Between a Vamp and a Hard Place (3 page)

“Stairs,” I told her. “This goes down.” I moved forward and ran a finger over the banister. Instead of dust, here it was all covered with a fine layer of damp. A small, twisting spiral staircase of wrought-iron descended into more darkness.

“Oh fuck,” Gemma breathed. “This is some serious Phantom of the Opera shit.”

“It's okay,” I told her. I gave the stairs a shake, and they didn't budge. “Seems sturdy enough.”

“Let's go back.”

“Are you kidding? We've barely started exploring,” I told her. “We're going down to see what's in there. We paid ten grand for the privilege, remember?”

“I'm starting to regret the purchase.”

Yeah, well, that made two of us. Clutching my flashlight, I moved onto the stairs and began to descend. The stairs creaked as Gemma approached behind me, and we shone our beams around us, looking as best we could. The passage seemed to be heading straight down, much like a well, and the cool damp only added to that sensation. The walls were made of interlocked stone, mortared tightly together. It all looked so old. I wondered how long it had been here.

Then I wondered what would be waiting at the bottom.

After what felt like hundreds of steps, my feet alighted on damp stone flooring. My flashlight beam showed me I'd landed in a room.

No . . . a treasure trove.

Because what I saw took my breath away. This wasn't the hoarder's paradise from before. This was something entirely different. It reminded me of museum storage that I'd seen in a movie once. Wooden crates spilled their contents onto the cool stone flooring, and everywhere I looked, there were beautiful things. A beaten copper bowl rested atop a chess-board. Off to one side, there was a variety of jars settled in old, musty straw. It was drier here, which was probably a blessing, or this stuff would have been covered in mold.

“Jackpot,” I announced gleefully to Gemma and moved forward.

The crates were stacked along one side of the wall, the contents of a few opened up and picked through, as if someone had lovingly reviewed old, familiar friends. I saw a lid slightly askew and moved it, shining my flashlight to see what was inside.

A gleam of white porcelain caught my eye, and my heart hammered. That looked like Chinese porcelain. My favorite. Excited, I pulled the lid off even as Gemma moved past me, exploring.

“I think there's a hanging lantern on the wall,” she said, shining her beam. “Too bad they're not wired for electricity down here, but I bet we could find some matches and light it to see a little better.”

“Mmmhmm,” I said absently, setting my flashlight down and gently setting the lid on the floor. Three perfectly formed jars were nestled amidst what looked like old, musty fabric. I pulled one out gently, admiring it. A ginger jar, I realized happily. The shape was perfect, and the porcelain lid was still attached and looked to be in perfect condition. The only thing that baffled me was the lack of paint on the jar. Most ginger jars were brightly colored. Unless . . .

“Hey, Gemma?” My voice sounded a little shaky. “Can you come here for a sec and shine your flashlight for me?”

“Sure thing,” she said, and appeared at my side, her flashlight beam hitting me in the eyes. “Ooo, is that some Chinese shit?”

“A ginger jar,” I told her breathlessly. “Can you keep your flashlight shining on it while I examine it?”

She held it aloft, and I gently pulled the lid off and examined it. Most ginger jars didn't have their original tops, or the delicate wood circles were split in half, rendering them worthless. This lid was perfect, the jar with nary a chip. I swallowed hard as a paper rustled inside, and I set the lid down and pulled the paper out, examining it. “This is a receipt of purchase,” I told her, shocked. “From 1865.”

“Oh-em-gee,” she cried. “Provenance, baby!” The flashlight beam wiggled as Gemma did a little dance. We both knew what that meant. Antiques were worth money, of course, but if you could prove how old your stuff was? The value went through the roof. The item I held in my hands was museum quality.

“Keep shining the light,” I told her and held the jar up to the beam. The light shone in through the mouth of the jar, and as it did, the plain white turned into the pattern of a dragon.

Gemma gasped.

I might have, too. “Anhua,” I breathed.

“What's that?”

