“Don’t resist,” the priest kept shouting. “We have finished. Do not resist.”
I searched for Daniel who was off to the side, safe.
“Unhand me, you Neanderthal!” the professor was yelling at the third man.
The other two had joined the one fighting Cowboy. Even at that the odds weren’t exactly in their favor.
“Don’t resist! Bjorn Christensen, there is no need to resist.”
The sound of his name brought Cowboy up short. He turned to the priest.
“We have concluded our business. There is no need to resist.”
They got Cowboy to his feet. “Okay, fellas,” he said. “Take it easy. I heard the man, take it easy.”
They guided us to the open door. I looked over my shoulder to see Daniel trailing close behind. We’d barely made it into the hallway before Hartmann called after us. “The feast is in the kitchen.”
I turned to him.
He nodded and repeated, “The feast is in the kitchen.”
His assistant also nodded, then smiled, then shut the door as the big boys escorted us down the hall.
CHAPTER
3
I wanted Daniel to see some of Rome, especially the Colosseum. We caught a glimpse of it as our taxi shot past. I even got a couple of blurred selfies. But it wasn’t quite the same. Still, it would be somethin’ to show Social Services next time they come snoopin’ around seein’ if I’m a fit guardian.
It took us half an hour to get from the Vatican to the creepy church basement full of human skeletons. Which, to be honest, was probably more exciting to a ten-year-old kid than a bunch of old ruins. And we’re not talkin’ one or two skeletons. According to Andi, our self-appointed tour guide, and with a little help from Wikipedia on her cell phone:
“The crypt consists of 3754 bodies, all Capuchin Monks who fled the French Revolution and took refuge in the church immediately above us. The Capuchin order separated from the Franciscan monks in 1525 in the belief that they needed to be more austere. Oh, and here’s something you’ll find incredibly fascinating . . .”
“I’m sure we will,” the professor muttered.
“Cappuccino coffee actually received its name from the color of the monks’ robes.”
On and on she went. And just when it couldn’t get any more boring, she went on some more. ’Course Cowboy hung on her every word, but me and Daniel couldn’t care less. Who cares about the history of a bunch of dead monks when their actual skeletons were all around? And not whole skeletons. They were separated into lots of feet, legs, ribs, and skulls. Piles and piles of skulls.
Some were used to build altars. Others made up a giant clock with toes and fingers. There were chandeliers made from hundreds of vertebrae and hipbones. Nearly every wall was covered with complex patterns of bones.
And not just one room. I counted six. Each one labeled. Things like: The Crypt of Skulls. The Crypt of Pelvises. The Crypt of Leg Bones.
Yeah, it creeped me out a little. But Daniel’s wide-eyed wonder said he was in kid heaven.
“Anybody see anything?” the professor asked. “Clues? Diagrams? Something to tell me this isn’t a complete waste of my time?”
Nobody saw nothing.
Except Andi. “Guys, check this out.” She was looking at a wall up ahead. It was covered with arm bones that made up different squares and boxes.
“Lovely,” the professor said.
“No, don’t you see it?” Andi asked.
He didn’t. No one did.
Except Cowboy. “It’s a window box,” he said. “Like my mom use to have to show off her knick-knacks.”
“Well, that’s one possibility,” Andi said. “Or . . . ?”
She waited, but there were no takers.
“It’s a floor plan. Don’t you see it? There’s the front door down here at the bottom. It’s even open. Here’s the entry hall with one set of stairs. The living room, hallway with another set of stairs, dining room, kitchen. And over here is . . .” she slowed to a stop.
“Over here is what?” Cowboy asked.
She got real quiet. “I’ve seen this before.”
“Where?” Cowboy said.
We waited. Daniel reached up and took my hand.
When Andi continued, her voice was a little unsteady. “When we were up in Washington State. . . . It’s the House. The one that kept haunting Van Epps, the professor’s friend. It’s the floor plan to the House.”
