She pressed it back into his hand and closed his fingers over it. ‘Put it away. It will keep you safe from her enchantments. From all evil. Keep it with you.’
He nodded and slid it back into the safety of his pocket again.
He waited until she drifted off to sleep at last and went back downstairs to find Ari and Jason standing awkwardly in the main hall.
‘Is she OK?’ Ari asked.
Rafael held his hands out palm up, a gesture of helplessness. Her guess was as good as his, but the doctor had done what he could and was ready to come back at once if necessary. Nolvene would look after her. She’d been straight back into the room to sit with her the moment he appeared at the door.
‘Did you find Nico?’
‘No,’ said Jason. ‘The car’s still locked, but there’s no sign of him or your sister. We looked outside as well. Where could they have gone?’
And that was the other thing dragging nails across the back of his consciousness.
He walked into the drawing room and felt over the mantelpiece. The key was missing.
‘Damn,’ he said. ‘The vault.’
He didn’t pause to see if they followed, but he knew they would. They both understood the implications of this. What had he been thinking, storing it here? He’d been arrogant enough to believe that the walls of his family’s vault would keep its malignant influence from reaching out to others. Like his sister. Like a man Dahut had already set her mark upon. He’d just wanted it away from Ari. To keep her safe.
The door stood open. In the middle of the shelf where he had left it, the plastic box full of water was still there, but the lid was off. The mask was gone.
Jason let out a torrent of curses. ‘Who was it? Your sister? Nico? What the hell is going on?’
‘Where have they gone?’ Ari asked.
He led them back upstairs and as he reached the hallway again, his phone rang. Sick to death of this, he answered without looking and barked out a single word. ‘What?’
‘Rafael?’ It was Laure, and she sounded terrified. Her voice echoed strangely, the sound twisted and faint. The signal cut in and out, making her voice flicker. ‘You have to come, you have to comenow. Please. He put on the mask and he…hechanged…’
‘Where are you? What’s happened?’
‘The caves,’ she whispered and the line cut off completely. She was gone.
CHAPTERTWENTY-FIVE
It was nothing more than a little tower of rocks, marking the place where they had crawled out of the darkness and into the storm last night. Ari remembered it. She’d made it herself, realising that they’d never find the gap between the boulders again without a marker. It wasn’t far from the place where Ankou had shoved her to the ground, she realised now. Perhaps he had been aiming for here after all. Trying to show her the way.
Wishful thinking, she told herself. Whatever the Ankou was, he wasn’t really Simon and she couldn’t trust him. Even if she wanted to.
Simon had proved she couldn’t even trust him, she reminded herself. Better to trust no one at all. And as for Rafael…well…he’d been right about why she’d left. Which didn’t make her feel any better. She’d panicked and, to be honest, she was still panicking. She couldn’t think about the two of them right now. Not with Nico in danger.
Rafael had found a couple of torches and some rope in the manor’s storeroom. That was all they had. So much for the gear Jason had said they’d need. But this wasn’t an expedition into the cave system in search of treasure and a lost city. It was a rescue. Rafael’s sister was in trouble, Nico too, and although Ari knew damn well who she cared about more, she wasn’t going to let anything happen to either of them.
‘Nico wouldn’t hurt her,’ Jason protested again. ‘He just…he wouldn’t.’
‘I don’t know that. No one knows that.’ Rafael uncoiled the rope and looked for the biggest rock he could fine. He moved like he’d done this before, wrapping it around the boulder several times and then tying an elaborate knot.
‘Will it hold?’ Ari asked.
‘If it holds me, it will hold either of you. That’s why I’m going in first. Do you think you’ll be able to find your marks again?’
She nodded, hoping they were still there, that nothing had happened to them. Because if they were gone, they wouldn’t have a hope of getting in or out.
‘We should have called the police,’ she told him.
Both Rafael and Jason turned on her in the same instant. ‘No!’
