“They have some estate up north, where Roman takes his birds.” She shuddered. “He let one of them feed on my stomach. I will have the scars forever.”
Mike couldn’t imagine. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m alive,” Isabella said. “Without you, I’d be dead.”
Mike merely nodded. “Tell me about the missing Voynich pages you found in the British Museum. Isn’t that why Ardelean kidnapped you in the first place? To get those pages, to complete his recipe for Radu?”
Isabella stared at her, then shrugged. “You’re going to think I’m crazy.”
“Try me.”
“Okay. Maybe back as far as the time of Vlad Dracul, pages were ripped out of the manuscript. At some point, the pages were separated from the main manuscript, and moved from place to place. Where, I don’t know, until a young girl saw a man bury the pages under a rowan tree in Eastern Poland, back in 1912, I think. She was part of a large Romany tribe camped close by. She dug the pages up and took them back to the camp and showed them to my great-great-grandmother, Kezia. She was also known as the Old Princess. She could read the pages and prophesied twins of her line would come and they would read them and reunite them with the great manuscript, as she called the Voynich.
“Their stories were passed down to me. My sister and I were the first twins in nearly a hundred years. But my sister died when we were four years old. It was then I told my mother I heard the pages weeping.
“She and my father believed the pages would drive me mad, so they buried them in a lead box so I couldn’t ever hear them again. There’s more, of course, but eventually, after my mother’s death, in her will, she told me where to find the pages.”
Isabella studied Mike’s face. “You might believe me mad, but it’s the truth—even before I unwrapped the pages, I heard them singing to me, talking to me, and yes, crying. And I knew I had to reunite them with the great manuscript.
“But someone had stolen the Voynich from the Beinecke at Yale the year before. If I’d known in time, I would have stolen it myself. Instead, I came up with a plan. I pretended to find the pages and made a big announcement, praying the person who’d stolen the Voynich would come after the pages. I wanted him to come.
“I had a gun. I was ready.” She shuddered. “But it all happened so fast. I accepted Gil’s marriage proposal and this Dr. Laurence Bruce, really Roman Ardelean, showed up at the front door.” She swallowed. “Only he wasn’t the one who stole the Voynich.”
“No,” Mike said, “he wasn’t. Actually, it was a very bad man named Corinthian Jones who stole it, as leverage, to use on Ardelean. We even know where it is—in his safe.”
Isabella’s eyes flashed. “Do you know where the loose pages are too? I know Roman had them that night.”
“I don’t know, but I will alert everyone still at the house to look for them.”
“Are you going to put me in a straitjacket?”
Mike flashed back to the Koh-i-Noor diamond, its magic, its prophecy, and slowly shook her head. “I’ve seen and heard so many strange things this past year—well, let me say if we’re talking straitjackets, they’ll have to get two, one for each of us.” She leaned down, smoothed a hand across Isabella’s forehead. “Before t
he Voynich is returned to Yale, you can reunite the pages—yes, I know we’ll find them—with the great manuscript.” She paused, then said, “The Old Princess, that’s a lovely name.
“Now, can you think of anything to help us figure out what Ardelean might do?”
Isabella shook her head, said instead, “Thank you for saving me.”
Mike nodded and walked to the door. Isabella’s voice stopped her.
“Wait—I remember he did say he had plans, big plans. Something to do with a shipment and a man named Barstow. I only heard bits and pieces of the conversation, and something about it was time for this program to come to light. He was going to give the world a show. I don’t know what program he meant.”
Mike said, “I do. Thank you, Isabella.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT
Mike found Nicholas and Harry in a treatment room inside the A&E—accident and emergency—wing. Harry sported a butterfly bandage on his temple and was in a full-blown argument with the doctor, who wanted to admit him for observation overnight.
“No, absolutely not. I passed the concussion protocol, and I have things to do.”
Nicholas said to the harassed doctor, “You aren’t going to change his mind, I’m afraid. I’ll make sure he doesn’t exert himself.”
The doctor handed them the discharge papers, and Mike heard him calling them mother hens as he walked out past her. She waited until the three of them were alone to say, “Isabella confirmed Roman’s been killing and exsanguinating men and women, primarily Romanian, all over Europe, hoping they might be a match to Radu, for a cure. He’s the Vampire Killer. She told me some other things, too, about the pages and the Voynich, how it came down to her. It’s all very strange.”
Nicholas said, “You and I, Mike, strange always seems to find its way to us. Now, one mystery solved. You’ll get that news to Penderley so he can start the proceedings with Interpol?”
“Already texted him.”