‘The old city has been buried for centuries,’ Romulus said. ‘Some of the passageways lead nowhere, stretching for miles to simply come to a dead end. Thankfully, my spies have plotted much of the underworld, and there seems to be an extraordinary amount of human traffic flowing into Vittini, a small industrial quarter on the outskirts of Rome.’ Romulus’s eyes scanned across the map, tracing the routes of the old roads until he found a particular spot. ‘There is an old iron foundry located here, and until several years ago the place was responsible for over ninety per cent of the iron casts shipped to neighbouring countries. But then the foundry went quiet. It closed its doors and it ceased all its contracts. No one knows why. If it was sold off to another proprietor, why then did the place not continue to thrive? Yet strangely, its chimneys still vent smoke to this day, which means that someone has obviously taken it in residence.’
Quaint nodded along. ‘And it sounds reasonable to conclude that that someone is the Hades Consortium. So the snag is?’
‘There is only one tunnel that is still accessible that can take us as far as the old foundry,’ said Romulus. ‘Via an aqueduct directly underneath the Fevretti Fountain.’
‘The Fevretti?’ gasped Quaint.
‘You are familiar with it?’
‘Of course!’ said Quaint. ‘I spent a lot of time here in my youth and I saw the Fevretti up close. It’s adorned with a statue of the goddess Diana designed by Lorenzo Bichetti and commissioned by the Pope in 1633, no less. Next to the Trevi, it’s one of Rome’s most well-known fountains.’
‘So now you understand the snag,’ said Romulus. ‘The aqueduct directly beneath the fountain is our only accessible route… but in order to access it, we have to destroy the statue.’
‘Destroy it?’ cried Quaint. ‘But it’s a recognised work of art!’
‘Not for much longer. Remember, tomorrow night is a full moon so we do not have much time.’
‘You’re right,’ said Quaint. ‘In that case, we’ve got a lot of planning to get done if we want to stand half a chance. Come, gentlemen… we have work to do!’
Chapter XVIII
The Devil’s Tide
The Persephone was making good time towards Italy. Whilst most of her passengers were quite pleased about that, Prometheus was most certainly not. His mind was buzzing with the uncertainty of Destine’s plan. As much faith as he had in her, he had none in the plan and even less in Renard. He would surely betray them at the soonest opportunity, and things would be perilous enough without having to watch his back in case the Frenchman tried to stick a knife in it. The strongman had taken a rare moment of peace up on the aft deck of the ship, searching the clouds above for some much-needed confidence. They were scheduled to arrive in Italy the following day, and Prometheus needed assurances long before that time. For all his bemoaning of Cornelius Quaint’s methods, there was something comforting about them, but this journey was reckless even by the conjuror’s standards – which spoke volumes.
Prometheus felt something brush his hand and he looked down to see Destine by his side. The evening wind tore at her lace veil, flapping in the breeze like the sails above their heads.
‘I have played this exact scene with Cornelius so many times,’ Destine said. ‘He often takes himself off to hide and whenever I wish to find him, I simply close my eyes and seek out the mind in most turmoil. It seems to work equally as well for you, Aiden. I could feel your emotions from the other end of the ship.’
Prometheus twitched a smile beneath his beard. ‘I’ll have to find a better hiding place next time. Is there something I can do for you, Madame?’
‘Oui, mon cher,’ replied Destine, leaning up to steer the bear of a man’s face towards her. ‘You can stop worrying! I know what I am doing.’
‘That may well be so, love,’ Prometheus said, ‘but we’re stuck on a ship run by the Hades Consortium en route to their headquarters where we’re almost certainly going to be one step away from death at every turn… and our only guide happens to be a mass murdering bloody lunatic!’
‘I understand the risks,’ said Destine, ‘but this ship was the only means for us to get to Rome in time. Remember, Antoine said that Adolfo Remus is aware of Cornelius’s intentions. If that is so, then he is walking into a trap. That is why we skirt such danger, because we have no other choice. True, at any time our ruse might be discovered – yet we must not give in to our fears.’
