Between a Vamp and a Hard Place

by Jessica Sims

  I snorted. “Please. That stuff is nothing but fairy tales. The only things alive in this place are dust mites.”

  TWO DAYS LATER

  I ran a strip of tape over a box, sealing it, then stood and rubbed the small of my back. I ached everywhere. “Where are we putting the stuff to ship?” I called out to Gemma.

  “In the kitchen,” she bellowed from upstairs.

  I eyed the stack of boxes blocking me and my latest package from getting to the kitchen. “Can’t we put them by the door?”

  “No,” she yelled again. “I have a system. Kitchen!”

  Damn it. I shoved a stack of boxes out of the way and hauled my package into the kitchen, staggering as I did so. This was so not my line of work. I was the hunter, the eye for treasure. I went out and scoped out sales and found bargains. Gemma was the one who organized and boxed things. All we’d done for the last two days was pick through old junk, get dirty, and haul more crap off to the local dump.

  It was miserable, hard work, and I hated it.

  Worse than that, we’d barely scratched the surface of things. We’d cleared enough to open the front door, but we still couldn’t access the dining room. The kitchen was an unholy mess, and the tiny walkway we’d made through the living area seemed to fill up with more stuff as quickly as we cleaned it out.

  For every box of decent stuff, there were two boxes of junk. Some of it was interesting but didn’t warrant being shipped back to the States. I’d contacted the owner of a local curio shop, who would come by in the next day or two to check things out, but I wasn’t sure they’d find enough to make a dent in the looming mess.

  Three weeks was not going to be enough time to clean this place out. We’d need months. Maybe even a year.

  I grew more depressed as I opened another box and found it full of moth-eaten sweaters. More garbage. More stuff we couldn’t sell. Gemma and I had stayed up late last night, trying to approximate how much we thought we could make based off what we’d found so far.

  The news wasn’t good. Sure, there was money to be made, considering that everything in the Venetian apartment was at least thirty years old. But the cost of shipping it home so we could sell it? Expensive. Gemma was so excited about things, though, that I kept my unhappy thoughts to myself and just worked harder.

  There had to be something of value in this place. Had to be. We just needed to find it.

  The doorway to the blocked-off dining room taunted me. I eyed it with new determination and approached. The wood of the door was heavy, and I pushed at it again. Boxes on the other side prevented me from opening it fully, so I gave it another brutal shove, frustrated.

  It budged an inch.

  Aha. Encouraged, I eyed the crack and wedged my knee in there, then pushed my entire body weight against the door again.

  It moved another inch. I kept at it until the door was open enough to wriggle and squirm my way through. By the time I got to the other side, I’d scraped my belly on the door handle and my T-shirt had a tear in it, but I was through. I straightened up, dusted my hands off, and looked around.

  More boxes.

  With a sigh, I picked my way forward. There was a lovely dining room table and a set of six chairs, all of it thick, heavy wood. That would not be coming back to the States with us. I imagined the shipping costs would be more than the entire fee Gemma had paid for us to come raid this place. I ran a finger over the table’s surface and watched a line appear in the thick dust. This was so discouraging. I looked around the room. At the far end was a heavy wooden buffet, with a small, square, ugly painting of a pastoral scene hanging over it. Curious, I peered at the painting. Real oils. Huh. I couldn’t make out the name, so I leaned in closer.

  The painting fell off the wall and dropped behind the buffet.

  “Drat,” I muttered, then eyed the buffet. If I’d been able to move that heavy door, surely I could push this aside, right? With a determined shove, I gave it everything I had.

  Didn’t budge.

  I frowned, opening the drawers of the buffet. They were made of a light wood, which was odd, considering how heavy the damn thing was. I opened each drawer; they were filled with tablecloths and a few items for setting the table. Nothing heavy. So why couldn’t I push the damn thing aside to get that painting?

  Frustrated, I gave the buffet another shove. It didn’t move at all. I bent down to the ground and peered at the carved feet.

  It was nailed to the floor.