CHAPTER
4
I grabbed shots of the floor plan with my cell phone . . . which pissed off some caretaker . . . which I ignored . . . which got him in my face . . . which got my elbow in his gut . . . which got us thrown out . . .
Which was getting to be a habit.
I squinted as we stepped out into the late afternoon sun. “Now what?”
“Cardinal Hartmann said catacombs,” Andi said. “Not catacomb, singular, but catacombs, plural.”
“There’s more?”
“Actually, 186 miles of them.”
“One-hundred-eighty-six miles of—”
“I suggest we continue next by exploring the Domitilla Catacombs,” she said. “They’re quite close and one of the oldest and best cared for.”
“How many rooms?” I asked.
“Tunnels,” she said.
“How many tunnels?”
“Nine miles.”
I swore. The professor joined me. But it didn’t stop our personal cheerleader from leading us forward.
When we got to the entrance, the ticket guy at the door shook his head. “Chiuso,” he said. “Too late. Come back tomorrow.”
Andi pleaded, said we were on an urgent mission. The professor even played his priest card (which had expired a few decades earlier). Nothing worked. The guard shook his head, pretending he didn’t understand . . . till I slipped a handful of euros into his palm. He understood that perfectly.
Andi had reconnected to Wikipedia. So as we headed down the narrow steps into the cooler air, she resumed the tour. “There are roughly forty catacombs built under the city. Despite legends that Christians hid in them during the time of persecution, it is more probable that due to restricted land use, as well as their insistence upon being buried instead of cremated, these underground chambers were dug to serve primarily as cemeteries.”
“More dead bodies,” the professor sighed.
“Actually, in these particular catacombs there are indeed a few remaining. However, in the others, the bones have long since been removed.”
“No doubt sold as picture frames,” he said.
Daniel giggled.
“Named after St. Domitilla, their history is as lengthy as their tunnels and tributaries, which, by the way, are stacked on top of one another up to four levels high. Now, coming up to our right you’ll note a delightful fresco painted by . . . by . . .” She lost reception. She waved her phone around to find the signal. The professor gave another sigh—this time out of gratitude.
“Hey, check out these symbols,” Cowboy said. I crossed over to look at his wall. “Here’s a guy with a lamb on his shoulders. I bet that’s Jesus. And here, look, it’s a dove with some sort of branch.”
“That would be an olive branch,” Andi said. “Together, the dove and olive branch would represent divine peace with God. In fact, in Greek, the very word cemetery means ‘place of rest,’ and in the Hebrew—”
“They’re here,” Daniel said.
It was the first words he’d spoken all afternoon.
“Who?” I said.
He pointed down the tunnel behind us.
“Someone’s coming? Who?” I asked.
“For us.”
The bare bulbs hanging along the ceiling gave off plenty of light, but I didn’t see anything.
“Listen,” the professor said.
I strained to hear. There were footsteps. Running. And getting closer. And hushed voices speaking a language I couldn’t make out.
I traded looks with the others.
Daniel didn’t wait for a discussion. He grabbed my hand and yanked me forward. We started down the tunnel. The others followed.
“Faster,” he whispered. “Faster.”
We broke into a run for, I don’t know, forty, fifty yards, when he darted to the right. It was a little niche off to the side. Unlit, almost invisible. Stairs were cut into the wall. Steep and narrow. Almost a ladder. He started up them. I hesitated, then followed. Then the others, and finally the professor.
As we climbed, pieces of rocks crumbled and fell.
“Be careful up there,” he hissed.
The steps got steeper. The sides of the wall came so close they touched me. After a few minutes or so I saw some blue-green lights above us. Parking lot lights. The sun had already set and the parking lot lights had come on.
Down below a man’s voice shouted, “Up there!” It sounded Swedish or something. “You there. Halt!”
We kept going, not bothering to answer.
The light above got brighter. Pretty soon you could see it was coming through a round opening. In another minute we arrived at an iron grate.