Prometheus nodded. ‘Aye, I’m sure you’re right. It’s just stirring my nerves up something chronic should it all go wrong.’
‘It will not go wrong,’ comforted Destine. ‘We shall soon be by Cornelius’s side… we have to be. I have foreseen several eventualities for the future and I am by no means certain which of them will come to pass. Maybe all, maybe some, maybe none. But one thing remains constant… if Cornelius is lucky enough to survive his confrontation with Remus, he might well live to regret it.’
‘You’re saying the old woman and the giant are impostors, yet you want me to just… play along?’ asked the Persephone’s captain of Antoine Renard, as the two men conversed in the private quarters assigned to Destine’s company. ‘What on earth for, man? We’re set to make port tomorrow evening if the wind is on our backs, let’s just slit both their throats and be done with it!’
‘Non, capitaine!’ Renard roared, his hand darting to his stomach as he felt a spear of pain sear his guts. He shifted uncomfortably in his bed, clenching his fists to deny the agony. ‘My mother wishes me to lead her right into the Hades Consortium’s heart, and I will be only too happy to oblige, but merely because it is exactly what I want.’
‘But… isn’t that a bit risky?’ asked Captain Slater.
‘Of course! But I’m useless in this state and certainly no match for Quaint should our paths cross – which I intend to ensure. Your medic did a satisfactory job on my wounds, if a little ham-fistedly, but I must see Lady Sirona if I wish to be healed in my entirety. Much depends on you, Slater. You must do everything in your power to get us to Rome as quickly as possible.’ Renard tensed his metal hand, closing his eyes, listening to the gentle hum as if it were a lullaby. ‘My mother will meet her fate soon enough. She just doesn’t know it yet.’
Chapter XIX
The Landscape of the Mind
The following day, the Persephone glided slowly into Civitavecchia’s port and time was already running out. If Destine’s clairvoyant abilities were right then Cornelius had already taken the first step towards his destiny, still with no idea what he was running into. She had tried to warn him, but it was pointless to debate common sense with him, not when he was impassioned by his lust for the truth. The irony of the situation was not lost on the fortune-teller. If her premonitions were correct, it would not be Adolfo Remus that delivered the final blow, but the very thing that Cornelius sought most of all – the truth. It would be the death of him – unless she got to him before it was too late.
Up at the prow of the ship, Destine felt the cool breeze of the evening against her face. The journey had been relatively short, but the wait had been agonising. It was dark by the time the ship was finally moored, and as Destine waited to disembark, she saw the vast form of Prometheus lumbering towards her, his huge arm supporting Renard, steering the Frenchman along.
‘So this is it?’ the strongman asked her. ‘This is Rome?’
‘Rome is about forty miles from here according to what the captain tells me,’ said Destine. She looked with contempt at her son’s wretched form. ‘What are you to say now, Antoine? Do you still refuse to lead us into the Hive?’
Renard grinned. ‘Do you even need to ask, Mother? But do you really believe you can bend my will to your own?’
‘I have done it before. Even a will as formidable as yours.’
‘Prove it,’ snarled Renard.
‘Gladly,’ replied Destine. ‘But not in front of an audience. Come, let us proceed into Rome. Once there, mon fils, I will make you eat your words.’
‘Or
you might just choke on them,’ Renard said.
Some time later, once night had closed in properlysky had, Destine stepped lithely from a four-seater horse-drawn carriage into a quiet backstreet. Prometheus poked his head through the curtains of the carriage, eyeing the empty street cautiously.
‘What’s this place called again, Madame?’
‘The Casa Rilassamento,’ replied Destine. ‘I asked our driver to bring us to a reputable guest house as close to the centre of Rome as possible. Once we are settled inside, we will be free to discuss our business and Antoine will do my bidding.’
‘Bah!’ snorted Renard, slumped awkwardly in the rear of the coach. ‘You can think what you like, chère mère, but I will reveal nothing! It is only my curiosity for this charade that is keeping me conscious. Once it wanes, I assure you, I shall do my level best to die at your feet, and then your little trip will be in vain.’
