me to finish what we came down here for. Please help me save the life of the woman I love.’
Guilio gets to his feet and looks lost.
Tom takes him into his arms and holds him tight.
‘What’s been done and is being done down here is evil. Pure evil. We can’t let these people get away with it. You must be strong now.’
Guilio pulls away.
He wipes his eyes with the back of his hand and lets out a small, embarrassed laugh. ‘I haven’t cried since I was a child.’
He turns and leads the way into the darkness again.
As Tom follows, he looks to his side.
On the wall is the final scene in the market square.
Anna’s hand isn’t placed inside the Bocca della Verita.
It’s on a sword that has been plunged into the guts of one of the guards.
125
Shooter looks down on Valentina.
The cop bitch doesn’t look so smart and arrogant now.
Flat on her back, face bloodied up, smart white blouse and black trousers full of filthy marks.
Now she looks different.
Now she looks like she knows who’s boss.
Shooter is.
Mater wouldn’t approve. She doesn’t like violence. Well, not unless it’s violence that she’s ordered, then of course it’s fine. Justified. Necessary. But Shooter’s violence is much more than those things.
It’s pleasurable.
And as Battakes, chief of the Galli, he’s entitled to indulge himself once in a while.
He pulls the cell door shut and enjoys its terrifying clunk.
He stares at Valentina through the bars. Despite the battering he’s given her, there are still no tears.
She has guts, he’ll give her that.
And she’s pretty, too.
No, more than pretty – she’s really quite beautiful.
Shame he doesn’t have the equipment to rape her, because he’d like to.
That’s what Mater doesn’t understand.
He still has the urge.
A raging urge.
Sex is in the mind, not just in your balls, the old woman should know that.
He looks again at Valentina. She’s sitting up now, trying to get her shit together. Very nice. Those long legs stretched out like that are a fine sight. Shooter would like to see her undressed. Maybe jam things in her. Ram her full of sticks and dirt until the rage dies down.
He turns from the bars. Walks away while he still can.
She’s lucky.
Lucky that he remembered his place. His sacred place in Mater’s universe.
There’s a noise behind him.
A clank.
And now his back feels wet.
He turns and can’t believe what he sees.
She’s thrown her bucket of cell piss over him.
He’s soaked in urine.
And she’s laughing at him. Grinning through the bars.
‘You ball-less fucking faggot!’ She flaps her arms with anger. ‘Is that the best you can fucking do?’
She bangs the bucket crazily on the bars. Metal on metal. Loud echoes bounce all over the place. ‘Is it? Is that really your best shot?’
She keeps cracking the bucket, venting all her anger in a wild, frenzied outburst.
It amuses Shooter.
Amuses and arouses him.
She’s like a lioness.
Maybe it’s his job to tame her.
‘Testa di cazzo!’ She throws the bucket at the bars and turns her back on him.
‘Big mistake,’ says Shooter, slipping his key into the lock. ‘You just made the biggest mistake of your life.’
126
Tom and Guilio quickly descend two more levels.
It seems odd that the further beneath ground they go, the bigger the space around them gets.
They turn a corner.
Ahead is a giant statue of Cybele, flanked by two stone lions.
‘Wait,’ instructs Guilio, with raised hand. ‘There’s something I need to tell you.’
Tom comes to a halt.
Ahead he can see that instead of crude sandstone, there’s a lavish array of spectacular wall paintings, devotional graffiti and decorated amphorae.
The face of Cybele is everywhere.
‘This is one of the main veins,’ explains Guilio. ‘That’s what the sisterhood call the approaches to the womb. The exits are known as arteries.’
‘So we’re close?’
‘Very.’ Guilio looks tense. ‘And that means we’ll soon encounter traps.’ He points ahead. ‘Maybe even along here.’
Tom feels his heart hammering. ‘What kind?’
‘I only know of a few.’ Guilio gestures at the painted ceiling. ‘Some veins are rigged to bleed. There are pipes hidden in the ceiling that can shower us in acid.’
Tom looks up.
‘You won’t be able to see them. They’re well concealed. And they’re pressure-activated. One step on a trigger plate and our flesh will be melting.’
Tom feels his skin crawl.
‘Mater, or chosen ones like the chief priest of her Galli, sometimes deactivate them so that searches can take place. We may get lucky.’
Tom doesn’t feel lucky. ‘Is that it? That’s the end of the Indiana Jones stuff?’
Guilio smiles. ‘No. We might have a chance to get past if that was all there was to worry about.’ He points at the ground. ‘There are gravitational floors in some of the veins.’
‘What do you mean – the floors tilt?’
‘Exactly. Sections are supported only in the centre. Walk on one side and they’ll tip. If that happens, we’ll just drop into a pit below and be left to die.’
‘And all these horrors have been here for how long?’
Guilio shrugs. ‘Hundreds, maybe thousands of years. They’re effective, though.’
‘Being a former Galli, you know all these traps; you know where to walk, right?’
