Clive Cussler - Lost City

"Follow me if you dare," Emil said with a smirking leer on his face, and then he ducked under the jamb.

Laughing giddily, the guests paused, then with wine goblets in hand they filed after Emil like the children of Hamlin following the Pied Piper. Austin put his hand on Skye's arm and kept her from going with the others.

"Make believe you're drunk," Austin said.

"I wish I were drunk," Skye said. "Merde. Here comes the dragon lady."

Madame Fauchard glided over and said, "The Red Death must take its leave, Monsieur Austin. Sorry we couldn't get to know each other better."

"I am, too. That was an interesting toast Sir Cavendish gave," he said, slurring his words.

"Great families are often the subject of malicious gossip." She turned to Skye. "The masquerade is at an end. I believe you have a relic that belongs to my family."

"What are you talking about?"

: "Don't toy with me. I know you have the helmet."

"Then it was you who sent that awful man."

"Sebastian? No, he is my son's lapdog. If it's any consolation to you, he will be eliminated as a result of his failures. Never mind, we will persuade you to tell us where our property is. As for you, Monsieur Austin, I must bid you farewell."

"Until we meet again," Austin said, swaying slightly. She gazed at him with a look approaching sadness. "Yes. Until we meet again."

Escorted by an entourage of servants, Madame Fauchard headed for the exit. Marcel had been standing nearby. Now he came over and curled his lip in his movie gangster's smile. "Monsieur Emil would be heartbroken if you missed the entertainment he has prepared for you." "Wouldn't miss it for the world," Austin said, deliberately slurring his words.

Marcel lit another torch and gestured toward the door. Austin and Skye caught up with the tail end of the raucous crowd. Marcel took up the rear to make sure they didn't stray.

The procession descended a short stone staircase to a passageway about six feet wide. As the guests plunged deeper into the bowels of the chateau, the laughter began to ebb. The merriment died completely along with conversation, when the guests entered a section of tunnel lined with eye-level stone shelves that overflowed with human bones. Emil stopped in front of a shelf, picked out a skull at random and held it above his head, where it grinned down at the guests as if amused by their clever costumes.

"Welcome to the catacombs of Chateau Fauchard," Emil proclaimed with the cheerfulness of a Disney World tour guide. "Meet one of my ancestors. Pardon if he is a bit reserved. He doesn't get many visitors."

He tossed the skull back into a recess, where it started a small avalanche of femurs, ribs and clavicles. Then he forged ahead, exhorting the guests to hurry or they would miss the show. The tunnel entered a series of large, barred rooms that Emil explained were the dungeons and torture chambers. Braziers had been set up in each room so their flickering light was filtered through stained-glass screens of different colors.

The strange colored light illuminated the wax faces of figures that looked so lifelike no one would have been surprised if they had moved. In one chamber, a great ape was stuffing a woman up a chimney. In another, a man was digging himself out of a grave. Every room had a scene from a Poe story.

Emil drifted back to Austin. The torchlight gave his mordant features a Satanic cast that fit in with the surroundings.

"Well, Monsieur Austin, what do you think of my little show so far?"

"Haven't had so much fun since I went to Madame Tussaud's wax museum."

"You flatter me. Bravo! The best is yet to come." Emil kept going until he came to a chamber whose crimson light made all within its special radiance look like victims of the Red Death. In the floor of the room was a circular pit. A razor-sharp pendulum was swinging above a wooden framework. Strapped down on

the framework, with rats crawling over his chest, was a large black bird. It was the scene from the The Pit and the Pendulum, where the victim is being tortured by the Spanish Inquisition. Only in this instance the victim was Cavendish, who was tied down and gagged on the table.

"You will notice some differences in this scene," Emil said. "The rats you see scurrying around the dungeon are real. And so is the victim. Mr. Cavendish is a good sport, as the English would say, and he has gracefully agreed to participate for our amusement."

As Emil led the guests in a polite applause, Cavendish struggled against the bonds that held him.

The pendulum swung lower until it was only inches from the heaving chest. "He's going to be killed!" a woman screamed.

"Sliced and diced," Emil said with an incongruous cheeriness. He lowered his voice to a stage whisper. "Lord Cavendish is a ham at heart, I fear. Don't worry, my friends. The blade is made of wood. We wouldn't want our guest to go to pieces. But if it worries you ..." He snapped his fingers and the swinging pendulum slowed to a stop. Cavendish gave a violent convulsion and lay still.

Emil led the guests into the last dungeon. Although there was no scene set up in the chamber, in some ways it was the most frightening of all. The walls were covered in black velvet that stole what light escaped through the opaque black screen. The atmosphere was the most oppressive. There was a collective sigh of relief when Emil told his guests to follow a passageway that would lead from the dungeon. When Austin and Skye went to follow, he barred their way.

Austin stumbled drunkenly and whipped his cap off in a grand sweep. "After you, Gaston."

Emil had shed his foppish Prospero act and now his voice was businesslike and as hard-edged as cold steel.

"While Marcel leads our guests out of the catacombs, I have something special to show you and the young lady," he said, lifting a fold

of black velvet draped against a wall. Behind the cloth was a cleft in the stones about two feet wide.

Austin blinked. "What's going on? Is this part of the show?" "Yes," Emil said with a hard smile. "This is part of the show." He produced a pistol.

Austin looked at the gun and gave a soggy laugh. "Hell of a show," he said, shaking his head so the bells jangled.

He stepped through the opening, with Skye, then Emil behind her. They descended two more sets of stairs. The temperature dropped and the air became swamplike. Water glistened on the walls and dripped down on their heads. They continued down until Emil finally ordered them to stop in front of a recess about five feet wide and four feet deep.

He thrust the torch into a sconce and pulled a cloth off a pile of bricks. A trowel and a bucket of mortar sat on the floor next to the bricks. From a niche he extracted a wine bottle whose dark green glass was covered with dust and cobwebs. The bottle was stopped up with a cork, which Emil removed with his teeth. He handed the bottle to Austin

"Drink, Monsieur Austin."

Austin stared at the bottle. "Maybe we should let it breathe for a while."

"It has had centuries to breathe," Fauchard said. He gestured with his gun. "Drink."

Austin grinned foolishly as if he thought the gun was a toy and put the bottle to his mouth. Some of the wine dribbled down his chin and he wiped it away. He offered the bottle to Fauchard, who said, "No, thank you. I prefer to remain conscious." "Huh?"

"You have caused us a great deal of trouble," Emil said. "My mother said to dispose of you in the most fitting way I could think

of. A good son always does what his mother tells him to. Sebastian, say hello again to "Ms. Bouchet." "

A figure stepped from the shadows and the torch light illuminated the pale features of the man Austin had dubbed Doughboy. His right arm was in a sling.

"I believe you've met Sebastian," Emil said. "He has a gift for you, mademoiselle."