Chapter Twenty-Three
Marek grasps my face in his hands. “I’m sorry if I scared you. I shouldn’t lose my cool. It’ll be okay. We’ll find a way out.”
I nod against his hands. “Promise me if I die first, you won’t eat me.”
He chortles. “I can’t. There’s no telling what people will do to survive. If I kick the bucket first, you can eat me. I promise not to haunt you the rest of your life.” As his hands slide away from my face, I feel cold metal on his right one against my skin.
“The decoder ring.”
His fingertips touch my cheek, and concern crosses his face. “Did it scratch you?”
“No. It’s the symbols on it. They’re the same as the writing under the artwork on the catacomb’s walls. It’s the Phoenician alphabet.”
“Back to the catacomb?”
I nod and race back with him to the chamber of tombs.
He removes the decoder ring from his finger. “Do you have anything to write down the letters as I translate them?”
Back in the purse I ditched. “No,” I say. “I can write in the dirt.” I squat and ready my finger. “Go ahead.”
“The first letter is I, the next is N, and—”
“Just give me the letters. I get what order they’re in.”
Marek rattles off the first line’s letters.
In the beginning, the people loved the gods.
I straighten, wiping off the dust covering my hands on my pants. “Stop. It’s just telling the story in the artwork.”
He steps back. “Then what?”
“There has to be something different,” I say, following the line of the fable. “A clue or something.”
Neither one of us speaks as we shuffle along the walls, searching. It’s so quiet, definitely as silent as a tomb. The Phoenician letters under the paintings go from black to red.
“See here.” I wave a finger over the six elders receiving the pieces of the talisman. “I think we need to decode it. The words are in a different color from the rest of the story.”
“Okay, let’s try it.” He tugs off the decoder ring.
I drop back down and get ready to write the letters in the dirt. I nod when I’m ready, and he calls them out.
We get the first word. It’s a lengthy passage to decode. When finished, we stand over the transcription.
Progeny, spoken thee an oath to forfend mortals from gods with the aim to take away free will. Six families. Each holds a piece of Divinities Keep, containing the power of the gods. With each piece joined, doth power return. Sacrifice life to keep the talisman safe.
Guard Death’s children, for they shall be the weapon to triumph in the great battle between the gods.
Marek gives me a sideways glance. “Really? You had to punctuate it.”
I shrug a shoulder. “Habits can’t be broken.”
“What does forfend mean?” he asks.
“Protect,” I say. “Do you remember giving an oath?”
“Yes.” He scratches the back of his neck. “‘My life I give to the Divinities Keep. I will protect it at all costs.’ That’s it. I thought it was a game at the time.”
“I wonder why your grandfather didn’t just tell you about all this.”
His head lowers, as if the weight of whatever memory he’s having is too heavy. “If only one person knows a thing, the chance of it leaking is slim. My grandfather once said that when I was older, he had something to tell me.” He looks up, and his dark gaze meets mine. “Guess he thought I couldn’t handle all this yet. Probably the same with your dad. Not wanting to end your innocence until it was absolutely necessary.”
“Now what? I thought it would show us how to get out of here.”
The light coming from the lantern is growing dim. I don’t want to think about what will happen when it goes completely out.
He sits down as if he’s giving up. “Me, too.”
“There has to be a way out. Something in this artwork must tell us how.” I walk a circle along the circumference of the catacomb and then retrace it.
My measured steps kick up dust as I walk the length of the wall between two shelves. The shrouded skeletons are silent reminders of what will happen to Marek and me if we don’t solve this clue. I come up to the one with the broken red polished nail. There’s a scuff mark on the shelf and on the one above it.
“This isn’t her body,” I say, thinking out loud.
“Did you say something?”
“Chain-smoker. She didn’t die.” I grab the bottom of the next shelf up, pushing back the thought that there were remains on it, and boost myself up.
Marek hurries over to me. “What are you doing? Be careful.”
“There’s something at the top. The burning birds point to it. Why didn’t I see it before?” I climb to the next and the next. The ledge at the top of the tomb blocks a latch if viewed from below. I yank on it, dirt and tiny pebbles hitting my face, causing me to lose my hold. I fall backward, and Marek tries to catch me. Before we crash to the ground together, he turns so he lands first, cushioning the fall for me.
My head drops onto his shoulder. I turn to look at him. Our faces are so close now. There’s pain twisting his, and I’m pretty sure there’s only admiration showing on mine. He broke the fall for me. No thought. No hesitation. Instinctively, he wanted to protect me.
“Are you okay?” I finally find my voice.
He groans. “That f—k—hurt. I thought you were afraid of climbing.”
