“I don’t understand any of this,” he said when he had regained his voice. “Don’t you realize that keeping me here is a crime? You can’t just hold me here against my will indefinitely. Do you intend to murder me?”

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” she laughed. “All you have to do is give me what I want and you can be on your way. The sooner, the better. I don’t like what you stand for, but like I said, I had expected some old grizzled bastard with a stinky beard and a bald head.”

“I’m sorry I disappointed you,” he shrugged.

“I’m not disappointed at all. I just expected you to look older, but I should have known. What does d’Brouchart look like? I haven’t been able to get much information about him personally.”

“If you didn’t even know what I looked like, how do you know you got the right man?” He ignored her question. The image of a large, middle-aged, balding, red-haired man sitting in a high-backed chair loomed in his mind. Not the same man he had visualized earlier when she had mentioned the name d’Brouchart.

“We’ve been through this.” She sighed. “I knew you were coming. Anthony told me you would be coming after him. He said you would come from the east coast in a black car. You wear the red cross and the symbol of the alchemist just like he said. And he said you would have his head on a platter just like John the Baptist.”

Mark Andrew chuckled at these descriptions which sounded like something one would hear from a Gypsy fortune teller, but the mention of St. John caused him to cringe. Blasphemy.

"You think it is funny? The poor boy was scared to death of you. He called you the Knight of Death. Chevalier du Morte. The Prince of the Grave. He said you would bring the flaming sword and cut off his head.”

“Who the Hell is Anthony?!” He continued to laugh. Her descriptions were laughable, yet he wondered.

“I have your sword, Sir Ramsay,” she said quietly and her face took on another, more sinister expression. “It was in your black car that you rented in St. Louis, east of Texas.”

“I don’t believe you. My name is John,” he said simply. “I don’t know what your game is, lady, but you’ve got the wrong man.”

“I don’t think so,” she smiled knowingly. “You were in a black car, you came from the east, you wear the rings, you had the sword. You venerate the name of St. John. Your denials are useless. There is only one point yet to prove out.” She narrowed her eyes. “Poor Anthony. I thought he was immortal.” Cecile toyed with the spoon in the empty pudding dish.

“What happened to poor Anthony?” Mark asked with some reticence.

“Why? Do you still want his head? I’m afraid you missed him. He’s gone.”

“Just like that? Gone?” He snapped his fingers. “And I was so close.”

“Yes, you were,” she nodded slightly. “I thought he was crazy at first and then he gave your name in a trance.”

“He gave my name? In a trance?” Mark rolled his eyes. “He said ‘Mark Andrew Ramsay, Prince of the Grave, is coming to behead me’. Is that what he said?”

“Not exactly.”