Knight's Curse (2 page)

My spine went rigid and I fisted my hands at my sides, lifting my chin in defiance. Using the Queen’s English in a deep voice that even I knew sounded too mature for a child, I said, “You’re not my father.”

“Chalice!” Thomas came toward me as if to deliver a reprimand, but Heinrich grabbed him by the shoulder to keep him back.

“It’s all right, Thomas,” he said coolly. “She’s a teenager. She can’t help being belligerent.” He couldn’t see me glare at him from behind my sunglasses. “Chalice, you look a lot like your mother. Did you know that?”

I gasped and leaned toward him, my confidence shrinking as I bowed my shoulders and tilted my head, my inquisitive nature getting the best of me. “How well did you know my mother?”

“Very well,” he said smoothly, just like a father speaking calmly to an agitated child. “After all, she was my wife. Let me have a better look at you? Let me see if you have her pretty eyes.”

Wary as a mouse before a cat, I removed my sunglasses, then immediately covered my eyes with both hands. “It’s too bright!”

Heinrich reached out to pull me deeper into the shadowed corner of the chapel. I yanked away from his touch.

“You prefer dark places?” he asked.

I squinted and nodded, the needle-sharp pricks of light making my head pound. Blinking a few times, I finally opened my eyes all the way. I knew they were a strange color, gold and turquoise, and I was ashamed of how different they made me look. Mildly surprised by my reaction to such dim light, Heinrich seemed satisfied with what he saw. Brother Thomas had told me many times that I had my mother’s eyes.

I tried to back away, but he grabbed my arms to hold me still. “What’s wrong, Chalice? You don’t have to be afraid of me. I’m your father.”

I kicked at his shins with my small bare feet and my noseclip popped free. I grimaced at the unwelcome odors. “No! Not my father. I
know
you’re not!”

“How do you know?”

Thomas scurried over to try separating us, but Heinrich shoved him away. “Don’t interfere.”

“You mustn’t be rough with her,” Thomas said, his voice rising to an anguished whine. He tottered from side to side, as if unsure what to do. “She’s a precocious child, but still only a child!”

Heinrich ignored him. “What makes you so sure I’m not your father, Chalice?”

I stopped struggling, but he continued to hold me by the forearms. “Your blood doesn’t smell like mine.”

“You can smell my blood?”

“As well as the pesto you had for lunch today. The dirt on the soles of your shoes is not from this country. Your expensive soap doesn’t hide the stink of your sweat.” But it was more than sweat that offended me. His stench made my eyes water. I turned my face away and sucked in a breath. “I smell on you the deaths of others.”

He released me only so that he could get a better grip around my waist, but I ducked from his grasp. I whirled out of reach and lifted my dress to seize my blade. A long, slim butterfly knife glinted in the faint glow of the votive candles. Crouched with the blade poised to strike, I backed my way to the chapel door.

Heinrich chuckled, looking relaxed with his hands in his pockets. “What a delight you are, Chalice. Such fire in your soul! You and I have a wonderful future ahead of us.”

“I won’t go with you!” I was ashamed of how my voice cracked. My tears flowed freely now, and the hand holding the blade shook with rage. “Burn in hell.”

His arching brows made him look clownish, but no less evil. “I probably will. But for the time being, I need you and your special…skills. You’re so much like your mother.”

I swallowed, still wary of him, but more attentive now to his words. He’d known my mother, had spoken to her, maybe even touched her….

His elongated shadow cast by the altar’s candles flickered on the wall behind him. “Felicia was just as special as you are, you know. Too bad I couldn’t convince her to work for me. You, however, are young and can be molded into the thief I need.”

“I won’t steal for you or anyone else!” I shouted, my defiance and fear at war with each other.

“Not now, but you will. And I think you’ll be very good at it.” I saw amusement in his cold eyes; he enjoyed my fear, even seemed energized by it.

“I must ask you to leave, Mr. Heinrich,” Thomas said in a quavering voice. “You have misrepresented yourself and I’m calling the authorities.”

Heinrich flicked his wrist, fingers splayed, and a zigzag of green lightning flew from the tips to strike Thomas in the throat. The monk grabbed his neck, eyes bulging, as he struggled to breathe.

“What did you do?” I was paralyzed with awe at seeing what I could only describe as magic. “You’re hurting him! Stop!” I wanted to run to Thomas, shake him to make him breathe again, but my fear of Heinrich doing magic on me froze me in place.

