FaceOff (28 page)

He knew the mausoleum well; he’d come out here often enough in his misspent youth with friends. Adolescents loved to sneak out to the ruins of the Chastain plantation and into the old cemetery to tell ghost stories and try to scare themselves—and dare one another to sleep in the mausoleum. They were somewhat outside the French Quarter and the old section of the city where the timeworn buildings and Spanish and French architecture ruled in the unique and beautiful aura of faded elegance that created the atmosphere of New Orleans. Far from the jazz bands and commercial pop that emanated from the clubs on Bourbon.

Yet, here, out in the bayou area, Michael felt even more a part of the essence of Orleans Parish. Here, the cicadas were rubbing their wings; he heard the rustle of the wind through skeletal trees that scattered the graveyard. And beneath the meager glow of the moon, he felt the pervasion of death and history and something lonely and sad as well.

The cemetery was not the size of St. Louis, but was built in the true style of the “cities of the dead” that were so much a part of the South Louisiana landscape. Eerie by night, the small and large tombs did seem to make up their own city and it was easy to imagine that ghostly denizens might emerge from the wrought iron gates and different archways and openings at any minute, ready to dance beneath the sliver of moonlight.

The vigil seemed long. The tomb he leaned against seemed
cold despite the sultry weather of the night. His muscles began to tighten.

There. Movement.

Quinn saw someone in dark clothing—almost invisible in the night—moving like a wraith. He appeared to slip through the iron gate and the giant wooden doors of the structure. They must have been left ajar. How? By whom?

Quinn waited, damning the fact that his own heartbeat seemed loud in the night. He watched; he’d seen only one person. He’d begun his vigil almost two hours early to see who would come.

He didn’t head across the overgrown path to the front of the vault. He knew it well. Hell, he’d slept in the damned thing. The Chastain dead were apparently not vengeful; nothing had happened to him. And, oddly enough, he could be grateful now that he did know the vault so well.

He knew of a small entrance at the back, behind the altar. Apparently, one of the Chastain founding family members had liked to enter unobserved and mourn his dead.

Quinn hurried around as quickly as he could, ever watchful of the front.

Nothing.

Coming to the rear, he took his time, barely breathing as he carefully pried open the rear iron door, praying it wouldn’t screech. No one had used it in some time but the vines and weeds that should have nearly choked it had been pulled away.

Something was off here. But still, he was sure he could use this passage to get the jump on whoever was inside.

He eased the door open just wide enough to get his body through. He dropped and rolled behind the altar as quickly as he could. The rear wall offered broken stained glass windows and the weak illumination of the moon came through what remained of
the colored glass in a strange purple color. The air smelled musty, but no surprise there.

A tile tilted under his left shoe. Had the intruder hidden back here? If so, where was he now? Something within Quinn wanted to investigate that tile, pry it up—

Later.

He held his breath and listened. No sound. Not even the other’s breathing. Was he holding his breath, too?

No. The mausoleum
felt
empty. But how could that be? Quinn had seen him go in.

Pulling his revolver, he moved out from behind the altar and crept around, searching. The place was empty. But that was imposs—

A sudden flurry of movement stunned him—someone moving with lightning speed, hurtling toward him. Quinn spun away but something cold and metallic rammed none too gently against the base of his skull.

“Another move and your brain stem comes out your nose.”

The pistol’s muzzle was positioned to do just what the intruder said, so Quinn froze, cursing himself. He’d played just about every role known to man in life, from idiot hero-addict to cop and now investigator of the unusual—and he wasn’t accustomed to being the one taken by surprise.

But, hell, he’d also learned how to talk and stall, how to retreat to fight again—and this seemed the right time for that.

“Okay, okay.”

The other man snickered as he removed Quinn’s revolver from his grasp. “Some hit man.”

The words stunned Quinn. “What—what did you say?”

“You heard me.”

“You called me a hit man.”

“On your knees. Gotta little hog-tying to do.”

“Wait just a goddamn minute. Who do you think I am?”

“That lady de Medici’s boy. Now on your knees or I put your own slugs through them.”

Madame de Medici?
Quinn thought.
He thinks I work for her?

