She sucked in her breath.
Max turned her away from the body. “I’m sorry, Sabine,” he murmured. He held her shoulders tightly to keep her facing away from Phinneas’s body.
“Two of them,” she murmured. “Two guardians gone.” She turned away from Max to again look at the body. “His face is frozen in the exact expression of pain that Madigan had.” Her voice cracked. She swallowed and kept staring at the dead man’s face. “Evidently when a guardian dies, it is most unpleasant.”
Two guardians were dead. Which meant only one remained. Someone was going to an awful lot of trouble to make it appear as if the prophecy had begun. Or perhaps there was someone out there mad enough to believe that he could bring about the prophecy himself.
“Poison,” Max said. He saw no blood, no visible wounds on the body.
“No,” Sabine said.
“This Madigan, you said he died shortly after he arrived at your house,” Max said.
“He did. But not from any wound.”
“That doesn’t make any sense, Sabine,” Max said. “Explain it to me.”
She exhaled slowly. “The guardians are mystically connected to the elixir they protect. If that elixir is stolen or lost to them, they have a short window to retrieve it, and if they don’t, they perish.”
“Or the thief could have poisoned them,” Max argued. A deep frown settled on her brow.
“Simply because you can’t explain something does not mean it can’t exist,” Sabine said.
Well, she had him there. It wasn’t completely out of the realm of oddities he’d seen in his lifetime. Hell, he’d seen Pandora’s box. And he’d been chasing after a lost continent since he was a boy. He’d allow for possibilities like poison, but he shouldn’t ignore the mystical.
“What is that?” she asked, pointing to the man’s fist.
Something was caught in his hand. Max knelt on the cold earth and worked it from Phinneas’s hand. “Paper,” he said. He smoothed out the sheet. The penmanship was terrible, the note nearly illegible, but finally Max was able to determine what it said. “‘It has begun,’” he read aloud, then looked up at Sabine. “He must have spent his last moments writing this.” Max shook his head. “None of this makes any sense. I always assumed the prophecy was about the fall of Atlantis.”
“No, it’s not.” Sabine paced along the length of the fence. “It’s a warning. The final bit of guidance from the elders of our culture. Their last attempt to protect us.” She stopped and met his gaze. “And if I don’t find a way to stop it, the Chosen One will find a way to destroy us all, Atlanteans and English alike.”
It seemed unlikely to Max that one person could orchestrate the destruction of a modern civilization such as Great Britain’s. But so far, that one person had managed to murder five of England’s most decorated and highest-ranked military officers. Max would be a fool if he underestimated that.
Sabine closed her eyes and repeated the words of the prophecy: “The seven rings of Atlantis will fall by fire and steel, opening the path for the army of one. Empires will crumble and crowns will melt. The three will lose their blood unless the dove can bring salvation.”
She was beautiful. Standing there with her eyes closed, speaking softly, she nearly stole his breath. He wished she’d wanted him to comfort her for more than a minute, though even having that thought gave him pause. He was not the comforting sort, having always preferred the lighter, more playful side of the ladies. Damned if he didn’t need to focus more on the danger at hand than on whether he would be able to find his way up Sabine’s skirt. Especially if such thoughts made him long to hold her as much as bed her.
“So the rings could represent the military leaders,” she said.
“Or so whoever is killing them believes,” Max countered. “I suppose the three would be the guardians.”
She ran a hand over her throat. “The dove, I don’t know what to make of that.”
“You came here to get help from Phinneas. Perhaps you’ll find some answers in his belongings,” Max said.
“Yes,” she said. “Good idea.”
“You go ahead and get started without me. I’m going to bury Phinneas. I know it’s not a proper burial, but we can’t simply leave him here like this.” He eyed the property around. “And calling the authorities would bring too many questions,” Max said. “I think I saw a shovel leaning against the back of the cottage.”
“Thank you, Max. I truly appreciate that.”
He put his pistol in her hand. Her amber-colored eyes looked up at him. “Listen for anything and keep your eyes open. If anyone comes near you, shoot him. We can find out who he is later.”
It had been nearly three hours since they’d found Phinneas. They’d missed the last train to London and instead had decided to stay the night in the small house and travel back tomorrow, allowing themselves more time to search the house. Max was upstairs in the sleeping quarters going through the man’s bureau.
Admittedly, it was strange to rifle through the belongings of a man he’d never known. Part of Max relished it, loved the digging and the discovery. Even if the searching was between socks and in drawers rather than in dirt in a sacred place.
He kept his eyes open for anything that might have to do with Atlantis, prophecy or not. So far, he’d found nothing but clothes that were threadbare and worn, books on ancient philosophy, but none that Max wasn’t already familiar with, and a large collection of ribbons.