Ghost Phoenix

by Corrina Lawson

  Yet they had been trying to kill Daz in New York. Why take him captive now? A hostage? For what?

  Richard finally studied the interior of the church. The tour group had split in two, half going up the aisle to the dais, the others admiring the stations of the cross.

  He let his head fall back and stared at the vaulted ceilings and the beautiful work of the stonemasons to hew such a spectacle from hard rock.

  His angel would love to explore this church.

  Where was she? If she gave up her search of the museum and followed his trail, she would eventually come out the same way he had, though perhaps she would glide through the door as a phantom and be less noticeable. But she should be safe. She had to be safe.

  Surely, the monks had been seen entering by someone. They must have come into the church and left without alarming anyone. That narrowed down where they could have gone. With Marian’s help, he could explore beyond the solid walls.

  “Hello, Prince Richard Plantagenet. You are hardier and more persistent than I had been told.”

  He heard the voice and felt the knife against his back in the same instant. The voice spoke in Russian-accented English. The mouth was very close to his ear.

  “And you are more alive than I had been led to believe, Gregori Rasputin.”

  “So I am.”

  And now I know my enemy.

  “Put your knife away, boy, before I do you permanent damage,” Richard said.

  It was partially a boast. It was as if lead encased all his limbs. He doubted he could stand. But he would find the strength to snap this man’s neck, somehow.

  “Do not turn around.” The sharp edge against his neck disappeared. “I know that you think you can defeat me. I know many things.”

  “You know very little.” Richard curled his hand into a fist, about to turn and attack despite the lethargy. I am as strong as I wish to be.

  “Think before you act,” Rasputin whispered. “My disciples watch me. If I am hurt, they will do harm to your bodyguard.”

  Daz must be close by. Richard’s gaze darted around the church. He still could discern nothing, especially where Rasputin’s people were.

  “What do you want, boy?” Richard asked.

  “Why call me boy?”

  “Compared to me, you are.”

  “Compared to me, you’re a feckless, faithless prince. I believe in something.”

  “You believe in threatening and killing. You’ve gone to the trouble of coming to me, Mad Monk, when you could have vanished with your followers in the rat’s warren. So, again, what do you want?”

  “I could have killed you by now.”

  “I’m still alive.” Richard shrugged. “What do you want?”

  “I came to you to offer help to your court.”

  Richard stifled a laugh, wondering if he heard correctly. Despite the earlier warning, he turned to face Rasputin.

  Rasputin sat in the pew, his arms across his chest, unruffled and serene. He was dressed the same as his monks, in a simple brown robe. Richard could see no weapon, but that did not mean one wasn’t hidden in the large sleeves.

  Despite the garb, Rasputin would never be mistaken for an ordinary monk or a normal person. It was the eyes, intense, focused and unblinking that invariably drew Richard’s attention. All men blinked. Not the man with stringy hair and a scraggly beard before him.

  Whether this was truly Rasputin or not, this was a psychically gifted man holding incredible power.

  And yet he needed something from Richard. Good.

  “I don’t need your help, nor does my Queen,” Richard said.

  “You may not. You seem to care little for your life. But your Queen does. And your bodyguard needs his life too.”

  For all he knew, Daz was already dead. Leave that thought. “Why would my Queen need your help?”

  “I can heal her. No one else can.”

  How did he know the Queen needed him to heal her? Marshal and much of the Court knew how ill she was. Edward had known, of course. No one outside the Court did. He’d been careful to keep it from Daz and even his angel. And he’d hidden the information from Beth Nakamora. Or had he only thought he had?

  Could Daz have betrayed him?

  “You’ve no idea what my Queen needs.”

  “I am Rasputin. I see many things that have come to be or will come to be.” He leaned forward. “I foresee us as allies, Prince Richard. I can heal your Queen. I can aid your court.”

  “Why? Why would you offer help after attacking me?”

  “I attacked the emissary of the fire demon. Daz Montoya works with the devil, Alec Farley. I needed to separate you from him so we could talk about our mutual foe.”

  “Alec Farley is no more a demon than I am.”

  “He is the death that’s coming. I have prophesied the coming of the fire demon. I have witnessed the horrors he will visit on the world.”

  “Alec Farley seeks to better the world.”

  “Does he? That’s not how he was raised.”

  “Americans rarely do what they’re told.” Richard smiled. “Dude, you’re Rasputin and you can’t see that?”

  Rasputin’s unblinking blue eyes unfocused and a white film covered them. Richard sucked in a breath.

  “The demon must be opposed. It is my holy mission. It is the reason for my resurrection. God sent me back to save this world.”

  “God sent his only son as a savior. You’re not him.”

  The white over Rasputin’s eyes disappeared. “You will believe, either now or when I heal your Queen.”

  “When? Perhaps if.”

  “Is that not your quest? To bring me before your Queen?”

  “You seem well informed.”

  “I see all things that I need to see, Prince Richard.”

  “Then why don’t you see what I’ll do in response to your request?”

