LOST IN THE EMPIRE
PART 4

It was morning. They had slept under the pines for half the night, but then around 3 AM, Cort had gathered her up in his arms, carrying her back to his house. Settling her sleepy form on his bed, he pulled the covers over her and just sat there a while, watching her breathe. Her wanting of him, the mere fact of her existence, was a miracle in his eyes. He smoothed the hair away from her cheek. "Her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he lacks nothing of value. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life." He saw her now in that light...as his wife...as the one person in the world who walked, carrying his heart in her keeping. When they returned, when they got safely back from Rome, he would make it so in fact as well as spirit. Resting his hand atop her head, he whispered, "Guard her, Lord. Keep her safe." Then he lay beside her, his arm curving over her, his eyes still gazing...until he, too, fell asleep.

Now the sun peeked in the window and he opened his eyes, instantly looking beside him, making sure she was not a dream. Rachel was just starting to stir and he leaned over, touching his lips to hers. Nothing demanding, not even seeking, just resting there like some traveler come home to his hearth. Becoming aware of their soft presence, she smiled, taking his lips with hers into that upward curve of greeting. Pulling back a mere fraction, he said, "Good morning, my Rachel," then he settled them there again, this time using them to give her a little series of kisses. He had meant only to waken her with his touch, but in so doing awakened a sudden, urgent need for her, so strong, there was no help for it but to part her lips with his tongue and dip his being into hers again. He moved under the covers, sliding atop her, joining himself to her in the morning light.

Later, after breakfast, Terry called, inviting them to join him, Diedre, and Bud at the firing range. Rachel commented, "Good idea, Cort, I think you might like to get the feel of a modern weapon."

He looked at his hands, pressed his palms together as though in prayer, then laced his fingers tightly. "No more Preacher, eh?"

She smiled, wrapping her arms about his neck. "You will always be that, Cort, always. This is not shooting at people, just targets. I have an appointment with my own instructor this morning." She grinned. "Swords."

"Will we," he asked, pausing, "will we be taking...guns...to Rome?"

"No," she answered, "the firing range is just something Terry thought you would enjoy. Unfortunately, no modern weapons on missions into the past."

"Would they allow a...whip?" he asked, lifting his head, looking at her with questions, memories in his eyes."

"They just might," she nodded. "Ask Terry." She started to move away then turned. "You know how to use a whip?"

"Yes," he smiled. "Is something I learned as a kid." His smile widened. "I know it's not in the...my... movie...but it's part of me anyway. I seem to have brought the whole package of me along."

It was her turn to grin broadly. "And a mighty fine package it is, too!" She nipped his ear then ruffled his hair. "And it's...mine," she added wickedly.

He laughed. "Got that right!" Then he grabbed her, settled her in his lap and kissed her thoroughly. "Oh, God," he suddenly moaned. "Do we have...time?"

"Time, Mr. Wells? Whatever do you mean?" She was kissing her way up his neck when the blast of a car horn sounded out front. "Guess not," she sighed.

He blew out a long breath and walked to the door as Bud came up on the porch.

"'Mornin', Bud," he said, blushing slightly as he pushed open the screen.

"Good morning, Cort.....Rachel," Bud responded, looking from one to the other of them. Good Lord, he laughed to himself, some people just did wear neon signs on their foreheads. A quick memory made him chuckle aloud.

"What's funny, Bud?" Rachel asked, narrowing her eyes a bit.

"Just something that popped into my head, Rache...the time I was told by a lovely young woman I had the word 'officer' printed on my forehead."

Rachel reddened considerably, knowing him well enough to realize what had triggered his thought. Bud smiled at her pleasantly, "So, Rache, rest well?"

"Drop it, copper," she snarled, then laughed. Looking at the door, she asked, "Where's Terry?"

"He and Diedre will meet Cort and me at the range. I'll drop you off for your practice on the way if that's all right."

Bud guided Cort down the long hallway and into the outer rooms of the firing range. Terry and Diedre were already there and he was pointing out the merits of different guns to her. They turned at the approach of the two men.

