Menchú snapped a chem light and passed it down the line to Grace.
“Do you remember how to open the passage?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Grace.
“Are you sure? It was twenty years ago.”
“Less for me,” said Grace. The yellow-green light clipped to her belt descended, and Asanti hurried to keep up.
It wasn’t far to climb, really. After ten feet or so—that only felt like they stretched for miles—Grace stopped again. A press and turn of a loose stone and a hidden door swung inward to reveal a gently sloping stone-lined passage, just wide and tall enough for them to walk single-file without stooping. Once they were all inside, Menchú took the light and the lead.
After another few hundred feet of twists and turns, the passage joined a cave system that opened into a natural cavern stretching far beyond the reach of their meager light source. After some fumbling, Menchú located an oil lamp, and the sickly green of the chemical illumination was eclipsed by a warm golden glow.
• • •
Sal caught her breath. The cave was huge. The ceiling stretched easily twenty feet above their heads, and the far walls were hidden in shadow. What she could see of the space was lined with rows of shelves filled with bedding, emergency supplies, and books. “It’s the Archives,” she said.
“No,” said Asanti. One word held all the sadness of an exile longing for her lost homeland.
“It’s a bolt-hole,” said Menchú. “This cave system was discovered during World War II by the Italian resistance. They told a few priests friendly to their cause, but for . . . various reasons . . . its existence was never officially shared with the Vatican.”
Asanti made a noise which implied she had clear opinions about what those reasons were.
“It felt appropriate,” Menchú continued. “And since I found out about it through another priest, not the Society, there’s no reason to think that Team Two knows about it. We should be able to rest here, for a little while.”
“As long as we’re sure the other teams don’t know,” said Asanti. “I mean, someone told you all those years ago, and if Balloon and Stretch—”
“If they do,” Liam said, “we’ll deal with them. But we had to go somewhere, didn’t we?”
Asanti made a tired, waving gesture to erase her previous statement. “You’re right. Of course. I’m just . . .”
“You’re exhausted,” said Grace. “You all are.”
Grace hadn’t included herself in that assessment, but even she seemed worn thin by their last few hours.
Menchú looked over his group. “We’ll be safe here. I promise.”
Whether because of habit, faith, or desperation, they all believed him.
• • •
Menchú set himself the first watch. The others slept, except for Grace, who—when she realized she couldn’t convince Menchú to rest—wandered into the back stacks of their hideout’s collection looking for something to read. He knew that he should listen to her. They couldn’t afford to stop for long, and he should rest while he had the chance.
Menchú pondered his team: They quivered on the edge of fracture. Any jolt could shatter their newly healed alliance. He knew his aura of certainty helped glue them together, but he was running on momentum and adrenaline. If he stopped moving forward, moving anywhere, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to start again.
Gradually, the others began to wake, internal clocks telling them that the sun had risen even without any visual cues inside the cave.
As soon as Liam was up, he pulled out his laptop.
“Can you get a signal down here?” Menchú asked.
Liam shrugged. “I’ve got a repeater set up. We’re fine.”
Grace emerged from the stacks. “Will they be able to trace us if we go digging into the Society’s system?”
Liam gave her a hard look. “I’m not going to log in and check my email,” he said. “If I go through a VPN, we can see what’s showing up in the public news sources without anyone figuring out who or where we are. The last week has been loud enough that the Society will have had to put out some kind of cover story to explain what’s been going on.”
“Oh,” said Grace. Then, “I didn’t mean to imply you—”
“I know,” said Liam, cutting short her impending apology.
After that, the room fell silent, save for the tap of Liam’s fingers on his keyboard.
Maybe an hour later, Sal woke with a start and joined them, followed by Asanti. “Find anything?” Sal asked. She rubbed at the fatigue etched into her face, but only succeeding in moving it around a little.
Liam grimaced. “Not much. The Vatican put out a press release that there was a threat against the Pope, and the Palace has been closed to tourists. Other than that, it’s all pretty usual.”
“That will be Sansone,” said Grace.
“Wait,” said Menchú. “Click on that story there. Down at the bottom.”
It was a small item, easily overlooked next to a cluster of buttons and site navigation links. When Liam pulled it up, Menchú felt his gut go cold.
Sal squinted. “Is that Latin?”
“Yes,” said Asanti. Menchú couldn’t even bring himself to nod.
“What does it say?”
When Menchú didn’t answer, Asanti leaned in closer to read the screen. It was a short missive, only a few hundred words, and it didn’t take Asanti long to decipher the message.
“Oh, Arturo. I’m so sorry.”
“What is it?” asked Sal. Liam looked equally confused.
“Tell them,” said Menchú to Asanti, then turned and walked away. He didn’t want to be the one who broke the news. If he said the words, it would only make them real. It was bad enough hearing them in Asanti’s soft alto.
“It’s an announcement that the Vatican has begun the process of having Father Menchú defrocked.”
Menchú closed his ears to the others’ sympathy and disbelief. He couldn’t cope with them right now. He had reached his limit, and so Arturo Menchú stopped.
2.
