Brownstone

by Dean Kutzler

  Making quick work of the newly set wall, Lars scraped the grout from around enough bricks, like a diamond-edged tool to a glass pane, to create a large enough space he could bust through. Once he was confident enough of the cement and sand mixture had been removed, he tossed the rusty tire iron to the dirt floor under the stairs and suddenly, a loud clanking sound rang out into the darkness, startling him. He quickly flashed the light on the source of the sound. Lars shook his head. A bowling pin trophy.

  Bested with a cheap trophäe, by an American no less. Failure.

  Lars positioned his stance in front of the wall like a ninja fighter. Taking a calming breath and centering his focus, he spun in place, using momentum to drive his foot into the center of the brick wall where he’d carved the grout out from between the bricks.

  Nothing.

  Taking another calming breath and focusing, he concentrated on the center of the de-grouted bricks, picturing them breaking. He closed his eyes, holding the picture of the brick wall in his mind, and spun in place. At the right moment, he pulled his arms back by his sides, bent at the elbows, with his fists clenched to emphasize the kick. His foot hit the wall dead-center and the bricks buckled inward.

  After two more attempts on the same exact spot, two bricks finally fell inward. That was all he needed. With both hands, he pushed the loosened bricks inward until the space he’d carved out was opened.

  When the dust cleared, he wiped the sweat from his brow and flashed the light into the opening to make sure no debris was in the way. Without a second’s hesitation, he dove through the opening and somersaulted midair, landing on his feet like a cat.

  The air was a little stuffy and stagnant with a slight waft of incense or something. The intel from the computer had said it was a couple mile’s walk, so Lars made no waste of time and broke out into a jog, carefully navigating around the iron sconces. After a few hallways and a couple of stone staircases, nearly falling down in his haste, he came upon a large room filled with all kinds of strange tables. The sickening smell of incense was stronger. This room had clearly been the source of the smell upon breaking through the wall in the basement.

  The intel hinted that the book had been hidden in a table. There was no mention of multiple tables. There had to be hundreds of them. What started out as a simple mission had just become a royal nuisance as Lars trudged into the room, annoyance flaring around his nostrils like a bull. He didn’t know how much time he had until the lawyer’s nephew returned, but he was guessing it would take him an hour to search this mess, so he immediately set out on the task.

  The intel said the table, or actually altar to be precise with the wording, was a reliquary. A reliquary was a container, or sometimes an altar, and was popular in the 4th century for storing relics, such as the bones of deceased saints. Relics during those times were negotiable as to what they consisted of, be it bones or religious items. During later centuries, using reliquaries became common practice as vessels to protect or sometimes display relics, which many believe were endowed by God with the grace of miraculous powers, such as the book.

  Not a very practical hiding place, Lars thought.

  If it was common practice to store items in reliquaries, wouldn’t that be the first place to search for such a powerful relic as the book?

  His was not to reason why, as he tore through the tables like a Mack truck driven by a drunken driver. With purpose to muscle, he started flipping over each strange altar and checking for hidden compartments. Some had compartments, some didn’t. In any case, none of the altars he checked contained anything but an accumulation of ancient dust. He was almost done checking each piece when he thought he heard the faint patter of footsteps.

  He quickly doused the light and sprinted on feathered feet, like a stealthy Daniel Boone, towards the exit door. With his back to the wall, he pulled a small mirror with a retractable telescopic arm from his pocket. Quietly extending the mirror, he edged it in front of the door at a low angle where a person of average height wouldn’t be looking, careful to catch as little light as possible.

  In the reflection of the mirror, he saw a light bobbing up and down on the landing at the top of the short staircase. He retracted the mirror in a flash and quickly stashed it away. He had to move and fast if he was going to make it to the top of the short staircase, undetected.

