Addison Cooke and the Ring of Destiny

by Jonathan W. Stokes

  Boots thundered up the staircase. Three men in black suits burst into the room, quickly followed by three more. There may have been another three after that; Addison wasn’t stopping to take a head count.

  The group stuffed themselves through the library’s rear door and slammed it shut behind them. Raj threw the bolt. In seconds the door split as a heavy boot kicked through the cherrywood. A gloved hand reached through the hole, unlocking the door.

  “These guys hate doors!” Eddie shouted.

  “Eddie, hurry up!” Molly did not think he was doing a good job carrying his corner of the stretcher. Gaspard swung precariously between them like he was in a hammock in a hurricane.

  They trotted down a hallway lined with suits of armor. Weapons racks held pikes, lances, longbows, and all manner of swords and sabers, daggers and dirks. Addison thought about grabbing a weapon, but he didn’t have any hands free.

  The black-suited men barreled after them.

  The group retreated into a kitchen. Raj, clutching the stretcher, kicked the kitchen door shut and slid the bolt home with a well-placed elbow.

  Gaspard pointed them to a trapdoor that Molly nudged open with her toe. The group, panting for breath, teetered down spiral steps into a cold, dank wine cellar.

  Eddie looked around frantically for an exit. “We’re trapped!”

  “No,” said Gaspard. “Move aside those old wine barrels.”

  The group set Gaspard down on the stone floor of the basement as gently as they could. Raj and Eddie wrapped their arms around a heavy barrel and wobbled it aside. Two more barrels and they discovered a deep hole cut in the flagstone. Molly, Eddie, and Raj peered down into the hole, contemplating the drop.

  Addison wheeled on Gaspard. “You still haven’t told me where you saw those runes!”

  “I need only tell you this.” Gaspard clutched Addison’s sleeve. “If I do not make it . . . tell your uncle: this is our hour of need. Spread the word. The order of the Templar must rise again. Now go!”

  “What about you?” asked Addison.

  High above them, the trapdoor to the wine cellar sprang open. Heavy boots pounded down the steps.

  “Don’t worry—they will run right past me.” Gaspard crawled behind the wine barrels and pulled some old sacks down on top of himself. “At all costs, save the tablet. Jump, Addison!”

  “You want me to just jump down a dark hole?”

  “It’s okay,” cried Gaspard. “You’ll land in the sewer!”

  And before Addison could process that, the old man gave him a kick, knocking him into the hole.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Paris Sewer

  ADDISON SPLASHED INTO FREEZING water.

  On the one hand, he was glad there was something to break his fall. On the other hand, here he was, in a sewer. That was the thing about life, really. One moment your biggest concern is being stuck in a wine cellar; the next you are neck-deep in sidewalk runoff.

  The cold shock seized his lungs. He swam frantically, arms and feet whirring like propeller blades until he reached the far side of the sewage tunnel and climbed, gasping, onto the ledge. His team splashed into the frigid water behind him.

  Eddie came up for air and filled his lungs for a shriek, but Molly clamped a hand over his mouth. “Shh!”

  They paddled to the ledge where Addison was mourning his drenched blazer. “Nothing like a cooling dip to restore the spirits,” he whispered as cheerfully as he could. At least it was raining in Paris, Addison reasoned, so all the water pouring down the sewage grates was fairly fresh.

  The sewer tunnel was a circular tube, large enough to stand up in. A river of water flowed down the center. Safety ledges, like narrow walkways, ran along either side.

  “Keep moving!” whispered Molly. “They’re right behind us.”

  Shouts from the wine cellar above revealed that the men in black suits had found their escape hatch.

  Addison’s team inched down the tunnel into the pitch black.

  “I have my military-grade flashlight,” said Raj. “One thousand candlepower.”

  “That will only help them find us faster,” Addison said.

  “Well, we need something!” Raj exclaimed. “We’re not bats that can see in the dark.”

  “Do not talk about bats right now,” Eddie whispered.

