Austin felt as if he had just been dealt a pair of deuces in a high-stakes poker game.
"I should have known that mother snakes sometimes eat their eggs."
"You can't insult me with your silly taunts. Despite its internal friction, our family has grown ever more powerful through the centuries."
"And created a river of blood in the process."
"What do we care for blood? It is the most expendable commodity on earth."
"Some people might argue with that."
"You have no idea what you have gotten yourself into," Madame Fauchard said, with a sneer. "You think you know us? There is layer upon layer invisible to you. Our family has its origins in the mists of time. While your forebears were clawing at rotten logs searching for grubs, the first Spear had already fashioned a flint point, attached it to a shaft and traded it to his neighbor. We are of no nation and every nation. We sold weapons to the Greeks against the Persians and the Persians against the Greeks. The Roman legions marched across Europe wielding broadswords of our design. Now we will forge time, bending it to our will as we once did steel."
"And if you live another hundred or even a thousand years, then what?"
"It is not how long you live but what you do with your time. Why don't you join me, monsieur? I admire your resourcefulness and courage. Maybe I could even find a place for your friends. Think of it. Immortality! Deep down, isn't that your most fervent wish?"
"Your son asked me the same question."
"And?"
A cold smile crossed Austin's face. "My only wish is to send you and your pals to join him in hell."
"So you did kill him!" Madame Fauchard clapped her hands in light applause. "Well done, Monsieur Austin, as I would expect. You must have known I wasn't serious with my proposal. If there is one thing I have learned in a century, it is that men of conscience are always a danger. Very well, you and your friends wanted to be part of my masque, so it will be. In return for removing my son, I will not kill you right away. I will allow you to be present at the dawn of a new day on earth." She reached into the bodice of her dress and extracted a small amber phial, which she held above her head. "Behold, the elixir of life."
Austin was thinking about something else: MacLean His eyes glimmered with a faint light of understanding as he pondered the scientist's last words.
"Your mad scheme will never work," Austin said quietly. Racine glared at Austin and her lips curled in contempt. "Who is going to stop me? You? You dare to pit your puny intellect against the lessons of a hundred years?"
She uncorked the phial, which she put to her lips, and drank the contents. Her face seemed to glow with an aura. Austin watched in fascination for a moment, aware that he was witnessing a miracle, but he quickly snapped out of his spell. Racine noticed him push the timing button on his watch.
"You might as well throw that timepiece away," she said derisively. "In my world, time will have no meaning."
"Pardon me if I ignore your suggestion. In my world, time still has a great deal of meaning."
She regarded Austin with an arrogant tilt of her head, then signaled Marcel, who came over. Together with the other prisoners, they marched to the door that led down to the catacombs.
As the thick wooden door swung open and Austin and the others were prodded into the depths at gunpoint, the warning from the French pilot flashed through his mind. The Fauchards have a past.
Then he looked at his watch and prayed to the gods who look over fools and adventurers, often one and the same. With any kind of luck, this evil blight of a family might not have a future.
RACINE GRABBED a torch from the wall and plunged through the doorway. Reveling in the freedom of her newfound youth, she bounded gracefully down the sjairs leading into the catacombs. Her schoolgirl enthusiasm stood out in sharp contrast to the morbid surroundings, with their dripping walls and lichen-splotched ceilings.
Behind Racine came Skye, followed by Austin and a guard who watched his every move, then Zavala and another guard. Last in line was Marcel, ever watchful, like a trail boss keeping his eye out for straying cattle. The procession moved past the boneyard and the dungeons, and then it descended staircases that plunged guards and prisoners ever deeper into the catacombs. The air grew more stale and hard to breathe.
A narrow, barrel-roofed passageway about a hundred feet long led off from the last set of stairs and ended at a stone door. Two guards rolled the door aside. It opened quietly, as if the rollers had been well oiled. As the prisoners were marched along another corridor, Austin assessed their options and decided that they had none.
At least for now. The Trouts had instructions to stand by until he called.
He could kick himself for assuming too much. He had miscalculated badly. Racine was ruthless, as shown by the fact that she had had her brother killed, but he never dreamed she would be so callous about the fate of her son. He glanced ahead at Skye. She seemed to be bearing up well, too busy brushing cobwebs out of her hair to dwell on her long-term prospects. He only hoped that she would not have to pay for his miscalculation.
The passageway ended in another stone door, which was also rolled aside. Racine stepped through the opening and waved her torch in the air so that the flame crackled and snapped. The dancing torchlight illuminated a stone slab about two feet wide that seemed to jut out into empty space from the edge of a precipice.
"I call this the "Bridge of Sighs," " Racine said, her voice echoing and reechoing off the deep walls of the chasm. "It's much older than the one in Venice. Listen." The wind wailed up from below like a chorus of lost souls and tousled her long flaxen hair. "It's best not to pause."
She dashed across the slab with seemingly reckless abandon. Skye hesitated. Austin took her hand and, together, they shuffled across the narrow bridge toward Racine's fluttering torch. The wind tugged at their clothes. The distance was about thirty feet, but it might as well have been thirty miles.
Zavala was a natural athlete, who had boxed in college, and he strode across with the surefootedness of a high-wire walker. The guards, and even Marcel, took their time as they made their way across and it was obvious they didn't like this part of their duty.
The guards unlocked a thick wooden door and the procession stepped out of the catacombs into an open space. The air was dry and heavily scented with a strong piney smell. They were in an aisle
around a dozen feet across. Racine walked over to a low wall between two massive square columns and beckoned for the others to follow.
The walkway was actually the top tier of an amphitheater. Three more tiers of seats lit by a ring of torchlight descended to an arena. The seats were occupied by hundreds of silent spectators.
Austin gazed through an arch at the vast open space. "You never cease to surprise, Madame Fauchard."
"Few strangers have ever seen the sanctum sancto rum of the Fauchards."
Skye's fears had been momentarily overshadowed by her scientific curiosity. "This is an exact replica of the Coliseum," she said with an analytical eye. "The orders of columns, the arcade, everything is the same except for the scale."
"That should come as no surprise," Racine said. "It's a smaller version of the Coliseum, built by a homesick Roman proconsul for Gaul who missed the amusements of home. When my ancestors were searching for a site to build the chateau, they thought that by having the great house rest on a place where gladiators shed their blood they could fuse with the martial spirit. My family made a few modifications, such as adding an ingenious ventilation system to bring air to this place, but otherwise all is as they found it."
Austin was puzzled by the spectators. There should have been a murmuring of voices, a rustling or coughing. But the silence was palpable.