  With more stealth-like action, Lars sprang from the room and hit the staircase like a falling feather. Keeping his back to the wall, he crept up the stairs, one by one on soft, sideways feet without making a sound. There was a reason he’d been number one in his training class. Once he reached the top of the stairs, he slid around into the passageway and silently made his way down the hall into the darkness.

  Like Helen Keller, he felt his way down the stony corridor, wondering if it would ever branch out into another direction so he could hide. The staircase where the light source was coming from headed straight down onto the landing, facing the way he went. He started to run, letting his fingertips glide over the stone, in search of a corner to hide around. He had to hurry before he was spotted.

  Looking over his shoulder, the light was growing brighter in the distance and then, all of a sudden, his feet ran into something. He fell half way to the floor, cracking his chin on the edge of something. It took all his strength to hold in the bellow of rage and pain he wanted to release. In his hasty retreat, he’d run into the base of another staircase. Luckily it wasn’t descending or it would’ve been more than a crack to the chin.

  He lay there quietly, hoping he was far enough down the corridor to be unseen. There was no time left to get up. The commotion would surely get him seen. Luckily, he was wearing black. All he had to do was lay quietly and hope they turned the corner.

  A little crack echoed in the darkness as he flexed his jaw side to side. He winced at his ignorance. It was a tiny sound, but stupid on his part just the same. At least it wasn’t broken. Silently, he rolled onto his back so he could get a better view and be prepared for whatever came his way.

  He watched as a figure stood on the landing, shining the light over the floor.

  Damn—footprints! He hadn’t had time to do anything about them.

  Lars held his breath while the figure paused for a moment before shining the light down the corridor. The beam stretched down the hallway, stopping just before it reached his feet, then pulled back. He saw the glint of something silver in the darkness before the figure continued moving down the steps.

  He let out a silent sigh of relief. Rolling on his back with his feet in the air, he whipped his legs like a bed sheet and the momentum brought him to his feet. He would have to double back later when the chamber was empty. For now, he decided to take the stairs and see what else was in this underground temple.

  After what he thought had to be at least a mile and a half of walking up the dark stairs, the corridor branched out onto a landing. The landing veered off to the right and into another stone corridor. He flashed the light down the dark expanse and saw it was filled with murals that were embedded into the stone walls. “Das is what the uncle thought was dangerous?” He said to himself, proceeding with more caution.

  Lars flashed the beam across one of the pictures and the corridor danced with multicolor lights, as if someone flipped the on switch at the Stardust ballroom. When he got a better look at what was creating the multicolored light, his jaw dropped as much as his brow rose. The murals dressed the walls floor to ceiling and were made completely of precious gemstones of different sizes, shapes and colors. They had been set into the stone walls to create each picture, like color by numbers, only with precious gems instead of acrylic paint.

  Looking over the immensely intricate artwork he couldn’t even begin to assess the value. Each scene was spared no minute detail. Diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, onyx and all sorts of other colored gemstones, some of which he didn’t know their names, adorned the walls, creating in splendid detail the scenes before him, lining each side of the stone corridor. The
colors in different hues were maddeningly used to create vivid, lifelike detail with gently blended shadows and strikingly sharp edges. Like gem-pointillism. It was just staggering. This temple must once have belonged to a very rich and powerful person that garnered such wealth for this blatant frivolousness.

  As he strolled down the corridor, admiring the beauty of the artwork of which the likes of which he’d never seen, he began taking in the images glistening from the jewels. He flashed the light over the mural and its beam bounced and refracted through the thousands of gemstones, bringing dynamic life to the settings.

  The first scene he came upon depicted an enormously huge budding tree ripe with peaches. The sight brought the smell of the sweet summer fruits to his nose as if he was standing right there in the orchard. The craftsmanship in the detail was just amazing. Chocolate diamonds formed the branches that encompassed the trunk of the tree in the same gemstone, with emerald leaves dotting each one and onyx for knots in the wood. Hundreds of branches. He couldn’t fathom the number of gemstones used. It made him dizzy.

