Chapter 3 - Beneath the Velvet Lining
Inside the absolute, suffocating blackness of the hermetically sealed steel vault, Arthur Sterling was dying a second time.
His lungs felt like they were filled with crushed glass. Every attempt to draw breath dragged in stale, carbon-dioxide-heavy air that burned his throat like lye. His skin was slick with cold, sour sweat, soaking through his custom-tailored burial suit until the fabric clung to his ribs like a second skin.
Worst of all was his mouth.
Thick, industrial-grade black duct tape was wound four times around his lower face, pinning his jaw shut and sealing his lips so tightly that not even a coherent scream could escape. His nose, half-blocked by dried blood and cotton wadding shoved up his nostrils by the mortician's assistants in Geneva, barely let through a thin, whistling hiss of oxygen.
They’re outside, Arthur told himself, his mind spinning through a haze of oxygen deprivation and drug-induced delirium. I heard the organ. I heard the choir. And then... Julian.
When the paralyzing agents had been slipped into his evening Scotch at the Dolder Grand in Zurich three nights ago, Arthur had felt his limbs turn to lead before his heart rate slowed to a ghostly, imperceptible flutter. He had remained fully conscious—paralyzed, mute, and trapped inside his own failing nervous system—while Maria and her lover, the smooth-talking corporate lawyer Victor Vance, smiled down at his hospital bed and whispered about his billion-dollar estate.
They had thought he was dead. Or rather, they had made damn sure the doctors declared him dead before the embalming team could do their work. Only a last-minute delay by a Swiss customs clerk had saved him from the formal arterial fluid injection, leaving him instead locked in a refrigerated cargo hold with just enough air to wake up thirty minutes before his own funeral service.
Hurry, Arthur screamed silently into the dark, his fingernails clawing uselessly against the expensive silk padding of the lid. Hurry, you fool boy, before the air is gone.
His vision was tunneling now, the edges of his sight dissolving into sparkling black static. His heart, artificially slowed by the remaining traces of the paralytic, fluttered erratically against his breastbone.
Suddenly, the muffled sound of shouting filtered through the heavy walls of the casket.
Then came the terrifying, metallic screech of a heavy steel crowbar biting into the mahogany seam of the lid.
Outside, Julian wrenched the iron crowbar upward with every ounce of strength in his body.
The security guards had finally returned, bringing a heavy industrial pry bar from the cathedral’s maintenance shed. Two of them were kneeling beside Julian, throwing their weight against the tool as the golden hinges groaned in protest.
"Harder!" Julian screamed, his face purple with strain, his veins standing out like thick ropes along his neck. "Put your backs into it!"
CRACK.
The reinforced steel seal gave way with a sound like a gunshot. The vacuum inside the casket broke with a violent hiss, spraying a cloud of chilled, stale air and the faint, coppery scent of old sweat and panic into the cathedral.
Julian didn't wait for the guards. He threw the heavy mahogany lid back on its remaining hinge, sending it crashing onto the stone floor behind the dais.
The congregation gasped as Julian leaned over the opening.
There, resting inside the white satin lining, lay Arthur Sterling.
His face was deathly pale, mottled with dark purple bruising across his cheeks and forehead. His eyes were wide, bloodshot, and bulging with sheer, unadulterated terror. But it was his mouth that made Julian recoil in horror.
Thick, black industrial tape was wrapped tightly across his lips.
"Dad!" Julian cried out, dropping his knees onto the edge of the velvet lining.
With trembling fingers, Julian grabbed the edge of the black tape and ripped it away from his father's face in one violent motion. Arthur let out a horrific, rattling gasp, his mouth flying open as he dragged massive, shuddering lungfuls of fresh cathedral air into his starved lungs.
"Julian..." Arthur wheezed, his voice a dry, ruined rasp that sounded like dry leaves scraping across concrete. He grabbed Julian’s wrists with a grip of iron, his fingernails digging into his son's skin. "The... the bitch... Maria..."
"I've got you," Julian whispered, tears finally breaking free and streaming down his cheeks as he hauled his father’s rigid, shivering body up out of the silk-lined prison. "I’ve got you, Dad. You're safe."
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Behind them, the cathedral doors slammed open again, but this time, it wasn't fleeing mourners.
It was the flashing red and blue lights of half a dozen police cruisers cutting through the stained-glass windows of St. Jude's, signaling that the nightmare was only just beginning.