  What the heck? I frowned at the dusty marble floor. How exactly did one nail wood to a marble floor? I felt around under the buffet, then snatched my hand back. What if there were mice? I climbed on the buffet again and lay flat along the top of it, my fingers moving against the wall behind it. Maybe if I could snag the edge of the painting’s frame, I could pull it back up.

  So I reached. And squirmed. And just when I was about to give up, my fingers touched something hard jutting out from behind the buffet. Aha! My painting! I gave a tug with my fingertip.

  The entire wall shuddered and moved, spinning around and nearly flinging me off the buffet.

  I screamed.

  “Lindsey?” Gemma cried out from somewhere upstairs. “Are you all right?”

  I had no idea. I stared in shock at my surroundings. Like something out of a Scooby-Doo episode, I’d tripped a secret switch and the entire wall had flipped around, carrying me with it. Now my legs dangled in the dining room while the rest of me peered over the edge of the buffet into darkness.

  An echoing darkness.

  With a shiver, I sat up, scurried off the furniture, and stumbled backward. Holy cow. A secret door. A secret room! It was all shrouded in darkness, so I couldn’t see what was in there. I moved closer, and the room smelled old and dusty, and a bit damp.

  “What the fuck, Lindsey! Are you okay?” Gemma pushed her way into the box-filled dining room. Then she stopped in her tracks and stared. “Oh my God, what the hell is that?”

  “I think it’s a secret room,” I told her, panting. My heart was racing a mile a minute. “Did Franco mention it to you?”

  “No!” She moved to my side, her fingers digging into my arm. “Do you think it’s haunted?”

  I fought the urge to roll my eyes. Gemma thought that because the place was six hundred years old, it was crawling with ghosts. I hadn’t believed her, but then again, I hadn’t anticipated finding a secret room, either. “Do you have a flashlight? My phone’s just about dead.”

  “What? Why?” She looked shocked. “You’re not going in there, are you?”

  “I might as well,” I told her, warming up to the idea. “I mean, if you were old rich crazy people, where would you hide all your good stuff?”

  “In a secret room,” she said, her eyes wide. “Fuck-a-doodle, do you think there’s treasure? Real treasure?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m thinking that’s the most likely place to hide something,” I told her.

  “What about ghosts?”

  “I can always sell a painting as haunted,” I told her dryly. “I bet that’d make it worth more.”

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, we found a pair of flashlights, ran to the corner store for batteries, then braced ourselves to go exploring. Gemma wasn’t keen on the idea, but she said that if I was going down there, she was, too.

  I shone my flashlight into the dark room, expecting it to be closet sized. To my surprise, it was a tiny room with a turn that led around a corner, and I could see nothing interesting except a few cobwebs. Water dripped from an exposed pipe. That was about it.

  “We should see where this goes,” I told Gemma.

  “You first.”

  I took the lead, sliding past the buffet into the crawl space. As I turned the corner, I peered around cautiously . . . and gasped.

  “Ohmigod, what?” Gemma shrieked behind me. “What do you see?”

  “Stairs,” I told her. “This goes down.” I moved forward and ran a finger over the banister. Instead of dust, here i
t was all covered with a fine layer of damp. A small, twisting spiral staircase of wrought-iron descended into more darkness.

  “Oh fuck,” Gemma breathed. “This is some serious Phantom of the Opera shit.”

  “It’s okay,” I told her. I gave the stairs a shake, and they didn’t budge. “Seems sturdy enough.”

  “Let’s go back.”

  “Are you kidding? We’ve barely started exploring,” I told her. “We’re going down to see what’s in there. We paid ten grand for the privilege, remember?”

  “I’m starting to regret the purchase.”

  Yeah, well, that made two of us. Clutching my flashlight, I moved onto the stairs and began to descend. The stairs creaked as Gemma approached behind me, and we shone our beams around us, looking as best we could. The passage seemed to be heading straight down, much like a well, and the cool damp only added to that sensation. The walls were made of interlocked stone, mortared tightly together. It all looked so old. I wondered how long it had been here.

  Then I wondered what would be waiting at the bottom.

