"Why, my lady?" John heard himself say.

"We often entertain special guests here." She reached out to toward his face, and pursed her lips when he scrambled out of reach. "There's no reason to avoid my touch, John Patrick. I look forward to the two of us becoming very close during your stay."

Her words sounded sweet, but they felt tinny inside John's ears. Her perfect teeth glittered, small and sharp and white. Staring at them reminded him of the damp, decaying cloy of rotting wood... old fruit crates in an alley, behind a produce warehouse where he had slept as a kid... and the rats that came out of the crates at night, looking for meat...

Her smile widened. "Sweet boy, don't be afraid. I'll look after you."

"No." Panic forced John backward again, until he half fell off the side of the bed. The cold floor under his feet cleared some of the terror out of his head. This wasn't Chicago. He wasn't eight years old anymore. He picked up a table lamp and pulled the cord free. "Is this the castle? Do you have my sister?"

"All of your questions will be answered in good time." The lady turned back the coverlet, giving the bed an inviting pat with her hand. "You should rest now. Or are you hungry? I can arrange to have a tray brought up to you."

Hungry. The way the rats had been. And she knew that, knew somehow that he had lived in fear of the street scavengers biting him or baby Alex. She knew, and he could see in her eyes that it gave her some sort of twisted pleasure to know his fear.

John knew fear better than most people. This woman was deliberately making him relive memories that brought out the worst of his emotions. To control me and make me do what she wants.

"You're Kyn." He backed away from the bed and eyed the single window in the room. It was closed, and there were copper bars securing it on the outside. "Tell whoever's in charge that I need to speak to him."

"Don't run away just yet, John Patrick," the lady said, her words curling into voracious squeals in his ears. "We have so much to discuss."

The stink of dead flowers seemed to be burning away all the oxygen in the room. The lady didn't move, but something about her changed, and John remembered how still the rats would go, only their whiskers twitching, just before they jumped on a leg and bit down into a child's soft, vulnerable flesh- "Help me." He stumbled to the door and tried to open it at the same time someone pushed it in from the other side.

"Sorry, lad." A huge hand clamped on John's shoulder and guided him back as a s.h.a.ggy blond head ducked under the low threshold. "You're not to go wandering."

John knew it was all a Kyn mind trick, but he still couldn't bring himself to look back at the lady. If he did he would scream.

"Please," he whispered, sweat chilling on his flushed skin. "Please don't leave me in here alone with her."

The giant man looked over John's shoulder and breathed in. "It's all right, lad. There's no one in here but you and me."

"She's standing right there, on the other side of the bed." John made himself turn and face her, only she wasn't there anymore.

There was only the bed and the window. "She was in here. I swear-when I woke up she was waiting for me. I think she's making me hallucinate."

The man steered John back to the bed. "The drugs they gave you, they play tricks on the mind. I'll bring you a bite to eat; that should settle your belly."

He had been hallucinating? John sat down, confusion numbing away the terror. "She seemed so real." He looked up. "Where am I? Why was I brought here?"

The guard only shook his head and left.

Nick had pa.s.sed the butcher's shop on her information junket around the village, but this time she went down a narrow side street and came around the back of the shop. Light shone through one of the windows on the ground floor, and she peered in to see what was happening inside. The butcher stood with his back to her as he worked portioning and packaging various cuts of meat.

On the sill of the window was a small blue-and-white ceramic statue of the blessed Virgin Mary, her hands extended, her smile as modest as her downcast eyes.

Nick looked up the length of the building. No fire escape, but a drainpipe went up past the open window on the second floor.

She could pull herself up by grabbing the strips of metal anchoring it to the building. An electrical panel and a good-sized exhaust fan unit beneath the upper window would provide some footholds.

Nick pulled off her boots and set them out of sight behind a stack of empty wooden crates before she tested the drainpipe with a hard tug. It didn't part company with the building, so she climbed atop the crates and swung over onto the pipe. After waiting another few seconds to be sure it would hold her weight, she reached up for the edge of the exhaust fan unit.

