Chapter 33 #2
Another turn. Right this time. The walls narrowed even further, forcing us to move single file.
Rafael went first, with the rosary held high.
I followed, one hand trailing along the wall for balance.
The stone was rough under my palm, wet in places, and covered in something that made my fingers slip.
I didn't want to know what it was.
The pathway opened into a wider corridor. Rafael stopped to check the map again. "Straight ahead. Should be maybe thirty yards, then another left."
We moved forward. The rosary flame guttered slightly, and my stomach dropped. How much fuel did that thing have? An hour? Less?
Caesar's cry split the air above us, echoing off stone from somewhere to our left.
Rafael's hand crushed mine. We kept moving, our footsteps faster now. The chain clinked louder with our increased pace, announcing our position to anyone listening.
There was another screech, closer this time. Then Constantine's voice drifted through the passages, bouncing off walls until it was impossible to tell where it came from. "I can hear you running, Lorenzo. The chains make such a distinctive sound, don't they?"
We reached the next turn. Rafael checked the map, but his hands were shaking, making the parchment flutter. "Left," he said.
The new passage sloped downward, and my foot came down on empty air.
I pitched forward into black nothingness.
Rafael's hand locked around my wrist before I could scream.
The chain between our ankles went taut, yanking Rafael forward.
He slammed into the edge of the pit, his body flat against stone, his arm extended over nothing.
My weight dragged at him. The rosary clattered against the ground beside him, its flame still burning.
I looked down. Dozens of spikes waited below, their points rust-stained and sharp.
Rafael hauled me up with a grunt. His teeth were gritted, every muscle in his arm straining. I got my feet under me and scrambled back onto solid ground. We collapsed together onto the dusty floor, breathing hard.
"You okay?" Rafael's hands were already running over me, checking for injuries.
"Fine. I'm fine." My heart was trying to punch through my ribs. "Thanks for the quick reflexes."
Rafael grabbed the rosary and held it up. The pit yawned ahead of us, maybe six feet across, cutting straight through the pathway. There was no way around it. The walls on either side were solid stone, and the corridor was too narrow to edge along them.
My stomach dropped into my toes. We had no choice but to jump it. Chained together as we were, that was going to be damn near impossible, especially given my height compared to Rafael's.
"We can't both jump separately," Rafael said, standing and pulling me up with him. "Not with the chain. Your legs are shorter. We'll be off-rhythm and we'll both go in."
"So what do you suggest?"
Caesar screeched somewhere close by, the sound ricocheting off stone.
"I'll carry you." Rafael's arm wrapped around my waist before I could argue, hoisting me into his arms.
Rafael looked past me, studying the jump. His depth perception was still off. The eyepatch had only been on his face for a few days. There was a very good chance he misjudged the distance and put us both into that pit.
But I didn't point that out. I kissed him instead. "You can do this."
He blew out a breath and nodded. "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. But the kiss definitely helps."
Rafael took three running steps and launched us into the air.
The world tilted. I clutched his neck and buried my face against his shoulder because I couldn't watch.
Rafael's feet hit stone. His knee buckled from the impact, and we went down hard. Rafael twisted at the last second, taking the fall on his shoulder instead of dropping me. We hit the ground in a tangle of limbs and chain.
The rosary flew from Rafael's hand and skittered across the floor, its flame still burning, and the map fell straight out of Rafael’s pocket on top of it.
"No!" Rafael lunged for it, but he was tangled with me and the chain. The ancient paper caught immediately, brown stains spreading across the surface as fire ate through the dried parchment.
I scrambled forward and stomped on the map, trying to smother the flames. Rafael joined me, and together we managed to put it out before it burned completely. But the damage was done.
Rafael picked up the scorched map with shaking hands, then grabbed the rosary. He held the map close to the light, his face going pale.
A hole the size of a fist had burned straight through one corner. Char marks spread from the edges, obscuring lines and pathways.
"How bad?" I asked, though I could already see the answer.
"Bad." His finger traced the burned section. "This was the junction near the center. Three, maybe four pathways converge there. I can't tell which lines are which anymore. The fire ate right through them."
"Can you work around it?"
