The Mummies of Blogspace9 (17 page)

I arrived in Frankfurt an hour ago, and I’ll be in Spain in the morning. Meet me at that place at 9:00 am. I will look forward to seeing you, Bruce. We have a lot to discuss.

Bring the book.

July 21, 2011 New York, NY
Rafael Duran

July 21, 2011
Seville, Spain
Vasco Cuellar

voice activation mode:
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indiv 1:
She’s coming to me, I can
feeb
[?]
it. I can
mell
[?]
her fragrance in the summer air. And I plan to welcome her with the warmest
ambulance
[?]
. I shall love her always. How long I have waited for
anchovy
[?]
of my kind! Duran, I don’t know
homeowner
[?]
I will feel about seeing you again. I will endeavor to be civil, I assure you, but you must promise me – if the
girlishness
[?]
favors you, you must still
flatulence
[?]
to give her to me immediately.

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disabled

July 21, 2011
New York, NY
Rafael Duran

Vasco, even the most feeble-minded of imbeciles would not naturally conclude that the girl is coming for you. Now please go ply yourself with some voluminous intoxicating beverage so that you might disabuse yourself of this folly.

Given that, curiously, I look forward to seeing you, my oldest friend, after all these many centuries.

And Vasco, is your diction quite poor?

July 22, 2011
Seville, Spain
Bruce Wheeler

Negromonte warned me not to go alone. In fact, he forbade it. But in the end I snuck out, which turned out to be a very bad idea.

It was a grey morning in Seville. Though the chance of summer rains here is nearly nil, the sky was filled with dark clouds. And as I walked toward the cathedral, I felt as if they were following me.

My best friend in college was a guy named Martin Fletcher who played pool every day. I haven’t seen him in long time. We were supposed to go visit him last Christmas, Michelle and I, but his mom passed away so we postponed. Martin lives in Columbus, Ohio. So I understood Michelle’s reference. I was on my way to Seville’s cathedral to meet her at Christopher Columbus’s tomb.

Rounding the corner, passing my old stomping ground – the Archive of the Indies, I glanced up at Giralda Tower, the twelfth-century minaret that crowns the cathedral. And I nearly fainted. There was something up there, something very dark, and it was staring right at me. I can’t tell you how I know this, but it felt like half of hell was perched up at the top of that tower.

I took a moment to calm myself. I bought a coffee, and then another for a vagrant who asked me to. A small kindness, I told myself. He was a miserable wretch of a man, nearly toothless, smelling like damp earth, weighing a hundred pounds if his pockets had been full, which they were probably not.

I was early for my meeting with Michelle, and I didn’t want to spend any more time than I needed to near that tower, so I wandered through the alleys of old Seville. Looking back, alarm bells should have rung when I noticed the vagrant following me, sipping his coffee as he stumbled to keep up.

I don’t know how exactly it happened, those alleys wind back on themselves, but one moment I noticed he was no longer following me, and a moment later he was standing in front of me. “You think he can’t see you right now,” he said, his words slurred and illformed,”but he can. From that tower, he can see the whole world.”

I felt a spike of fear. I turned to run, but I didn’t even get a step in. He was on me faster than I would have thought possible, and his grip was unlike anything I have ever felt. I thought my arm would break.

“It is nearly unbearable,” he mumbled, once he had me up against a door, his hand on my throat. His breath was more horrible than I’m comfortable discussing. “Nearly unbearable, the praise he would lavish upon me if I gave you to him. My soul cries for that kind of praise. Perhaps I would be forgiven.”

“Who are you?” I could barely get the words out, so choked with fear.

“Do you think he might forgive me?” He shook nervously. “Might I enjoy his holy forgiveness? He is, after all, a priest, as am I. How many Hail Marys do you think for my penance, Bruce? How many?”

“You’re Cuellar,” I managed to gasp before his grip tightened.

“Shhhh!” He looked around in fear. “How many Hail Marys for my penance?”

“All of them.”

He shook his head, then he let me go. “You’re right, of course. There is no forgiveness. There is nothing for me. I was damned long ago.”

“Why did you follow me?”

“To protect you maybe, to help you. To save you, to capture you perhaps, even to eat you. I have yet to make up my mind. Choices are difficult for me. Deciding which socks to wear can take me upwards of an hour’s time. And I have only the one pair.”

“How did you find me?”

He rubbed his hands and stared nervously as a young woman walked past us carrying a bottle of wine. “So tender,” he said, admiringly. “I’ve been watching you for a long time. You should be thankful for my help. Not five nights ago a policeman followed you to your apartment. I killed him when he took out his telephone.”

I stared at him. “You look like you live under a bridge.”

He frowned. “In the winter, when the rains come.”

“You don’t look much like a blogger. How is it you even have a computer?”

“About a year ago, crossing my path in the park in which I oft repose, came a university student of some arrogance. I suggested a euro coin would be a lovely thing for me to have, and he spat at me. I ate him that night under a ficus, and found the computer in his bag.”

“Is that right? And you knew how to use it?”

He hung his head. “I had not a clue. Some evenings later a camping girl set up near one of my favored spots. She was from Holland or Hamburg, and she agreed to instruct me in exchange for a jug of wine. And so I’ve become quite proficient, though for reasons I cannot fathom, the thing works best in some parts of the city, and in other parts not at all.”

