two priests to the dark crypt far below the school.
The crypts here were different, though. Many of them had carvings on their stone walls, and he tried to focus his mind on them and ignore the phantom presence he felt all around.
Then, illuminated by one single lightbulb that seemed to be brighter than the others, he saw a familiar symbol carved into the back of one of the niches.
It was a circular pattern that he recognized in an instant.
The same symbol that had been drawn in chalk on the floor around Jeffrey Holmes’s coffin was etched here in the eternal stone!
Ryan’s whole body trembled. This had to be a nightmare — it couldn’t possibly be real. He heard the footsteps behind him again, but they were much closer this time. He steeled himself to spin around and face whatever lurked in the darkness, but before he could turn, something reached out of the blackness.
It was an arm that slipped around his neck and held him utterly immobile.
A rough hand groped at his chest, tearing open his shirt, and then he felt a fist close around the crucifix — his father’s crucifix — that had hung around his neck since that morning six months ago when he had been sent by Sebastian Sloane to kill the Pope.
He felt a terrible jerk.
The silver chain broke.
And a soft voice spoke in his ear: “
Ryan dropped to the floor of the tunnel as his assailant fled, and a moment later even the footsteps faded away.
The tunnels were silent for a moment, and then a single word floated out of the darkness: “Ryan?”
It was his mother’s voice that made Ryan realize he must have cried out loud as the arm slid around his neck.
Now, emerging from the darkness ahead, he could see his mother and the guide coming back for him.
He touched his chest and felt the empty place where his father’s crucifix had lain heavily since that morning on the Boston Common.
And all he felt was a profound relief.
It was over. The whole thing was finally over.
Wherever that cross had come from, he was certain that it was now going back where it truly belonged.
And wherever it was going, it no longer had anything to do with him, and it had nothing to do with his father’s love for him.
That love, he knew, would always be with him.
“Ryan?” his mother called out again.
Ryan got to his feet and brushed the dust from his pants, and by the time his mother reached him, it was as if nothing had happened at all. “Let’s go home,” he whispered. “I just want to go home.”
