Lost City (NUMA Files 5)

"Masquerade ball "

She slowly unwound the veil from her face and head. Hair that looked as if it had been spun from gold thread tumbled to her shoulders. Slowly, seductively, she removed the rest of the veil as if she were taking the wrapping off a precious gift and let it drop from her body to the floor. Underneath the veil, she wore a long, low-cut gown of pure white. A gold belt with a three-headed-eagle design encircled her slim waist. Austin peered into the cold eyes and felt as if he'd been struck by lightning.

Even though Austin knew about the mysterious workings of the Lost City enzymes, the logical part of his mind had never fully accepted them. It was easier, somehow, to believe that the formula for the Philosopher's Stone, misused, could produce ageless nightmarish creatures than to imagine that it could create a mortal of such astonishing godlike loveliness. He had assumed that the formula would extend life, but not that it could roll back the effects of fifty years of aging.

Austin found his tongue. "I see that Dr. MacLean's work was far more successful than anyone could have imagined, Madame Fauchard."

"Don't give MacLean too much credit. He was the midwife at the birth, but the formula for the life that burns within me was created before he was born."

"You look a lot different from a few days ago. How long did this transformation take?"

"The life-extending formula is too powerful to be taken at once," she said. "It calls for three treatments. The first two doses produced what you see before you within twenty-four hours. I am about to take the third."

"Why do you need to gild a lily?"

Racine preened at the unlikely comparison to a delicate flower. "The third dose makes permanent the effects of the first two. Within an hour of completing the treatment, I will begin my journey through eternity. But enough talk of chemistry. Why don't you introduce me to your handsome friend? He seems unable to put his eyes back into his head."

Zavala had not seen Madame Fauchard in her former, older incarnation. He knew only that he was in the presence of one of the most dazzling females he had ever encountered. He had muttered words of amazement in Spanish. Now a slight smile cracked the ends of his lips. The guns pointed in his direction did nothing to cool his appreciation for a woman who was apparently perfect in every physical way.

"This is my colleague, Joe Zavala," Austin said. "Joe, meet Racine Fauchard, the owner of this charming pile of stone."

"Madame Fauchard?" Zavala's mouth dropped down to his Adam's apple.

"Yes, is there a problem?" she said.

"No. I just expected someone different."

"Monsieur Austin no doubt regaled you with descriptions of me as a bag of bones," she said, her eyes flashing.

"Not at all," Zavala said, absorbing Madame Fauchard's slim figure and striking features with wondering eyes. "He said you were charming and intelligent."

The answer seemed to please her because she smiled. "NUMA evidently chooses its people for their gallantry as well as their expertise. It was a quality I saw in you, Monsieur Austin. That's why

I knew you would try to rescue yon fair maiden." She eyed their purple-stained skin. "If you wanted to sample our grapes, it would have been far less trouble to buy a bottle of wine than to bathe in them."

"Your wine is out of my price range," Austin said.

"Did you really think you could enter the chateau without being detected? Our surveillance cameras picked you up after you crossed the drawbridge. Marcel thought you would climb to the outside wall and come in that way."

"It was kind of you to leave the stairway gate unlocked."

"You were obviously too smart to take the bait, but we never dreamed that you could find your way through the catacombs. You knew the chateau was well defended. Wha

t did you hope to accomplish by coming here?"

"I had hoped to leave with the mademoiselle."

"Well, you have failed in your romantic quest."

"So it seems. Perhaps, in the interests of romance, you would offer me a consolation prize. At our first meeting, you said you would tell me someday about your family. Here I am. I'd be glad to tell you what I know in exchange."

"You could never equal what I know about you, but I admire your audacity." She paused a moment, crossed her arms and lightly pinched her chin. Austin remembered seeing the old Madame Fauchard make the same gesture of thought. She turned to Marcel and said, "Take the others away."

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Austin said to Marcel.

He stepped protectively in front of Skye. Marcel and the guards moved in but Madame Fauchard waved them away.

"Your chivalry appears to know no bounds, Monsieur Austin. Have no fear; your friends will only be taken a short distance away where you can see them. I want to talk to you alone."