She was halfway to the upper window when a delivery bell jingled, and the back door of the shop opened. The butcher stepped outside, two full trash bags in his hands. Nick went still, hoping the shadow of the building concealed her. The butcher dropped the bags into a can and came back to the door, then paused.

Don't look up don't look up don't- The man below sat down on the edge of one of the crates, took out a cigarette, and lit it.

Nick didn't dare breathe. She felt her weight dragging at the drainpipe, and measured the s.p.a.ce between her and the window.

Four feet might as well have been forty; even if she moved fast he'd hear her and look up before she could crawl into the window.

It took the butcher ten minutes to finish his smoke before he went back inside. Nick gradually unlocked her stiff limbs and hauled herself up to the window. Another, larger statue of the Madonna stood in one corner of the window; this one had been draped with a gold-and-white-beaded crucifix. The full moon illuminated the bedroom beautifully, and Nick made sure the woman inside was sleeping soundly before she climbed over the windowsill.

White scrolled furniture picked up the moon's glow, filtered as it was through the fine lace curtains. Nick eyed the heavily ruffled bed skirt and feather-stuffed satin comforter neatly rolled up at the foot of the bed; also pure white. Milk-gla.s.s lamps with fussy lace shades and a creamy-looking carpet made her feel as if she'd stepped into a bowl of vanilla ice cream.

Statues of the Madonna in various sizes had been placed on virtually every flat surface in the room. Lettice favored the standing Mary, but here and there were small reproductions of Pietas and the Annunciation. A benevolent portrait of the Blessed Mother beamed down from elaborate frames hung in the center of each wall. Some of the frames were antiques, but not one of the Madonnas was golden.

Lettice's light snores sounded regular, and as Nick moved to the side of the bed she was surprised to see that the woman's pretty face was covered with what looked like a bad case of the measles under some opaque, dried skin lotion. She wore a plain cotton slip for sleeping, and had pushed the sheet covering her down to her waist. The same type of rash as on her face also marked her arms, neck, and chest. Under more of the skin lotion, the tiny red blisters formed a vee just below her collarbone, marking her in the same way that a sunburn might if she had been wearing a blouse with an open collar.

Nick silently searched the room, but found nothing. She then leaned over the woman, inspecting her welts. With the amount of lotion she had applied, it was hard to tell, but Nick saw no signs of puncture wounds, gashes, or tears. On a patch of skin Lettice had missed while applying her topical medication, Nick noted that the rash was not made up of pustules, but rather something more like insect bites.

She's stung, not bitten. Nick felt perplexed. If they're not tapping the locals, then how are they feeding it?

Unless they weren't feeding it.

The sound of a dead bolt being turned below her feet made Nick hurry. She bent as close as she dared to the woman and sniffed her skin. All she could smell was soap, dried herbs-likely from a sachet in the drawer where the slip had been kept- and the chalky scent of the rash lotion. Not a hint of flowers.

Something's not right.

Footsteps thumped; the butcher was coming upstairs. Nick looked out the window before climbing out and onto the drainpipe.

It shimmied a little this time, so she slid down as fast as she dared, hopping off and grabbing her boots. She didn't pause to put them on, but carried them tucked under her arm as she hurried around the corner. Only when she was out of sight of the butcher shop did she halt and push her feet into them.

She'd get back on the computer and pull every incident report she could find on this village and the surrounding area. With all the "bad luck" being blamed on the chateau, there had to be something.

"You left me alone," a young, slurred voice said in French from behind her. "American women are wh.o.r.es. My father says so."

s.h.i.t. Nick turned to see Bernard coming at her, his gait uneven, a fresh bottle of beer in his hand. He didn't look like he wanted to go back to her room now.

"Yep, we're all wh.o.r.es." It was better than arguing with him. "Now go home, kid."

