Chapter 33 #3
"Alaska. The warehouse in Rio." I smirked. "Each other. C’mon, Priest. I’m the deadliest thing in here, and you know it.”
Rafael took a shaky breath. Then another. His shoulders gradually relaxed. "Okay. Okay. You're right."
The rosary flame guttered again, shrinking to barely two inches. We both stared at it.
"How long do we have?" I asked.
"Minutes, maybe." Rafael's voice was steady now, but I could hear the fear underneath. "Once it goes out, we're in complete darkness."
"We move forward," Rafael said quietly. "Keep going straight as much as possible. If we hit a dead end, we backtrack. We don't stop moving."
"And when the light goes out?"
"Then we navigate by touch." He squeezed my hand. "Together."
We started moving again, faster now despite the pain. The chain clinked with each step, too loud in the oppressive silence. My ankle was bleeding where the cuff had rubbed through skin. I could feel the blood soaking into my sock.
The passage split. Left or right. No way to tell which was correct.
"Right," Rafael said. "Stay on the same side. Maybe it'll keep us from doubling back."
We took the right path. The corridor narrowed even further, and I had to duck to avoid hitting my head on a low section of ceiling. The footsteps we'd been hearing had gone quiet. Constantine was somewhere in the darkness, waiting.
The passage opened into another chamber, larger this time. Three exits. Rafael pulled out the map, but it was useless now. The burned section made it impossible to orient ourselves.
"Lorenzo." His voice was barely a whisper. "I'm sorry. I should have held onto it tighter. I should have kept it in my pocket, or—"
"Stop." I grabbed his shoulders and shook him. "It was chaos. We both fell. The map could have landed anywhere. This isn't your fault."
"But I—"
"No." I cut him off. "We're in this together, remember? Whatever happens, we face it together."
The rosary flame flickered. Once. Twice.
Then it died.
Complete darkness slammed down around us like a prison. I couldn't see Rafael even though he was right in front of me. Couldn't see my own hand when I held it up to my face. The blackness was so absolute it had texture, pressing against my skin like water.
Rafael's breathing went ragged. "Lorenzo."
"I'm right here." I reached out in the dark and found his arm, his shoulder, his face. My fingers traced the line of his jaw, the strap of his eyepatch, his lips. "Right here."
"I can't see anything."
"I know. Me neither." I pressed my forehead against his. "But we're okay. We just need to stay calm."
There was suddenly a sharp whistle right in front of us. The eagle swooped in and something heavy swung through the air. I heard it coming and jerked Rafael sideways. The club missed my head by inches and cracked against the stone wall.
Talons grazed my ear. I screamed and swung blindly with my bludgeon. The wood connected with something solid. Feathers and fury surrounded us as Caesar attacked again, his talons barely missing my shoulder this time.
Constantine's bludgeon came at us again. I heard the whistle of displaced air and ducked. Rafael wasn't so lucky. The wood hit something and Rafael grunted in pain.
"Rafael!" I swung in the direction Constantine's attack had come from. My club hit nothing but air.
Blood ran hot down my neck. Rafael was shouting, swinging his own club in the darkness. The chain between our ankles tangled as we spun, trying to fight two enemies we couldn't see.
Constantine laughed, the sound coming from my left now. He was moving, circling us. "Come now, boys. Surely you can do better than this."
I swung again. This time my club connected with something solid. Constantine grunted, and I heard him stumble backward.
Caesar shrieked and dove again. I hit the ground. Rafael swung wildly and connected. The bird screamed.
"Genug!" Constantine's voice was sharp. "Caesar, zu mir!"
Wings beat in retreat. I could hear the eagle moving away, the jingle of the chain as it landed near Constantine. Then footsteps, moving quickly away from us through the darkness.
"Excellent effort," Constantine's voice echoed from somewhere distant now. "You actually managed to land a hit. I'm impressed. But we have hours until dawn, boys. Hours and hours. Caesar and I will give you a moment to catch your breath. We'll be back."
His footsteps faded. The darkness pressed in, absolute and suffocating.
