Droplets of water splattered my dress as icy fingers, a hand from the grave, reached out to grasp my shoulder. Stifling a scream, I turned to face Christine.
For one startled moment, I stood speechless, staring at her muddy, torn dress, her dripping hair. She was soaked and shivering. Elica’s dress clung wetly to her skin. A bruise, dark and purplish, stood out against her pale throat. The skin above her eye was split and a trickle of blood mingled with the water that spilled from her damp hair down her forehead.
“Christine,” I cried out in a terrified whisper. “Who did this to you? Was it Nicholas?”
But she could not speak. A choked sound came from her throat, followed by a dry sob. I held her close, feeling her body tremble with cold and fear as she blurted out, “He tried to kill me, Louise. He held my head under—I couldn’t breathe. Somehow, I struggled away from him. We have to get out of here!”
“Christine, please calm down!”
“He wasn’t himself at all! I told him that he was hurting me and he just laughed!”
The sudden snap of a twig made her eyes grow wild with fear. “It’s him!” she cried, clinging to me. “Don’t let him come near me!”
Across the bridge, a figure in black stood waiting. The ghostly silhouette of Evangeline framed his tall, dark form. Moonlight fell upon the folds of the swirling black cape as he moved forward. Pale-yellow light glanced eerily off of the cruel, fixed features of the obstruction that shielded his face from view. He was wearing the voodoo mask.
“Nicholas,” I whispered, my heart wrenched with pain and horror. At that moment, I wasn’t sure that he even knew me. Suddenly, he threw back his head and laughed. The sound echoed in the darkness around us like the howl of a wild beast. A shiver ran up and down my spine. It was like nothing I had ever heard before. Surely, it was the cry of madness!
Chapter Twenty-seven
Christine shivered with terror as he came toward us, bridging the small gap between us with three large steps. I could see something shining in his hand—the cold steel butt of a pistol gleamed deadly in the moonlight.
“Don’t move!” the low voice warned menacingly. The sound was oddly muffled by the heavy mask. The grotesque caricature of a face that obscured his features stared unflinchingly, its fixed, malevolent smile hideous in the darkness as he gave a slow shake of his head.
It couldn’t be Nicholas! And yet, it must be! In stunned disbelief, I stared at the imposing figure wrapped in Nicholas’s cloak. I tried to see beyond the concealing disguise, but his eyes were only pinpoints of burning brightness behind hollow, dark-ringed rims. From the edges of the mask, wild hair flowed, black as midnight.
He had reached us now. I could feel the icy point of steel against my back as he pressed it roughly into my spine. He nudged us along ahead of him, forcing us to cross the bridge. The stark, bare silhouette of Evangeline waited like some crouching monster, growing larger and more menacing with every step as we moved in frightened silence down the twisted, root-gnarled path. Blind, gaping windows glared at us from the empty side, as if trying to warn us that danger lurked behind those rotting, gutted walls.
The scent of the old house, of damp stone and dead ashes, clung to the musty air as I paused upon the threshold, stalling, buying time until the sharp point of steel again spurned me on. I glanced over at Christine. Beyond fear, she walked beside me like a sleepwalker in some grotesque nightmare, her face blood-splattered, silent tears frozen upon her cheeks. I reached out for her hand and gave it a slight squeeze. She clung to this gesture of reassurance, holding on to my hand so tightly that my fingers ached. I felt a lump form in my throat. I had never realized how much I cared for the girl until this moment, now that we both faced certain death at the hands of this twisted man.
How he had deceived us both! I knew that Christine’s schoolgirl adoration of him was no less painful than my love; the shock of his betrayal no easier to bear. In our own ways, we had both trusted him with our foolish dreams, and now we would pay with our lives.
Our reluctant feet disturbed the silence of the charred corridor, stirring up the fine black dust of unsettled ashes. Where was he taking us? The ballroom waited just ahead. I could make out the chipped marble floor, the tattered gold patches upon the walls. From the corner of my eye, the warped spine of the staircase appeared, spiraling slowly toward that ominous room at the top where Elica had met her death.
