Page 111 of The House Saphir
They rushed past the coal store and the scullery, the butler’s pantry, the larder, the cupbearer’s room, while the walls shook and sconces flickered with that same eerie blue flame. It felt like the walls themselves were being torn apart, stone by stone.
As they passed the stairs that led down to the cellar a new sound breached the noise.
Screams.
Mallory froze. She whipped around, staring into the black depths of the stairwell.
A trap. It had to be a trap.
Or… the wives.
Where the ring goes, the spirit goes.
Fitcher shouted her name, gripping her arm. “How do we get out of here?”
She shook herself free. “The rings. I think they’re down there.”
“Not an option,” said Constantino. “I’ve been in my fair share of wine cellars, and they are almost always a dead end. If we go down there, there’ll be no way back out.”
The screams grew louder. Pleading. Panicked. Tortured.
At the far end of the hall, an earsplitting crack. A thunderous roar. A wall imploded—plaster and mortar and limestone blocks caving inward. The devastation rolled toward them, the wall collapsing in massive chunks, a wave of destruction. Dust clogged the air.
They twisted around in time to see the kitchen door slam shut—and catch fire. The wood flared greenish blue. A surge of heat filled the corridor.
“On second thought,” said Constantino, “I never turn down a chance to see a good wine cellar.”
They rushed down the steps, descending into the deepest part of the house. The glow emanating from above cast the oak door in shades of blue and silver.
Mallory’s lungs felt crushed in a vise as she reached the bottom step and placed her hand to the solid wood. The door pulsed like a living thing, steady and warm. A beating heart. As if it were happy that she had come back. No, not happy. Eager.
She licked her lips. Tasted the briny, metallic stench of blood on the air.
The door was locked. The air sizzled like the inside of an oven, and Mallory fumbled for the ring of keys, trying to separate the one with the ornate bow molded into heavy brass. It slipped into the lock. The mechanism inside took hold.
The screams beyond the door grew louder, but above the shouts—the telltale click.
She yanked the key from the lock and pushed the cellar door open. They crowded into the blackness beyond. Fitcher slammed the door shut in their wake, so loud it startled Mallory into dropping the key. They were suddenly blocked off from the heat of the flames, and Mallory distantly wondered if they’d just entered their own grave.
But the air in the cellar was blissfully cool and strangely quiet. Here there were no collapsing walls. No crumbling stones. No flames. Even the screams had stopped.
Instead of noise, this room was filled with a stench that invaded Mallory’s nose and caught in her throat. Thick and cloying and metallic.
Mallory dropped to her hands and knees to search for the key. The floor was wet. She gasped and sat back on her heels, feeling her skirts. There must be a leak in one of the wine barrels.
Lights flickered on overhead. Two burning oil lamps hung in the center of the room, illuminating teetering racks of oak barrels, their edges stained red.
Not with wine.
There was blood everywhere. Oozing from the corked holes, splattered across the stone floor.
Mallory snatched up the key. The metal was sticky with blood, and she tried to rub it off on her skirt, but no matter how she scrubbed, it did not come clean.
Constantino placed a hand on her shoulder. “Bellissima,” he whispered, “look.”
She hobbled to her feet, her breaths coming in desperate spasms.
The cellar door itself was bleeding. Thick crimson drops cascaded through the crack around the doorjamb, coating the wood, spreading a sticky puddle across the floor, mingling with the splatters in the room.
