Page 16 of Road to Ruin
I’m going to ride this out. I’m going to see it through until the bitter end. I won’t be able to sleep otherwise. It’s looking like I was wrong, though. The tours don’t appear to have anything to do with the Champion Ultime fights. Disappointment hits me in waves as we head back toward Russell’s van. I was so sure I was onto something. So sure. Now it looks like I’ve wasted most of my night lurking in cemeteries with the strangest mix of people, and I have nothing to show for it.
We’re back in the parking lot and I’m about to climb into the van when I see two guys wearing ball caps and leather jackets jogging toward the entrance of the cemetery, though. I stop dead, watching them as they jostle and rough house with each other, laughing as they boost themselves over the gates Russell locked behind us when we left.
“I think I’m going to walk back,” I tell Russell. “I’m not feeling too hot.”
He looks relieved, though he masters his face into a look of professional concern. “Are you okay? Do you need me to call you a taxi?”
“No, really. It’s fine. I think the night air will do me good.” I take off after the guys before he can reply. He shouts something at me as I vault over the gates too, but I don’t pay attention. My focus is on the two men a hundred feet ahead of me, weaving through the crumbling, aged headstones and looming mausoleums.They have no idea they’re being followed. No clue whatsoever. I hold back, watching them, waiting.
They eventually head toward one of the grander, more impressive mausoleums—a great dusky pale grey block of marble amongst otherwise sandstone and limestone structures. I wait until they’ve vanished inside before I approach the mausoleum. As soon as I see the words carved into the lintel above the door, I’m kicking myself. Of course. How could I not have thought of this?
Bienveillant et Gentil. Règles Sur Tous.
The name Bastien is nowhere to be seen on the vault, but I’d know that motto anywhere. It’s also carved above the doorway of the Bastien mansion. It also takes up half the skin on Alex’s back.
It makes perfect sense that the fights would be here, somehow concealed, hidden from the prying eyes of the public. But where, though? The vault is large, sure, huge compared to the other mausoleums in the cemetery, but it’s not that big.
I take out my gun and hold it by my side, cautiously entering through the same door the two guys in leather jackets just walked through. Inside: candles. Hundred and hundreds of candles, all lit, the flames guttering and flickering, sending wild, long fingered shadows stretching up to the mosaicked ceiling. A number of caskets sit on shelves, and coins are piled up high around them, placed on top of them, slotted into the cracks in the stone-tiled floor, precariously balanced on every available surface, stacked high in the corners of the room. At the far end of the vault, on the other side of a narrow fold out table, a gnarled old man stares at me with glassy, confused eyes. Behind him, a wide stone stairway leads down into the ground. My pulse spikes when I hear the unmistakeable rumble of chatter and boots on solid packed earth, flooding upward from the stairwell.
“You can’t be here, miss,” the old guy informs me.
“Sure I can.”
He shakes his head. “No women allowed. Sorry, sweetheart.” He spreads his hands in front of him, giving me an apologetic look. “I don’t make the rules, see. And this is no place for a lady.”
I raise my gun, blowing out a deep, exasperated breath. “I’m afraid I’m no lady. I’m pretty sure I need to be down there right now. I don’t want to hurt you, so—”
The old man gets up from his seat behind the table, groaning a little from the strain of his movement. “I did what I was supposed to,” he says gruffly. “They don’t pay me enough to face down heavy artillery.” He holds out his hand to me, palm up.
“I’m not giving you the gun, buddy.”
“I don’t want it,” he says. “I just need something to pay the dead. Then by all means you can go down and face the consequences.” He jerks his head, indicating toward the coins. “Offer them a good tribute and you might make just it out alive.”
I check my pockets, but I don’t have any coins. The old man gives me a toothless smile, pulling out a smart phone with a Square sticking out of it. “Don’t worry, sweetheart,” he says. “The dearly departed accept Visa, MasterCard and American Express, too.”
