So, she does know we probably won’t make it.
Falcon kissed her harder. His tongue trailed down her neck to that sweet spot between her breasts, for what might be the last time.
She took his head in both hands and lifted it. “When you lay there in the street, I thought you were … I’m so sorry I didn’t believe you!”
“Baby, don’t cry…” He brushed tears away from her cheek.
“Your hand,” Angelina lifted his hand and turned it, examining his palm. The blood on it had dried.
“It’s okay now,” he said.
Fortunately, she couldn’t see that it was already healing. It meant she still did not remember about il Dragone, the fire dragon, anything.
Maybe that was a good thing. She had no idea what they were up against, or she wouldn’t have ever stopped running.
“But I stabbed you in the palm. It was bleeding.”
“Not anymore. It wasn’t that bad. Come here.” She wanted to talk, but he was done with talking.
He wrapped his arms around her waist, running a hand down the satin-covered curve of her spine. He drew her up against him as close as his artillery belt would allow.
Angelina stiffened.
“What’s wrong?”
“N-nothing.” Angelina wouldn’t look him in the eye when she tilted his mouthpiece up to give him the most reserved, apologetic kiss they had ever experienced together.
Oh, yeah, something. But she was alive and he was so grateful, and they weren’t going to die like this, with her afraid of him.
Falcon slanted his mouth over hers and backed her into the cool stone. The ammo strapped around his chest was keeping them apart.
Angelina tugged on the belt at his waist to bring his hips flush with hers. His kiss pressed her back into the wall, and she moaned.
He felt the tears running down her cheeks. “Angel…”
‘Hey, you two have a room, but you’re not in it yet, so would you keep moving?’
He had forgotten about Granger.
Falcon took Angelina’s hand and spoke into the mouthpiece. “How far did they get?” He dragged his necessary burden behind them.
‘They found a body,’ Granger accused.
“The mute,” he said, avoiding Angelina’s gaze. “I stashed him just past the first Y-junction. They’re about twenty minutes away.” Jacopo would soon wonder why their captive had not come for her bath, and he’d open those cavern doors.
He turned to Angelina. “We’re going to move now. Ready?”
She didn’t look ready, there were questions in her eyes, but she nodded.
They ran through the dark, his headlight cutting a path.
At the second junction he heard the dragon’s roar behind them, then shouts, angry, unintelligible words. He couldn’t tell if it was the team or the brown robes approaching.
Falcon motioned to Angelina to go before him into the left passageway where he’d dragged Lorenzo’s body earlier. He pointed to the body and put a finger to his lips.
Turning her face away from the dead body, Angelina slid behind him against the wall. She clutched the briefcase, shaking.
He put a silencer on his Glock. When Ruggiero stirred in the middle of the path, he used the gun to put him out again with a blow to the temple. He turned off his headlight and waited.
*
Angelina felt icy fingers on the nape of her neck.
The hounds of hell were on their heels, and heavy footfalls pounded towards them through the tunnels. She could make out their words now as the brown robes came closer. They debated in anxious Italian, which passages to search. They were afraid of something in the tunnels. il Dragone, they said.
The Dragon.
Red, fiery eyes flashed in her mind. Who are these people?
Her heart would beat right out of her chest while they waited in the dark.
The wind whipping around them made her look behind her more than once into the black void they had entered. She could not see if anything or anyone came upon them from the gaping darkness beyond.
Angelina held onto Armand, wishing for another lamp overhead. It was so dark in the tunnel that she couldn’t see Armand’s back right in front of her.
Thunder rolled through the tunnels again and the fiery eyes flashed in her mind. She had seen those eyes in the cavern’s fire, or at least thought she had.
Angelina shut her eyes this time, but that gaze remained imprinted on the inside of her closed lids.
Now the eyes were darker in a face slack with lust. She heard Luciano Biagi’s animal grunts as he pushed against her. She felt his hand…
Her eyes flew open. She wanted to scream. She needed reassurance that Armand was with her in this nightmare. As if he knew this, his warm, muscled arm pressed lightly against her chest. She leaned against him.
The dark shifted to umber and got lighter, still. The brown robes carried a lamp.
Angelina held her breath. Pressed against Armand’s back, she could feel him waiting for an opportunity.
Two of the brown robes ran down the right passage. One of them held a lamp and it bobbed by, the sound of their footfalls faded to silence.
But the light didn’t recede with their retreat. There was another lamp coming their way. These brown robes were quiet. They knew intruders were close.
When the stealthy brown robe turned into the passage, Armand put a bullet through his brain.
Angelina stared at Jacopo’s features frozen when he fell face-first into the dirt. A second brown robe stumbled over his fallen companion and in his surprise, backed up.
Armand grabbed him by the shoulder. Dragging him into the passage, he fired a shot point-blank through his heart.
She could not tear her eyes away from the body as it fell to the ground. She turned to face the wall.
The brown robe’s lamp clattered to the floor and Armand kicked dirt onto the wick to douse it, but not soon enough.
Angelina glimpsed the wall she was holding on to. There were carvings of names and dates along the wall: 1074 A.D., 1202 A.D…
Graves lined the tunnel walls. The dead were all around her, encased in the walls.