  After what felt like hundreds of steps, my feet alighted on damp stone flooring. My flashlight beam showed me I’d landed in a room.

  No . . . a treasure trove.

  Because what I saw took my breath away. This wasn’t the hoarder’s paradise from before. This was something entirely different. It reminded me of museum storage that I’d seen in a movie once. Wooden crates spilled their contents onto the cool stone flooring, and everywhere I looked, there were beautiful things. A beaten copper bowl rested atop a chess-board. Off to one side, there was a variety of jars settled in old, musty straw. It was drier here, which was probably a blessing, or this stuff would have been covered in mold.

  “Jackpot,” I announced gleefully to Gemma and moved forward.

  The crates were stacked along one side of the wall, the contents of a few opened up and picked through, as if someone had lovingly reviewed old, familiar friends. I saw a lid slightly askew and moved it, shining my flashlight to see what was inside.

  A gleam of white porcelain caught my eye, and my heart hammered. That looked like Chinese porcelain. My favorite. Excited, I pulled the lid off even as Gemma moved past me, exploring.

  “I think there’s a hanging lantern on the wall,” she said, shining her beam. “Too bad they’re not wired for electricity down here, but I bet we could find some matches and light it to see a little better.”

  “Mmmhmm,” I said absently, setting my flashlight down and gently setting the lid on the floor. Three perfectly formed jars were nestled amidst what looked like old, musty fabric. I pulled one out gently, admiring it. A ginger jar, I realized happily. The shape was perfect, and the porcelain lid was still attached and looked to be in perfect condition. The only thing that baffled me was the lack of paint on the jar. Most ginger jars were brightly colored. Unless . . .

  “Hey, Gemma?” My voice sounded a little shaky. “Can you come here for a sec and shine your flashlight for me?”

  “Sure thing,” she said, and appeared at my side, her flashlight beam hitting me in the eyes. “Ooo, is that some Chinese shit?”

  “A ginger jar,” I told her breathlessly. “Can you keep your flashlight shining on it while I examine it?”

  She held it aloft, and I gently pulled the lid off and examined it. Most ginger jars didn’t have their original tops, or the delicate wood circles were split in half, rendering them worthless. This lid was perfect, the jar with nary a chip. I swallowed hard as a paper rustled inside, and I set the lid down and pulled the paper out, examining it. “This is a receipt of purchase,” I told her, shocked. “From 1865.”

  “Oh-em-gee,” she cried. “Provenance, baby!” The flashlight beam wiggled as Gemma did a little dance. We both knew what that meant. Antiques were worth money, of course, but if you could prove how old your stuff was? The value went through the roof. The item I held in my hands was museum quality.

  “Keep shining the light,” I told her and held the jar up to the beam. The light shone in through the mouth of the jar, and as it did, the plain white turned into the pattern of a dragon.

  Gemma gasped.

  I might have, too. “Anhua,” I breathed.

  “What’s that?”

  “Anhua’s a rare form of Chinese pottery,” I told her reverently, setting the jar back down and carefully putting the receipt back inside. “It means ‘hidden design.’ It became popular when Emperor Jiajing decided he didn’t like the ornate designs of most porcelain, so it was made a pure, plain white to appease his eyes, and the designs were hidden into the pottery. It’s a very difficult art form. I . . . I’ve always looked for some but never seen any at auction. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anhua in this perfect a state. Not even in a museum.” I gingerly turned the jar over and gazed at the markings on the bottom. “Qing period. This has to be from the late eighteenth century.”

  “Money-wise, what are we looking at?” Gemma asked, excitement in her voice.

  I stared at the gorgeous, rare jar. A small, selfish part of me wanted to keep it. To be able to admire its beauty on a daily basis. I felt covetous just looking at it.

  I sighed. I had to be smart and sell it. “At least thirty or forty grand, if we can get the right buyers at the auction. Maybe more if we can get investors involved.”

  “Thirty or forty . . . grand?”

  “Maybe more,” I agreed, feeling faint at the thought. This was one item. One. I set it gently back into its nest in the crate. Then I looked at Gemma. “Do you think they all have the receipts?”

