It felt almost as if they had discovered a portal to hell.
Scott’s flashlight was surprisingly bright, and in its reflected glow, he glanced back over his shoulder at Melanie. She was looking at Rainier, who seemed faintly amused by what was happening.
These steps led them to a circular room, smaller than the one above them, but similar. The saints were once again shown being martyred on eleven panels, while the twelfth featured Saint John, the light and the darkness. There were sconces set in brackets between the panels, and Scott lit one, then tossed the lighter to Rainier. Between the three of them, they soon had all the sconces burning. An acrid smell filled the air, and she thought that these lights probably hadn’t burned in centuries.
The small circular altar room came alive in the glow. They could see that the altar itself was a simple piece, a block of solid rock, with twelve sides.
“Damn!” Scott exclaimed, bending low to read, then looking up at the other two. “I’m not sure what the hell I was expecting, but I don’t read ancient Sumerian—or whatever this is. Though I see some Latin over here. I can probably make that out, thanks to Catholic school,” he said.
Rainier hunkered down behind him as Scott started translating aloud. “Once the ancients referred to him as god, but to them he was but one of a group of gods, and never the God, He whom we hold most dear.
“We shall refer to none as god but the God. Bael has been banished back to his place with the legion of demons. In Hell the demons are divided, but none amongst them can bear that man knows they are not He who reigns as true king. Bael is he who died and was returned to them. Death takes all, and the new order will awaken all. Bael is called many names in many languages, but be forever careful and warned, for it is he, the minion of the most damned, Satan, who was of the land and with the land, and he will seek to destroy mankind through the power of the earth. When the planets near alignment at the solstice of the omens, it is Bael who will begin the destruction, seeking to raise what is dust and return it to form, seeking to use the dead as he would use the living. For his power is in trickery. He knows the hearts and minds of men and all creatures of the earth, the beast and the innocent, and he will prey upon the very souls of the unwary.” Scott stopped reading. “Wow. That helped a lot. Does either of you read ancient Sumerian?”
“I think,” Melanie said, hunkering down beside him, “that there are four ‘readings,’ if you will, each repeated in three languages. You read the Latin of the first one, this is the ancient Sumerian version, and the third is the same thing in ancient Greek.”
“Great,” Scott grumbled. “The Latin version of the next one is too worn to read.”
“I can read the ancient Greek,” Rainier said. He, too, crouched down beside them. “Virgo, she is the ancient mind, the reason, and orderly in all things, and she sees the earth ever for what it is, what it gives and what it must take. She is the goodness of the earth, all that rebuilds and stays steady and strong. She must learn her strength and her faith, and in doing so, she will see what is to be done, what road must be taken. She will accept the truth when it cannot be believed—she will refuse the darkness when it comes.”
“That’s you, I’m assuming,” Scott said. “I can read the Latin over here…Taurus. He must…plow? Yes, plow ahead with the horns of the bull, for he has learned his power. He will take the road when it is blocked, but he must listen to the reason of others. If he stumbles, he will be supported, for the earth and those of the earth are strong, stronger than the demons, for good is greater. He will hold the line.” Scott looked at them in disgust.
“We could have found this in the newspaper’s Sunday horoscope.”
Melanie ignored him. “I can read Latin, too,” she said. “Here’s yours. Capricorn. He will nurture, and he will be steadfast. Whatever labor is called for, he will see it through to the end. The earth will rumble, but he will never falter. His strength against all odds will be needed, and he will support the earth, for the earth has been his well, and his logic and reason will see that the battle is not lost in the dream. He will step forward, steadfast, even when he must go forward alone.”
“Seriously, the Sunday horoscope,” Scott said, then stood and began dusting off the top of the altar. He let out a slow whistle.
“What is it?” Melanie asked, straightening.
Rainier took a sconce from the wall and raised it over the altar. “Yes, what is it?” he asked.