The good news was there was a way out. The bad news was the grate wouldn’t budge.
“Keep going,” the professor whispered. “Why have we stopped?”
The voices below got closer.
Me and Daniel both tried pushing against the grate with all we had. “It’s no good,” I said. “They got it locked.”
Cowboy tried squeezing past. “Maybe, if I could just—” But things were too cramped. No way could he get past us.
“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “It won’t budge.” I gave it one last push. “It’s welded shut or something.”
“We’re trapped?” Andi asked.
I swore and nodded . . . until I spotted the girl. Her face so close to mine I gasped. It was the kid from that other world, Cowboy’s and Daniel’s friend. She was on her hands and knees, hunched inside a small tunnel connected to ours. A tunnel I was sure hadn’t been there till now.
Cowboy saw her, too. “Helsa?” He moved up closer. “Littlefoot, is that you?”
She smiled. Even in the dim light I could see the silver in her eyes sparkle. A sure sign she was happy.
“What’s going on up there?” the professor whispered.
“We missed you,” Cowboy said. You could hear the softness in his voice. “You come back to visit?”
She nodded, then reached out for Daniel’s hand. He let her take it and she pulled him into the tunnel. Once inside, he turned to help me. I took his hand and he pulled me in. I did the same for Cowboy, who did the same for Andi, who did the same for the professor.
Now we were all in the side tunnel crawling as fast as we could. No talking. No sound. Just lots of hands and knees scraping along the rocks. I felt something long and smooth in the wall beside me. Then it got bumpy, then ridges. Ribs. I yanked back my hand, not wanting to feel more.
Finally, the girl came to a stop.
The professor whispered, “What’s going—”
“Shh,” Daniel said.
For once in his life the professor obeyed. A good thing, too, because the men behind us had reached the top.
One of them was speaking Swedish again.
Another answered.
We held our breaths.
You could hear them strain and push against the grate as they kept talking and getting madder.
Finally the first one shouted in his heavy accent, “Hello? Is anyone there? Is there anyone who can hear us?”
We kept silent.
They talked some more. They pushed and grunted some more. Finally they gave up and started back down.
The girl motioned for us to wait till the sound of their climbing had nearly faded. Then she started forward again and we followed. After another minute or so the tunnel angled up. A moment later we were out in the open surrounded by bushes and shrubs.
It was good to finally stand up and breathe. And despite my promise never to light up around Daniel, I pulled a cigarette from my pocket. Things were eerily quiet. We were pretty far from the parking lot, but could still see each other’s faces in the shadows. Except for the girl’s.
She was gone.
CHAPTER
5
Hello?”
“Signora, the taxi, it is here.”
“We’ll be there in a sec,” I said.
“For your bags, shall I send him up?”
“No, we’re good.” I hung up the phone and faced the others. They’d been in Daniel’s and my room the last forty-five minutes begging us to stay.
“But you just can’t leave,” Cowboy whined.
“Watch us.” I crossed to the bathroom and dumped the free soap and shampoo into my bag.
“But what about the spear and the diagram and the Cardinal?”
“And saving the world?” Andi added.
The professor answered, “She’s more concerned in saving her inconsequential derrière.”
“You’re one to talk,” I said as I reentered the room. “I’m surprised you even bothered to come.”
“Call it scientific curiosity.”
“And the scroll,” Cowboy said. “Remember, he was going to tell us what it meant.”
“Which he didn’t.” I opened the mini-fridge, grabbed the two Cokes but left the booze—too many bad memories.
“We really need you, Miss Brenda.”
I slammed the fridge. “I got Daniel to look out for now.”
“And some enormous guilt to work off.”
I turned back to the professor. “Meaning?”
“We all saw what you went through at the Institute. All those fears . . . all that guilt.”
“Professor,” Andi warned.
“Not that I fault you. It must be a tremendous burden—giving up your spawn, knowing you were an unfit mother to raise it.”
The muscles in my jaw tightened.
