They were sunk deep into his skull. She remembered Herman’s words, and continued. “The Order of Gabriel protected…the secret of life and death.” The old man gave another nod and unlocked the second door with his skeleton key. This corridor stretched longer than the last, and now Annie was sure she could hear people. There were moans of pleasure-or pain-she wasn’t sure which, coming from the rooms on either side of the hallway, and the high sound of laughter. She strained to catch a glimpse as they passed, but with her hood falling over her eyes and the pace the old man had set, she couldn’t see much. Each image was just a brief impression-a shadowy, hooded figure bending over the writhing, nude body of a woman; a man bound and gagged, hanging from the ceiling, his fingertips brushing the floor. A pulsing red glow emanated from one room along with a smell of something sickly sweet, like garlic gone sour.
“What is the secret?” The old man turned and asked her the question, the key poised at the lock. He assumed she knew the answer, since she had known all the others. Thanks, Herman. The coincidence was too eerie and Annie shivered.
“Death is not the end.” Annie’s words were lost as someone down the hall screamed.
Her eyes widened as she followed the hooded figure through the door and into a small, sparse room. The light here didn’t come from dim bulbs, as in the corridor, but rather from a fire burning low in the corner of the little room. The man added wood to the stove and then turned to a cabinet that looked to Annie as if it had been carved out of ivory. It was a gleaming, bone white, and the skull and crossbones carved into the front seemed to grin at her as he used the same key to unlock it.
Pushing his hood back off his head so he could work, the old man pulled open the black-velvet-lined cabinet. In the center, like a dull jewel, was a vial of thick, black liquid. If it weren’t encased in glass, it would have been camouflaged entirely by its dark surroundings. Annie watched as the man opened the vial to reveal an eyedropper fastened in its lid. He worked quickly, but carefully, retrieving a corked tube from several laying on one of the wooden counters. He put one drop of the viscous black fluid into the empty glass tube before corking it and putting it into his pocket. When he had replaced the vial and locked the cabinet, he turned to Annie.
“What is that?” she asked, nodding at the tube he had slipped it into his pocket.
“Black Death.” He opened the door, expecting her to follow, and she did, as quickly as she could. This time, she kept her hood on and didn’t look to either side as they made their way through the doors. He took her robe and hung it on a hook before they headed back up the cement stairs. The noise of the bar seemed to vibrate under her feet as they emerged into the blue, hazy light of the Styx.
The old man didn’t speak as he filled a martini glass with something clear from a nozzle. Tonic water? Annie wondered. When he slipped the tube from his pocket and uncorked it, she thought she could smell that too-sweet odor from the basement again. In the little room downstairs, she had thought the liquid in the vial was thick and sticky, like molasses. But now it ran down the side of the tube as quick as black mercury, falling into the martini glass without leaving any residue on the side of the vial.
“The Black Death…” Annie stared as the entire drink turned dark before her eyes.
“Yes.” The old man held the glass out to her and gave her a nod. “You sought the secret and it was revealed to you.”
She didn’t feel as if anything had been revealed. As a matter of fact, she was more confused than ever. Annie took the glass from him and was surprised at how cold even the stem of it was in her hand. “Well…thank you.”
“Only death knows the secret to eternal beauty.” The voice in her ear belonged to Eric, she was sure of it, and she whirled toward it, nearly spilling the hard-won drink in her hand. There was no one there at all. She glanced back at the old man and he winked at her, moving to serve another customer.
What does that mean? She stared into the black depths of the drink in her hand. Only death knows the secret to eternal beauty. The old man had said that to her, too, before she had put on the dark robe and hood.
Annie stared into the glass, seeing a dark reflection of herself. There was an image shimmering there, and she recognized it as she did when looking at pictures of herself as a child. In this vision, she was an old woman, her face careworn, her smile lost in laugh lines, the familiar high cheekbones making her cheeks look slightly sunken. She was looking at her own face, years into the future, her physical beauty having faded long before.
“You’re still beautiful.” It was Eric again, and it startled her out of her vision. He wasn’t there, and yet she could have sworn the voice was real. She could almost feel the heat of his lips pressed right to her ear!