“I’ve had no contact with the madame. Ever. I don’t know where you got your information, but I was hired by the owner, Jules Chastain.”

He could feel the other man stiffen behind him.

“Bullshit.”

“No,
true
shit.” He spoke quickly. “Reach into my jacket pocket for my ID. My name is Michael Quinn. I’m a private investigator in New Orleans.”

The muzzle pressed harder against his skull as the man reached around, found the folder, and removed it.

“It’s too dark to read in here anyway.”

“You mean you came without a flashlight?”

“No.” His tone was annoyed. “It’s just that my hands are full at the moment.”

He shoved Quinn toward the chairs. “Have a seat while I figure this out.”

Quinn did as he was told. The guy seemed dangerous but Quinn felt no fear of him. Odd. It was occurring to him that they’d both been taken—he hoped it was occurring to the other guy, too.

A flashlight glowed and Quinn caught a glimpse of some nondescript features, then the beam shone straight into his face.

“This could be fake.”

Quinn held up a hand to shield his eyes. “Yeah, it could be, but it’s not.”

The ID folder sailed through the light and landed in his lap.

“I don’t know why I believe you, but I do. Why did Chastain hire you?”

“To protect this place from a thief he was tipped was coming. That would be you, I guess.”

Quinn winced inwardly. It had seemed like a nothing job; he hadn’t even told Danni about it. Chastain was rich; he and Danni often needed hefty sums in their line of work: pulling in a nice, up-front paycheck for a few hours of work while she was busy with a celebration ceremony had seemed like a damned good idea.

He should have known there’d be a catch—like nearly getting his fool self killed.

The other man barked a bitter laugh. “No, I’m no thief. Chastain hired me to retrieve a ring he’d hidden here.”

“
What?
”

“Yeah. What the fuck?”

The silence lengthened between them until Quinn finally said, “Can I have my pistol back?”

“It’s a revolver, and a revolver is not strictly a pistol.”

Quinn had to laugh. “You mean I let a gun nerd get the drop on me?”

“Facts is facts, and no, you can’t have it back. At least not yet.”

“Not yet is okay. But how the hell did you get the drop on me?”

“Chastain told me about the rear door. I didn’t trust him, so I went in the front and out the back, then watched the place. I saw you go in the back so I followed.”

Quinn had to admit that was pretty clever, even as he kicked himself for falling for it. He’d seen how the vines at the rear had been disturbed but he’d come in anyway.

“You do realize we’ve been set up, right?”

Another short, sharp laugh. “Ya think? I
knew
this smelled bad.”

“You don’t sound like a local.”

“Got that right. Chastain told me to be prepared for ‘deadly
force.’ He’d made it sound defensive. Now I’m thinking he wanted me to use it. What’s he got against you?”

“Nothing that I know of. Barely know the man. But I
do
know him better than you. I’m local. You know my name. What’s yours?”

“Jack.”

“ ‘Jack’ what?”

“Just Jack’ll do. Seems like I was supposed to kill you.”

Quinn’s muscles tightened, ready to leap. He’d actually been declared ‘dead’ once already. He didn’t fear death.

But he sure as hell didn’t want to die.

“And?” he asked flatly.

A shrug. “Don’t see any reason to.” Jack pulled out a folded piece of paper and handed it to Quinn. “This is supposedly where Chastain hid the ring I was supposed to bring him. Suppose it’s bogus, too.”

Quinn looked over the diagram and the instructions.

“Don’t you want a light?” Jack said.

“Don’t need it.” Quinn studied the diagram. “There should be a jagged little crack in the bottom of the first vault—the oldest—according to this.”

He ignored the fact that the other man had a gun while he still didn’t, and chanced turning his back on him to head to the rear of the vault and hunker down. He looked at the diagram again and stuck his hand into the jagged crack on the lowest shelf—that of Antioch Chastain, founder of the clan. As the diagram suggested, his hand hit a box; a wooden box. He withdrew it—along with a mass of spiderwebs and bone dust. He looked at Jack, and then opened the box.

“Empty,” they announced together.

“Figures,” Jack said. “The whole thing was a setup.”

