Legacy of the Lost

by Lindsey Fairleigh

  “Weapons,” he said grimly. “If we’re going in underground, we’re going in armed.”

  27

  I’ve handled thousands of guns before, from shotguns to lasers to rocket launchers. I have badges and medals marking me as an expert sniper, and I’ve built pipe pistols from scratch. I have over a million kills under my belt, over two hundred thousand of those headshots.

  In video games.

  None of that virtual experience prepared me for the sensation of holding a real-life gun in my bare hands for the first time ever. Raiden had made me take off my gloves, claiming I would get a better feel for the pistol without them. The handgun was heavier than I’d expected. The plastic grip was cold, the texture rough against my palms. I was terrified of letting my index finger get anywhere near the trigger.

  “It’s a Glock 19,” Raiden told me a moment after handing me the gun. “Compact, lightweight, and very reliable,” he added.

  “OK . . .” I held the gun awkwardly, wrist limp. It didn’t feel all that lightweight to me.

  Raiden had gone out to run our pre-breaking-and-entering errands on his own, having left me with specific instructions on where and how to flee should the bad guys happen to find our hotel room while he was out. Luckily, that had proved to be a non-issue.

  I’d spent the hour and a half that he was gone peacefully researching both Rome’s catacombs and Castel Sant’Angelo, our planned entry point to the tunnels beneath the city. Guns were powerful, but so was knowledge.

  “There’s no safety, and it’s loaded with a full magazine,” Raiden explained. “It takes 9mm rounds, in case you ever find yourself in a situation where you need more ammo and I’m not there.” His shoulder brushed mine as he knelt beside my chair at the little table and gently removed the pistol from my grasp.

  I flinched infinitesimally at the contact, then held my breath, hoping he hadn’t noticed my reaction. I was still jumpy about being touched, even by him and even after everything that had happened between us the previous night—even more so when my gloves were off. After nearly two decades of avoiding all physical contact with people, I doubted my aversion to touch would go away anytime soon. And while I didn’t technically need the gloves while wearing the regulator, I’d grown so used to wearing them that their absence distracted me.

  With my next breath, I forced myself to inhale and exhale slowly, easing some of the tension in my muscles.

  “All you have to do is chamber a round,” Raiden said, thankfully oblivious to my flinch. “Just rack the slide”—he pulled back what I assumed to be the “slide” on the top part of the gun—“and then you’re ready to fire.”

  He pressed a tiny button on the side of the handle that released the loaded magazine and set it on the table beside my computer, then pulled the slide back once more. A bullet popped out, landing on the table with a metallic clunk. Within seconds, he loaded the round back into the magazine and slid the whole thing back into the pistol’s handle.

  “There’ll be some kick when you fire, so be sure to use both hands,” he said, demonstrating by gripping the handle with one hand—index finger held parallel to the trigger—and cupping the butt of the handle with the palm of his other hand. “And don’t stick your arms straight out in front of you, especially when going through doorways or around corners. You want to keep your weapon close.” He bent his elbows, bringing the gun closer to his shoulder while keeping his overall posture strong. “Otherwise it’ll be easy for your opponent to knock it out of your hands, and then you’ll likely end up a statistic—shot with your own weapon.”

  Once Raiden was done with his spiel, I leaned away, just a little, and eyed him skeptically. “And you really think this is wise—giving me a gun with no safety?” I said. “What if I accidentally shoot my foot off? Or my face?”

  The corner of Raiden’s mouth quirked, like he was holding in a laugh, and he raised one eyebrow, giving me an appraising look. “Don’t be an idiot, and you should be fine.” Though the exchange was light-hearted, his amusement never reached his eyes. He shifted his grip so he was holding the pistol by its short barrel and held it out to me, handle first. “Don’t worry—you’ll get used to it.”

  Tentatively, I took the pistol. “Thanks,” I said and placed the loaded gun on the table, pointing toward the window, away from both of us.

  Raiden nodded and stood, giving my shoulder a squeeze before returning to his backpack, resting on the foot of my bed. The bag had been nearly empty when he’d left to run his errands; now, it was a lot closer to full, and the small arsenal was heavy enough to make the mattress dip significantly. I was afraid to ask what other, deadly things he’d acquired while he was out. Plenty, from the looks of it.