He stopped us with a short grunt near the entrance to the ballroom. I turned toward him, waiting for his command. A tense silence filled the hallway as he paused before the false panel. Expertly, his fingers probed the secret place in the wall, and the heavy panel door slid open.
I felt the gooseflesh rise upon my arms like the brushing of silky cobwebs as a chilling blast of air rose up from the stone-hewn stairway below. Every muscle in my frightened body rebelled as he gestured meaningfully toward the damp passage that led into the cellar. I knew that once we walked down those dark steps, all chances for escape would be gone. We would be entirely at his mercy.
Indecision fluttered through my mind as I lingered at the top of the stairs. “Inside,” he ordered, his voice low, guttural, inhuman. Desperately, I thought of escape. If only I could manage to throw him off balance on the rough steps, even for a moment, I might be able to wrestle the gun out of his hand—
No, the plan was too risky. Christine was so close to me that I could feel her ragged, frightened breath against my cheek. I was willing to take a chance on my own life, but not Christine’s. Even if I did manage to break away, if I failed to reach the gun in time, I was certain that he would not hesitate to shoot Christine on the spot.
As if in grim warning, the steely point of the gun pressed sharply against my back. “Move!” he commanded in a rude, impatient tone. The moment when I might have been able to push him down the stairs was lost forever.
I regarded our captor out of the corner of my eye. He was wary, determined and relentless. There was no chance of catching him off guard now; he seemed to premeditate my every thought and action. To resist now would only hasten certain death.
“Move!” he commanded once more. There was nothing that we could do now but obey. Accepting defeat, I gently guided Christine along ahead of me down the steps into the cellar room, the figure in black following close at our heels. I would have to wait now for another moment to catch him at a disadvantage. If chance afforded us another such opportunity, I would not hesitate to take it.
I heard Christine’s small, strangled cry of horror. As I joined her at the bottom of the stairs, I saw that the cellar room was a shambles! In awe, I observed the damage. The wine rack had toppled; splinters of glass lay in jagged shards upon the floor. The trunk had been tossed over on its side. Upon the bottom step, the doll with the china face sprawled limply. A shocked cry escaped my own lips as I saw that the doll’s stuffing was falling out. He had split the cloth stomach wide open!
Fear drove its twisted knife deep into my heart. With stricken eyes, I turned my gaze from the broken doll upon the floor to the menacing figure upon the stairs.
As if reading my mind, the masked figure gestured roughly toward the mutilated doll. “You needn’t worry. I don’t intend to torture you.” He laughed, a hideous sound. Gazing out over the wreckage, he remarked, “This isn’t my handiwork.”
My mouth felt parched and dry as I continued to stare in dismay at the purposeful destruction. “Then who—”
“Why, Lydia and Ian, of course! It appears they’ve been here tonight.” Again, he turned to me. “But don’t get your hopes up. They won’t be coming back. You see, I’ve found what they were searching for.”
I stood remembering how difficult it had been to find Lydia and Ian tonight at the Mardi Gras. Sometime during the masquerade, they must have slipped away to Evangeline to search this dismal cellar. But why? There was so much I didn’t understand. I struggled to keep my voice from trembling. “What—what were they looking for?”
“Ah, Louise, must you pl
ay the innocent to the very end?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t you?” The cold voice could have been that of a stranger’s. It had taken on such an ugly tone. Holding the gun in one hand, he reached into the voluminous folds of the dark cloak and drew out something glittering, which he dangled mockingly in front of me.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched the muscles of the hand that held the gun slacken. I must stall him, keep him talking until I was certain that he was slightly off guard. Then I would make a lunge for the weapon. It was our only chance.
“Well?” he demanded gruffly. “Aren’t you going to take it? Go ahead. Don’t you want to touch it, to hold it in your hands before you die?”
With trembling fingers, I reached for the sapphire necklace. The stones sparkled with a brilliant and evil luster as I took it from his outstretched hand. “It was you all the time, then.” My voice was toneless, wooden. My heart ached with an unbearable sorrow. “You were the one who struck me from behind the day I discovered this in the old trunk.” I had to keep reminding myself that this was not the Nicholas that I once knew. Housed in his body was a madman, a stranger.
