Lost City (NUMA Files 5)

The lighthearted comment seemed to break the tension and conversation resumed as if the previous few minutes had never happened. Austin was less sanguine. As he watched Cavendish leave the room, he thought the Englishman had signed his own death warrant. "What's going on?" Skye said.

"The Fauchards don't take well to having their dirty laundry hung out in public, especially when strangers are present."

Austin watched Madame Fauchard lean over to say something to her son. Emil smiled and rose from the table. He collected Marcel and together they left the armory. After-dinner brandy was being served when Emil returned about ten minutes later without Marcel. He gazed directly at Austin and Skye as he whispered in his mother's ear. Madame Fauchard nodded her head, her face impassive. The move was subtle, but Austin didn't miss the implication. His name and Skye's had just been added to the Cavendish death warrant.

Several minutes later, Marcel returned from his mission. Emil saw that he was back, then stood and clapped his hands. "Ladies and gentlemen of the Masque of the Red Death, Prince Prospero has prepared a memorable entertainment to cap off the evening's festivities." He signaled a servant, who lit a torch from the flames of a brazier and handed it to Emil. With great ceremony, Emil produced a large skeleton key from the folds of his tunic and led the way along the nave, crossing the transept to the rear of the armory. He paused to insert the key in a low wooden door carved with skulls and human bones. As he opened the door, his torch flared and sputtered in the cool musty air that flowed through the portal.

"Follow me if you dare," Emil said with a smirking leer on his face, and then he ducked under the jamb.

Laughing giddily, the guests paused, then with wine goblets in hand they filed after Emil like the children of Hamlin following the Pied Piper. Austin put his hand on Skye's arm and kept her from going with the others.

"Make believe you're drunk," Austi

n said.

"I wish I were drunk," Skye said. "Merde. Here comes the dragon lady."

Madame Fauchard glided over and said, "The Red Death must take its leave, Monsieur Austin. Sorry we couldn't get to know each other better."

"I am, too. That was an interesting toast Sir Cavendish gave," he said, slurring his words.

"Great families are often the subject of malicious gossip." She turned to Skye. "The masquerade is at an end. I believe you have a relic that belongs to my family."

"What are you talking about?"

: "Don't toy with me. I know you have the helmet."

"Then it was you who sent that awful man."

"Sebastian? No, he is my son's lapdog. If it's any consolation to you, he will be eliminated as a result of his failures. Never mind, we will persuade you to tell us where our property is. As for you, Monsieur Austin, I must bid you farewell."

"Until we meet again," Austin said, swaying slightly. She gazed at him with a look approaching sadness. "Yes. Until we meet again."

Escorted by an entourage of servants, Madame Fauchard headed for the exit. Marcel had been standing nearby. Now he came over and curled his lip in his movie gangster's smile. "Monsieur Emil would be heartbroken if you missed the entertainment he has prepared for you." "Wouldn't miss it for the world," Austin said, deliberately slurring his words.

Marcel lit another torch and gestured toward the door. Austin and Skye caught up with the tail end of the raucous crowd. Marcel took up the rear to make sure they didn't stray.

The procession descended a short stone staircase to a passageway about six feet wide. As the guests plunged deeper into the bowels of the chateau, the laughter began to ebb. The merriment died completely along with conversation, when the guests entered a section of tunnel lined with eye-level stone shelves that overflowed with human bones. Emil stopped in front of a shelf, picked out a skull at random and held it above his head, where it grinned down at the guests as if amused by their clever costumes.

"Welcome to the catacombs of Chateau Fauchard," Emil proclaimed with the cheerfulness of a Disney World tour guide. "Meet one of my ancestors. Pardon if he is a bit reserved. He doesn't get many visitors."

He tossed the skull back into a recess, where it started a small avalanche of femurs, ribs and clavicles. Then he forged ahead, exhorting the guests to hurry or they would miss the show. The tunnel entered a series of large, barred rooms that Emil explained were the dungeons and torture chambers. Braziers had been set up in each room so their flickering light was filtered through stained-glass screens of different colors.

The strange colored light illuminated the wax faces of figures that looked so lifelike no one would have been surprised if they had moved. In one chamber, a great ape was stuffing a woman up a chimney. In another, a man was digging himself out of a grave. Every room had a scene from a Poe story.

Emil drifted back to Austin. The torchlight gave his mordant features a Satanic cast that fit in with the surroundings.

"Well, Monsieur Austin, what do you think of my little show so far?"

"Haven't had so much fun since I went to Madame Tussaud's wax museum."

"You flatter me. Bravo! The best is yet to come." Emil kept going until he came to a chamber whose crimson light made all within its special radiance look like victims of the Red Death. In the floor of the room was a circular pit. A razor-sharp pendulum was swinging above a wooden framework. Strapped down on

the framework, with rats crawling over his chest, was a large black bird. It was the scene from the The Pit and the Pendulum, where the victim is being tortured by the Spanish Inquisition. Only in this instance the victim was Cavendish, who was tied down and gagged on the table.

"You will notice some differences in this scene," Emil said. "The rats you see scurrying around the dungeon are real. And so is the victim. Mr. Cavendish is a good sport, as the English would say, and he has gracefully agreed to participate for our amusement."

As Emil led the guests in a polite applause, Cavendish struggled against the bonds that held him.