  I was even more afraid to ask him why he thought we would need so much artillery. So, I kept my mouth shut.

  Raiden pulled another pistol from the bag—this one was larger, with a barrel that widened immediately after the trigger guard, making it appear front-heavy—and popped the magazine free. He gave it a quick check, then snapped it back into the gun, glanced at something on the side—the safety, I guessed—and lifted his shirt, stuffing the gun barrel-first into the front waistband of his jeans, just behind his belt buckle. Seemed like a dangerous place to keep a loaded weapon, especially for a guy, but what did I know?

  “Ready?” Raiden asked, hoisting the heavy backpack onto his shoulders.

  I closed my laptop and pushed my chair back. “As I’ll ever be,” I said, standing. I picked up the handgun lying on the table beside my computer. “What do I do with this?” I glanced down the length of my body, giving myself a quick once over; my jeans and T-shirt were too snug to give me anywhere to conceal the weapon.

  “Put it in your bag for now,” Raiden said. “You can take it out once we’re below ground.”

  My bag. Right. I would need somewhere to stow my mom’s journal, anyway, and I wasn’t about to leave behind the mysterious orb, even if I still had no idea what it was or why it had affected me so strangely when I touched it back on Orcas Island, what felt like an eternity ago.

  I set the gun on the bed beside my bag, then pulled a hooded sweatshirt on over my head. I pushed up the sleeves, put on my gloves, then pulled the sleeves back down, just as I’d done a thousand times before.

  While I loaded up my backpack, Raiden phoned the lobby, requesting a cab. The car arrived within minutes, and once Raiden spotted it pulling up in front of the hotel, we left the room and headed downstairs. I was a little dubious about climbing into another hired car after what happened the last time, but Raiden didn’t seem concerned, so I kept my worry to myself.

  Castel Sant’Angelo wasn’t far from our hotel—maybe a mile. But I never would have guessed it was so close based on how long it took the cab driver to get us there. Either we had hit the mid-morning rush hour, or Rome had a serious traffic problem. Based on the fact that the city hadn’t been designed for automobile traffic, I was betting on the latter. Really, it probably would have been faster to walk, but at least this way we were less exposed.

  Our cab approached Castel Sant’Angelo from the back some twenty minutes after leaving the hotel. The impressive structure consisted of four sides of imposing stone walls surrounding a massive circular tower that had been built up over the centuries, so high that it had once been the tallest building in Rome. Even now, it stood tall among the buildings surrounding it. But then, Rome wasn’t exactly a city filled with skyscrapers.

  From my research that morning, I’d learned that while Castel Sant’Angelo looked like a medieval fortress, what with its high stone walls, defensive parapets, and strategic corner towers, the oldest parts of the structure had been built by the ancient Romans. Castel Sant’Angelo started its life in the second century AD as a mausoleum to house the bodies of Emperor Hadrian and his family. Centuries later, it was built up and converted into a fortress, then turned into a papal castle, and even functioned as a prison, for a time.

  There was a fortified, above-ground
passageway called the Passetto di Borgo that connected the fortress to Vatican City by way of Saint Peter’s Basilica—a leftover from Castel Sant’Angelo’s papal castle days. It would have been a perfect inroad for us if the passageway wasn’t patrolled regularly or heavily guarded on the Vatican end. But, according to the internet, it was both patrolled and guarded, making it a non-viable entry point.

  “I take you to the front,” the cab driver said as we slowed to a stop—traffic. “You enter Castel Sant’Angelo there.”

  I craned my neck, taking in the endless line of cars stopped ahead of us. At this rate, it would definitely be faster to walk. Castel Sant’Angelo was right there, directly ahead. We would only be out in the open for a few minutes.

  Apparently, Raiden agreed that the brief exposure was worth the risk. He extended his hand between the front seats, a bundle of Euros pinched between his index and middle fingers. “Grazie,” he said, and when the driver reluctantly accepted the bills, pushed his door open.

