Death Mask. Alex Archer

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      She edged forward in the dark, trying not to make a sound.

      She was lucky the avenue was straight and that the person moving toward her was carrying a hooded lantern, which spread its glow across the floor without lighting the entire tunnel. She was going to have to get out of there, though. There was no way her luck was going to hold. Annja crept along the passageway, trying to time her footsteps to those of the newcomer. It wasn’t easy, but thankfully, the other person wasn’t trying to be quiet.

      Annja almost missed the narrow flight of stairs—old stone steps with well-worn edges leading upward.

      She held her breath as the lantern swung in the darkness.

      A muffled voice called out, too indistinct for her to make out any words.

      She stopped moving.

      She could wait and hope the newcomer missed her, or trust to whatever god looked after reckless explorers in ancient crypts, and take the stairs, praying they’d lead her out of there and not into trouble. Fortune favors the brave, she thought. She took the first few stairs as fast as she could, making sure that she got her body out of the line of sight in case the hooded lantern’s light got too close too quickly. When she was high enough up the staircase, Annja turned on the flashlight. The time for stealth was over. She broke into a run, her boots clattering on the stone.

      “¿Quién es?” the newcomer shouted from below. Annja took no notice. She needed to get out, fast, and hang on to the key. That was the most important thing right now. That key opened something, somewhere. A Moorish tomb in a Christian burial ground—that had to mean something. She wasn’t far enough down the path to know what, yet, but she would. Did it have anything to do with the mask she was looking for? Impossible to say. She couldn’t worry about that now. All she could do was run. And she did, clutching the flashlight in one hand, the key in the other. She wasn’t about to risk it falling out of her pocket.

      An icy thrill of fear coursed through Annja when she saw the heavy wooden door blocking her way at the top of the stairs. She hit it hard, expecting it to bounce her back, but it swung open easily. Without hesitating, she stepped through and slammed it closed behind her. There was a key in the lock. She turned it, locking it on the person in the crypt.

      It took a moment for Annja to realize where she was. She hadn’t emerged in the Zorrilla Theater, but, perhaps unsurprisingly, in a church.

      Her phone rang almost as soon as she took her first steps down the aisle toward the door that would take her outside. The only worshipper, a woman kneeling at the altar, turned and offered her a withering glance. Annja was getting a lot of those these days. She hurried down the aisle and out into the fresh air before she checked her phone.

      Number withheld.

      “Hello,” she said.

      “Well, well, well... Am I to take it you have found religion?” the voice in her ear mocked.

      It took her a moment to realize she was speaking to Garin’s kidnapper, the voice from the video feed. The fact that he knew where she was located was unnerving, to say the least. Were they watching her? Using satellites to track her like Garin had in the past? GPS on her phone? She glanced back inside the cool confines of the church. The woman had returned to her devotions and had absolutely no interest in Annja. There was a priest in the chancel now, lighting candles. Assuming it hadn’t been the priest himself, there was no sign of the person she’d heard in the catacombs.

      “It’s rather a plain church, don’t you think?”

      She glanced around, looking for someone who stood out, someone who was obviously watching her, who had a phone to his ear. The street was quiet. She couldn’t see anyone. But they knew where she was.

      “Is this a social call?” she asked, still looking up and down the street.

      “No. Definitely not. I like to think of it as incentivizing.” He laughed. It wasn’t a maniacal sound, not the mwahahaha of a cartoon villain. It was filled with genuine mirth. In the background, she heard a cry of pain. Garin. Why were they doing this to him? Why torture him? If he knew where the mask was, he would have told them. He wasn’t a hero. There was only one thing Garin Braden valued above and beyond the possession of beautiful things, and that was self-preservation. He would have given them what they wanted if he thought it would buy his freedom. Once he knew he was safe, then he’d figure out how to get it back. That was the kind of man he was.

      “There’s someone here who wants to talk to you,” the voice said.

      There was a pause. A second. Two. It felt like forever.

      A weak and mumbling voice spoke. “Don’t do it...don’t give them what they want. Even if you find it...” It was Garin. The phone was snatched away before he could finish speaking. The next thing she heard was a grunt and the sound of flesh slapping flesh.

      “Garin!” Annja called, unable to stop herself.

      “You’ve wasted four hours, Miss Creed. Ticktock. Ticktock. Don’t waste any more.” The kidnapper killed the connection.

      Annja looked around again, phone still pressed to her ear.

      She tried to think. Yes, they knew where she was, but she couldn’t see anyone watching her. There was no obvious tail. Her first thought when the phone rang had been that they were close, maybe even behind the light in the catacombs, but there was no proof, only paranoia. Her phone hadn’t worked down there, which meant the kidnapper’s couldn’t, either. It was much more likely they were using the same kind of technology that Garin would have. They had her phone number. Maybe they had a way of monitoring her SIM? She thought about pulling the battery out of the phone, but she needed to stay in contract with the old man.

      She called Roux.

      He answered on the third ring. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”

      “I went on a little trip. Underground.”

      “Find anything?”

      “Maybe. The old Convent of San Francisco is gone, but the builders got lazy. They just leveled the land out and built over the old foundations. I found a way down into the catacombs. In among all of the tombs of the sisters and the good Christian servants of the Inquisition, I found a single sarcophagus that was out of place. It was marked Morisco.”

      “Interesting. A Moorish grave hidden in the heart of a Christian shrine.”

      “Exactly.”

      “I’m assuming you opened it?”

      “I did.”

      “And?”

      “No bones. No body.”

      “It was empty?”

      “I didn’t say that. There was a key inside.”

      “A key? That seems like a lot of trouble to hide a key, don’t you think?”

      “I do. Which makes it important. I don’t know what it opens or why it was hidden, or even who did the hiding, but I’ll work it out. That’s what I do. How about you?”

      “If you СКАЧАТЬ