The Collector of Dying Breaths (32 page)

Chapter 43

Griffin found Jac sitting on the stone bench outside. In her hand was one petal that had fallen from the dried rose. Finding it on the floor, she couldn’t help but take it. She’d had to touch something René had touched. Had to connect to this man who had loved so much he’d chosen to die rather than live without Isabeau any longer.

“Jac, I’m sorry, this isn’t going to be easy, but I know how he died,” Griffin said.

“You remembered?”

“Remembered?” He gave her a quizzical look.

Jac realized they were in different times, different eras.

“I’m sorry. You mean Robbie! You found out?”

“It’s part of what I was doing in Paris. What I wanted to tell you. I asked Marcher not to call you. I thought it would be better . . .” He took her hands. “I had an idea when you told me that you’d found out Robbie had broken one of the antique bottles, and I asked the pathologists to test it out. Robbie died from the mixture of breath and elixir he inhaled. The lab identified an ancient toxin that is several hundred years old.”

It took a moment for Jac to take in what Griffin had said, then asked him if they were sure. He said they were.

“If it is true, why wasn’t the lab able to identify the poison before now?”

“It’s so old, no one thought to test for it. And then, when I suggested it . . . I don’t know. It was just a guess.”

“No. It was something you remembered,” Jac said.

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

“You told me that you once asked Malachai to hypnotize you so you might remember some of your past lives, and it failed. But I think you can have a memory without knowing that’s what it is. While I’ve been here, I’ve been learning about Catherine de Medici’s perfumer. And of the romance he had at the end of his life. I think it was
us
, Griffin. I think you were René. I was Isabeau. And it’s another tragic chapter of our past. Another incarnation where you died because of me.”

And then she told him the story she had pieced together.

“René got permission to bury Isabeau here and continued to work on reanimating the dying breaths. And then, realizing what he had spent his life creating was toxic, he swallowed Isabeau’s breath.”

“He committed suicide?” Griffin asked.

She nodded. They were both quiet for a few moments.

Then Griffin leaned forward, put his arms around her and kissed her. Offering comfort, and taking it at the same time. It was, Jac thought, a sacred kiss in a sacred place. And below her, in the crypt, she was certain that the man and the woman who’d lain there, together but separated for so long, knew somehow they were reconnected.

When he pulled away, Griffin’s face was filled with resolve.

“Jac, you know you need to leave here, don’t you? There’s nothing in Barbizon for you but danger—from the breaths—from Serge and Melinoe. Clearly she’s obsessed and doesn’t have boundaries. Back in Paris we can talk this through. I don’t doubt the story you are telling me. But I do believe with everything in me that you are getting the meaning of all this wrong. You and I are not doomed. How much do you know about the cult of Dionysus?”

“A lot.”

“Okay then. How many lives did someone live before they could go to Nirvana?”

“Three lives over three thousand years.”

“You know Melinoe was the name of a priestess of the Dionysus cult?”

She nodded. “Of course. She and I talked about that. The goddess of the underworld and ghosts.”

“If you give any credence to fate, then now her job is done. Fate’s delivered you to the place where you could learn about your third incarnation. And now that your past is known, it can be dealt with. In the last couple of years you’ve remembered three of our lifetimes—the first dates back to the ancient Egyptian era. Your three thousand years of being reborn are over. Now it’s time for our version of Nirvana. No one ever said it can’t exist here on earth. I believe we can learn from the mistakes we made in those other incarnations and put them behind us. Maybe we were never strong enough before. There was an ancient perfumer who loved a noblewoman but allowed their affair to take place in secret to protect his position with his queen instead of declaring his feelings. There was a French perfumer who went to Napoleon’s Egypt to chase a dream instead of staying home in Paris and being with the woman he would love forever. And now we know there was an Italian perfumer who cared too much about his power and wealth to give them up and leave the court with Isabeau. They could have gone to Germany or Spain and had a fine life. Or even stayed in Paris and kept his store open. But he wouldn’t give up his position.

“In this life, we’ve already been given chances we’ve squandered, like they all did. But not anymore. We’re going to grab this chance.”

He kissed Jac again.

Intellectually, she didn’t know if she understood what he was saying any more than she understood what Malachai had explained about her ability to remember other people’s past lives . . . but it didn’t matter. Everything Jac felt told her that Griffin was right.

As she let the kiss absorb her, a slight breeze blew around them. In her mind she saw it winding around, silver ribbons binding them. She saw the Greek goddess Moira standing inside of a marble temple, the Aegean Sea gleaming blue behind her. Moira was watching her sister Fates at work; Clotho was spinning thread, Lachesis weaving it into these silver ribbons that were tying Jac and Griffin together through time.

When they pulled away, Griffin asked her if she would show him what she had found. Together they descended into the crypt.

Jac watched Griffin look at the skeleton slumped beside the sarcophagus. He squatted down and examined the rose and the bottle and looked into the man’s empty eye sockets. And then he did a strange thing. As if in some kind of ancient greeting, he reached out and touched the man’s right hand.