“Anhua's a rare form of Chinese pottery,” I told her reverently, setting the jar back down and carefully putting the receipt back inside. “It means ‘hidden design.' It became popular when Emperor Jiajing decided he didn't like the ornate designs of most porcelain, so it was made a pure, plain white to appease his eyes, and the designs were hidden into the pottery. It's a very difficult art form. I . . . I've always looked for some but never seen any at auction. I don't think I've ever seen anhua in this perfect a state. Not even in a museum.” I gingerly turned the jar over and gazed at the markings on the bottom. “Qing period. This has to be from the late eighteenth century.”

“Money-wise, what are we looking at?” Gemma asked, excitement in her voice.

I stared at the gorgeous, rare jar. A small, selfish part of me wanted to keep it. To be able to admire its beauty on a daily basis. I felt covetous just looking at it.

I sighed. I had to be smart and sell it. “At least thirty or forty grand, if we can get the right buyers at the auction. Maybe more if we can get investors involved.”

“Thirty or forty . . . grand?”

“Maybe more,” I agreed, feeling faint at the thought. This was one item. One. I set it gently back into its nest in the crate. Then I looked at Gemma. “Do you think they all have the receipts?”

“They might,” she said, and then gave another giddy squeal. “Oh my fucking God. We're going to be rich, aren't we?”

“We just might,” I agreed. I grabbed her hand, and we did a happy dance together, amidst the crates in the secret room.

Once the initial excitement was over, Gemma raced back up the stairs to get matches for the lanterns while I pried open the next crate and examined its contents. It was a treasure trove of pottery from time periods I'd only read about. There was a Jiajing drinking vessel in the shape of a chicken that was perfectly intact. There were Ming vases. So many Mings in beautiful shapes. There were meipings and moonflasks and garlic-neck vases. There were Kraak plates and ginger jars of every size imaginable. There were even art pieces from different geographical regions—Roman busts and a few Greek amphoras.

“It's like these bitches robbed a museum,” Gemma breathed next to me. “This is fucking incredible.”

“It is,” I agreed, scarcely able to believe it myself. “It's almost too good to be true.”

“This is our big break!” Gemma did another happy little dance.

“Which means we need to work extra hard down here and carefully pack everything,” I said. “Everything. We don't want to get back and have everything broken. We need to make it tip-top shape.”

“I'm on it,” she said with a jaunty salute. Then she looked around. “Where should we start?”

We grabbed the lantern and looked around the room. It was hard to make out the contents, but in the back, I spied a massive crate. “Wow. What could that be?”

“I don't know,” Gemma said, moving to my side. “It's enormous. There's no pottery that big, right?”

“Uh, no.” I eyed it, curious myself. We'd found a jackpot of pottery and artifacts, but the crate at the back of the room was bigger than anything else. It was easily three feet tall and six feet long. A few other crates were stacked atop it. I picked one up and moved it, and Gemma held the lantern over me as I cleared off the rest.

“Let's guess,” Gemma giggled as I continued to clear it off. “I'm thinking it's . . . a table. A really big ugly table.”

“Let's hope not,” I told her with a grin. “The cost of shipping something like that back would be ridiculous.”

“Who cares?” she said, swinging the lantern around. “We've got a room full of superexpensive jars. I think we can afford a freaking table if we want it. I don't care if it's made of lead!”

I laughed, feeling light and carefree. She was right; we had a fortune here. For the first time in days, I felt happy. Excited about the future. Thrilled about our discovery. And it was all because Gemma had taken a risk. I set the crate down and hugged my friend. “You are the best, you know that?”

“I know,” she said, her voice smug but happy. “Now open up that damn table already!”

With a crowbar we'd found upstairs, I pried the heavy lid off as Gemma held up the lantern. Then I gave the lid a mighty heave to the side and we leaned over to see what we'd uncovered.

It was thick, and oblong, and looked to be made of dark stone. For a moment, I didn't realize it wasn't a table. Then, I realized it was a coffin.

Gemma realized it at the same time I did. She gave a tiny scream. I screamed, too, then we both raced up the stairs, frightened out of our minds.

*  *  *

A few hours later, we sat at a well-lit restaurant table, unwilling to go back to the apartment.

“I told you this place was haunted,” Gemma wept over her baked ziti and wine. “Why is it when we have a big break, there has to be a coffin downstairs?”

