Edge of Oblivion

“What do you mean, everywhere?” Morgan said sharply, so that her voice echoed off the stone walls.

“Paintings,” he calmly responded, “statues, frescoes, the obelisk in St. Peter’s Square, the pope’s hat —”

“The pope’s hat!” she exclaimed, astonished.

“—wood carvings, tile work, tapestries, stonework—”

“Enough! Stop.”

He fell silent, waiting for her next command, while Morgan tried not to hyperventilate.

Everywhere. The feral Alpha’s symbol was all over the Vatican. Even on—good Lord—the pope’s hat. How? Why?

“I don’t understand. Why would the symbol of an Egyptian god be all over the seat of the Christian church?”

A faint smile curved his lips. “Their gods were here long before ours. We just...” he floundered, searching for a word in English, “... appropriato. Stole them. Reconfigured.”

Morgan’s mouth dropped open, then snapped shut. She didn’t have time for this. “Are there any other entrances to the catacombs?”

He shook his head. “Only in the pope’s private chambers, but there you cannot go.”

Oh, but she could. But at the moment she was at the entrance to the necropolis, so she might as well start here. She gave the guard’s wrist a final warning squeeze and said, “You will return to your post and forget me.”

The guard blinked down at her and wistfully murmured, “Forget you.”

“Si. Go now. Go.”

He nodded slowly, then turned on his heel, went through the door, and let it swing shut behind him.

The moment he was gone, Morgan turned and made her way down the narrow flight of stairs, her heart pounding, light diminishing behind her with every step. At the bottom of the steps was a series of narrow passageways constructed of red bricks that led off in every direction, lit with dim spotlights at long intervals. The air was humid and stagnant, the ground uneven dirt. Several richly engraved stone sarcophagi were assembled near the entrance, beyond which was a larger main corridor with a map in English and Italian on the wall that showed the various tombs of the necropolis. Feeling excitement mixed with crushing dread, Morgan located the Egyptian tomb on the map and set off in search of it.

She passed tomb after tomb, both large and small, cold, shadowed rooms of brick and earth with stone sarcophagi resting in niches in the walls. Motifs of stags and vases and flowering vines, perfectly preserved, decorated walls and ceilings; remnants of colorful mosaic tiles survived in patches over the floors. The corridor narrowed at length, the brick walls showed more signs of deterioration, the air became clammy and thick. Around another corner, and she began to feel claustrophobic. The ancient walls, now flaked and uneven, pressed close; the light dimmed to a faint greenish hue.

Just as she was beginning to panic that she was lost, the weak light of the entrance to the tomb of the Egyptians appeared around another corner, illuminating the gloom like a phantom in a graveyard.

Her heart in her throat, Morgan stepped hesitantly into the tomb. Six elaborate stone sarcophagi and four empty niches lined the walls of the square mausoleum; several alabaster urns and shards of broken pottery lay in one corner. On the north wall, just as the guard had said, was the painting of Horus, god of vengeance.

It was massive and strangely vivid in the half-light, rich with color and an eerie dimensionality that made it seem to bulge from the wall. A bare-chested warrior with the sunhaloed head of a falcon and huge, flaming wings fanning out from the middle of his back floated over a mob of prostrate worshippers gathered at a riverbank. He held a sword in one hand and a staff in the other, bands of gold surrounded his muscled biceps, a linen garment hung from his hips. But the eyes were by far the most striking of all. Black and piercing above a sharp, elongated beak, they seemed uncannily alive.

Morgan took an involuntary step back, dropped her gaze, and saw, in the right corner of the painting, a cutout in the stone roughly the same size and shape as the medallion that hung around her neck.

Her heart pole-vaulted over her breastbone.

Feeling like a character out of Indiana Jones, she unclasped the medallion from her neck and shakily approached the small niche in the wall. Without breathing, she set the medallion flush against the ancient brick and jumped back with a yelp when the lid of the sarcophagus directly behind her popped open with a puff of dust and the low groan of stone on stone.

“Oh, hell, no,” she said into the ancient, sinister hush. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

The answering silence was deafening.

She stood in the center of the mausoleum for several minutes, arguing the pros and cons with herself. She’d found what she’d come looking for—possibly—and now she could go back and tell Xander...ask for his help...

If it wasn’t for you, Julian might still be alive.

Right. Xander was the last one who would want to help.

Fighting back the sudden, bitter onslaught of tears, Morgan snapped the necklace back around her neck, strode over to the sarcophagus, and pushed the lid wide open. Peering down, she saw a set of impossibly narrow steps descending into impenetrable blackness. She sat on the edge of the hulking stone coffin and swung her legs over, then, moving as silently as her feet would allow, stepped down into darkness.

32

D stared down at the folded note in his hand. Change of plans, it read, in the lilting, elegant script he recognized as Eliana’s. Meet before Purgare? Sunken church. One half hour.

He dismissed the blushing young handmaiden who’d brought it with a curt nod that made her blush deepen. As she backed quickly out of the room and fled into the safety of the dark corridor beyond, D slowly unwound the tape around his knuckles.

His bare chest was bathed in sweat, the muscles in his arms and shoulders ached, his breathing was heavy, but he was satisfied that the punching bag he’d been beating the life out of for the past hour had served its purpose. He’d be calmer now, his head clearer.

And he was definitely going to need that.

He left the gym with his duffel bag in hand and went to the adjoining multiroomed thermae, where warm spring waters bubbled up naturally from the bedrock far below. He was alone in the baths at this hour, but he didn’t bother with his usual postworkout soak. He got himself clean as quickly as possible, dried off, and dressed, then, after a quick side trip to stash the duffel in his footlocker in the private quarters of the Bellatorum, set out for the sunken church.

On the way, he burned Eliana’s note with a lighter and let the ashes drift to the ground.

No one would miss him at this hour. The Bellatorum were allowed personal time prior to the Purgare, and in any case, Celian, Lix, and Constantine—all now healed—had decided to play with a quartet of nubile young Electi the King had grown bored with and gifted them for their pleasure.

Our pleasure, he thought grimly. But I’m not interested in anything other than what I’m going to meet now.

Twenty minutes later he’d wound through the maze of catacombs and stood silent in the shadows of the sunken church, waiting for her beside a crumbling stone column next to the corridor that led deep into the bowels of the catacombs he’d just emerged from. He stood there breathing, feeling his heart pump in his chest, feeling anticipation clench the muscles deep in his belly.

He felt ravenous. Exultant. Alive.

He sensed rather than heard her approach. She was silent as midnight but carried with her a tangible