Chapter 12
Twelve
Mercy
Ihead straight for St. Peter’s Tomb with a single-minded tenacity as if I can outrun the realization that over the course of my life, having my hopes crushed is a given.
When Cisco accepted the phone and book from Bianchi, effectively renewing his contract as a priest, I felt a crushing blow inside my chest.
Still can’t breathe.
My vision tunnels to the memory of a large, fatherly hand refusing to hold mine.
God, I must have been only ten, but the rejection stings as fresh as it did then.
I wasn’t a needy child, I don’t think. And thinking about the orphans’ need for security, I’d not blink twice if they wanted the comfort only a parental figure can give.
I slept outside their room just to let them know they were safe. I’d hold their hand in public.
So I should feel vindicated in my pain over this rejection. Validated. But all I feel is an echo of that crushed hope when my father began to pull his affection away from me. Would I still touch the orphans with the same sort of affection if they were boys?
Yes . . . yes, I think I would.
Cisco’s a man. He let Lucia hug him when she was afraid. I can’t see him ever turning away a child in need, no matter what the neighbors might think.
It wasn’t as if I begged for my father’s attention all the time.
It doesn’t look right.
Logically, I know my father was mentally unwell. I know that the love we shared was completely innocent. It was the purest, cleanest love I’ve ever experienced. So when my mother added to our neighbors’ whispers, she made it worse. She made him worse. I understand this.
But I still wish his love for me were stronger than the shame. I wish he had fought for me.
That’s all I want. A love strong enough and clear enough that it trumps all else.
I just don’t know how long I’m supposed to fight for it, too.
My fingers clench around the sword as I arrive at St. Peter’s Tomb in the main cavern, and I stop. I hear Cisco behind me, shoes shuffling on the dirt. I still feel him in that aching, crushed center of my being.
But I don’t look at him, and he doesn’t look at me. We stand in silence for a few seconds, staring at the shrine, which is actually just a box of preserved, pale Roman brickwork set into a vast wall of even older, rougher stones. The actual tomb is a glassed-in, foot-wide hovel in the wall.
“What now?” I ask, pointing with the sword. “Mary’s Gospel said it was buried beneath the bones.”
There are no actual bones in the tomb. It’s empty. Even if I thought they were beneath the shrine, the layers are made of compacted limestone and earth. There’s no way we’ll even scratch the surface before people arrive.
“I don’t know,” Cisco grumbles. “Did they not think of this before sending us here?”
“Don’t blame them. You had every opportunity to scrutinize this plan at the abbey.” So did I, which makes this even more frustrating. I fucked up too, and now we’re almost out of time.
“We were locked in our rooms for too long,” he grumbles.
“So this is my fault? All I wanted was to keep my family safe. You should know all about that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Forget it.”
His lips press together, puckering his scar. “If you have something to say, piccola, say it.”
Grinding my teeth, I shake my head and look at the hole through the glass. It’s solid rock.
“Maybe use the sword,” he offers behind me.
“Maybe shut up so I can concentrate.”
But I can’t. My head is a mess. I can’t think. He is everywhere, and he tugs me back by fisting my veil.
I bring the sword to his throat as our eyes clash, ready to stick him with my frustration, but I hesitate.
“People are coming,” he says, letting go and collecting his bag. “We must go.”
“But we found nothing.”
“Perhaps that’s because there is nothing.”
Panic scores my insides, and I look around the excavation desperately trying to find a clue—something that will lead us to the missing hilt piece. I close my eyes and try to feel with my body, my heart, tapping into the same sensation the sword gives me.
But the only thing it feels like is a part of my soul is walking away toward the third sarcophagus, tattooed hand gripping the bag at his side.
Tears sting my eyes.
I don’t cry. I never cry. Not really.
“Fuck this,” I mumble.
Clamping down on my emotions, I stride toward him, robes swishing behind me.
He pulls open the concrete panel Bianchi mentioned and tosses his bag in.
Then he waits for me to go first, alert eyes on the area behind us, waiting for the first sign we’re not alone.
I hear the voices too. They’re almost here.
I toss the sword into the small crawlspace and then dive in headfirst.
It’s a stupid thing to do. I can’t see in the dark. I’ve been trained better than this.
When my hands connect with a downward slope of fine gravel, my stomach drops.
“Oh n—”
Gravity steals the word from my lips and yanks me downward, sliding on my stomach. Pitch-black engulfs me. Stones and fine rocks flick up at my head. I tuck and roll to my side, hands protecting my head, praying to every god in existence that when I land, it’s not on the sword.
Metal tinkles and ricochets ahead of me.
The air grows cold, danker. Tunnel walls whiz past. It feels like I’m falling forever, and then I catch the distant sound of hollow water dripping, a choir singing, and then the ground gives way. It happens in a blink. I’m over the edge of a cliff I can’t see, and then I’m airborne.
My robes rise to swallow my body, smothering me in whipping fabric. The shock of icy air on my legs makes me gasp, which is fortunate because a second later I’m in water, submerging.
All of my failures flash in my mind.
I’m going to die.
I can’t save the Sisterhood. I can’t fix the sword. I can’t save Cisco.
I failed.
This must be the way to Hell. That’s why the choir stopped.
But then the waterbed meets my ass. The impact jars through my spine.
Deep water has a weight. This isn’t deep.
Hope flaring, I scramble to find balance and kick off the ground, aiming to swim to the surface.
Imagine my surprise when all I do is stand, and my head and shoulders break the surface.
I flail in the darkness, checking. Yes, I’m not imagining it. The depth only comes to my breasts.
I hear the choir singing in the distance again.
“Mercy!”
Cisco’s frantic bellow echoes down through the dark. He sounds far away. Still up high.
“I’m fin—” I cough, sputter. Scrub my hand over my face. “I’m fine! I landed in water.”
I move toward him, but my foot hits something hard. Is that the sword? I hold my breath and dive. A surge of triumph fills me when my palm lands on the familiar, round pole handle.
I didn’t lose it.
I haven’t failed.
Don’t give up yet.
Straightening, I break the surface again with a grin on my lips.
I’m in water I can’t see, and likely hundreds of feet below the Basilica, going by the choir, but I’m smiling.
Sparks light up on the sword’s length, shooting orange and yellow light into the cavern like fireworks. Shadows and shapes loom around me, flickering over uneven and staggered formations. They look like the ruins we just left.
I think I’m in an underground city of some sort, long forgotten in time. I swing the sword to where the water meets the shore at my left. I wade toward it and then stop.
Why is it so quiet?
I strain my senses, peering through the shadows, reaching for any sound. Nothing.
“Cisco?”
His name echoes back to me, blending into the song, but he doesn’t answer.