Bending as if to tie his shoe, Heinrich yanked a small pistol from an ankle holster and fired. Brother Thomas froze when the bullet pierced his forehead. The monk hadn’t yet fallen and I could do nothing but stare in shock as he slid bonelessly to the floor and Heinrich rushed over to grab me.

Machine-gun fire sprayed above our heads just as Heinrich drew back his fist. Though stunned, my mind worked well enough to guess the shot from Heinrich’s pistol had been a signal to his men outside. I stared at the fist aimed at my face, the knuckles white, the backs of his curled fingers sprouting fine hairs as pale as those on his head. He wore a ring on his middle finger, its ruby center surrounded by Sanskrit letters that I could read with crystal clarity. They spelled the word
Vyantara.

Then I saw only darkness.

IT’S BEEN TWELVE YEARS SINCE MY ABDUCTION
from the only family I’d ever known. I traveled nearly six thousand miles across the Atlantic Ocean to arrive in the U.S. with a man pretending to be my father.

I was a thief now, trained by the Vyantara, an international organization of nefarious magic users who profited from the sale of charmed and cursed objects I stole for them. I hated those people, but they adored their spooky old relics that did some very nasty things. It amazed me how much people would pay for an enchanted Native American medicine bag with the power to cause cancer instead of cure it, or a picture frame that told the future by revealing how the subject in the photo would change over the years. Today I drove down the long driveway toward a Georgian mansion, destined for another heist. Brother Thomas never would have approved.

Before every job I pulled, I thought about the old monk and his monastery. I’d give anything to return to that simpler life, but the monks were dead, murdered by a madman and his soldiers.

I could put myself in a better mood simply by calling on childhood memories, like the birthday I’d received a box of beloved
Archie
comics that were five years out of date. On my thirteenth birthday, Brother Thomas had given me my first
Tiger Beat
magazine. It was so old that half the teen celebrities featured were, by that time, married with children of their own. I didn’t mind. I’d been obsessed with America as a child, but if I’d known then what it would take to get me here, I’m pretty sure I’d have picked a different hobby.

The tattoo at the base of my skull throbbed to remind me of who and what I was. I belonged to someone now, my freedom stripped from me like hide from a rabbit in the talons of a predator. I could almost feel those talons now, the same razor-edged nails that had tried ripping out my heart three years ago.

I allowed myself a final shudder at
that
unpleasant memory, then parked the rental car in front of an enormous house propped on pillars like a Greek palace. It was showtime.

I paced across the columned porch of the Grandville’s Georgian mansion, my designer heels clicking a staccato beat as I waited for someone to answer the door. I checked my watch, then stood on tiptoe to peer through the stained-glass window mounted at the center of the elaborately carved door. I rang the bell a second time.

“Rich assholes,” I mumbled and returned to my pacing, giving my watch another cursory glance. My time was precious. My seventy-two-hour limit would be up soon, and if I tried to extend it, my life as a human would be over.

The click of a door latch caught my attention and I positioned myself, smoothing the front of my charcoal-gray slacks and straightening the collar of my suit jacket. Pinching my nose, I ensured both nose filters were well concealed, then blinked over the tinted contact lenses that hid my gold and turquoise eyes. The armor protecting my senses was irritating but necessary to my sanity and my disguise. I took a second to run my hands through impossibly straight hair, fluffing the short shag cut to try giving it some volume. On a good hair day, my do looked like a halo of raven feathers. On a bad one, more like a well-used bottlebrush. Today was somewhere in between. My plastic smile was barely in place when the door swung open.

“May I help you?” drawled the short, stocky gentleman whose bow tie looked gathered far too tight at his neck. His jowls poured over his collar in fleshy folds and it made me wince in sympathy for him.

“Margaret Malone of Samuel Crichton and Company,” I said, thickening the British accent I hadn’t completely lost. I had to conceal my real name. Chalice would be way too conspicuous, let alone identifying. I was a thief, after all. “I have an appointment with Mr. Grandville.”

“Are you the antiques appraiser?” Short and Stocky asked, his drawl Southern and his tone chillier than a frozen daiquiri. Must be the butler. He glanced over my head as if expecting someone else.

“I’m alone,” I assured him, handing him my card and nodding toward the foyer behind him. “And yes, I’m the antiques appraiser. May I come in?”

The man dipped his head and opened the door wider, stepping aside to allow enough room for me to pass.

He peered down at the card, eyes narrowed with suspicion as he glanced from me to the card and back again. “I’ll fetch Mr. Grandville.”

“Thank you.” I stood at the center of the round foyer and surveyed my garish surroundings.