  Below the tree stood a naked man and woman. The woman’s hair was unusually long and made of the finest faceted rubies. Teeny tiny diamonds beyond any clarity he’d seen were interspersed in between the locks, giving sparkling life to her flowing ruby red tresses. Both of their faces were snarled up in anger and it appeared they were bickering. The man was trying to push the woman down onto a bed of hay made of dazzling diamonds and yellow gemstones and she clearly wasn’t having it.

  Lars moved on to the next scene. Same tree, smaller perspective. Hundreds of naked people dotted the field surrounding the tree that sat in the center. Tiny lightning bolts shot from their fingertips; some of the people were much larger in size. Up above the tree, a face had been formed in the clouds. The face was stern and it gazed down upon the field with a crinkly cut across its brow. Lars moved closer and cast the light over the angry face. He reached up and ran his hand over the gems. The sheer brilliance and lifelike attributes of the artwork moved emotions inside him he felt were never possible. Tiny flecks of gems were used in different shades and sizes to create lifelike shading and contouring.

  Farther along the corridor, he rolled the light over the next mural. The tree was as small as the last, but sat more towards the back of the scene and not below the angry face. The face in the clouds was breathing fire down upon the people as they scurried uselessly about for cover. The flames were so vibrant that when Lars squinted just a tad, they looked completely real.

  Before moving on to the next mural, something in the branches of the tree caught his eye. Standing on his toes, he shined the light at the anomaly. Small, but in vivid detail, was the woman with the flowing ruby red hair from the first mural. She was nestled in the branches, grasping a peach in both hands. Her face was fraught with horror and the tiniest blue sapphires ran down her cheeks.

  Lars had no idea what all of this meant, but it was obviously important to someone to have gone through all the expense and painstakingly intricate work to create these scenes.

  The fourth scene was completely different. The mural radiated with stunning blues and the soft whites of the sky set over a red sea and shorefront expanse. The naked man from the first mural was standing on the shoreline with his fists held high at four figures floating in the sky. Three of the figures were beautiful winged angels bearing pointy teeth, wearing glorious white robes, lined with gold. Lars moved in closer and saw that the lining was actual goldwork outlined in brilliant diamond chips.

  The fourth figure was the ruby haired woman, but she had been transformed. She flew amongst the angels on magnificent wings bejeweled in onyx, diamonds and rubies. Her hair billowed behind her in menacing tendrils and her face was ablaze with angry determination. She held out her hands to the three gloriously-clad angels in unwavering protest. The strangest transformation in this scene compared to the others, was that of her lower body. Absent the wings, from her waist and up was that of the beautiful woman from the first mural. Below her waist was a grotesque sight of talons fit for a prehistoric bird. Lars shuttered at the sight and moved on to the next.

  This picture was a mural of an immense tree so big, that it grew beyond the scene captured in the mural. The trunk of the tree engulfed the picture; only the bottom lower branches could be seen. Hiding within those branches was the ruby-haired woman with talons for feet. Standing before the tree were two people: the man from the first picture and another woman. Unlike the ruby-haired woman, this woman was much more demure in nature with tamed chestnut hair and matronly features.

  The ruby-haired woman hung from the tree by her unseen talons and was leaning down from the branches, whispering in the other woman’s ear. Her face was stoic and her lips were set in a wicked pink smile as she whispered her words to the passive brunette. She was positioned just so in the tree that judging by the expression on the man’s face, he could not see her or hear her hushed words.

  Although the theme of these works seemed oddly familiar, Lars could not place where he knew the story of which they told. Pointing the flashlight to left, he saw the corridor finally broke off into a T in either direction, left or right. From the shimmering reflections of his light down the left hand side, he could see more murals decorating the walls, and on the right hand side it continued up another set of stairs.