“There’s the picture you drew on the plane,” Scott said. He reached into his pocket and produced Melanie’s drawing. He’d added lines to it, turning it into a two-dimensional map. And there, engraved on the stone of the altar top, was the same map, identical in every way. The stone alongside the road, the church…
“Sunday papers?” Melanie asked. He saw the triumph in her eyes.
He was surprised to find that he suddenly felt suspicious. He took her by her shoulders, turning her to face him. “You’ve really never been here before?” he asked her.
She shook her head. “Never.”
She was telling the truth. He could see it in her eyes.
Scott released her and ran his flashlight around the circular room. He could see the long underground corridors that stretched from it, and vaguely, lying on the recessed shelves that lined those corridors, he could see the bones of the dead.
“Perhaps we should start out,” Rainier said.
Scott shook his head. “I say we come back when we have some stronger flashlights with us. But what the hell are we looking for, anyway?”
“Maybe we don’t know yet,” Melanie said. “Maybe…all right, I know this sounds crazy, but maybe I’m supposed to draw it first.” She smiled. “If I’m reading this correctly, we need one another, and I’m supposed to be the one who figures out our road.”
“I dreamed of those corridors,” Rainier said.
“So did I,” Scott told him dully.
“Bambini?” Sister Maria Elizabeta called from above. Her voice was worried.
“We’re coming,” Melanie assured her.
“We should follow these paths now,” Rainier said.
Melanie laughed. “The bull is impatient to ram something.”
Rainier made a face at her, and she smiled, and Scott found himself wondering again just where and when the two had met, and just how far their friendship had extended. He felt an evil rising within himself—jealousy. He gritted his teeth and clamped down on it. Hard. No matter how he felt—and he wasn’t even sure of that at this point—he had no rights when it came to Melanie, and he knew it. Whatever had happened in the past was nothing that anyone could change, and even in the present, she had warned him that certain aspects of her life were hers, and hers alone. He let out a breath. He needed to get a grip.
“We’ve discovered nothing,” Rainier said, sounding frustrated.
“We’ve discovered each other—and the relevance of Melanie’s drawings,” Scott pointed out. He, too, was anxious to find out what the hell all this was really about. His head seemed to be swimming; he couldn’t forget his conversation with Lucien.
The thugs on the night of the quake hadn’t known one another. One man was a professor, another an ex-priest. And they claimed that Bael had been controlling them.
“My children?” Sister Maria Elizabeta called out.
“Coming!” Melanie assured her. She glared at Scott and Rainier, then started back up the stone steps. Scott let Rainier precede him, then looked back as he followed the other man. The sconces still burned.
He stared down at the top of the altar, and he saw what seemed to be a dark shadow falling over the map etched into the stone.
And he thought he heard a whisper in his ear.
Scott.
He looked up. Melanie was just reentering the church above; Rainier still blocked his way.
He almost started back down.
Fool, come down and finish it. I can end this for you, rid you of the Norseman. You want her, and you can have her. You can fuc
k her and fuck her and fuck her, and never have to deal with him. He can die.
Scott started and swore aloud, wondering if the whisper had come from within his own mind, if he hadn’t conjured it along with his jealousy of Rainier. The shadow still lay atop the altar, shifting in the candleglow. It was almost as if the undulation of light and dark was beckoning to him.
He turned away, feeling ill. He didn’t want to kill Rainier. He didn’t want anyone dead. What the hell had gotten into him?
Think of his hands on her. Think of them sweating and rutting. Think of him where you want to be, of all that he has taken, all that he can still take from you, will take from you. I can help you see that he dies for good, that he is dust that never rises again. Don’t you see the evil in both of them? And the nun, she has you all fooled. She is evil…. Picture it. Picture her going down on that would-be Viking, think of what he will do to her, with her, fucking, fucking, fucking.
“Hey, hurry up, up there!” Scott said aloud. What the hell was going on in his mind? He never used words that were so coarse, words that changed the nature of everything.
