Chapter Twenty
Tourists pack the shops on the cobblestone streets, searching the expensive, cheaply made souvenirs for the perfect gifts to bring back home. So many delicious smells fill the air surrounding the restaurants and bakeries we pass.
I can almost forget why we’re here in Rome.
Almost.
Marek pulls me to a stop. We’re in front of a shop’s window displaying plaster Colosseums lined up on staggered shelves.
He points at them. “Pretend we’re interested in the souvenirs. Someone’s trailing us. I don’t want him to suspect we know he is.”
“Okay.” It takes all my willpower to act normal.
“Do you see him?” Marek aims his index finger at one of the figurines.
I squint and try not to look suspicious. “No. Where is he?”
“Left of those statue heads of Caesar.”
My focus shifts to where he indicated. “Is it the short man with the long nose?”
“No. He just got there. The Spanish man to his right.”
Whoa. He’s too perfect to be real. His hair thick and falling just under his chin, tall, and big muscles. But there’s an edge to him. He’s probably as dangerous as he is hot.
Marek slides a look at me. “Now, do you?”
“We need to stay in a crowded area. We’ll shop. Eat. Then shop some more, keeping an eye on him through store windows. When he lets down his guard, we make our move and ditch him. Follow my lead, respond to my movements.” He points at another figurine, and I nod, feigning a response that I like it.
“Good,” he says. “We should act like a couple. It’ll be less threatening. He’ll see we’re relaxed and have no idea he’s following us. That way there’s no fear we’ll run from him.”
“Okay.”
“Are you ready?”
“Guess so,” I say. “Let’s do this.”
Marek and I put on the facade of a couple, shopping for gifts to bring home to all our imaginary relatives. And he’s good at faking it. I’m starting to think we are more than co-conspirators.
I know his touches don’t mean anything. That we’re pretending to be into each other as we browse the souvenirs. But each brush of his hand against my arm or back and every smile directed at me makes my heart tug toward him.
He checks the GPS. “Via delle Muratte is a few blocks away.”
Every so often, we spy our stalker through a window made into a mirror by the afternoon sun. Marek was right. The man is getting careless. His eyes roam, checking out two women who definitely look American by their colorful clothes. We move along the sidewalk, and it takes him a few beats to notice and follow us, always keeping what he believes is a safe distance.
Leaning closer to Marek, I whisper, “I wonder if he’s a god?”
“He definitely fits the part.” He glances over his shoulder at the man. “Or he’s one of those book cover models on my grams’s romance novels.”
A chuckle bursts from my lips. I should be scared. There’s possibly a dangerous man following us, but I’m not afraid. Something in the depths of my soul tells me that the man doing a horrible job at being inconspicuous behind us isn’t one of the bad ones. I catch a glimpse of him as we cross the street.
The man stops to pick up something a baby in a woman’s arms dropped. I can barely make out the tiny stuffed elephant.
Marek points at a small shop as we approach it. “This is it.”
I glance back to get the location of the man following us. He’s still preoccupied with the baby. When I face forward, I almost collide with a postcard stand.
“Watch out.” Marek snatches me into his arms before I make contact.
Our eyes connect, and we hold each other’s stare for several electric beats of my heart. His gaze switches to my lips, and I suck in a breath, holding it until I can’t any longer, then releasing it. He backs up. The expression on his face is serious. He tilts his head slightly to the side and brushes my hair behind my ear.
A smile raises one side of his lips. “You should be more careful,” he says and lets me go. He picks up a postcard and holds it up for me to see. “How about this one, babe?”
I shake my head, fake-rejecting it as a contender, and commence my own search for the perfect postcard. My heart is still bucking in my chest. What just happened? Did he feel it, too? I peer at him through the stack of cards. He catches me and smiles. I quickly grab one of the cards and show him, covering up the fact I was just checking him out.
He shakes his head and mouths “no,” and I find myself concentrating on how his bottom lip is fuller than the top while he’s forming that word.
Marek searches a case filled with figurines.
“What are we looking for?” I ask.
“Not sure,” he says, picking up a statue of the Pope. “Something to do with bones?”
“Right.” I return to browsing the stand.
He lifts a decorative plate with tombstones and the title Cimitero Acattolico painted on it. “Possibly a graveyard?”
“Maybe.” I search for postcards of them, but only find tourist spots. So many of them are beautiful, I want to buy them—the Trevi Fountain, Ponte Sant’Angelo, and the Mouth of Truth. My hand hovers over the next one on the stand.
Marek comes up behind me and looks over my shoulder. “You okay? What is it?”
I snatch up the postcard and stare at it. Four pictures make up the front. One is an image of a chapel, the other three are of walls decorated with hundreds of human remains. The bottom left photo is a cross made out of skulls, just like on the metal box in Marek’s pocket. I flip the card over and read the caption. Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini; Crypt of the Skulls; Crypt of the Leg Bones; Crypt of the Pelvises. And at the top is the saying, “What you are now, we once were; what we are now, you shall be.”
“This is it,” I say.
He leans farther over my shoulder, his chest pressing against my back and his hand going to my waist for balance. I am breathless, and it could be a combination of the excitement of solving the clue and the connection of our bodies. My thoughts and feelings are scrambled with fear, curiosity, wonder, and confusion.
Marek takes the postcard from me, as well as the other three in my hand. “I’m going to buy these. It’s time we make our move and get rid of our Spanish god back there.”
While he pays for the cards, I inspect colorful scarves knotted to a circular rack in front of the door to the shop. I sneak a glimpse of the man who’s been tracking us. His attention is on a woman with long red curly hair and tanned skin. By the way the woman smiles at our stalker, she’s into him, and by the way he can’t take his eyes off her, we have our opportunity to ditch him.
