“And yet you were squatting in my old family’s building on Saint Mark’s before it collapsed,” I said.
“My costs for supplies are high,” he reminded me, then pointed down at the floor. “Let’s stay focused, all right? There’s an area or two here in the church that I’m not allowed into. Probably because I’m a freelancer . . . or a heathen. None of what’s kept down there is on the record up here.”
“Then how do you know about it?” I asked.
“I’m the curious sort,” he said.
I smiled. “I bet you are,” I said. “Didn’t turn out well for the cat.”
“Nor did it for me,” he said, frowning. “The stairs leading down to it are protected. I was back in the apse, and next thing I knew, the railings flew off the side of the stairs and wrapped around my arms. Desmond didn’t seem particularly thrilled to find me trying to venture downstairs, but I talked my way out of it, making it seem like nothing more than an honest accident.”
“You can be very convincing even if you’re lying,” I said, filling the words with a darker bite than I meant to, surprising myself.
Caleb stepped back from me as if I had slapped him. “What’s that about?” he asked.
“Sorry,” I said. “It’s nothing.”
I hadn’t meant to lash out, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to explain it to Caleb even if I could. With Caleb’s having returned Stanis to his former self, I knew I could trust him, but at the same time I was discovering that having the gargoyle back conflicted with my growing fondness for Caleb. Now was not the time to get into it. “You were saying about this restricted area . . . ?”
“‘It’s nothing’ . . . ?” he repeated, narrowing his eyes at me. “All right, well, you just tell me when you want to talk about this nothing, then.”
“Caleb . . .”
He held his hands out in front of him and pretended to let go of something heavy.
“This is me dropping it,” he said.
He wiped his hands together as if cleaning them off.
“As I was about to say, my money is on the restricted area.”
“We just need a different way in, then,” I said. “Unless you think we could take on a set of enchanted stairs?”
“I think that might draw a little attention,” he said, moving to the table at the center of the room. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his notebook, and laid it down, taking a seat. He gestured to the chair across from him. “Maybe we should compare notes on your spells and my concoctions, see what we can come up with that might help us get down into the lower parts of this church.”
With no better plan, I sat down opposite Caleb and set to work looking through my own notes, also pulling out Alexander’s stone spell book and transforming it into readable pages. After twenty minutes, I slammed both books shut.
“This is ridiculous,” I said, standing up and stepping away from the table. “I don’t have half of the things I want here to do most of this.”
“Me either,” Caleb said, in the middle of inventorying the left-side contents of his coat’s hidden bandoliers.
“And even if I did, we can’t just walk out into the main room and hope not to cause a commotion.”
“There’s got to be another way down there,” he said.
“There is,” I said, stepping farther back from the table. “We’re just overthinking it.”
Caleb stood, looking where I was at the spot in the center of the room.
The church, despite its current life as a secret society’s storehouse, was still an old-world piece of architecture, which meant the touches my great-great-grandfather had applied in building it were a luxurious mirror of the time period. And being the man that he was, his attention to the stonework was impeccable, including the large slabs of stone floor where we stood.
Caleb was already fumbling through the insides of his coat, but I shook my head.
“No,” I said. “We don’t want to damage anything if we don’t have to. No one knows we’re here, and if we do it my way, hopefully no one will know.”
“Good point,” he said, and let his hands drop to pick up his notebook instead.
I slid my master tome into my backpack and snatched up my notes, breathing out the words of power into the large stone square at the center of the room. No doubt it was cosmetic, with others beneath it, but it was a start.
My will connected with it, and I guided it with my right arm as I forced it up and out of its slot, the dust of ages falling from the cracks around it. It wavered unsteadily at my command, but I managed to set it down without a sound before realizing I was clenching my teeth from the effort. I rubbed my jaw.
“You’re going to hurt yourself doing it like that,” he said. “Stop looking at the stone like the heft of it truly matters. Your mind is tricking you into compensating for the weight it thinks you should be lifting.”
“Yes, Professor,” I said, turning back to the hole I had just created. The stones beneath were rougher but only half the size of the one above. I reached out to the one on the left, and grabbed it with only my will. Maybe Caleb was onto something because although it was more firmly wedged into the foundation, when it came free I did notice a sizable difference in handling it if I tried to ignore the stone’s actual size.
The two of us moved to the edge of the hole I had made. A dim light filled the area below, but I had the Maglite that Boy Scout Marshall had given me and shined its light down below. The lower levels of the church weren’t quite as finely finished as the main floor, but they still looked in good shape.
“About fifteen feet or so,” I said. “Damned old-world luxury and high, religious ceilings.”
“We’re getting down this way,” he said. “But I don’t think it’s the way we’re coming back up.”
Marshall’s voice screamed at the back of my mind reminding me on the importance of rope. Sadly, I had none.
“Normally I’d say ladies before gentlemen,” Caleb said, lowering himself in to his waist, his hands spread out on the floor to either side of him. “But somehow I don’t think letting you plummet into trouble first would be chivalrous.”
Before I could respond, he pulled his arms in tight and dropped through, landing on his feet with a hushed thud. He waved for me to jump down, and before I could start worrying about breaking an ankle or hitting my head on a rock, I sat on the floor, scootched forward, and let go.
I needn’t have worried about damaging myself on the floor below. Caleb caught me in his arms, lowering me to the ground.
“Thanks,” I said, welcoming the closeness.
“That’s two chivalry points,” he said with a smile.
The walls and ceiling there were nothing like those on the main floor. No ornamentation or detailing beyond the plain, carved stones fit together and the vaulted arches supporting the structure. Not that there was much to see in the narrow corridor we found ourselves in. The entire lighting consisted of bare bulbs that had been pegged into the stone walls too far apart to actually give off much light.
“Come on,” Caleb said, turning right down the corridor.
The space echoed with our movement as we walked through arch after arch, coming to a final one barred by a thick iron gate that ran from floor to ceiling. Beyond it, in the shadows, lay the outlines of what looked like shelves similar to those in the gated area upstairs.
“Now, see, this says restricted area,” Caleb said in a triumphant whisper as he pressed his face up against the gate, looking through. “Don’t you think?”
“I particularly like the bars,” I said. “Nice touch.”