I could feel his eyes burning me through the ugly mask. I turned away from his intense gaze. “How does it feel, Louise darling, to know that the rumors about me are all true?” A strangled laugh again rose up from his throat, a hideous sound that chilled me to my very soul.
“You—you murdered Elica.”
“Yes, I choked the life out of her, that poor, faithless creature. And then I took back what rightfully belonged to me. The sapphire necklace!”
The initial shock of his confession was a sickness now, a heaviness deep inside my soul. Hadn’t they all tried to warn me about him? Edward, Lydia, Mrs. Lividais—yet a part of me still refused to believe what was happening. A part of me still believed in Nicholas—the Nicholas I knew and had come to love.
“And she—” he gestured scornfully at Christine, who cowered against the damp wall, shivering, half out of her mind with fear. “She is the devil’s own spawn.” He spit the words out. “She is her daughter. Angelica’s blood runs through her veins. Tainted blood!”
From the round holes of the mask his eyes glittered, feverish with an unsettling madness. I could not bear to meet his gaze, this man who had crossed the border between truth and delusion. He had loved me once. I was sure of that. I remembered the tenderness of his embrace, the warm, gentle feeling of his lips against mine. Was there nothing of that loving man left? Was there no way I could reach him?
Who was Nicholas Dereux? Endless scenes flashed through my mind. Nicholas, gently testing my injured leg after my fall upon the horse. Nicholas gazing down at me with such gentle, unconcealed emotion as I lay semiconscious upon his bed after the “accident” in the old part of the house. I had sensed both love and need in his eyes that night. I remembered the conflicting emotions in his dark eyes as he had left me that night even as I begged him to stay. Had he been trying to save me—from himself?
“Nicholas—” I whispered.
He moved closer to me. Greedily, his hand snaked out and caught the glittering blue stones. And then the eyes behind the mask locked with mine. Almost instinctively, my gaze wandered to his left eye, searching for the dark spot.
The shadowed slits of the mask’s peepholes had made them appear dark. But now, with the cold ray of moonlight shining through the high cellar window directly upon that ghastly artificial face, I saw that they were not black at all. They were a deep, tarnished silver. And there was no dark spot. I felt a sense of shock go through me. Despite the black cape, the dark hair, the similar height, the man behind the mask was not Nicholas!
My moment of relief turned rapidly to cold, all-encompassing horror. If not Nicholas, then who was he? The chilling gray eyes were like Edward’s, but he was taller, thinner, and his hair was much too dark. Those eyes. I had the eerie feeling that I had seen them somewhere before.
And then it came back to me. New Orleans ... the man with the scarred face who had taken my arm to steady me in the restless crowd. No, it couldn’t be! And yet today, when he had spoken of Nicholas’s wife, he had called her by her old name, Angelica.
“Nicholas,” I said, struggling to keep my voice calm. “Take off the mask. Let me see your face just once more before I die.”
For a moment he stood motionless, undecided, the gun in his hand still aimed directly at my heart. Then the ugly laugh came again. “Oh, you are a smart one, aren’t you, Louise? I do believe you’ve guessed my secret. But why not oblige your last request?”
A hand moved up to the grotesque mask, stripping it silently away. I heard my sharp intake of breath, felt the buzzing lightness in my head, heard Christine’s terrified shriek.
He stood before me defiantly, the gray eyes glittering with madness. The livid scars stood out like brands across his high cheekbones, twisting his features, distorting the corners of his mouth. And yet the surly arrogance of the man in the portrait in Edward’s study remained.
“Racine,” I whispered.
He reached up to stroke the jagged, pitiful ruin of his once-handsome face. For a moment I felt a tug of pity for the shattered man who stood before me. “Yes, Racine! You see, I didn’t die in the war, after all.” Scornfully, he added, “Though surely death would have been preferable to having to live like this!”