Terry walked forward a couple of steps, holding out his hand to Cort, smiling a welcome. "Glad you could make it," he said, then turned, as Diedre came up to his side. "Diedre, this is Cortland Wells. And, Cort, this is the other member of our Rome team, Diedre Montgomery."

Cort bowed his head slightly, "Happy to meet you, Miss Montgomery."

Her eyes traveled over him, adjusting to yet another man who looked so strikingly like Terry. She stood there with three of them, each different, each so very alike. "Y’all will take a bit of getting used to," she smiled. "I'm still very new at the whole concept of this."

"Me, too," Cort said, looking from Terry to Bud and back himself. He ran his fingers through his hair, giving his head a bit of a shake. "Tryin' to adjust, though."

The four of them spent the next hour trying various targets with various weapons. Bud explained them to Cort, while Terry watched over Diedre. When Cort fired, though, the other three always stopped what they were doing, unable to keep their eyes off his targets. Dead center. Always. Bud and Terry exchanged looks. They'd both seen his movie, knew he was good. But this was GOOD! He didn't even seem to have to take careful aim. He fired quickly, always hitting the center of his mark, though he seemed to find it no big deal. Was just...how it was.

Later, when they were leaving the building he remembered to ask Terry, "Rachel says no guns in Rome so was wonderin' about a whip? Would a whip be allowed?'

Bud and Terry exchanged looks again. This was new to them. "You good with one, Cort?" Terry asked.

"Passable," Cort grinned. A stray dog wandered by as they headed for the parking lot.

"You got any fleas you want off the mutt?"

^ * ^ * ^ * ^

The forest she ran through was gaily lit, faerie torches perched in bows and ribbons everywhere, fluttering as she skimmed past, her bare feet hardly touching the grass-padded ground, her gossamer dress fluttering behind her. She was running, sprinting down a lane that curved and branched in seductive ways and she was allowing the feel of the breeze on her skin to guide which direction she would take. There was nothing but the heat of the lights, the shifting shadows, suggestive forms as she passed, and the sound of her laughter as she took her path. She could sense leaves and smoke and apples and incense in the forest and her heart was pounding with happiness.

She kept looking back, watching for her pursuer, knowing he would come soon to claim her. This brought out a peal of laughter in her, daring him to catch her and then she tripped....fell...into a mound of ribbons and piles of silk. She turned, hearing him fall beside her and suddenly she was wrapped up by his arms, both of them laughing....

The forest grew cold as the faerie lights winked out and she felt herself rise with a new current of air. His arms had lifted her and she saw the cold spires of the pines pass by, now wintering in the deep black left behind by the Fae. Was this Mirkwood now? Was she caught by the magic of the Elves of the Forest? She stiffened somewhat, missing the warmth of the fires in the faerie lane. A voice murmured at her ear, and she sleepily recognized Cort's face near hers, reassuring her of the closeness of his bed. She heard him open the door to his house and relieved, she tucked her head in the warm space between his jaw and shoulder. He was bringing her home, carrying her across the doorstep to keep her from tripping again.

Then she was surrounded by cotton clouds bearing Cort's scent. She sank down into the drift he laid about her, utterly spent and utterly in his keeping. She was only able to gain one glance at his form settling near her, as a guard in the night, before the unknowing sleep of the forest took her back into its pitch.

Her first conscious thought when that unknowing finally released her was that she was in Cort's bed. Instantly, a smile broke over her: she was his now. She turned to find him curled up next to her, features limned by dawn-light breaking through, only she almost didn't recognize this state of repose. She had seen it marked in pain so many times, so haunted by struggle and incapacity. Now, he slept as if his muscles were replaced with the structures of heaven, graceful, of the highest form, and possessed with a glow of pure peace.

He must have felt her move to brush away the tear that had formed in the corner of her eye because he stirred and turned instantly to her, bending his head to touch her lips with his, arching to bring that peace down to her. "Good morning, my Rachel," he said, and she slipped her arms around him to receive more kisses, which grew steadily more earnest until he covered her again with faerie fire, making the sweetest love to finish the greeting.

