“Not alone.” He’d already made that decision on the ride here. “We’re doing it together, or you’re not doing it at all.”
“Are you sure? Isn’t that taking a risk?”
“You said these things were harmless—”
“I didn’t say that exactly. But I don’t think they are. Wouldn’t make sense.”
He held his hand out. “Then give me one, and let’s do this.”
“Door’s locked?”
“Yes.”
She put one vial in his palm, then set the third one down, keeping one for herself. She pulled out the wax-sealed cork from hers and held the bottle in the air. “Bottoms up.”
“Sláinte.”
At the same time, they tipped the vials back and downed the contents.
Greyson nearly gagged at the stale grassy taste that finished with an undercurrent of bad seafood. “That was awful.”
Kora nodded, tongue out. “Really awful.”
His vision wavered like heat waves were rising off the floor. “Is your sight going funny?”
She nodded, putting a hand up as if trying to touch something in front of her. “And I’m starting to see—”
“Stones?” He saw them, too. Faint outlines that showed up best in his peripheral vision. When he tried to focus on them, they disappeared.
“Getting sharper now,” she mumbled.
His were, too.
Then the vision unfurled in full color and clarity, like a movie. It wavered for a moment. Those weren’t stones. Words came into view.
He read them out, but kept his voice soft. “Arrête! C’est ici l’empire de la mort!”
The vision disappeared, leaving him and Kora staring at each other.
Excitement glittered in her eyes. “I know that place.”
“So do I.”
In unison, they mouthed the words, “The Paris Catacombs.”
She grabbed the remaining bottle. “No one else can use this.” She went straight to the sink in the bathroom, uncorked the bottle, and dumped out the contents.
He followed her, closing the door and turning on the shower to mute their conversation against the possibility of prying vampire ears. “We should leave now. Unless you want to rest first?”
“No, let’s go. I’m ready. We can rest there if we need to. I can’t travel during the day anyway, so we should make full use of the dark while we have it.”
“You don’t think that vial might have just given you the power to daywalk?”
“No. I don’t think that’s what the sun shining on you means. Call it a hunch.”
“Okay. But I don’t think we should leave by the front door. I don’t want your mind-reading friend to know. Just in case.”
“I’m good with that. Are you going to call ahead to let the pilot know?”
He hesitated. “If we’re being watched, I think we should leave the plane right where it is. We take off, and they’re going to know we’re on to the next clue.”
“Okay. But the plane is the fastest way. And they won’t know where we’re going.”
He nodded. “True. Do you want to risk it?”
“For the time factor, I think we should.” She thought for a moment. “What about having the pilot file a false flight plan? Have him put down that we’re headed back to Georgia.”
Greyson seemed to mull that over. “I don’t know the man, but he works for the Ellinghams. All things considered, I think he’d do it. Especially if I tell him we have eyes on us.”
“Then that’s our plan.” She glanced at the empty vial in her hand. “I’m taking all three bottles with us. I’ll ditch them in a random bin on the street.”
Greyson pulled out his phone. “I’ll let the pilot know we’re on our way.”
Kora nodded. “To the necropolis we go.”
A little over two hours later, they were in Paris. It was yet another city Greyson had spent time in many, many years ago, but hadn’t been back to in a while. He should have been, but time had gotten away from him, and he’d been too busy with other pursuits.
Besides, things here were well looked after by others paid to do just that.
He wasn’t surprised to see that the city had changed, but he was pleased to see how much it had stayed the same.
He and Kora had ditched their student apparel on the plane and gone back to clothing they both considered more standard attire. Their student looks would have worked, but they were entering the catacombs after hours. Best to blend into the shadows a little more.
Which was why they were both now in head-to-toe black.
They’d also decided to settle in for a few moments at a sidewalk café that was conveniently open late. They had coffees in front of them and an awning above them to shield them from the slight but steady drizzle. They had no great use for the coffee, but it was a chance to try to see if they were being watched.
Greyson kept replaying the way the shifter at the Dragon’s Hoard had looked at him, and it seemed intentional every time.
“Anything?” Greyson asked.
“Nothing.” Kora’s gaze was focused in the opposite direction. “The rain is working for us. You?”
“A woman walking a very reluctant dog.” He sipped his coffee. “I don’t think she’s an issue.”
“How much longer do you want to wait?”
“Not long.”
With a short nod, she drank a little of her coffee, then put her hands on the table and gave him an expectant look.
“Okay.” He got up, opened the cheap umbrella he’d borrowed from a hotel lobby, and together they took off.
Staying under the umbrella was good cover, too. They could have been any couple out for a stroll on a drizzly Paris evening.
“You’re sure about our way in?” she asked, leaning in.
“Yes.” He leaned back, keeping the distance between them the same. “Unless something’s happened to it in the last fifty years.”
She frowned at him. Or maybe it was because of his actions. He wasn’t sure and couldn’t care. Not if he was going to treat her as a job to be done. “You realize that’s entirely possible.”
