Mike closed her eyes. Everything hurt, even her eyebrows. She heard Nicholas speaking to his father, assuring himself that he was all right. Then she felt Harry take her hand.
“Thank you, Michaela, for saving my life.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
Chelsea and Westminster Hospital
369 Fulham Road
Chelsea, London
Isabella
was drifting off to sleep when a knock sounded on the door.
“No more needles,” she called out.
“How are you, Dr. Marin?”
She opened her eyes to see the female FBI agent who’d come to save her. Her blond hair was in a ratty ponytail, and she wore black-framed glasses. From twelve feet away, Isabella could see dark bruises on her wrists and arms, see how pale she was, the thick white bandage wrapped around her hand.
“What happened?”
Mike knew her voice was too loud because of her eardrums, but who cared? “Well, let’s see. Since I saw you last, a crazy falcon attacked me, Ardelean shot a missile into a house I was in, and I fell down a flight of stairs.” She came forward. “My name’s Michaela Caine, special agent, FBI. But none of this compares to what you’ve been through—may I call you Isabella?”
“Yes, please.”
“I’m Mike. Now, tell me the truth, how are you feeling?”
“I guess I’m okay, really. I keep telling them I’m fine, but they won’t leave me alone. A missile? Like the one they used to shoot down the helicopter?”
“Yes. Don’t worry. No one else was hurt.”
Isabella licked her tongue over her dry lips. “It seems like a nightmare now, like something so horrendous it really couldn’t have happened. But I know Gil is dead—at least in my head—but not here yet.” She touched her heart. “I know Radu is dead, too.” She swallowed tears. “Does Radu’s brother know he’s dead?”
“Yes, he does. And unfortunately, we can’t find him. But we do know he’s a very angry, out-of-control man at what he now sees as absolute betrayal. It doesn’t help he’s probably over the edge on all the LSD he was taking. He’s out for revenge. He blames those in power because they sent a team in a helicopter, namely us, to his home to save you, and Radu died. He blames all of us, really.”
Mike saw Isabella was trembling. She stepped to the hospital bed and touched her shoulder. “All you went through, it was horrible, all of it. I don’t know everything Ardelean did to you, but still, Isabella, you tried to save Radu. No, no, his death wasn’t your fault. You were heroic. But what about the Voynich?”
“It was about a recipe in the Voynich, part of it in the missing pages that I had. And it was about blood and how to combine them. What do you know about the Voynich manuscript?”
“One of my teammates was in art crimes, Agent Ben Houston. He worked the case when the Voynich was stolen from Yale. You met him, I believe. With Melinda St. Germaine?”
“Oh, yes. Was that only a couple of days ago?” She shook her head in wonder. “It seems like a decade. Agent Houston was kind and knowledgeable.”
“I know no one has ever been able to translate it or decode it—so tell me.”
Isabelle nodded. “The Voynich tells the story of the illegitimate line that started with Vlad Dracul’s half brothers. I’ve pieced together what I can and I think one of the twins was ill, an affliction of the blood. They tried to cure him—with herbs, with baths, but they didn’t know how blood worked. And so, when the brother Andrei bled uncontrollably and weakened, they came up with the idea to replace the blood. So Alexandru, the stronger of the two, found him blood to drink. This wasn’t quite that clear in the manuscript, but I believe it’s close enough.
“The Voynich manuscript is a record of their conversations about how the experiments were going. Roman and Radu both read and speak Voynichese. They’ve brought those two long-ago brothers into the present. Radu is—was—a brilliant scientist. Very strange, because of the limitations of his illness, but brilliant. The experiments he was doing were completely out of the box. The equipment—sorry, you already know this. Did Radu want me to give him all my blood? He wanted so much to live, as did Roman. Perhaps I would have survived for a while, depending on how long they would allow me to replenish my blood. Was I the match they’d been searching for? Yes, I believe so. Roman killed so many people, primarily Romanians, searching for a match. I think Roman made Radu into a monster.”
Mike shook her head. “No, he valued himself, his own life, over anyone else’s, including yours. He called you his blood sister, yet, if it came down to it, do you think he would have hesitated to exsanguinate you rather than accept his own death? None of it was right, Isabella. All of it was centuries-old madness.
“Your physician told me they’d drugged you, there were still traces in your blood.”
“Oh yes. After all the initial terror, whatever the drug Roman gave me made me feel wonderful. I wasn’t afraid any longer, even when they wheeled me in and hooked me up. I wasn’t even afraid when I saw my blood flowing through the tube into Radu’s arm.”
Mike said, “Did either of them mention where Roman lived when he wasn’t at the house with Radu?”