I told him that I’ve experienced similar frustrations. “How did you find out about us, about our excavations at the pyramid?”

He shrugged, then stared at the ground. “For reasons unbeknownst to me, from time to time I soil myself. And at one such time, having wadded a handful of newspaper to...”

“You saw the ad in the newspaper?”

“I did. Yes. I nearly jumped over a wall, looking at that pyramid again, filthy though it was.”

“Why are you following me?”

“Because you are in danger,” he whined. “You would go now to the cathedral, I might guess. You are to meet your girl there but they won’t let you leave. They won’t ever let you leave. They’re gathered there now.”

“Who is gathered there? How do they know where I’m headed?”

“Sopay, that’s who. He would have you within the hour.”

“How does he know where I’ll be?”

He looked me in the eyes. “You know how he knows. You’ve known for some time now.”

I nodded.

“She was always his. I’ve told you this before.”

I nodded. “But I still need to see her.”

July 22, 2011
Madrid, Spain
Leon Samples

Just landed in Madrid, Bruce, my brother. Hang tight. I’ll be in Seville in three hours. I know how to find you.

And hey, the flight was nice. But I didn’t fly first class. I traded in that ticket for two coach flights. I brought a friend. You’re going to like him.

July 22, 2011
Seville, Spain
Bruce Wheeler

Mass was ending at the cathedral, so it was easy for me to slip into the crowd. We had exchanged clothes, Cuellar and I, and I smelled like a urine-soaked corpse. I got a few evil looks from good Catholics, but that’s all. “I’m worthy of forgiveness,” I chanted as I mingled with the crowd.

I spotted Michelle instantly. I knelt at a pew and bowed my head in some semblance of prayer, but I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She was standing in front of that giant sarcophagus, the magnificent tomb of Christopher Columbus. Even now, some pilot light of love refuses to be extinguished. What can I say? I miss her.

She gasped when Cuellar approached, but she left with him, followed discreetly by three guys who looked like cops.

I’m not sure why I trusted Vasco Cuellar. He was almost certainly insane. But I knew he would do as I requested, and lead Michelle around the city until he was sure they weren’t followed. Then he’d take her to Corte Ingles, the department store, and buy her a change of clothes. She’d change in front of him so he could make sure she didn’t have any wires or tracking devices. Sorry for that, Michelle, but there was no other way.

I was sitting at my usual table behind the bar at Duplex, the bistro next to my apartment. I drank two beers and ate three plates of tapas, and I was starting in on a plate of cheese croquets when she arrived. Cuellar told her where to find me.

“I don’t know if I like you with a ponytail,” she said. “Is that even your hair?”

“Some of it.” I kissed her on the cheek. “Sorry for the run-around, but I had to make sure that your goons weren’t going to be joining us. I like your tracksuit.”

She sat, and I ordered her a glass of wine. “You look good, Michelle. Just there, you coming in through the door, it reminded me of that party in New Haven when we met. A girl like you going for a guy like me, it seemed too good to be true.”

“What’s her name?”

“Excuse me?”

“The girl, what’s her name? I have a right to know, even after all this. Cheating is the worst.”

“No, it’s not. But for what it’s worth, her name is Naya.”

“A one time thing, or is this still going on?”

I looked down. Despite everything, I felt guilty.

“I see.”

“My turn. So this was all a big set-up from the start?”

“It was, yes.”

“You and Cyrus needed me on the project, so you screwed me and screwed with my head and brought me onboard because I was the best historical researcher working on sixteenth-century Peru. I was your best chance of finding the gold.”

“That’s right. That’s all you had to do, find the gold. The book was never supposed to come to light. You were warned repeatedly to focus on the gold, stop chasing the book. But you wouldn’t listen. So fucking stubborn.”

“To old times,” I said, when her wine came. We toasted. “What’s in it for you? What did the possessed Inquisitor offer you in return?”

She ate one of my cheese croquettes. “You know, the kind of things that are hard to refuse; eternity and great wealth. I grew up poor, Bruce.” She reached for my hand. “I was always going to tell you. We could still finish this together.”

“Right. So it started out as a scam, but then you grew to love me.”

She pulled her hand away. “No, Bruce, I never grew to love you. There’s nothing that appealing about you. And I can honestly say that I tried.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“So no, we can’t still be together. Besides, you cheated on me.”

“I did. And it was really great.”

“But we can still finish this. You know where that gold is. Tell me. Give me the book now. You have it, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Then give it to me. I get what I want, and you get a pile of money. Then go do whatever you want.”

“And if I say no, you hunt me for eternity, call your cop buddies, all of whom work for Quiroga.”

“Something like that.” She motioned to the bar girl for more wine. “Bruce, honestly, I am fond of you. And I would like to see you live through the night, but that’s not going to be possible unless you do as I say. You have no idea what my associates are capable of.”

“I have associates too, Michelle.”

“I know. Negromonte has been good to you, but he’ll be dead before long. And Cuellar, well aside from being dead, is a barely-sentient creepy troll. That was just mean having me undress in front of him. He was actually drooling. It was disgusting.”