After an exciting morning killing and disposing of Armando Moncada, Braddock spent a long, dull afternoon watching a smuggler’s house by herself. The guy’d popped up on her radar a decade back when he was dealing stolen art, a real smarmy asshole called Dunningham; he’d settled in Barcelona just outside the Gothic Quarter, and had spent most of the day sleeping. Braddock figured him as their best bet to find Sully—birds of a feather—but to cover all the bases, she also had Scotty and Hugo staked out at a museum with a notoriously sticky-fingered curator, who kept a serious private collection. Sully had been ripping people off since he was a child, he knew plenty of criminals, but there weren’t that many artifact thieves working in Barcelona who’d have the time of day for someone like him.
Late in the day, she got a text from an account Moncada used. Just a few words—Sullivan, party of three—and an address. A church.
Braddock texted Scotty the info and got the rental moving, speeding through the dusky streets, headed north. She didn’t know where Santiago Moncada got his intel, but hoped it was solid. If Sully was around, she wanted very much to see what he was up to.
Braddock arrived a minute before her team, and they parked far away from each other. There was a new Hyundai in the corner of the lot, but nobody around. Braddock got out and stepped into the inky shadow of a knobby pine tree, next to the cathedral, where the boys joined her.
Scotty nodded toward a side door off a secondary building. “If we goo en, tru thair’s bist.”
Braddock glanced at her watch, nodded. They’d try to talk their way past a doorkeeper, but if necessary, all three of them were armed—9mm Sig P320s for her and Scotty, Hugo carried a Glock, and they all had knives. She hoped she’d get the chance to use her karambit on Sully, if circumstances allowed. Not that it really mattered—his death was the primary objective—but it would be deeply satisfying to end him with the blade she’d mastered, watch him bleed out of his stupid, squawking throat. She wasn’t a psychopath, she could feel things—like the pain he’d caused her, emotionally and professionally, or the joy it was going to bring her to know he would never again interfere with her plans.
Sully slipped out of the entrance Scotty had indicated, alone, staring at his phone. He promptly started east, away from them. He didn’t even look up, quickly disappearing into the cathedral’s shadow.
Braddock’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll stay on Sully. Find the other two.”
Scotty and Hugo started for the cathedral. Braddock slipped into the darkness that had grown in the cobbled streets, trading one set of shadows for the next as she followed him deeper into the quarter.
* * *
The stone steps were narrow and steep and thick with dust, and seemed to go on forever. Also, there were way too many spiderwebs. Chloe went down first, cautiously, shining her light on the stairs. Nate waved his arms and brushed at his hair all the way down, fighting the urge to say gah! about twenty times. He was not a fan of spiders.
The stairs widened out at the bottom, and they both stopped to take in the underground chamber, the bright LED beams painting the dust-thick air in shades of blue. The ceiling went all the way up to where the stairs began; overhead was a vast darkness. Ahead of them stood a single empty tunnel, shockingly tall for so deep underground. Broken Doric pillars leaned against the rough-hewn stone, wrapped in webs. There were some broken rocks in a heap to the right, and a long, thin white thing that was connected to—
“Gah!” Nate jumped when his light fell upon the grinning, desiccated skull leering up at him from the pile of rubble. He immediately cursed the dead guy and his mother for scaring him like that, while Chloe chuckled.
“I’ll add skeletons to your list of phobias,” she said. “Skeletons and nuns.” She started ahead into the tunnel, swiping down a thick veil of web. “Okay, Indiana Jones,” Nate said. “Whatever.”
“Indy? Try Marion. She did everything he did, only barefoot in a full- length dress.”
Not even trying to hide the grin in her voice—and she had a point, pretty much. She was certainly more at home in this black, ancient tunnel with dead guys and eight million spiders in it than he was.
They walked ahead, stepping over chunks of rock and piles of dirt. The tunnel was cold and silent except for their breathing and shuffling steps. They stuck close together, and Nate noticed how Chloe radiated warmth. She smelled nice, too.
They’d gone about fifty yards when the tunnel opened up, forking into two. They stopped and shined their lights around. Nate stepped to the wall between the two tunnels, brushed at the rock. There was an arrow symbol, pointing to the fork’s right path.
“The arrow points this way,” Nate said.
Chloe’s Aashlight beam had settled onto a rock next to the opening of the tunnel on the left. The stone was carved with an eye, surrounded by rays of light.
“The Eye of Providence,” she said. “I say we go with God.”
