Sell you a Bridge chapter 46

Gotham Cemetery July 17th 2010 9:00 PM EDT

Once  I'd gotten the information from my Uncle I'd called Jim, who had been  able to get the venom from Circe in advance. I'd been a bit surprised  she'd handed it over, but Jim said she wasn't really worried about being  ripped off. If I didn't deliver, she would just do something horrible  to me and then force me to work it off for eternity. Jim is not a  comforting person. Despite that, because of the specifics of the  directions, we had to wait until dark to come get the book.

As  I climbed over the wrought iron fence with Artemis, easily scaling the  metal, I made sure to remain as silent as possible (which for me was  completely silent) and Artemis only made slightly more noise. Of course  that amount of noise rose dramatically when she vanished and returned to  the other side of the fence, replaced by Reggie. I could hear her  whispered curses as she scrambled back up the fence. I turned to Reggie  and raised an eyebrow "Why do you constantly antagonize her? You know  she's going to make you miserable for that."

As  she got over the fence and readied herself to pounce on Reggie he held  up a finger for her to wait. To my surprise she actually did, giving him  a chance to speak. "That time wasn't me messing with her. Arty has  advanced infiltration training and I don't I'd have made more noise  climbing that fence than she did even pissed off and muttering about me.  I probably could have mentioned my plans admittedly, but my reasons  were practical." That...was an excellent point. Reggie was the least  stealthy of all of us when he didn't use his powers.

Artemis  glared for a second before huffing "Alright. Fine, that's fair. I'll  let it slide this time." She turned to look at me "Now, which mausoleum  did your serial killer Uncle leave his creepy trophy collection in  again? Also how has nobody noticed this place in all these years. I  imagine there must be some kind of groundskeeper here to...water the  morbid vines that are growing all over the place." She turned in a slow  circle, taking in the disrepair "Jesus why is this place so badly  tended."

I  shrugged, "It's full. Graveyards don't have infinite space. Once one of  these places runs out of room they open a new one and everyone goes  there. You run into loved ones for a few decades maybe but this is an  old cemetery, the people buried here don't have any close relatives  alive still. No close relatives means no visitors so they don't have to  waste money keeping the place up." They both stared at me in confusion  and I shrugged "I went through a goth phase when I was fourteen. Hung  out in a few places like this."

Reggie  snorted "Ok mister graveyard expert, then tell me how the hell there  are secret compartments under this place that nobody knows about.  Despite it being pretty overgrown I somehow doubt they would miss an  entire construction crew digging out a mausoleum and putting in an  underground space under it where the most prolific serial killer in  Gotham history could display his trophies." Despite the flippant remark I  could tell he was nervous being here, Reggie had a bit of a thing about  cemeteries, which was weird since he literally lived with ghost.

But  I actually did know this one from my research "I would imagine its in  the catacombs. Most of Gotham has a series of tunnels under it that  people don't even know about. There are entrances in some places like  this and in a few of the older sewer plants, but mostly people only  stumble on them by accident. I've never seen a complete map of the  things actually, but they've been here since the city was founded. They  started as some small tunnels but they expanded as Gotham did."

I  knew from some research I'd done that the catacombs were deeper under  Gotham than even the sewers were, but I didn't know there was an access  point here. Based on my Uncle's directions though that was the only  thing that made sense. Shame I didn't know much more about them then I'd  just told my friends, the catacombs had been scrubbed from most of the  books I'd found and only some of the older Gotham histories even  mentioned them. I'd gotten most of my info from an old book I found in a  used book store during my goth phase.

I  made a mental note to put my hacking skills to work trying to dig up  more on the tunnels now that I remembered they existed. If nothing else  they might be empty enough to use as transportation to get around the  city without running into the Court. Assuming they didn't use them too.  Actually it wouldn't shock me if the Court had a base in the catacombs. I  made a mental note to mention it to Jim. We quieted down as we walked  through the mausoleums. This section of the cemetery echoed pretty  loudly when we spoke.

The  more I looked around the less I blamed Reggie for being so anxious.  This was a creepy place, not just because of the dead that were interred  here, but because the cemetery itself seemed to have died and rotted  away. This place seemed like it belonged in a graveyard of its own,  where decomposing boneyards were laid to rest. Even the air here felt  stale and stagnant despite the chill wind sweeping through the rows of  tombs. Luckily the Falcone family mausoleum wasn't too far from where we  hopped the gate so we made it there quick enough.

