Nope."
"Did you get a name?"
"Holly Desmond."
Pejo shook his head slowly. "Never heard of her. Brit, you said?"
"Yup. Freakin' accent from hell, bro. Said she was callin' from
Australia."
"Australia? C'mon now.."
"That's why I thought you'd put her up to it."
"Nope. Wish to God I'd thought of it.." His grin f lashed. "But not guilty, Sheriff."
"Well.. what the hell."
"Afternoon, Wyatt.."
Wyatt rose to his feet and nodded to the silver haired woman who had entered the Sheriff 's office. "Afternoon, Ms. Dora. What have you got for me?"
The Post Mistress handed over a bundle of mail and a Fed Ex package. "The delivery guy stopped at the post office because you weren't here, so I saved him the trip out to your place and signed for it."
"Appreciated." Wyatt took the bundle of mail in one hand, tucked the box under his arm and turned back to his desk.
"The place of origin is Australia." Dora told him as she walked towards the door, not seeing the sudden hitch in his stride. "If you ever get any mail from there with the stamps on it, I'd like to have them, Wyatt. My grandson is a collector."
"Sure thing, Ms. Dora." Wyatt sank down into his chair, the package set on his desk in front of him. "Why do I get the feeling I owe a husky voiced Brit a sincere apology?" he reached for his phone and dialed a number from heart. "Pejo. Come to the ranch. Australia just Fed Ex'd me a box." he hung up after he left the message.
"Hey, boss."
"Hey, Clem." Wyatt rose to his feet as soon as his Deputy arrived, gathered up the box, his hat and keys and stepped out from behind his desk. "The mail just arrived. Go through it at some point tonight."
"Where's the fire?" Clem stepped aside as Wyatt reached for the door.
"Pejo's on his way to the ranch." Wyatt rolled his eyes and snugged his Stetson on his head. "If I leave him alone too damned long, he's likely to try and fix somethin' that ain't broke." He stepped out into the blazing hot afternoon on the sound of his Deputy's snort of amusement.
Wyatt wasn't surprised to see the pick-up already parked in front of the sprawling ranch house and pulled in behind it. "PEJO." He called when he stepped into the blissfully cool house.
"YO."
Wyatt hung his hat from the hook on the wall beside the door and toed off his square-toed cowboy boots, nudging them in beside Pejo's, something he'd done a thousand times over a lifetime spent in that very house. "Can you believe this shit?"
"Believe what shit?" Pejo handed him a beer, glancing at the Fed Ex box as it was set down on the counter between them. "What's in the box?"
"Do you never listen to your voicemail?" Wyatt twisted the cap off his beer and downed half the bottle in three long, grateful swallows.
"Not today." Pejo shrugged and sipped his own beer. "Can't find my phone."
Wyatt wasn't surprised. "Then what the hell are you doin' in my house, man?"
"I ran out of beer in mine."
"The store is just a couple of miles further on."
"But it don't have a T.V. and they get annoyed when I eat directly out of the fridge."
"True." Wyatt accepted that with a shrug and two more long swallows of icy beer.
"So what's in the box?"
"I don't know yet."
"Are you waitin' on a drum roll?"
Wyatt turned the box and tapped a long finger against the tracking sticker. "Yup."
"Australia? Holy Hannah. She wasn't just wishful thinkin' on your part?"
"Apparently not." Wyatt turned the box over to the return address. "Dr. Holly Desmond. Doctor. Kinda throws the whole 'skip to the phone sex' thing into a whole new light, huh?"
Pejo winced and swallowed beer. "No wonder you're still single."
"So are you." Wyatt pointed out as he crossed to the bin and dropped the empty into it. "You ready for another?"
"Yup." Pejo drained his beer then lobbed the bottle into the garbage from where he stood. "Two points."
Wyatt winced at the crash of glass against glass and set Pejo's beer down on the counter as he pulled up a stool to sit on. "Did you get the mower fixed?"
"Yup. Purrin' like an asthmatic kitten." Pejo twisted the cap off his bottle and gestured to the box. "Open that already."
Wyatt took a long swallow from his beer and set it aside. "She said that the 'buried treasure'.." His fingers made quotation marks in the air then tore the box seal open. "Has been here since 1320."
"Seven hundred years?" Pejo straight armed himself up onto the counter top so he could see into the box when it opened and two heads recoiled lightly in mirrored surprise when they saw the bubble-wrap lining and the two bubble-wrapped packages that were nestled inside it. "What the hell is it? Pirate booty?"
"Even earlier. The thirteen hundreds was the freakin' Dark Ages, Pejo. We're talkin' Kings and Queens and Knights in shining armor. It's like 'Braveheart's' time line, bro. William Wallace and Robert the Bruce of Scotland finally kicking the snot out of the English." he opened the box and set the lid to one side with one hand and plucked the single, folded, sheet of paper from the top of the contents. "I'm suddenly having a really intense 'Harry Potter' moment."
"Ron Weasely and the 'howler' he got from his mama?" Pejo asked with a knowing grin.
"Yup." Wyatt closed one eye and braced as he f lipped the page open and began to read. "Mr. Coltrain. I should've done this first, I suppose. It may have smoothed the way for my badly timed phone call for which, once more, I apologize profoundly." Wyatt looked up at Pejo. "She even writes with an accent.. explain that to me."
"Can't." Pejo pointed to the box with arched brows and saw the nod before Wyatt began to read again.
"Read the pages that I have marked and call me back at your earliest convenience at the number below. Yours in complete sincerity. Holly Desmond, PhD, B.A." Wyatt's brows winged up. "She's a PhD as well as holding a Bachelor of Arts.. we're strolling through 'scary smart' territory now."
