Patience stood out front of the bar, leaned against the wall with her pack at her feet. Her tired eyes scanned the crowd for the handsome man from the night before. She hadn't slept well at all and she could feel an angry pressure in her forehead.
"You look to be in a lovely mood." The deep baritone came from her left and she slowly turned to look at Jean-Luc as he separated himself from the crowd of tourists. He had an easy smile on and looked like he'd tumbled straight out of a magazine. Dark hair in a handsome mess, Oakley sunglasses nestled atop his head. He looked perfectly rested and more than ready to start their adventure.
"And you look too chipper for being awake at the crack of dawn." Patience grumbled as he scooped up her backpack and slung it over his shoulder. She wasn't going to argue, if he wanted to be a 'gentleman' and carry that heavy ass bag it was perfectly fine with her.
"I see I was right. You're in a shining mood." He grinned at her and began to walk back the way he came. She shoved off the wall and took up a position next to him as he led the way towards the entrance to the catacombs, some five blocks away. The crowd parted for him like the Red Sea for Moses. "Now, tell me about your hidden chapel. Why are you looking for it, and what do you expect to find there?" He strutted down the sidewalk like some gladiator fresh from victory. Patience couldn't fathom how he was imbued with such an asinine amount of confidence.
"The chapel is supposedly the final resting place of a very prominent French priest, Pere Robert. He was buried in the catacombs so that he could shepherd the poor souls there towards paradise." Patience rubbed her tired eyes, but she kept pace with Jean-Luc's enormous strides.
"Why is this Pere Robert so important?" Jean-Luc asked tentatively. Patience wanted to roll her eyes.
"Some records have arisen about some very saintly deeds he performed nearly 300 years ago. The Vatican wishes to ensure that he is buried on sacred ground and that his remains have not been desecrated. You know how they love to keep the dead bits." Patience was not overly fond of the Catholic habit of keeping remains as holy relics, the bones, and teeth, and hair all pawned off as being imbued with holy power. It was gruesome to say the least.
"What are these saintly deeds?" Jean-Luc asked, sounding enormously curious. Patience decided that for the moment she would play along with his act.
"Apparently he rid a small town of the devil and burned a witch who had been tormenting the people there." She said with a shiver. "The town apparently came upon plentiful times after that." He wasn't a figure of enormous proportions to the Church, and that was a major part of why Patience even got the job. If he was a real somebody they would have sent out their own team to do the work, but he was of minor importance, and the whereabouts of the hidden chapel had been lost for centuries. Why not pay some American woman to waste her time in the muck?
"That does not sound very saintly." Jean-Luc said sounding unsettled.
"I agree, but the records state in no uncertain terms that it was a council with God himself in the form of a vision that led Pere Robert to the Devil and the Witch. According to the record he also set her alight without flint or stone. She simply burst into sacred flames when he began to pray for her wretched soul." Patience knew she shouldn't harbor any personal feelings about the people and culture she was studying. It was what was done back then, and she had to be able to study it with impunity, but the thought of some poor girl burning at the stake was unsettling.
"Horse shit." Jean-Luc spat as they finally reached the entrance.
"I thought you'd be more on the side of the Church." Patience mused as they joined the throng of tourists in line for the bag check.
"And why would you think that?" He asked with an amused grin.
"Because you got your fortune on the back of the very priest I'm looking for, and if he were to be made a saint your profits would skyrocket." She stated simply. His head jerked and he looked down at her in a mix of surprise and reevaluation.
"I see you've done your research." He stated with an air of approval. He had evidently underestimated her and made no attempt to hide it. Of course she had done her research. His family's history was on his website, all the way back to the man who had been bestowed church lands. The same church lands he now opened to tourists for a few Euros a piece. He even had a fucking gift shop.
"Put bills in front of a bartender and they'll sing like a bird. Google did the rest." Patience pulled an I.D card out of her pocket as well as a little pink permit slip. They stepped up to the bag check and Jean-Luc set her pack down while she handed the security guard her papers.
"Goodmorning Dr. Sinclaire, you have a guest with you today?" The plump man asked amicably as he examined her identification before returning it to her. She had never brought a guest before, even though her permit allowed her to bring an entire team if she chose to. She worked better alone.
"Oui. He is considering funding some research, he would like to see what I have accomplished so far." Lies were easy enough. They would never let Jean-Luc in if they thought he was just some schmuck off the street.
"Aren't you fully funded by the Church?" The guard asked amicably as he went through Patience's pack.
"What I believe is fully funded, and what the Church believes is fully funded, are two very different animals." She said with a commiserating smile. The guard laughed and nodded.
"Isn't it the way of scholars to starve?" He asked with a jolly little grin.
"Not if I have any say in the matter." Jean-Luc took the offered pack and waved to the security guard as they passed through and into the stairwell that led down into the belly of the city.
They moved quickly, and passed beneath the famous inscription without so much as a glance upwards. They were neither of them strangers to the kingdom of the dead, and the morbid fear it instilled in most who entered. The tunnels they passed through were just wide enough for them to walk abreast, and had lights every few feet. The presence of the corpses, and the dim, macabre setting made them both respectfully silent. They came to another checkpoint where a guard stood by an iron door that separated the tourist attraction from the historical excavation area. Once again Patience produced her papers and they were let through without a problem.
