Susan Squires - [Da Vinci Time Travel] by The Mists of Time Page B

He must be eliminated.”
    “I’d say we could send him back, but he doesn’t want to go back and, anyway, that would be condemning him to death. He was about to be killed.”
    “That is his destiny.” The stalker’s voice was soft. “Arthur and Mordred slew each other at the Battle of Camlan. So it doesn’t matter if I kill him now. We cannot risk a man like Mordred in this time.” He looked at her quizzically. “He’s already learned the language, hasn’t he? And he works the modern appliances and seems to understand the culture?”
    “How did you know? He says it’s his gift.”
    “He’s an Adapter.” He looked at her expectantly, as if waiting for her to say something.
    “He said his mother was a witch.” Her eyes widened. “Morgan le Fey?”
    Her stalker nodded. “Arthur’s half sister. In that time they called her Morgause. So if you think he can make no trouble in this time you’re wrong. He can make very big trouble.”
    “By adapting quickly?” Diana kept her voice low. “That hardly seems sinister.”
    “He wants power at any cost.” The guy’s eyes were hard. “His gift just makes it easier for him to get it. He adapts himself to what men want to hear in their souls and they follow him. He raised an army against the best king Britain had ever seen in just that way.” His eyes searched hers and must have seen she didn’t believe him. “How else did he get you to take him home? Don’t tell me you were afraid at first and then suddenly you weren’t.”
    Oh my God.
He was right. Medraut said exactly the right thing at the right time to earn her trust, even when he almost lost it by making a pass at her. The bell on the shop door tinkled as a man in a suit pushed inside. Mrs. Kim came out from the back. The customer began ordering as he surveyed the neat racks of sugared treats.
    She saw her stalker’s chest heave as he sucked in air and turned back to her. “I have to kill him, Diana,” he said, his voice low, his eyes now a very serious, clear blue. “I am the only one who knows what he is. So I must do it. Or die in the effort.”
    He was obviously insane, with his wild theories about what Medraut could do. He was contemplating murder, for God’s sake, and all she could think about was the riddles that surrounded him. He was the boy she had seen in the fifth century. “How did you get here?”
    “My father sent me.”
    “The man with the eyes who changed color?”
Like yours.
    “You know him as Merlin.” He rose, looming over her.
    The bottom dropped out of Diana’s stomach. Had she seen
Merlin
? But of course—the sparkling light. A thousand thoughts ran through her head, caroming off belief and doubt. Whatever the truth, asking how his father sent him forward in time when he insisted his father wasMerlin seemed foolish. But there was something else. . . . “
Why?
Why did he send you?”
    “To protect you,” her stalker said simply. “Poor job that I’ve done of it.” He chewed a lip and looked out the glass windows at the street. His gaze grew distant, as though he were already gone. “If I don’t come for you in an hour, leave town. Go to a big city. Get a new name and lose yourself in the crowds.”
    “Wait a minute!” she called. “I didn’t know Merlin had children. What’s your name?”
    He heaved a breath. “Gawain. My name is Gawain.”
    He pronounced it “Gah-wen”—like as in the hero of the book she couldn’t write? The Gawain said to be pure of heart and with the strength of ten? She felt her mouth hanging open and snapped it shut. “
That
Gawain?”
    He gave that rueful smile. “Sorry. Yeah.” Then he turned and left her sitting on the stool in Moon Donuts as he walked out into the dawn. Camelot and Mordred and Merlin and Gawain swirled in her head like a carousel with too many lights and too much music. She couldn’t think clearly. What should she do about the fact that a murder was about to be committed?

Chapter Six
    Too stunned