Ghost Phoenix (12 page)

He led them out of the jungle room and locked the doors behind them.

“Madame Claudet! Set a table for lunch on the patio! My best wine.”

Claudet rose from her desk near the door. “How many? Three?”

“Oh, I think they brought another American with them. Him too.”

Claudet wrinkled her nose. “He paced the entire floor but finally settled in the study. I will let him know.”

Romanoff smiled. He clapped Richard on the back. “I like Americans! It is good luck to have one with you and even better to have two! It is said Americans are immune to curses.”

“Of course we are,” Daz said as he stepped out from a room off the front entrance. “It's why we won the Cold War.”

“Careful, boy, or I will serve you my vodka,” Romanoff said.

Daz put up his hand in mock horror. “No! Not Russian vodka. I surrender.”

“You see?” Now Romanoff clapped Richard on the back. “Americans are good luck. They bring laughter.”

Romanoff excused himself to make phone calls to “his people”, but after he was done, they sat down outside on his back patio. The house muted the wind from the sea, so they were only left with wisps tickling the trees overlooking a flower garden. The skies were so blue that Marian wished she could forget this talk of curses.

Daz and Richard drank the wine freely, so apparently they had no problem forgetting curses. Romanoff drank not at all, though he was in good spirits. As the dinner ended and they rose to go, he pressed a note into her hand.

“As you wish, here is someone who might help you and where you can meet him.” Romanoff seized her shoulders and kissed her on both cheeks. “I received this contact point through another party. Therefore, I cannot answer to its reliability and trustworthiness as much as I would want.” He held her out from him. “Be careful.”

She nodded. “Thank you, Lord Romanoff.”

“No, thank you.” He bowed. “Thankyouverymuch.”

She smiled at the Elvis impersonation.

As they climbed back into the car, Daz said, “And now we have left Elvis's building.”

Chapter Eleven

An informant wishes to meet you at Fontevraud Abbey tomorrow at 10 a.m. to discuss Mr. Genet's acquisition. Will call in the morning with exact details. I look forward to my Elvis car. Be careful, Marian. These are not good people.

Richard handed the note back to Marian. If a former KGB agent considered them “not good” people, they probably should start being concerned about curses. The choice of rendezvous was ominous as well. That was where the Immortal Court lived before the French Revolution.

All of it was suspicious.

“I've always wanted to visit the abbey, but somehow, it had never worked out. At least, whatever happens, I finally have a chance to see it,” Marian said.

“I could wish for any other place. ‘Whatever happens' might be worse than you imagine.”

Marian tucked the note back in her pocket.

“What do you mean?” Daz asked.

“I don't like it. I'm familiar with the abbey from my time in France. It feels like a trap.”

“If it is, and if you still want to find Rasputin, we have to walk into it,” Daz said.

“Absolutely,” Richard said. “But Marian doesn't have to take the risk.”

“The hell I don't,” she said.

After breakfast in the hotel suite the next morning, they set out for the abbey. It was close enough for a nice, brisk stroll. Marian suspected that the person who'd agreed to meet with them knew that.

Curses. She'd tossed and turned thinking about it. She didn't believe in curses, but she believed in psychic abilities. A curse could mean a psychic was protecting Rasputin's remains, for some reason. Maybe a descendant? Or a descendant of a former pupil? Rasputin had lived long enough that he could have trained a successor, like one generation of Doyles trained the next.

But whatever was behind this curse, they didn't know about her. And she had Richard on her side, and Daz. She'd take those odds. She'd faced dangerous situations alone before. Having back-up was better.

As the massive stone towers of Fontevraud Abbey loomed above them, Marian sensed Richard's growing discomfort. He looked down, not up. He almost bumped into several pedestrians, and he didn't glance at the shop windows.

She was getting used to his not talking when something was on his mind. But this seemed different.

As they neared the entrance, he stopped, as if he'd encountered some invisible force field. His head was down and his gaze kept sliding away from the abbey.

This was not Richard. He ruled the world. The world did not rule him. What bad memories stalked him here?

“What's wrong, Richard? Are you worried about curses?” she asked.

“I'm more worried about flesh-and-blood men. This is an odd place to exchange information on Rasputin.”

“But it's public and that's better for us than a private, remote location,” Daz said.

“You were shot at in public,” Richard said.

“Not going to let me live that down, are you?”

“No chance.”

“This isn't the same as Bryant Park. Once we're inside, it will be hard to hide anywhere,” Daz said. “I looked up a site map last night. It's nearly impossible for a sniper to find cover. Anyone who approaches us will have to approach us directly. I'll take those odds.”