  Addison scrounged around in his messenger bag and came up with his penlight. They sidestepped faster along the ledge. He heard a giant splash behind them as one of the black-suited men cannonballed into the water. The man yowled in a language Addison did not understand. Which, Addison reflected, was nearly all languages.

  More splashes were followed by more shouting. Addison tried to count the splashes, but the echoes were confusing in the tunnel.

  The bright beam of a powerful flashlight lit up the group like a Broadway stage.

  “They’ve seen us!” called Molly.

  The group sprinted down the shaft, hooked a right at a junction, and banged a left deeper into the labyrinth. Finally, even Molly ran out of breath and stopped at a fork in the tunnel. “This bronze tablet is like a ship anchor.” Exhausted, she handed Eddie her satchel.

  It had already been an incredibly long day, and Addison, who was normally indefatigable, was finding himself quite fatigable. Faint echoes of the suited men’s voices seem to waft in from several directions, like the whispers of ghosts.

  Raj stood still for a moment with his hand in the air, listening. He even pressed his ear flat to the concrete ground. “They’ve split up, trying to track us.”

  “We just need to keep moving away from the voices,” said Molly. She led the way down the narrower tunnel at the fork. The concrete sewer pipe ended and gave way to rocky caverns carved in the limestone.

  “What is this place?” asked Eddie, staring at the rough-hewn gypsum tunnels forking in all directions.

  “The Mines of Paris,” said Addison, panning his penlight over the chiseled stone. “Two hundred miles of mines and hidden tunnels under the City of Light. Some of the waterways are big enough to ride a boat through. The French Resistance used them to smuggle weapons during World War Two.” Addison held up his well-thumbed copy of Fiddleton’s World Atlas. “Mr. Fiddleton may be the only person to have traveled all of the tunnels, but he chose not to publish his map in order to preserve their sense of mystery.” Addison shook his head with admiration. “Just think, wherever you go in life, Roland J. Fiddleton got there first.”

  Eddie paused to root around in Molly’s pack and distribute the food rations they had scavenged from the private jet. When he bit into a candy bar, he sighed in relief. “I feel so much better about life now.”

  “Eddie,” said Addison calmly, “you might be interested to know there is a human skull by your left foot.”

  Eddie squinted at Addison, not sure whether to believe him. He decided to chance a glance. There was indeed a human skull lying next to his left foot. Eddie leapt in the air like a startled cat. “This is horrendous!” He pointed an accusing finger at Addison. “Would you mind explaining to me, Addison, why there is a skull in here?”

  “Ah, yes, about that,” said Addison. “I should have mentioned. The Paris Mines are a sort of underground graveyard.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Eddie, who had forgotten all about his candy bar. “It almost sounded as if you said that the Paris Mines are a sort of underground graveyard.”

  “I did say that,” said Addison. “It’s nothing to be concerned about, Eddie. It’s really the living people in these tunnels, and not the dead people, that we should be worried about.”

  “I am worried,” Eddie explained, “about becoming one of the dead people. Can you go back to the part where you explain why there’s a skull lying by my left foot?”

  “What, this old thing?” Addison picked up the skull, dusted it off, and placed it in a nook in the
rocks. “Paris doesn’t have enough room for cemeteries. So the citizens tucked more than six million skeletons into these tunnels up ahead. They’re called the Paris Catacombs.”

  Eddie looked gobsmacked.

  Addison shrugged. “What would you do with six million skeletons?”

  Before Eddie could formulate a response, shouted voices sounded down the tunnel behind them.

  Addison shone his flashlight on the archway leading into the heart of the Paris Catacombs. It was decorated with human skulls and crossbones. “C’mon, Eddie, we’re going in.”

  * * *

  • • • • • •

  Addison hustled into the ossuary. The caverns that branched off on either side, as far as his flashlight could illuminate, were decorated floor to ceiling with bones. Some featured spiraling patterns of arm bones and leg bones, others contained mosaics of ribs.

