The Collector of Dying Breaths

Chapter 47

Serge pushed Jac out of the way just as the silver objet d’art came hurtling at her. She stumbled and fell. The candelabra crashed into the wall. Lit candles rolled everywhere. Serge rushed to stamp them out. First one and then the next. But he couldn’t get them all at once.

Suddenly it seemed small fires were bursting out everywhere… the curtains… the rug.

It was happening too fast. The air was too dry. The fabrics too old.

Jac rushed to help Serge, who was batting out the fire along the bottom of the curtains.

“I’ve got this. You get the one on the rug,” he told her between coughs.

Melinoe began a frantic run around the room, gathering up treasures in her arms.

“I think we got them both. It’s all right now,” Serge said. His coughing was worse. From both the effort and the smoke.

Melinoe was still rushing around the room, grabbing objects. Taking pictures off the wall.

“We got the fire out,” Serge said to her.

She turned to look at him but appeared confused. As if she didn’t understand what he was saying. She struggled with an armful of treasures she could barely hold. Her pockets were stuffed with a jade figure and the Fabergé frame holding the photo of Melinoe and her father. She’d ripped her tunic getting it inside, and a flap of fabric hung down her leg, ruining the perfect outfit.

Serge went to the door. “We need to get some air in here.” He tried the knob, but it wouldn’t budge. “This damn power outage,” he said and reached into his pocket for a key. Using it, he opened the front door, and a burst of chilly but welcome air blew into the room.

“Do you have the keys to the dungeon too? Can you get Griffin out?” Jac asked Serge.

“Yes, of course. Let’s go.”

Before they’d taken a dozen steps, Jac stopped. Sniffed the air. Fresh smoke. She spun around.

“Oh no!”

Serge turned too.

One of the candles must have rolled too far away for either of them to notice it. Now the curtains by the bay windows were burning. The rug beneath them had caught fire too. And as she watched, the wooden frame around the window burst into flames.

“Get out of the house,” Serge shouted at Jac. He threw her his phone. “Call the fire department.”

“What about Griffin?” Jac insisted.

Serge coughed again. “I’ll get him-you go outside and call.”

Jac hesitated. “We need to get Griffin-”

“I’ll get him,” Serge shouted. “You call.”

There was the sound of something cracking. Jac looked up. A fiery piece of molding was plummeting toward her. And then someone-no, it wasn’t someone-it wasn’t hands-it was a force-shoved her out the open door.

She lost her balance. Breaking her fall with her right hand, she felt a stab of pain, but that didn’t matter. The molding had fallen right where she’d been standing. It had to have been Robbie who’d pushed her out of harm’s way, but there was no time to focus on that now.

Jac dialed the emergency number. While she waited for someone to answer, she looked through the doorway. The fire was traveling through the house, and the dining room was alight with flames.

“Where are you?” asked the voice on the other end.

As she recited the information to the operator, she heard Serge’s shouts.

“Melinoe, leave everything, just get out of the house.”

Jac watched Melinoe push him away and return to collecting artwork. And then Jac lost sight of both of them as gray-black smoke enveloped them.

The operator said they’d send fire trucks immediately and instructed Jac to stay outside and wait for the fire department. Not to go back inside under any circumstances.

But Griffin was inside, in the dungeon. Jac ran around to the other side of the house and tried the kitchen door. It was still locked. What was she going to do?

Looking down, she spotted a rock. The kitchen window shattered but remained intact. Jac pushed against it, but it resisted the force. Damn. Melinoe had really made the house impenetrable. Peering in through the cracks, Jac could see the kitchen was relatively free of smoke. The fire hadn’t reached back here yet. She pictured the stairway. Even if the fire reached the kitchen, could it travel down that stone passageway? Was there anything to catch on fire there? But what about the smoke?

Jac ran back around to the front door. Maybe she could get through if she-

As she passed the library windows, she peered in. The glow was intense, flames licking at the window. All the books were burning. All those wonderful books.

She could feel the heat coming off the house now.

