Rogue Angel 52: Death Mask Read Online Free PDF Page B

metal tables and chairs outside the café, so she picked one and, like a tourist, stretched out her legs to ease the cramped muscles and soak up the sun while she waited for her meal. On any other day, she could have happily wasted a couple of hours just drinking in the ambience, but today wasn’t a day like any other. Today she had a job to do. She pulled out her phone and called Roux. She knew he’d be in the air. All she wanted to do was leave a voice mail he could check as he landed. Her message was to the point. “I’m in Valladolid. Following leads I picked up at Ávila. Everything points to this place being central to Torquemada’s tale. I’m not sure what I’m looking for. I’m just hoping I’ll recognize it when I see it.” She killed the call.
    A flyer on the table caught her eye. She picked it up. The flyer showed the same image as the billboard outside a theater on the opposite side of the square—a woman dressed in nothing but black underwear, smoking a cigarette from a long holder, obviously advertising some kind of burlesque show. It seemed out of place among the restrained buildings. It took Annja a moment to realize that the woman was actually a man. That brought a smile to her lips; clearly things weren’t always what they seemed to be. There was a good lesson there. First impressions could be deceptive. She flipped the leaflet over and read the small blurb that explained the show was taking place at the Teatro Zorrilla.
    “It’s very good, even if you can’t speak Spanish.” Annja looked up to see a waitress clearing plates from one of the neighboring tables. She was surprised that the waitress spoke to her in English until she realized she must have overheard at least part of the message she left for Roux.
    “I’m afraid I’m not going to be around long enough to take in a show.”
    “Ah, that’s a shame.”
    The girl smiled and started back toward the door, balancing a tray of dirty cups.
    “I know this might seem like a stupid question,” Annja said. “But I don’t suppose you know where the Convent of San Francisco used to be?”
    The girl shrugged. “Sorry. Was it around here?”
    “I was really hoping so, but I can’t see anything to even suggest where it might have been.”
    “Well, it depends how old it is. Most of the buildings around the plaza were built in the 1800s, I think, and some of it is more modern than that. A lot of the old buildings that were here before that were demolished to make way for the new. There’s some kind of plaque on the theater—one of those historic-landmark things—but I can’t remember what it says. Sorry.”
    “That’s okay. Thanks, anyway,” Annja said. “I’ll go take a look.”
    The theater was closed, its front doors locked and everything inside dark. Even the box office. The plaque was on the wall beside the main door. It detailed how the Zorrilla had been built on the original site of the Convent of San Francisco.
    A dead end, Annja thought miserably, realizing how much time she’d wasted only to reach a standstill.
    She was already three hours down and all she had to show for it was a burlesque theater built on the site of an old convent. That wasn’t going to help Garin.
    Or was it?
    That very much depended upon what had happened to the convent and whether the theater had been constructed in its place or on top of its partial remains. She’d seen enough buildings that had been built directly on top of previous ones to know that there was a chance the foundations and any lower levels might—just might—have survived beneath the new one. There was an entire city beneath Chicago, for instance, not that you could access it. Annja had no guarantee that there was anything of the convent left, not even a few broken stones. There was a chance, though, and in the absence of any other leads, she was going to take it and hope the old builders had simply chosen to bury the convent, or the cellars and mausoleum level at least,