Noticing my interest, the butler said, “I apologize for the decor.” He sniffed, his gaze wandering to the walls. “The decorator is a relative of Mr. Grandville. A bored, delusional old aunt who thought she could decorate a house filled with rare antiques. The woman has no taste.”

I nodded in agreement.

“Wait here, please,” the pudgy man said, then turned on his heel to go in search of his employer.

I continued my survey of the foyer. Nineteenth-century European oil paintings hung beside bad imitations of Hieronymus Bosch. Hideous. African masks were mounted on walls of flocked wallpaper, the pink-rose designs a horrifying contrast to the fanged mouths of baboonlike effigies. The room looked like an exaggeration of a Victorian tag sale.

I shuddered. This wasn’t my thing. My taste was far less eclectic. I was an art historian who appreciated the cultural richness of period art in all mediums and forms from all over the world. But I knew enough about antiques to pose as an appraiser, my ruse for getting inside this house.

The object I was to swipe wasn’t nearly as offensive as what I was used to. Gruesome as it was, the mummified hand of the martyred Saint Geraldine from the Crusades of the eleventh century had the power to reclaim memories from the womb. An odd power, and not particularly appealing, yet the Vyantara were desperate to add this freakish item to their collection.

“Ms. Malone!” A cheerful, gray-haired man in his late sixties, tastefully dressed in a casual blue sweater over herringbone trousers, bounded into the foyer and held out his hand. “Thank you for coming on such short notice. Douglas Grandville, at your service.”

I extended my hand, which he shook vigorously, covering it in a two-handed grasp. I tried not to wince from his rough touch. The way he was pumping my arm you’d think I was some long-lost relative he hadn’t seen in years. What was he so happy about? Probably to know he’d finally be getting this crap out of his house.

“My uncle Malcolm, may he rest in peace, was a pack rat. He liked to overindulge in his little, uh, treasures.” Douglas waved a hand at the obscenities around us before gesturing toward a closed set of double doors. “There’s more.”

I felt my smile wobble. “More?”

He grimaced and nodded. “I’m afraid so. But the day is young so you have plenty of time to go through my uncle’s collection. Could be a diamond or two in the rough, eh?”

The grumpy butler joined us, his eyes brightening when Douglas mentioned the word
diamond.
Well, well. Suspicious
and
greedy. I might use that to my advantage.

Douglas steered me through the doors into a den complete with wingback leather chairs, dark cherrywood furniture and large animal heads that leered from the wall above the fireplace. I felt sure I’d seen this exact same setting in at least a half dozen films from the forties. “Can I get you anything? Soft drink? Iced tea?”

I turned around slowly, taking in Malcolm’s treasures as nausea crept around the pit of my stomach. Lots of stuffed things everywhere—Malcolm had obviously been fond of taxidermy—but there were also some paintings, a few sculptures and ceramics, all of which were covered in several years’ worth of dust. Maybe Saint Geraldine’s hand had crawled underneath something to hide of embarrassment.

“Nothing for me, thank you, Mr. Grandville,” I said, forcing a smile into my voice. My lips peeled back involuntarily. “An interesting room.”

“Quite.” Douglas cleared his throat. “I have appointments the rest of the day so you won’t be able to reach me. But if you need anything, my butler, Andrew, is happy to oblige. Just yell. He’s always within earshot.” The jaunty gentleman turned on his heel and marched from the room. Andrew hesitated, giving me an appraising and untrusting look, before following his employer out the door.

“Lord, help me.” I rolled my eyes and pulled a clipboard from my briefcase. I turned around, making a slow survey of the room, then got to work.

It took a couple hours of sifting through crap before I finally finished. Andrew the butler made a constant nuisance of himself, always checking in on me to ask when I’d be done. If he didn’t leave me alone, I’d never get away with what I’d come here for. I had to figure out how to distract him.

“Andrew?” I called from the doorway of the den. “Would you come in here, please?”

The stout little man appeared within seconds, an apron tied around his waist and his sparse hair disheveled as if he’d been exerting himself. He probably served as maid as well as butler, which didn’t surprise me. The home’s interior was shabby.

“I’m finished,” I told him. “There are a couple of items here that you’ll need to show Mr. Grandville when he gets home.”

“Of course, miss,” the butler said with a curt nod.

I led the way inside the den, where I’d made quite a mess. I heard Andrew’s quick inhalation of breath as he took in the condition of the room. We both knew who would have to clean it up.

