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"He is. " With a flick of her chopping knife the innkeeper's wife decapitated a stalk of broccoli and began expertly reducing it to a pile of small florets. "My grandparents came here from Périgueux with my father when he was a boy, to escape the war. I wanted to go to Paris when I was young, but Papa would not allow it. So I married Jean, which was almost as good—he is from Marseilles," she added. "Why do you ask?"
"I was wondering if you knew anything about that old chateau up on the hillside?" Nick gestured in the general direction.
Adélie put down the knife in her hand and turned to stare at her. "I know of it. You have gone there today, mademoiselle?"
"I was riding around and saw it from the road," Nick lied. "I tried to take a walk around the place, but an old man chased me off. "
"The crazy Basque. " Adélie made a sound of contempt that only women born in France could produce and went back to chopping. "He does this to everyone, not just visitors. Jean and I tried to speak to him about it after Mass one Sunday. Some of the Germans like to hike and have picnics, and there is a pretty stream there. He told us to keep our guests away or he would have them arrested—and he is supposed to be a priest. "
So he used the same threat even with the locals. Interesting. "Does he give services at the church?"
"He only comes to Mass. But I heard the men who came here with him call him Father Claudio. "
He might be a retired priest, or he might be something else. "Does he own the property?"
"Him? Oh, no. " She shook her head as she began heaping the vegetables into a wire potée basket already stocked with lamb and onions. "The chateau belongs to the church. "
Nick glanced through the kitchen windows at the charming little sanctuary where most of the villagers attended Mass.
Adélie followed the direction of her gaze. "Not our church, mademoiselle. The Holy Father's church in Rome. They own many such properties in France. Some believe the ghost who haunts it may have been a priest, murdered during the revolution. "
Nick straightened. "There's a ghost haunting it?"
"So they say. " The older woman wiped her hands on her apron. "Every old house has a ghost or two, non?"
Nick moved closer. "Tell me more about this ghost. "
Adélie sighed. "I first heard of it after the crazy Basque came to town to complain about my brother's son, Misha. Misha and his friends are boys who like to play harmless tricks, you know? They had been going out to the chateau and trying to scare the old man. "
"Making noises like a ghost," Nick guessed.
The innkeeper's wife nodded. "My brother scolded Misha, and told him to stay away, but my nephew would not listen. He and two of his school friends went out to le château one night to, how do you say, get even with the crazy one?"
"What happened?"
Adélie looked uneasy. "Misha went into the chapel to hide, but never came out. His friends looked through the windows but did not see him. They ran all the way back to the village to tell my brother. He drove out there to look for Misha, and found my nephew walking on the road. Misha would not say anything for hours, until we tried to take him to the hospital. Then he wept in terror, and told us that the ghost had tried to steal his soul. "
"It's not a place for kids even during the day," Nick said. "I can only imagine how scary it looks at night. "
"It was not that, mademoiselle. I know the tricks a young imagination can play. When I was a girl, I became convinced that a troll lived under my bed," the older woman said. "I heard it breathing and moving under there. After many nights I worked up the courage to look, and something reached out and scratched me. I screamed the house down until Papa came and moved my bed to show me there was nothing beneath it but my cat, Lupi. "
"Your nephew probably encountered something similar," Nick told her.
"No, mademoiselle. He saw nothing. He only heard the ghost rattling his chains, and calling his name—calling him Michel—and a terrible hammering sound. " Her eyes went to her hands. "I would not have believed him myself, but he was paralyzed by fear. I cannot believe it was all a lie. "
Nick recalled the grimy condition of the chapel's interior. "He might have imagined that, too. "
"We can only hope. " She picked up the potée basket, lowering it into the pottery dish and pouring a generous measure of wine over it before covering it with a lid for cooking. "I will tell you this. After what happened to Misha, there is not a man in this village who will go near the chateau. Not even my Jean. "
Nick had heard a hundred stories of hauntings and ghosts, and knew most had occurred only in the mind of the storyteller. Had the details been slightly different, she would have believed that Misha had done the same. A boy in trouble might say anything to appease an angry parent.
There was only one problem, and it was not the name-calling or the chain dragging. Anyone who had read Dickens enough times would attribute the same sounds to any unhappy spirit.
The hammering sound didn't fit.
