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15.

The kitchen smelled like sweet, spitting fat, and Castle’s stomach rumbled even though he was a little hungover from the Italian wines Rommy had brought and shared the night before. Rommy had insisted on making breakfast, and Castle let him even though it meant using up some of the guanciale the Cardinal’d brought him from Rome.

Katrine huddled over a cup of black coffee with honey, looking like she’d been dragged through the coals and rolled over rocks, which was about how Castle felt. Rommy’d brought ten bottles of wine — how many were left?

“So what’s this stuff cooking, anyway?” Katrine asked, resting her head over the coffee mug and looking all of thirteen years old. “It smells like bacon on crack.”

“It is bacon on crack,” Castle said. “It’s this Roman bacon stuff I get whenever I’m there. I’m not sure what part of the pig it’s from, –”

“The jowl,” Rommy said from the kitchen. “It’s cured pork jowl.”

“– because every time Rommy tells me, I block it out. But it’s crispy and salty and has just a little hot pepper in it, and I’m pretty sure I’ve been hungover every damn time I’ve had it.”

“Don’t blame the pig for that,” Rommy murmured, and moments later he came out with a platter of food: grilled slices of tomato with thin slices of hard cheese on top; the guanciale, crackling-crispy in some places and puffy in others from frying in the olive oil; briny olives stuffed with green walnuts and pistachios; seared slices of steak still blood-red in the middle; poached eggs pink with tomato sauce; and a scattering of sage leaves and drizzle of olive oil over everything, with a loaf of bread verging on stale to sop it up. “The bread is a travesty, but there’s no bakery in this neighborhood and it will have to do.”

“Jesus Christ,” Katrine said, taking a new mug of coffee from the tray and leaning over the table to peer at the food. “Look at all that.”

“When I was in seminary,” the aging Cardinal said, “We ate like this every Sunday morning, in order to make it to Mass no matter what we’d been up to the previous night. Trust an old man, Katrine. This is a hangover cure extraordinary. And it was easy to cook.”

“As long as there’s guanciale,” Castle said, taking a piece that was still piping-hot and left orange spots on his white linen napkin, from the chile peppers it had been cured with.

They all ate in silence for awhile, sipping hot sweet coffee and clearing the platter bite by bite until their hands were pushing against each other to sop up the last bits of steak juice and olive oil with the stale bread. “What did I tell you?” Romaglio asked.

“Okay,” Katrine said. “You were right, good stuff. I’m still hungry, though.” She turned to Castle. “Mind if I grab something from the kitchen?”

He shook his head. “Go ahead, go ahead. I’m gonna go sit somewhere more comfortable.” He got up, and moved into the living room, coffee mug in hand, and Romaglio followed him, staring at him expectantly. “What?” he asked.

“Did you sleep together last night?”

“I’m not giving confession right now, Your Eminence. Is that any of your business?”

“I’m just saying, Castle. No, the exorcism didn’t amount to anything. However convinced Baroni is that something’s amiss in the house, he wasn’t able to do anything about it. Perhaps the problem is your doing after all.”

“Oh, come on,” Castle said. “The music box? You think I jiggered the music box myself somehow?”

“No no. That perhaps your lifestyle has finally become your undoing. The Church does not believe in the Eastern notion of ‘karma,’ Castle, not by that name, but the concept as it’s popularly expressed by westerners is largely sound: deeds attract consequences. Their relationship needn’t be causal.”

“So you’re saying I deserve this shit, is what you’re saying. Not just being locked up, but being driven fucking –”

“Crazy? Do you feel you’re being driven crazy?”

Castle sighed. “No. Sometimes I feel scared shitless, sometimes I can’t sleep, but I’m not worried about the yellow wallpaper yet.”

“Then perhaps you should think about what I’m saying. A man’s sins can plague him, Castle. Perhaps they can plague others. It was one thing when you only abused your body with drugs, and treated women like chewing gum, to be savored with little attention and then discarded. But murder!”

“Ease up there, Rom. Katrine didn’t even know about the downbelow before yesterday.”

“Do you love her?” the Cardinal asked.

“Jesus! She’s a call girl. I hardly know her, outside her ticklish bits.”

“Then send her away, Castle. That isn’t the kind of energy you need right now. Have you talked to Jonathan? If nothing else, couldn’t he arrange for you to — move to a different house?”

Castle sighed. “I don’t know. I haven’t. I talked to Teddy a bit, you know.”

