She held up her hands in protest. “Victor—”
“He needed someone who could appreciate his sensitivity.” Victor's face rigid with old anger. “Not a money-hungry bitch who would spread her legs for any man who could stare her down.” “Enough!” Raine shouted.
He jerked away, shocked at her tone.
She forced herself to meet his blazing eyes, horrified at her own daring. “I will not tolerate you speaking of my mother that way.”
Victor applauded softly. “Brava, Katya. If that had been a test, you would have just passed it Alix doesn't deserve such a loyal daughter.”
“My name is Raine. Please do not mention Alix ever again.”
Victor scrutinized her stiff, averted face for a moment. “This place appears to upset you,” he observed. 'Let's go back to the house.”
She followed him down the path. Over and over, she considered the enormity of his revelation until her mind reeled— and gave up, unable to comprehend it.
The path ended at the veranda that stretched the length of the back of the house. He opened the door for her, and gestured her to precede him down the stairs. “I promised to show you my collection,” he said. “The vault is in the cellar. After you, my dear.”
The tiny transmitter in her pocket was burning a hole in her mind. She thought of Bluebeard's castle, and her stomach clenched. Don't think of it, she reminded herself. Just do it. She was swimming with sharks, a dagger in her teeth. She'd promised Seth. She had to at least try.
Victor opened a metal plate on the wall next to an armored door, and keyed a series of numbers into a glowing silver wall panel. “Oh, that reminds me,” he murmured. “This morning I changed my personal computer access code. I change it, on a daily basis, usually. I call the password my 'divine override.' It lets me into any part of the system.”
She nodded politely, as if she understood.
“One word. Minimum number of letters, four. Maximum number of letters, ten. The key is... what I want from you.”
She was bewildered. “You mean, you're telling me your code? But what do you want from me, Victor?”
He snorted. “Oh, for God's sake. You know me better than to ask such a question. If I tell you, it means nothing. If you figure it out for yourself”—he smiled, almost wistfully— “you are divine.”
He keyed in another string of numbers. The big, heavy door popped its seal and swung open. “After you,” Victor murmured.
She walked into the room. The humid, climate-controlled air closed around her like a possessive, suffocating embrace.
Victor put away the sixteenth-century stiletto, placing it in its case with the others. He took a wooden case from a high shelf, laid it on the table and opened it. “I was told that this rapier delivered the death blow in a famous duel in seventeenth-century France,” he said. “Over an unfaithful wife, if the documentation is to be believed. The outraged husband is said to have murdered both the lover and his wife with this blade. Often these stories are fabricated to inflate the value of such items, but I have reason to believe that it's true. The papers are in antiquated French, but that's no barrier to you, of course.”
Victor watched her reaction as she inspected the rapier, the delicate tremor in her hand, the faraway look in her eyes. She really was his offspring, he exulted silently. Her dreams were solid proof.
She hefted the rapier, sliced it through the air, and turned to him. “Yes” she said decisively. “I think it's true, too.”
She felt it too, just like him. It shouldn't matter, but it did What a pleasure it was, to show his beauties to someone with the capacity to understand why he valued them.
“You feel it, don't you?” He reached for the rapier. Raine relinquished the thing with obvious relief.
“Feel what?” Her eyes were wary.
“The stain. I would say 'vibration’, but the term has been so overused in New Age parlance as to become practically meaningless.”
“I'm not sure I know what you mean.”
He patted her shoulder. “You will, my dear. If you have the dreams, you probably have other sensitivities as well. That is the price you pay for being born a Lazar.”
“I've already paid enough,” she said.
He laughed at her, pitiless. “Don't whine. Power carries its price. And you must learn to use power in order to appreciate its gifts.”
She looked dubious. “Bad dreams can be useful?”
He hesitated for a moment, and pulled a set of keys out of his pocket. He unlocked a drawer and pulled out a black plastic case.
“Knowledge is always power, if you are strong enough to face the truth,” he said. He laid the case on the table. “Take a look at this, my most recent acquisition. I'm curious to see the effect that it has upon you. It isn't ancient, or beautiful, or rare, like the other items.”
“Then why do you have it?” she asked.
“I did not acquire this for myself. It's for a client of mine.”
Raine stuck her hands in her pockets. “What's its story?”
He popped the lid open and beckoned her closer. “You tell me. Let your mind empty. Tell me what rises in it.”
She stepped closer to the thing, looking pinched and frightened. “Please don't watch me so closely,” she said. “It makes me nervous.”
“Excuse me.” He stepped back.
Raine reached out and placed her hands on either side of the gun. “It feels different than the rapier. The ... the stain is very fresh.”
“Yes,” he corroborated.
Her eyes were blind and wide, as if she saw far beyond the gun. As, indeed, she did. He felt a pang of sympathy. So much crashing down on her young head all at once. But she had to face it.
“A woman, murdered,” she whispered. “By a person ... no. A thing. A thing so dead inside, it isn't even human anymore. God.”
She doubled over, choking as if she were about to retch. Her hair coiled and draped across the plastic case. She shuddered violently.
He led her to a chair and pushed her into it, alarmed. She hid her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking so hard it seemed that she was weeping, but she made no sound. He poured her a glass of the cognac he kept on the shelf. “Katya. I'm sorry. Are you all right?”
She unfolded. He pressed the glass into her hand, and she held it, as stiff as a doll. “What is that thing, Victor?”
He was taken aback by her flat, hard tone, by the blunt-ness of the question. “It's a piece in a game I'm playing,” he said, feeling defensive. “It's a stolen murder weapon. I am sorry, my dear. I didn't mean to upset you. I showed it to you to see if you could feel—” He stopped.
“Feel what?” She set down the glass of cognac.
“The stain,” he said.
Her eyes looked old beyond her years. “I felt it,” she said in a low voice. “I hope to God I never feel anything like it again.”
He felt a twinge of guilt. “I had no idea you were so sensitive. I assure you, I—”
“Your game is not worth it. Whatever it is.”
“Whatever do you mean?” he demanded.
“That thing is poisonous.” Her voice rang with authority, even in the muffled, soundproof room.
Victor was surprised at how uncomfortable he felt. “Aristocrats throughout the ages dosed themselves with tiny bits of poison over a period of years, becoming immune to anything their enemies might throw at them. That's what has happened to me, my dear. Immunity.”
She shook her head “You're not as immune as you think you are. And if you're so hung up on facing the truth, then face that one, Victor. You shouldn't have this thing. Whatever you did to get it was wrong. Whatever you're planning to do with it is wrong, too.”