Callahan looked confused. “But how could you know we were coming?”
“Quite simple. I received a telephone call.”
“From who?”
“That’s a question I don’t have an answer to, I’m afraid. But whoever he is, he knows about
Batty turned to Callahan. “The D.C. connection, no doubt. He obviously prefers to remain anonymous.”
“Whatever the case,” Grant said, “we’re wasting time.” He turned and gestured with his fingers. “Follow me.”
It was a vault. A burial crypt located beneath the church down a long, narrow stairway, behind a locked metal door.
But the crypt itself obviously hadn’t been touched since it was built centuries ago, and the sight of it sent a sustained shiver of revulsion through Callahan the moment they stepped inside. She’d seen plenty of death in her time, but places like this gave her the creeps.
It started with a narrow ossuary, or bone house. A stone wall to their left was lined with long wooden shelves-and on those shelves, sitting side by side, were several hundred skulls, yellowed by age. To their right were two large pallets carrying piles of neatly stacked bones.
“The plague,” Grant said, without offering any further explanation. Not that Callahan needed one. She was surprised by his complete sense of calm. His demeanor seemed much more monklike than Brother Philip’s ever had.
LaLaurie, on the other hand, seemed to be on edge the moment they stepped through the crypt doorway, and she had wonder if being surrounded by all this death had an effect on him. Those enhanced senses of his had to be going into overdrive.
“This way,” Grant said, motioning with his flashlight.
They stepped through an archway on their right and into the main chamber. It was the size of a small warehouse and Callahan was instantly reminded of the staging room in Istanbul. But instead of boxes full of antiques, this one held rows of coffins, some in the center made of ornately carved stone, while those lining the wall-in neat, horizontal rows-were shallow wooden caskets, warped and weathered by years of neglect.
There was a smell down here that was hard to miss. A mustiness. And beneath this, faint but unmistakable, the scent of rotting corpses. Callahan had no idea how fresh some of these bodies were-she didn’t figure this place had hosted anyone new in quite some time-but the smell was there and she recognized it immediately.
Either that, or she had an amazing imagination.
Grant moved to a stone casket in the center of the room. “This is the one,” he said. “John Milton.”
LaLaurie nodded and crossed to it, pressing a hand against it, trying to suck up its energy. Callahan half expected the lid to crack open on him, letting loose a vampire or some other deadly creature.
But nothing happened, and LaLaurie opened his eyes, shook his head.
“You’re wrong,” he told Grant.
Grant’s eyes widened slightly. The most emotion Callahan had seen in him so far. “How can that be? This is the one I’ve been guarding for the last fifteen years.”
“Well, I hate to break it to you, Jim, but you’ve been guarding the wrong coffin.”
LaLaurie looked down the row, and over the next several minutes, moved from coffin to coffin, pressing his hand against them, coming away from each one looking a little less whole, and she knew this process was taking its toll on him.
Grant was scratching his head. “I can’t believe we got it wrong. All this time and we got it wrong.”
“Maybe you didn’t pick up the phone often enough,” Callahan said.
By the time he’d finished touching every coffin in the room, LaLaurie looked a bit green under the gills. And he still hadn’t found what they were looking for.
He turned to Grant. “I assume you have a pauper’s vault?”
“Pauper’s vault?” Grant said. “I hardly think Milton would be-”
“Maybe one of the previous guardians thought it was prudent to hide him where someone would be less likely to look.”
Grant nodded and pointed his flashlight beam toward the back of the room. There was a wooden door there, and he motioned for them to follow. They moved with him and he pulled the door open to reveal another set of steps leading to a subbasement, Callahan again reminded of the auction house.
These steps, however, were old and rickety and creaked so loudly as they descended them that she was sure they were going to wake someone up.
When they got to the bottom they found a smaller, narrower room, no caskets in the center. Instead the walls were lined with cubbyholes holding cheap wooden boxes, most of them falling apart, arm and leg and foot bones protruding through the cracks.
There was one that didn’t belong here, however. An actual casket stuffed into a dark corner, weathered by age, but clearly out of place.
LaLaurie glanced at Grant and Callahan, then moved to it and pressed his palm against the lid. He closed his eyes, but didn’t keep them closed long.
“This is it,” he said. “John Milton.”
“You’re sure?” Grant asked.
“No doubt whatsoever.”
“So what are we waiting for?” Callahan said. She stuck her flashlight under her arm and reached for the lid, pushing it open, not at all surprised when they found yet another skull and a set of bones, these mostly intact. The clothing that had covered them was long gone.
It suddenly occurred to her that this is how we wind up.
All of us.
Some leave behind a legacy, as Milton had, a piece of themselves that will be remembered for centuries to come. But most of us die in obscurity. A pile of bones that lay forgotten in some grave, our lives no more important to the world at large than the quarter-inch column of ink that announces our departure from it.
One day we’re here, then we’re gone. And unless you get lucky, a couple hundred years later nobody knows who the hell you were.
She shone her flashlight inside. Some of the coffin lining was still intact, but no sign of any pages in sight.
“Check under the bones,” LaLaurie said.
Callahan looked at him. “You first.”
He frowned at her, then reached inside, shoving his hands beneath the body and patting the tattered lining there. She could tell by his expression that he wasn’t having any luck.
Then she noticed something-on the right side of the casket where the lining was torn. She shone her light directly on it for a better look, and saw a tiny seam in the wood.
Another hidden door?
Reaching over, she tore the lining away to reveal a narrow oblong panel. Digging her nails into the seam, she pried the lid back and found a hollowed-out space behind it, a burlap bag stuffed inside.
She looked up at LaLaurie, saw the excitement on his face and gestured to the bag. “Be my guest.”
With shaky hands, he took it out, untied a leather string at the top, then reached inside and pulled out a familiar-looking Saint Christopher medal.
“Careful,” Grant said. “Remember the curse.”
Batty nodded. “You two might want to close your eyes.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll take my chances.”
Grant didn’t hesitate, but Callahan shook her head. “I’m good for now.”
Shutting the casket lid, LaLaurie took the Milton manuscript out of the book bag and laid it atop the casket, opening it to the last chapter. Then, as Callahan trained her flashlight beam on it, he untied the string around the