  Eddie loped along, lugging the satchel and fuming with anger. “Addison, why is it that every time you leave the house, you wind up taking me to a graveyard?”

  “I don’t see what the big deal is. I would think you’d be used to it by now.” Addison scooped up an arm bone from his path and used it to wave at Eddie. “I don’t suppose you find this humerus?”

  Eddie switched the heavy satchel from his right shoulder to his left. “So we’re just going to cross through millions of graves and hope we can find our way out?”

  “We’re going where the path leads us,” said Addison. “Nothing’s set in stone.”

  “Tombs are,” said Eddie morosely.

  The tunnel ran ever deeper. It was held up by crude pillars and archways, some of them carved with centuries-old French graffiti. They passed through a chamber decorated entirely with swirling patterns of vertebrae.

  There was no sun or moon to guide them. Addison’s compass seemed to be thrown off by interference from iron water shafts or perhaps iron deposits in the limestone. The narrowing walls seemed to press in on them. Every animal instinct in Addison’s body panicked at the thought of becoming trapped underground.

  “Admit it,” said Eddie at last, heaving for breath. “We’re completely lost. We may never escape.”

  Distorted by echoes, the howls of the pursuing gunmen almost seemed to be coming from the leering grins of the surrounding skulls.

  “If you get lost in the forest,” said Raj, “you follow a stream downhill. It will lead to a river, and the river will lead you to civilization.”

  “Raj, I hate to be that guy,” said Eddie, “but we’re not in the forest.”

  “No, Raj is right,” said Addison. “We need to get back to a waterway. It will feed into larger tunnels and lead us to the River Seine.”

  Raj cupped his hands to his ears and rotated them like satellite dishes. Moving in absolute silence he guided the group to a trickle of water leading through a cavern. They followed it downstream. All the while, they could hear their pursuers stomping along just a few tunnels away.

  At last their trickle flowed into the deep, rushing stream of a giant tunnel. “Progress!” said Addison. But he soon heard the sound of engines, building to a deafening roar. Men in black suits blasted out of the darkness, arriving on three powerboats. More men raced out of the tunnel behind Addison’s group, cutting off their escape. All things considered, it was not the best minute of Addison’s life.

  “What I want to know is, how did they get powerboats down here?” said Molly.

  “What I want to know is, how do we get out of here?” said Addison.

  Eddie wrung his hands. “I think we’re going to die!”

  “Well,” said Addison smoothly, “at least we’re already in a graveyard.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Ivan the Terrible

  THE MEN IN SUITS climbed out of their powerboats and closed in on Addison’s group. Addison took a step forward and did his best to look cool and confident.

  Raj leaned in close behind Addison and whispered, “I have purple smoke balls.”

  “Not now, Raj.”

  The leader of the black-suited men stopped a few feet from Addison. The man’s gnarled hair was long and woolly, with frayed strands poking in all directions. Addison wondered if the man’s barber was blind or just mean-spirited. His goatee was tangled and greasy, like he had collected it from a shower drain. His skin was as mottled and oily as Swiss fondue. All in all, Addison had known plantar warts that were more charming.

  “Let me guess,” said Addison. “You’re a male model.”

  “Let me guess,” said the man in a gruff Slavic accent. “You are Addison Cooke.”

  “At your service.”

  “The same Addison Cooke who got Boris Ragar killed on a mountain in Mongolia.”

  “Speaking,” said Addison.

  “And the same Addison Cooke who trapped Vladimir Ragar, Zubov Rachivnek, and their whole team inside a mountain in Peru.”

  “How many Addison Cookes did you think there could be?”

  The man glared down at Addison.

  Addison stared right back. “Vladimir Ragar wasn’t exactly Man of the Year. I did the world a favor.”

  The man continued to glare, only harder.

  Addison hesitated. “I don’t suppose you’re Vladimir’s brother or anything like that?”

  “No.”

  Addison inwardly sighed with relief.

  The man continued. “My brother was Zubov Rachivnek.”