“I don't know,” I mused, poking at my linguine. I didn't have much of an appetite . . . except for maybe more gummy bears. I'd packed a few bags in my suitcase, and I'd be breaking them out after dinner. Gemma liked wine when she was bummed. I liked chewy candy.

“Do you think it's safe to stay there tonight, or should we get a hotel?”

My brows drew together. “Of course we'll stay there. Why wouldn't we?”

She gritted her teeth and leaned in so no one could overhear our conversation at the café. “Uh, because there's a dead dude in the cellar?”

“We don't know that anyone's in there,” I pointed out. I figured we had a fifty-fifty chance of dead dudes. “And even if there is, he's long dead.”

“But . . .” She shivered. “I don't like it. I don't want to go back.”

I didn't want to, either. But then I thought of all the beautiful pottery in the secret room. I couldn't just shut the secret door and pretend like we'd never found the stuff. It'd haunt me for the rest of my life if I did.

Clearly Gemma had no such problem. “We should book tickets home tonight. Call the whole thing a wash. I'll phone Franco and tell him that we changed our minds and he doesn't have to know what we found. It'll be our secret.”

I gaped at her. “We don't have a choice, Gemma. Dead guy or no dead guy, there's a fortune down there for the taking. It'll get us back on our feet and set us up for a long, long time. We're not leaving it behind.”

“It's not so bad being broke.”

I just stared at her.

“Well, I'm not going back there,” she said stubbornly, then took another big swig of her wine.

Three glasses of wine later, however, I managed to get Gemma back to the apartment. She wept and clung to me drunkenly, saying that the ghosts were going to eat her face. But then again, Gemma was a bad drunk. I put her to bed in the guest room, leaving the lights on, because I knew she'd get scared if she woke up and didn't see me there with her.

Instead of joining her, I grabbed the matches and my flashlight, and left Gemma a note.
Gone downstairs. If I'm not back by morning, there was a dead guy in there after all. Just kidding. Back soon! XO

Then I took a deep breath and tried to calm my racing heart. I was terrified—Gemma wasn't the only one freaked out by the coffin—but I also had to be practical. Logic told me I was just being silly, the same way it was silly to say a little prayer every time you passed a graveyard.

Even if there was a dead guy in there, he couldn't do anything to me. But all those priceless treasures? They could change our lives. Both Gemma and I had no money, and no family. We had no one to depend on but ourselves. And if those items in that room were legit, it was worth going into a spooky secret room with a dead body.

Or so I told myself.

I could bring them out one at a time, I mused. Maybe bring up one crate at a time so we didn't have to pack things downstairs with the body. Then we could quietly re-close the secret door and never say a peep. Or we could report it to the Venetian authorities. It wasn't as if they could frame us for murder if the dead guy was two hundred (or more) years old, right?

So I put the crowbar, some packing materials, a flashlight, and some extra batteries into a shoulder bag. I added my phone so I could take pictures of any of the items if needed.

Then, taking a deep breath, I shouldered the bag and headed for the secret room.

U
pon return, the secret room wasn't so frightening. Once I got past the wet stairs and the sensation of descending into a well, the small room at the bottom was mostly clean and neat if you didn't mind the stacks of crates brimming with priceless things. I certainly didn't.

Soon, though, my suspicions got the better of me, and I immediately checked to see if the pried-off wooden lid had moved from where I'd left it. Nope.

I breathed a sigh of relief and felt a little ridiculous. Of course it hadn't moved. I was just being silly and paranoid from Gemma's freak-out. Gemma was scared of mice, heights, communicable diseases, elevators, and wool blends. Of course she was scared of a coffin. And of course I was freaking out along with her. It
was
a coffin, after all. It wasn't something one would expect to find in a secret room.

Feeling a little better about things, I started to pull the lid back over the coffin, then paused. I stared down at the lid thoughtfully, then lit the lantern and set it atop a nearby crate.

Since I was here, I might as well see what was in the damn thing, right? It was probably nothing, and then Gemma and I would have a good laugh over the fact that we'd freaked out so badly. Then we'd get back to work cataloging the treasures down here, including the anhua jar I was now mentally referring to as My Precious.
We need a two-step plan,
I imagined Gemma saying.
Step one, get shit done. Step two, make all the money.