  “They might,” she said, and then gave another giddy squeal. “Oh my fucking God. We’re going to be rich, aren’t we?”

  “We just might,” I agreed. I grabbed her hand, and we did a happy dance together, amidst the crates in the secret room.

  Once the initial excitement was over, Gemma raced back up the stairs to get matches for the lanterns while I pried open the next crate and examined its contents. It was a treasure trove of pottery from time periods I’d only read about. There was a Jiajing drinking vessel in the shape of a chicken that was perfectly intact. There were Ming vases. So many Mings in beautiful shapes. There were meipings and moonflasks and garlic-neck vases. There were Kraak plates and ginger jars of every size imaginable. There were even art pieces from different geographical regions—Roman busts and a few Greek amphoras.

  “It’s like these bitches robbed a museum,” Gemma breathed next to me. “This is fucking incredible.”

  “It is,” I agreed, scarcely able to believe it myself. “It’s almost too good to be true.”

  “This is our big break!” Gemma did another happy little dance.

  “Which means we need to work extra hard down here and carefully pack everything,” I said. “Everything. We don’t want to get back and have everything broken. We need to make it tip-top shape.”

  “I’m on it,” she said with a jaunty salute. Then she looked around. “Where should we start?”

  We grabbed the lantern and looked around the room. It was hard to make out the contents, but in the back, I spied a massive crate. “Wow. What could that be?”

  “I don’t know,” Gemma said, moving to my side. “It’s enormous. There’s no pottery that big, right?”

  “Uh, no.” I eyed it, curious myself. We’d found a jackpot of pottery and artifacts, but the crate at the back of the room was bigger than anything else. It was easily three feet tall and six feet long. A few other crates were stacked atop it. I picked one up and moved it, and Gemma held the lantern over me as I cleared off the rest.

  “Let’s guess,” Gemma giggled as I continued to clear it off. “I’m thinking it’s . . . a table. A really big ugly table.”

  “Let’s hope not,” I told her with a grin. “The cost of shipping something like that back would be ridiculous.”

  “Who cares?” she said, swinging the lantern around. “We’ve got a room full of superexpensive jars. I think we can afford a freaking table if w
e want it. I don’t care if it’s made of lead!”

  I laughed, feeling light and carefree. She was right; we had a fortune here. For the first time in days, I felt happy. Excited about the future. Thrilled about our discovery. And it was all because Gemma had taken a risk. I set the crate down and hugged my friend. “You are the best, you know that?”

  “I know,” she said, her voice smug but happy. “Now open up that damn table already!”

  With a crowbar we’d found upstairs, I pried the heavy lid off as Gemma held up the lantern. Then I gave the lid a mighty heave to the side and we leaned over to see what we’d uncovered.

  It was thick, and oblong, and looked to be made of dark stone. For a moment, I didn’t realize it wasn’t a table. Then, I realized it was a coffin.

  Gemma realized it at the same time I did. She gave a tiny scream. I screamed, too, then we both raced up the stairs, frightened out of our minds.

  * * *

  A few hours later, we sat at a well-lit restaurant table, unwilling to go back to the apartment.

  “I told you this place was haunted,” Gemma wept over her baked ziti and wine. “Why is it when we have a big break, there has to be a coffin downstairs?”

  “I don’t know,” I mused, poking at my linguine. I didn’t have much of an appetite . . . except for maybe more gummy bears. I’d packed a few bags in my suitcase, and I’d be breaking them out after dinner. Gemma liked wine when she was bummed. I liked chewy candy.

  “Do you think it’s safe to stay there tonight, or should we get a hotel?”

  My brows drew together. “Of course we’ll stay there. Why wouldn’t we?”

  She gritted her teeth and leaned in so no one could overhear our conversation at the café. “Uh, because there’s a dead dude in the cellar?”

  “We don’t know that anyone’s in there,” I pointed out. I figured we had a fifty-fifty chance of dead dudes. “And even if there is, he’s long dead.”

  “But . . .” She shivered. “I don’t like it. I don’t want to go back.”