“Do you have a name?”
“Course I have a name. I carry me father’s name.” The skeleton’s Cockneyaccent showed a little now.
“What’s your name?” Warren asked.
The skeleton hesitated for a moment as if struggling to recall. “I’m Jonas.”
“What were you here, Jonas?”
“I was a guard for a time.”
That fit with the authority impression Warren had gotten. “How did you cometo be a patient?”
“A prisoner, you mean.”
Warren made no reply.
“Dr. Featherstone decided he didn’t like the job I was doing. He accused meof… abusing some of the patients.”
“Were you?”
Jonas the skeleton lifted and dropped his shoulders. The chain loops rattled as he did so. “Maybe a few. Some of the women that were brought here was pretty.They wasn’t as friendly as they should have been.”
Warren felt disgust rise within him. “While I’m here, you will acknowledge meas your master.”
Jonas doffed an imaginary hat and his bones rattled with motion. “Of course,yer lordship. What will yer pleasure be?” His accent was thick and sarcastic.
“You know your way around in this place.”
“Of course I do. I lived much of me life here and seems like even longer indeath.”
“Cross me and I won’t just kill you all over again.”
“And just what is it you’ll do, your lordship?”
“I’ll leave you here just as you are. Alive. And chained in this cell.”
Jonas kicked his leg and tested the chain links. “I don’t think this manaclewill hold me forever.”
“Your choice. But make it quickly.”
“Then aye, I’ll come with you and be your guide, yer lordship. Just you mindyour back.”
Warren gestured at the manacle. The metal ring vibrated and shook to pieces.
“Well now, that’s a fancy trick, it is. And where did you learn that?”
“I thought you’d think being brought back to life would be more amazing.”
Jonas regarded Warren with his empty crimson gaze. “And who’s to say I wasn’tjust resting and waiting here for your arrival, yer lordship?”
The thought chilled Warren. If the skeleton had merely come to life, that would have been expected. Kelli, after she’d died, had lost what littlepersonality she’d had in life. Warren had heard stories about undead that weremore than simply animated. Many of them maintained their personalities. But he hadnever before seen such a case.
“Where is it that you wish to go, yer lordship?” Jonas asked.
“Up,” Warren answered.
“And what is it you’re looking for then?” Jonas turned on one bony heel andstarted forward. Evidently he had no trouble seeing in the dark.
Warren followed. “A book.”
“That’s good. Because we’ve always been a little short on treasure.” Jonascackled at his own joke.
The room Simon searched for was located on the left side of the circle on the second floor. They walked there without interruption or incident. He left button cams on the walls and ceiling as they passed. The vid relays provided constant overlapping fields of view.
So far as he could tell, they were the only ones in the abandoned sanitarium. It looked as if Macomber had held true to his promise not to tell Booth or any of the other Templar about the manuscript.
A brass plaque mounted on the stone wall above the gate and the cave entrance identified it as 213.
“Thirteen, eh?” Nathan asked. “I’m not exactly superstitious, mate. You knowthat. But I have to admit I don’t like that number. Twice thirteen, that’s badluck for anybody.”
“Just be glad it’s not on the third or fourth floor,” Danielle commentedsoftly.
“I will then,” Nathan returned.
A few of the Templar laughed.
Simon tried the gate and found it locked. He crushed the padlock in his armored glove and let the pieces drop. They tinkled to the floor. The gate opened with a screech.
“You’re sure this is the place, mate?” Nathan asked.
“I am,” Simon responded. He held up his hand, activated the torch projectorin his palm, and switched over to the light multiplier application.
The inside of the cave became as bright as day. A skeleton, dressed in rags, lay on a thin, rat-gnawed pallet at the back of the cave. In its day, Simon had no doubt that the bedding had also been infested with insects.
“Who was he?” Leah asked.
“His name was Marcel Duvalier,” Simon replied. He knelt and surveyed the man.
The body was nothing more than patches of skin wrapped around a bundle of bones. The face was a hideous, ill-fitting mask that gone gray and looked so thin that it could be read through.
“Who was he?” Danielle asked.
“A scholar. A linguist like Macomber.” Simon reached down and picked up oneof the dead man’s hands. “Only something a little more.” He spread the deadman’s hand out for all to see.
Marcel Duvalier had possessed six fingers on his right hand.
“Birth defect, mate?” Nathan asked in the silence that followed. “Sixfingers, six toes. Happened a lot among the royals due to all the intermarrying. The gene pool got thin.”
“This wasn’t a birth defect.” Simon pulled on the second forefinger and itseparated easily. “The finger was grafted on.” He held a finger up. “It also hadthree articulated joints, not two.”
Leah knelt beside Simon. She took the forefinger and studied it. “This isn’thuman.”
“Macomber entered into a dialogue with a psychology student who was studying the journals of the doctor who treated Duvalier,”Simon said, repeating the story that the old linguistics professor had given him aboard the ATV. “When he discovered that Macomber was working on much the sameproject, the student contacted Macomber. Since he was a student, access to Macomber was fairly easy to get. Macomber said the student was fascinated.”
“I’m fascinated, mate,” Nathan said. “Do you know what the chances are ofthem ever even meeting each other? Or even knowing they were working on the same materials?”
“Astronomical comes to mind.” Simon looked at the forefinger in Leah’s hand.“Both of them, Duvalier and Macomber, had been studying the same manuscripts.And they had both continued their studies inside the sanitariums.”
“Inside separate institutions?” Nathan asked.
“The student kept papers and letters going back and forth between him andMacomber,” Simon said. “But Macomber felt