Katrine came back into the room munching on a raw purple potato. Both the men looked at her, and she shrugged. “What? I like raw potatoes.” It crunched like a dense apple when she took a bit, and she sat back down, pulling her chair away from the table a little, and eyed her coffee. “It’s not like I’m dunkin’ it. But I could, if it would freak you out.”

“God,” Castle said, “don’t talk about freakouts.”

Romaglio looked confused, then blank, then disturbed, and Katrine shuddered. “I know, right? Jesus, the poor guy. What’s his name again?”

“Pasmore,” Romaglio said. “Lamont Pasmore. I’m sure he’ll be fine. He has spent too long with books, assembling his theology of minor miracles. Encountering the unreal in the flesh, as it were — it was beyond his envelope, I think you say.”

“Didn’t think there was such a thing as a minor miracle,” Katrine said.

Romaglio smiled. “You have never sampled the meat that never spoils or the soup that seasons itself — or written with the pen that never runs out of ink. Perpetual usefulness, as I think the phrase would translate into English, is a wonderful thing — but rarely considered on the scale of moving mountains or raising the dead.”

“I feel bad about it, though,” Castle said. “If I hadn’t called you — I mean, Rommy, you’re not even an exorcist, you’re all about apparitions, prophecies … don’t you work for whatchacall, the saint-makers most of the time?”

Romaglio snorted. “I frequently investigate claims of miracles credited to individuals considered for canonization, yes.”

“Hey,” Katrine said, “Like A Canticle For Leibowitz!”

“Mmhmm,” Romaglio said. “But in any case — Castle, I had to come, I was worried about you. And Pas insisted on accompanying me — out of concern for me in part, but also I think out of great curiosity. The impulse which leads one to study God’s miracles is not so dissimilar from that which leads one to staunch the flow of supernatural evil into the world, children. Or as I have heard it put before: no one ever says, ‘when I grow up, I want to organize data for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.’ Everyone wants to be Fox Mulder.”

“And you’re sure he’ll be okay?” Castle insisted.

“Yes. Castle, even fruitless exorcisms often lead to episodes like Pas’s — with far less apparent cause. The stress of anticipation, perhaps — fear is a deadly thing. His hands will heal of their own accord, and in the meantime he’ll be cared for by nuns expert in psychological and supernatural trauma. I promise you that he’ll be back on the job, nose in the books, within a few short months.”

“Months,” Katrine murmured. “Jesus Christ. Uh, sorry Father, I mean holy shit.”

“Yes,” Romaglio said, “I’m sure God appreciates your apotheosizing excrement rather than use His son’s name.”

There was a long silence Castle finally broke with, “You know, breakfast seems to have worked.”

“Yeah,” Katrine said. “I don’t feel hungover anymore. Not even tired.”

Romaglio smiled slightly. “Perhaps since you see my wisdom in that matter you will see it in others?”

Castle rolled his eyes, and Katrine asked, “What do you mean?”

When Romaglio didn’t answer, Castle said, “Rommy wants me to ’send you away.’”

“Meaning no offense of course,” Romaglio said. “But Castle has been through troubled times this last year. I cannot help but think he may have — brought the current situation upon himself, perhaps. Or at least exasperated it.”

“And, what, fucking a call girl makes it worse because it’s sinful?” Katrine asked neutrally.

“Yes.”

“All the same to me. I don’t want to stand between anyone and his redemption.” But it was clear from her tone she thought the whole idea was bullshit. “It’s just a job, after all.”

“It’s fucking ridiculous,” Castle said. “Rommy, you know damn well you don’t keep to your vow of celibacy, and you’re a damn priest.”

“There’s a difference,” Romaglio said, “between ignoring that archaic and long-ignored vow, and sex without love. I am monogamous, and so is my mistress. I no longer treat sex as sport, although I did when I was much younger.”

“Yeah, and the coke?”

Rommy shrugged. “I barely touch it. Only when my American and Australian friends visit.”

“All right,” Katrine said, “why don’t we put all that kind of stuff aside, cause like, don’t we still need to figure out what Castle’s gonna do about the whole, you know, spooky thing? The exorcism didn’t work, so what’s that mean?”

“It means,” Romaglio said, “that there are no demons at work. Were it anyone but Baroni, I could fault the exorcist: but not here. He is supreme among his order. It cost me a great deal of face and favor to bring him here.”

“Yeah,” Castle said. “Sorry about that.”

Romaglio shrugged a little. “You paid well for it. It was my choice to let you.”

“So,” Katrine pursued, “what next? Ghostbusters?”

