The Parisian Codex

15 - The Secret Tunnel

In winter, the sun sets early, but I woke up a little later than normal. As I rediscovered the two corpses, the memories of the intrusion sank in.

For an antique dealer, Bel had some strange methods. And who were the stiffs?

Two men, white, their hair cut short, also dressed in black pants and matching sweaters. They might have been military men, but their pants had less to do with fatigues than with communion suits. I went through their pockets and found nothing. Bel was the only one who'd come armed.

How was I going to identify these two guys? They looked like choirboys, but you never knew... I rolled up the sleeves of one of them in search of a tattoo. I couldn't find one. But on the inside of his right arm, where the skin is pale and thin, I discovered the trace of an old burn. And not just any burn: the healed flesh formed a pattern. A P with a disproportionately long leg crossed by an X.

☧

"Chi-Rho," I murmured.

The two interlocking Greek letters had been the symbol of Christ for almost two thousand years. As a vampire, I didn't appreciate the sacred design. Seeing it branded into this guy's skin sent shivers down my spine. How fanatical does one have to be to inflict such treatment on oneself? For peace of mind, I finished undressing the dead guy without finding any other marks. I examined the second corpse: same scar on the arm, no other distinguishing features. I had two dead soldiers of Christ in my room.

What had I got myself into this time?

One of the advantages of living in a cellar is that the sewers are never far away.

At the back of my room, behind shelves overflowing with books, I had hidden a reinforced door. The shelves were mounted on wheels and attached to the wall by rusty hinges. The door, which I had last replaced in the '50s, had no lock or bolt but a metal bar that prevented it from being opened from the outside. I removed the bar from its brackets and pulled on the leaf. The door swung open with a creak that sounded like something from beyond the grave. I'd have to remember to oil the hinges more often if I ever wanted to escape that way without attracting the attention of the whole building.

A whiff of damp, musty air greeted me. The corridor was narrow, devoid of electricity, and totally illegal. I had handsomely paid the architect responsible for erecting the building next to mine. The passage didn't appear on any plans, and the floor space lost to the corridor had been blamed on walls thicker than they were.

I could see well in the dark, but the corridor didn't have a shred of light, and even vampires have their limits. I reached out and felt the wall at shoulder height. The watertight box was where I'd placed it 70 years earlier. It contained an old flashlight and batteries wrapped in a piece of oiled canvas. Despite these precautions, the acid from the batteries had eaten through the metal, and the oiled canvas now contained nothing but a pile of probably dangerous waste. I put them back until I knew what to do with them. Luckily for me, I had in my desk drawer a headlamp I'd received as a commercial gift a few years earlier. I'd never used it and had forgotten to throw it away. I put it on, and its faint beam dispelled the darkness. This would do nicely, I decided.

I gathered the clothes of the two strangers into a tight bundle, which I kept in my right hand. The corridor was too low-ceilinged for me to carry the corpses on my shoulders. I'd have to drag them, one after the other. I grabbed the first one under the armpits and carried him into the passage before returning to the bedroom to get his pal. One last look to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything... I did, for in one corner lay Bel's gun. Should I keep it to blackmail its owner or get rid of it for fear of a search? I decided to meet halfway and hide it. I picked it up, removed the magazine, and checked to see if a bullet was already in the chamber. It wasn't. Bel obviously hadn't expected to find me at home. I stuffed the magazine into my pocket and slipped the gun onto my belt. At the last moment, I remembered to put on the large rain boots stored at the far end of my room.

I arranged the shelves so as to conceal the door from a distracted observer, and pulled the leaf shut behind me.