The Crypt Thief

by Mark Pryor

  “Back to the sofa. Vite.” He watched as Hugo sat, then looked back and forth between the men. “You know what this is, right? You see, I remember now. It’s in Utah they shoot people, but you are from Texas. So that’s close, I think.”

  “The only people they execute are the guilty,” Hugo said. “Raul has a wife. He has two young children, for heaven’s sake.” Hugo thought he saw the corners of Garcia’s mouth twitch with amusement at the lie. “Villier, you gain nothing by killing him. For God’s sake, think of his family.”

  “He should have gotten a safer job,” Villier said. “I can’t be responsible for his family. They are his responsibility, and his alone.”

  “Monsieur,” Garcia began. He stopped when Villier raised the gun and aimed at his chest.

  “I missed you at the cemetery,” Villier said, glancing at Hugo. “But I’ve been practicing.”

  In slow motion, Hugo saw the man’s finger close around the trigger, saw his head turn toward Garcia, heard the crack of the gun firing, saw the circle that he’d drawn pierced by the bullet that slammed into Garcia’s chest.

  Villier immediately swung the gun back to Hugo, who could only watch as his friend tipped backward in the chair, his head cracking against the desk as he fell to the floor.

  A silence settled on the house as Raul Garcia lay motionless, a pool of blood spreading out beneath him, staining the wooden floor an even darker shade of brown.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  The Scarab kicked the fallen Garcia, smiling when he got no reaction.

  “You son of a bitch,” Hugo said in English.

  “Comment?” Villier stared at him. “You are surprised? You come into my home carrying guns, looking to hurt me. You are surprised I would do that?”

  “I am surprised every time someone is killed in cold blood. Every time.” Hugo took a breath. “What happens now? What happens to me?”

  “We can start with these.” He stooped over Garcia and patted the policeman’s waist, coming up with a set of handcuffs. He tossed them to Hugo. “Put these on. One wrist only.”

  Hugo followed the instruction, then held his arm out, the open cuff dangling in front of him. “And now?”

  “To his wrist.” Villier backed to the front door, keeping space between him and Hugo as the American cuffed himself to the unmoving Garcia. Hugo looked down at his friend and noted that he was no longer bleeding. When the heart stopped, Hugo knew, so did the flow of blood.

  “Sit.” Hugo did, not having much option. The Scarab scuttled past, gun pointing at Hugo, and picked up the two pistols on his way into the kitchen. When he came back out, Villier held only his .22 and a red gas can. “Drag him over here, by the kitchen.”

  Hugo did it as gently as he could, one hand holding Garcia’s arm, the other under his armpit, the capitaine’s head cushioned against his stomach. “You’re going to burn the place now?”

  “I told you I would,” Villier said. “And we’ll leave it to fate to see what happens to you.”

  “I don’t believe in fate,” Hugo said.

  “Neither do I. But I believe in the power of fire. I’ve seen it destroy the most precious thing in the world. Fire itself is a living thing, did you know that?”

  “Living?”

  “Oui. Like us, it needs air to breathe. Like us, it cannot penetrate metal and brick. And like us, it destroys without a care for what is good and bad.”

  “Like you, you mean. Some of us care.”

  “And I suppose you get to decide who’s good and who’s bad?” Villier sneered. “No, those decisions are not for us. That’s what makes fire so pure, it doesn’t make those judgments.”

  He moved past Hugo to the desk, stepping around the pool of blood. He bent and pulled out a canvas bag, placing it carefully on the desk.

  “This is your house,” Hugo said. “Your childhood home. How can you destroy it?”

  Villier looked surprised. “Why would I need it? There’s nothing here for me. Everything I need I carry with me. In fact,” he opened the bag, “this is the only thing I really need.” He pulled out a turquoise ornament and held it up for Hugo to see, the smooth and familiar shape filling Villier’s hand.

  “The scarab beetle,” Hugo said. “You’re not going to leave one with Capitaine Garcia?”

  Villier shook his head. “You’d like that. For me to come that close to you. Nothing to lose at this point, n’est-ce pas?”