These tunnels were well lit with work lights and a few archaeologists were scattered about taking records and examining bones. They all looked like undergraduates scraping for something to show their professor when he arrived. Not one of them had ever bothered with Patience, not that she gave off a very welcoming vibe, but they all peeked at her and her handsome companion as they passed.
"It was no coincidence that you found me in that bar was it?" Patience asked accusingly as soon as they were out of earshot of the other researchers. The question had been chewing at her all night. If he had targeted her, and intended to steal her discovery she might just murder him.
"No, it was not." He said with a devilish smile. "You must admit it was far more exciting than going through the proper channels." Jean-Luc was obviously unfazed by the accusation in her tone and seemed utterly content to remain chipper.
"You are an eccentric!" She snapped. "Who does something like that?"
"There goes that delightful mood of yours." His voice was nothing but conversational and joking. Patience gave a heavy sigh and looked at him out of the corner of her eye as she led the way towards the passage in question.
"So I can only assume your interest in the chapel has solely to do with Pere Robert and his remains. I also have to come to the conclusion that since you are showing me the passage and know the inscription above the entrance to the hidden chapel, that you have already been inside of it, and that you know exactly what we are going to find." Patience could not completely hide her frustration. The thought of having the discovery taken from her by some asshole gazillionaire was just too much to cover up with niceties. If he took this from her… she couldn't even bring herself to imagine it. This project had been her salvation, she had to see it through, she had to learn the truth; pull it from the relics with her knowledge and determination
"I have not been within the chapel." He stated firmly, halting in his tracks and looking at her very seriously. Patience stopped and turned to look at him.
"Why should I believe you?" She snapped. Funding be damned, he had taken away her chance to uncover the chapel, and his presence alone in such a sacred place would sully the truth left behind the moment he breathed the archaic air. Patience felt flushed and tense. Her hands were balled into little fists and she looked like the shining image of anger.
"Because you were right. I did receive my fortune due to the works of Pere Robert. Centuries ago he bestowed the Church's lands upon my family for their aide in his disgusting deeds, and for centuries they were content to live off of the backs of others, and hide the atrocities that stained their past." Jean-Luc's voice was rife with conviction and anger. He shook his fist to emphasize his words and seemed not even to truly be speaking to her. "I will not make that mistake. I have spent my entire life, and my fortune, bringing my history to light, and I will not step foot in the tomb of the man who doomed my lineage to be marred by the stain of burning an innocent girl at the stake."
Patience considered Jean-Luc for a long moment through narrowed eyes. If he was lying, he played the part too well. He looked like a stage actor giving a tragic backstory.
"But you'll help me find him so the Church can turn him into an icon?" Patience crossed her arms and glared at him. "That doesn't make any sense."
"I will help you find him so that you can expose him for the sinful man that he was." Jean-Luc said grimly. The shadows cast by his cheekbones made him look like a specter, and his brown eyes seemed almost black. It was an eerie effect, and it made Patience shiver suddenly.
"I'm not being payed to defame him." Patience stated firmly. If she marred the image of a long dead priest, one that the church intended to praise and make an exhibition of, she would never find work again. The Church would see to it.
"Accept my offer, and you will be." Jean-Luc looked her dead in the eye. He looked like a man who had never been more serious in his life. Patience swallowed and stood taller. She had not expected him to actually make her an offer of employment. She had yelled at him and accused him of using her for profits, and yet now he was offering her funding, to do something that would doom his potential profits?
"Go on?" She would at the very least hear his offer. Even if she had no option but to turn him down. Doing what he asked would doom her career as well as his profits.
"Help me unearth the truth about this man, and I will fund any and all research you wish to undertake for the rest of your life." There wasn't a single breath of hesitation in his offer. "Without limit. You will live out your life, fulfilling your passion, while living like a queen."
Patience blinked a few times, utterly unsure of how to respond. Who in the hell made offers like that? Apparently rich eccentrics did. She pressed her hand to her forehead and tried to wrap her head around it.
"No limit?" Patience asked. He couldn't possibly be serious, but he looked at her with an amount of conviction the likes of which she had never before seen. It was almost archaic, the way he made his deal, like he didn't belong to this century. There was a valliance him that belonged to the past.
"None." Patience's hazel eyes probed his brown ones and searched for any sign that he was lying. She couldn't see the faintest hint of a farce.
"Until I die?" She pressed. Comfort, and the ability to pursue her passions as she saw fit for the rest of her life? That was nothing but a silly dream every researcher imagined while they were scraping to get grants. Yet here she was, being given her dream, in a dark, dirty passageway, surrounded by thousands upon thousands of corpses.
"And for your ancestors for as many generations as my family has means to provide." Jean-Luc held out his right hand, for her to shake, and she stared at it in the dim light. A little voice in her head told her that if she shook his hand, she would be making a deal with the devil, but she was an Atheist, so what did that matter?
Patience took his hand and shook it.