"Lorenzo?" Rafael's hands found me, running over my arms, my chest, my back. His fingers came away wet. "You're bleeding."
"I'm okay." My ear was on fire where the talons ripped a hole, but I’d had worse. "We need to move before they come back."
We stumbled forward in the darkness, hands outstretched, feeling for walls that didn't come. This chamber was larger than the others. Big enough that we couldn't find the edges. Big enough that we were completely disoriented.
Constantine could come back at any moment. We'd landed a hit on him, yes, but he'd been toying with us, wearing us down. Constantine had all the advantages: he knew the maze, could see in the dark somehow, had that fucking eagle as backup.
We had each other. That was it.
Rafael's hand found the side of my face. "Lorenzo, I can't—I don't know where we are. I don't know which way to go."
"It's okay." I pressed my hand over his. "We'll figure it out."
"How? We can't see. The map is useless. Constantine is hunting us, and that fucking bird can pick us off whenever it wants." His voice cracked. "We're going to die down here in the dark, and I can't—I can't—"
"Rafael." I grabbed his face with both hands despite the pain in my shoulder. "Listen to me. I love you. Do you hear me? I love you, and I'm not letting you die in this place. We're getting out. Together."
He was shaking. I could feel it under my hands. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I should have held onto it tighter. I should have kept it in my pocket, or—"
"Stop." I kissed him in the darkness, and tasted salt from his tears. "It was chaos. We both fell. The map could have landed anywhere. This isn't your fault."
"But if I'd just—"
"No." I pulled him closer despite the pain screaming through my shoulder and back. "We're in this together, remember? Whatever happens, we face it together. The map burned. It's done. Now we move forward."
Footsteps echoed through the darkness. Constantine's footsteps. He was circling back.
"Move," I whispered urgently.
I grabbed Rafael's hand and pulled him in what I hoped was away from the footsteps. We stumbled through the blackness, hands outstretched. My fingers finally found a wall.
"This way," I whispered.
We followed the wall, moving as quietly as we could manage. The chain still clinked between us, but there was nothing we could do about that. Behind us, I could hear Constantine's slow and steady footsteps.
He was enjoying this.
The wall curved. We followed it around until my hand found an opening. A passage. We stumbled into it, and the walls closed in on either side again. At least in the narrow corridors, Caesar couldn't attack as easily. The bird needed space to maneuver.
My ear was throbbing, and Rafael's breathing was too fast, too shallow. He was panicking. I could hear it in the way he gasped for air.
"Rafael." I stopped and turned to face him in the darkness. "Breathe with me. In through your nose. Out through your mouth."
"I can't—"
"Yes, you can." I found his hand and pressed it against my chest so he could feel my breathing. "Match me. In. Out."
He tried. Failed. Tried again. Gradually, the panic in his gasps faded into something more controlled.
"Better?" I asked.
"Yeah. A little." His hand moved from my chest to my face, his fingers tracing my features in the darkness. "I'm not good at this."
"At what?"
"Being helpless. Being lost." His voice dropped. "I've spent my whole life knowing exactly what I'm supposed to do. How to fight. Who to kill. What to believe. But now I don't know anything. I can't see. I can't navigate. I can't protect you. I'm useless."
"You're not useless." I kissed him again, slower this time. "You jumped that pit while half-blind. You fought off Caesar. You've kept us alive this long. That's not useless."
"But—"
"No." I pressed my finger against his lips. "We're going to get through this. I don't know how yet, but we will. Because I'm not losing you. Not to Constantine. Not to this maze. Not to anything."
Caesar shrieked from somewhere in the darkness behind us. Constantine's footsteps grew louder.
"We need to move," Rafael whispered.
"I know." But I didn't move yet. Just held him for one more moment in the absolute darkness. "I love you."
"I love you too." His lips brushed mine. "Now let's go kill that bastard."
We moved forward into the darkness, hands joined, the chain clinking between us. We were lost. We were bleeding. We were being hunted.
But we were together.
And that was going to be Constantine’s undoing.