  I fumbled with my door handle, murmured a quick thanks to the driver, and hopped out. I jogged around the rear of the car to join Raiden.

  “I’m not exactly sure where to go once we’re inside,” I told him as we stepped onto the sidewalk that bordered the fenced-off park-like landscaping surrounding Castel Sant’Angelo.

  Raiden set a fast pace, pulling ahead of me, and I sped up to rejoin him.

  “I couldn’t find any mention of catacombs associated with this place online,” I added, not quite jogging, “unless the original mausoleum structure counts . . .”

  “We go down,” Raiden said, scanning everything around us.

  I rolled my eyes. “Well, obviously . . .”

  A street peddler started toward us, a multi-colored bundle of selfie sticks gripped in his hands like a bouquet of flowers. He plucked a blue one free as he drew near.

  “No,” Raiden told the guy, voice firm.

  The peddler turned his attention to me, thrusting the selfie stick directly in my path and smiling while nodding. He skip-walked alongside me.

  I smiled and shook my head, but the interaction only seemed to encourage him.

  “No!” Raiden repeated, then grabbed the blue selfie stick, yanking it clean out of the man’s grasp. Without missing a step, he chucked it over the fence.

  The peddler’s face fell as he tracked the arch of his now-lost selfie stick. It landed on the grass a dozen feet away, out of reach unless he wanted to buy a ticket into Castel Sant’Angelo. He stopped following us and stood at the fence line, shoulders slumped and bouquet of remaining selfie sticks drooping to the ground.

  “Was that really necessary?” I asked, glancing back at the peddler as we hurried along the sidewalk.

  “He deserved it.”

  “You don’t even know him,” I argued.

  Raiden glanced at me sidelong. “Another couple days in Rome and you would agree with me.”

  I pressed my lips together and narrowed my eyes. “You know, you’re sure a lot grumpier than you used to be.”

  “Better grumpy than naïve,” he said, resuming his endless scan of our surroundings.

  My mouth fell open at the unexpected dig, but I snapped it shut and huffed out a breath through my nose. I stared ahead as we continued on.

  We rounded a corner, heading straight for the Tiber River. I kept my annoyance to myself, figuring tension was to blame for making us both a little snippy. There was no saying what lay ahead. We could have spent weeks researching the catacombs, but I wasn’t willing to wait a minute longer than was absolutely necessary. I needed to find my mom and figure out what, exactly, was happening to me. Who was Persephone, and why was she in my head? Had my mom known this would happen? Had she wanted this to happen? I needed to know.

  We rounded one more corner, and the road we’d been following dead-ended against a wide, vendor-lined walkway, the Tiber River on one side, the imposing stone walls of Castel Sant’Angelo on the other. Stalls offering touristy wares were set up in a long line, the sunken, murky river just visible beyond the walls lining the walkway. Pedestrians stopped here and there to examine key chains, magnets, and tiny replicas of Rome’s various attractions. It wasn’t bustling, exactly, but it wasn’t empty, either. If this was what March looked like, I could only imagine what this place would be like in the dead of summer, when the entire city was packed to the brim with tourists from all over the globe.

  We veered to the right, heading away from the consumer promenade and toward the almost hidden entrance to Castel Sant’Angelo. A minimalistic blue banner printed with CASTEL SANT’ANGELO hanging over an arched opening in the fortress’ exterior wall pointed the way.

  Once inside, we followed the walkway between the exterior wall and the central tower to a small room built within the wall, where the ticket counter was located. We purchased two entry tickets, and headed deeper into the fortress. I grabbed a self-guided tour pamphlet along the way.

  “Hang on,” I said, unfolding the pamphlet and slowing to skim the map marked with numbers that correlated with a key naming the various notable sites within the fortress. None mentioned Hadrian or any of the original Roman structure’s elements.

  Chewing on my bottom lip, I stopped and looked up, studying the central tower. The various stages of construction were visible in the different materials used to heighten the broad, circular tower. I deconstructed the tower in my mind. Thanks to the internet, I knew that, like so many of the ancient monuments in the area, the lowest, oldest portion of the tower had long since been stripped of its decorative travertine shell, exposing the ancient, structural brick underbelly.

