by Brenda Drake
In Italian, monna is a shortened version of madonna, which means lady. Which means Mona Lisa would be Lady Lisa. Another fun fact I learned from the tour guide.
Seeing this crumbling building reminds me how quickly a place, a person, love can fade away with time. Marek and I both lost someone special in our lives. Their deaths brought us together.
It’s as if Marek has a sensor connected to my moods. His hand covers mine, fingers slipping between fingers, assuring me he’s here. He keeps hold as we pass every arched doorway and window until we come to an excavation site. Squares, or more like graves, the size that could fit a body, are carved into the ground. Archaeologists’ box grids.
“I wonder where he’d hide it.”
It’s not a question, I was just thinking out loud, but he answers, “I don’t know. Has to be here. I feel it.”
I kneel down by the excavation.
“Not there.” He stops me. “It’d be somewhere permanent. Less likely to be disturbed.”
I tilt my face toward the ceiling. “What about the beams?”
Marek comes up behind me, wraps his arms around me, and looks over my shoulder. “Too high. He was alone. He’d need help to get up there.”
“Okay, there’s not much to search, then.”
He untangles his arms from me. “It’d be in plain sight. You’d be too busy looking in all the nooks and crannies to see it.”
I laugh. “Nooks and crannies?”
“My gramps’s words, not mine.”
In plain sight is proving to be challenging to find. By the position of the sun and where the buildings are casting their shadows, it’s about one in the afternoon.
I go in the opposite direction as Marek.
“Plain sight.” I swing my arms, my purse bouncing against my side.
“Maybe I was wrong,” Marek says. “I’m going to search the courtyard. You look here.”
“Okay.”
It’s about twenty minutes into my search, and I want to give up. The walls and floors are so barren there’s no way Adam could hide the clue here. As I’m turning to leave, I notice something different in the bricked in window beside me.
The mortar around the bottom row looks newer than the others above it.
Just like at the Roman Forum.
I dart for the courtyard to get Marek. Several shadows slither past, and I stumble to a stop. My eyes follow their path.
Marek. They’re after him!
I sprint, hitting the ground hard. The shadows screech. It’s that terrible sound like metal scratching against metal. Marek scans the courtyard for the noise.
“Run, Marek!”
He spots me a second too late, and the shadows drag him down.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The screams coming from Marek tear my heart out of my chest.
“Marek!” I shout.
He’s writhing on the ground, his body bending left, then right. Shadows cover him. Squeezing. No. Feeding.
They’re feeding on him.
I grab Marek’s arm, touching one of the shadows. It shrills and races away.
One after the other, I touch the Keres, chasing them off. Marek’s howls shake me. Tears drop from my eyes.
“Get off him!”
The Keres scatter away from Marek. I drop to my knees and hug him.
“Are you hurt?” I ask against his shoulder. He doesn’t move, so I lay him on the ground. His face is pale. I place my palm on his cheek. “Marek?”
It doesn’t look as though he’s breathing.
CPR. Okay, open airway. I gently tilt his head back, then lift his chin.
His eyes open. “What are you doing?”
I sit back on my heels. “I didn’t think… Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I just—need—” His voice breaks, and he winces. “To catch my breath.”
We stay there on the ground until he’s ready. When we stand together, I do my best to hold him up. He struggles to keep upright and rocks a little on his feet.
“Sorry,” he says. “Just a little light-headed. CPR, really?” His laugh is weak. “Not sure a Death Riser can do that.”
He’s right. If he were dead, I would have made him into one of those things. I wait while he steadies himself and stops leaning on me.
“Can you walk?” I ask.
He nods. “Yeah.”
“Good. Because I think I found it.”
“You did? Where?”
“This way.” I grasp his hand and lead him back to the excavation site. “But we need something sharp.”
I find a broken piece of something metal. It doesn’t take very long for us to remove the two bottom bricks. The mortar used to seal them was more water than powder. It crumbles easily, and the blocks slide out, revealing a cavity in the windowsill.
Hoping there aren’t any spiders or other creepy crawlies, I reach inside because my hands are smaller. My fingers touch burlap. I wrap them around the material and drag it out, my knuckles scraping against the brick.
I untie the bag. There’s a smooth triangular block the size of my hand inside, and I remove it. The edges are gold, and the front and back have elaborate swirls that don’t make any particular design. There are other indentations, but I can’t tell what they are.
“It’s the talisman.” I turn it over and over in my hand. “I thought it would have gems or something.”
“There’s more inside,” Marek says and pulls out a small leather notebook from the sack.
I slip the talisman back into the bag while Marek flips through the notebook.
“It’s my gramps’s book. It’s instructions on how to be a Keeper. What my responsibilities are.” He lifts his eyes. “After finding the talisman, I have to go on a quest. On my own. To hide it. Our family’s divinity will guide me.”
“So you don’t just pick a spot and put it there?” A quest sounds like a long time to me. I don’t like the idea of Marek being away. But right now, I just want to get out of here and back to Paris on our scheduled flight. Return to the hotel before Safta and Saba arrive.