Bodies had a way of dictating necessity for what the spirit would shun and so eventually she and Cort had to break open the groceries purchased. They were both cleaning up from breakfast when the phone rang. Rachel shook her head when Cort looked in askance: he had to answer it, not she. By the look on his face when it turned out to be Terry at the other end, it may not have mattered much whether she had answered or not. The Aussie knew she was there.

So much for trying to fool the K&R man.

This put Rachel in a giggly mood, lounging around with only Cort's white shirt to cover her while she waited for her rumpled clothing to finish washing, teasing him mercilessly. Her inability for cruelty became apparent, much to Cort’s amusement, because she wasn't very successful at holding him off. By the time they had showered (again) it was near time for Bud to arrive with a car.

Coming out of the bedroom, Rachel found a Cort still doubtful of Terry's suggestion to use the indoor gun-range. The concept was too close to what he had tried to give up.

"It's the perfect place for you to cut loose without endangering anyone," she added with affection, when he raised an eyebrow at her suggestion of getting to know more modern weapons. Some of the old pain was clouding his green eyes.

"No more Preacher, eh?" He asked. Rachel could see he was trying not to sound bitter. She wrapped her arms around him, pulling his head to her torso, playing with his hair. He looked up at her, troubled still.

"You will always be that to me," she said, wanting to reassure him. How could he be anything but? She ran her thumb along the line of his jaw, a memory of Cort in the gun shop, hands flexing, hungry for a touch, as the Kid rattled off the best features of his most exclusive pieces. To touch one would be like touching a woman, both anathema to a fast fading connection with priesthood; at least, in Cort's eyes. But the Preacher had been laid in like a mosaic, a broken vessel mended. How could that ever be erased?

A gun range was not a whorehouse, nor was it incitement to misdeed. And guns were tools, tools that Cort knew best. Somehow, it seemed...unnatural to deny him that...pleasure. It would deny who he was as a man...and a man was what God had made Cort to be.

Oh, so very much a man!

"I have my own appointment," she told him, finding the implications of that last thought to be dangerously distracting. No more time for play. "Swords," she added with a mischievous grin.

They talked more about the mission to Rome with a surprise revelation from Cort concerning a whip. Rachel had a difficult time keeping a straight face. Not because she thought the idea silly, but the sudden image of Cort in a fedora, snapping away at goose-stepping Nazis and running off with a golden idol plagued her ability to listen to Cort with reasonable consideration. It was far too tantalizing a prospect to shut out of her mind.

Add "Raiders of the Lost Ark" the growing list of movies I'm going to have to show him, she thought.

Bud's knowing glance when he spied her lurking behind Cort at the front door demolished all hope of propriety. Within minutes they were piled in and cruising to the gymnasium, with Cort peppering Bud with various questions about the gun-range. Bud tried not to mind the display of affection as Rachel got out of the car and said her goodbyes, but she could see his ears turn pink. She cast one final grin at them...so much alike, so different. Sighing she waved goodbye and raced in to don her fencing equipment and reacquaint herself with an...old...friend.

Diedre couldn’t help closing her mouth and listening to the three men, Terry, Bud, and Cort, talk with each other, letting their increasingly jovial patter entertain her while she walked with them to the gymnasium. It wasn’t as if they deliberately shut her out; they were just so caught up in learning about each others quirks and interests, it felt somehow silly to try and insert her own point of view. These three men in particular were proving to be too likeable to stop watching.

Falling into silence was not a point of insecurity for Diedre, especially since she had given Terry a bit of shock when she ran through the various guns he had laid out, ostensibly to teach sweet li’l ol’ female her about the scary guns. She couldn’t rightly tell, but she thought she saw Terry’s face grow pink, either with pleasure or chagrin at his underestimation of her knowledge.

Or maybe it was lust that created this new silence, because he also seemed to have a hard time keeping his hands off her when she went into what her favorite piece was, and why, and was unable to go on telling her anything after she fired off a few rounds.