She immediately started into the tunnel on the left. Nate hesitated, then walked a few steps into his tunnel, irritated that she hadn’t bothered to get his opinion. She could be going the wrong way, and—
—and YOU don’t actually know ANYTHING, and you just separated from the person down here who DOES.
Nate suddenly had a bad feeling, major goosebumps, and he reAexively jumped back a step just as he heard the grinding of stone—
—and a quartet of rust-tipped harpoons shot out of the walls ahead of him, stabbing across the tunnel exactly where he’d been standing. Two from each side, all of them angled toward the unwary victim’s guts. Powdered rock drifted down like dandruff.
He caught up to Chloe pretty fast, taking the last couple of steps all casual- like.
“What was that?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Nate said. “We should go this way.”
She was nice enough not to say anything as they kept moving forward. It was spooky, how dark it was. Their Aashlights cut through the blackness easily, but underground the dark was like a presence, pressing in from all sides, eating the light, leaning over their shoulders.
The tunnel ended in a sagging iron gate, bannered in web. There was another chain and padlock, heavier than the one at the crypt.
“Great,” Chloe sighed. “Here we go again.”
She pulled out the bolt cutters and set to work, like she’d done it a thousand times.
“How’d you get into this stuff?” Nate asked.
Chloe stopped to test the chain, then set the device on a different link. “When I was a kid, I’d go exploring. One day I found a bronze statue covered in gems, buried under a bridge. I’ll never forget the feeling. It was a rush.”
She paused with the bolt cutters, shook the chain. “I showed it to my father, thinking he’d be proud of me, maybe put it in a museum… Instead he sold it, took all the money. We never saw him again.”
“Wow,” Nate said. “That sucks. I’m sorry.”
Chloe’s voice was deliberately light as she started in on the lock. “Why? I’m better for it. And I vowed if I ever found anything again, I wouldn’t share it with anyone.”
He felt bad for her, but he also understood, completely. They had more in common than he’d thought.
“Gotta find one person you can trust, or you end up a lonely old guy with a cat,” Nate said.
Sully snapped in his ear. “I can hear you, by the way.” Chloe jerked at the lock. “I can’t get it.”
Nate looked at the rusty bars, saw the heavy corrosion around the frame. “Step aside.”
Chloe moved and Nate aimed a kick, pivoting to give it oomph. The gate clattered and screeched open.
“See that?” Nate stood tall.
“Sure, when the big bad nun’s not around,” Chloe said, and then they were both grinning.
They went through. The tunnel past the gate extended another ten yards, then turned right. As soon as they rounded the corner, something changed. The air was less dusty, not as stale, and the Aoor was clear of debris. They walked a little faster to where the tunnel turned again—
—and entered a new section of tunnel. Their lights played over what looked like a modern-day ventilation tubes running the length of the walls, built into the brick. There were a few cobwebs, but nothing like they’d seen earlier.
Nate stepped closer to the wall. Some of the stone was old, but the stuff higher up was brick, and it looked mass-produced.
“Does this look right to you?” Chloe asked.
“Not sure what the path to ancient treasure is supposed to look like,” Nate said.
“I don’t know… more ancient?”
They followed the pipes, searching the walls and the Aoor. Nate thought he heard something, like a vibration, the sound getting a little louder with each step they took. It was like the heavy thrum of a big machine in operation, a deep, inhuman roar, but was too muffled to decipher.
“Do you hear that?” Chloe asked.
Nate nodded. “Sully, see anything weird up there?”
There was a long pause. “You’re gonna have to be more specific.”
Nate and Chloe kept walking, the sound rising into an ominous thunder. Chloe mouthed words at him, pointing ahead, but he couldn’t hear her over the persistent scream of whatever they were headed for. Nate figured maybe a cattle-blender, or some kind of industrial bone-chopping machine.
The tunnel dead-ended at a thick metal grate, wedged between the tunnel walls. There was some kind of fabric on the other side; they couldn’t see past it, but there was nowhere else to go. The roar was too loud for them to discuss the next step. He and Chloe exchanged a look—what now?—and then he shrugged, and backed up a step, and threw his shoulder into a full-frontal assault.
The padded mesh popped open way too easily and Nate stumbled into a shimmering, shrieking hell, Chloe right on his heels.
* * *
Sully followed the green dot on his phone, moving east and then south. He had to duck through an alley once, and wind his way through a crammed parking lot. There were plenty of tourists out and about, wandering the shops and stalls of the Las Ramblas district, a popular destination in the Gothic Quarter. Street performers in elaborate costumes pranced around, interacting with the scattered crowd, who shopped and ate and took pictures. Sully kept his eyes on his phone.