“Your reasoning is my own, Montoya. It's why I agreed to the meeting, despite my unease.”

At least he acknowledged something was off, Marian thought. He had faced an unknown sniper with calm. He'd faced down a firestarter, a telepath and the man who killed his brother without once showing any fear. “You're really worried about this curse stuff.”

“We've had two warnings from reliable sources.” He paused and stared at her. “I've found curses cannot always be disregarded.”

“I've always found that guns cancel out curses,” Daz said.

“Do you have a gun?” she asked.

“No, too much paperwork to get done in too short a time to get through customs with a weapon. I know where to get one, though.”

“You'll get into serious trouble if you're found with an illegal weapon,” she said.

“Less trouble than if someone attacks and I can't defend us,” Daz said.

Richard stuffed his hands into his pockets and continued to stare at the abbey.

“Spill it, prince guy,” Daz said.

“Once, a very long time ago, this abbey was home. Someone's sending a message to me by meeting us here.”

“Could be,” Daz agreed. “Or could be you're homesick.”

“Possible.”

“Does it look the same as back then?” she asked.

“Not from when I first came to it, no. Two of the towers were built after my time in the abbey. And the interior was used as a prison for many years after I was gone, and it was stripped clean. All the frescos, furnishings and reliefs I once knew are gone. It's a shell of what I knew.”

“You miss it?” she asked.

“I miss many things.”

“Romanoff's contact wants to meet us where they keep the tombs of the kings,” Daz broke in. “Any thoughts on security there?”

“They are effigies, not tombs,” Richard corrected. “The bodies aren't present any longer. They went missing during the French Revolution.”

“Some delayed peasant payback?” Daz asked.

Richard shrugged. “It's as good a place as any to meet. As pointed out, there's no place to hide in that room and thus we should be safe enough, putting aside my homesickness.”

“Do you know where the missing bodies from the effigies went?” she asked.

Richard only shrugged again.

Marian had the distinct feeling that Richard knew exactly where the bodies were located. One day, she was going to have him sit down and relate his life instead of doling it out in dribs and drabs. Her scholarly father would drool over the very idea. And whoever his Queen was, she probably had even better tales.

Richard shook his head. “Past is past. I find it much better to live in the present. California's my home now.” He strode down the sidewalk and into the abbey, all hesitation gone.

Many Gothic or medieval-era churches were so similar as to be identical. Not Fontevraud Abbey. Marian's fingers lingered on the smooth abbey walls as they walked down an interior corridor. As Richard had said, this place had been picked clean many years ago. The damage from the abbey's time as a prison had been wiped away, but so had everything else.

This was an unremarkable wall, not even showing much of the signs of age of construction.

She craned her neck to study the vaulted ceilings above them. It would be lovely to spend the day here as a tourist, if only to note differences with other abbeys in Europe. The major difference so far was that the bareness made it feel cavernous but also more mysterious, as if it needed filling in.

If only they were tourists.

As they walked down the corridor to where the effigies were displayed, Marian shivered. Ancient places had their own unique atmospheres. Canterbury Cathedral was heavy and intense inside, the air thick with the prayers of so many pilgrims over the years. Westminster Abbey was more like a museum, historic but not sacred. Notre Dame in Paris overwhelmed with ornate structures and the beautiful sound of the bells.

In Fontevraud Abbey, Marian felt as if ghosts walked with her, whispering secrets just out of her coherence. She knew the logical explanation for the sensation. With so many vaulted ceilings, it was likely the air currents shifted oddly, carrying voices from one room to the others. Logic had little to do with Marian feeling she was being judged by the unknown specters.

So big a space. It needed color to be truly magnificent, like an arrowhead needed an arrow to be truly complete.

Daz craned his head to absorb his surroundings. “Not like church at home.”

“Not like home at all,” Richard said.

They walked into a large empty hall with high vaulted ceilings. Save for the four effigies in the middle, surrounded by rope to keep visitors at a respectful distance, it was empty. Marian wasn't sure if the emptiness made the effigies more or less magnificent.

Daz had said “the kings” were buried here. It would be more accurate to say “the royal Plantagenets”. Henry II of England's effigy was in one tomb. His wife, Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, a native of this land, occupied another. They were joined by Richard I, their son, and Queen Isabella, their daughter-in-law, wife of their youngest son, King John. Isabella, like Eleanor, had been born near here.

But, as her Prince Richard had said, the bodies were gone, lost to time, just like Rasputin's remains. Or just like Thomas Beckett's bones, which were reportedly shot out of a cannon during England's break with Rome under Henry VIII.

