A tomb?
Erin’s hands slipped into her jacket pockets, searching. Of course, they had taken her flashlight, but she discovered the scrap of quilt in her pants pocket. At least they let her keep that.
Scooting up onto her hands and knees, she swept her hand from left to right in bigger and bigger arcs, stirring up a thick carpet of dust that made her eyes water and drew several sneezes. When she rubbed the dust between her fingers, it felt like wood slivers and rock dust.
Continuing on in a wider sweep, her fingers bumped against a rounded object. She picked it up and brought it to her lap. Bone. Her fingers filled in what her eyes could not see. A skull. She gulped, but still blindly examined its surfaces: an elongated nose, a small brainpan, long curved incisors.
Not human. Not even strigoi.
A giant cat. Probably a lion.
She sat back, pondering the implications of her discovery. She must be in some sort of Roman circus, an arena where gladiators and slaves fought one another and wild beasts. But the beast to which this skull had belonged had been buried with the remains of the spectacle in which it lost its life.
She paired that information with her knowledge of the path she had just taken through the city.
Toward Vatican City.
She knew of only one cavernous circus in that region. The Vatican itself had been built over half of the blood-drenched place.
The Circus of Nero.
Almost two thousand years ago, Nero had completed the circus started by Caligula. He had built enormous tiers of seating for the audience to watch his brutal games. At first, he sacrificed lions and bears to cheering crowds. But slaughtering animals hadn’t been enough for the ancient Romans, so he moved on to gladiators.
And eventually Christians.
The blood of Christian martyrs soon drenched the soil of the arena. They weren’t just ripped apart by animals and gladiators. Many were crucified. Saint Peter himself had been nailed upside down on a cross, near the obelisk in the center of the arena.
The circus was also famous for its vast network of underground tunnels, used to shuttle prisoners, animals, and gladiators to and fro. The builders had even installed crude elevators for delivering wild beasts or warriors directly to the sands above.
Erin stared up, picturing how St. Peter’s Basilica sat partly on top of this cursed place. During her postgraduate studies in Rome, she had read a text written a century ago—Pagan and Christian Rome by Rodolfo Lanciani. It depicted a map of the two overlapping structures—the horseshoe-shaped Circus below, the cruciform Basilica above.
In the dark, the schematic glowed again in her mind’s eye.
If she could get free of her cell, climb up, and reach the outside, she should be very near to St. Peter’s Basilica.
With help close at hand.
With renewed determination, she explored the edges of the room. It was about eight by ten feet, with a modern steel gate installed at the front. No weaknesses that she could detect.
She needed help. Two faces flashed before her: one as pale as his eyes were dark, but always shining with noble purpose; the other grinning, with flushed cheeks and laughing eyes the color of the sky.
What might have happened to Rhun and Jordan in that time?
She shied away from that thought.
Not in the dark.
After what seemed an eternity, Erin noticed a light approaching. She jammed her face next to the bars. Four figures and what looked like a huge dog were walking toward her down a stone tunnel, one carrying a flashlight. The dog walked next to a woman with long hair.
Bathory and her grimwolf.
Behind them, two taller figures who looked like brothers dragged along a third man, his arms slung over their shoulders. At the sight, her throat closed up. Was that Jordan? Or Rhun?
Reaching the cell without a word, Bathory unlocked the door and swung it open.
Erin tensed. She wanted to charge out, but she wouldn’t make it two steps down that tunnel.
The grimwolf padded into the cell.
Bathory and the two men followed the wolf in. A blast of cold air came in with them. The two brothers were both strigoi.
They dumped the man at her feet. He moaned and turned over. A mass of bruises covered his face, his eyes were nearly swollen closed, dried blood soaked his shirtsleeves and a pant leg.
“Professor Granger?” asked a cracked, familiar voice, with a slight Texas twang.
She fell to her knees next to him, taking his hand. “Nate? Are you okay … why are you here?”
She knew the answer to both questions and despaired as she realized the result of her own shortsightedness. She had never considered that the Belial would go after her innocent students. What did they know? Then it all tumbled together. She had sent the pictures of the tomb, of the Nazi medallion. No wonder Bathory knew to track their team to Germany.
What have I done?
She didn’t know the answer to that one, nor another. “Amy?” she whispered.
Nate stared up at her, tears welling in his eyes. “I … I wasn’t there to protect her.”
Erin rocked back as if she had taken a blow to the face. She heard a sob escape Nate.
“It’s not your fault, Nate.”
It had been her fault. The students had been left in her care.
Nate’s voice was hoarse. “I don’t know why I’m here.”
A rush of affection rose in Erin for the tough Texas kid. She squeezed his hand.
“How touching,” sneered Bathory.
“Why did you take him?” Erin turned and glared at her, earning a threatening growl from the grimwolf. “You got the photos, I imagine. He knows nothing else. He has nothing to do with any of this.”
“Not quite,” said Bathory. “He has something to do with you.”
Guilt washed across Erin. “What do you want?”
“Information from the Woman of Learning, of course.” Bathory displayed her perfect white teeth in an unpleasant grin.
“I don’t believe in that damn prophecy,” Erin said, and meant it. So far, the trio seemed to have bungled more things than they got right. It didn’t feel like they had divine prophecy on their side.
“Ah, but others do.” Bathory stroked the grimwolf’s head. “Help us.”
“No.” She would die before she assisted the Belial in opening the book.
Bathory snapped her fingers. The grimwolf leaped and pinned Nate to the floor with his front paws, knocking his hand loose from Erin’s. The wolf bent his muzzle low over Nate’s throat.
The message was clear, but Bathory drove it home anyway. “I don’t need your cowboy.”
Bathory trained her flashlight on Nate. Erin tried not to look at him. She stared instead at the rough stone walls, the newly installed barred steel gate, and the black ceiling of the cell that seemed to extend upward forever.