“Sully, see anything weird up there?” Nate asked.
Sully looked up and around. Buildings, a massive fountain with lions in front of it… His gaze settled on a guy dressed up like a giant gold demon with colossal bat wings and glittering horns and foot-long finger extensions.
“You’re gonna have to be more specific,” Sully said, and waited, but the kid didn’t say anything else. Or maybe he did, and the pricey earpieces just sucked. In any case, Nate’s green dot started to move. It looked like he was headed south again.
Sully looked up at the unbroken block of buildings south of him, frowning. Hopefully, the kid would stop short, or end up on the other side.
Sully got an itchy feeling, like someone was watching him. He started to walk forward and then whirled around suddenly, taking in the passing tourists, the fountain, the gold demon guy…
Nothing. If someone was watching him, they weren’t watching now. He didn’t want to get paranoid, but Barcelona was Moncada’s home turf. And if Jo Braddock hadn’t been fired or executed for fucking up the auction, if she was still on the payroll…
Forget it, nobody even knows you’re here. How could they? His passport hadn’t been stamped, they’d literally Aown in under the radar. It paid to be careful and he’d keep his eyes open, but they had the keys, and Nate was the one who’d figured out where to use them. And they were so close to the gold, Sully could feel the draw of it like a magnet, the glorious prize at the end of an arduous fucking journey.
The green dot on his phone moved, and Sully followed it.
* * *
Chloe stumbled after Nate, squinting at the sudden violence of Aashing lights and electronic bass. They were in a large underground nightclub, packed with sweaty dancers who were waving laser pointers and gyrating to the relentless, deafening beat.
Nate straightened up and stared around at them, wearing the same astonishment she felt. Perhaps a hundred twentysomethings were packed into the semi-modern space, dancing with abandon under Aashing pink and purple lights. A long wooden bar ran along most of the back of the wide room, staffed by multiple bartenders dashing around, pouring drinks. Candles Aickered on the bar, and in red sconces on the walls. It smelled like sweat and booze and body spray.
“This can’t be right! Can it?” Nate shouted, but Chloe heard him through the earpiece rather than out loud. The music was blasting at damaging levels.
There. She saw the crumbling Doric pillar for a Aash between dancers, and started toward it. Now that she was looking, she spotted two more, mixed in among the more modern supports, and—
“Look at that,” she said, pointing toward the end of the bar. Where it opened up at the club’s northeast corner, the brick was much older—and there was part of an ancient Roman mosaic just behind the end of the bar, a pair of toga-clad figures, the tiles plastered with band stickers on every side. The word Infernum was carved in the stone overhead. “Infernum! Isn’t that Latin for hell?”
She started toward it, figuring on logistics. The mosaic was behind the bar, but near the end. If they could just distract the servers, they could—
“Wait.” Nate put out his arm to block her, tilted his head back the way they’d come. A couple of big men had appeared on the scene, sticking out like sore thumbs amid the ravers. They were standing stiffly back at the grate she and Nate had stumbled through, looking around with hard eyes.
“Braddock’s backup,” Nate said.
Chloe had no interest in running afoul of Jo Braddock and was charmed that he was trying to protect her, but there was no way she was leaving without getting a closer look at that mural.
“Come on, follow me,” she said. She lost the jacket, took his hand, and pulled him into the throng of happy youth, raising her bare arms and letting her body fall into the beat.
Nate was immediately on board, dropping his center of gravity and dancing with her, swiveling his hips like he knew how to use them. She chanced a look at Braddock’s team, but they were busy glaring at everyone who wasn’t dancing.
They worked their way across the room to the northeast, moving well together… so well that she had serious regrets about shutting things down the night before. They danced to the end of the bar and held there, the mosaic less than two meters away. Up close, Chloe could see a number of larger tiles next to the tiny bits of painted stone that made up the artwork, covered with faded symbols and letters. There were old stickers plastered over some of the pieces, a Ayer for a club night covering part of the top section.
Unfortunately, a bartender stepped in front of the new clue to chip ice, blocking her view. Chloe looked at Nate, thinking furiously. How to get behind the bar without getting kicked out?
Nate’s eyes lit up. He took a few steps right, leaned into the bar, and tipped over a mostly full bottle of Absolut. The clear alcohol chugged out of the metal-tipped spout, streamed down the polished bar in a spreading tide.