Where was Serge? Had he reached Griffin?

Even if he hadn’t, the dungeon had to be safer than anywhere else in the house. The smoke would rise, wouldn’t it?

Where were the fire engines? What was taking so long?

Someone was coming from around the side of the house. In the fire’s glow, Jac could see the cook, Lisette, covered in soot and coughing. She ran to the woman.

“How did you get out?”

Lisette pointed and told her Serge had opened the kitchen door and helped her.

“Where is he now?”

“He went down to the cellars,” she said and then began to cry.

“How bad is it in the kitchen?”

“There’s smoke everywhere, but I don’t know.”

Jac ran to the back entrance. Smoke was pouring out of the open door, but she didn’t see any flames. The cook had followed her, and together the two women watched and waited.

“With all the artwork and valuables in the house, why isn’t there some kind of fire protection system?” Jac asked.

“There is,” the cook said. “But when Madame Cypros shut off the power to the house, it must have shut down too.”

“She shut off the power?” Jac asked.

Suddenly a loud cracking came from inside. The château’s stone walls wouldn’t burn, but the many ancient wooden beams crisscrossing the ceilings were a banquet for the fire. Jac pictured the tapestries leading up the landing to the second floor-all so old, ripe for a first spark.

The cook said something, but Jac couldn’t hear her over the roaring. It was so loud now. Like an orchestra from Hades, she thought.

Suddenly, through billowing smoke, Jac saw a figure emerge. She held her breath. It was two figures, Serge helping Griffin. No, it was the other way around. Griffin was helping Serge.

Jac felt relief wash over her. Griffin was alive.

She ran to them.

“He’s really sick, we need to get him help,” Griffin said.

“No, I’m all right,” Serge said in between coughs. “I have to go back and get Melinoe. She’s crazy. She won’t leave her collections. Doesn’t she realize they are just things…” He was trying to catch his breath.

Serge started to head toward the door, but Griffin held him back.

Just then Jac heard the sound she’d been listening for: in the distance, fire engine alarms.

“I have to get to Melinoe…” Serge was trying to break away from Griffin. “They are just things…” A sob broke from his throat. “Just things…”

“Let the firemen get her,” Griffin said. “You’re not in any shape to go back in there.”

“I have to. She’s my… She’s my…” Serge coughed again. “She’s my life.”

“But she made you inhale one of the dying breaths.” Jac had guessed it when she’d seen Serge’s glassy eyes, first heard him cough. “She overheard what Griffin told me, and she asked you to inhale one of the breaths, didn’t she?”

Serge didn’t respond. He was still struggling to break Griffin’s grasp.

“How can you willingly risk your life for the woman who put yours in danger?” she asked.

Serge stopped fighting Griffin for a moment to look at Jac. In his eyes was an expression she knew and understood. It didn’t matter what Melinoe had done. It wasn’t what she felt or didn’t feel for Serge. It was about what he felt for her.

Then, with a burst of strength that Griffin wasn’t prepared for and couldn’t stop, Serge broke away and ran, stumbling toward the house to find Melinoe. She was all he knew. All he’d ever known.

And just as the fire engines arrived, Serge disappeared into the firestorm.

Jac, Griffin and the cook stood in the chill night air and watched as the firemen made every attempt to gain entry to the house, but the entire downstairs was engulfed in flames. The most they could do was shoot powerful arcs of water into the Château La Belle Fleur, into the rooms filled with priceless paintings, sculpture and objets d’art.

Minutes passed without any sign of Serge or Melinoe.

Serge had told Jac once that he was to blame for Melinoe’s father’s death and despite that she’d saved Serge’s life. That she had loved him despite what his life had cost her. That was what he owed her.

“She loved me that much,” he had said.

And hated him that much too, Jac thought as she watched the fire’s glow and smelled its terrible and powerful aroma.

Griffin, Jac and the cook continued to wait.

Finally the firefighters got the conflagration under control and were able to enter the house, but Jac knew that when they came out, neither Serge nor Melinoe would be with them.