Red eyes flashed again, coming at her through the grave closest to her.
Angelina choked on a scream, a sound that echoed through the tunnel.
Armand covered her mouth, turning her head in towards his chest, away from the carved stones. She clung to him and they stood amongst the dead brown robes in the dark, waiting for what seemed interminable minutes for more sounds of pursuit.
When no one else came their way, Armand turned on his headlight.
Armand the Assassin seemed unmoved by it all as he dragged Ruggiero’s body out of the passageway.
To her, the last two days she’d spent in the devil’s private chambers paled in comparison to these death tunnels. It was a gruesome trail of breadcrumbs her boyfriend left in his passing.
Angelina held onto his belt buckle, needing to feel his warmth in the dampness of the catacombs.
At first, she listened as he talked into the speaker, but her legs had stiffened up running through the tunnels in the dainty red satin slippers and she was hungry. She tuned out his low tones and concentrated on keeping up with him.
They had not gone far when Armand tensed.
In the next moment, there was a deafening roar from the right passageway that shook the tunnels. Clumps of earth fell atop their heads.
Something is coming.
A barrage of gunfire followed, and then quick commands shouted in English before the screams began.
Chapter Seven
“Stay here,” Falcon dropped Ruggiero and started into the right passage.
“Don’t leave me!”
He turned back to Angelina who was running towards him. She fell over a body sprawled across the path. The team had silenced more of the brown robes.
Falcon reached her in two strides and held her up. “You’re going to be all right. Angel?” He waited until she lif
ted her eyes from the bodies scattered around them.
They could be the only ones left alive in this tunnel. The team … he had to know.
The team had gone in the wrong direction. The lamps in this passage were lit. il Dragone had come this way. The brown robes had probably cut the team off from the only exit he knew of, leading them toward the fire dragon.
The screams had stopped, but the gunfire continued.
“Come. Stay behind me.”
Angelina grabbed his arm, and he lifted Ruggiero with the other.
Falcon let out a sharp whistle when there was a lull in gunfire. “Vin, this way out!”
There was no reply.
They waited at the intersection. He didn’t want to take her down that path. Those machine guns would have done some serious damage and she had witnessed too much tonight.
“Get out of here! Now!” Vin, the head of the unit called back. His voice sounded closer now as he shouted orders to the other team members.
They’re okay.
Falcon had trained Vin and trusted the lead operative with his life. He still felt that a burden had been lifted from his shoulders knowing the team was safe this far into the catacombs.
“We need to move.” Vin’s dark skin was barely visible in the gloom as he jumped adeptly over the bodies in the passageway. Falcon didn’t need to see his features to know what was coming behind him. “What the hell is that thing?”
He didn’t have a chance to answer before Tariq and Gavin followed Vin into the intersection.
“It ate them. Just ate them.” Tariq walked in backwards, his high-powered rifle pointed into the darkness they’d come from.
“Not enough of them,” Gavin, the explosives specialist, filled in. His Scottish brogue clipped his words as he knelt and placed the case he carried on the ground.
Tariq ripped off his night vision lenses. His eyes met Falcon’s and he tapped Gavin on the shoulder. Gavin glanced at Angelina.
“What ate them?” Angelina asked.
Gavin said nothing more as he pressed a series of buttons and the case opened. Quickly, he checked the cylinders lining the case and then moved to the wall.
“Some of them got away, jumped down a black hole, running from that thing. I couldn’t get off a clean shot,” Tariq said.
“Don’t worry, we’ll get them,” Falcon said. He turned to Gavin. “It’s just a matter of … how much time now?”
“We’ve got fifteen minutes before detonation.” Gavin bit his bottom lip as he set a timer on the device attached to the rough-hewn rock wall.
Falcon had anticipated Granger would send the team in, so he had instructed Gavin to rig the place in the event they were discovered.
At least that would be the excuse if one were necessary. But Falcon, the dark one that wasn’t finished killing yet, knew better. He’d planned this from the start.
He dropped Ruggiero, and Tariq grabbed the old man by the collar.
Scooping Angel up in his arms, Falcon started forward. “Gentlemen, this is Angelina and I think she’s ready to go home.”
* * * *
Ten minutes later, Armand was pushing her up the steep entrance of the tunnel to Granger on the other side.
“Go! Go! Go!” Vin’s shouts came from behind Armand in the tunnel.
A chilling roar shook the earth.
Angelina lost her hold on the hard-packed soil and fell backwards into Armand’s arms. He lifted her up to Granger as the sound of machine guns came closer.
Tariq, by his side, dropped Ruggiero and ran back into the tunnel.
Armand picked up Ruggiero and hoisted him up the slope on his shoulders. “Take her to the truck.” He disappeared back into the tunnel, shouting over his shoulder, “Five minutes, Grange.”
“Yeah, I figured as much.” Granger shook his head. Grabbing Ruggiero and the briefcase, he started across the field.
Angelina didn’t move, and Granger turned. “Don’t worry; he knows what he’s doing. Come on, this place is going to blow.”
She got on her knees to make her way down the sloped entrance of the tunnel but Granger pulled her up by the waist. “They’ll be killed!”
