Page 28 of The Sinner and the Priest: Part Two

“I heard. I’m sorry, they’re all corrupt assholes.”

“Not all of them,” he mutters. “Many are good men. Some, I know.”

We reach a massive stone tunnel guarded by two brightly dressed Swiss Guards, their halberds gleaming.

“We will soon find out,” Cisco adds beneath his breath and then grins amicably and flashes his credentials too fast for the young guard on the left to read.

“Buongiorno, Kasper,” he greets in Italian.

The guard snaps to attention, eyes flicking to Cisco. For a moment, the guard’s robotic discipline wavers, and he smiles back.

“Buongiorno, Padre,” he replies. “It is so good to see you.”

His accent has a soft Swiss-German lilt, hushed as if he’s not meant to be talking.

“How is your sister?” Cisco asks softly. “I heard the surgery in Zurich was difficult.”

The young man’s chest swells. “She is recovering. The doctors . . . they say it’s a miracle. My mother says it was the candles you lit in Santa Maria.”

Cisco gently touches the boy’s colorful sleeve before the other guard’s scrutiny draws him away.

“I will keep praying for her,” he says.

Kasper nods, his throat bobbing. He looks at me then, and my pulse skyrockets.

“The nun is with me for the Scavi archives,” Cisco explains, tone shifting back to one of authority. “Evil doesn’t wait, so neither shall we.”

“Of course, Padre. My apologies for delaying you.” Kasper steps back. His halberd strikes stone with a clack. “Go with God.”

I follow Cisco deeper into the shadows beneath the arch. He just lied to a boy who thinks he’s a saint. This sword had better do what he thinks it does. It better be worth it.

A nondescript glass door leads us into our next roadblock.

The Scavi office is beige, with a bored-looking clerk behind a counter staring at his computer. Cisco leans over and speaks to him in rapid-fire, low-register Italian. The clerk looks at me, then quickly looks away. He hits a buzzer that opens a door to our left.

Cisco nods his gratitude and then places his hand on the small of my back, leading me to the door, taking me inside, and down a metal grate staircase. As the door closes behind us, the sounds of the Vatican disappear—bells, cars, distant murmurs all vanish.

And then it’s just us in the dim light, descending into air smelling like ancient stone and damp earth. We bypass the grottoes where most of the popes are buried, and keep walking until we descend a final, cramped metal staircase. Polished walls give way to a series of narrow dirt-and-brick alleys. Artificial yellow light makes everything look sickly.

Fortunately, we make the lunchtime lull, so encounters with scholars or specialists are thin, and the busy clerics seem used to priests and nuns. No one stops us. A few even nod to Cisco.

We make it to the bottom level, where endless brick and mortar is hollowed out by centuries of ruin, where St. Peter’s tomb is. Two steps in, an alarm blares.

Eleven

Cisco

One second, the basement halls are a catacomb of whispers and dust, priests, scholars, and tourists too tired to notice the world is ending. The next, the evacuation alarm detonates overhead. Sound slams into my skull with the force of a jackhammer.

Every ounce of control I clawed back from my curse is suddenly undone. The devil wakes and thrashes inside my chest, desperate for release and begging, Strappagli la testa. Tear off their heads. Prove you’re alive.

Someone runs past. My hand slams on Mercy, shoving her to the side with me and narrowly missing a collision. I vaguely register their shout for us to leave before vertigo strikes, and I stagger.

For a heartbeat, the walls collapse inwards. The air turns rank and sour. Dirt, sweat, and fear.

Mercy is the only thing the alarm doesn’t blur. Her figure moves in front of me, long and star-bright, haloed under the emergency lights flashing blood red from above.

She turns back and pauses. “You okay, Padre?”