The Devil's Labyrinth

“Silence!” the nun commanded.

Every head in the room suddenly bowed, and the boy next to Ryan held out his hand.

Confused, Ryan looked at it, then looked around and realized that everyone in the room was holding hands. He took the boy’s fingers uncertainly, but when Melody slipped her hand into his other one, he decided maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea after all. He’d just have to remember not to squeeze the wrong hand.

If he could work up the nerve to squeeze any hand at all.

Then, as the nun began the blessing, Ryan felt just the tiniest amount of pressure on the fingers Melody was holding.

Ever so slightly, he tilted his head to look at her out of the corner of his eye.

She had her head bowed, and her eyes were closed.

But she was smiling.

Ryan closed his eyes, too, but there was now no way he could concentrate on the blessing. Instead, he returned the little squeeze Melody had given him, and when the chorus of students said “Amen,” he opened his eyes and turned to look at her.

She was blushing.

And he was grinning.

And everybody else was staring at both of them.

Ryan decided he didn’t care.

Things at St. Isaac’s were, indeed, looking better and better.

CHAPTER 24

FALLING!

Sofia Capelli was falling through a darkness so black it was almost palpable. She could see nothing, feel only the sensation of the aching cold, and the dizzying effect of the endless fall.

Cold.

Dizzy.

Then an acrid stench scorched her nostrils and she jerked awake.

She wasn’t falling, but she was still cold.

Her back was freezing; her bones still ached.

She lay silent, searching for the memory of what had happened to her, but all she found was an overwhelming feeling of dread.

Dread, and the awful sensation of falling.

Once again the sharp smell of smoke choked her and now she opened her eyes, looking up to see Father Sebastian, Father Laughlin and Sister Mary David, all gazing down on her.

And looking worried.

She must have fainted.

Sister Mary David swung a censer filled with burning incense over her, and Sofia flinched away from the curling spiral of smoke that drifted toward her nose.

She tried to sit up, but her arms and legs didn’t work. She was too weak. What was happening?

“She is with us again,” Father Sebastian said so softly that Sofia could barely hear him.

She opened her mouth to speak, formed the words in her mind, but nothing emerged from her lips. Nothing, anyway, but an unintelligible sound that was little more than a faint moan. She wanted to rub her eyes, to rub away the dizziness from her mind, erase the fog from her vision. But something was holding her back.

Something on her wrists.

A rope!

She twisted her head around and caught a glimpse of the thick, black velvet cord that ran through iron rings and held each wrist and each ankle firmly to—

A table! A cold, hard table made of solid stone!

Why?

What had she done that they had to tie her down?

Once again she struggled to speak; once again only a garbled, rasping sound emerged from her lips.

“Do not speak,” Father Sebastian said. “Do not give voice to the demon.”

Demon?

Sofia looked around frantically. What was he talking about? Where was she? What had happened to her?

Again she struggled against her bonds, but they felt more like they were made of steel than of velvet.

She tried once more to speak, focusing her eyes on Father Laughlin’s kind old face and concentrating on forming the first syllable of his name, but when she finally opened her mouth, only a stammering “F-F-F…” sound came out.

And Father Laughlin turned his face away.

Her chest heaving with fear, her eyes blurred with unshed tears, Sofia stopped struggling and lay still on the table. She tried to think, tried to cut through the fog that muddled her mind, tried to remember.

Then she saw it.

A giant cross suspended upside down, just above her.

The top of the cross had been sharpened to a point — a glittering point of gold — and it seemed to be directly above her heart.

What were they going to do to her?

Sofia’s eyes found Sister Mary David, but this time when she tried to speak all that came out of her mouth was a sibilant hiss.

A dream!

It had to be some kind of terrible dream.

It couldn’t be real.

Sister Mary David recoiled from Sofia’s strange hiss, crossed herself, and continued to swing the censer.

“Let us now confront the evil in this child’s soul,” Father Sebastian intoned, “that we may then drive it from her forever.”

As the priest’s right arm came up and he extended his fingers toward her, Sofia felt a terrible nausea rising in her belly. She howled again, terrified that he was about to touch her, and whipped her head back and forth.

What was happening?

Why was she terrified of him?

Why did she feel so sick?

And if it was a dream, why wasn’t she waking up?

“Silence, demon.” Father Sebastian was looming over her now, and suddenly she could see something in his eyes she’d never seen before.

Hatred.

Pure, furious, hatred.

Sofia cringed, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.

Father Sebastian began speaking in Latin, but again they were words Sofia had never heard before, in an unfamiliar rhythm.

Then he was making signs with his hands, and moving around her as the cadence of his chant increased.

The room began to spin as Father Sebastian circled her, and now her nausea threatened to overwhelm her. Her stomach lurched, and she struggled hard not to throw up.

Is this really happening?

“The blood of the goat,” Father Sebastian demanded, and Father Laughlin quickly handed him a small, dark