Divine Madness
Melanie Jackson
LOVE SPELL NEW YORK CITY
DANGEROUS BEAUTY
Cuatro Cienegas. She was there.
The lilies weren’t the only nice thing in the water. Or, Ninon amended while standing in the tree’s small shadow, not the only beautiful thing. The other creature—while splendid—might not be nice at all.
The man was tall, with dark hair and pale skin that glistened with either sweat or water. Perhaps it was a reflection of the golden grass that partially screened him, but it almost looked like he was covered head to toe in gold paint. He was lean, carrying no extra baggage on his frame. He was also not an indio—at least, not full-blooded. Spain’s tentacles had reached far into Mexico while searching for gold, but Ninon doubted it was the conquistadors this man had to thank for his pale skin and height. Perhaps the stork had gotten lost while making his delivery and left this baby under a cactus instead of the correct cabbage patch in Iowa.
Cherie, the voice in her head warned. This is no time to get distracted. There is danger.
Oui! Oui!
But she had always liked dark men…
For Jennifer Reese, the genuine resurrectionist who brought light when it was dark.
Man is put into the world for a limited time; if yours were the choice, to what age would you extend life?
—Letter from Ninon de Lenclos to Saint Evremond
The other day they seized an odd man who told us his name was St. Germain. He will not tell us who he is or from whence, but professes he does not use his right name. He plays the violin wonderfully, is mad, and not very sensible.
—Letter from Sir Horace Walpole to Horace Mann upon the arrest of Saint Germain in London, Dec. 1745
First—That pleasure which produces no pain is to be embraced.
Second—That pain which produces no pleasure is to be avoided.
Third—That pleasure is to be avoided which prevents a greater pleasure, or produces a greater pain.
Fourth—That pain is to be endured which averts a greater pain, or secures a greater pleasure.
—The Epicurean philosophy of Monsieur de Lenclos (Ninon’s father)
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Title Page
Excerpt
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Ninon: Her Story
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Miguel: My Story
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Editorial Note
Author’s Note
Resource List
Praise
Other books by Melanie Jackson
Copyright
PROLOGUE
Scotland, Summer 2002
Miguel Stuart sank his turf spade into the sodden ground, grunting with the effort. The morning was cool and clean, the mist no more than a memory to the sunny moorlands.
This was wonderful—sun, sweat. He should have taken a vacation months ago. Work had kept him away too long. He loved what he did, but this place…The Highlands were magical. Here he was a different person. He thought different thoughts. He stopped looking for patterns and explanations and could even feel hope. And his oddities were nothing. No one except his father knew he was damned.
He tossed another square of black peat aside, enjoying the birds’ chatter as he finished his father’s chores, taking pleasure in using his body and not just his mind. He’d enjoy it even more if he stopped thinking altogether, but that would be hard. His brain had been nagging him of late, reminding him that his father was old and sick—far sicker than Cormac would admit—and that his oft-broken bones could no longer do the work required at the croft. Cutting peat should have been done weeks ago so that there would be time for drying, but the old man hadn’t had the energy and had been too proud to call his son in America and ask him to come home. Miguel had been working full time since he’d arrived to catch up on the chores, but they’d still have to have coal brought in for the winter.
As if to remind him that winter was coming soon, a sly bit of autumnal wind slipped beneath his woolen shirt and ran a cold finger down Miguel’s spine. The birds fell suddenly silent and then sped away, all except a solitary crow who perched on the stone wall and eyed him coldly. Miguel shivered and tried not think of the hoodie craw as being an ill omen, the harbinger of death. Autumn was coming and on her heels bitter winter, the time of darkness, and that was what he was sensing. Nothing more. And the best thing to keep cold at bay was a good peat fire and a mug of dark tea. Remembrance of his early years in Scotland had him suddenly craving hearth and mug with a hunger that was almost as strong as the other hunger. The dangerous one. The one he kept hidden from his father, though the old man had to know, or at least suspect, that the beast rode him hard these days.
The crow opened its beak and hissed at him and then stared over his shoulder. With a great flap of wings, it launched itself into the air.
“Miguel!” an urgent voice called. He turned and saw Mistress MacGuinn lumbering toward him. A part of him was glad to know what had frightened the birds away. “Miguel!”
“I’m here!”
A different kind of cold ran down his spine as he saw the splashes of crimson on the front of Catriona’s apron. He didn’t need to hear her next words to know what was happening, but she yelled them anyway.
“Make haste—it’s yer da. His lungs are bleedin’. Miguel, Cormac’s dying!”
Miguel dropped his turf spade and ran for the cottage.
“Promise me you’ll gae on with your life in the States when I’m deid and in ma grave. Promise me ye’ll stay away frae her.” Her. Miguel’s mother, who was also dead but not in her grave. “I ken ye thirst, but ye canna drink frae that cup o’ misery. Promise me.” Cormac Stuart’s voice was hushed but urgent as he forced the words past his blue lips. Catriona had gone to fetch the doctor though they all knew there was nothing he could do. Miguel’s father finally admitted that he had cancer in his lungs and stomach.