Jac thought she saw glimmers of silver ribbons encircle Griffin and René. Invisible connectors were everywhere.

Griffin stood and began an inspection of the tomb itself. He ran his fingers over the plaque engraved with Isabeau’s name and birth and death dates.

Jac wanted to ask him what he was feeling, but at the same time she didn’t want to speak while down here. As if to do so would disturb these dead. But as Griffin spoke, when she heard what he said, she knew the dead would not be disturbed.

Taking Jac’s hand, he said, “For them we’re going to right all the wrongs.” And then, for the third time that afternoon, he leaned forward and kissed her. There was no passion or longing in this embrace. Just a promise.

“Love,” he said, “like energy, never dies. You lose people only in the moment. But time is a long road that circles back. At some point the missing turns into love and returns. It’s returned now.”

Jac felt the underground burial chamber growing warmer. The chill she’d experienced down here before was gone. The sense of dread and depression was lifting. The scene of René beside the coffin of his new wife was still tragic, but now it was also beautiful.

“It’s time to go,” Griffin said.

He was right. It was time to go. It was finally all right to go. What had needed to be learned had been learned.

Jac went first, and Griffin followed. Then together they replaced the wire mesh grid and the tiles on top of it. On their knees, they spread the dirt and debris around the opening so it didn’t appear that—

“What are you doing?” It was Melinoe.

Jac and Griffin both looked up at the same time.

She was standing on the steps to the ruin. With a gun in her hand.

Chapter 44

“Oh goodness, I’m so glad it was you. I was taking a walk and heard voices and thought you were intruders.” Melinoe put the small silver pistol back in her pocket. “What were you doing?”

Jac quickly lied: “We were examining the stones for some kind of carvings or impressions. Just trying to date the folly.”

Jac watched Melinoe assess what she’d told her. The woman took little at face value, but there was no reason for her to doubt Jac. What she was saying made sense. Besides, what else would they be doing? No one knew about the crypt. In fact no one knew the folly, fancilly built to look like a ruin, was a true ruin of a real chapel.

“We’re going to have drinks soon. Would you like to join us for dinner, Griffin?”

As they all walked back to the château, Jac thought that over drinks would be a good time to tell Melinoe what Griffin had learned. While they were all together having a glass of wine, she’d explain there was no reason to continue on with the experiment now that they’d learned the breaths were lethal.

At the house Jac excused herself to freshen up, and as she headed toward the stairs, she heard Melinoe offer Griffin the opportunity to visit the wine cellar and pick out a bottle from the collection.

When Jac returned fifteen minutes later, there was no sign of them. She headed toward the cellar.

“Griffin? Melinoe?”

There was no answer. She saw the laboratory door was open and walked in. Empty also. She took a moment to check on the formula she wouldn’t need to finish now. It smelled wonderful. Ancient and rich. She imagined what adding the ambergris to it would do. How it would round it out. For a moment she regretted that she’d never smell the final composition.

The cellar was large, and she walked its perimeter, thinking Melinoe was showing Griffin some corner even Jac hadn’t seen. Or that they were bent over a dusty bottle of Bordeaux. But then why wouldn’t they have answered?

She made her way back upstairs and to the living room, where Serge mixed cocktails every evening at six
PM
.

He was there lighting a fire and looked up when he saw Jac. His face was pale.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

He nodded, but it was halfhearted.

From behind, she heard Melinoe enter the room. She’d changed for dinner, and her pink silk sheath rustled as her high-heeled shoes clicked on the marble floor when she crossed the room.

“I need you to make sure everything is secure,” Melinoe said to Serge.

He nodded and left.

“Where’s Griffin?” Jac asked.

“All in good time,” Melinoe said.

Spinning around, Jac tried to identify what she was smelling. It was the scent of fear. It had come from Serge. Something was wrong. Jac was certain of it. Instantly cold shivers of panic took over her body.

“Where is Griffin?”

“Jac, I need you to finish what you came here to start.”

“Where’s Griffin?”

“Doing a little banking for me.”

“What does that mean?”

“He’s my security deposit on the formula. When you complete it, you and he can leave.”

“What are you talking about? Where is he?”

“This house has secrets you haven’t found yet. Yes, there’s René’s laboratory. And the crypt. Those are your discoveries. But you haven’t stumbled on the charming medieval dungeon. They had them in the Middle Ages, you know. Very elaborate ones. Ours is the size of a bedroom. With all sorts of medieval wonders. Would you like to see?”

Jac knew that Melinoe was eccentric and dangerous. Why hadn’t she realized how foolhardy it was to stay here? She knew the answer. Jac had wanted the elixir as badly as Melinoe. And now? What had Melinoe done?

“Is Griffin there?”

“Insurance that you’ll finish what you started.”

“Why wouldn’t I? You don’t have to threaten me or hurt Griffin—I’ll finish the formula,” Jac lied.

Melinoe stood. “Correctly? Or you’ll corrupt it?” She walked to the door. “Aren’t you coming? Don’t you want to see where Griffin is?”