Medieval corpses went missing for many reasons over the years and not just because the person had been controversial in life. Sometimes it was through carelessness. Look at Richard III of England, whom history had tagged as her Richard's murderer. His burial place was reported and then lost to time until its recent rediscovery.

Richard fell behind her as they walked closer to the effigies. Eleanor of Aquitaine held a book in her hand. Perhaps the Bible, though, having studied that formidable Queen at some length, Marian guessed it was more likely to have been some book of poetry penned by an admirer. The colors on the effigies must have once been bright red, blue and yellow but now were faded. Many areas of the stone were chipped and worn.

“They deserve better,” she said.

“They're remembered and honored after 900 years when so many are forgotten,” Richard said. “That is worth a great deal.”

Marian bowed her head in respect.

“Looks like we're early,” Daz said.

“Looks that way,” Richard said, glancing around.

A row of monks marched in, their hoods cast over their heads. Their sandals thwapped against the stone floor as they approached the exhibit. She hadn't known the abbey was home to a monastery but their presence fit in with this place.

Richard bent his head and closed his eyes, his shoulders slumped as if in prayer. He might have lived here, but he couldn't have known these people. They were five, no six generations before his time. So why had his immortal Court been centered here? Had the formidable Eleanor left other descendants who were immortal, like Richard?

If the walls could talk instead of merely whispering and making her shiver, she might know. As if sensing her discomfort, Daz stepped closer to her. His warm breath tickled her neck, a very human feeling in the midst of all this.

The monks chanted, and they spread out before the effigies.

Marian frowned. Russian chants?

She turned to whisper to Daz how strange that was.

He pushed her aside so hard that she stumbled and nearly fell.

“Run!” he yelled.

A monk holding a long knife vaulted over the effigies and landed on top of Daz. Two others rushed Richard and knocked him down. Marian scrambled backwards, toward the wall, away from the fighting. Fending off knife-wielding monks was definitely not part of her job description. Getting away from them, however…

Richard punched his opponent in the chest with the flat of his hand. Before the monk could recover, Richard regained his feet and grabbed the other's wrist and wrenched away his dagger. The weapon went skittering across the stone and hit the bottom of Henry II's effigy.

Marian automatically cataloged the blade as a Russian military dagger, pre-revolutionary. Oh, she was being so helpful, figuring out what the dagger was while Richard and Daz were fighting for their lives. She had to do something.

Richard ducked a blow from one monk, grabbed the arm of another and smashed the two into each other. As they crashed to the floor in a heap, he snatched a dagger from another who rushed him.

But he was too late to prevent yet another monk from slicing his forearm. Richard ducked to avoid a jab, grabbed the monk by his robe and tossed him into the far wall. The monk hit with a solid thump, his head smacked the stone, and he slid to the floor and did not move.

Blood dripped onto the pristine floor of the abbey. The monks surrounded Richard and Daz and began to close in.

Dammit, that last-resort trick Aunt Eunice taught her would only work with one person. Too many here. She needed to do something else.

She counted
one, two, three
, and disappeared into the floor.

Darkness closed around her, as it always did in solid ground. Packed dirt, very little moisture. Good, dirt with lots of water was always harder to pass through. She floated to the right, hoping to reach the ground directly underneath the effigies. So hard to judge distance and location underground but she could hear the sounds of footsteps and battle overhead becoming louder as she moved. Definitely, she was headed in the right direction.

The blood spreading on the floor flashed through her mind. No. She could not lose concentration. Aunt Eunice had drubbed into her how fatal that could be. If she didn't keep her mind on the task, she could turn solid and suffocate inside the rock.

She floated upward and raised her hand over her head. There. The lighter feeling overhead was air. She pushed upward and her head phased into stale air. She was inside the effigies. No rotted flesh, no smell related to corpses. Perhaps they were long gone. She reached into her pocket for the mini LED flashlight she always carried. She waved her hand to make sure it was in empty space, blinked, and both the LED light and her hand became solid. She clicked on the switch.

Empty. Confirmation that there were no bodies here, as Richard had said.

But there were ghosts in the abbey. At least, there was one now.

She took a deep breath, easing it out as she became fully a phantom once more. She slipped the LED light back into her pocket and rose out of Eleanor of Aquitaine's effigy, arms outstretched.

“Who dares disturb my rest?”

Her voice reverberated off the walls, sounding sinister and otherworldly. Aunt Eunice said the distortion was due to the lower density of the vocal cords in phantom form. Marian didn't care why right now. She cared it was scaring the monks.