  Hugo went on, his voice low and calm. “You’re saving that one for someone else?”

  “Oh yes, this one . . .” Villier turned his eyes to it and paused. “This one is very special indeed.” He looked up. “We’re wasting time, I have work to do.”

  “What kind of work?”

  But Villier wasn’t listening. He put the gun on the desk, beside his bag, and unscrewed the cap of the gas container. He sloshed some on the sofa, then across the wooden floor, drawing a barrier between him and Hugo. Immediately the small room filed with the powerful smell of gasoline and instinctively Hugo started taking shallow breaths. He’d seen what gas did in a closed environment—child killer Nathan Montgomery doused himself in the stuff an hour before Hugo caught up with him, sitting in the front seat of his car. As soon as he lit the match, his lungs had been incinerated, the fumes charring the delicate tissue in a literal flash. Hugo didn’t want the same to happen to him, not if Villier was giving him the faintest hope of survival.

  When he’d emptied the can, he looked at Hugo. “Silly me, I forgot something.”

  “Matches?” Hugo said.

  “Your cell phone. And his.”

  Hugo’s last lifeline. He was tempted to tell Villier to come and take them, but he knew that could only get him shot. Reluctantly, he slid them across the floor. Villier gathered them and dropped them, and his pistol, straight into his bag. When he brought his hand out, it was holding a cigarette lighter and he made sure Hugo was watching as he flipped the lid open. Taking a lingering look around the room, the Scarab picked up his bag, opened the door, and started to back out, his eyes on Hugo. “Bonne chance,” he said, his voice a whisper. “Let’s test our disbelief in fate.”

  The Scarab threw the keys to the handcuffs at Hugo and lifted the arm that held the lighter. In that moment of silence, Hugo could hear the thumbwheel as it began to grate against the flint. He held his breath and twisted his body as the roar filled his ears, Hugo pressing himself face down over Garcia, protecting them both from the sudden burst of light and heat that scorched across his back. He lay there for five long seconds as the pop and crackle of flame intensified behind him, making sure all the fumes had burned up before taking a breath.

  When he was sure he could move safely, he rolled to his side and dragged Garcia toward the kitchen, panic rising as the heat rolled over them. Plaster dropped from the walls and ceiling, burning clumps of orange that exploded as they hit the floor.

  Hugo bumped his head against the door jamb and he felt his throat close as smoke streamed over his head into the kitchen. Moments later Hugo was on his knees and through the doorway. He grabbed Garcia’s legs and pulled the rest of him in, then kicked the door closed against the inferno raging in the living room.

  He bent over, the keys shaking in his hands, Hugo willing himself to stay calm enough to get the tiny piece of metal into the lock. He managed it at the second stab, twisting his wrist out of the metal cuff and automatically rubbing it. He stepped quickly to the side door he’d checked earlier that led into, he presumed, an outside alleyway that would take him to the back of the house. He reached up and slid open the bolt, then did the same at the foot of the door. He turned the handle and pulled, but the door didn’t budge. He looked on the counter for a key, pulled open a drawer and rifled through it, but found nothing. He went back to the door and pulled again, using all his strength, but it didn’t move. He threw open the small window and tested the bars, knowing in an instant they were stronger than he was.

  He looked toward the living room and saw flames lic
king at the foot of the kitchen door, threatening to melt it with the ferocity of the heat that was destroying the living room. He swore under his breath, then stepped across the capitaine’s limp body to the sink. He plugged it and turned both taps on, then started opening drawers. He found a meat tenderizer, like a small metal hammer, and tucked it into his back pocket.

  He took hold of Garcia by the wrists and dragged him through to the bathroom. Hugo grabbed a thin towel, dropped it in the basin, and let water run over it as he closed the bathroom door. Once the towel was wet, he wedged it under the door, a weak and temporary barrier to the smoke that was already finding its way into the tiny space.

