Steven’s mouth actually fell open at her nonchalant recitation. She smiled at him.
“Now I’m F-ing with you,” she said. She leaned over and picked up the sack and rooted around in the paper bag for a croissant.
The laptop beeped.
“I think that’s for you,” Natalie said.
Steven moved to her side and put the computer in his lap. He quickly pulled up a screen and opened a file.
“Let’s use your phone again. I need to translate these from Latin,” Steven said.
Natalie plugged it in the laptop and within a few seconds they were online. He fed in the data to a translation engine and saved the results.
They both peered at it on the screen.
“Huh?” Natalie exclaimed.
“I told you not to expect too much on this first go around.”
“What does it mean?”
“My job, such as it is, would be to find out.”
CHAPTER 22
Steven scratched his head. The message didn’t make a lot of sense.
“From holy Januarius’ crypt, three paces from the olive harvester points the traveler to the path, five hands above the trinacrium.” Steven groaned. “I’m tired. Is it just me, or is this gibberish?”
“Remember the last one. On first blush it wasn’t obvious. Aren’t you going to run it through the computer and see what hits for likely locations? It worked with the basilica.”
“You’re right. Sorry. I’m just running low on steam,” Steven apologized. Suddenly he felt beat.
“Too bad we can’t use Moody’s apartment. But given the circumstances, seems like a poor idea,” Natalie observed.
“That’s an understatement.”
“Maybe we can get a room once it’s light out. It doesn’t have to be in Rome. Or we can take a train somewhere for a few hours and sleep onboard.”
“You know what? That’s not a bad idea. We can get first class seats to somewhere in Italy and catch up on our rest. And they have internet on board.” Steven brightened. “I’m sorry. It’s just that this requires a lot of mental focus, and when I’m exhausted…”
“No need to apologize. You’re not a young man. I completely understand,” she said in a neutral tone. Steven cocked an eyebrow. “I’m F-ing with you again,” Natalie deadpanned.
“I got that. Let’s go over and see what time the next train to anywhere leaves,” Steven said, closing the laptop. “We can run the search while we sleep.”
They proceeded to the ticket windows, where they were greeted by a surly man with a low patience threshold. After a few curt sentences back and forth, Steven was able to glean that the next train for Milan left in under two hours. He asked about other destinations, but the ticket vendor seemed annoyed at having to answer questions, and brusquely slid a laminated paper timetable under the window to them before resuming reading his magazine. Natalie gave the man a black look, which he cheerfully ignored.
“We might as well run the search while we wait,” Natalie said and held out her hand for the laptop. Steven handed it over and she plugged it into her phone again. They moved away from the ticket area, and Steven sat, typing in a series of commands — then the little computer began searching online for relevance.
“Train for Milan doesn’t leave till 6:15 a.m.. You mind if I get a little shut-eye while we wait?” Steven asked, more a statement than a question.
“Help yourself. If you can sleep on those plastic seats, you’re entitled to. There’s no way I can,” she complained.
“Right now I could sleep through a Metallica concert.”
They moved to a waiting area near the ticket window, and within a few moments, Steven’s head moved down toward his chest, and he was out.
Steven ran down a long hall roughly hewn from polished black stone. Obsidian, he realized, even as he registered the scrape of claws behind him. Something was gaining on him, and it had murder on its mind — he could smell an odor of death, of carnage, wafting over his shoulder, driving him on as he blindly raced down the dark passageway. Ahead in the distance a torch flickered smoky illumination, revealing an ancient wooden door; heavy, held together with rusting iron studs and brackets, its surface scarred by long vertical grooves. As he neared it, a part of his brain noted that the scores were symmetrical and could only have been left by razor-sharp talons.
His body slammed against the door, but it wouldn’t give. He grabbed the torch and spun around, waving it in front of him, the better to make out his stalker. The gleam of giant, wickedly serrated mandibles thrashing the air, drooling a thick, stinking mucous appeared out of the murky depths of the passage; a long spiked claw shot at him with lightning speed, as his eyes went wide with horror–
He was shaking.
Being shaken.
“Steven. Wake up. The computer’s done with its search.”
He groggily cracked one eye open, and then forced both wide, blinking from the glare of the overhead lights in the increasingly bustling terminal. He tried to focus on his watch. After a few seconds, he saw that he’d been asleep for just over an hour. His neck was stiff. He rolled his head cautiously, reaching up to rub the muscles at the top of his shoulders. Natalie ignored his plight and thrust the laptop at him.
“It’s finished,” she repeated.
“All right. Let’s see what we’ve got,” Steven said, taking it from her. “Huh. Not a whole hell of a lot. Although we do have a bit of luck. It’s obscure, but it’s really the only hit that makes sense. ‘Holy Januarius’. There is a Saint Januarius…”
“I’ve never heard of him. Then again, I’m not big on saints,” Natalie admitted.
“No reason you should have. I’ve never heard of him, either. Our biggest problem is that his remains are in Naples. On first take, we’d have to go there to find what amounts to his crypt. But that’s deceptive because a lot of these saints and popes were entombed elsewhere originally, and then later had their remains moved to their current resting places.” He performed a series of rapid keystrokes. “Ah. See? We search further, and while his remains aren’t in Rome, sure enough, there’s a reference to an obscure crypt that housed his corpse for a time in one of the Roman catacombs.”
“I hate catacombs.”
“Not many people get warm and fuzzy when it comes to underground burial chambers. But Rome has miles and miles of them. Most are located along the Appian Way — the original road that led into Rome and connected the Roman Empire. It was forbidden to bury anyone within the city walls, so the locals came up with a way around that by excavating massive tunnel complexes to house the dead just outside the gates. When the Christians were persecuted by the Romans, before Christianity became the state religion, they used the catacombs to hold secret worship ceremonies.” Steven paused, staring at the screen. “The only problem is that this one is closed to the public, and the location of the entrance is a secret. That, and I have no idea what the message means. But it’s the only hit on the terms that has any relevance.”
“Then we need to go there. Wherever it is, we need to find it and get in,” Natalie said excitedly.
“That didn’t go so well the last time, as I recall. And we can’t afford to use Danny to grease the wheels anymore, so we’re on our own.”