Clan Novel Tremere: Book 12 of The Clan Novel Saga by Eric Griffin

Author:Eric Griffin [Griffin, Eric]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: horror, vampires
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Published: 2019-04-24T06:00:00+00:00

Sunday, 1 August 1999, 10:15 PM

The Mausoleum, Chantry of the Five Boroughs

New York City, New York

“No really. It wouldn’t be any trouble. I don’t mind searching his room.” Eva’s voice faltered. The rough-hewn walls snatched it away from her, hopelessly muddling her words with the distant plish of falling water and gruffly passing the result from hand to hand down the tangle of winding tunnels.

“The papers aren’t in his room.” Sturbridge explained patiently. “The papers are on the body.”

“Yes. Well. Not meaning to introduce any unnecessary complications, but how are we supposed to find the body?”

“What could be easier than finding a body in a mausoleum? Watch your step.”

Without warning, the space to Eva’s right suddenly opened out onto abyss. She hastily scrambled back from the edge, dislodging a fistful of knucklebones that clattered over the precipice.

“All these old galleries,” Sturbridge continued as if nothing untoward had happened, “wind about that central well. You only occasionally catch a glimpse of it, but you always know it’s there. You can tell the walls that back up onto the abyss because they are cooler, and damp.”

“What’s at the bottom?”

Sturbridge shrugged. “More bones. At least one of my predecessors was so averse to the place that he was in the habit of making more room in the upper corridors by sweeping the previous tenants over the edge.”

Eva quickly changed the subject. “You didn’t answer my question. How are we supposed to find the body we are looking for? As opposed to say, that one. Or that one. Or…”

“Those are just decoration, dear. Here we are.” She drew to a halt in front of a niche carved into the wall. It was identical, so far as Eva could determine, to any of a hundred others they had passed already.

Sturbridge began rummaging around in the dark recess. Her efforts were accompanied by the occasionally musical sound of bone clattering over bone.

At last, she extracted a carefully folded robe from the niche. It was covered with a powdery white dust. “Can’t imagine why they should have put this in first,” Sturbridge complained, shaking out the robe.

Eva recognized the markings of a novice of the seventh and final circle. Almost free, she thought.

“Let’s see what we have here. Pockets, empty. Cuffs. Lining. Carefully now. We don’t want to tear it.”

She drew a fingernail down across the seam and the material parted without resistance.

“Now let’s see what Foley wanted us to know, and Aaron did not.”

Sturbridge extracted a single sheet of parchment. She studied the page a moment, the curious illustrations, the enigmatic inscriptions. She clucked her tongue in disapproval and passed the sheet to Eva.

“Shall we go? Something about the air down here, it always puts me in mind of someplace else I should be.”

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