Part 26 (1/2)

Where the h.e.l.l is Calder? I thought.

Malleus struck the cane on the floor, producing a rap that echoed from the walls.

”Enough!” he said. ”There is one last thing you should see.”

He nodded to Katie, and she stood, picked up a clay jar by the throne, and removed the wooden plug. She shook some handfuls of blue powder into her hand and threw them into the fire pit.

The fire erupted like she had thrown kerosene on it.

It continued to blaze fiercely, with a weird blue tinge, and Malleus began chanting in the Enigma language. Presently a form appeared in the flames. It was a nude man, a young man with blond hair.

It was Jonathan.

Suddenly I couldn't breathe. I felt like the floor would sink from beneath me. I staggered back a step or two.

”This is a trick,” I muttered. ”Something you've ordered from Sylvestre and Company. It's not real.”

The nude Jonathan stepped out of the fire and into the room. Katie padded over and looped an arm around his neck and nuzzled his cheek.

”Oh, he seems real enough to me,” she said hungrily.

”Get away from him!”

I shoved her aside.

”Jonathan,” I said. ”Is it you?”

He smiled, just as I remembered. He was still the age he was when he died. And when once I had been so much younger than he, now I was older. Nearly twice as old.Would he still want me now?

”Jonathan, are you real?”

No response. He seemed confused.

”Ask him,” Malleus said. ”Ask him for the secret sign, the message that you had agreed that he would send from the other side as a sign that love survives death.”

I took his hand and squeezed it against my cheek.

”Do you remember?”

He blinked.

”Do you remember me?”

”Ophelia,” he said.

”My love,” I said. ”What was the message?”

”J'attends ma femme.”

It was the message: ”I await my wife.”

I sank to the floor beside him, sobbing, still holding his precious hand against my cheek.

”Oh G.o.d,” I said.

Katie put a hand on his shoulder and urged him down with me. I cupped his face in my hands and kissed him, a kiss that thrilled me to my shadowless soul. Then I rested my head against his chest.

And frowned.

”This isn't right,” I said.

”What could not be right?” Katie asked. ”It is your love, returned from the grave. This is your heart's desire. All of your prayers have been answered in an instant, and you can stay here and rule with us-and live with him-forever.”

I got to my feet. My head was spinning, and I had to think hard to get out the words.

”This is a trick,” I said. ”It's not Jonathan.”

”But the message,” Malleus said. ”What of the message?”

”I-I don't know,” I said. ”You read my mind, somehow. Maybe you even read my heart. But it's not him. I know it's not him. It can't be.”

”Why not?”

”He doesn't smell right.”

At that, the Jonathan-like apparition vanished in a flash of light and thunder and blue smoke. I fell backward from the concussion, landing heavily on the stone floor, my head throbbing.

Malleus stepped down from the throne and walked around the fire pit to where I lay on the floor. He looked down at me like I was a pile of trash, something annoying that needed to be cleaned up.

”Tell the whiskey peddler to feed her to the whackers,” Malleus said.

”Shame,” Katie said, walking over to me on swiveling hips. ”We would have found her amusing . . . for a time.”

Then she reached down and grabbed hold of my earlobe and pulled me to my feet. I knocked her hand away with a forearm.

”That hurts, you b.i.t.c.h.”

She laughed.

”You dare defy me?” she asked. ”Your suffering will be great.”

I reached up and grabbed one of the alabaster earrings.

”You first.”

I jerked the thing out of her ear and threw it to the ground. She shrieked and clasped her hand to her ear. Blood ran down the side of her neck. Then she looked at me with a hatred that made my heart skip a beat.