Flight of the Crow (2 page)

“Quinn,” Tomlinson began in an excited tone. “This is no less than Rudolph Diesel. He's trying out his newest engine using a revolutionary fuel.”

“Well, his newest engine just scared our baggage back to the dark ages.”

“Quinn, old man, please don't worry about such trivialities. I feel sure the driver can locate and secure his animals. Monsieur Diesel has offered to drive us to Paris in this amazing vehicle.”

Bryn laughed. “Allow him his excitement, Quinn. Look at Sam. She can't stop examining the engine to acknowledge our existence.”

The driver had loped off after the chaise so Bryn handed Fenix to Quinn to hold as she climbed into the rear seat of the vehicle. The large horseless carriage was built much like a high-perched phaeton with over-sized wheels and three sets of black, leather-covered seats. The driver steered the huge vehicle with a wheel set on a long pole that sprang from the front axle passing through the floor boards. The loud chugging motor was in the rear beneath the back seat. A huge, red-topped smokestack rose from the rear of the machine. It belched black smoke with every chug.

Quinn and Fingle sat in the back with her while Tomlinson and Sam seated themselves in the front with the Diesel. When they were all settled, Monsieur Diesel pulled a thick set of rubber goggles over his eyes and his beret back over his hair. He put the machine in gear using a stick set into the floor of the carriage and they were off.

The wind tore at Bryn's bonnet when the vehicle picked up speed. She allowed Quinn to enfold her in an embrace so she could hold onto her bonnet and Fenix as they sped into the French countryside, bouncing wildly over wheel ruts and potholes.

Tomlinson turned around, his bright eyes sparkling and his cheeks reddened by the wind. “We're traveling at thirty miles per hour,” he shouted over the noise of the engine and the wind. “Isn't it amazing?”

Bryn smiled back and huddled closer to Quinn. Amazing was not how she would describe it. At least they would cover the one hundred and twenty miles to Paris with alacrity. Which they did. Diesel had to stop his vehicle at Heudebouville to refill its tank with his secret fuel. While they were stopped, the group dined at the
Chat Doré
on ducklings in sauce and tournedos of veal. Bryn found goat's milk for Fenix and repaired her hair while they were stopped. She chose to braid it tightly to her head rather than have to deal with it in the wind again.

After five hours on the road, they arrived in Paris tired and disheveled. Bryn had a home there, acquired before the Revolution. It was located outside the south gate on the Left Bank in a neighborhood quite close to the Catacombs. Her home, on the
Rue Danville
, was a three-story house with a wall around it and a small garden. It had been built in the fourteenth century. She'd fought to keep it during the revolution by using her power to make it look like a filthy hovel to anyone who cared to examine it.

Diesel parked his vehicle in the alley beside her house and they all climbed out. Even Tomlinson was tired of the merciless shaking and bouncing of the horseless carriage as it traveled over the rough roads from Le Havre. Bryn mounted the front steps and rang the bell. A maid answered dressed in purple, Bryn's color. She saw Bryn carrying Fenix and crowed with dismay. “She's a babe yet again.”

Bryn gave Fenix to Babbette and entered her home. “Yes, my dear, there was nothing I could do to prevent it. I am vowing to you now, she will not suffer this again. I don't care what I have to do.”

Draak Priest slipped into the dark tunnels of the Paris catacombs as night fell over the City of Lights. He'd entered the labyrinth through a secret door under Saint-Sulpice Church. During the French Revolution, he'd learned of the door while tracking members of the royal family as they tried to escape the
guillotine.
The good fathers had been hiding them beneath the church. When Draak found them huddled among the bones of millions of Parisians, he'd dragged them to waiting soldiers who hauled them straight to the Bastille.

The dark and the bones did not bother Priest as he quickly made his way through the convoluted tunnels and galleries of the old mines housing the ossuary. He knew Cardinal Malenfant's bones would be in a special place, probably in one of the chapels or galleries littering the maze of passageways. He held the dagger of Lazarus in front of him as a beacon. When it came into the presence of great evil it lit up.

