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"Stay here," Raphael ordered as he got to his feet. "I'll get a torch from the car."
I used the time it took him to run down to the car and back to form plausible arguments why he shouldn't go into the passage, but they fell on deaf ears.
"I'll be fine," he said firmly, giving me a pat on the behind as he shoved one of the boxes from the main room into the doorway to keep it open. He switched on a powerful flashlight, the light showing dark stone steps eerily leading down to inky blackness.
"I don't suppose you'd consider letting me go first?"
The look he gave me spoke volumes.
"All right, but don't say I didn't warn you when this curse or whatever it is bites you on the butt."
"You're the only one I allow to do that," he said with a leer before doubling over to get through the four-foot-high doorway. "Besides, I don't believe in centuries-old curses."
I grabbed the back of his shirt and followed. "You believe in vampires."
"I would prefer not to."
"And ghosts."
"Again, not by choice."
"And werewolves and imps and all other sorts of things we've seen."
An indignant snort was my answer to that. "I may be forced to believe in vampires and ghosts, but that doesn't mean I buy into every supernatural idea out there. People do not turn into wolves, Joy. It's physically impossible."
"Uh huh. Watch your—ow. Sorry."
Raphael rubbed his forehead where it had hit a low overhanging stone. The staircase we were on was a miniature version of the grand staircase, a narrow stone spiral that seemed to go on forever. "I think this is the bottom," Raphael said as he moved a few steps forward. The light pooled around an iron-banded wooden door.
"Bob, wait," I said, grabbing his arm as he was about to open the door. "We can't just up and destroy the stone and Sir Alec. It's cruel."
"Cruel? Didn't he starve his wife to death?"
"Yes, but… well, after meeting him, I'm not too sure about that. I think we should talk to Lily again. Maybe things weren't quite as she remembered."
His lips were warm on mine as he gave me a swift kiss. "Let's take a look at this tamed laird's stone. If it's small enough to move, perhaps we can just hide the thing, and tell Lily it's gone."
"I don't see what good that will do, but it's better than nothing," I grumbled.
He laughed and slid back a solid slab of wood which barred the door, swinging it open. It had suitably creepy squeaking hinges, but nothing rushed out of the room at us when Raphael shone his light inside.
"Rats?" I asked, peering over his shoulder.
"Not that I can see. It's just a small empty room."
And so it was. There was a slight musty odor, but as Raphael said, it was a small empty stone chamber.
Empty except for a plinth, upon which sat a greeny-gray chunk of stone approximately the size and shape of a large wheel of cheese.
"That's gotta be it," I said, eyeing the stone carefully as Raphael shone the line around it.
"I'd say so. Hold this while I see how heavy it is."
"Sweetie—," I started to say, but my words stopped as Raphael reached out to grab the stone. A blinding flash of light startled me into screaming and dropping the flashlight, which promptly went out. I scrabbled around on the floor until I found it again, quickly switching it on. "Oh, my God, what was that? Are you all right?"
I shone the light to where Raphael had been standing, my jaw dropping as I blinked in absolute stupefaction at the thing that stood in his place.
A lion, golden, tawny-eyed, complete with mane, fuzzy ears, and an almost comical expression of utter disbelief, stared back at me.
Chapter Four
"OH MY GOD," I SAID, MY SKIN CRAWLING as I reached out to touch the tip of the lion's nose. His eyes crossed as he followed the movement of my hand. "Oh my God! I knew it! I knew something like this would happen if you tried to destroy the stone! OH MY GOD! You're a werewolf."
The Raphael lion rolled its familiar amber eyes and opened its mouth as if it would speak. All that came out was a guttural grunt.
"All right, then, you're a werelion! Same difference, Bob! Oh, my God, what are we going to do?"
Frustration filled Raphael's feline eyes as he made the same guttural noise a couple more times.
"Don't swear, sweetie. We'll figure something out," I said, patting him on the top of his furry head. "That's what that beast within bit from that curse must have meant. That's all fine and well, but I am not going to spend my honeymoon with an animal. Let's go find Sir Alec and see what he has to say about this. It's his stone, maybe he knows of a way to break this transformation."
Raphael didn't object when I hefted the stone and marched toward the stairs, although he did give the back of my hand a swift lick with his bristly tongue.
By the time we made our way back to the first-floor hallway where Sir Alec and Grizel had been romping, it was obvious that a shouting match was going on.
"How dare you! I'll go anywhere in this castle that I please, and you ca
"Ye're confined to the upstairs. Grizel and I have the lower floors. That's how it's always been, and that's how it'll ever be!" Sir Alec roared.
Lily didn't appear to be threatened despite the fact she was staring her murderer in the face. "I came down to see that you don't harm that dear Beloved and the one who I see now is some relation of yours, the poor man. And don't you threaten me, you murderous whoreson! You were a horrible husband when you were alive, and you're a worse one now that you're dead! Ru
"Now there's a pot callin' the kettle black," Sir Alec yelled. "Ye had yer skirts up for any man who caught yer eye!"
Lily gasped. "Oh! I did not!"
Sir Alec leaned forward, all three of them so obviously focused on the argument they didn't notice our approach. "I've three words to say to that: Sir Roderick Langton."
Lily opened her mouth to protest, but quickly snapped her teeth closed.
"Aye, I thought that would shut ye up," Sir Alec answered with satisfaction. "Ye can't be throwing out accusations about Grizel and me when ye were up to the very same thing with that pasty-faced bastard."
"Roddy wasn't a bastard! He loved me! He wanted to take me away from your cruelties!"
"Cruelties!" snorted Sir Alec.
"I'm sorry to interrupt, but there's a situation I'm going to need your help with," I said, plopping the stone down onto the nearest table.
"Just a minute, lass," Sir Alec told me without glancing our way. "I've taken enough from this she-devil. It's time she face the truth rather than the pack of lies she preferred to believe. Was it cruelty, then, to give ye everything ye wanted? Ye had the finest cloth, jewels, the best of my bloodstock—"
"Trivial things," Lily yelled, waving her hands. "You thought to buy my affections with your gold! I saw through that in an instant, though. I knew what sort of man you were—a murderer, a thief who would steal his own wife's jewels to give to another. You drove me to Roddy's arms! You and your damned harlot!"
"I realize that this is a heated subject, but I really do have an emergency on my hands here, and I'd appreciate a little help," I said, but the three ghosts ignored me.
"Ye'll not be talking about my Grizel that way!" Sir Alec shouted back at Lily. "She's worth a whole castle full of the likes of ye, not that ye'd know how a proper wife behaved, lockin' yerself away in the tower as ye did for months on end! And as for yer precious jewels—ye'll be needing to talk to Sir Roderick about them."
Lily gasped again, her eyes blazing. "How dare you impugn his name! He was a saint! A god among men! You were not fit to lick his boots!"