Strange and Ever After (Something Strange and Deadly #3)(17)

Then we were through the second archway. “At least it’s not big,” Oliver declared.

I squinted, straining to see what his demon eyes could, but all I found were flagstones like those in the foyer and a low, vaulted ceiling. The candlelight flickered and made shapes in the shadows around us.

Ice ran down my neck—and it was not from the crypt’s cool air, but from fear. After chasing through the quarries beneath Paris, I had had quite enough with dark damp places.

Yet fear had never stopped me before.

“If it’s not big,” I said, “then it will not take long to explore. Do you see anywhere worth starting?”

“More importantly,” he countered, handing the candle to me, “do you have any specific ideas for what we seek?”

“All Elijah’s letter said was that you told him a joke in this crypt. About Jack and the beanstalk.”

“Which I didn’t do,” he muttered. “So we have assumed that a single throwaway comment is a clue. Wonderful.”

“But you said yourself that the Black Pullet is a chicken-type monster—”

“A cockatrice more like,” he inserted.

“—and just as the chicken in Jack and the beanstalk offered its master endless wealth, so does the Pullet. Elijah’s letter must have pointed us here for a reason, Oliver.”

“We shall see soon, I suppose.” Oliver eased into a careful walk into the darkness. “You go right, El. I’ll go left—I can see well enough in the shadows.”

I gulped, watching his figure fade away. He might have declared it a small space, but it was also pitch-black and with only one doorway in or out.

If Marcus wanted to trap us, this was an excellent place in which to do it.

My pulse kicked up at that thought, and I flung my senses along my awareness web. . . . No one. Nothing. The crypt was as empty as it had been two minutes ago.

“Coward,” I muttered to myself, rolling my shoulders and bouncing on my toes. “There’s no one here.” My words ricocheted off the low ceiling, sounding all too much like whispers and moans. But I forced my brain to task and set off to the right. I didn’t have far to go, though, before I reached a wall of plaques. Or I thought they were plaques; yet as I approached, I realized the marble slabs were held in place by fat screws—and that each was labeled with a name.

These were the tombs of the crypt.

My breath fogged, spiraling out in time to my slow steps. There were corpses everywhere, but they were fully dead. There was no spark of magic flickering on my awareness spell.

Still, being near potential Dead was never ideal.

I hugged the wall, waving the candle up and down—until a figure appeared in the corner of my vision.

I shrieked, jerking back. But it was only a statue.

“El?” Oliver’s footsteps rang out. “El, are you all right?”

“Fine,” I squeaked. The statue was nothing more than a praying saint—and I was nothing more than a coward.

Oliver scrambled to my side, his eyes wide and glowing gold. “What happened?”

“Nothing. I am an enormous fool. . . .” My words died on my tongue, for just beyond the saint’s halo was a tomb with a giant chunk of rock missing from its corner. I darted around the statue and held the candle aloft.

Oliver joined me, his brow furrowed. “It looks like someone has opened it.”

I nodded, suddenly unable to speak. All my earlier panic had vanished, replaced with a surge of excitement.

For the tomb read jacques girard.

“I know this name,” I murmured, thinking back to Paris. “Take this.” I shoved the candle into Oliver’s hand and then brought my nose to the broken marble. “Do you remember when you found Daniel and me near the library in Paris?”

“Yes,” Oliver muttered, an edge to the word. It was the same day I’d accused him of wanting me to be alone.

“Daniel and I had been researching the Black Pullet,” I continued, “trying to retrace Elijah’s steps. What we discovered was that the man who found Le Dragon Noir in Egypt was a necromancer in Napoleon’s army. His name”—I tapped the plaque—“was Jacques Girard. Or Jack.”

“Jack and the beanstalk.” Oliver’s breath hissed out, shaking the candle’s flame. “And Le Dragon Noir was the grimoire Elijah sought.”

“Exactly. And it’s the grimoire Marcus wanted because it supposedly told one how to raise the Black Pullet. Endless wealth and immortality—what isn’t to like about the creature?”

“The fact that it’s supposedly a serpent-like bird, for one. Endless wealth and immortality do not seem worth raising a monster.”

“That is easy for you to say,” I retorted. “You already have an immortal soul.”

Oliver gave a halfhearted snort as I beckoned for him to hold the flame closer to the broken edge of the tomb. The chipped edges were raw, but when I ran my thumb along them, old dust came away.

Oliver leaned in close to the hole as well, yet his gaze was on my face when he said, “If this Jacques Girard truly discovered Le Dragon Noir, then he must have read the grimoire—and he must have known how to find the Old Man.”

I drew back slightly, meeting Oliver’s eyes. The Old Man was the only person in the world who knew how to raise the Black Pullet. And he was a man described in Le Dragon Noir.