Chapter Five

We keep hurrying along, more out of restlessness than necessity. The heavy metal door leading into the basement is tightly closed. There is little chance that it would be blown off its hinges any time soon and even less a chance that it would be discovered. 

It opened on its own as we wandered close to a gust of thick smoke and it shut behind us as soon as we stepped in. 

The air here hangs still, unruffled by the commotion going on above. Even the lighting here is dimmer. And once again tonight, the basement looks like anything but a basement. It is more like some ancient fortress or strange monastery. 

We slow down to deliberate steps—not as if we could keep hurrying head-on into an underground tunnel we just found minutes ago. And my joints feel as if knives are constantly being jabbed into them. Jasper turns to me as I slack slightly behind him. 

We haven't said anything to each other after I called him a "son of a bitch" and almost blew my cover.

And I almost failed father. I nearly fell to another damned Grant. But why did Jasper let me off? He had the win in his grasp, he had my gun. All he had to do was pull the trigger. His expression is just rigid and unreadable, and the dim monastery hall only makes him more gray. 

Maybe he let me off as payback for saving his life earlier. 

But in that case, Jasper Grant has made a grievous mistake. He should have killed me when he had the chance. For a foul Grant to have a Cruz at gunpoint is a sin I cannot forgive. His reward will be to spend time with his father in hell. 

"You're still bleeding," Jasper says, pointing at my right leg. And on a clearer look, part of the leg that isn't stained with blood is getting whiter. Jasper rips off one of his pant legs and quickly drops down to tie the piece of cloth around my leg. 

It's an awkward but definitely not unpleasurable position: the big fierce Grant, looking more than a little wild in his ripped bloodstained clothes, crouched at my feet and tending like a motherly nurse. That's not something you get every day or ever. And he doesn't do terrible. He ties the tourniquet two inches from my wound and just firmly enough to stop the bleeding. He certainly isn't so graceless as he gets credit for.  

He glances at another bruise on my arm and is probably worried that he may have to tear his pants again. 

"That would need ice," Jasper says. He turns away but he stops after a few steps.

"Where are we? Where are we going?" I ask him. 

He looks me straight in the eye and I'm not prepared for it. But it's not the usual killing stare that I find or even the answer to my question. His eyes are lit up with excitement and warning. He sees something and we have to be on guard. 

"We are going to try and find a way out of here, if there's someone here we find them—if they don't find us first."

We continue into the monastery—basement, not quickly but steadily. The floor rises into something like a rocky hill. And everything in the building is quiet except for the sounds of our muffled footsteps. It's all too quiet, as if everything were collectively holding their breath and waiting for us. Then we come across what looks like a medieval dining room. 

With paintings of many cupids, some playing music on a harp, some shooting arrows and others holding baskets of fruits. And speaking of fruits, the long dining table has a large bowl of fresh-looking fruit, apples mostly and a cup with faint steam escaping from it. A steaming cup! I look at Jasper and he seems to be thinking the same thing. Then a door latches somewhere across the dining room. Jasper turns to me and I respond with my raised gun. 

We trace the source of noise, which probably isn't a brilliant decision, but we can't lie and wait forever in this bizarre dining room. We should go and face whatever's in there, take whatever we can get, our freedom or destruction.

And we are rewarded with a door, very likely the door whose latch we heard. I offer to go in first since I have the gun. But Jasper goes ahead and gently opens the door. All the ancient charm that enshrouded the basement thus far disappears, we seem to walk from a feverish trance into our harsh modern reality.

It is a high-tech room, filled with monitors and security camera feeds. There's the uncanny feeling that someone has been here. Some monitors show footage of the hallways we passed through, even the dining room. There are even live feeds from the restaurant above; it's an abandoned mess. Some gun men still roam but the chaos seems to have largely lost steam. Or maybe it's because no audio comes to us through the camera footage. 

Jasper's eyes are on a monitor showing the front porch of the restaurant where his Mercedes was supposed to be parked. The Mercedes and the suave chauffeur are gone. Well, that makes escaping a little more problematic, assuming we can find a way out of this tunnel. Judging from the twitching muscles in Jasper's jaw, it's more than just problematic. 

A strong force pulls my gun from my grasp and it clangs loudly against the wall. A tall man walks into the room. With long, flowing, almost white hair, the man is almost as beautiful as a woman. But his air feels anything but right. That is what alarms the senses, something beautiful but deadly. His eyes are what make him most unnatural. Clear blue eyes with only a trace of life in them, but many intentions for you. 

Jasper's stance relaxes after getting a good look of the man. 

"Theodore."

The man's pristine face curves in a smile. 

"Jasper, the honoured one. Looks like you fellas ran into trouble up in the kitchen."

"You let us in? We owe you our lives. Thanks brother," Jasper says, sighing in feigned relief but still agitated. 

"Brother, eh?" Theodore laughs, and for the first time I catch the uncanny resemblance of his voice to the late Jules Gerald.

"How did you find yourself in that fix anyway, Jasper the panther, as dad likes to call you?"

"We were attacked." 

Theodore's eyes rest on me but he says nothing to me and turns to Jasper.

"And dad? You were dining with dad tonight."

Now I understand why Jasper has been agitated. 

"I'm sorry Theodore, your father was shot by the attackers," Jasper says.

Theodore's eyes flash in rage and he yells.

"He was shot by the attackers? What about you? What did you do? Why didn't they shoot you?"

Jasper just watches him silently. Then Theodore starts to laugh.

"Oh c'mon I'm just kidding. I killed dad and I was going to kill you too, but then you brought this angel with you. That melted my heart, so I have new plans for you."