Miguel wanted more than anything to comfort his father, but the thing Cormac Stuart hated most in the world was lies. He compromised with a half-truth.
“I’ve no plans to go to see my mother,” he assured the man who had sired him and whom he loved, but whose blood no longer flowed in his veins. And he didn’t want to go back—that was truth. Because if he went back to his mother, it would be because the demon inside him was winning.
Satisfied, Cormac nodded and closed his eyes. Miguel stayed by the cot and held his hand until his father’s sprit slipped away.
Miguel had his dark tea then, and a fire in the grate, but without Cormac to share stories and puff away on his old briarwood pipe, the ritual had no meaning. And Miguel knew that he’d never do it again.
The time had come to face his demons, the real ones living in Mexico.
NINON: HER STORY
…Till the monster stirred, that demon, that fiend, Grendel, who haunted the moors, the wild Marshes, and made his home in a hell Not hell but earth. He was spawned in that slime, Conceived by a pair of those monsters born Of Cain, murderous c
reatures banished By God, punished forever for the crime Of Abel’s death. The Almighty drove Those demons out, and their exile was bitter, Shut away from men; they split Into a thousand forms of evil—spirits And fiends, goblins, monsters, giants, A brood forever opposing the Lord’s Will, and again and again defeated.
—Beowulf
What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crith unto me from the ground. And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand; when thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth. And the Lord said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him seven fold. And the Lord set a mark on Cain, lest any finding him shall kill him.
—Genesis 4:10–15
CHAPTER ONE
Christmas, 2005
The woman with red-gold hair and coal-dark eyes pushed the late-arriving Christmas cards aside and read the cable again. Her lips twitched at the “C’est un vrai cinglé, ce type,” that concluded the brief report. Her informant was wrong, of course, though she understood his mistake. The great poet, Byron, wasn’t a nutcase. He was just involved in some unusual projects that produced somewhat suspicious behavior.
Which was fortunate for her, because it seemed that he had taken care of the Dippel problem with commendable thoroughness. There remained just one other difficulty for Dippel’s few remaining afflicted, and she didn’t know if this was the proper time to openly challenge le Comte de Saint Germain about his intentions.
“Will there ever be a time?” she asked Aleister, who politely cracked an eye at her meditative enquiry. The cat yawned, showing his dainty but very sharp teeth, which was his way of shrugging.
Je ne le crois pas, his pea-green eyes said as he stared down from the mantel. She sighed heavily, suggesting to the cat that she agreed. “But what then do I do? What course is best for me to follow?”
Aleister sniffed once at the frangipani-scented air. He had no suggestions to make. That was regrettable, but then, really, it was not his problem. He had just eaten a large plate of fresh steamed shrimp, and it was time for him to drop back into a deep, contemplative state that closely resembled a nap but was actually where he thought about important cat things and listened to the splashes in the koi pond where his fantasy meal swam.
Being a perceptive creature—she was almost a feline, Aleister felt—the woman took the subtle hint and politely left him to his work.
She walked silently across the room, not disturbing the grass mats on the floor. Carefully, she struck a match and lit one of the many candles on her old-fashioned writing table. The small flame was barely enough for a normal person to see by, but she didn’t bother to light any of the others. There was no need; she saw everything required. There wasn’t a great deal to see. There was no computer on the desk, and no phone.
To write or not to write?
Several times in the nineteenth century she had come close to contacting Byron. Then the poet had disappeared from Greece, not to be found again until the late twentieth century. It was tempting to look him up because she could use an ally. She was quite aware of his continuing interest in her. But now?
No, she would wait. It wasn’t likely that anyone was following her yet—she had done a good job of faking her disappearance in the Devil’s Triangle—but it was within the realm of the possible that her position had again been discovered and she would have to move. She wouldn’t risk leading the Dark Man’s son to Byron and his new consort. It was possible that Saint Germain didn’t yet know that the poet lived. Tabloid rumor had it that Byron—or at any rate, the current alias under which he was known—had been killed or kidnapped by aliens last Christmas Eve. If Saint Germain thought him dead, she would not be responsible for bringing more evil into Byron’s life.
Sighing again, the woman who had once been Ninon de Lenclos folded the cable into fourths and then fed it to the candle’s greedy flame. When the last bit of ash was crushed and then swept into the waste basket, she turned back to the cat and smiled fondly at his delicate snores. She loved to watch him slumber. It was one thing she missed most from her old life, being able to sleep untroubled by dreams and ghosts. Still, there were other compensations.
She coughed softly. It wasn’t painful. Yet. But she would have to do something and soon. This was a sign that it was nearing time to renew.
