Page 21 of Angel's Kiss
4. The World Below
“Are you sure you knowwhere you are going?” Christine asked as they turned down another tunnel. Erik gave her a smile over his shoulder, golden eyes bright as stars in the dark. The light in his eyes was familiar now, as were the shadows.
“Trust me,” Erik replied with a wicked tone.
“I won’t follow you into a sewer, the skulls were quite enough for me,” Christine admonished, though in her heart she knew she was lying. It was terrifying, honestly, but she was already sure she would follow Erik anywhere into the dark below Paris. Somewhere along their strange path, she had found her trust.
“I promise I won’t take you to one of those unless you ask. But I don’t think you’d enjoy the smell,” Erik answered and laughed as Christine scowled.
The night (or afternoon, she truly wasn’t sure what time it was anymore) had been unexpectedly delightful and a welcome distraction from the humiliation of rehearsal. Erik had led her through the tunnels to the cellars of what he claimed were some of the more famous and expensive restaurants in the city and they had, as he said, ‘sampled’ their stores of rich delicacies: soft cheese, delicate pastries, incredible fresh bread, and a bottle of the best wine Christine had ever tasted.
Then: the catacombs. Erik had told her with relish how the network of tunnels below the city had been built up over centuries and how the bones of thousands of deceased Parisians had been used to build walls when the cemeteries had overflowed and then been moved. They had not encountered another living soul, though at one point Erik had held her back as a shadow crossed far ahead of them in the dark. He had shown her caves as well, with natural stone walls marked by centuries of graffiti. People had built entire rooms into the rock. There was even a chapel, somewhere, Erik claimed, with pews hewn from the living earth. But that was not their destination. The tunnel he led her through now was lined with masonry and old, dark wood.
“Ah, here we are,” Erik declared as they came to a large wooden door braced with iron at the end of the tunnel. Christine tried to make out the worn crest above the threshold. “This was built in the sixteenth century, I believe,” he explained as he pressed the door open. “I was extremely pleased when I found it; I’d been looking for a way in here for months when I did.”
“Where is here?” Christine demanded. Erik only chuckled in reply. He raised the lantern higher as they emerged into a chamber, a cellar more accurately, that reminded Christine strongly of the prop room she had slept in at the Opera, though it was much bigger. The flickering light and shadows danced over the shapes of bodies and boxes and – was that a face in the dark? “Erik,where are we?”
“Over here,” Erik whispered, indicating what looked like a coffin painted with intricate designs and an exotic face. “This is one of my favorites: Napoleon brought it back from Egypt. It didn’t belong to a Pharaoh, but perhaps to a rich man. See there, in that little loop. That’s the owner’s name. It’s called a cartouche.”
Christine blinked at the sarcophagus in front of her, then looked around again. They were in a storeroom that seemed to go on forever and it was full of statues, paintings, and all manner of other art, stacked carelessly to the ceiling.
“There’s more stored down here than they have on view above,” Erik commented as he watched Christine survey the cellar. Her eyes passed over a huge tapestry, a collection of small vases topped with animal heads, and dozens of paintings leaning against a wall. “I think that’s amazing given that it’s the largest gallery – and building – in Europe.”
Christine laughed in numb amazement. “The Louvre. We’ve snuck intothe Louvre.”
“I’ve never been caught, if you’re worried. They don’t keep track of things down here.” Erik caught her eye and grinned wickedly. “At least I haven’t read anything inLe Mondeabout certain pieces going missing.”
“Erik, no. Tell me you haven’t taken anything—”
“Borrowed,” Erik countered with a shrug and Christine made an extremely unladylike noise. “Come come, I only moved things from one cellar to another. At least in my home some works of art can be appreciated by one set of human eyes. Or two now, as it were. You did say you liked the pictures in your room.”
“I didn’t think you had stolen them from the fucking Louvre!” Christine squawked.
“Almost everything here is stolen too,” Erik laughed, velvety and entrancing. “Do you think the Egyptians or the Greeks just handed over these treasures? Let me know if you see anything you particularly like. We can carry it back, if it’s small enough.”
“Dear God in heaven,” Christine muttered as Erik strode down a cluttered aisle towards a grand statue of a winged horse with the head of a bearded man.
“We should stay down here for a while; it will be less likely that we’ll run into anyone when we go up if we wait.”
“Go up?” Christine wondered if her eyes could get any wider.