I  felt a bit silly, because I had the creeping sensation of being  watched, which made me want to run, but some small part of my brain was  terrified that running would draw something unknowable to give chase, so  I forced myself to walk slowly to prove to both it and my own mind that  I wasn't afraid. Despite the sense of eyes on me, none of the places  where I knew someone could stalk me unseen showed any sign of aura or  life, which really did not help with my nerves.

Finally  we came to the tomb we were searching for. It had only been a few  minutes, but something about this place made it feel longer. The name  Falcone was carved above the door in white marble, but a crack ran  through it and the roof was sinking a few inches on one side side half  of the name was a few inches lower. The door was at a bit of an angle  but thankfully still worked with some shoving, but the dingy brass slab  scraped the floor loudly as we shoved it open, and as the moonlight  flooded the mausoleum we saw rats and bugs fleeing from the light.

I  stepped inside, the others following behind me, and once we were all in  I stepped back up to push the door closed again. Reggie pulled out a  flashlight and flicked it on, the white UV light somehow making this  entire place seem like a black and white movie, and somehow even  creepier. My friend swallowed loudly "Well I kind of get how no one  found this place now. Who shuts themselves inside a mausoleum?" I nodded  my agreement as we walked across the stone floor to the giant stone  coffin my Uncle had specified.

I  turned and raised an eyebrow at Reggie who nodded and translocated the  coffin lid with a giant stone pot near the door. The pot was too big to  fit into the coffin but lifting it out and putting it down was much  easier than levering off that heavy ass lid after years of being stuck  in place. As Uncle Alberto mentioned the coffin was empty with the  exception of a false stone bottom. I pressed a latch and a panel swung  up revealing a person sized square of blackness. I held up a finger and  shifted into shadow form, flowing slowly down the hole and along the  wall until I got to the bottom.

When  I regained my corporeal form I shouted up "Hey pass me the flashlight."  With my reflexes catching it was childs play and I shone the light  around to see where I was. First off I realized I'd been wrong. There  wasn't an access point to the catacombs in the family tomb. The floor  above had been demolished somehow, maybe a jackhammer or something, but  Uncle Alberto had clearly made this entrance himself. Second of all he'd  sealed off all the exits into the rest of the tunnels, which explained  why no one had found this place.

I  heard feet hit the stone floor behind me and turned to see Artemis  looking up into the hole with a rope next to her. She raised her voice  just enough to be heard in the tomb "Reggie, if you teleport me back up  into that goddamned coffin I'm going to fill your life with misery and  woe." The was a cough from up in the tomb and the rope shook slightly as  Reggie came down the slow way. He slipped a bit when he got closer to  the bottom but he bent his knees to absorb the impact. One of our first  lessons with Jim had been how to get down from high places. He said it  was an integral skill for all thieves.

Once  my friends were down I flicked the light around the room to illuminate  this so called museum. It looked...ordinary. Tables filled with various  odds and ends, books and paintings and a few pieces of jewelry. I found  what we were looking for pretty easily, it was the only book that had a  pronounced aura around it. I picked the thing up and noted how heavy it  was with a raised eyebrow, but we found what we needed. I opened it up  and flipped through the thing, committing all the pages to memory just  in case.

Artemis  made a small noise of uncertainty "Not to rain on your parade Morgan,  but that doesn't seem like an awesome idea. That book belongs to an evil  goddess of magic. I doubt she wanted you to read it." She looked around  subtly, as if worried Circe would jump out from behind a table and  scream "Ah ha!" Before turning us to ash with magic fire. I finished  flipping through the thing and flipped it shut with a shrug, stowing it  in the bag I brought. She rolled her eyes "Ok, never mind I guess." She said sarcastically. "I guess no harm ever came from reading a book."

I  smiled a bit at her rationalization but she wasn't wrong. I had the  info committed to memory now so it's not like there was anything I could  do. I might have been more worried about it if I hadn't found something  else to stare at, A gun, sitting on a purple velvet pillow in a  position of honor in the middle of the room. It was small and still  shiny, well cared for despite the layer of dust covering it showing it  hadn't been used in a while. It was a twenty two, with a baby bottle  nipple as a built in silencer.

It  should have looked silly, should have made me laugh. But I could see  auras and that gun was drenched in the blood of dozens of people and the  fear of an entire city. It was a murder weapon, a cursed pistol, and it  had been custom made by a master gunsmith for a mass murderer and then  used to kill its own creator. I walked slowly over and picked it up. It  felt heavier than I expected. I slipped it into the inside pocket of my  jacket, fulfilling my promise even though I probably could have just  ignored it, then turned to the others. "We got everything, lets get the  fuck out of here."