She was no crack shot like Cort, that was for sure, but she had a feeling Terry liked what he saw anyway.

Grinning to herself, Diedre followed behind them, taking private pleasure at how the sun made Terry’s hair glint gold. Bud was a sweetheart, as he had been in his movie, and Cort the quietest of the three, no less opinionated; but her eyes always traveled back to Terry.

A glance or two he threw back reminded her of their trip down the mountain, and she hoped she wasn’t blushing from the memory of it.

The four of them entered a large nondescript building and turned into a foyer that served as a hub for two corridors to the back. They turned down one, walking past racquetball courts and other forms of sports, reaching the end to pushed open the heavy doors of an enclave to their left.

Echoing noises of voices, the squeak of rubber on wood, and irregular swish of metal through air filled their ears. Terry and Bud led the way by stepping off to the left where a short stand of bleachers was set in the corner of the small supplemental gym. Cort and Deidre followed and sat on the same bleacher as the first two, all four pairs of eyes focused on the active couple in the center of the otherwise empty room.

Diedre figured it was Rachel who was the smaller of the two – had to have been, because her opponent was a huge hulking man who might have actually been slimmer than he looked, but the bulkiness of his padding made him seem like a boulder with legs. Both of them wielded practice sabers and were holding each other back with a fair amount of rapidity and skill.

Bud leaned forward to get their attention and winked secretively.

“Watch this,” he told them, mischief in his voice.

Pausing to let the battling fencers circle their way closer, Bud rimmed his mouth with his hands and called out:

“Uruk-hai! Let loose the Uruk-hai! To war!”

The two fencers froze in their positions and Diedre heard a long ripple of laughter come from Boulder Man, while Rachel stiffened with anger. But before she could call a halt to the maneuver, Boulder Man swinging with moves that were exceptionally powerful and frightening. Rachel was immediately on the defensive and for several minutes, Deidre sensed she was pulling out every technique she knew to escape and counteract a blow. Boulder Man was relentless, though, and with one final devastating move, had Rachel pinned underfoot. Literally underfoot, as Rachel lay on her back and Boulder Man propped his heavy-weighted tennis-shoe onto her belly.

Boulder Man removed his face guard and whooped in glee, arms raised in a victory cheer.

There was a beat, then Rachel tore off her mask. They could see she was red in the face, and not all because of her exertions.

“Wendell White, you are DEAD MEAT!” She shrieked. Bud only burst out laughing.

Diedre glanced over at Terry, unable to keep from grinning herself. Terry was chuckling and Cort was trying not to laugh, but he finally gave in.

“She hates it when I do that,” Bud confided to them.

“Get your gargantuan smelly flat foot off me, Tom,” Rachel raged, slapping at Boulder Man’s leg. “One of these days, you’re gonna get too sloppy and I’ll be right there waiting for you,” she continued as she rose to her feet. Tom the Boulder Man obeyed, but stood by, grinning with smug enjoyment.

“Now, now, let’s not get upset,” Bud admonished as Rachel and Tom approached the bleachers. “You’ve had enough training by now.”

“I wasn’t ready,” Rachel groused.

“Ready is for whores and horses, darlin’,” Bud returned, and placed a brotherly arm around her. Rachel glared at him, but they could see she was beginning to soften. She liked Bud too much to stay mad at him for long.

“Ever have one of these?” she asked of Deidre, in mock exasperation.

“Two of them, brothers, both as ornery as mules,” Deidre grinned. “Name’s Deidre Montgomery. Terry hired me to be part of the team.”

“Rachel Keirs. He mentioned you might join us. Ever fence?”

“Once. Cops didn’t like it much,” Deidre shrugged. Bud snorted as Rachel smiled. “Oh! You meant what you were doing. No, not like that. I took a course in college, but that was about it. Too many test pits to dig,” she added.

“You’re an archaeologist?” Rachel exclaimed, looking over at Terry with bright glee.

“Shovel Bum, Esquire, at your service,” Diedre replied. “So…erm, what’s with the Lord of the Rings reference to your fighting and why is Bud dead meat?”

