A flashlight glowed and Quinn caught a glimpse of some nondescript features, then the beam shone straight into his face.
“This could be fake.”
Quinn held up a hand to shield his eyes. “Yeah, it could be, but it’s not.”
The ID folder sailed through the light and landed in his lap.
“I don’t know why I believe you, but I do. Why did Chastain hire you?”
“To protect this place from a thief he was tipped was coming. That would be you, I guess.”
Quinn winced inwardly. It had seemed like a nothing job; he hadn’t even told Danni about it. Chastain was rich; he and Danni often needed hefty sums in their line of work: pulling in a nice, up-front paycheck for a few hours of work while she was busy with a celebration ceremony had seemed like a damned good idea.
He should have known there’d be a catch — like nearly getting his fool self killed.
The other man barked a bitter laugh. “No, I’m no thief. Chastain hired me to retrieve a ring he’d hidden here.”
“What?”
“Yeah. What the fuck?”
The silence lengthened between them until Quinn finally said, “Can I have my pistol back?”
“It’s a revolver, and a revolver is not strictly a pistol.”
Quinn had to laugh. “You mean I let a gun nerd get the drop on me?”
“Facts is facts, and no, you can’t have it back. At least not yet.”
“Not yet is okay. But how the hell did you get the drop on me?”
“Chastain told me about the rear door. I didn’t trust him, so I went in the front and out the back, then watched the place. I saw you go in the back so I followed.”
Quinn had to admit that was pretty clever, even as he kicked himself for falling for it. He’d seen how the vines at the rear had been disturbed but he’d come in anyway.
“You do realize we’ve been set up, right?”
Another short, sharp laugh. “Ya think? I knew this smelled bad.”
“You don’t sound like a local.”
“Got that right. Chastain told me to be prepared for ‘deadly force.’ He’d made it sound defensive. Now I’m thinking he wanted me to use it. What’s he got against you?”
“Nothing that I know of. Barely know the man. But I do know him better than you. I’m local. You know my name. What’s yours?”
“Jack.”
“ ‘Jack’ what?”
“Just Jack’ll do. Seems like I was supposed to kill you.”
Quinn’s muscles tightened, ready to leap. He’d actually been declared ‘dead’ once already. He didn’t fear death.
But he sure as hell didn’t want to die.
“And?” he asked flatly.
A shrug. “Don’t see any reason to.” Jack pulled out a folded piece of paper and handed it to Quinn. “This is supposedly where Chastain hid the ring I was supposed to bring him. Suppose it’s bogus, too.”
Quinn looked over the diagram and the instructions.
“Don’t you want a light?” Jack said.
“Don’t need it.” Quinn studied the diagram. “There should be a jagged little crack in the bottom of the first vault — the oldest — according to this.”
He ignored the fact that the other man had a gun while he still didn’t, and chanced turning his back on him to head to the rear of the vault and hunker down. He looked at the diagram again and stuck his hand into the jagged crack on the lowest shelf — that of Antioch Chastain, founder of the clan. As the diagram suggested, his hand hit a box; a wooden box. He withdrew it — along with a mass of spiderwebs and bone dust. He looked at Jack, and then opened the box.
“Empty,” they announced together.
“Figures,” Jack said. “The whole thing was a setup.”
“But why? He wanted us both here for a reason.”
“Why here? And by the way, haven’t you folks heard of graves?”
Quinn laughed. “The water table’s too high. And, actually, the cemeteries were conceived during the Spanish rule, and their design is according to the custom of the time. Good custom here — bury someone and you could find their coffin floating along in the next heavy rain.”
“So you pigeonhole them in these little buildings? Doesn’t it get ripe after a while? And what happens when you run out of shelves?”
“Here in Louisiana, the rule is ‘a year and a day.’ The heat is so great that bodies mostly cremate in that time. These tombs are like ovens. Families shovel the bits and bones of the remains of one loved one to a mutual ‘holding’ section at the foot of the shelf so that another family member can find his or her resting place for a year and a day — or until the shelf is needed again.”
“That’s gross. What country is this?”
“The United States of Louisiana. We have our own way of doing things.”
“I guess you do.” Jack looked around. “Great setting for a horror film, though. Hey, you think that’s why he got us here — to film us fighting? Some sick YouTube snuff vid?”
“You think he’s hidden a camera?”
“He didn’t fly me down from New York so we could have this nice little chat. Gotta be some reason he put us both here.”
Quinn didn’t see a camera anywhere, but memory of the loose tile flashed through his head. “It’s probably nothing, but—”
He ducked behind the altar and pried up the tile. Only dirt beneath it. But soft dirt.
He dug and struck metal within the first inch. He worked his fingers around it and came up with a bracelet made of strange metal and carved with even stranger designs. A green stone the size of a dime was embedded in its center. It looked familiar.
“I know this piece: the Cidsev Nelesso.”
“Sounds like a gelato flavor,” Jack said.
“It was found sealed in a sunken temple dedicated to an as yet unidentified deity in the drowned city of Heracleion.”
“So what’s it doing here?”
“Good question. It and part of a papyrus scroll found with it were smuggled out and sold on the black market. The buyer was purportedly Chastain.”
“And you know all this how?”
Quinn hesitated. “I’m a private investigator. And I’ve been a cop for the City of New Orleans. But, these days—”
He held off. He was always careful, especially with strangers — and more especially, New Yorkers. But, to his great humiliation, this guy could have killed him.
And he hadn’t.
“Part of what I do these days is work with a woman,” he said softly. “Danni Cafferty. Her father owned a shop and I worked with him until his death. And now Danni and I… collect things. Unusual things. Angus Cafferty was a real scholar and, in his business, he needed to know about history and — things.”
“Things?”
“Curiosities of evil,” Quinn said. “Believe me or not. Objects that are cursed or that create evil in those who know how to use them or seek power through them. And I have a feeling now that we’re not dealing with any film project — we’re dealing with a thing that can cause evil.”
Quinn waited for the other man—Jack—to tell him he was crazy.
Jack didn’t say any such thing. Instead, “What about this Madame de Medici he mentioned?”
“She’s another notorious collector, but the way this is going, I doubt she knows anything — just a red herring in the story Chastain concocted for you.”
Jack took the bracelet and held it up, turning it this way and that in the wan moonlight filtering through the stained glass.
“Valuable?”
“ ‘Priceless’ might be a better word. It’s one of a kind. Supposedly one of the Seven Infernals.”
He saw Jack stiffen. “An Infernal?” He shoved it back into Quinn’s hands. “Here.”
“You know of the Infernals?”
“Unfortunately, yeah. Met one.”