I sidestepped a bookcase I had pulled from the wall and wove a path around several stacks of leather-bound volumes in a variety of shapes and sizes. “Sorry,” I said over my shoulder. “I’m very thorough when I appraise. No stone unturned. But I believe Mr. Grandville will find the disarray was worth the trouble.”

Andrew tucked in his double chin and gave me a dubious look.

“Yes, well…” I stepped over a pile of stuffed animals—not the plush kind—the tip of one very expensive shoe getting caught in the open mouth of a snarling badger. I kicked at it to free my foot and the animal’s head broke off. “Sorry.”

I approached a wooden pedestal supporting a floral ceramic jar that could hold a gallon of cookies, something I was craving at the moment since I’d skipped lunch. A small section of white with red-and-orange blossoms was visible through the dense accumulation of dust and vintage cigar smoke. “I’d say this piece is worth between forty and fifty thousand dollars, depending on how it does at auction.”

Andrew’s eyes widened. “I beg your pardon?”

Gotcha.
I lifted the corner of my mouth in a half grin. “It’s an early eighteenth-century piece of Kakiemon porcelain. Very rare. And in extremely good condition once it’s cleaned up.” I leaned forward and blew on the jar, causing a cloud of dust to rise in my face. I coughed and fanned the air with my clipboard. “As I recall, it has a twin, though I couldn’t find it here. Does the late Mr. Grandville’s collection extend to other rooms in the house?”

Andrew’s eyes sparkled. “I, uh, I’m not sure.”

I smiled. “It may be a good idea to check. If both pieces were sold together, they would bring a considerable fortune at auction.”

I could practically hear the gears turn inside his head.

“This painting here,” I said, lifting a realistic rendering of a lake scene from the stack, “is an original oil by Finnish painter Albert Edlefelt. This particular work was thought to have been lost over one hundred years ago.”

Andrew looked ready to explode with excitement. He shifted nervously from one foot to the other. “Is it worth the same as the jar?”

I folded my arms and pursed my lips. “No.”

He visibly deflated.

“It’s worth about ten times as much.”

His toothy grin completely transformed his face from a sour old crank to an enthusiastic lottery winner. I doubted the butler, or the two valuable pieces of art, would still be in the house when Mr. Grandville returned. But that wasn’t my problem.

I had yet to find Saint Geraldine’s hand, though it should be somewhere in the house. The Vyantara’s key researcher had confirmed its delivery from the dealer in Budapest, who had sold it to Malcolm Grandville. Why the old man would want to reclaim memories from his mother’s womb was beyond me. Nonetheless, the mummified thing was here and I had to find it.

“Excuse me, Andrew,” I said to the butler, who was clutching the Edlefelt painting in white-knuckled fists. “May I use the restroom?”

“Of course,” he said, all smiles, his eyes sparkling. A completely different person altogether. “It’s down the hall, first door to your left.”

I knew as soon as I left the room that he’d start going through the junk I’d scattered everywhere to look for that other jar. Either he’d be too preoccupied with his treasure hunt to concern himself with my snooping through the house, or he’d take his booty and make a run for it. My bet was on the latter.

Once inside the bathroom, I removed my nose filters, earplugs and tinted contact lenses. I’d hoped this wouldn’t be necessary. Stripping away my sensory defenses was painful in a mind-bending way.

I blinked in the dark bathroom, adjusting my eyes to the brightness around me. The sink seemed to glow phosphorescent, the fixtures looked outlined in neon, and the carpet was flecked with luminous lint. I saw dried paste behind the wallpaper and counted the rings of wood grain in the oak cabinets above and below the sink.

My ears stung from every sound that vibrated inside the old mansion. I sucked in a breath, trying to ignore the stench. If I didn’t get out of the bathroom this minute, I’d soon be kneeling before the commode of a hundred hurls.

Slipping sunglasses over my eyes to mute a visual assault, and then sliding on a pair of thin leather gloves, I stepped out into the hall.

I had studied the mansion’s blueprints beforehand so I knew the layout relatively well. Tuning in my olfactory senses, I searched for moldy odors and the smell of human decay, homing in on the mummified hand. It took only a few seconds to pick up the scent coming from somewhere in the basement.

In less than a minute I found the basement stairs. I trotted down wooden steps into the comforting darkness below. Much better. I could remove my sunglasses now. Allowing my nose to guide me, I wound my way between stacked boxes and various sizes of luggage and old furniture. After zeroing in on a box no bigger than a football, I realized my search was over. I bent to retrieve my butterfly knife from the sheath at my ankle.