The gun in his hand trembled. “I was the one who took the jewels from the vault. I took them to win her—all for her. And then the war came.”
His face twisted in agony, making the dreadful scars seem even more grotesque as he spat bitterly. “I escaped half-alive from that stinking hell of a Yankee prison camp. I crawled through the swamps, lived like an animal, forcing myself to keep alive just to see her again.”
“And when I returned to New Orleans, do you know what I found? She had taken everything and deserted me.” He gave a bitter laugh. “Oh, it wasn’t easy to track her down. She had changed her name, her entire identity. For years, I searched. Then I gave up looking for her and started waiting. For I knew that eventually she would make that fatal mistake. She would come back here to see her child.”
“And you were right. She returned, nearly fifteen years later, as Nicholas’s intended bride.”
“Yes, I must admit that seducing Nicholas was a crafty play on her part. But I was waiting for her.” He smiled, a ghastly smile as he toyed with the gun in his hand. He seemed to be enjoying the telling of his pathetic story. “Do you want to hear the rest?”
Silently, I nodded, tense, still waiting for the right moment to lunge for the gun. I was certain now that he would not fire until his grisly tale had ended.
I glanced over to where Christine cringed white-faced and wild-eyed against the wall. Her huge gray eyes were focused upon the gleaming pistol as if she were mesmerized.
“The night of the masquerade, while Elica was changing for the ball, I slipped up to her room wearing this mask. I demanded the jewels that she had stolen from me. She began to scream, and I put up a hand to silence her. It was then that I saw the sapphire necklace about her throat. I became enraged. My hands began to tighten, tighten against her throat—And then I heard the footsteps. Someone was coming up the stairs. Hastily, I tore the necklace from her limp body. Then I kicked over the nearby lantern and set the curtains ablaze. But before I could open the trapdoor to escape, she was there in the doorway.” He pointed an accusing finger at Christine. “She saw me that night without my mask.”
The face by the burning draperies, the face that kept changing. In the haze of the smoke-filled room, Christine must have mistaken his scarred face for Nicholas’s. And then she had seen him don the voodoo mask and slip away through the trapdoor.
“I barely got out with my life that night. Smoke was beginning to fill up the room. But the fire had caused chaos to break out downstairs. Once I reached the ballroom level, it was easy for me to slip away unnoticed. A few days later, I returned to
the deserted, burned-out house and hid the necklace in the trunk in the cellar for safekeeping. Then I went back to New Orleans.
“Ever since that night, I’ve been watching, waiting. I’ve had that fool Ian searching the house, bringing me information. Since she had the sapphire necklace, I knew that Elica must have brought the rest of the jewels here. But I couldn’t find them. I began to suspect that the old man had recognized Elica from the very start. And Elica must have returned the jewels to him before the masquerade to bribe him into keeping her identity from Nicholas. Then when Lydia told Ian that Raymond had sent you the ebony box—I knew that he had sent the jewels to you. I was sure of it when I found that amethyst brooch in your purse.”
I remembered now how the courteous stranger with the pitifully scarred face had caught my arm, steadying me in the rush of the crowd. “You were the one who took my purse! But how did you know me?”
“Ian gave you the rose as a kind of signal so that I’d recognize you in the crowd.”
“So you had it all planned. But there’s still one thing I don’t understand. If Elica gave my grandfather the jewels, then why did she still have the sapphire necklace?”
“She returned everything to your grandfather except the first present I ever gave her.” He grinned, an evil, ugly grin. “Elica never could resist sapphires.”
“And when I accidentally discovered the necklace in the trunk—”
“I hadn’t counted on you and Nicholas snooping around. It certainly complicated matters when he returned to live at the house. I would have killed him long ago, but it was more convenient to keep him around to take the blame. You see, he’s become an important part of my plan.”
Horror surged up in my heart. “What have you done with Nicholas?”
“Oh, I took care of him when I borrowed his cloak.”
I felt the blood pound against my throbbing temples. “He’s—dead?”
The Seven Sapphires of Mardi Gras Page 30