I roll my head back and laugh. It’s so cute that he didn’t want to say the big bad f-word in front of me. “I can climb. It’s the getting down part. That’s the problem.”
“So you were just going to ignore the fact that what goes up must come down?”
I sober. He’s right. I was too excited to get out of this grave to think. “Yeah, I didn’t think that through.”
“Your elbow’s in my stomach,” he grunts.
“Oh sorry.” I roll off his body, stand, and offer my hands to him.
He grasps them, and I help him up.
We feel the draft at the same time and turn our heads in its direction. There’s an opening in the wall, leading into another tunnel.
Excited screams come from both of us, and we hug tight, then quickly let go.
“Um…” I’m not sure what to say.
“Come on. Let’s get out of this death trap.” He grasps my hand, tows me out of the room, and suddenly stops.
I come around him. On a marble stand resembling an upside-down bird’s leg with a talon sits a silver canister the size of Saba’s cigar tube that he keeps hidden from Safta. The soft green light coming from it fills the area. It reminds me of the glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to the ceiling in my room.
Marek just stares at it.
“Take it,” I say. “I think it’s for you.”
He looks back the way we just came and then to the left where the newfound tunnel leads. “What if it’s a trap? You go before I remove it.”
“I won’t leave you.”
He shakes his head. “No. I’m not touching this until you’re safely out of here.”
The resolve on his face tells me he means it.
My eyes burn, and I know the tears are about to well in my eyes. “If anything happens, I’ll find you.”
“I know,” he says with a wink. “Take the lantern and go.”
Picking it up, I rush down the tunnel, orange light bouncing against the brick walls with my movements. It’s longer than I expected. I reach a set of stairs and pound up them, careful so as not to trip over the many broken railings scattered over the steps. Overhead is a manhole cover. It doesn’t budge when I try to move it. There’s a hole in it the size of the finger bone we used to get into this catacomb nightmare.
“Great.” Marek has the finger. I come down a few steps and sit, elbow on my knee, resting my chin in my hand, and wait. Wait either for the walls to crumble around me or for Marek to catch up. With my luck lately, I’d put my money on the former.
A soft moaning sound comes from the dark tunnel that led me here.
“Marek?”
Only the moaning answers. I stand.
“That’s not funny at all.”
A faint white light flickers and fades.
“Come on, Marek. Quit messing around.”
A smell of sulfur wafts through the air.
The light nears and grows, forming into a body. Into a ghostly-looking man. Anger is set on his almost transparent face. The sockets where eyes should be are dark and empty. I know his face. A face seemingly hanging loosely off sharp bones. A face I’ve seen in duplicate.
Deceducto, risorto, deceducto.
Isabella Favero’s experiment.
I scramble on my back up the stairs, make it halfway before I lose my footing, and slip back down. Pain sears my back.
“What do you want?” I try to yell, but it comes out more like a croak.
The ghostly figure moans and keeps moving toward me. Several similar lights begin to form behind him, and I want to close my eyes, but I’m not sure that will make them go away.
They move closer.
The others form faces, and there are so many of them. I recognize some of them from their headshots taped in Isabella’s record book.
The moaning grows louder, piercing. A chorus of pain. A chorus of sadness.
A chorus of hatred.
I slowly move back up the stairs, afraid to go fast.
There are so many faces. Old and young. Men and women. Bile rises in the back of my throat when I spot a little girl in the mix.
“What do you want?” I’m sobbing, my words are wet, and there’s no air behind them.
The moaning turns to screeching.
“I’m not her,” I shout. “Isabella did this to you.”
They stop at the foot of the stairs. Faces turn up to me, watching me with hollow eyes. Expressionless faces. All their emotions are saved for the hideous moaning. It’s full of pain and anguish. Torture.
I can’t breathe.
Their second deaths flip through my mind, and I can’t stop it. Each the same. They wake up suddenly and look around dazed. I can see the mortuary. Other bodies on tables. Confusion. Isabella says something, but I can’t understand her. It’s in Italian. She makes notes. Picks up a plastic bag, covers a man’s head with it, and suffocates him.
The lantern dims.
“No. Don’t go out,” I order it. “Please don’t go out.”
It flickers in response.
The images and moaning stop, and the whispers hiss around me.
Riser. Riser. Riser. Riser. Riser. Riser. Ri— I cover my ears.
Scratching noises come from behind the wall on either side of me. No matter how tight I cover my ears, I can still hear the hissing chants of the spirits and the frantic scraping of whatever is on the other side of the walls.
“No! Leave me alone!”
It’s like demons have control of my head. This isn’t real. Something is making me see these things. Push it away. Stop it.
And the lantern goes a little dimmer.
“Marek!” Where the hell is he?
Something breaks through the wall on my left.
The flame puffs out.