I leave the square and stagger down the windy road, the half-drunk bottle and brimming anger my only companions.
I want to dosomething. Something petty to make me feel better. So, when I stumble over the cemetery grounds and find myself outside a mausoleum with DE MOREL etched into the stone, I grin from ear to ear. I recall Bastian saying,“Loot his home. Would that make you happy?”
It’s not his home but will do just fine.
My vision blurs before clearing and sharpening.And yes, Bastian, it would make me very happy.
I’m about to make the acquaintance of the legendary Viviene, a few dusty great-grandparents, and a pervy second cousin, because every family’s got one of those. Or at least, all the families I lived with had some touchy-feely relative. Not that anyone’s ever managed to slide their hands down my pants, but some tried. One ended up with smashed knuckles; the other with a missing phalanx. Booze dulls the memory of their ugly faces.
The granite structure sparkles intermittently behind the mist, a miniature version of the pantheon, complete with a portico of four columns. I step between the columns and practically kiss an iron bar. Damn fog.
Behind the metal gate, I make out the statue of a woman, carved so that her stone tunic and hair are perpetually blowing in the wind. She stands atop a weather-beaten tomb inscribed with the name VIVIENE that’s so worn it’s practically illegible.
Putain de merde.I shake the bars, but they don’t even rattle. This can’t be the only way in. There’s got to be a door worthy of the tools I carry around. I stumble back into the snow and round the structure. Sure as shit, there’s a side entrance that might as well display the words BREAK IN HERE in neon tubing.
I take my rake pick and tension wrench from the inside pocket of my coat and jimmy the padlock. The rusty hinges scream as I push open the iron door. The reek of mildew, soil, and rotting meat reminds me a lot of my third foster home. Such fond fucking memories.
With my phone light, I take inventory. Eight coffins lie on recessed shelves carved into walls covered with spiderwebs and moss. A stone sarcophagus with an engraved four-leaf clover on the lid sits in the middle of the crypt like a beacon.
I gulp another mouthful of Pinot Noir, then drop the bottle onto the packed-dirt floor. It tips and spills, tingeing the foul, musty air of vinegar.
I start with the coffins set out like hors d’oeuvres, just ready for the picking. One good kick and the decaying wood on the first coffin snaps. A skeleton glares at me from inside, ancient pennies where its eyes should be.
The other seven are just as easy to open. I pocket a pearl brooch, two necklaces made of precious stones, several gold rings, and sapphire buttons. There’s really no reason for me to put any effort into opening the sarcophagus.
The rule when looting isin and out. My second foster father, Hector, taught me that. He learned the hard way, spending time behind bars for taking an extra forty-three seconds to open a drawer he should’ve left shut.
This is different, though. This is personal. So I’m leaving no stone unturned.
I’m here to do damage.
Using a thighbone from coffin number three as a crowbar, I begin prying the heavy stone lid, my breath coming out in white puffs. The marker on the sarcophagus readsAmandine de Morel—Rainier’s Sister? Cousin? Mother?—and dates her death as February 29th, seventeen years ago. I’m drunk enough to find that both funny and kind of heartbreaking. Imagine the anniversary of your death only being marked every four years.
It makes me wonder when my parents died exactly. And how? And if maybe they’re buried somewhere in this eerie, frozen cemetery.
I’m not really sure I want to know.
The stone cover inches to the side as I coax it with my nifty bone. When there’s finally enough space for me to grip the edge, I shove the damn thing with all my might. It slides over, revealing a shiny mahogany coffin inside. The lid pops off like a rotten tooth, and like a rotten tooth, the stench is eye-watering.
My first reaction, after wanting to heave up all the wine, is disappointment. All that artifice for a decaying corpse with no jeweled crown or tiara. She doesn’t even have worthless pennies over her lids like the others, and her palms aren’t sandwiched in prayer around a family heirloom.
She only has one hand resting over her heart. Her left arm is tucked underneath the rotting silk of her skirt. With one gloved finger, I push the material aside.
Holy. Fucking. Hell.
Jackpot.
A gold ring with an enormous scarlet gem adorns the retracting flesh of her bony finger. The oval stone looks like something out of a museum. Something housed behind bulletproof glass and protected by a hi-tech security system.
I whoop in celebration, hiccupping from my wine-fest, then take my phone from where it’s propped on a ledge and beam the flashlight directly onto the ring. The red stone’s so translucent it seems to pulse and swirl. I like beautiful things. But this . . . this goes beyond beautiful. It’s exquisite.
I pick it up. It’s larger than expected, heavier. Amandine de Morel must’ve had some seriously big hands. There are words engraved inside the band, written in a language I’m unfamiliar with. Still, I sound them out for the fun of it: “Erenez e v’am.”
In my head, I’m already compiling a list of potential buyers for this beauty.
Tugging off my leather glove with my teeth, I slide the ring onto my middle finger. The gem, which covers my finger to the knuckle, is oddly warm. I raise my hand and flip off the entire crypt. But what I’m really doing is giving the finger to Rainier de Morel himself.
“Screw you, De Morel, youenfoiré!” My voice reverberates off the dank walls.