“Turns out they hate it when you call them that or even talk about the movie,” Castle said. “But yeah. McCall seems like he’s got his shit together. We’ll see what he comes up with, what he suggests.” Romaglio snorted, and Castle whirled on him. “What? You got a better idea, padre? Because your boys didn’t seem to manage much.”

“Prayer,” Romaglio said shortly, “Prayer and penance.”

“Fuck you.”

“Castle –”

“No.” He stood up. “Fuck you, Rommy. Maybe it’s your job to be high and mighty, but I don’t need it. Whatever I’ve done, I don’t deserve this. Being a … a bad person, doesn’t fucking make your house haunted, or whatever the hell’s going on. Take your smugness and your advice and shove it.”

Romaglio got up stoically and nodded. “I believe it is time for me to catch my plane. Katrine.” He nodded to her. “It was good to meet you. I wish you would pursue another manner of employment.”

No one said anything as he collected his bags and left. Castle sat back down and didn’t move from his chair, and Katrine just studied her nails awkwardly, after giving the old priest a platonic hug at the door.

#

“What’s the French for fiddle-de-dee?” Katrine asked.

“What?” Castle turned from the TV, where he’d been staring sightlessly at some kind of celebrity reality game show marathon, to her.

“It’s just something my family says to fill the silences,” she said. “Especially when things are awkward.”

“Oh,” he said, and went back to the television. A few minutes later, he added, “You can blow me if you want.”

She wrinkled up her face for a moment and then sank to her knees wordlessly and expressionlessly.

He sighed and waved a hand. “Nevermind. I just thought you were bored.”

“So I should suck you off because I’m bored?”

“Well, you’re a call girl.”

“Yeah. And I’m here for free yesterday and today, remember?”

“Right,” he said. “Okay. I can pay you if you want, though.”

She punched him. Hard, in the arm. Took the remote from him and clicked the TV off. “Listen,” she said. “You’re being an asshole. I’m off the clock right now, so you’re not allowed to be an asshole, and I don’t always put up with it even when money is on the nightstand. Apologize.”

“Sorry,” he said tonelessly.

“Stop being an obnoxious, wounded little shit, and apologize.” She was angry. Really angry, redheaded angry, he could see it in her eyes. It woke him up a little, and he nodded.

“Yeah. Okay. I’m sorry. Seriously.” He straightened up. “Seriously, you’re right, I’m being a dick. I don’t know why. I feel — off. Empty. Grumpy, but more than grumpy. Look, you can go home if you want, this must suck for you and the exciting part’s been over since yesterday. Not that it was all that exciting to begin with.”

She shook her head. “No. You want to make it up to me?” He moved to spread her legs and get between them, and she shook her head. “Not like that. Tell me stuff. You’ve been not telling me stuff. Tell me stuff.”

“Like what?”

She rolled her eyes. “Work your way up to it. The tattoo first, what’s up with that? I told you about mine — it’s the symbol of the Morrigan, which is both badass and sexy — but I don’t have a clue about yours, which is pretty fucking elaborate. I mentioned it the first night I came over, but you were distracted by my pussy.”

He grinned. “Yeah I was.” He rolled up his sleeve and looked at it. It was funny, about tattoos. Keep them long enough and you forget they’re there. Whenever someone asked about it, he took a real look at it, saw it again as more than a splash of color that had become his skin, as invisible and transparent as a birthmark or mole. The whole thing was about four inches high plus the writing below it. A mountain, high and peaky and reminiscent of Japanese paintings — he didn’t know enough about art to know if there was any actual relationship there. A stairway led up the mountain, winding back and forth as it went, like that logo in Joe Versus The Volcano, and seven shooting stars surrounded it. “‘When the stars threw down their spears,’” he said, reading from the simple serif text beneath the picture. “It’s from Blake’s ‘Tyger Tyger’ poem. Both the line and the picture — he did paintings to go along with it.”

“I didn’t know he was a painter too,” she said, and then added, “‘Tyger Tyger burning bright …’” She shook her head. “That’s all I remember. I was a theater major, not poetry.”

He widened his eyes. “I didn’t even know you’d gone to college.”

That didn’t seem to merit a response, so she just asked, “Tell me about the poem. Why’s it on your arm?”

“The poem’s about the dark side of the soul,” he said, thinking about it. “The hot part. The burning part. The part God didn’t make. The part he imagined and left aside, until Lucifer brought it into being. The poem’s about asking if the Lamb and the Tyger have the same maker, and implying they don’t. And that line? The stars are the fallen angels.” He paused. “Anyway, the thing of it is that I own the painting. Getting the tattoo, I guess it was a way of showing that off. The original — there have never been any prints made of it, because it wasn’t part of the version of Tyger that Blake published. My grandfather bought it when I was born.”