  Raiden retraced his steps back to me.

  I wandered closer to the tower wall and reached out, touching the exposed brick. “This would have been part of the mausoleum,” I said, sliding my fingertips along the rough, weathered brick.

  I slid my backpack off one shoulder and hauled it around to the front of my body. I unzipped the main pocket and pulled out my mom’s journal, flipping it open to the two-page spread mapping out Rome’s underground tunnels and catacombs. The small circle marking our entry point had been drawn in the middle of a clear square of underground tunnels. I traced the faint indentation made by the head of my mom’s pen with the tip of my index finger.

  Raiden stopped nearby, shading me from the midday sun.

  “Hadrian’s mausoleum was built on a square platform,” I said, raising my eyes to meet Raiden’s. I patted the brick wall. “This was on top of the platform, supporting a park-like mound of earth, and the actual burial chamber would have been at the very top of that mound, but people would have entered through the base.”

  I looked down at the cobblestone ground and gently stomped my left foot. “I think the original base is under here. And I’d bet that’s what these tunnels are,” I said, tapping my fingertip on the small square drawn on the page. “They must dive deeper underground, connecting to the ancient catacombs.”

  Raiden narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “So, we just need to find a way into the original mausoleum.”

  I nodded. “I’m like ninety-nine-point-five percent sure.”

  Raiden took the tour pamphlet from me, eyes quickly skimming the numbered map. “I don’t see anything about a mausoleum on here.”

  “I know,” I said. “We’re going to have to find it the old-fashioned way.”

  Raiden glanced at me, one eyebrow raised in question.

  I flashed him a tight smile. “By looking.”

  28

  The self-guided tour route took us to the top of the walls of Castel Sant’Angelo, where there was an excellent view of Rome, including Vatican City, before leading us into the central tower and, eventually, down into the belly of the fortress. It was cool and damp within the central tower, all sounds reverberating off the tufa walls in a hushed echo.

  As we headed down a long, broad stairway, I guessed we were nearing ground level—or, at least, modern-day ground level. In many areas, the streets of Rome had bee
n built up over the millennia.

  The stairway intersected with an arched, brick corridor that seemed to follow the outer curve of the tower. To the left, the floor of the corridor gently sloped upward. To the right, it angled downward. The way down was roped off, and a sign proclaiming “USCITA” displayed an arrow pointing to the left, telling us to follow the dimly lit corridor back up to the exit.

  I frowned. If the exit was further up, maybe we had actually dropped below ground level. I shot a quick glance at the dark, roped-off corridor that led deeper into the fortress, then looked at Raiden.

  A family with two young boys was descending the stairs behind us, but nobody was following them. Once they were past us, we would be in the clear to venture off the beaten track.

  I grabbed Raiden’s arm and pulled him off to the side, out of the way of the family. I nodded to the darker, downward-sloping corridor. “I think this must lead to the ancient entrance,” I whispered, face angled up toward Raiden, but eyes on the nearing family. “Our way in must be down there.”

  Raiden nodded once. I could feel his gaze skimming along the lines of my face, lingering on my lips before returning to my eyes.

  I wasn’t used to being looked at so intently. My cheeks heated, and I was grateful for the dim lighting, hiding my blush.

  I smiled to the mom and dad as the family drew nearer, nodding a quick hello. Once they’d passed, we watched them head up the opposite passageway. The seconds ticked by agonizingly slowly, and I prayed to every higher power I could think of to stop anyone else from turning the corner at the top of the stairs and delaying us further.

  “All right,” Raiden finally said. “They’re gone.” In three long steps, he was over the cord roping off the descending corridor. He waved me on, beckoning me to follow.

  I gulped, nerves drying out my mouth. I was about to sneak into a forbidden part of a museum; it would be the most illegal thing I’d ever done . . . unless you counted causing the boat crash. Or assisting Raiden in incapacitating the driver attempting to kidnap us from the airport. Or being the accomplice to a motorcycle-jacking. Those were all way bigger deals, but I’d been riding waves of pure adrenaline, then. This was planned. Intentional. Not a bad guy in sight.