Malenfant was the most evil man buried in this ossuary. He'd been responsible for sending thousands of men, women and children to their deaths during the Inquisition. The black-souled cardinal had personally tortured many. It was recorded he preferred to hold many of these sessions, especially those of pretty young women, in his boudoir. The dagger should burn like a torch in the presence of his bones.

The dank passageways smelled of stale air, limestone and the grave. Row after row of bones and skulls were stacked carefully in shelves carved out of the living rock. He walked swiftly through the well-traveled areas until he came to a barred gate blocking his way. With a wave of his hand, the gate opened and he walked through. Many famous people's bones were interred here. He found a chapel deep inside a section of the old limestone mines. The ruby in the dagger's hilt glowed dully and Priest passed it by. Whatever evil was buried in that chapel was not at the level of Malenfant's iniquity.

Far below he heard the gurgle of subterranean water flowing through the aquifer deep under the city. As the air grew steadily ranker, the dagger's gems began to glow. He took a right turn and the glow faded so he turned around. He must find these bones. The skull in particular was a key component in the ritual that would return to him the gift of youth.

A black mountain dragon had granted Priest immortality when he was already a seventy-year-old man. He'd spent many centuries as an old man which he'd discovered was not a gift but a curse. He yearned for youth, strength of body, vigor, an end to aching bones and most of all, a raging erection.

His desire for these things outweighed anything else. When he'd acquired the
Coeur de Flamme
from Bryn Sahir, the huge emerald with a flaming ruby heart, he'd come straight to Paris. The stone was the most important element of his transformation. It contained untold energy. He touched it where it lay under his cassock close to his heart. Heat and power flowed from it and suddenly he knew exactly where to find Malenfant's bones.

With this new-found knowledge, he raced through the passages. This time, he headed back to the more traveled sections. The dagger's tip began to glow and he dived into a narrow side tunnel. He ran into another barred gate and slapped it open. The tunnel narrowed and he had to duck to get into a tiny chamber. The light of the dagger illuminated a small room with a low ceiling. In the center was an altar containing many guttered candles. The walls of the room were lined with rows of bones stacked and sorted according to type and size. Rows of skulls ran down the middle of the stacks and across the front forming a cross.

The dagger did not light up for any of these bones and for a moment, Priest was confused. He turned slowly as he held the dagger out in front of him. It beamed a shaft of light on part of the limestone wall beneath the bones. When Priest closely examined this wall, he saw it had ancient mortar crumbling in the cracks at all four edges. He used the dagger to dig out the mortar and soon, a block of limestone fell into his hand. In the bright light of the dagger, two dark eye holes glared at him from the skull resting on top of a pile of bones.

Success! Priest reverently removed the skull of Cardinal Malenfant, a man too evil to have his bones mingled with normal humans. He placed it in a velvet bag and turned to go, leaving the limestone block laying on the earthen floor of the chamber. He glanced back once at the exposed bones of Cardinal Malenfant and smiled. One more task for the ancient cardinal to fulfill and then he could rest in peace wherever his soul had been sent.

* * * *

Bryn patted Fenix's back until she burped. Fed, clad in a fresh nappy and dress, the babe would be content for several hours. Taking care of an infant was a wearing task. It absorbed too much of her time and energy, energy she should be using to find Draak Priest and the
Coeur de Flamme.

With Fenix napping in her cradle, Bryn ran down the stairs. She found Sam and Fingle sitting in the dining room talking. They had a close relationship. He had been her familiar when she was a witch in Salem. Bryn had saved her from being burned at the stake as a condemned witch, pulling her from the flames. Fingle had helped and been granted humanity. His flopping ears, droopy eyes and huge nose were holdovers from his time as a bloodhound. When Bryn had great need, he could revert to this creature and track people. She needed him now to find Draak Priest before he used the emerald to give himself youth. A youthful Priest was the last thing she wished to face. He desired her person with a flaming passion nothing seemed to extinguish.

“Sam, will you allow me to use Fingle to track Priest? Time is running out for us.”

Sam tilted her head. She had short boyish brown hair, freckles and a snub nose. Elegant eyebrows rose over round brown eyes. “You know he is always at your disposal, my darling.”

Bryn allowed Sam to pull her into a close embrace and kiss her. The warm kiss quickly ignited into passion. Sam pulled away and whispered into her ear. “Do you have time?”

