Renard leaned back against the dark wood of the bar, the flickering gas lamp casting a harsh, split shadow across his face.
"Every gate is dead-locked," he said, his voice flat and tight. "The surface wardens triggered a full quarantine from the top down. We are completely cut off from the outside world."
Faust frowned, his analytical mind immediately picking apart the strategy.
"Sealed? But why? The standard staircases and ventilation shafts are narrow, twisting stone. They are simply not suitable for a Tarasque to squeeze through anyway. Why trap us down here with them if the surface was never in danger of a breach?"
'How did Tarasques even get here in the first place? There must be some merchant pathway, probably.'
Barnaby let out a wild, mocking screech, slapping his crooked thigh.
"Hah! Listen to the little clown! I know the hunter profession is in a miserable decline these days, and the supernatural world is going through a total depression, but by the Gods, not to this point! Who even let you into the Order's circles, boy?"
Mephisto's painted red lips twitched.
He wanted nothing more than to retort that he was likely twice the old man's actual age, but as he looked around the tense, grim room, he had to admit the truth to himself: in this realm of blood, ash, and ancient monsters, he really was just a boy playing catch-up.
"Leave him be, Barnaby," Renard interrupted, his gaze fixed on the ceiling as if he could see through the layers of stone. "The Tarasques are the least of our problems. They were just the sledgehammer used to break the locks."
Renard leaned forward, lowering his voice.
"Something else escaped from the deep merchant cages. We don't know what it is, but it's a sentient menace. The owners realized what the smugglers had unleashed, and that is why they threw the master switches and sealed the vault. If the Church's deep-containment wards couldn't hold it, nothing can. It's smart, Mephisto. It's hunting."
"And our plan is to sit here?" Faust asked.
"We wait," Renard said grimly. "The Order's heavy reinforcements must be on their way soon... at least, we have to hope they are."
Mephisto rubbed his painted chin, the white greasepaint smudging slightly against his bare fingers.
"But what exactly was in that cage? What could possibly warrant burying an entire market alive?"
From a dark corner of the bar, a weary, disheveled woman who looked like an exotic spice vendor chimed in.
"All I know is that the crate was double-bound in cold iron and stamped with the personal seals of the Sancta Sedes. It was going straight to the Vatican," she spat, her face twisting with rage. "Curse those greedy surface smugglers. Curse them to the deepest pit!"
A heavy, calloused hand landed gently on her shoulder.
An older merchant beside her shook his head, his expression sorrowful.
"Save your anger, Zarisha. Pity the smugglers instead—they are already dead and torn to pieces out there. Speak of the dead only in a good way, or don't speak at all. Let them find their peace."
The woman went silent, her jaw tightening as she reluctantly crossed herself.
Faust suppressed a heavy sigh. The dark, suffocating atmosphere of the underground bar was grating on his nerves. He hadn't asked for a subterranean war zone; he had simply ventured down here to buy a few rare alchemical ingredients for his training and perhaps sniff out some info on Lola and the de Alarcón family.
Now he was stuck in his underwear in a Parisian catacomb.
The most pressing matter, however, was the calendar.
El Gloriosa was scheduled to pull up stakes and leave Paris in exactly two days. If he didn't find a way out of this quarantine before the wagons rolled away, he would lose all of it...
Well, not exactly, it was just that Faust like to dramatize things a little.
Renard noticed the rigid tension in Faust's broad shoulders.
"Get comfortable, Mephisto. It's going to be a long night."
"Comfortable," Faust muttered.
With nothing else to do and his mind racing, Faust reached into the only place he had left—the single, oversized pocket of his underwear tunic.
With a smooth, theatrical flourish that had become second nature over the last three months, he slid out Don-Fran's silver-encrusted Tarot box.
The sharp, sudden clink of metal against metal echoed loudly in the quiet room.
Instantly, every single person around the table flinched, their hands instinctively darting toward hidden knives and guns, expecting a weapon.
Instead, the broad, muscular, nearly naked black man with a painted clown face offered them a calm, enigmatic smile.
He fanned the silver cards beautifully in the dim gaslight.
"Does anyone care for a divination?"