Sal’s watch told her she’d been in that dark cavern less than a day. It felt like weeks. She was exhausted, but when she tried to sleep she could feel the Hand gathering strength, pushing to get out. When she actually slept, she dreamed agonizing dreams of the exorcism, of her skin on fire, of Perry trapped in a demon fortress.
A demon fortress in a demon dimension. Her brother’s spirit was trapped in a hellish prison, tethered to this world by his own body, which Sal had helped to keep alive in a secret Vatican clinic. How much had she forced him to suffer, hoping he would return to her?
What have I left him to now?
She could see Perry suffering, not bound by a demon to some cruel parody of the afterlife, but at the hands of Team Two’s less gentle ministers. Balloon and Stretch whispering, “If we can’t have you, we’ll take him instead.”
Sal sat up with a jolt. She must have fallen asleep. She hoped she had fallen asleep. Still, the dream shook her. If Balloon and Stretch realized that her brother was a helpless hostage in the Vatican, they would try to find a way to use him as leverage against her. Would they code their threats into a Vatican press release, like the news about Menchú, to draw them out of hiding? In her heart, Sal knew she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from taking that bait.
The voice in the back of her head whispered, He’s your little brother. Keep him safe.
Except Sal didn’t know how to save her brother without falling into Balloon and Stretch’s hands. And she couldn’t help Perry if she was dead.
Worse than that, Sal wasn’t even sure she could trust her own thoughts. Not with the Hand inside her, still whispering.
Sal was sure of one thing, though: If she didn’t get out of this cave and clear her head, she was going to go fucking mental.
• • •
Sal looked up at the cloud-covered sky. They were near enough to Rome that she could still see the glow of the city on the horizon, but
far enough that—she suspected—on a clearer night she would have been able to see the stars. She picked her way through the shadows of the olive grove, pausing at every unexpected noise.
In retrospect, maybe sneaking out into the dark hadn’t been the best plan to settle her nerves. But at least out here she wouldn’t fall asleep.
A twig snapped, and Sal froze.
She couldn’t see anyone, but that only made the silence more unnerving. Just because they’re out to get you, doesn’t mean you can’t be paranoid.
Sal had just about convinced herself she was hearing things when a dark figure detached itself from the shadow of a bent tree trunk. Sal held her breath. It was coming toward her.
Too late to avoid a confrontation now. Whoever this was, they couldn’t know where the others were—or else they would have been waiting for her to emerge from the guest house. That simplified Sal’s priorities. Keep her pursuer from finding the others. Outrun them if she could. If not, well, she’d already died once in the last forty-eight hours. Maybe this time it would be a quicker and more permanent process. Sal waited until the figure slipped into another shadow, then took off running away from the guest house as fast as she could. The whip wounds in her side tugged and burned. Thank you ever so much, Team Two.
Sal stuck to the trees at first, figuring that the cover was to her advantage, except that it also meant she had no way of telling if she had managed to shake the mysterious figure. She needed a plan beyond “run.”
Okay, then. She’d just have to take her pursuer out of the equation. That decision made, Sal looked for her best opportunity.
There. Three steps, two, one . . . Sal leapt to catch an overhanging branch, hoping to pull herself into position for an ambush from above.
A hand snagged her ankle. When had she lost her lead? Her pursuer’s grip was monstrously strong. Sal kicked for all she was worth, but couldn’t shake free.
A voice below hissed: “Sal! Stop it!”
She kicked harder.
There was a sharp yank on her foot, and Sal was falling.
An instant later, stunned and winded on the ground, Sal felt a weight settle on her back. The voice returned, whispering, “I’m not going to hurt you.”
She tried to roll, but was completely pinned. She took a breath to scream when a cold weight settled behind her right ear. Gun. Fuck. Too much to ask that the bad guys would be as respectful of local firearms laws as she was.
Sal went still.
“I only want to talk. If I let you up, are you going to try to run again?”
The voice was calmer now, and while still soft, the speaker was no longer whispering. In fact, the voice was familiar. It was . . .
“Aaron?”
“Indeed.”
Sal rolled onto her back, and this time, Aaron didn’t stop her. He even stood up so that she could climb to her feet. The gun, if there had ever been one, was no longer visible.
Sal really, really hated magic.
“What are you doing here?” Sal asked. “Did the Hand summon you to Rome, too? I hate to break it to you, but the demon reunion has been canceled.”
“I didn’t come for the Hand,” said Aaron. “I came to see you.”
“Why?”
“I can help you. The Vatican has been locked down. You won’t be able to get past security—”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“—without my help,” Aaron finished.
“What makes you so sure we’re going back to the Archives?”
Aaron didn’t even blink. “Because you have to.”
He was right, of course. The Book of the Hand was their only chance to pry the demon out of the corners of her mind—and she had to help Perry.
Menchú had warned Sal: Demons offer you what you want. But they will always ask for more than you can pay.
Sal wanted. She wanted more than anything.
She licked suddenly dry lips. “What’s the price?”
Before Aaron could answer, a Grace-shaped shadow fell from the trees and knocked him cold.
Sal looked at Grace in utter shock. “Were you following me?”