It was something in the shadows, in the ancient dust sifting through the air.
Scott climbed out and stood gratefully on the church floor once again. He closed the trapdoor, then looked at Rainier and Melanie and started to laugh. They were white with dust from the catacombs.
“I know the first order of business,” he said.
“You do?” Melanie was surprised.
“Showers,” he said gravely.
“But…this can’t be all there is,” Rainier said.
“It is not,” Sister Maria Elizabeta said. “You have come together, and you have learned the secret of the altar tablets.”
Scott didn’t want to argue with her, although he didn’t feel as if he’d learned a damned thing of any use. Maybe it was all bunk. Maybe he really was losing his mind. Were those whispers in his head nothing but a vile fantasy created by his own sick mind? The thought made him ill, but the voice in his mind was gone, gone as if it had never been.
“So what now?” Melanie asked.
“We’ll come back tomorrow with heavy-duty flashlights and some old-fashioned weapons,” Rainier said firmly.
To fight corpses? Scott thought.
But the sister nodded, as if she had just heard the most logical thing in the world. “Now that you are together, you are one. And I must rest.”
She turned away from them, and Scott realized that she was coming and going via a door that blended into the panel of St. Paul’s torture and execution.
“Let’s go,” Melanie said.
Rainier fell into step with Scott as they followed her. “So Melanie didn’t tell you anything about me?” he asked.
“No, not really,” Scott said evasively. The tall man at his side might look like a Norseman, but he had the hint of an Italian accent. “Old friends, huh?”
“So she has not explained everything,” Rainier said.
Scott felt his temper rising. But he wasn’t seeing sexual images in his mind, nor did he want anyone dead. He just wanted to belt the guy.
“Were you two…together?” Scott asked, as if it were merely a casual question.
“Together?” Rainier asked. “Oh, no. We are friends, very old friends. No, I meant…well, apparently, there are things she still needs to tell you.”
Melanie had heard him and stopped. She was staring at Rainier, and her look was both angry—and afraid.
What the hell was going on? Scott wondered.
“A car! Wonderful,” Rainier said.
“Where are we dropping you?” Scott asked.
“I’m at a place on the Piazza Navonna, but I’ll transfer to your hotel. Where are you staying?” Rainier asked.
He must have seen something in Scott’s expression, because he explained, “I believe we need to be close, the better to work together. Melanie can arrange a reservation for me. I’ll be along this evening.”
“Great,” Scott said. Nope, not a single trace of enthusiasm in his voice, but at least there wasn’t a trace of rancor in it, either. Still, he was aggravated. This guy was amused that he knew something about Melanie that Scott didn’t.
Scott didn’t appreciate feeling as if he were the only one not in on the joke—or the dark secret. Whichever it was, he resented not being included.
When they reached the city, Scott drove past the city’s ancient landmarks again; the Forum, the Coliseum and the Palatine Hill, where once upon an ancient time the very rich had built their homes.
His eyes were not drawn to the hill, though, or even to the immensity of the Coliseum. He watched the area around the Forum. The idea of living shadows struck him again, though because he was driving, he couldn’t really watch. But there was definitely something odd. He wasn’t seeing real shadows, just strange wisps of floating blackness.
He glanced at Melanie, who was sitting in the passenger seat.
“Do you see them?” he asked.
“What?” she replied.
“The shadows,” he said.
Rainier leaned forward, looking. “Perhaps a trick of the light. Ah, there—a group of our Roman cats, slinking away from that horde of tourists.”
A little while later Scott dropped Rainier at his hotel, then continued on to their hotel. He hadn’t realized how late it had grown, but now, he felt a rumbling in his stomach. They’d had coffee, but they hadn’t eaten.
“I’m starving. Aren’t you?” he asked, and smiled. So far, the world hadn’t ended, and Rainier wasn’t at their hotel yet. They still had a little time together. Alone.