“Oh, Tom thinks its absolutely hilarious to pretend he’s the big ugly orc who can use brute force to do what he can’t do in speed and agility. He can’t beat me any other way,” Rachel added, sticking her tongue out at Tom. “Bud likes to egg him on.”

“If it helps any, I didn’t know Bud would call for that,” offered Tom, all innocence. Rachel gave him a scathing look. Diedre noticed Cort was studying Tom, eyes slightly narrow. “You beat me at that game and you can call yourself the master all you like. Until then, young Padawan, you are not a Jedi, yet,” Tom added, waggling his practice sabre at her.

This had a profound affect on both Cort and Rachel. Cort muttered something under his breath and Rachel turned gray.

“What?” Tom asked of them in bafflement.

Cort and Rachel exchanged glances.

“Nothing,” Rachel replied, hastily, grabbing Cort’s hand and squeezing it. “I just…feel…sick…too much of a workout…I was a bit rusty.” She began peeling off her protective gear and dropping it onto the ground. “Deal,” she snapped when Tom began to protest.

“So,” Deidre asked, to cover the awkward silence that followed as Tom stumped off in a grumble and Bud and Terry sat down again, suddenly concerned with this reaction. “What kind of sword do you favor?” It seemed the polite thing to ask.

Fortunately, this was the right thing to ask, because Rachel brightened and knelt by a long case at the foot of the bleachers. Snapping open the metal locks, she revealed a rapier encased in dark blue velvet. Deidre found herself gasping slightly at the sight: a regal rapier, with black metal swept hilt, and gleaming blade. Rachel lifted it and stepped back to show it off for the three of them. Her whole demeanor seemed to change. She was small but fierce, slight, but quite ready to do harm. Deidre sat down next to Terry, fascinated, as Rachel flourished the blade in a few cursory moves and then made a grandiose bow, laughing with some embarrassment.

“I call it Sindri, small and sparkling,” she told them, even though Bud and Terry already knew. Cort was watching her with a glow in his own eyes. Sweep, swish! “A weapon from a more elegant age,” Rachel said to Deidre, paraphrasing, bringing the blade to a salute in line with her face.

“So you are a Jedi Knight,” Deidre found herself joking in return.

Rachel exchanged looks with Cort once more and then knelt down, motioning for them to bend near.

“I’m sorry to be this way,” she told Bud and Terry, as if she had committed some great social faux pas. “You know I’m as big a fan of Star Wars as any, but…” she sighed, and reached out to touch Cort’s shoulder in apology. “The Jedi comment was what tipped me off about Dimetri. Its exactly what he said to me to let me know who he was.”

“Oh?” Terry asked, expression hardening.

“What’s going on?” Deidre asked, suddenly feeling out of the loop. She needed to know details if she was going to be on this team.

“We have a spy in our midst,” Terry murmured, looking around to see where Tom had gone. Fortunately, he had disappeared into the men’s dressing room. “While Rachel was in Cort’s movie, a…competitor showed up, attacked her.”

“Knew exactly what to do, too,” Cort murmured, and described the fight to them up to the moment when Dimetri shoved Rachel onto the bed and said the strange words, which he was beginning to understand was more accepted terminology than he had supposed. “He used a device to...disappear. I’d have not believed it, or understood it if…” he trailed off, looking back at Rachel because his memory was more colored by the pain and weariness he'd experienced. She put a hand upon his knee, knowing, remembering.

“He had a warp device,” Terry took up the explanation again. “And now we know. And he said specific things that have confirmed what we have suspected about someone from the inside feeding information. Knew Rachel was going in without backup, knew Cort was the one we considered to be vital.”

Deidre looked at the three of them, suddenly wondering if she hadn’t stepped into a James Bond movie. Did the good people of Emerald City have such things as a CIA?

Good Lord, what was she getting herself into? She was just a shovel bum, for Pete’s sake!

“Show me what to do,” she said to Rachel, who grinned and shook her hand.