"How many sub categories are there under 'Arts'..?" Pejo lifted out two bubble-wrapped books, then set the empty padded box aside.
"A lot." Wyatt re-read the brief note, finding her f lowing handwriting to be very pleasing to the eye. "But given the 1320 thing, I'd say she's an egg-head historian." His eyes narrowed suddenly. "She told me that she was an archaeologist, I think."
"That tracks." Pejo nodded and shrugged and opened up the first hard cover book, the binding cracked, the pages yellowed, at the page marked by a crisply folded square of modern paper. "Hey, check it out.." Pejo cradled the old book in one square palm and carefully folded out the map that was bound into the book like any other page. "Well now.. don't this piece of coastline look familiar..?"
Wyatt leaned in to look at the beautifully rendered copy of an even older looking map. "It sure the hell does.." His blunt finger traced the marked estuary in from the naturally formed harbor to the large body of water inland. "That don't though." He leaned in further and squinted at the writing at the bottom of the map. "Holy Hannah.. does that say 1512..?"
"Yup." Pejo f lipped the book closed, reopened the cover and read the date under the publisher's name. "1793, London, England. This book is older than the house we're standing in.."
Wyatt snorted softly. "It's damned near older than the country we're standing in."
Pejo grunted his agreement as he opened the book back up to the unfolded map and began to read from the page opposite it. "While many believe the La Rochelle f leet scattered to friendly harbors throughout the known world, there are some who are convinced that the Fleet ventured into the unknown and were, in fact, the first to discover the New World. This claim has been substantiated in the form of the map.." Pejo f licked the still folded out map lightly with his finger. ".. that has been verified as genuine by many scholars of the day. This appears to show the southern most coastline of the Americas. The map, referred to as the 'Dupree Map', predates even the earliest claims to the discovery of the Americas and has been deemed too accurate, in both detail and distances, to be a fake."
"Gimme."
Pejo handed the book to Wyatt and took the other from its protective padding, opening it to the marked page. "Such was the joy to be once again upon dry land, the poor soldiers of Christ gave thanks to God with seven days of prayer. And it was in this place, where ovens could be built and used to feed the masses, that the f leeing, persecuted Knights broke bread as brothers for the first time in many, many months. The area was referred to, in several accounts, as 'the harbor of the Body of Christ' because of the breaking of the bread during the week long mass before they sailed inland.." Pejo stopped reading abruptly and turned to the front of the book. "1809, London, England.. oh, man."
"What?"
"We live twenty miles from the 'Body of Christ', Dove."
"Corpus Christi."
"Yup."
"Oh. Man." Wyatt shoved a hand through his dark hair.
"There's more.. 'the Knights, on many occasions, had need to disembark and tow their ships through the narrower passages until they found themselves sailing into a large, deep lake, surrounded on three sides by limestone cliffs, the third opening out onto a large, f lat prairie that met the waters. It must have seemed like the Garden of Eden to the exhausted Knights of Christ..'.. Holy Hannah.." Pejo's eyes lifted to Wyatt's, both men knowing the place described intimately. "That's Singristy lake.."
"Okay.. the cliffs, yes. But the prairie is far from f lat and doesn't meet the water unless you're dragging it over the edge with you." Wyatt took the book from him to study the bottom right corner of the folded-out map. "If this is a hoax, it's a damned intricate one.." he tilted the map up to the light and squinted to make out the two markings that had been inked onto the old copy of an even older document. "Looks like a cross and a Fleur-de-Lys.." He handed it to Pejo with a gathering frown. "That's yankin' on somethin' important.."
"Okay.. am I the only one getting a really, and I mean REALLY, strong Dan Brown vibe?"
"What..? 'The Di Vinci Code'..?" Wyatt's brow cleared on a soft 'oh' of clarity. "You're right.. the engrailed cross and the Fleur-de-Lys practically breathes Templar Knights, huh?"
"They were the 'Poor Knights of Christ', Dove.." Pejo rubbed his fingers against his stubbly cheek, his eyes moving from the all-too familiar coastline to the intimately known large, deep lake that lay a little over ten miles inland, meteorologically and geo-physically explained as a small impact crater. A small fragment from the asteroid- strike that caused the Ice Age. "According to Hollywood, anyway. Couldn't begin to tell you how true any of it is, though."
"How much does it cost to call Australia do you think?"
"Do you really care?"
"Nuh uh." Wyatt reached for the handset, the short note already open in front of him, and dialed in the long sequence of numbers with great care.
"It's probably like.. three in the morning where she is, bro."
"So?" Wyatt shrugged as he switched it to speaker so Pejo could listen too. "She dragged my ass out of sleep.. I'm just returning the favor."
"OH. Son of a BISCUIT." Holly hopped, then hobbled her way to the stridently ringing phone, the early morning still very dark, the heavy furniture having seemingly rearranged itself during the night, her whole foot throbbing with the toe she'd just mashed. "Hello."
"Dr. Holly Desmond?"
"Yes?" She snapped, her injured toe cradled in one hand.
"This is Wyatt Coltrain."
"Oh. We're off to SUCH an auspicious start, Mr. Coltrain."
"How do you figure?"
"I'm fairly sure that I just broke my bloody toe."
"And that's my fault how?"
"It's not." She said shortly. "I'm just not a morning person and I'm intolerable until I have hot tea in front of me. May I ring you back in twenty minutes, Mr. Coltrain?"
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Blood of Christ by Tracey Leigh. Copyright © 2015 Tracey Leigh. Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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