  Addison experienced one of those rare moments in his life when he had no ability to speak. He emitted a sort of airy squeak, like he was hiding a mouse in his throat. He remembered Zubov all too clearly. A knife-wielding psychopath who had tracked him from Colombia to Ecuador to Peru and nearly killed him in all three countries.

  “I have looked forward to this day for a long time,” said the man, in what Addison now knew to be a Russian accent.

  “I always look forward to making new friends as well,” said Addison. He had rapidly begun to suspect that diplomacy might be the better tack. He thrust out his hand for a shake. “And you are?”

  The man ignored Addison’s proffered hand. “Ivan.”

  “Do you have a nickname like your brother?”

  “They call me,” said Ivan, taking a step closer to Addison, “Ivan the Terrible.”

  Addison was pretty sure that epithet had already been taken by a Russian czar a few centuries ago, but then, nobody became a deranged tablet-thieving criminal because of their gift for creativity. “Well, Ivan the Terrible,” said Addison with a respectful nod of his head, “I will go one further. I will call you Ivan the Absolute Worst.”

  Ivan squinted at Addison, perhaps wondering if this was an insult.

  “We’ve met Vladimir Ragar and his brother Boris,” Addison continued. “We’ve met Zubov Rachivnek and now his brother. Tell me, is stealing archaeological treasures a family business?”

  Ivan nodded. “We are all part of the Collective. And we know about the prophecy.”

  The words chilled Addison, who was already shivering to begin with.

  “Now,” said Ivan, stepping dangerously close to Addison. “Which one of you broke my brother’s foot?”

  Addison knew the answer to this question: it was Molly. She had stomped on Zubov’s foot in Colombia, though—to be fair—it was in self-defense. Addison didn’t see any percentage in explaining any of this to Ivan. So he simply shrugged. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Ivan gripped Addison by the shoulders, pulled him close, and stomped down on his foot. This introduction made a deep and lasting impression on Addison, as well as on his shoe.

  Addison howled and hopped around. He strode in a furious circle, trying to walk off the pain. The hard leather of his dress shoe had deflected much of the blow. But scuffing perfectly good oxford wingtips was stubbing the very toe of Addison’s immortal
soul.

  Ivan, evidently amused, grabbed Addison again, preparing for round two.

  Molly stepped forward. “That’s enough,” she said evenly.

  Ivan turned to look down on Molly. She was little more than half his height. He wrinkled up his brow. “What are you going to do?”

  “I could break that nose for you,” Molly offered.

  Ivan’s woolly eyebrows shot up his woolly hairline. He was not used to being taunted by twelve-year-olds. Still, he did not appear to have any qualms about fighting twelve-year-olds either. Ivan reached down to his belt and drew out four feet of steel chain. He wrapped half of it around the knuckles of his right fist and let the other half dangle free. He assumed a fighting stance and began twirling the heavy chain like a fan blade.

  Molly could see that he was well trained. She circled him slowly. He was taller, his arm reach was longer, and he was at least twice her weight in solid muscle. Molly pulled her sling from her satchel and loaded it with a lead slug.

  “Molly, are you sure?” Addison was still wincing from the stabs of pain in his foot.

  Ivan smirked at Molly. “That is your weapon? You won’t even get it spinning before I cut it into pieces.”

  Molly shrugged. Perhaps her uncle Jasper was right. She pulled the can of pepper spray from her pocket and pulled the trigger.

  The jet of liquid hit Ivan full in the face. He clutched his palms to his eyes and roared.

  Molly kept spraying, filling the air with a noxious cloud.

  The suited men, racing to attack her, suddenly squeezed their eyes shut in a blind, panicked rage. They clutched their throats, coughing and choking, their eyes burning red and brimming with tears.

  Molly, Eddie, and Raj turned and fled back into the maze of the catacombs, Addison limping after them. The cloud of pepper spray had mostly missed them, but they were still coughing. Addison, bringing up the rear, even felt his nostrils stinging like he had inhaled a lump of wasabi.