“No shit?” she asked. “That’s got to be worth — a lot. What, is it back at the estate?”

He shook his head. “It’s upstairs. I haven’t unpacked it yet, I was waiting to pick a bedroom, and I haven’t really got around to that yet.”

“Yeah,” she said. “It has been kind of musical beds.”

“You want to see it?”

“I do, but first — why didn’t you tell me about the ‘downbelow’?”

He sighed. “That kinda pissed you off, huh.”

“Not pissed me off, just surprised me. It seems like a big part of what’s gone on. I mean, your face is still splotchy looking from the pounding you said you took.”

“Yeah.” So he told her about that, and about animal control discovering the hidden door, and that he’d found the music box there. “It’s just, I met you in the middle of that going on, finding out about it. And then it was like –”

“It seemed like something that was supposed to be a secret.”

“Right.”

She frowned and shook her head. “Well,” she said, not sounding very enthusiastic, “you can show me the painting if you want.”

#

He’d moved all of the boxes from the room where he’d put his stuff, and still couldn’t see the carton the painting had been in. “I know it was here,” he said. “It was here last time I came in to get some clothes to unpack, that was like — a week ago or something.”

“You’re sure it was in this room? You’ve got a lot of rooms. A lot of storage rooms.”

“Yeah,” he said, “but this is the only one that’s my stuff, not the Van Der Lindens’.” They exchanged a look. “Okay, we’ll check the other storerooms on this floor.”

There were plenty of paintings and other framed items in the other storerooms — including a Van Gogh, if he didn’t miss his guess, and several early Dali sketches — but no Blake. Not even anything of the same size: Blake’s painting was fairly small, compared to the others, seemingly done for his own enjoyment as much as anything else, but the package it was in was state of the art and environmentally controlled, easy to spot. And nowhere to be seen.

“Goddammit,” Castle said. “You know who took it.”

“What?” Katrine looked puzzled. “Who?”

“Pasmore. Before he freaked out. I’ll bet he was already starting to lose it.”

“So he steals a painting? When would he even have a chance?”

Castle frowned and shook his head. “I don’t know. Shit. Did he stay with us the whole time? I don’t remember …”

“I wasn’t paying attention, I guess.”

Castle sighed. McCall had specifically told him to report any objects being moved, things missing, run of the mill poltergeist shit like that, so he flipped open his cell and punched the ghostbreaker’s number.

“All right,” McCall said after he’d jotted down the basics and noted what Castle knew about the painting. “Anything else?”

“No.”

“Have fun at the exorcism?”

“Nothing came of it. You have any information for me yet?”

“Yeah. A little. Ricky sent me some of what he had on the Van Der Lindens, the public records stuff. Most of it’s scattered here and there, waiting to be drawn together, but I got some basics jotted down right here, you want me to read em to you?”

“Long as we’re on the phone, shoot.”

A rustle of papers and, “Michael Van Der Linden,” McCall said. “Born November 2, 1894, in Boston, Massachusetts. Died June 22, 1975, at home, of natural causes. Wife Samantha Montgomery Van Der Linden, died a few months before him; two children, Clarissa Patricia, later Patricia Nicholls — that’s the Patricia Nicholls who inherited Domino in the name of the Trimalchio Trust — and Michael Berlin.”

“Okay,” Castle said, “Wait. His wife wasn’t named Mia? What about the servants? Look into the servants, maybe there’s a maid named Mia.”

“Maybe there is,” McCall said, “but in the meantime, I found a Mia. She’s just not his wife. She’s his sister.”

“What?”

“Mia Emily Van Der Linden, born April 5, 1902 — died July 15, 1925. Both in Boston.”

“Wait a minute,” Castle said, holding a finger up to Katrine before jogging downstairs. “Hang on a sec, let me check something.” He waved the mouse around on one of the computers and brought up the info Reynolds had given him. “She died after he moved into Domino? Did she ever live here?”

“She died before he even moved in, as far as I can tell. That whole other side of the house, the ‘reflected’ part, he built that. The house was under reconstruction until late July of ‘25. He moved in right after the funeral, it looks like.”

Castle frowned. He’d been more than half-assuming that if there was any kind of ‘ghost’ haunting Domino, any kind of residue, it was Mia’s. “Read me the original documents,” he said. “You’ve got, what, marriage licenses and so on there?”

“Yeah. I haven’t filed them yet, but — you want me to just read em as I found em?”