“What?” She had been deep in thought; now she look at him, startled.
“Food. We haven’t eaten, and it’s late in the afternoon. Aren’t you famished?”
“Oh. Right. Of course.”
“We could get room service,” Scott offered with a suggestive smile.
“Sure, whatever you want.”
She was still distracted by her own thoughts. He was flirting, but she wasn’t even noticing. He wasn’t sure if he was amused or deflated.
When they reached the hotel, she was still caught up in her own world. He asked her what she wanted to eat, went ahead and put in the order at the front desk, and then followed her to the suite. She had already headed to her own room, but she hadn’t closed the door.
He could hear her moving around, but he just sighed and headed for the shower. He scrubbed away the dirt, dust and grime of the catacombs, and then leaned against the wall, letting the water sluice over him. Suddenly he heard a noise and spun around, and to his surprise and delight, she was there. She had come to him again.
This time they made love with the soap and the water slick against them, creating an erotic new sensation. Heat and steam from the water combined with what they created, and they made love madly at first, then with laughter as they slid and slipped against the soapy tiles. At one point, as she clung to him, he felt the feverish touch of her fingers, followed by the scrape of her nails moving down his back. Her lips grazed his shoulder, then her teeth.
She abruptly drew back and met his eyes. He thought he saw a moment of panic in her look, so he just smiled and kissed her again, puzzled. She sighed and moved against him, and in moments they were laughing again, finding themselves just too tall for the small hotel shower.
In the end he scooped her up, and they made love again on the freshly made bed, soaking the sheets, but heedless of any discomfort. When they lay still afterward, basking in one another’s arms, he felt a sense of intimacy with her that he hadn’t known before. For just a second or two, perhaps, she had let down her wall.
They were startled up by a firm knock on the outer door.
He swore.
“Dinner!” Melanie gasped, then yelled, “Tra un attimo!”
They both hopped up and found robes. Melanie rushed ahead of him to open the door to the suite. A young room-service attendant was standing there, looking somewhat abashed. Sco
tt was pretty sure he was apologizing for the interruption with his rushed Italian, and expressing his fear that their food would grow cold.
Melanie must have assured him that it was fine, because a moment later the waiter wheeled their food cart into the salon. He set it up by one of the windows that looked out on the courtyard, and they sat, eating ravenously for a few minutes.
At first they talked about the food. But then, try as he might, he couldn’t help himself. He had to ask her, “What does Rainier Montenegro think you should have told me?”
She froze, just for the blink of an eye, then pretended to be incredibly interested in dipping a piece of bread into a mixture of olive oil, garlic and pepper. She finally spoke after she swallowed. “I have no idea. This is absolutely delicious, don’t you think?”
She excused herself a moment later and disappeared into her bedroom. That time, she shut the door.
While she was gone, he eased back, sipping red wine. This was, he decided, exactly the way one should save the world.
There was another knock at the door—one knock, loud and firm. He rose, thinking it was pretty rude for room service to have come back so quickly for the table.
But it wasn’t room service. It was Rainier Montenegro.
Scott stepped back, hoping his irritation wasn’t obvious.
“Sorry, but I think Melanie forgot to get you a room,” he told the other man blandly.
“It’s all right. I took care of it myself.”
“Great,” Scott said.
If the man had a room, why the hell wasn’t he in it?
Melanie came out of her room, her robe wrapped tightly around her. “Rainier,” she said, and looked distraught. “I forgot all about—”
“No problem. It’s all taken care of. However, I do hope you have an extra wine glass?” Rainier said.
“Of course,” Melanie assured him. “So where’s your room?”
“Right next to yours. Same courtyard exit as you two have,” he said.
“Great,” Scott repeated.
Rainier looked down as he poured his wine. He seemed amused again, but not in a malicious way. Then he looked across the room at Melanie and made a motion with his fingers, dabbing at the side of his mouth. Melanie looked stricken as she did the same.