As soon as Marek steps out of the shop, I point out the situation. We dart up the street and turn the first corner we reach. We cut across the road and go up another one.
“We need directions,” I say, panting. The GPS is good for when you have an address to enter, not so good when you need a map to search. “Why didn’t we think to buy or rent one of those international cell phones?”
Marek crosses the street and approaches a man. I join him. The man points down the road and waves at the buildings as if Marek is Superman and can see through bricks. Marek shakes the man’s hand and says, “Grazie,” and I echo him.
From what the man said in his broken English, the Capuchin Crypt closes at seven and isn’t too far away. We stay on this street and do a few more checks in windows to make sure that man isn’t following us. We come to a building with a wall blocking steps leading up to an apartment on the second floor. Marek snatches my hand and storms up the stairs, towing me along with him.
“What are we doing?” I ask when we stop at the top.
Marek steals a glance over the wall. “It’s the next phase in ditching a stalker. Once you think you’ve outsmarted him, verify it by getting someplace where he can’t see you, but you can see him.”
I so want to sneak a look, but I stay put and wait. “Is he there?”
“Yeah, just came around the corner. Guess that woman wasn’t a good enough distraction. Shit.” He drops down. “Shit, shit, shit.”
“What?” I hiss.
He shakes his head and places his pointer finger to his mouth to quiet me. “That demon god’s with him,” he whispers.
“Pazuzu?” I cover my mouth to stop the terrified sob from escaping.
Inching up the wall, Marek peeks over it. He’s up there longer than is comfortable for me. They could spot him.
In every scary movie I’ve seen that featured Pazuzu, he was terrifying. He’s the worst in The Exorcist, when he possesses that little girl and makes her do all sorts of evil stuff, and I don’t want to find out how he is in real life.
As I sit on my heels, the fear catches up. A demon god is after us. In this moment, where quiet rests around me and the only noise I can hear is people on the street and the occasional vehicle driving by, my mind is all over the place. I forgot to take my pill last night. And this morning. I was going to take one with breakfast, but Ares distracted me.
Panic builds like blowing up a piece of gum. It expands and expands and expands until it bursts.
They’re going to sense us. Sid said one of us was emitting some sort of energy. Catnip to the gods. That’s what he told me. It’s just a matter of time before they find us.
They could kill us.
I tug out Dad’s lighter from my pocket and tighten my fist around it. Wrapping my arms around my legs, I rock back and forth.
Back and forth.
We’re going to die. We’re going to die. We’re going to die!
My heart is rapid and painful in my chest, and I can’t get enough air.
It’s not a heart attack.
I’m panicking.
Clammy palms. Out of control.
Dad’s lighter grounds me.
Marek squats back down. “They’re coming this way,” he whispers.
Breathe.
Remember what Dr. Herrera taught you. You can control this. Use the 3-3-3 rule. Focus. What do I see? I look around.
Copper vines decorate the length of the wall that we’re hiding behind. There’s a busted brick at the corner just near Marek’s foot. A rust-colored stain on the step in front of me. Could be blood. Stop. It’s not blood. Probably someone dropped a to-go container of pasta or something.
Marek dares another look over the wall. “They passed us. Spanish god is talking to someone on the phone.”
My arms and legs shake.
Breathe.
“Okay, they’re gone,” he says and pounds down the steps but stops when I don’t follow him. “What’s wrong?”
I just shake my head, unable to answer. His shirt is blue.
What do you hear?
Cars pass. Voices. A man and woman exchanging words in Italian somewhere. Not too close. Music. Someone’s playing a violin or viola. They need more lessons.
He kneels on the top step, right over the bloodstain, and places his hands on my knees. “Ana.”
I inhale. Tears form in my eyes and blur his face.
“It’s okay,” he directs. “They’re gone. You’ll be okay. We have each other. We’ll get through this. If you want to stop, we’ll stop. Go home.”
What do you smell?
The hotel soap clinging to Marek’s skin. A sour smell, like there’s a trash can nearby. Someone’s cooking. It’s spicy.
Rolling my neck, I stretch my fingers and toes.
I blink, and the tears fall from my eyelashes. “I just need a minute,” I say between breaths. “Are you sure…they’re…he’s gone.”
“Yes. A black SUV picked them up.”
I study his almost-straight teeth while he’s talking.
He doesn’t get impatient while waiting for me to gather myself. His concern is genuine. I can see it in his eyes and feel it in the gentle squeeze of his hands on my knees.
The tightness in my chest subsides, and a calmness relaxes my tense muscles. That man who said he’s Ares mentioned that Adam Conte wasn’t my ally, but Marek sure feels like he’s mine.
“I’m ready,” I say, slipping the lighter back into my pocket.
“You sure?”
I nod, wiping away my tears, then brushing my wet fingers across my jeggings.
His brows push together as he studies my face. “You don’t look good.”
“I’m fine,” I say. “Just tired. I saw a hotel down the street. We should get a room and go to this crypt tomorrow. Besides, we’d only have a few hours to find whatever clue is hidden there. And I think the finger bone is like a puzzle piece and it’s going to take time to locate its owner. Okay?”
“Good idea,” he says.
We stay on the side of the road that’s covered in shade from the trees, keeping alert for either a black SUV or Pazuzu and his friend.
I really misjudged that Spanish god. He seemed kind. Picked up a toy for a baby, even.
Once while we were reading a tale about Loki, the Norse god who was always causing trouble, Dad teased, “Be careful of the trickster gods, Ana.”
Well, apparently, I have crappy judgment.
If I can’t tell the difference, I’m screwed.