“But why? He wanted us both here for a reason.”

“Why here? And by the way, haven’t you folks heard of
graves
?”

Quinn laughed. “The water table’s too high. And, actually, the cemeteries were conceived during the Spanish rule, and their design is according to the custom of the time. Good custom here—bury someone and you could find their coffin floating along in the next heavy rain.”

“So you pigeonhole them in these little buildings? Doesn’t it get ripe after a while? And what happens when you run out of shelves?”

“Here in Louisiana, the rule is ‘a year and a day.’ The heat is so great that bodies mostly cremate in that time. These tombs are like ovens. Families shovel the bits and bones of the remains of one loved one to a mutual ‘holding’ section at the foot of the shelf so that another family member can find his or her resting place for a year and a day—or until the shelf is needed again.”

“That’s gross. What country is this?”

“The United States of Louisiana. We have our own way of doing things.”

“I guess you do.” Jack looked around. “Great setting for a horror film, though. Hey, you think that’s why he got us here—to film us fighting? Some sick YouTube snuff vid?”

“You think he’s hidden a camera?”

“He didn’t fly me down from New York so we could have this nice little chat. Gotta be some reason he put us both here.”

Quinn didn’t see a camera anywhere, but memory of the loose tile flashed through his head. “It’s probably nothing, but—”

He ducked behind the altar and pried up the tile. Only dirt beneath it. But soft dirt.

He dug and struck metal within the first inch. He worked his
fingers around it and came up with a bracelet made of strange metal and carved with even stranger designs. A green stone the size of a dime was embedded in its center. It looked familiar.

“I know this piece: the Cidsev Nelesso.”

“Sounds like a gelato flavor,” Jack said.

“It was found sealed in a sunken temple dedicated to an as yet unidentified deity in the drowned city of Heracleion.”

“So what’s it doing here?”

“Good question. It and part of a papyrus scroll found with it were smuggled out and sold on the black market. The buyer was purportedly Chastain.”

“And you know all this how?”

Quinn hesitated. “I’m a private investigator. And I’ve been a cop for the City of New Orleans. But, these days—”

He held off. He was always careful, especially with strangers—and more especially, New Yorkers. But, to his great humiliation, this guy could have killed him.

And he hadn’t.

“Part of what I do these days is work with a woman,” he said softly. “Danni Cafferty. Her father owned a shop and I worked with him until his death. And now Danni and I . . . collect things. Unusual things. Angus Cafferty was a real scholar and, in his business, he needed to know about history and—things.”

“Things?”

“Curiosities of evil,” Quinn said. “Believe me or not. Objects that are cursed or that create evil in those who know how to use them or seek power through them. And I have a feeling now that we’re not dealing with any film project—we’re dealing with a thing that can cause evil.”

Quinn waited for the other man—
Jack
—to tell him he was crazy.

Jack didn’t say any such thing. Instead, “What about this Madame de Medici he mentioned?”

“She’s another notorious collector, but the way this is going, I doubt she knows anything—just a red herring in the story Chastain concocted for you.”

Jack took the bracelet and held it up, turning it this way and that in the wan moonlight filtering through the stained glass.

“Valuable?”

“ ‘Priceless’ might be a better word. It’s one of a kind. Supposedly one of the Seven Infernals.”

He saw Jack stiffen. “An Infernal?” He shoved it back into Quinn’s hands. “Here.”

“You know of the Infernals?”

“Unfortunately, yeah. Met one.”

Something in his expression said it had been a harrowing encounter. Jack hadn’t doubted Quinn—and Quinn didn’t doubt Jack for a minute.

“But hardly anybody’s even
heard
of the Infernals. Even Danni—”

“Danni—your partner who collects things?”

“Her shop is called The Cheshire Cat. It’s on Royal Street. She sells art, jewelry, and
innocent
collectibles. And she has a separate collection of things in the basement which will never be sold.” He hesitated. “We also destroy things when they need destroying. And when there are things out there that might cause . . . violence or havoc, people sometimes come to her—or The Cheshire Cat.” He shrugged. “We work together most of the time; she had to be at a ceremony with a friend of ours, a voodoo priestess.”