"I don't know." He folded the map carefully, as if that would somehow repair it. "Maybe. If we can figure out where we are when we get close."
"We just have to make it to the center," I said, trying to sound more confident than I was. "We know that much."
"Yeah." Rafael tucked the damaged map back into his jacket. "We just don't know which path will actually get us there."
Behind us, the pit yawned like an open mouth. Ahead, the corridor stretched into darkness.
Constantine's laughter echoed through the maze from somewhere to our right.
The stone walls made it impossible to tell how far away he was.
Could be fifty yards. Could be five. "Very good!
I wasn't sure you'd make that jump. Well done, boys.
Though I do hope you didn't damage anything important in that landing. "
The pathway continued ahead into darkness. Rafael pulled out the map and held it close to the rosary flame, squinting at the damaged sections. His jaw clenched as he studied the burned area.
"We're here, I think." He pointed to a spot on the map. "But this whole section—" His finger moved to the charred area. "I can't read it anymore. We'll just have to hope we can figure it out when we get closer."
Caesar shrieked somewhere in the distance. Not close, but close enough to make my skin crawl.
"We need to keep moving," I said.
The pathway branched. Rafael pulled out the map and studied it in the dying rosary light. "Right," he said, but there was doubt in his voice.
"You sure?"
"No." He met my eyes. "But left doubles back toward the entrance. Right is the only option that makes sense."
We took the right path. The corridor sloped downward, the walls narrowing until we had to turn sideways to fit through with our shoulders scraping stone.
My shoulder throbbed where I'd landed after Rafael carried me over the pit.
The chain had rubbed a raw spot on my ankle, and every step sent a spike of pain up my leg.
Rafael was limping too, favoring the shoulder he'd landed on. His breathing came harder in the thin air.
The passage opened into a small chamber with four exits branching off in different directions. Two torches still burned here, their light enough that we could actually see.
Rafael pulled out the map again and held it up. His finger traced the paths, stopped at the burned section, and backtracked. His jaw clenched.
"What?" I asked.
"I think we're here." He pointed at a junction on the map. "But I'm not sure. This chamber could also be here, or here." He indicated two other spots, one much deeper in the maze than the other.
"Which way do we go?"
"If we're here—" He pointed to the first spot. "Then we need to take that exit." He gestured to the passage on our right. "But if we're actually here—" His finger moved to the second spot. "Then that's the wrong way entirely."
My chest tightened. "What happens if we go the wrong way?"
"We get lost." Rafael folded the map and tucked it away. "And we might not find our way back."
Caesar shrieked from somewhere above us. The sound echoed off the chamber walls, disorienting, impossible to track.
"We have to choose," I said. "We can't stay here."
Rafael studied the four exits. His remaining eye moved from one to the next, weighing options we didn't fully understand. "Right," he said finally. "We go right. It's the best option either way."
"You sure?"
"No." He grabbed my hand. "But we can't just stand here."
We moved into the right passage. The walls closed in again, and the torchlight from the chamber faded behind us until we were back to relying solely on the rosary flame. It was noticeably smaller now, the fire reduced to maybe three inches tall.
The passage twisted and turned, each corner looking identical to the last. My sense of direction was completely gone. I had no idea if we were moving toward the center or in circles. The chain between our ankles kept catching on loose stones, jerking us to a stop every few yards.
"Lorenzo." Rafael's voice was tight. "I think we're lost."
"We don't know that."
"I do." He stopped walking and pulled out the map again. His hands shook as he held it to the guttering rosary flame. "This passage should have ended by now. We should have hit another junction. Either the map is wrong or we are."
"The map isn't wrong." I took it from him and studied the burned section. The hole had obliterated what looked like the convergence of five different pathways. Without those lines, it was impossible to tell which route was which. "We just can't read it anymore."
Rafael's breathing was getting faster, shallower. "We're going to die down here."
"Hey." I grabbed his face and made him look at me. "We're not dying. We just need to think."
"Think about what? We can't see. We can't read the map. Constantine knows this maze, and we don't." His voice cracked. "We're fucked, Lorenzo."
"We're not." I pressed my forehead against his, steadying my own breathing. "Listen to me. We've gotten out of worse situations than this."
"When?"