"Kid? Who you calling the kid?" He took a swig from his beer before smashing the bottle against the brick wall of the alley. Beer splashed his legs and foamed around his feet. "I was nice to you. I bought you the wine. Then you try to steal my money."

"I found your wallet on the floor and gave it to you," she pointed out.

"The men at the cafe, they saw. You made me look like a fool. They laughed at me." He tried to take a drink from the broken bottle, stared at it as if not sure what it was, and then held it up. "See what you made me do, American wh.o.r.e?"

"No charge. Bye." Nick turned and started walking fast.

He caught up to her, whirled her around, and held the broken end of the bottle under her nose. "You pay for this."

Bernard meant business, and was just sober enough to inflict some real damage. She'd left her baseball bat back at the inn.

There were no police in the village; she'd made sure of that.

"Don't hurt me," Nick said, putting a whimper behind the words as she dropped down on her knees.

Bernard smiled at her as he yanked down his zipper. "Maybe I won't; maybe I will..." His voice dwindled to a strained wheeze as he looked down.

Grabbing a man by the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es always shut him up in a hurry, Nick observed as she increased the pressure. She could have ended this confrontation another way-an easier, simpler way-but the village had no police, and Bernard might try this again with another tourist. There were too many young women knocking around Europe who didn't know how to protect themselves against mayors' sons on the make.

"Drop the bottle now," she said pleasantly, giving his b.a.l.l.s a small, neat twist, "or I'll make you into a Bernice."

He threw the bottle away.

Slowly Nick stood without relaxing her grip. As she did, his body did the exact opposite, hunching over, comically paying tribute to the strength of her hold.

Now for the Q&A. "Have you ever raped a woman, Bernard?"

He shook his head, still unable to speak.

"Good. Because if you had, I might separate you from these." Nick put her mouth close to his ear. " 'I'll never hurt or threaten to hurt a woman again.' Say it."

He managed to squeak out the words.

"Very good, Bernard. Now you're going straight home and get some ice for this. The swelling will go down in a day or two." She lowered her voice to a whisper. "Every time you get angry at a woman, I want you to remember this pain."

He nodded frantically, almost doubled over.

"I'll be in France for a while, and I'll be checking on this village." Time for the big finish. With her free hand she took the stiletto out of her jacket pocket and popped the blade, touching his cheek with the flat of it. "I hear some girl gets hurt, you know who I'm going to come back and castrate."

He didn't move, but liquid spattered on the road between them, and the scent of urine grew thick.

"I see you do." Nick took her hand out of his pants and kept the stiletto between them. "I don't want to ever see your face again, Bernard. Make sure that happens."

She watched as he clutched at his crotch with a shaking hand and went down on his knees. She didn't hang around to watch him vomit, but headed back to the inn.

Once up in her room, she stripped off her jacket and ignored her laptop as she dropped onto the bed. The run-in with Bernard had left a bad taste in her mouth. He'd deserved the pain, but she had gotten too angry. If she'd really let loose on him... I didn't cripple him, and I didn't hurt him permanently. I taught him a lesson. Lesson learned. Let it go.

She decided against working on the computer. If there had been anything real going on in this place, she would have found it by now. It was all smoke and superst.i.tion; a product of living isolated lives in a small, out-of-the-way village. Lettice was just another European woman obsessed with the Virgin Mary.

The Golden Madonna was not here in St. Valereye.

As for the dreams, they could only be a coincidence. The hammering sounds, sick locals, and water that turned the color of blood would have to be someone else's problem. Whatever was going on with Father Claudio and his broken-down chateau would have to resolve itself without her.

She'd get twelve hours of sleep and then leave the village tomorrow and head north. She'd pa.s.sed through the village of St.

Estephe on the way here from Paris; doubtless there were some old churches and chapels around the Gironde River estuary, or tucked away behind the endless acres of vineyards with their cl.u.s.ters of dark purple grapes.

