He leaned against the wall for a moment, the cold stone on his back settling his nerves slightly, and he tried again.
Touching both sides of the narrow tunnel, he took one step, and then another, finally making his way through the ancient passage that the early Christians had carved by hand out of the stone beneath the city.
I can do this.
He closed his eyes and wiped the sleeve of his shirt over his sweating face.
And heard footsteps.
He whirled, but saw nothing.
He heard the footsteps again, and once more spun around to gaze into the darkness. The footsteps stopped, and now the tunnel was filled with nothing but a terrible silence that was as suffocating as the musty air.
Settle down! Just walk.
With the sheer force of his will he tamped the rising panic down.
Now he could hear the sound of voices again.
But was it his mother and the guide? Or was it something else, something close behind him, something that would vanish if he turned to look.
He forced the dark thoughts from his mind, concentrating only on putting one foot in front of the other, praying he was going in the right direction, and hadn’t somehow gotten turned around in the dark.
On both sides of the tunnel, small crypts—barely more than shelves—had been carved out of the stone, and each of the shelves still held the bones where the dead had been laid so many centuries ago. Ryan began counting them as he passed, trying to keep his mind on something other than the phantom footsteps he still heard behind him.
And ahead of him.
And all around him.
Footsteps exactly like those he had heard in the tunnels beneath St. Isaac’s the night he had followed the two priests to the dark crypt far below the school.
The crypts here were different, though. Many of them had carvings on their stone walls, and he tried to focus his mind on them and ignore the phantom presence he felt all around.
Then, illuminated by one single lightbulb that seemed to be brighter than the others, he saw a familiar symbol carved into the back of one of the niches.
It was a circular pattern that he recognized in an instant.
The same symbol that had been drawn in chalk on the floor around Jeffrey Holmes’s coffin was etched here in the eternal stone!
The labyrinth.
Ryan’s whole body trembled. This had to be a nightmare—it couldn’t possibly be real. He heard the footsteps behind him again, but they were much closer this time. He steeled himself to spin around and face whatever lurked in the darkness, but before he could turn, something reached out of the blackness.
It was an arm that slipped around his neck and held him utterly immobile.
A rough hand groped at his chest, tearing open his shirt, and then he felt a fist close around the crucifix—his father’s crucifix—that had hung around his neck since that morning six months ago when he had been sent by Sebastian Sloane to kill the Pope.
He felt a terrible jerk.
The silver chain broke.
And a soft voice spoke in his ear: “For the salvation of Christ.”
Ryan dropped to the floor of the tunnel as his assailant fled, and a moment later even the footsteps faded away.
The tunnels were silent for a moment, and then a single word floated out of the darkness: “Ryan?”
It was his mother’s voice that made Ryan realize he must have cried out loud as the arm slid around his neck.
Now, emerging from the darkness ahead, he could see his mother and the guide coming back for him.
He touched his chest and felt the empty place where his father’s crucifix had lain heavily since that morning on the Boston Common.
And all he felt was a profound relief.
It was over. The whole thing was finally over.
Wherever that cross had come from, he was certain that it was now going back where it truly belonged.
And wherever it was going, it no longer had anything to do with him, and it had nothing to do with his father’s love for him.
That love, he knew, would always be with him.
“Ryan?” his mother called out again.
Ryan got to his feet and brushed the dust from his pants, and by the time his mother reached him, it was as if nothing had happened at all. “Let’s go home,” he whispered. “I just want to go home.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The Devil’s Labyrinth is JOHN SAUL’s thirty-fourth novel. His first novel, Suffer the Children, published in 1977, was an immediate million-copy bestseller. His other bestselling suspense novels include In the Dark of the Night, Perfect Nightmare, Black Creek Crossing, Midnight Voices, The Manhattan Hunt Club, Nightshade, The Right Hand of Evil, The Presence, Black Lightning, The Homing, and Guardian. He is also the author of The New York Times bestselling serial thriller The Blackstone Chronicles, initially published in six installments but now available in one complete volume. Saul divides his time between Seattle, Washington, and Hawaii. Join John Saul’s fan club at www.johnsaul.com.
Also by John Saul
Suffer the Children
Punish the Sinners
Cry for the Strangers
Comes the Blind Fury
When the Wind Blows
The God Project
Nathaniel
Brainchild
Hellfire
The Unwanted
The Unloved
Creature
Second Child
Sleepwalk
Darkness
Shadows
Guardian
The Homing
Black Lightning
THE BLACKSTONE CHRONICLES
Part 1: An Eye for an Eye: The Doll
Part 2: Twist of Fate: The Locket
Part 3: Ashes to Ashes: The Dragon’s Flame
Part 4: In the Shadow of Evil: The Handkerchief
Part 5: Day of Reckoning: The Stereoscope
Part 6: Asylum
The Presence
The Right Hand of Evil
Nightshade
The Manhattan Hunt Club
Midnight Voices
Black Creek Crossing
Perfect Nightmare
In the Dark of the Night
The Devil’s Labyrinth is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2007 by John Saul
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
www.ballantinebooks.com
eISBN: 978-0-345-50027-4
v3.0
John Saul, The Devil's Labyrinth
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