“You’re not the only one with a sting!” Stone shouted.
The scorpion raised its tail, tensed. And then Stone remembered some scorpions could spray venom.
“Oh no.”
The scorpion swung its tail from right to left, spraying venom in a wide arc. Stone rolled behind a pile of rubble as the deadly fluid spattered the ground. The scorpion was coming again. How could he stop it? The thing was like a tank.
A loud crack echoed through the corridor, then another. Cracks spread out beneath the scorpion’s legs as it crept forward. The floor was so close to giving way!
Stone stood, chose his target carefully, and fired at the floor in front of the scorpion. Shots pinged off the rocky surface. More cracks appeared, spreading out like cobwebs across the dark surface.
“Come on.” He squeezed off round after round. The floor kept cracking, but it held. He had one bullet left. He chose his spot carefully and fired.
No joy.
“You have got to be kidding me.” Angry and frustrated, he picked up a football-sized rock and hurled it at the beast. The scorpion batted the rock down with one of its claws. The rock struck the floor with a sharp crack — and then the cracked floor shattered beneath the creature’s feet. With a loud clicking, it plunged into darkness.
“That was close.” Breathing a deep sigh of relief, Stone retrieved his lantern and took off after the others.
Interlude 6
Stone felt like he was slowly being crushed beneath the foot of a giant. He lay underneath a pile of rubble. His ears rang and every inch of his body hurt. He touched his hand to his head, and it came away wet with blood. Anger burned through him.
“She set me up. She warned me of every booby trap except this one.”
The pieces fell into place. Rose was a double agent for the Illuminati. That was how she knew the location of their headquarters. The ‘midnight rendezvous’ was a meeting to hand over the thing they had found. His watch read eleven o’clock. He had one hour to escape the catacombs and find the “life-giving waters”.
He wobbled to his feet, picked up his flashlight, and proceeded down the passageway. Soon, he heard traffic above him. And then he caught a whiff of freshly-baked bread. To his left, a series of rungs led up to a trapdoor in the ceiling. No telling where it went, but it was the first possible way out he had seen.
He climbed up and pushed on the trapdoor. It didn’t budge. He gave it a harder shove and it swung open with a crash. Stone poked his head through. He had upended a cart on which balls of dough were rising. He was inside a bakery.
A door swung open and someone yelped. A blue eyed blonde stood in the doorway. Their eyes met and she began to laugh.
“The universe told me I would see you again, but I thought you would arrive by the front door.”
“Manon!” Stone had never felt more foolish in his life. “Sorry, I was lost in the catacombs. What are the odds I would end up here?”
“The odds are quite good when the universe steps in.” Manon pursed her lips, furrowed her brow. “You are hurt.”
“The roof caved in on me.”
“Come. I will clean you up.” She led him to a back room where she cleaned and bandaged his wounds.
“Manon, can you think of a place in the city associated with ‘life-giving waters’? Possibly with an Egyptian connection?”
She thought for a moment, then smiled. “The Fontaine du Palmier! Four sphinxes with water pouring from their mouths. I have heard them called what you said.”
“Where is it?”
“At the Place du Châtelet, across from Pont du Change.”
“I am completely lost in that sentence,” Stone said.
“On the Right Bank of the Seine, one bridge east from where we met. It is very close.”
“Thank you. You’ve been more helpful than you could possibly know.”
Manon’s curious smile faded. “Then why do you look so unhappy?”
“There is something I have to do, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be the same afterward.”
“You will not be,” Manon said. “But change is not always bad. You can find a better path.”
“I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
“Wait a moment.” She hurried upstairs and returned carrying a pocket-sized book. “Do not think about it right now.” She tucked the book inside his jacket pocket. “But when you are ready to change, read this book. It will help.”
“Thank you.” It was an inadequate reply, but he could think of nothing else to say.
“You are welcome.” Manon kissed him gently on the lips. “Some day you will return and tell me your real name.”
Rose paced nervously back and forth across the plaza of the Place du Châtelet. It was empty this time of night. The sound of rushing water pouring from the mouths of the four sphinxes that sat at the corners of the fountains.
“Hurry,” she whispered. “I just want this to be over.”
“It will be over soon enough.”
She spun around to see a large, thickly built man standing behind her. He wore a mask, which startled her for a moment, but then she relaxed. Hiding his identity was good. If she saw his face, she doubted she would live to tell the story.
“You have it?” the man asked.
Rose handed over the leather pouch. He upended it and shook the contents out onto his gloved palm. It was a small, finely carved figure of a human with the head of a crocodile. An Egyptian artifact found by Remy Pascal on his final expedition.
“You did well.” The man tucked the figure back into its pouch. Next, he took an envelope out of his pocket and handed it to her. “As I promised.”
“The negatives are in here, too?” Rose asked.
“See for yourself.”
Before she could look inside a dark figure burst from the shadows. He plowed into the masked man, knocking him onto his back. The leather pouch flew from the man’s hand.
“Brock!” Rose gasped.
Brock, whose last name she still did not know, was pummeling the masked man. He was a ball of rage, half out of his mind.
“You’re killing him!” Rose shouted.
Stone froze, slowly turned to face her. “Didn’t you know? That is my job.”
Rose’s blood turned to ice. “Let me explain. I didn’t know the ceiling was going to collapse on you. I just needed to get away.”
“So you could hand this over to the Illuminati?” He picked up the leather pouch and waved it at her.
“I don’t know who it was for. I was being blackmailed. It was the only way to prevent these from getting out.” She held up the envelope and Stone snatched it out of her hand. “Please don’t look at those.”
Stone took out the photos and shuffled through them. His face turned scarlet and his hands trembled.
“Eichmann, Himmler, Göring. You’re working with the Nazis, too?”
“I was hired to perform at some grand soiree. I didn’t know who any of them were until one of your people used these photos to force me into helping you. And then that man,” she pointed at the unconscious masked man, “showed up at the cabaret and said if I gave whatever I found to him, he would give me the photos and negatives.”
Stone’s face went rigid. The fire in his eyes turned to ice.
“Whether you’re Nazi, Illuminati, or working for yourself, my job is the same.”
“No, Brock!” Rose backed away. Stone produced a pistol from inside his jacket. Rose turned and ran.
Rose dashed across the street and onto Pont du Change. In a matter of seconds, Stone’s footsteps were right behind her. Desperate to get away, she climbed up onto the rail and froze. It looked like a long way down to the dark waters of the Seine. Deep water terrified her. Her only chance was to jump but her body betrayed her. She was frozen between two terrors.