“Très bien,” she said softly to the floral scented air that wafted in the window. She leaned over and blew out the candle. As her silk blouse fell forward, any passing person might have observed the small golden scars over her heart. But there was no one passing by on this side of the island. That was why she liked it.
CHAPTER TWO
On the night of her eighteenth birthday a stranger was announced and, being much alone and tired of her sickbed, Ninon received him though he gave the servants no name. The man who appeared before her was very strange—old and yet ageless with eyes as black as midnight that matched his long black cloak. She had the strangest conviction that she had seen his face before, perhaps in a dream.
“My visit surprises, perhaps terrifies you,” he said. “But be not afraid. I have come on this night to offer you one of three things; either highest rank, or immeasurable wealth, or eternal beauty. But you must choose without delay. At the count of seven the opportunity will be gone forever.” He reached out a hand to push back his hood and she saw his skin was covered in a fine net of gold scars.
“Then I choose eternal beauty. But tell me—what must I do for such a great boon?” she asked flippantly, not truly believing this man was any more a great magician than the disappointing creature she had seen earlier in the day at the caves in Gentilly, the one she had sought because he might have a cure for stagnant lungs.
“You must sign your name in my tablet and never tell a soul of our secret compact.” A thick stack of parchment appeared in his hand.
“Do I sign in blood?” She coughed again.
The dark man smiled cruelly. “That will not be necessary. Ink will suffice for this part of our contract.” Then, when Ninon had done as he said he told her, “This is the greatest power that a person may have. In my six thousand years roaming the earth I have only ever bestowed it on four mortals; Semiramis, Helen, Cleopatra, and Diane de Poitiers. You are the fifth and last to receive this gift.
We go now into the night so I may finish my work. Look for me before fifty years have passed on the night of a great storm. When you see me again, tremble, for you shall have but three days to live unless you pay the toll I ask at that time.” He pulled his hood back over his head. “And remember that my name is Noctambule.”
—Saint Evremond’s supposed account of the meeting between the Devil and Ninon de Lenclos
[Saint Germain] is supposed to have intercourse with ghosts and supernatural beings who appear at his call.
—Landgraf von Hessen-Barchfeld
Mexico, 2006
The woman who was Ninon but who was now calling herself Seraphina Sandoval drove deep into the desert, doing her best to get completely lost before trying to find herself again. Her mind was like the scenery around her: red, empty of other life, monotonous. The only other living thing braving the brutal heat of midday was her cat, who had been Aleister but was also now someone else, though he was mostly unaware of it.
It was late spring in the desert and the earth followed its natural cycle. Hawks took to the thermals, prairie dogs scampered, the agave bloomed. Everything was getting on with the job of living. Even she was, though there was greater urgency to her movement because unlike these animals, the woman knew she was dying. Again. And someone was trying to speed her on her way.
“Poor kitty,” she murmured in French as she stroked him, finally rousing herself from her deliberately blankminded reverie. Then, hearing herself, she frowned. She had to remember to speak Spanish now—even in her head. Even when she didn’t feel watched. “Pobre
cito. But you still have eight lives left.”
The cat glared at her from his place in the passenger seat. His singed fur, dyed as black as his mistress’s hair and which now matched her obsidian eyes, was slowly growing back. But he was still far from his beautiful and dignified self, and the taste of the chemically altered hair infuriated him when he bathed. Ninon didn’t care for her hair color either, but the Devil—or at least the Devil’s son—was on their heels and there was nothing for it but to hide who and what they were.
The changed appearance and identity might work for a while, though there was no guarantee. After years of dividing her time between her island and New Orleans, burying herself in what she had thought was complete obscurity, she had awoken one dawn to find herself in a wet hole in the ground about the size of a grave with the world on fire around her. An explosion. Had she not been who and what she was, and had the fish pond not been filled with water, that would have been the end of her. And of her cat.
“Reeoow.”
“We must work on your accent. Anyone would know that you are a foreigner. You must learn to hide your disdain,” she said absently, trying for a note of gaiety but falling far short. Her smoke-damaged larynx hadn’t fully recovered. She was also coughing again. But that had nothing to do with the explosion.
The cat was not buying her false cheeriness.
Things had come apart on New Year’s Day at about one in the morning on what should have been the start of a new and better year, had her old enemy not caught up with her in the form of a fire bomb delivered by some unknown means. It had had no note with it, at least none that survived, but she knew who the sender was anyway. He’d been after her for a long time—two centuries at least.
At first his attacks had been subtle, oblique, things that inspired anxiety more than presenting actual danger. But after his father the Dark Man’s descent into insanity and then death at the hands of Lord Byron, Saint Germain had turned to a more overt form of war. He must be getting desperate, fearing he would go the way of his sire and looking for a cure for the insanity that came when too many brain cells died in the needed electrocutions. Just as she sought help from outsiders, so too would Saint Germain. It was a race to see who would find help first.
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