The trio entered the establishment, with Destine leading the way. Her grasp of the Italian language was hardly as fluent as Cornelius’s, and as the guest house owner’s eyes drifted curiously over the three odd-looking folk stood in his lobby, she was forced to question her confidence. She had boasted that she could use her empathic gifts to sway the feelings of others, and now it seemed was the perfect opportunity to put that to the test. The theory was sound; it was the practicalities that were unproven, especially against a mind as powerful as her son’s. Destine had tried it once before back in Egypt and been successful, when she had been a captive of the Hades Consortium in their base in Fantoma, and to escape she had pushed her will onto that of her guard. Like a marionette, the man had followed her every command. She only prayed that she could replicate her success.
Introducing herself to the guest house owner, Destine’s mind emanated feelings of warmth and repose, pushing an element of trust into the man’s mind. The owner’s face relaxed almost instantly as he forgot all about the huge bearded giant overshadowing his desk, and he focused his complete and undivided attention on Madame Destine.
‘Good evening, signora. You wish to rent a room, I trust?’
‘That is quite so,’ replied Destine, thoroughly pleased with herself, her confidence renewed. ‘Sufficient for three in a secluded part of your establishment, if you please.’
‘But of course, signora,’ said the guest house owner, unhooking a ring of keys from a collection on the wall behind him. ‘Room 9, the last room at the end of the corridor on the third floor. You will have plenty of peace and quiet up there.’
Destine paid for two nights in advance, turning proudly to Prometheus.
‘Voilà!’ she exclaimed, clutching the key to the room as if it were the first prize in a contest. ‘Now we are but one step away from our goal.’
‘Aye, Madame,’ said Prometheus, ‘but the next step’s the biggest one of all and let’s just hope we’re not too late.’
Tied by ropes to a wooden chair in the guest house room, with swathes of bandages still constricting his stomach, Antoine Renard glared with utter hatred at Destine and Prometheus. He was outmatched for the time being, and that thought galled him most of all. Had it not been for his mother’s cunning, he would have had the upper hand in Grosvenor Park. Yet things had not gone to plan. He did not like that. Not one bit.
As he watched his mother seat herself opposite him on the edge of one of the beds, he could not help but wonder if she was speaking the truth. Could she really penetrate his mind? Was her will really stronger than his own?
It seemed that the time to find out was upon them both.
Destine had gone to great lengths to prepare herself. She had spent some moments in seclusion, gathering her thoughts. She pulled down her white lace veil to cover her face and brushed her fingertips lightly over the many charms and trinkets that hung from the bracelets on her wrists. She was every inch the circus fortune-teller, but so much more besides. Her son was a vicious, callous monster who would not think twice about killing her in an instant with that shiny new hand of his. A physical battle between them was no match at all, but a mental one, a battle of the mind? Now that was a domain of which she was queen. She had to break down her son’s defences, no matter what the cost to her own mind. So much was at stake. As secure as Prometheus’s presence at her side made her feel, the Irishman’s brawn could not lead her right into the Hades Consortium’s heart – a place that her premonitions told her she needed to be. Only Renard could do that, only he could light the way. Although a large part of Destine wanted to be as far away from that place as possible, her love for Cornelius was forcing her to put one foot in front of the other, even though every fibre of her being screamed at her to turn around.
‘So how’s this supposed to work again?’ asked Prometheus, hovering nervously behind Renard’s chair.
‘Oui, Mother, I am sure that we’d all love to hear how you plan on doing the impossible,’ sneered the Frenchman. ‘Isn’t that normally Cornelius’s domain? In order to force your will onto mine you will have to first enter my mind… and that is a very dark place indeed. Are you sure you can survive the experience?’
‘If I aim to save Cornelius, I must,’ said Destine. ‘I have no choice.’
‘Very well,’ said Renard. ‘Then do your worst, witch.’
For a few nervous moments, Prometheus watched the display open-mouthed. Destine leaned forwards and placed the tips of her fingers against Renard’s temples. Through Destine’s veil he could just about make out her face, her features contorting as she navigated through the fortifications of her son’s ravaged mind.
