He chuckled and gave one last look around before going in. After separating himself from Gem’s excitement, he was hit by the stale air first. No lingering emotional scents left behind from anyone who might be hiding—that was a good sign. He detected a mixture of paper, cardboard, plastic, and mold. “Hmm. Not impressed.” Claude located a switch and turned on the overhead lights.
“Don’t be such a grump.” Gem skipped through the empty space, which resembled an oversized garage. There were two ramps that led to the loading dock doors, and lots of crates were stacked up against the far wall. “It’s here!”
She pointed at the freight elevator on the opposite wall. As he crossed the room, her enthusiasm filled his nose like the fragrance of peppermints and freshly cut grass.
Gem looked up at him and clutched his brown leather jacket. Not even her stacked shoes could bring her close to his height. “Claude Valentine, will you hurry up and open that door? There’s no one else here, or you’d smell it. I’m about to pee my pants if I don’t get to see what’s down there.”
“What if it’s bodies?”
Gem shivered. “Good point. Maybe you should go first.”
After he punched in the code, the elevator door opened. Ronald had given him instructions to wait until the door closed before using the key. Claude inserted the key in the slot, turned it, and then pushed the basement button. The elevator shook hard and finally moved down.
Gem checked her phone. “I hope we don’t get stuck down here. At least there’s still reception.”
Claude enjoyed Gem’s company. She had a way of making any mundane task into an adventure. “Stand against the wall.”
“Do you really think someone’s down there? I don’t feel any energy.”
“All the same, let’s not take chances.”
When the door opened, the light from inside the elevator scarcely lit up the floor in front of them. Claude’s Chitah vision allowed him to see a vast underground storage that stretched ahead of them.
Gem walked out and stared into the dark shadows.
Following Ronald’s instructions, Claude located the light switch on the side of the elevator doors. When he flipped it, the overhead lights blinked on section by section until they reached the far back.
“Jiminy Christmas!” Gem faced a massive room filled with treasures.
Rows of columns offered structural support. A stand-alone storage building on the right seemed oddly placed but must have had a specific purpose for the previous tenants. Maybe a computer room where they logged inventory.
Gem found a crowbar by the elevator and raced up to a crate.
After he helped her crack it open, she pulled away the packing and gasped. “Claude, look!” Gem sorted through a stack of paintings that were each wrapped in plastic. “These are all from the fifteenth century.”
“And probably worth nothing,” he muttered.
“Says you.” She flounced over to a giant tarp. “Do you know how much those go for at auction if they’ve got history or if the people in those pictures are famous Breed?” When she pulled the tarp away, she gasped. “Gold! I think I’m going to faint.”
Claude gawked at the gold bars stacked on top of a platform. He had never seen that many in one place, and there was a row of tarps behind it, each revealing the same thing as Gem ripped the covers away. She started taking pictures as Viktor had instructed, not only of the facility but each section.
Claude walked past more open crates. The building above must have been built and owned by Breed. Humans would never build an underground storage this big in the middle of nowhere. It was possible they might have used it for commercial printing and just removed all the equipment, though placing it underground was unlikely. He found a crate with no lid and glanced inside at a ton of sheathed swords. “These must have belonged to Li Han.”
Gem skipped toward him with a giant jade dragon in her arms. “Do you think Viktor will let me have it?”
He chortled. “I’ll put in a good word for you.”
Her violet eyes lit up when she looked behind him. “Books!”
Claude turned and looked at a bunch of crates. “How do you know?”
She set the dragon down and pointed to a sign on the side, repeating what it said. “Books.” Gem struggled to push open the lid. “Claude, help me. I can’t.”
He lifted the crowbar and worked on it until he got it open.
After sliding away the lid, Gem dove inside headfirst. “They’re all different languages. This one is alchemy, and this one is Chitah history during the Byzantine Empire. Do you realize how incredible this is? Books about Breed history were never allowed, and the elders destroyed so many of them to keep their secrets. The only surviving ones are from personal collections.” She grunted. “Now we’re allowed to archive them. When immortals die, some of their books wind up in pawnshops, but most are tossed away as trash. So much history is lost. Oh! This one starts with notes from a family of Relics…”
Claude gripped the back of her sweater and pulled her back up to her feet. “Don’t fall in, female. We have much work to do. I wager it’ll take hours for us to open it all and get photographs—let’s be quick about it.”