Grace rose to her feet. “Be glad I was. Next time you decide to do something moronic like take a walk while you’re supposed to be in hiding I might not be around to save you from your own stupidity.”
Sal frowned. “Why didn’t you knock him out earlier?”
“I thought you needed the exercise.”
Grace was trying for her usual deadpan, but Sal heard the tension there. She held back a shiver. If Grace is worried enough to let it show, we are well and truly screwed. Sal toed Aaron’s inert form. “What do we do with him now?” She suspected her own attempt at nonchalance was just as transparent.
Grace bent down and heaved Aaron onto one shoulder. “Don’t suppose you brought any rope?”
• • •
Asanti had noticed when Grace snuck out, and expected her to return presently with a penitent Sal in tow. The unconscious man slung between them was rather a surprise, however.
The man, Aaron, seemed less startled than one might expect to wake tied to a chair in the middle of a dimly lit cave.
He blinked, taking in their faces and his surroundings in the dim light. Asanti held out a cup of water, and he nodded. After a few careful sips, only wincing a little, he said, “Well, this saves me convincing Sal to introduce me to the rest of you.”
“What are you doing here?” asked Asanti.
“At the moment?” He gestured as well as he could with his hands bound behind him. Grace had tied him, so there wasn’t much slack in the ropes, but he still managed to convey a fatigued sense of: What does it look like I’m doing?
Asanti glanced back to Menchú, looking for where to go next. They rarely needed to interrogate people so explicitly, but this was the sort of field activity where Menchú, by rights, should be in the lead. Unfortunately, he didn’t seem eager to get up and do his damn job. Asanti was sure Aaron had noticed the shift in her attention. Well, at least someone is learning something from this exercise, she thought. If Menchú was out for this round, they were left with the archivist, the hacker, the hitter, or the cop to take point. Asanti nodded to Sal. Go ahead.
“Let’s start with simple questions: How did you find us?” Sal asked.
Aaron’s lips twisted into a smile. “I’ve always been able to track you,” he said. “Thanks to your little passenger. Do you really think we first met by coincidence?”
“You were following the Hand.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“That was the mission I was given.”
“By who?”
“Whom.”
Asanti had never seen Sal want to slap someone so badly. Training held her back. Grace had no such compunctions. The room felt her hand crack against Aaron’s face.
“Answer the question,” Grace said.
Aaron didn’t flinch from the slap or the tone. He stared Grace down until, unbelievably, she was the one who blinked and withdrew. Only then did Aaron turn back to Sal. “Ask a question that matters, and I’ll answer it. Don’t waste my time or yours on irrelevant details.”
“I’d call your mission and your motivation very relevant,” Sal returned.
Aaron sighed. “I am not attempting to track the Hand out of a desire to join a thrall army and release a flood of magic to destroy life on Earth as it is currently known. You want the demon safely contained, as do I. Since my objectives and yours align, I sought you out to propose a collaboration.”
“Are you saying you can remove this thing from my head?” asked Sal.
“Not without the book,” he said. “If I could do that on my own, I would have done it when we first met, months ago.”
“You knew this thing was in my head all along? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I tried. You weren’t eager to trust me, and if I’d said it plainly the Hand would have grown even more cautious—hidden itself so deep you would
not have found it until it was too late.”
“It’s pretty damn late,” Sal said. “The bastard almost destroyed the world. I died yesterday.”
“It would have been worse.”
“How?”
“You got better, didn’t you?”
“We can get it out of my head with the book,” said Sal. “What do we need you for?”
“You need me if you want to get back into your Archives without being arrested the moment you set foot in Vatican City. Also,” he added, “I suspect that the book isn’t the only thing you’d like to retrieve once you’re there.” His gaze took in all of them, but finally settled on Menchú.
Menchú looked up. He bore the weight of Aaron’s regard steadily, and without fear.
“What,” Menchú asked, “do you ask in return for this valuable assistance?”
Aaron’s default expression read something close to smug. But he only looked tired as he replied, “Nothing you haven’t lost already.”
• • •
Once it was clear that Aaron didn’t plan to say anything more, Sal left him tied to his chair and busied herself taking inventory of their supplies. Aaron probably had other limiting factors in mind when he said they couldn’t hide forever, but he wasn’t wrong. Although the space was originally intended to shelter dozens, the old Italian MREs didn’t have an infinite shelf life, and—after spoilage—Sal estimated they had food and fresh water for a week, two if they stretched it. On the bright side, she also found a box full of tiny airline whiskey bottles which were almost certainly still good, if not exactly part of a complete and balanced breakfast.
Not that she thought the Society would wait to starve them out, but making lists and inventories helped keep Sal’s mind off what might be happening to Perry. And the fact that there was a man tied to a chair not fifty feet away who offered at least a chance of saving him.
Aaron had never lied to her, as far as she knew. But Menchú said there was no such thing as angels, or benevolent demons, or whatever Aaron might be, and she did trust Menchú. Maybe Aaron was waiting for the right moment, feeding her the truth until she let her guard down and was swallowed by a lie.
Bookburners: Season One Volume Two Page 23