She gasped.
‘Destine – are you all right?’ asked Prometheus.
‘Oui, mon cher, I am fine,’ she replied. ‘Antoine is fighting against me, trying to force me out.’
‘Not giving up so early, I hope?’ taunted Renard, his lipless grin twisting the many scars upon his face. ‘I hoped you might be more of a challenge than that.’
Destine ignored him. She had a bigger battle on her hands.
And one that she had to win. Feeling her soul ebb from her body, down through her fingertips, she exorcised her conscious mind, transplanting it onto the mental plane, leaving her body no more than an empty shell.
The landscape of Antoine Renard’s mind was almost as scarred as the Frenchman’s face. The ground beneath Destine’s feet was dry and coarse; the air tainted with an abominable stench, and the blackened sky was scorched by lightning that slashed at blood-red mountains in the distance. Bursts of lava spewed from the ground, spitting wads of fire. Destine lifted her veil and looked at her surroundings. A range of blood-red mountains was the only landmark on the horizon. That was her destination; the epicentre of Renard’s mind, and only by breaching its heart could she conquer it. The lightning increased the closer that she got to the mountain range, huddled together in one large blot on the landscape. With every bolt of lightning, the mountains were illuminated with an eerie glow, as though their nooks and crannies were dripping with blood. Undaunted – though terrified beyond her wits – Destine continued.
In the spiritual plane time had no meaning, and she was unaware how long it had taken her to cross the sun-baked desert, dry and decayed, but when she arrived she nursed a stitch in her ribs. Her heartbeat quickened as she looked as the mountains before her. Now that she had arrived at their feet, she could see that they were arranged in a crescent formation, with a narrow gorge running through their centre. Steeling her courage, the fortune-teller continued her approach, all the while expecting her son to leap out of the shadows and attack. Her astral self breathed, walked and talked in much the same manner as her physical one, but she reminded herself that this was not reality. This was the domain of a madman. Even though this was not the physical world, she could still die in this place. In fact, Renard would be doing his level best to ensure it. Should her immortal soul be destroyed, the effect that it would have on her physical body back at the hotel would be catastrophic.
The journey so far had been fraught, but her son
had been absent, no doubt watching every moment of her torment from afar. As she walked through the narrow gorge between the towering mountains, a blanket of shadows rushed to consume her. She looked nervously behind her as she felt them encroach upon her.
‘Be calm, Destine,’ she told herself. ‘Now is not the time for a faint heart.’
She scoured the mountains that walled her in, feeling a thousand piercing eyes watching her every move. Still, bravely ever onwards she went, deeper into the gorge. Soon, she found herself enclosed, as if the walls were moving in on her from all sides, and she obeyed a sudden compulsion to flee. She lifted her skirts, running as fast as she could, but before she could escape the rocks slammed shut in front of her, barring her exit completely. She was trapped. She looked around, seeing a slim shaft of light in the distance, but as she made a start towards it, a column of rock burst forth from the ground, just inches from her feet. She shielded her face as she was pelted with thick, choking dust. Spotting a thin crevice, a seam of light illuminated by a flash of lightning, she started towards it, but once again, right in front of her the earth was breached by a monstrous monolith bursting through the sand. Again and again the columns smashed themselves up from below the ground, coating everything in choking red dust. It was as if the rocks were alive, walling the Frenchwoman inside their circle, desperate to keep her incarcerated. Destine fell to her knees, her legs useless. She felt her heart hammer ten to a dozen, threatening to burst free from her chest. It was the most potent fear that she had ever experienced. There was no escape from it. As the cloud of dust cleared, Destine looked closer at the stone columns. What she had taken for rock was not rock at all – it was a tower of naked bodies, coated in a thick blanket of blood, squirming and writhing in agony. It was alive with Renard’s victims… and they were screaming for release. A hand leapt from the tower of corpses and grabbed her and as Destine tried to cry out, no sound was heard.
The Romulus Equation Page 10