“I do. But change happens more often above this city than below it. We’ll be fine.” That was his hope, anyway. The main entrance to the catacombs, the one used by tourists, would be locked at this hour.
And breaking in would draw too much attention, even on a night like this.
He followed the map in his head until they came to a manhole cover a few yards down a side street. He handed her the umbrella. “Give me some cover.”
She positioned herself between the street’s busy end and the manhole cover, using the generous umbrella as a shield.
Greyson used brute strength to pry the metal free. It was well stuck and likely hadn’t been opened in a good number of years. He liked that. It meant this way into the catacombs had probably been left untouched.
When the cover was loose, he eased it to one side with care, to make as little noise as possible. Then he gestured to the open hole. “After you.”
“Thanks.” She set the umbrella down, grabbed hold of the sides of the hole, and lowered herself.
Greyson followed, but held on to the edge of the hole long enough to pull the cover back over it. Enough so that it wasn’t instantly obvious it had been tampered with.
Then he dropped to the ground beside Kora.
She had her flashlight on and was looking around at the walls of hewn stone. “Old sewer?”
“Yes. The smell kind of gives it away.”
She laughed softly. “Funny, but that smell always makes me think of this city.”
“How long did you live here?”
“I grew up here. But after that, off and on for nearly a century.”
“Maybe we should have used your entrance. Why didn’t you push for it more?”
She shrugged. “You haven’t led me wrong yet.”
Her confidence in him was so unusual, he wanted to feel her forehead to see if she’d beco
me feverish. But he couldn’t touch her. Not anymore. “Thank you.”
He turned his flashlight on and checked the right side of the tunnel about three feet down. He grinned. “Yep, this is it.”
“Let me guess. You were a young vampire filled with the passion and gravity of the newly turned.” She shook her head at the graffiti revealed by the circle of light. “Le sang est la vie et la vie est la mort. Blood is life and life is death. How very deep of you.”
He shrugged. “I wasn’t that newly turned. But I was kind of hung up on the whole idea of immortality. You know how it goes.”
“Not really.” She smiled like she owned the world. “I was born a vampire.”
“Oh. Right. I forgot about that. Well, take my word for it. Those of us who are turned usually spend a few years deep in thought about what immortality really means. It’s heady stuff.”
“I’m sure.” She turned toward the other side. “Which way do we go to get to this secret entrance?”
“Not that way. Follow me.”
She did, and while he found his way toward the illegal entrance into the catacombs, he pondered what she’d said. She’d been born a vampire. One who owed half her bloodline to her reaper father, but the vampire blood canceled out most of that.
She’d never been human. That might explain some of her past behavior, but it also made him wonder how much she was really capable of change.
And though it pained him, he felt that his decision to keep his distance from her was the right one.
Even if his heart didn’t fully agree.
To Kora, it felt like they’d walked in silence for fifteen or twenty minutes, and she was lost from all the turns they’d taken. They’d also descended a good twenty feet.
Much like the catacombs, all the old passageways that ran beneath the city of Paris were a maze.
Greyson grunted in disappointment, and she could see why.
About three feet off the ground, a slightly oblong opening had been bricked up. And it had been done a long time ago, judging by the look of it.
“Hold this.” He handed her his flashlight.
She took it.
He put his hands on the brick patch and shoved, his eyes lighting with the effort.
The bricks caved in with a thunderous noise, but they were too far underground for anyone to have heard. She hoped.
He took his flashlight back. “Let me go through and make sure none of the other passageways have been bricked up.”
“Okay.”
He climbed in and, a moment later, stuck his head back out. “All good.”
“Excellent.” She joined him on the other side.
This wasn’t a main area of the catacombs, but one of the secondary limestone tunnels that led to them. “We have a ways to go yet, don’t we?”
“We do. Especially if you want to start at the inscription.”
“I think we should. It’s what the vision showed us. It’s all we have to go on.”
“Agreed. All right, let’s move.”
“You know the way from here?”
“I do. Probably another thirty minutes of walking. Unless you want to go faster.”
“I’m all for that. So long as you can guide us without running us into a wall of bones.”
A little half smile bent his mouth. “I can. I spent way too much time here in my past. Just keep your flashlight on, and we’ll be fine.”
“Done.”
With the increase in speed, they reached the main entrance of the catacombs in minutes. When they stopped, they stood before the arch with the inscription they’d seen, thanks to the potion in the vials.
Arrête! C’est ici l’empire de la mort! Which meant, Stop! This is the empire of death!
But there was no stopping them now.
Kora stared at the words illuminated by her flashlight. “I wish I had a clue what to do next.”
“Hang on,” Greyson said.
He moved off to one side, the beam of his flashlight bouncing across the steps that brought tourists down from the street above.
His beam focused on something she couldn’t make out. The soft scrape of metal against stone followed, then electric lights flickered on throughout the catacombs.