  “I see the Court and my followers opposing the fire demon.” He smiled without warmth. “Your place is the only part in question.”

  Richard’s limbs tingled, as if needles pricked his skin. That was a sign of his strength returning. “Where will your prophecy be when I kill you?”

  “You can’t outrun fate.” Rasputin shrugged, an odd gesture on one who seemed so crazed. “You know what you must do.”

  “Which is?”

  “Meet me at this address tomorrow.” Rasputin dropped a piece of paper next to Richard.

  “Only if you release Daz Montoya to me now.”

  “No, he stays as our captive. He is part of the fire demon’s world and we cannot let him free.”

  “What will be gained, then, if I let you live and meet you tomorrow?”

  “As a gesture of goodwill, I will bring Montoya to our meeting. And after we talk, you have to decide. You can either have him or I can heal your Queen. But you can’t have both.”

  “You sound very sure of yourself.”

  “Because I know we’re destined to be allies.”

  “And if I refuse to meet you?”

  “Montoya dies, then you die, and the woman you seem determined to protect dies. And, of course, your Queen will succumb to her illness. But there is no reason for you to refuse. We want the same thing.”

  “Fuck you.” Richard closed his hand around the paper.

  “You cannot kill God’s anointed,” Rasputin said.

  “It happened once.”

  “A temporary condition. You have twenty-four hours to decide.” Rasputin stood. “Turn around so you cannot watch me leave.”

  “And if I refuse to let you leave? If I kill you in this church?”

  “Then your man dies in the same instant. And mayhap I will kill you instead and then go to your court and destroy it.”

  “Until tomorrow, then.”

  Richard turned
around to give Rasputin what he wanted. For now. Time, he needed time. To find Daz, to find who Rasputin’s source in the Court was. Time to plan how to counter all this.

  And time to decide if Daz Montoya’s life was more important than the Queen’s.

  Chapter Eighteen

  By the time Marian checked the lower levels of the museum and returned to the room where Daz had been taken, Richard was gone.

  But he left an easy path to follow. The blood drops led to a terrible hole in a wall with pieces of plaster strewn about the previously impeccable museum.

  Richard, just how strong are you?

  She rushed into the hole and the tunnel beyond it. The light from the museum faded as she turned the first corner, and she cursed, wishing she had a flashlight. But if Richard could find his way through pitch-black darkness, she could too.

  Keeping on hand on the wall, she slowed her pace. If she could see nothing, at least no one could see her. She thought about calling out to Richard but that would alert anyone chasing him as well. This damned darkness must end sometime.

  She stumbled over something big and heavy and pitched forward, scraping her hands as she broke her fall. Crap. She brushed her hands off on her pants and felt around for the wall. Instead, she found a person. An unmoving person. A dead person.

  Richard? Daz? No, it couldn’t be. She patted the unmoving lump in the darkness and realized it wasn’t either of them. The corpse was wearing a robe, or so she guessed by finding the hood that framed his face. She put her ear to his chest to check for a heartbeat. Nothing.

  She sighed, but when she moved her hand away, she knocked it into something hard. She closed her hand around the object. It was a flashlight, clipped onto the rope around the monk’s waist. She clicked it on and was rewarded with a burst of light in the darkness.

  She unhooked it from the corpse and stood, checking the monk out more thoroughly now that she had light.

  Not a good idea. The monk’s skull looked half-crushed from his impact with the wall. Richard, she thought. He’d tossed this man like he had the one in the abbey.

  She swallowed hard, turned around and kept going, now as fast as she could. The tunnel ascended and narrowed and she lost track of time. It could have been five minutes or thirty by the time she stumbled into a circular cavern carved out of the granite. Another dead monk lay to the side, though this one seemed to have bled to death. Daz’s work? Maybe. If he was alive.

  Richard definitely had still been alive, given the fist-size hole in the door and how it’d been ripped off its steel hinges. Frantic, she increased her pace as she rushed up the long stairwell, though her knees ached at the seemingly endless steps.

  An ordinary door greeted her at the top of her ascent. She doubled over to catch her breath, wincing at the stitch in her side. Not trusting what or who was on the other side, she concentrated a second, went phantom and slipped through.

  The shock of being inside what must be the Felsenkirche almost caused her to lose concentration and return to normal. She caught herself just in time and slowly floated pass the entranceway into the church proper, keeping close to the wall so she only seemed a shadow. People could see through her, but they could still see her outline in the right light, if they looked in her direction.

  Richard sat there, among the pews, his back to a hooded monk who was walking away. What was he doing? Why wasn’t he going after the monk? They needed to find Daz!

  She watched the monk turn left toward the back of the church, where the hidden door was located. He turned his head toward her. She faded into the wall, save for her eyes. She caught his stare and would have shivered if she could. Crazy eyes.

  Crazy Eyes shook his head, as if dismissing what he saw, pushed his hand against a portion of the wall and disappeared. No, wait, the wall had rotated, pulling him inside.

  She ran to the spot, intending to go through the wall and follow.

  “Angel. Stop. Please.”