  Having seen enough of the artwork, his curiosity pulled him towards the stairs. He’d been so mesmerized by the ancient murals that he’d stopped thinking about his surroundings. His lips made a wet wheezing sound as he sucked in his lower lip and thought for a moment, retracing his steps. If his spatial senses were correct, and he had very good spatial qualities, he’d traveled up enough stairs to almost be level with the basement in the brownstone.

  He aimed the flashlight up the stairs and saw that it led to another landing not too far up. He shook his head in confusion. It didn’t make sense. He climbed the expanse and reached the landing. The landing was small and ended with a brick wall, set into the stone. Jagged fragments of the ancient chiseled stone encircled the brick like a giant set of teeth ready to bite.

  A brick wall?

  Then it became clear. He stepped over the jagged rock and started shining the light over the bricks and pushing all around with his free hand.

  “Das must be here,” he said groping the wall harder, his excitement peaking. “Dort!” “There!”

  With a gentle click, a brick on the middle left-hand side pressed slightly inward and the wall swiveled open a crack. A whoosh of cool fresh air blew in from the crack and swept down the stairs into the temple.

  A grin spread across his face. Top of the class.

  He doused the light and put it back in his pocket while he carefully pushed on the wall. It came to a hard stop as it clanked against something on the other side. There wasn’t enough room for him to fit through, so he squeezed his head out the crack to assess the problem, scratching his temples on the brick as he strained.

  He could see a bed in the background as he heard the secret door grinding on iron and looked down. The secret door opened into the fireplace and was stuck on the iron fender guard meant to secure burning logs into place and sooty-grit fell down his cheeks.

  Painfully, he pulled his head back from the crack and rubbed the grit from his temples. Kneeling on one knee, he reached his hand towards the fender. Making as little sound as possible, he lifted the iron free of the door’s pathway and it swiveled open freely.

  Once he was through the fireplace, he pushed the secret door closed and quietly replaced the iron fender. Good thing it wasn’t winter he thought, eyeing the charred brick. He was in the master bedroom of the brownstone. The lawyer’s bedroom.

  Before spotting the person with the light in the temple, the plan was to hide, then double back for the book. Thanks to the sneaky American’s hidden passage, all he had to do was go back down and take them by surprise before they had a chance at getting the book.

  Lars crept over to the bedroom door on st
ealth-like feet. He was about to crack the door for a peek when he thought for a second, then put his ear near the wood. The door was crafted from solid mahogany. He doubted he’d hear even if someone were in the hallway. Slowly, he turned the knob until it clicked, then pulled the door slightly ajar.

  Before he got a chance to put his ear near the crack for a listen, someone pounded past the door and down the hallway. Waiting a second to make sure they hadn’t noticed the crack, he pulled the door open enough to catch a glimpse of the lawyer’s nephew running into a bedroom with a book in his hands.

  It didn’t take long for Lars to put two and two together. His math was solid. The lawyer’s nephew saved him the trouble of finding the book. But how? How did he crack the code on the lawyer’s computer? It was impossible. Not only had he made the security encryption immensely complex, he’d also equipped the computer with an algorithm program that not only sniffed out the info, but protected it like a guard dog—all unbeknownst to the user. The program was foolproof. No one should have been able to crack it. Apparently, the nephew was more resourceful than Lars had given him credit for. He would not underestimate him again.

  Like a silent movie, Lars reeled into the hallway—nary a sound escaping his shoes. Stealth had always been his friend, even before training. He silently sidled down the hallway and edged up next to the nephew’s door, watching in fascination.

  What was he doing?

  The book was sitting on the bed and the nephew’s ass was sticking out from underneath it. Experience told him to pounce, it was the perfect opportunity to take him by surprise, but something else told him to wait. He’d learned to listen to that something else. He was hoping the man would put up a fight. He actually wanted to stretch his hand-to-hand combat muscles. He knew exactly how to do the most painful damage without killing. Lars wasn’t a failure like Wilhelm. The lawyer’s nephew would not best him.