“Tonight,” Bryn said with a smile. “Please say you'll share our bed with Quinn. His hunger threatens to overcome his good sense.”

Sam pouted. “He will use me like a whore. He does not desire me.”

“I know, dear one, but he cannot have me as you know, and I, I desire to please him.”

Sam hugged her and grabbed her butt under the demure bustle of purple silk covered with black lace. She squeezed the ripe globe in one hand and nuzzled Bryn's neck. “Only for you would I submit to the invasion of my body by a male organ.”

“I think you like it,” Bryn said as she straddled Sam's knee and rubbed her sex against her leather apron. “Admit it.”

Sam moved her hand from Bryn's ass to her breast where she lightly rubbed the tip of the nipple with her palm. Sam closed her eyes. “I love you. When we are together, it matters not how the deed is done, I enjoy it.”

Bryn placed a chaste kiss on Sam's cheek. “Tonight.”

Fingle rose from the table in the small dining parlor. “I don't be liking to hunt that evil no good son of a bitch,” he said in a mournful tone as his nose began to grow. “But I can't stand to watch Miss Fenix die, even one more time, so let's get to it.”

“I will change into my riding dress,” Bryn said. “And we will be off.”

Sam walked up the stairs with Bryn. They stopped at the door to her bed chamber. “And what are your plans for the day, my dear,” Bryn asked.

“I have an appointment with Monsieur Diesel. Tomlinson and I think his fuel might be the answer to our problems.”

“Of course.”

Sam grinned. “And, Tomlinson is meeting me at the
Galerie des Machines
inside the Exposition. It supposedly contains many new inventions, and then of course, I heard Buffalo Bill will perform this evening.”

Bryn nodded. “I may have to attend that.”

Sam grabbed Bryn's hand. “Oh I know, it will be fun.”

Bryn swiftly changed into a split skirt and a tight purple jacket over a crisp white blouse, with lace foaming at her throat. She grabbed her whip and ran downstairs. Fingle's nose had grown even larger and his ears had reached his shoulders. He handed her out the door, tossed her into the saddle of her feisty mare, Firefly, and dismissed the groom. Bryn urge her mare into a trot and Fingle loped along beside her as they headed for the entrance to the Catacombs.

At the entrance, Fingle began circling with his huge nose to the ground searching for the scent of Draak Priest, a smell Fingle was well acquainted with. Bryn's horse stamped impatiently as Fingle searched. Clouds hung over the city, casting everything into gloom and creating a depressing atmosphere. More than anything, Bryn did not wish to enter the ossuary. Evil spirits lingered and dwelt in the dark corners. She could not imagine people descending into that horrible place unaware of their presence. The one time she'd visited it, she'd had to leave. The ghosts had sensed her and suffocated her with pleas for help.

She watched Fingle, praying all the while he would pick up Priest's scent. She was not attending when a thin hand grabbed her horse's bridle and stopped it in its tracks. Firefly nickered, drawing her attention to the hooded figure at her side. A claw-like hand reached up and stopped her from swinging her whip to strike his hand away. The hood fell back and she gasped. The face was familiar. A hooked beak of a nose, haunted blue eyes set deep into sockets covered by tightly drawn flesh the color of ashes. A thin lipless mouth above a square chin drew back in a parody of a smile. No warmth would come from those eyes. They were a faded blue and lacked the spark of humanity. He was Lazarus, raised from the dead by Christ to walk forever as a blood sucker.

“Lazarus! Why are you here?”

“Come my child, draw off your dog and lead me to your domicile. Draak Priest entered the domain of the dead by quite another doorway. You will find no sign of him here and I know you don't wish to go down…there.”

“You can't come home with me. I would never invite a creature such as you inside.”

“Then you must come down off your mare and take me somewhere where we can talk. I have an interesting proposition for you. You won't find Priest here today or any other day. He has collected his booty and will not descend into the catacombs again.”

“Then where is he?”

“Not in the streets, my dear. I will not discuss what I have to offer you in public. It is a matter for the utmost discretion.”

Fingle stopped circling and bayed at the hem of Lazarus's richly embellished robe. People began to gather and comment. “Stop it, Fingle. You draw attention to us.”