Nate whipped a Zippo out of his pocket and Aicked it—then again, and again. There were a few sparks, but the wick wouldn’t catch. Nate kept thumbing the wheel, an increasingly desperate look on his face.
“For god’s sake, here,” Chloe said, and knocked over one of the decorative candles.
Fire rippled down the bar, rising into a towering sheet of Aame. The dancers cheered and put their hands in the air as the bartenders grabbed towels and started shouting, moving away from that end of the bar.
She and Nate were over the counter in a Aash and in front of the mosaic, peeling off bits of sticker. There were more than a dozen of the small tiles next to the piece, all of them different—an eye, a sun, an E, a cross; random, simple pictures that didn’t seem to connect in any meaningful way—but some of the pieces were obviously missing, and there was no visible keyhole.
“What do you think?” Chloe asked. “Another puzzle?”
“Think you better figure it out fast,” Nate said, looking back at the crowd. “I’m gonna buy us some time.”
He stood and turned away, but Chloe’s full attention stayed on the faded pieces of the Eighteen’s clue. If he was buying time, she wasn’t going to waste it. She ran her fingers over the etched and painted lines, the pressure to solve the buggering thing quickly making her heart pound. Shit, there were more stickers in the way! She clawed at them, the thin plastic and glue packing under her short nails. She could feel the bad guys closing in, and the bartenders wouldn’t need more than a few minutes to regroup. Eye, sun… Was that a dog? Were the tiles supposed to be moved, or was there some pattern that had to be followed…?
Think, Chloe, think!
* * *
The Scot and the MMA fighter were prowling through the tireless dancers, closing in on the bar; any second, they’d spot Nate, or one of the staff would notice two customers trespassing into their territory and start yelling. Nate considered and rejected a hundred dumb ideas in a few seconds, waiting for something brilliant to crop up, but inspiration actually came from a sweaty, pretty woman who stepped into his line of sight and waved at Nate for service. Nate urged Chloe to figure it out and stood, grabbing a bar towel off the heap next to an ice well and slapping it over his shoulder.
Smiling his best tip-getting smile, he leaned over the smoky bar. The woman was blocking him from Braddock’s goons. “Hola! What’ll it be?”
“Un gin tonic, por favorcito,” she said.
Great, except there was no standard for how bars organized their shelves… and whoever’s station he was commandeering, they’d be back pretty soon. Thankfully, there was a filled silver shaker already set out on the bar and Nate grabbed it, clapping the lid down. He shook vigorously and reached for a highball glass.
“You know the gin and tonic was invented by the British Army, to cure malaria?” Nate said, and the woman smiled. He poured theatrically, from a height. Whatever he was serving, it was kind of green.
“That’s not a gin and tonic,” he said, working the charm as he pushed the glass forward. “But whatever it is, it’s on the house.”
She picked up the glass and sipped, raising her eyebrows appreciatively— and then she was shoved to the side, and the Scotsman was glowering down at him, his mouth a pinched line.
“Let me guess,” Nate said. “Piña colada, am I right?”
The Scot slapped one meaty hand down and started to vault over the bar top. Nate grabbed the first bottle at hand and clonked him with it, then punched his arm out from under him. The Scot crashed to the smoking wood, candles and cocktails Aying.
The MMA fighter lunged past his Scottish buddy and Nate hit him, too, the bottle shattering in a splash of rum and broken glass on the side of his skull. The fighter reeled back but the Scot had come up on their side of the bar, and he threw himself at Nate. His ham fists dealt out punishing blows, hard, fast jabs to Nate’s ribs and gut.
The Scot threw Nate onto the bar and grabbed his throat, pinning him while he reached into his jacket.
“Ya think yir a come’dyen,” he snarled, choking Nate. “Okay, okay, hold on,” Nate wheezed. “Sex on the Beach?”
He kicked the shelves behind the Scot and half a dozen bottles Aew his way. Nate managed to snatch one of them and smash it over the furious Scot’s head. The villain let go of him and Nate stood up, grabbing another bottle, daring a glance at Chloe, hoping she’d found something—
“Ugh, I hate puzzles!” she snarled and grabbed an icepick off the bar. She started hammering at the tiles.
Guess not, Nate thought, and threw a sealed bottle of Hennessy at the Scot’s red, angry face. The guy was staggering but still upright, which needed to change. The MMA fighter was recovering from his knock to the head, climbing onto the bar, and while most of the dancers seemed oblivious to the brawl, still grooving to the beat, the employees were headed their way, shouting.