  He put one foot into the tub and took aim at the small window. He wasn’t even sure he would fit through, but it was the only way out, and his only source of fresh, breathable air. He raised the hammer over his shoulder and aimed it at the center of the glass. It gave way, and large shards crashed into the bath tub, shattering around his feet. He swung again and again, more controlled now, encouraged by the fresh air that swirled around his face into the room. The window broken wide, Hugo ran the hammer around the frame, clearing the glass away, not caring that it fell onto his clothes. When all the visible pieces were cleared, he pulled his jacket off and used it to wipe away the smallest of the shards, then dropped it on the floor.

  He took one more look at Garcia and his heart lurched. “I’m not going to leave you here, mon ami. I’ll come back, I promise.”

  He meant it, but Hugo had no idea how he was going to keep that promise. The smoke had weakened him and he didn’t think he had the strength to lift the policeman up to the window, and he was certain that even if he did, Garcia’s round form wouldn’t fit through.

  He turned to the window and dragged himself up. His muscles screamed with the exertion, and the edge of the window frame chewed and scraped its way into his flesh, but by wriggling and kicking he forced his upper body through the small gap. The rest of him followed easily and, exhausted, he dropped into the unkempt yard. He didn’t pause to rest. He scrambled up and ran to the low brick wall that separated Villier’s back garden from a farmyard behind it.

  Two men, a father and son perhaps, came out of the rear of the farmhouse as Hugo reached the wall. They pointed to the Villier house, bleeding smoke out of every pore.

  “What’s happening?” the elder man shouted. “Who are you?”

  “Police,” Hugo shouted. “There’s a man inside, another policeman. He’s hurt.” That word rang in his head, as if saying it would make it true.

  The two men shot each other a look and trotted over to the low brick wall. “How can we help?” the younger man asked.

  “Please, we need an ambulance and the firemen.” Hugo looked back at the window he’d just breached and was relieved to see a thin stream of smoke and no flames. The door was holding, for now.

  The men gave each other the look again. “Monsieur,” the eldest said. “Ce n’est pas possible. The fire engines can’t get up to the house. The street is too narrow. If there’s something that must be done,” he shrugged, “it must be done by us.”

  Hugo wanted to scream. “The man inside, he’s in the back bathroom but he can’t get out. He’s injured and won’t fit through the window.”

  They turned at a loud cracking sound and watched as the roof at the front of the house collapsed, filling the air with sparks and a thick spew of black smoke, and releasing angry tongues of flame that flicked toward the sky.

  “Whatever it is, we need to hurry,” the old man said.

  “J’ai une idée,” said the younger man, pointing to the bathroom. “They used to have an outhouse, the bathroom was an addition. Brick, not stone.”

  He turned and ran into the open barn that stood behind the farmhouse. An engine roared and seconds later a tractor rumbled around the corner into the farmyard, three long spikes pointing at them from the semi-raised arms of the front loader.

  “Bale spears,” the old man grinned. “For hay. My son is a genius.”

  The young farmer gunned the engine and waved at Hugo and the old man to get out of the way, and they backed off as the tractor picked up speed.

  The garden wall split like plywood, barely slowing the tractor as it bounced toward Villier’s house and the wall to the bathroom. Hugo grimaced as he watched the charge, hoping Garcia would be safe from those fearsome spikes and whatever they knocked loose. He ran through the hole in the garden wall and stopped as the heavy metal of the arms punched into the house below the small bathroom window. The tractor’s engine screamed as the farmer threw it into reverse, the bale spears goring the house and not wanting to give up their purchase. But the tractor finally bucked as the prongs pulled free and the window frame collapsed, bricks and plaster spewing out into the yard.

  The farmer killed the engine and threw himself out of the cab, joining Hugo who was working himself into the hole in the side of the house. They stopped as a cloud of dust and smoke billowed out over them, forcing them back into the open air, choking and spitting.

  Hugo pulled his shirt off and wrapped it around his nose and mouth, then dove back into the crumbling hole, falling sideways into the bathtub, scraping his side and elbow on the rubble that had been knocked into it. He scrambled out and dropped to the floor, landing on Garcia’s legs. Hugo wrestled himself into position and hoisted his friend toward the hole, his eyes stung by the smoke and streaming tears, his only guide to safety the halo of light made by the farmer.