“Wait.” Something mentioned in the notes Marek read hits me. “Divinity? Like a deity in Hinduism? Who is it, and where do you find whoever it is?”
“I don’t know. It says the divinity will show itself now that I’m in possession of the Parzalis.” Marek tucks the leather notebook in his back pocket. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Yeah, before those Keres tell the world where we are.”
I slip the burlap sack in my purse and put the strap over my head to wear it across my body. Marek fits the bricks back into place. We climb out through the grate and onto the road. A man yells at us in Italian, and we run down the street, turning corner after corner until we’re confident he isn’t chasing us.
Our hands instinctively find each other, and I’m light on my feet, floating. It’s over. We made it here. Found the Parzalis. The flight back to Paris takes off in a few hours. Maybe I can even mend things with Jane.
“I think we’re lost.” Marek stops in the middle of the narrow road. He looks up and then down it.
I copy him, as if I can figure out where we are. I’m direction challenged.
He retrieves the GPS from the pocket of his jacket and pushes the on button. The screen stays dark. “Battery’s dead. I couldn’t charge it. Lost the charger with my money belt.”
“Let’s find someone who speaks English and ask for directions.”
The next street looks just like the one before it, and the one before that.
A man is standing in the middle of the road quite a way down from us. I squint, trying to see him, and freeze. Before I can tell Marek, he says it.
“It’s Pazuzu.” Still gripping my hand, Marek takes off for the road on the left, and I’m yanked forward. “Don’t stop. We have to keep movi
ng.”
I swallow my fear down, it’s sour and bitter in my stomach, and I run. Fast. Right behind Marek. Past all the motorcycles and Vespas lining the streets. Marek stops this time, and I bump into him.
“Don’t stop. Why are you stopping?” I come around him. A man and a woman, both on the tall side, block the street. And they don’t look friendly. I pull Marek’s arm toward the road on our right. “This way.”
Three women with demon eyes block our way this time, and we whip around and double back to a street we just went by.
“They’re trying to drive us somewhere,” Marek says.
We turn another corner, and my heart jumps into my throat. It’s Pazuzu again. Just strolling down the road as if he has all the time in the world.
“Back the other way,” Marek says, and we go, not stopping, our feet pounding the pavement.
I spot dark flowing hair, and I know who it is before she comes into view. Inanna is sprinting up the long road toward us. I glance back, and that way is blocked by Pazuzu.
“Hold up.” Marek stops me, and we shuffle around, losing hold of each other, searching for an escape. “How did they find us?”
“Can’t be the Keres. They got here too fast.”
We’re cornered.
And then I see him, all six-feet-something of him. Lugh is behind Inanna.
“This way!” Lugh shouts.
I meet eyes with Marek. He seems as surprised as I am.
Lugh raises his voice louder. “By all means, take your time!”
Before his sarcasm registers in my brain, we’re off and heading in his direction. Stucco and bricks rain down from the tops of the buildings and break against the sidewalk, pieces pelting my legs.
When we reach Lugh and Inanna, they run with us to the end of the road.
My lungs burn, and my legs wobble as if one more step and they’ll give in. “Why is she with us?”
Lugh must sense my mortal weakness and stays by my side. “Keep going. Think only of what’s ahead.”
“Why is she with you?” I nod my head in Inanna’s direction in front of me.
“I’m appalled,” she says. “It’s Ares and Pazuzu you should be concerned about. I’ve been helping you. I distracted Ares in the Louvre so you could get away. His men were at the Vatican, and we stopped them there as well.”
“What about Cain? You poisoned him. And Shona?” Now my ankles threaten to buckle under the exertion. “Where is she?”
Inanna slows her pace and pushes between Marek and me, causing him to fall a little behind us. “I would never poison anyone who didn’t deserve it. We tranqued him. He’s someplace where he can’t hurt anyone. And Shona is at the compound. Safe.”
Not waiting for a response from me, she picks up speed and moves ahead. Lugh drops back. When we make it to the next road, Bjorn and Horus join us.
“There’re beasts crawling all over the place,” Bjorn says, running beside Lugh. “Watch the roofs.”
Horus keeps up with Inanna. “We found a park. The others are there. It’ll be a fight to get them out.”
“So be it.” Inanna takes a quick look over her shoulder at Marek and me. “We can’t let him have her or the Parzalis.”
I almost trip over my feet at the mention of the Pazalis. “How do you know we have it?”
“Because it alerted me,” Bjorn says, holding up his hand so we can see his palm. The veins there are raised and blue and are in a swirl pattern that matches the ones on the Parzalis in the burlap sack.
“What does that mean?” Marek asks through exerted breaths.
“I’m your family’s divinity. That’s why I’ve been around your family for centuries.”
Lugh shoots us a stern look. “Pay attention. You can be talking about this stuff later.”
We’re ahead of the beasts, but I can hear them hopping from roof to roof behind us. Fear pumps adrenaline through me—pulsing hard and hot in my veins—and I run. Run faster than I ever have. Run for my life.