“Here it is!” Chloe said, and then she was plunging her cross into a hole beneath the shattered titles, turning it—
Nate threw more bottles, grabbing backups after each launch. The Scot stepped on one of them and fell against the bar, blocking the MMA fighter.
The entire Infernum mosaic disappeared, sliding up or down, Nate didn’t see. The opening was small, only a few feet across, but tall enough to crawl into.
Nate realized he was holding the nearly empty Absolut bottle he’d used to start the fire, and took a big mouthful.
“What the hell, Nate? Shots later!” Chloe shouted, and crawled into the opening. Nate shouldered his pack and went after her, fishing his Zippo out of his pocket before turning to the opening, leaning in—
A heavy hand clapped down on his shoulder, jerking him backward, but he was ready. He spun into a crouch, Aicking the Zippo open, facing the MMA fighter about to pound his face in—
—and his trusty lighter failed to light, again, the wheel spinning uselessly.
What the fuck?!
There was a candle guttering near the cash register. Nate grabbed it as MMA pulled him into punching range, held it between them, and spewed out his mouthful of vodka.
MMA recoiled from the blast of Aame, letting go of Nate’s shirt. Nate turned and dove for the opening, remembering at the last second to grab Chloe’s key still sticking out of the tiles. As soon as he pulled it out, he could hear grinding stone—
—and the panel to the club slid shut after them, locking them in the dark.
Nate exhaled heavily. The music was still audible but he could hear himself think again, and no one was actively trying to murder him. On the other hand…
They were in a tight, dark space, surrounded by cold rock, and there wasn’t even enough room to sit. Also, he kind of felt like throwing up, thanks to McFuckface’s beating.
“You really like to cut it close,” Chloe commented.
“Yeah, well, otherwise it wouldn’t be as exciting,” Nate said.
“Where the hell are we?” Chloe asked. They both fumbled their Aashlights out and clicked them on, checking out the new environment.
A small, Aat crawlspace, with nothing to see but gray rock on all sides. Without a word, they each took a side and crawled along the dusty stones, pushing at the rock walls. It didn’t take long to investigate, the space was maybe six feet across and twice as long, with no openings but the one they’d come through.
“There has to be a way out,” Chloe said, sounding a little freaked. Nate wasn’t too happy, either. He’d never experienced claustrophobia, but this was like being in a coffin. They were trapped, and deep underground.
His light happened over an old metal grate set into the middle of the Aoor, that had been covered by their bodies. He and Chloe both crawled to it, Nate shining his Aashlight down. More rock. Another tunnel, maybe, and only a few feet below theirs. “Well, well, well, what do you think’s down there?”
“Anything’s better than up here,” Chloe said, and yanked at the metal grid. It didn’t budge. Nate tapped one of the bars with his Aashlight, frowning. Solid crucible steel, old but way too thick for bolt cutters, and it was embedded in the rock. They weren’t getting out that way, unless it was some new puzzle to solve…
Nate rolled over onto his back, aiming his Aashlight at the low ceiling— and there it was, directly overhead.
“I think I found it,” he said. A wooden door in the rock, painted and etched with stars and anchors—and a thick, knobby keyhole, dead center.
Chloe rolled over and let out a deep breath, obviously relieved. Nate still had her cross, and he slid the long bar into the keyhole, then turned it left.
There was a soft click sound, but nothing happened. As one, he and Chloe reached up and pushed at the wood, but the door didn’t move… and there was a new sound, a low rumble, and the cold rock beneath them suddenly seemed colder.
Nate turned on his side and looked down. The passage beneath them was filling with water, quickly. Even as he watched, the level rose swiftly toward the steel gate, bubbling water swirling with dust, climbing fast.
“Water,” Chloe said.
“A lot of water,” Nate agreed. “Shit.”
Chloe pushed against the door again. “Nate, we have to get out of here.”
“Sully, you there?” Nate called. “We’re trapped down here! You have to get us out!”
“Almost caught up, kid!”
Nate felt a beat of relief—but then cool water kissed his butt and started to spread, soaking into his clothes. This puzzle was on a timer.
“It has to be a test,” Nate said. “The Eighteen must have built an escape, right?”
“That’s your department,” Chloe said. “Think!”
“The journal says, ‘trust in your fellow man, for one will go to heaven, the other to hell.’ Trust in your fellow man…”
They both got it at the same time, yelling in one voice, “Sully!”
“Sully, there has to be another keyhole up there, to open this door!” Nate added, urgently.
The cold water was inching higher, spreading across the Aoor of their narrow, soon-to-be tomb.