“I doubt it. But he will kill me if anything happens to you, and I like my life.”
“But something is down there!”
“That’s why you’re staying here.” Granger motioned for her to go ahead of him and he followed her to the truck.
It was no use trying to slip away from him. Granger was watching her even when he wasn’t watching her.
Angelina jumped into the truck. There was a loud thud as Granger dumped Ruggiero in the back, and locked him in.
She heard another latch click. Granger had locked her in the truck’s cab.
“Hey!” She scooted up front to the first cab and saw Granger running back to the tunnel entrance.
“Let’s go!” Granger shouted down into the tunnel. He grabbed a hand that was emerging from the hole in the ground.
Tariq held his arm as he ran towards the truck.
Gavin came out of the tunnel next.
Angelina stared at the entrance, but no one else emerged.
Granger ran back to the truck and jumped in on the driver’s side.
Tariq slowed down and Gavin went back to drag him in. Tariq sat back heavily in the second cab, his dark eyes glassy with pain. He’d been shot.
“The brown robes have guns? Where is Armand?” She screamed at Granger.
Granger said nothing, but kept his eyes on the tunnel entrance. With lips set in a grim line, he started the engine. The truck turned around towards the road.
There was a rumbling underfoot. The ground was shaking, but this time, there was no roar. The explosives in the catacombs had started to detonate.
“Wait!” Angelina shouted, looking back at the tunnel entrance. “Wait for them!”
But Granger plowed the truck across the now rumbling field.
Angelina stared at the entrance to the catacombs. Please, don’t take him from me.
The tunnel entrance was a black void. Armand and Vin were not coming out.
She couldn’t breathe.
Leaning over from the front cab, Gavin pushed her head down between her legs. It forced her to take a breath, and then another. When she could breathe again, she started wailing.
Gavin touched her shoulder. “Don’t waste your tears on that one.”
Angelina looked up into his laughing blue eyes and followed his gaze out the window.
Vin was climbing out of the hole in the ground. Armand was right behind him.
“They’re coming! Granger, slow down!” She tried to stand up in the cab but fell back down in the seat when the truck danced over the shaking ground.
Vin sprinted toward the moving truck.
A roar of triumph came from the tunnel entrance.
Reddish orange smoke billowed up, spreading out in a mushroom cloud around Armand as he climbed over the edge.
The smoke dissipated and a fire appeared behind Armand. It rose over him in the shape of a dragon, opening its fiery maw, and swallowed him whole.
“No-ooo-o!” She fell forward as the truck stopped abruptly. Beside her, Tariq pulled himself back up into the seat, gritting his teeth.
“Gav!” Granger jumped out. Gavin took his place at the wheel.
Granger ran across the field, almost alongside Vin, who had turned back toward the fire.
Vin reached the fire first. He plowed right into Armand, who sprinted out of it.
Granger and Vin each grabbed one of Armand’s arms.
Angelina cried as they ran towards the truck.
Vin pushed Armand into the truck, and then jumped in after him.
Granger hung onto the guardrails as Gavin put the truck in gear, and then pushed the pedal down.
Angelina held onto the cab’s side rail as they sped across the field. She came down on her knees where Armand lay on the floor in his smoking fatigues.
Vin was already pulling the
fatigues off. She tried to help, but jerked her hand away. They were too hot to touch.
Finally, Armand lay in his underwear, eyes closed.
Vin’s hands stilled.
Angelina stared at Armand’s red chest as it rose and fell. Red, as in glowing.
It wasn’t the fatigues that had been smoking. It was Armand’s skin.
She and Vin stared at each other as another roar shook the truck.
With an ear-splitting roar, the fire dragon slid over the ground towards them as the tunnel entrance collapsed with a deafening boom.
Screaming, Angelina dropped to the floor of the cab next to Armand. But she couldn’t stay down. She had to look out the window as the hole in the ground imploded, turning the field behind them into a huge crater.
In the distance, the disturbed earth shot up towards the sky as if fleeing the explosion, and then fell back down in a black shower.
Red, fiery eyes in the center of the fire shaped like a dragon’s head disappeared into the ground. The angry roar sounded far away, until she could no longer hear it. But she knew it continued, all the way to Hell.
Swirling dust, no longer red, accompanied the blaze of the uncovered sacrificial pit, which was just a fire now, snaking through crevices in the earth.
It was a scene of destruction better suited for broadcast coverage of war on television, not the sleepy old town of Forlì.
Chapter Eight
When they reached Rome, Armand took her to the hospital for an examination straightaway.
Angelina hadn’t seen him in hours and thought he’d been admitted himself.
But his smoking skin had cooled and he hadn’t even been burned by the fire.
How could that be?
Vin had seen Armand’s smoking skin, she was sure of it. Vin had stared her down in the truck. Don’t say anything, his eyes had warned. He and the others never once mentioned the fire that had consumed Armand. It was as if it had never happened.
Even stranger was that she was part of this extraordinary allegiance that made her doubt her sanity.
They had all seen the fire engulf Armand and yet she was the one in the hospital.
The doctor returned.
Armand appeared behind him, with healthy, olive-toned skin.
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