A loud scratching, tearing of bricks, comes from both sides of us. Creatures crawl down the sides of the building and onto the street. The Risen rush us so fast I don’t have time to think. Bjorn charges in front of me, blocking one from my path.
Marek catches my hand, and I run with him.
A young-looking guy wearing headphones about to take off on his Vespa notices the chaos happening up the street from him. He scrambles off and darts back into the building.
Marek hops on the abandoned Vespa, and I get on behind him. He takes off. I glance back. Lugh is swinging a sword, cutting down the Risen. Inanna and the others have blades, too.
Where did they get those?
A beast jumps down, almost hitting us. Two more join him.
“Can you go faster?” I shout.
Marek looks over his shoulder. “I’m going as fast as it can.”
A loud thump hits the ground behind us. I glance back again. In the middle of the road, a winged lion blocks the beasts from getting to us. It easily plucks one of the Risen from the ground and tosses it far into the air. The Risen hits the side of the building.
“What was that?”
“It’s a Pixiu,” I say. “She has two antlers. So she’s a Bixie and wards off evil spirits.”
A car turns onto the road, and Marek swerves to miss it, crashing the Vespa into a row of parked ones. We fall over on one side.
My hip and shoulder slam against the pavement, and a loud and gutteral grunt tears from my throat. I clench my teeth against the pain.
“Shit,” Marek barks. “That hurt. Ana, are you okay?”
“No.”
“Is anything broken? Can you move?”
Get up. I can’t be weak now. I’m a human in a god’s war, and I will surely die if I don’t get the hell out of here. Anger flushes my face. I take a deep breath and push up the Vespa and roll out from under it. Marek crawls out after me.
We stand and assess the road. It looks like something out of a video game. From what I can see around the Bixie, there are blood and body parts strewn across the street. Inanna effortlessly swings her sword. Bjorn hits Risen with his hammer.
Dark storm clouds roll in, lightning bolts continually stab the ground, and angry thunder rattles the windowpanes in the buildings surrounding us.
“Let’s keep going,” Marek says.
I pull my eyes from the carnage. “Where are we going?”
He looks up the street. “As far as we can get from that. Come on.”
I take off beside Marek, every bit of my battered body screaming in protest. We don’t get very far before Pazuzu turns the corner. He strolls up the street as if he’s just out for a Sunday walk and not out to damn our souls or something.
There’s a door to our left, and I grab Marek’s hand and hurry for it. It’s an apartment building.
“Now what?” Marek says, looking up the stairwell.
“Let’s find a back door.”
Around the stairwell we find one. Marek cracks it open and peers out, then quickly eases it shut.
“We can’t go that way.”
I glance back the way we came. “Front door isn’t an option. Basement is too much like a grave. Up?”
He nods. “Up.”
Halfway up the stairwell, the front door opens and slams.
My heart practically jumps out of my chest.
The door leading out sticks, so Marek throws his body against it until it bursts open. We run across the roof to the opposite side from the fight below. There’s a fire escape.
And it’s a long way down.
The blood rushes from my face and pumps hard in my chest. A ladder? I can’t.
“Okay, we go down together.” Marek straddles the ledge and reaches a hand out to me. “I won’t let you fall. Trust me.”
A Risen j
umps over the gap between roofs and crashes into Marek. The ladder breaks away from the wall, and Marek goes flying back with the man.
“No!” I reach for him, but his hands pull away too fast. I cover my eyes.
And there’s a loud bang.
Chapter Forty
“Marek!” I’m afraid. Afraid to see his body on the pavement below. Afraid he’s dead.
I step closer to the edge and look down.
The ladder got wedged between the buildings. There’s a body on the pavement. I stare at it until I realize the body on the pavement isn’t Marek, it’s the Risen. Marek hangs from a rung.
“Marek!”
“I’m okay,” he shouts, kicks his leg over another rung, and lifts himself. “There’s a window down here. I’m going to try and go through it. Meet me in the stairwell.”
“All right.” The ledge crumbles under my foot, and I slip. Strong arms grab me before I can fall over. When I’m steady on the roof, he releases me. I turn. “Pazuzu,” I say with all the terror sounding in my voice that I’m feeling right now.
“The Divinity’s Soul,” he commands.
“No.” I’m trapped. I glance over the edge. Marek is working to get the window open. Pazuzu can’t know he’s down there. Even though I’m terrified, I bring my gaze back to Pazuzu.
“Bastet isn’t here to protect you.” His head inclines as he studies me. “You, I will not harm, but I will break your companion’s neck.”
Marek? No.
The writhing bodies in the tar pit of his eyes convince me he means what he says.
I reach down and yank the lighter off my leg. The medical tape pulling from my skin stings. “What are you going to do to me?”
He just stares at me with those eyes holding so much torture.
The metal lighter is warm in my hand. I open it and remove the medallion. The death’s-head hawkmoth glints in the sun.
His fingers grasp it, and he tries to take it, but it won’t budge from my palm. He tries again. A growl escapes his lips twisted in a snarl.
“It is yours. You are afraid of me, yet you and I are the same,” he hisses.