He motioned to Daniel. “It doesn’t take a genius to see the boy is simply serving as a surrogate, a vain attempt on your part to work off all that—”
I didn’t hear much after that—saw nothing but his smug face as I sprang at it. I landed a couple good blows before Cowboy pulled me off. “Hey, hey, Miss Brenda! Miss Brenda, come on now!”
When things settled down, I turned to my backpack and finished shoving clothes into it. Daniel was already at the door, sitting peacefully on his own pack.
“She’s not going anywhere,” the professor muttered. He was nursing what would likely be a shiner. “The tickets are nonrefundable. She can’t leave until the date of departure, just like the rest of us.”
“Is that true?” Cowboy asked.
“Not without buying another ticket,” Andi said.
“Which means cash,” the professor said. “Something of which I’m sure she’s a bit lacking.”
I reached into my pocket and tossed his American Express back to him.
Now he leaped at me.
“Professor!” Andi and Cowboy shouted. It took both of them to stop him.
I zipped up my backpack and headed for the door. “Let’s go, Daniel.” But before I reached it, there was a knock. I glanced to the others, then opened it.
Two men in silver sunglasses stood there. “Taxi?” the biggest said. There was no missing his Swedish accent. I tried slamming the door but his size-14s blocked it. I yelled and swore as they threw it open and stormed in.
Cowboy was on his feet, doing what he did best. He flew across the room, decking the first guy, knocking off his glasses. We all stood and stared. And for good reason. The big Swede lay on the floor with no eyes. That’s right, his sockets were completely empty.
The second guy took advantage of our shock and landed a good punch into Cowboy’s gut and then his face. Not enough to ruin him, but enough to make his point.
“Run!” Cowboy shouted to us. “All of you, run!”
I didn’t need a second invitation. I grabbed Daniel and we headed for the stairs, the profe
ssor right behind. Andi needed more convincing. “Tank!”
“Go, Andi! Go!”
We got to the bottom of the steps, raced through the lobby and out onto the street. Wheels screeched and I spun around just in time to see a taxi mini-van. It barely missed us. The driver shouted through the passenger window, “Taxi?” He had a black beard and a Middle Eastern accent so thick I could barely understand.
“What?” I said.
“Taxi? Taxi?”
I saw Cowboy stagger from the lobby, a little worse for wear.
“Taxi?”
“No.” I turned from Cowboy back to the driver. “I mean, yes. Maybe. You’ll go to the airport?”
“Defeats,” he said.
“What?”
“I take you to defeats.”
“Defeats? What are you—”
“No. Defeats! Defeats!”
“The feets?” Cowboy asked. “You want to take us to the feets?”
“Yes, yes. Get in. All of you. Hurry.”
“Whose feet?” Andi said.
“Are you speaking of more skeletons?” the professor asked. “The catacombs?”
“No! No! Defeats!”
The hotel doors flew open and the two Swedes stormed out. During the brawl the second one had also lost his glasses. His eye sockets were as empty as his partner’s. And yet they raced toward us like they could see perfectly.
“Some folks.” Cowboy sighed. “I try to be polite, but they just won’t take a hint.” He positioned himself at the back of the taxi between us and them for another round.
“Hurry!” the driver shouted. “All of you, get in!”
The men kept coming. “Stay calm,” the first said. “No one need be hurt.”
“Get in!” the driver kept yelling. “Everyone, get in!”
I threw open the back door and shoved Daniel inside. Andi raced to the other door as the professor squeezed in beside me and Daniel crawled into the rear seat.
“Stay calm. No one need be—”
“Cowboy!” I shouted.
The first guy came at him. But the second headed around front for the driver, who panicked and dropped the van into reverse. A good idea, except for the first guy. The taxi slammed into him and knocked him to the ground. The wheels bumped over something that was not a curb. And when I looked out the back window, there was no bad guy.
The Assault: The Revealing, Infestation, Infiltration, The Fog Page 2