  Richard.

  Stunned, she lost concentration and became normal again. She threw her arms around him. “You’re okay! Great, wait here while I follow the monk.”

  He held her out at arm’s length. “No. Rasputin said he’ll kill Daz if we make an attempt to follow him.”

  “Rasputin? That was Rasputin? Why would you listen to him?”

  “I had little choice, with Daz’s life at stake. He set up a meeting tomorrow.”

  “And then he’ll release Daz? What does he want?”

  Richard shook his head. “Not here, not in public.”

  “Then let me go and follow where Rasputin went. No one will see me.”

  “And what if Rasputin can sense you? He’s powerful. He might even be telepathic. I won’t risk you.”

  “That’s not up to you.” She shook off his hold. “I can do it,” she whispered.

  But now she wasn’t so sure. That monk’s eyes had been crazed, and he seemed as if he could see her, though only the smallest fraction of her eyes had peeked out from the wall. No, that was not right. She was being a coward again. She had to go. Daz had risked his life for her. She could do no less.

  “If all goes well, we will save Daz tomorrow. Trust me, Angel. Sometimes a retreat is necessary. The waves aren’t breaking right. We need a better day.”

  She hung her head. “There’s no guarantee tomorrow will be a better day.”

  “It won’t help Daz if you’re captured too. And it would give them two hostages to use against me.”

  “You think I’ll fail, like everyone else does.” Like her grandfather did. Like she did, deep down.

  “It has nothing to do with my faith in your skills.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Angel, trust me. Please. We can do this but we have to do it together. It’s the only way.”

  He stood between her and the hidden entrance Rasputin had taken. Damn him.

  Her shoulders slumped. “All right. We’ll do it your way.”

  But agreeing felt like another failure.

  They must talk privately. So much was at stake and he craved her advice on this.

  You think I’ll fail.

  No, he was terrified of Marian being under Rasputin’s power. It was not the same thing at all.

  Maybe he was simply terrified for her.

  Richard led her down the tunnel that served as the public entrance and exit for the Felsenkirche. She kept her head down, obviously dejected. Damn her, he was making the right choice, for both of them.

  He’d quit the field of battle. Edward would have rushed into it. Well, Edward was dead, and Richard would have to do this his way. But he could still hear Edward’s voice in his head, whispering that he was running away again.

  Enough.

  Their first problem might be waiting for them down at the bottom of the cliff: the polizei, investigating the mess at the museum.

  He slowed his pace so Marian could walk next to him.

  “If the police are waiting at the bottom, tell them we left the museum before anything happened.”

  “Why lie? We did nothing wrong.”

  “We have to retrieve Daz in twenty-four hours. Being detained might delay us.” And there was the matter of the monk he’d tossed aside. He suspected that one was dead and another corpse lay in the cavern.

  Just as well he’d left the Russian knife under the Church pew.

  “Let’s slip back into our hotel, if we can. Maybe the desk clerk won’t see us.”

  A temporary measure, because he was someone people remembered, and the police would find him soon enough. But privacy would give them some time to talk and for him to check the address on Rasputin’s note.

  “Good idea,” she said.

  He blinked as they finally exited the Felsenkirche tunnel and reached street level and the outer world—out from the underworld to the sunligh
t.

  They blended in with the crowd as much as possible, though he was taller than most of his fellow tourists by several inches.

  Marian eyed the gift shop. “Wait right here,” she said.

  He used the public facilities to wash the grime off his face and hands and to brush the dirt and dust from his pants. What a mess. He noted dried blood on his palms as he washed them clean. He’d cut his hands on the sharp edges of the wooden door. The wounds were already healed over, leaving only the blood behind.

  When he came out, Marian was waiting with a windbreaker-style coat with the Idar-Oberstein arms on it. He pulled it on. She also handed him a tweed cap. He pulled that low, over his forehead.

  “We can’t hide your height but this should help with the hair,” she said. “At least, you look more like a typical tourist.”

  He brushed her cheek with the back of his hand. “Thank you.”

  They walked out to the street. Above, the sun shone in a clear sky and the fresh air, after so much of the mountain, was welcome.

  Marian took a deep breath. She nudged him. “There’s a police car outside the museum, as predicted.”

  He nodded and draped his arm around her shoulders. “We are simply returning to our hotel after a visit to the church.”

  They strolled across the cobblestone streets, with his head bent low as if to talk to her. Her gaze kept darting to the police car. “We should tell them what happened. They need to know. The monks could be dangerous to someone else.”

  “We will, once we have dealt with Rasputin.”

  He opened the door to the hotel for her. Despite Marian’s attempts to disguise him, the desk clerk and their waiter would know them, if the police came asking.

  Depending on how deeply Rasputin’s monks had penetrated into the community, anywhere could be in danger. And while the monks obviously had a hiding place, he and Marian did not.

  The hotel clerk was handling a checkout as they slipped through the foyer and up to their room. Once inside their temporary refuge, Marian tossed the room key onto the bureau and faced him.