Alex Archer - Death Mask

She called Roux.

He answered on the third ring. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”

“I went on a little trip. Underground.”

“Find anything?”

“Maybe. The old Convent of San Francisco is gone, but the builders got lazy. They just leveled the land out and built over the old foundations. I found a way down into the catacombs. In among all of the tombs of the sisters and the good Christian servants of the Inquisition, I found a single sarcophagus that was out of place. It was marked Morisco.”

“Interesting. A Moorish grave hidden in the heart of a Christian shrine.”

“Exactly.”

“I’m assuming you opened it?”

“I did.”

“And?”

“No bones. No body.”

“It was empty?”

“I didn’t say that. There was a key inside.”

“A key? That seems like a lot of trouble to hide a key, don’t you think?”

“I do. Which makes it important. I don’t know what it opens or why it was hidden, or even who did the hiding, but I’ll work it out. That’s what I do. How about you?”

“If you check your texts you’ll find a picture of a preliminary sketch by Goya. Like your key, it has been hidden away, this time in the archives of a gallery here. It’s a drawing of a mask. I’m sure it’s the one we’re looking for. I’m also sure it was drawn from life.”

“Which would be proof that the mask exists.”

“Or at least existed,” he agreed.

“Well, it’s a start.”

“Indeed it is. The other thing that makes me think I’m on to something here is the fact that I’m being followed.”

Annja felt the fine hairs on the nape of her neck prickle.

It was one thing for the kidnappers to know where she was and what she was doing, but they were keeping tabs on Roux, too? That meant they knew about them, how they worked. Knowing their enemy, knowing how they’d act and react, gave them a distinct advantage over Annja and the old man.

“Funny you should say that,” she said.

“Are you being followed?”

“As good as. I just had a call from the kidnappers. They knew where I was. Pretty much described the church I’d just walked out of.” She looked back at the woman who was still kneeling in prayer, but it was the reredos that caught her attention, an ornate altarpiece depicting Saint James killing Moors. The image was enough to trigger a thought inside her head. The sarcophagus, and by extension the key, was a Moorish relic hidden away beneath a Christian church. What if that was the clue itself?

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