“Go for it.”

So he read through what he had, bit by bit: the marriage license from what must have been right after his discharge from the Army, death certificates, birth certificates, deeds, the works. Mia had died in a fire that also took the Van Der Linden parents, whom she still lived with; she was survived by Michael and her fiancee. “Here we go,” McCall said, “Here’s the marriage announcement from the Ecklesburg Herald –”

“Ecklesburg?”

“Yeah, Ecklesburg, Alabama, why?”

Suddenly Castle remembered who Samantha Montgomery was. The young girl Michael had written to Mia about, teasing her. “Later. Go on, read it.”

“‘In the absence of his son, Captain James Montgomery, who continues in his service abroad, His Honor Judge Augustus Montgomery is proud to announce the marriage of his granddaughter Samantha Clarissa Montgomery (pictured at left) to Michael Paul Van Der Linden, of the Boston Van Der Lindens, son of Karel and Grace (nee Mickelson) Van Der Linden. Cousins of European nobility, the Van Der Lindens have owned and operated a cross-continental trading company since the early days of colonization, in addition to other business interests — such as the paper mill which has just begun construction in Ecklesburg! Michael and Samantha are expected to take up residence in one of the family’s New England homes.”

“Christ Almighty,” Castle said. “They built a mill so he could marry a little girl?”

“A little more than that, I think,” McCall said. “They were married in January of 1919: Clarissa Patricia was born in June.”

“Aha,” Castle said. “He got the kid pregnant.”

“Sounds like it. What a lovely marriage that must have been.”

“Well, they stayed together for over fifty years, it sounds like, until they both died. Guess it worked out.”

“Guess so. Want me to tell Ricky to double up on Mia’s story?”

“Damn right. Near as I can tell right now, Michael — who I’m betting was fucking his little sister before he joined the Army — kept both sides of their correspondence after she died. But that was over 80 years ago, and it sounds like all Mia ever did with Domino was visit.”

“If that.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, I’ll get him on it. Call me if anything comes up. How’s the face?”

“Swelling’s down. It’s mostly just yellowed now.”

“Glad to hear it. Take it easy.”

The minute Castle flipped the phone shut, he heard Katrine yelling for him. Not panicked “help the monster’s gonna get me” yelling, not exactly — but there was an edge to it, even beyond the strain from yelling so loudly. And it was coming from downstairs. She must’ve wandered back down there while he was on the phone, engrossed in the Van Der Linden saga, but dammit, he should have told her not to go down there alone. She should have known better.

He grabbed what he half-thought of as his ghostbusting pack — a small duffel bag with two Maglites, a digital camera, and a loaded pistol sitting on an empty chamber — and ran down the corridor to the gatehouse and down to the downbelow.

Katrine had already turned the lights on, and he found her standing outside Mia’s room, standing in a weird position with one leg cocked like she’d been in mid-step, and a hand on the side of the doorway — like she’d been startled and just froze in place.

“CAAAAASTLE!” she yelled again, and he jumped.

“Jesus, I’m right here!”

She whirled around and almost fell over. “Fuck. You better call McCall. And maybe your uncle too. And maybe the fucking cops.”

He pushed her aside and looked in the room, where the bedside lamp was lit, shining light on his Blake painting, hanging over the bed. It had been mutilated — as had the wall it hung on. Both of them had been scrawled over, as if fingerpainted, with the lines from Blake’s poem. The writing — large, blocky, all capitals with larger capitals at the start of lines — ran right over the painting without pausing.

Tyger Tyger. burning bright,

In the forests of the night:

What immortal hand or eye,

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.

Burnt the fire of thine eyes!

On what wings dare he aspire!

What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp,

Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

When the stars threw down their spears

And water’d heaven with their tears:

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger, Tyger burning bright,

In the forests of the night:

What immortal hand or eye,

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

The writing was red and rusty, even moreso in the incandescent light, and still wet, and it was clear what well the ink had come from. Castle’s gut churned when he realized he recognized the smell of it, the rich throat-clogging smell, even before he thought the word or saw its source: a body, twisted completely backwards at the waist, sides literally split from the force of it and covered in ragged, fraying tears like the seams of an overcooked burrito. The tongue had turned black and lolled out of its mouth, the head facing them upside-down. The fingers were covered in ruddy stains: one hand was still clutched against the torn wounds like it’d been dipping in for more, to write more, say more.

“That’s him, isn’t it,” Katrine said dully, and there was neither pity nor surprise in her voice.

“Yeah,” Castle said. “Lamont Pasmore.”