  Hugo lumbered to the gash in the wall where the young farmer was waiting. Hugo flinched as another rafter or section of roof crashed down behind him, sending a furnace-like wave of heat over his back. The bathroom door popped once and flew open, smoke pouring through into the bathroom as if it were a living entity looking to smother its prey.

  “Vite! Vite!” the farmer shouted, his thick arms stretching through the gap. Hugo fell into them and found himself dragged out into the garden, rolling on the grass to dissipate the heat that had scorched his back, neck, and hair, gasping at the clean air as he coughed out the soot and smoke from the burning house.

  He crawled on all fours to the back of the yard where the two farmers knelt beside Garcia, ash and burning debris raining down around them.

  He heard voices and looked up to see half a dozen men stretching two garden hoses from the farmyard toward them. The Villier house was already dead, Hugo knew, their only intent was ensuring the survival of the farm and neighboring houses. With Hugo beside Garcia, father and son stood and watched for a moment.

  “Stay still and rest. You’ll be safe there,” the old man said to Hugo. Then he nodded at the still form of Garcia and the two men walked quickly through the gap in the garden wall, taking charge of the village firefighters.

  Hugo lay back next to Garcia, his lungs thick and heavy, his muscles and the scrapes from the rubble burning. He twisted to look at his friend, their heads almost touching. He felt tears coming, and closed his eyes.

  The voice in his ear was barely there, barely a whisper. “Hugo.”

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Hugo jerked onto his side and stared at Garcia, sure his mind was playing tricks. He leaned over and took the Frenchman’s wrist, but his own hands were shaking too much to locate a pulse.

  All Hugo could do was stare while his mind did somersaults. It wasn’t possible, he’d seen Garcia shot in the chest. In the heart.

  Then Garcia groaned and again whispered, “Hugo.”

  Hugo forced himself to sit up, incredulous. “Raul? Can you hear me?” He tore open Garcia’s windbreaker and then the shirt underneath. He almost laughed with relief.

  “They hurt,” Garcia’s voice was weak, ragged. “My head, my chest.”

  “No wonder, you wily old bastard. When the hell did you put this on?”

  Garcia looked at him for a second, as if taking his time to focus, to understand. “Oh, the vest.” A thin smile. “I was embarrassed. It was in the trunk of the car with the .44. Merde, did that bas
tard also shoot me in the head?”

  “Non, you hit it when you fell backward. You bled a lot and I thought . . .” He took Garcia’s hand. “You scared me, Raul. You scared the hell out of me.”

  Garcia grunted, then, “Why are we out here? Where is Villier?”

  “He set the house on fire. And he’s gone.”

  “Alors, go get him. Why are you waiting?”

  “I was busy getting you.” But he was right, Hugo knew. In the mountains, Villier had a limited number of routes available to him but the farther north he went, toward Paris, the harder it would be to catch him. He remembered the blue Citroën and cursed himself for not taking the license plate, or even noting the model.

  “Messieurs.” Hugo looked up and saw two medics stepping over the bricks and into the garden. One carried an orange, lightweight stretcher. Beside them, a policeman with the tired walk and crumpled suit of the nearly retired was advancing, his eyes wary.

  “Attendez,” the policeman said, and the medics halted. He looked at Hugo. “Monsieur Bazin, the farmer, told me you were policemen.”

  “I’m security chief at the US Embassy,” Hugo said, nodding toward Garcia. “He’s the policeman.”

  “Alors, you are the ones who flew in from Paris.”

  “Oui,” Hugo said.

  “I heard about that, but no one knew why you were here.”

  “You’ve heard of the serial killer they call the Scarab?” When the policeman nodded, Hugo went on. “The Scarab is Claude Villier. He was here, did all this.”

  “I have been in this region for forty years, been a policeman for most of that time.” He shook his head and looked at the burning house. “That has always been a dark place. How can I help?”