No one was making any repairs to the old chapel, the old man had said, and no one would work in there at night. She had not seen any tools, nor any indication anything was being used to fix the old place.
So who had been hammering up there, and why?
Chapter 5
"Dr. Keller, I would speak with you. "
Éliane Selvais, Richard Tremayne's tresora, came into the room where the guards had locked Alex. The tall, slim blonde in the pastel blue suit usually radiated a composed, wintry persona, but one glance told Alex that Éliane's calm had more cracks in it than the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
"These ridiculous attempts of yours to escape the castle are causing a great deal of—" Éliane stopped speaking as soon as she saw the window Alex was working on. "Mon Dieu. What are you doing?"
"Escaping the castle. " Alex worked another piece of the window frame loose and tore it off, tossing it over her shoulder. Prying up the wooden frame had been easy; she hadn't yet figured out how to knock out the iron bars. "You don't happen to have a hammer and chisel on you that I can borrow, do you?"
The Frenchwoman quickly closed the door and locked it. "You go too far, Doctor. The high lord is already seriously displeased with you. "
"I haven't gone far enough, and fuck the high lord. " Peering through the bars over the window, Alex tried to estimate the drop. For a human it would be a lethal one, but she might manage it without breaking her legs. Or maybe she'd throw Éliane out first, use her as a drop cushion. "Are we four stories up here, or five?"
"Alexandra, please. "
Now there were two words Alex had never thought she'd hear out of Éliane's perfect, disapproving lips.
She let go of the edge of the sill. "I'm sorry; refresh my memory here. Exactly when did you and I become old pals?"
"I know we are not friends. " The other woman sighed. "But we can be civil to each other. "
"Not without drugs, which no longer work on me," Alex told her. "So, go back to kissing Richard's ass or whatever it is you do for him, tresora, and leave me alone. "
The skin around the base of Éliane's nose whitened. "I am the only friend you have here. "
"Then I'm in serious trouble. " Alex plucked a splinter of wood out from under her fingernail. "How do you think my chances are with that big guard with the neck tat?"
The Frenchwoman's lips thinned. "Stop joking. "
"Who's joking? We're not friends. " Alex knew needling Éliane wouldn't help get her out of Dundellan, but she couldn't seem to help herself. "Or have you conveniently forgotten that you once tried to feed me to Cyprien?"
"Once," the tresora admitted. "I also saved your life when the Brethren tried to take you in New Orleans. "
True enough, although the Frenchwoman's motives had hardly been driven-snow pure. "Okay. So we're friends. Now be a pal, run back to your lord and master, and tell him that this song and dance didn't work, either. "
"He does not know that I am here. " She looked around the room before continuing in a lower voice. "I came to say that I will do whatever I can to reunite you with Cyprien, if you will help my lord. "
Alex made a rude sound.
"Richard truly is losing the battle with his body, Alexandra. " Éliane bent and began picking up the pieces of broken frame from the floor. "Each day his mind slips further into the madness. Each night I fear he will lose control again. The last time he did, he destroyed the medical lab and slaughtered twenty men. They were good men, devoted and loyal to him. "
The only questionable behavior Alex had observed in the high lord was a bit of irritability, but she'd caused that herself.
"Richard's homicidal rages are not my problem," she pointed out. "I didn't ask to be kidnapped. I don't have a cure. I don't think I'm going to develop one, or Stockholm syndrome, either. Why isn't anyone getting this?"
"You have made the disgust you feel for my lord all too plain. " Éliane brought the broken frame pieces to the window and opened it, tossing them out through the iron bars. "If you hope to shame him, you should know that your tantrums do not move him in the slightest. Very little will now, I believe. "
"You don't want me here. I'm not going to do anything to help him. So why not give me a hand and get me out?" Alex asked. "Richard will never know. I won't tell Michael it was you. " She raised three fingers. "Girl Scout's honor. "
"I am not a Girl Scout. " Smooth blond hair caught the light as Éliane straightened her shoulders. "But you can help Richard. You restored Michael's face. You have the knowledge. It would be nothing for you. "
"You've been watching too many reruns of ER," When the other woman frowned, she added, "Richard is mutating into something I've never even considered possible, much less treated in a human or Kyn. I can't intubate him, seduce an intern, and save the day before the closing credits roll. I'm a reconstructive surgeon, not George Clooney. "