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“And this…thing I’m supposed to see is in here?”
“No, I figured I’d show off my baseball card collection.” He wiped his hands together to brush the rust off them, shooting her a playfully sarcastic look.
“Hah, hah.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m still expecting you to shove me in there and lock the door behind me.”
“It’s been brought up.” Rinaldo’s expression fell back to a serious, apprehensive one. “We’re trying to avoid that path if we can help it.”
She knew he wasn’t joking. With a long, wavering sigh, she tucked her hands into her hoodie pocket. “At least you’re honest.”
Ally stayed quiet, her expression thin, and followed Rinaldo into the vault. It was clear that whatever was about to happen wasn’t going to be pleasant. Rinaldo hit a switch on the wall, and row after row of overhead lights clicked on, the orange filaments buzzing and sputtering to life.
Maggie followed them, trying to understand precisely what it was that she was seeing as she walked into the huge space.
The ceiling was curved overhead, a giant half-circle made of bricks. It smelled like dust. Dust and musty paper. There were shelves that stretched high overhead, large metal industrial things that were overflowing with…stuff.
And that was why her eyes went wide as she stared. There was just so much stuff, and every single thing looked fascinating. Books and stacks of papers were the ones that were easy to dismiss. But there were vases, knives, weapons, guns, human remains in jars or cases, amulets and jewelry, even the front end of an old vintage car.
She stopped to stare at it.
“Possessed by an eldritch spirit,” Rinaldo provided. “It ran over about fifteen people before we managed to stop it. We had to slice it in two. The other half is beneath a church in Ohio.” He sniffed dismissively. “It honks occasionally to be annoying.”
Maggie shook her head, astonished. She didn’t know whether or not she should laugh at the front end of a shadowy possessed car causing a spiteful ruckus or if she should be terrified at the notion that something like that even existed.
“How many things down here are alive?” It was another question she hated to ask. But if she was going to end up joining the collection, she wanted to have an idea of how many neighbors she might have.
The idea of being locked down here in the dark…trapped and alone. It was a tomb.
She shivered.
“I wouldn’t call them alive.” Rinaldo tucked his hands into his pockets. “But I get your meaning. A few. More than I’d like. I know what you’re thinking—that this is a prison. But it isn’t. We don’t have a choice. The things down here…can’t be let out into the world.”
“Why not destroy them, then?” Maggie walked away from the vintage car, looking around the room for more things that might be a little less than living, but a little more than not. Namely because she might resemble them more than she did Rinaldo, and possibly even Ally.
Silence. Neither of her pseudo-chaperones answered her. And that was enough of a reply for her to guess the answer. “Because they might be useful. Great. Hey, can I at least get a Netflix account when you lock me up down here?”
More silence. She looked back to the holy warriors and found them looking at each other with matched regret, sadness, and disgust. It was clear they didn’t like this place any more than she did. And worse yet, they were vaguely responsible for it. Or at least their church was.
Suddenly, she wanted this over and done with. “Let’s rip the bandage off. C’mon.” After five feet of walking, she stopped and turned back to them. Gesturing at the rows and rows of twenty-foot-tall shelving, she let out an exasperated sigh. “I have no idea where the fuck I’m going.”
That finally got Rinaldo to smile. He patted her on the shoulder as he passed. “You’re fun. I like you. Even if you do punch me too much.”
“I punch you exactly the right amount. And you deserve it. Still wish I had managed to stab you, however.” Maggie followed them once more. “Still don’t forgive you for breaking into my apartment and trying to abduct me.”
“Don’t worry, Gideon gave me a good shiner with that cane of his in exchange. Man might not look like a fighter, but he can hit hard when he wants to.” Rinaldo rubbed the side of his face, where the dark bruise was still visible as a yellow-green splotch.
“I’m surprised he didn’t kill you. Being a necromancer and all.” Maggie paused briefly to stare at a…head. A preserved head. It was just sitting on a shelf like it was totally normal, stuffed between a row of books and a dead plant in a jar. At least it didn’t open its eyes and start singing like Michigan J. Frog. Honestly, she wouldn’t be surprised at this point. Right. Okay. Sure. She forced herself to keep going.
“I’m not going to complain. Besides, killing me would have declared war. I don’t think he wants to start a fight with the entire Order.” Rinaldo took a right down a different row, reading the labels at the ends in Latin under his breath. “He likes to play his games in the shadows. It makes it harder to keep track of how many people he has under his, eh, thrall.”
“What do you mean?”
“Gideon has a signature. Something he does that nobody else seems to have figured out how to do. He kills a person he finds useful—like a dignitary or a businessman, somebody with power—and immediately raises them in the same moment. They barely even experience being dead. It makes it easier for them to masquerade as one of the living. The longer a person goes in the ground, the more it weighs on their psyche.” Rinaldo shrugged. “The man has control of at least two major governments that we know of.”
“Shit.” Maggie laughed quietly. “What’s he doing wasting his time with me?”
“That’s exactly what we’re trying to figure out,” Ally piped cheerfully. “Not that you’re a waste of time, dear. Not at all.”
“When it comes to puppeteering entire governments around or playing fake psychiatrist to some random girl, I think the scales are a little lopsided there. Dude has weird priorities.”
