“Hey, that’s mine!” the hanged ghost protested.
The padlock refused to open. She grabbed a stronger thigh bone and wedged it into the iron loop that connected the padlock to the gate. If she could wrench the lock off the gate, she could escape. After a few heaves, the brittle old bone snapped in two.
The padlock was too strong. She examined the hinges, then each bar, searching for a weakness.
“Luciana! I found you!”
She whirled toward Christopher with a surge of relief, then a realization that she must have alerted the ghosts that she could see and hear them.
“Crispin, you ugly piece of toast.” The ghost with the chest wound pushed the boy so hard he stumbled back. “What are you doing here?”
The hanged ghost caught Christopher from behind and gripped his neck as if to strangle him. “Too bad you’re already dead, and we can’t kill you.”
“Look!” A ghost who carried a severed head in the crook of his arm pointed at Luciana. “She can see us.”
Luciana turned away, but it was already too late.
The chest-wounded ghost sneered. “Then she can watch us beat up the boy.”
“I think we should bugger him,” the giggler announced.
“Christopher, leave!” Luciana shouted.
The boy pulled away from the hanged ghost. “I don’t want to leave you here.”
“Tell my mother and sister I’m here. Please go!” Luciana exhaled in relief when he disappeared.
“Bitch!” Chest-Wound snarled at her. “You took away our fun.”
The giggler floated toward her, grinning. “Let’s grope her till she screams.”
Luciana grabbed the broken femur and whirled in a circle, slicing it through the ghosts. “Back off!”
“How can you make us?” Severed-Head smirked.
She tried the tactic that had worked on the dead Captain Bougaire. “When I’m rescued, I’ll track down all your families and make them suffer!”
The ghosts chuckled, the giggler two octaves higher.
“You think we care what happens to the living?” Chest-Wound smirked as he pointed at the hanged ghost. “Why do you think they executed him?”
Hanged-Man grinned. “I killed my wife and baby.”
“Let’s get her!” the giggler announced, and the gang of ghosts closed in.
“I’m a witch!” Luciana tried a new strategy. “I’ll put a curse on you for all eternity!”
They paused.
“C-can she do that?” Giggler asked.
“We’re already dead,” Chest-Wound growled. “What can one witch do to us?”
“How about two witches?” Luciana’s mother asked as her form solidified.
“The duchessss,” Hanged-Man hissed, and they all floated back.
“Leave her be,” Ariana ordered. “Or I’ll have my husband clean all the bones out of here, throw them in the sea, and fill these tunnels with sand.”
“We’ll have nowhere to go,” Giggler whined.
Luciana ran to her mother’s side. “Thank you.”
Ariana smiled. “Thank Christopher. He told me where you were. Jensen has the entire castle guard looking for you. I asked Tatiana to come up with a way to contact them.” She cast a disgusted look at the ghosts. “Meanwhile, I’ll take you away from the filth.”
“The priest said there was no way out.”
Ariana snorted. “He lived here only a few weeks. He may know about the main escape route, but I know a secret one. Your father showed it to me years ago.” She motioned to the torch on the back wall. “Take that with you.”
Luciana pulled the torch from the wall bracket. “I’m not sure I should leave. If anyone comes down here to rescue me, they could be killed in the trap that Father Rune set. I need to stay here to warn them.”
Ariana shook her head. “They’ve just begun to search the keep and towers along the outer wall. We can be out of here before they even start on the catacombs.” She pointed to a skull with a red X painted on its brow. “Underneath this skull is a lever. Pull it.”
Luciana did as she was told, and with a loud creak, a section of shelves swung back to reveal a narrow opening. She held the torch aloft and spotted a steep, stone staircase descending into a dark pit.
“Let’s go.” Ariana glanced back at the ghosts. “Do not follow us, or I’ll have the catacombs destroyed.”
Luciana took one last look at the trap on the other side of the iron gate and said a silent prayer that she was making the right decision.
Down into the darkness she went, planting her feet carefully on each damp stone step. She couldn’t afford to slip. How far she would fall she had no idea. But she couldn’t afford to go slowly, either.
She was in a race against her rescuers. If she didn’t reach them first, they could venture down into the catacombs and die.
Chapter Twenty-eight
After charging across the drawbridge, Leo reined in his horse and quickly dismounted. He removed his helmet as Nevis and Edmund ran toward him. “Have you found her?”
“Not yet.” Nevis glanced at the drawbridge. “Where are your personal guard? And the rest of your party?”
“A few miles behind me.” Leo pulled off his chain mail and handed it and his helmet to Edmund. “Did you send out some trackers in case she’s been taken away from the fortress?”
“Yes,” Nevis replied. “But it’s hard to detect anything when the army left behind so many tracks when they moved out this morning. And dammit, Leo, why didn’t you stick with your guards?”