She laughed as she turned her flashlight off. “I guess you did spend a lot of time down here.”
“Yep.” He brushed his hands off. “So where to from here?”
“I don’t know. I guess we go into the catacombs and hope we find the reason we’re here.”
He glanced at the arch in front of them. “Let’s each take a side. We won’t go too far, but we’ll cover a little more ground that way.”
“All right.”
They went through the arch, Greyson going right and Kora going left.
She carefully scanned the walls of bones as she passed them, not knowing what she was looking for, but hoping she’d understand the clue if and when she saw it.
But with foot after foot of wall, nothing appeared. Her frustration level was rising. Maybe she and Greyson needed to talk this through some more. It felt like she was missing something.
She went back toward the entrance, and as she crossed into Greyson’s side, a gentle warmth spread through her chest.
The sensation was so odd, it stopped her in her tracks. She put her hand to her body. She could feel the warmth through the thin silk T-shirt she wore. How was that possible? What would cause such a—the locket.
She was still wearing the locket on a length of ribbon she’d strung it on. Having it on her person had just seemed like a good idea. The locket rested on her sternum, right where the warmth was.
She lifted it from under her T-shirt.
It was warm and glowing softly.
“Greyson,” she whispered.
He was too far ahead for her to see, and in the catacombs, sound wasn’t always reliable. She went farther in the direction he’d gone, but he appeared around a bend a few seconds later.
“Did you find something?”
“Sort of.” She held the locket out.
His brow furrowed. “I don’t get it.”
“The locket.”
“Right. But that’s not new. You’ve had that since Nocturne Falls.”
“Can’t you see how it’s glowing?”
“No.”
“Huh.” Then something behind him caught her eye. She stepped sideways to get a better look. “Wow.”
“What?” He turned to look in the same direction.
“That skull. Third row up. It’s got a sun on it.”
He gave her a rather dubious look. “Where?”
She walked over to it and crouched down. “Right here.”
The locket got warmer.
Her eyes widened. “I think I know what the saying on the vial meant about the sun shining on us.”
She stood up and took the locket off so she could hold it out to him. “Feel this.”
He clasped it between his fingers. “What am I feeling for?”
“How warm it is.”
“Right, but it was just next to your skin, so—” He nodded in understanding. “But you’re not naturally any warmer than I am.”
He glanced down at the skull she’d just been crouched next to. “And now that I’m touching the locket, I can see the sun you’re talking about.” He let go of the locket. “Now I can’t.”
She grinned. “This locket is the sun that’s shining on us.”
“Then that skull must hold the next clue.”
“Or…” She looked around the corner where he’d come from. “Nope. There’s another sun farther down. I think they’re just markers leading us to the clue.”
“Then, by all means, let’s follow them.”
She slipped the locket around her neck again and decided to test his new demeanor toward her. “Maybe if you hold my hand, that will be connection enough to the locket so you can see them, too.”
He shrugged and stuck his hands in his pockets. “I trust you.”
So he
was really committed to keeping her at a distance. Well. She wasn’t a quitter. “But I’m not sure I trust myself. What if I miss one?”
“You won’t. You’ve found two already.”
This wasn’t the time or place to argue with him, and she didn’t want to alienate him further, so she let it go.
But as she turned away to head down the passageway, her pleasant expression disappeared. She was hurt. It bothered her how much. She’d never really cared what anyone thought about her before, and now that she did, he was pulling away for reasons she couldn’t understand.
She had to talk to Hattie and see if Lucien was behind this, but Kora was starting to wonder more and more if Greyson just hadn’t decided on his own that she was too much trouble.
Especially after his comment about her being a burden.
She did her best to quell the oncoming crankiness her line of thought was creating and tried to focus on finding the next sun. After all, the suns were leading her ever closer to the truth about her mother, and that should make her happy.
But at the moment, all she could think about was that if her mother had been a little more loving or a little more caring or just a little more motherly, Kora wouldn’t be in these dank, chilly, musty catacombs to begin with.
Then it hit her. Caring about what had happened to her mother was just like caring about Greyson. She was bearing the burden of the emotion, while they were basically uninvolved.
Was that her new path in life? To experience unrequited affection? If so, it sucked royally.
A new sun appeared a few yards ahead. It was on the bulbous end of what might have been a kneecap.
She pointed it out to Greyson. “Another one.”
He nodded, but said nothing.
She kept moving forward. For a long while, they went straight ahead, but nothing new appeared.
Then she found another sun, and it led them into a space she knew well. Which meant Greyson had to know it, too. She looked back at him.
“The Crypt of the Sepulchral Lamp,” he said softly.
Two thick columns supported the roof of the space, which was lined with skulls and femurs. At the center of the room was a square pedestal made of mortared stone blocks holding a round oil lamp once used by workers to illuminate their efforts. “But there’s no sun in here that I can see.”
The Vampire’s Priceless Treasure Page 11