Despite her resolve, Nick didn't sleep, not for hours. Finally near dawn she drifted off, and in her dreams went home.

She knew she was back home on the farm, although she couldn't see anything. She could hear the cows, smell the bread baking in the kitchen, and felt the familiar dampness of the country air. She didn't recognize where she was at first, until she smelled herbs. Her mother had grown them, bundled them, and hung them to dry.

Someone had locked her in the cold pantry.

"Nicky?" Her mother was there, too, a disembodied voice, hovering somewhere just over her head.

"Mom?" Nick turned around, looking up, trying to see through the blackness.

"Nicky, I won't tolerate another minute of this," Annette Jefferson said, her sweet voice furious. "Come out. Come out of there this instant!"

A door appeared, although not the weathered wooden one at the farm. This one was made of pure gold, and shaped like a peaceful woman's face. It shook from the pounding someone on the other side was giving it.

"Wait." Nick reached for the face/k.n.o.b, but it scowled at her and began moving up and sideways and down on the door, always just an inch or two out of her reach. "I can't get out, Mom. I don't know how."

"Open the door, Nicola." The deeper, kinder voice belonged to Malcolm, her stepdad. "Let us in and we'll help you. Come on, girl. We'll put on the kettle. I'll make that Irish tea you like so much."

Despite her stepdad's soothing words, Nick was abruptly afraid to let them in. Her parents had the keys; she knew that. They had put her in here, locked her in, hadn't they? So why did they want her to open the door?

The k.n.o.b grinned at her. "They saw you watching, Nicola. They knew. Before they died, they knew."

She backed into a tall, hard cabinet, and turned to see its doors opening. Books packed the four shelves at the top, as well as the three long drawers someone had left open on the bottom. There was more light now, although from where it was coming, Nick couldn't tell. She read the t.i.tles on the book spines-Le Voyage d'Hiver, Quand Je Dors, Amour Immortel-and wondered why her mother had been hiding French books.

Annette couldn't read French; neither could Malcolm. That was why he'd sent for the translation of the old book he'd found. The one with the legends of the Golden Madonna. To be sure what he had dug up from the cellar was real.

"... aurem tuam ad preces nostras," Malcolm was reciting on the other side of the closet door, "quibus misericordiam tuam supplices deprecamur, ut animam famuli tui Abbadon..."

The cabinet fell forward onto her. Nick had time only to fling her arms over her head before she was dragged into the cabinet and through a mirror that didn't shatter. On the other side stood the dark figure of a man, his hands tied together, his eyes covered by a black shadow, like a blindfold. He stood bent over, bowed by the weight of the cape on his shoulders. A green cape, edged in pine needles.

You cannot leave me.

Nick went to him, ripping the rope from his hands. Where are you?

I do not know. Find me. His freed hands framed her face. And I will save us. Blood trickled out from under the black shadow over his eyes and ran down his cheeks. He was weeping blood.

She couldn't bear to see him like this. How can I find you? Tell me, please, and I'll leave right away. I'll come to you as soon as I wake up.

You were there. Come back to me.

Nick found herself back in the cold pantry, alone, and terribly afraid. Something had gnawed a hole gnawed through the base of the wood. The sight of it made her shudder; she hated rats.

The hole began to grow.

In a panic she backed away, her shoulders colliding with the golden door. The k.n.o.b opened its mouth, baring jagged teeth, and tried to bite her. The hole stretched up and out until it became large enough for her to walk through it.

Nick couldn't see what was on the other side. Light poured out of the hole and onto her face, and the moment it touched her all the fear and worry inside her melted away.

Like the sun... Because she traveled mostly at night, she hardly got outside during the day. Feels so warm...

Gold and red and lovely, the light caressed her with the touch of a reverent hand. The way his hands had felt on her face.

So nice. n.o.body had ever touched her the way he did. She wanted to close her eyes and wallow in the sensation.