As Jac followed Melinoe, she watched the light reflecting off the silver heels on the other woman’s suede boots. It was something to do to keep herself from screaming. There was no reason to panic yet. This was just some strange game Melinoe was playing.

They walked through the first floor to the kitchen into a pantry where Jac had not yet been. Off that was a hallway.

“This was where the kitchen staff lived,” Melinoe was saying as if it were a normal evening and she was showing her house off. “The rooms were small, but at least they were warm—all of them have small fireplaces.”

The dialogue was ridiculous.

“And here we have the staircase that led to the cold storage below.”

Like the steps to the wine cellar, these were narrow and not easy to navigate.

One flight down and it was chilly. A second flight down and it was cold. They must have been on the north side of the house, where the sun heated the stones the least.

“In olden times, food was kept down here because of the natural chill, which they exaggerated by building thick walls.

“Now through here . . .” Melinoe opened a thick wooden door that creaked as the hinges moved. “We believe this part of the château dates back to the mid-twelfth century, before the current building was erected. This cellar was part of an older structure replaced by the château in the fifteenth century. As was the custom, the builders followed the previous footprint, even utilizing the old foundation.”

A short hallway ended at a rusted iron gate. There was a key in the lock, but the gate was open. Beyond it was another staircase.

Jac held back. She smelled something foul.

“Come,” Melinoe said, grabbing Jac by the arm, fingers digging into her flesh. “We’re almost there. Just one more flight.”

Jac descended the staircase. For some reason she found herself counting the steps. There were sixteen of them. She was freezing now. Her teeth were chattering. A combination of cold and fear.

At the bottom of the stairs was a second gate. This one was closed. Behind it was a circular room ensconced in darkness until Melinoe swung her battery-operated lantern on a small section of it.

Jac gasped.

She was looking at a medieval Judas chair—triangular-shaped with a very pointed tip that impaled and either rectally or vaginally raped the victim forced to sit on it.

Melinoe swung the light to illuminate a different section of the torture chamber. Here was another chair, this one covered with spikes. Once you sat down, the pinpoints penetrated your flesh—all over your back, arms, legs—left there long enough, you’d bleed to death.

Melinoe revealed another corner, and Jac saw a head crusher—used mostly to extract confessions. A horrific, inhuman device.

Then the light moved again, illuminating a wooden stockade similar to what witch hunters had used in Salem. Griffin’s head and hands were coming through center and side holes. There was a gag in his mouth, which seemed redundant. They were so far underground, Jac couldn’t imagine his screaming could have been heard by anyone upstairs.

“This is crazy!” Jac felt for her cell phone—then remembered it was in the bedroom charging. But even if she’d had it, there would be no signal this deep underground.

What was she going to do?

“Please understand, I don’t have any interest in hurting your friend. Just finish what you started and complete the formula. Once you have, I’ll release the locks and both of you can leave of your own free will.”

“The formula is useless. The breaths are poisonous!” Jac cried. “Let Griffin go.”

“You have no proof that the breaths are poisonous.”

“We do. My brother died from an ancient toxin. He must have inhaled the breath by accident when he broke the bottle—”

“Your brother was visiting laboratories and asking chemists to make up synthetic ingredients. Whatever poison killed him must have been something he commissioned. There’s no proof it was from one of my bottles.”

Jac couldn’t take her eyes off Griffin. “You can’t do this!”

“I don’t have a choice. I know you are planning to leave, and I can’t let that happen. I’d finish the formula myself, but I’m not an expert and we don’t have enough of the ancient ingredients for me to make a mistake. I need you. I have no choice, so you have no choice.”

Melinoe wasn’t sane. There would be no reasoning with her.

Across the room, Griffin looked at Jac and shook his head, no. He always knew what she was thinking almost before she did. From his expression she knew he had zeroed in on the thought that had hit her so hard she’d gone weak and almost fallen.

They had not broken the karmic circle after all. Griffin was going to die, and it would be because of her. Because Jac had involved him in this madness. It was her fault again.

She’d thought about this over and over for the last two years. She had loved this one man without reason and without hesitation since she was seventeen years old. Through her own crises and losses, through years of never speaking to him or knowing where he was. When she wasn’t with him she felt she was only half a person, in limbo. When she was with him, she was complete in a way that embarrassed her. In a way that a woman with a career and friends and family and success is not supposed to feel. She was tied to him. At some distant point in time, their souls had imprinted on each other and they’d never been able to cut the threads of fate that connected them.

Death had only separated them from each other for a time.

And now here they were. Playing out the same scenario. Jac was tied to Griffin. And that bond had been his death sentence over and over again.

It would end now.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes,” in a flat voice. “I’ll finish the formula,” she added, knowing that she might be signing her own death sentence if the experiment went wrong. “But you have to let Griffin go.”

“It’s almost been twenty-four hours. We’ll have dinner and then you can complete what you began. And then when I have what I brought you here for, you and Griffin will be free to leave.”