The Collector of Dying Breaths

Chapter 42

THE PRESENT

Later, Jac wouldn’t remember what propelled her to walk to the center of the ruin and then drop to her knees and start feeling around on the worn marble floor. But when she touched the edge of the tile, her fingers began to tingle, and she knew that she’d found what she was searching for. Even if she still didn’t know what it was.

The tiles weren’t large, but they were heavy. Each stone had withstood the elements for hundreds of years. She used a broken rock with a flat edge to pry up the first tile. As she lifted it up, a whoosh of air that smelled of dampness and dust, age and decay came with it. She’d smelled air like this in the caves in Jersey and Greece, in the catacombs in Paris and Rome, in excavations in Egypt and Cyprus. This was ancient air. Jac was certain of it. It had the aroma of centuries of fermentation and rot.

Jac shivered. The pull was stronger than it had been before. She felt certain, after all these hours of working in his laboratory, looking at his notes and staring at his handwriting, that René was here waiting for her.

She removed the tile. Underneath was a metal grid that fitted snugly over the opening, holding it in place. She started in on the next tile. And then the next. Once she had removed twelve of them, four across and three down, she removed the wire grid. Using the application that turned her cell phone into a flashlight, she examined her discovery.

Small and narrow, the limestone steps were spotted with moss and lichen. There was life here where there was also death. Serge had been wrong. This was no folly. This ruined structure was a chapel, and she was gazing down into its crypt.

Jac was careful descending the slippery steps that were barely wide enough for her feet. But that wasn’t what caused her the most consternation. It was the smell of putrefaction rising up to welcome her. Of sadness and loss. She felt as if it had been waiting for her… for a very long time.

Reaching the low-ceilinged enclosure, she looked around. This was no rough-hewn dirt burial chamber. The cream-colored marble walls gleamed. Gold candelabras glowed. On each wall were mosaic scenes of Elysium. The brilliant squares of turquoise, sapphire, emerald, topaz, ruby and amethyst took her breath away.

There were nine tombs filling the space. Three rows of three. Against each wall were marble benches. Examining the one closest to her, she saw it was inscribed with names and dates.

Jac walked down one aisle, up the next, then down another and-

There was a skeleton propped up against a tomb. Jac approached. His feet. His torso. His rib cage. His arms. His hands. In his hands…

How was this possible? Jac thought she was seeing things. Walked closer. Knelt.

In his bony hands was a single rose. And for one crazy moment she smelled its perfume. Impossible. But she did. Jac was inhaling its sweet, heavy liquor. Seeing ruby red petals and verdant green leaves. Impossible. And then the flower metamorphosed in front of her eyes, and he was holding only a dried-out flower. Leaves and petals and stem all the dark ochre of death.

Jac looked down. Her flashlight had caught something glinting there beside him. It was a shape she knew. There were bottles like this upstairs, each seven inches high, made of thick pale-blue glass with a dark residue in the bottom. But unlike those upstairs, this bottle was missing its carved cork.

There had only been ten of these bottles in the château, but there were twelve silver bell coverings. Melinoe had said Robbie had broken one of the bottles. The other had always been missing. This was that missing bottle. Jac was sure. This was the twelfth dying breath.

But where was the cork? Why was the bottle opened? Jac searched the ground and found the small innocuous stopper under his thighbone-discarded. He hadn’t needed it anymore. He must have had another plan. Jac picked up the bottle and looked inside at the dark and opaque substance coating the bottom. At the dark streaks on the side.

Was this residue the same elixir she was trying to replicate from his formula?

Had he come down here and opened the bottle and inhaled the breath? But why would he have done that? Whose breath had René drunk?

Yes, it was René. She was certain these were his bones. She felt it the same way she felt Robbie’s presence. She had been seeing the ancient perfumer in her mind for days now, living out his story despite trying to shut it out, and she knew it was him.

Jac’s knees ached on the unforgiving stone floor. She stood. She hadn’t yet examined the sarcophagus. The red jasper marble was beautiful, with streaks of gold and black shooting through its surface. On the side closest to René was a plaque. Jac leaned closer and shone her light on it. Read the words. Shivered. Read them again. Reached out and touched the cold, cold stone.

She felt it sigh. Impossible, but it had. As if it was relieved to finally be giving up a long-held burden, a secret that needed to be told.

Her name was carved in small precise letters and painted with gold leaf that was still vital and vibrant.

ISABEAU BIANCO

Following that inscription was a series of roman numerals. Jac translated them.

1537-1571

Was Jac looking at her own tomb? Was everything Malachai told her true? Was everything Robbie believed right? Once upon a time, had Jac lived as Isabeau? Was that woman’s soul now Jac’s? Was the soul of the man who had laid himself beside Isabeau’s coffin alive in Griffin North?

Was it possible that Isabeau and René, Jac and Griffin, were all connected through time?

Even though she was still asking, she knew the answers deep inside of her. The cycle was endless. There was no denying it. Through centuries, Jac and Griffin had found each other and helped destroy each other. But that left her where she’d been in Paris. She couldn’t let it happen again. The thought made her tired. Maybe she should just give in and allow fate to play out. Even if it meant tragedy again. At least then it would be over.

She put her face, her burning skin, against the cool stone coffin. There was so much sadness here. So much loss. In the air the smell of the rose was still viable. Jac inhaled. Impossibly, this was the scent from the single flower that René had brought down into the crypt to give to his lover when he finally saw her again, not in life but in death.

Or did the rose have yet another purpose? Was it a message that had waited all these centuries to be delivered? Was it intended for today? What was it René wanted her to know?