The Devil's Labyrinth

PROLOGUE

SPAIN † 1975

THE OLDER BOY laid a gentle hand on the younger one’s shoulder. “Ready, Paquito?”

The younger boy choked back his tears and nodded, determined not to let his brother see how sad he was. Avoiding his brother’s gaze, he instead kept his eyes fastened on the box in his hands, the cardboard box he was clutching so hard its sides were starting to give way.

“Okay, then. Let’s go.” The older boy was armed with a rusty shovel from the old potting shed behind what used to be a stable, but was now a small apartment his parents rented out to vacationing Americanos. He led the way across the overgrown courtyard to a space between three palm trees, which hadn’t yet been choked by the foliage that always seemed to grow back faster than even both brothers could cut it. “Here, okay?”

The smaller boy eyed the spot carefully, but then his gaze shifted to the small grotto that was almost invisible in the deep shadows of the farthest corner of the courtyard. “No,” he said, his voice soft but certain. “Over there. Next to the Blessed Virgin.”

The elder brother sighed, but headed toward the tall statue of Santa Maria. Glancing back at the house, he saw their mother standing in the doorway, her wild hair done up in a red cloth, a cleaning rag in her hand. For a moment he thought she was going to call out to them, but instead she merely shrugged, returning to her work even before he sank the shovel into the soil and lifted out the first clod of earth. “Good,” he said. “The Virgin will look after Pepe.”

“Do you think I should have made a sudario?” the smaller boy asked, his voice suddenly anxious.

“You only need a shroud for a person,” his brother told him.

Barely hearing his brother, the younger boy opened the box and looked inside at the large, lifeless body of the iguana that had been his pet for more than three years. Practically as long as he could remember.

His finger trembled as he stroked the smooth skin of the lizard’s leg, but now that he was dead, Pepe felt completely different than he had only yesterday.

He felt — dead.

But it was all right. Jesus would take care of him, just like the nuns said Jesus would take care of everybody. Except maybe not, because the nuns also said Jesus only took care of Catholics and everybody else went to—

Infierno.

He could barely bring himself to say the word, even to himself, and suddenly he felt himself burning with a heat even more intense than that of the Spanish summer afternoon.

Then, just as he was putting the lid back on the old shoe box that was his pet’s coffin, his brother’s shovel hit something.

Something hard.

But not a rock. Something different.

Something metal.

The older boy dropped to his knees.

The younger boy set the iguana in the protective shade of the courtyard wall and watched as his brother dug with his fingers, then lifted out a tarnished box with what looked like the outline of a cross on its lid.

“It’s for me,” the younger boy breathed. “A gift from the Virgin for giving her the body of Pepe.”

The older boy smiled at his little brother. “You know what?” he asked, seeing that the boy’s tears seemed finally to have dried. “I think you just might be right!” Brushing the dirt from the box, he glanced back at the house once more, just to make sure their mother wasn’t watching, then carefully set the object he’d unearthed aside. “Take Pepe out of the box.”

“Out of the box?” the smaller boy echoed.

“Yes, hurry, before Mama comes.”

His brow furrowed, the small boy lifted the body of his pet out of the shoe box and laid him in the dirt hole his brother had dug. At the same time the other boy placed the object he’d taken from the earth into the shoe box and replaced its lid.

The older boy put his hands together and bowed his head. “Santa Maria,” he whispered, “look after our friend.” Both boys crossed themselves, and a moment later, the hole was once again filled with soil and tamped down so the grave was nearly invisible.

“Do not tell anyone what we found in the garden,” the older boy said as they stood up.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s our secret, at least until we find out what’s inside. Come on. You go in the kitchen door, and I’ll take the box and put the shovel away, then meet you upstairs. In your room. Okay?”

Some of his grief assuaged by the excitement of this conspiracy with his brother, the boy nodded eagerly, and set off toward the house.

Their mother, humming along with the radio, stopped her youngest child at the door. She hugged him close, kissed the top of his head, then stroked his hair away from his forehead. “Mi pequeño,” she murmured. “You know he’s gone to be with Jesus and the Holy Mother.”

“Si, Mama,” the boy said, though he wasn’t really sure she was right, at least not if what the nuns had said was true.

When she finally released him, he ran up the stone stairs to the floor above and went to his room, where his brother was already waiting for him, the object they’d dug up sitting on his bed. Where the shovel had struck the box, the boy could see a glint of silver.

Carefully, his brother worked the cover loose until he was able to lift it from the box. Inside, a wooden dowel protruded from the top of a disintegrating cloth bag.

“Be very gentle,” the older boy said as his brother reached for the object, nodding, but even as his trembling fingers touched the bag, it began to fall apart.

“You do it,” the little boy said, jerking his hand away.

His brother picked away the rotting threads of fabric to reveal what looked like some kind of yellowish paper wrapped around the wooden dowel.

Then, when he picked the object up, the wood crumbled to dust just as had the fabric that wrapped it.

But the scroll was of a hardier material — though it looked thin and fragile, it remained intact.

“Piel curtido,” he whispered. Sheepskin. He picked up the scroll and unrolled it just far enough so they could both see that it was inscribed with an ornate design.

“A treasure map,” the younger boy breathed. “I bet that’s what it is.”

His brother opened the scroll a little farther, revealing words inside the parchment’s border. “I can’t read it,” he said. “It’s written in some other language. A different alphabet.” He rolled it back up and put it back in the box. “I think it’s very old.”

“It’s mine,” the younger boy declared.

“It’s ours,” the older boy corrected, replacing the worn and tarnished lid on the box. “But you can keep it hidden in your closet.”

† † †

Late that night, alone in his room but still awake, the younger of the brothers lay in bed, wondering at the meaning of the box and the scroll. It was certainly a gift from the Holy Mother — of that he was sure. After all, hadn’t she directed him to bury Pepe where the object lay, when his brother had wanted to dig the grave in the midst of the palm trees?

The box and its mystery was his reward for listening to the Holy Mother and following her instructions.

He slipped out of bed and soundlessly opened his closet door. He retrieved the box and scurried with it back to his bed. By the light of his bedside lamp he worked the top free as he had seen his brother do.

Inside, the golden sheepskin scroll seemed almost to glow with a light from within. He carefully wiped his perspiring fingers on his pajamas and then ever so carefully lifted the scroll and unrolled it.

Symbols he didn’t understand covered it in neat rows, and though some of the ancient parchment was stained, none of the ink had faded at all.

As he gazed at the indecipherable words, he realized that whatever they were, they were meant for him.

Only him.

They had been buried for a very long time — he couldn’t even imagine how long — and they had been waiting for him. And when the Holy Mother had seen that he was ready, she had guided him to the place and given him this gift.

The boy replaced the scroll and the lid.

His finger traced the crucifix on the lid. Except that it wasn’t really a crucifix at all — it looked more like the place where a crucifix had once been, but had been pried away, like a stone removed from its setting. He held the box closer to the light and examined it more carefully. Yes, there had once been a cross attached to the lid, but it was gone.

But where was it? Perhaps if he prayed very hard, the Holy Mother would lead him to the crucifix, too, and then he could put it back in the lid of the box, where it belonged.

“Ave Maria,” he whispered. Then, cradling the box, he moved to the window and gazed out at the statue in the grotto at the far end of the courtyard. The moon was full, and the face of the Holy Mother was bathed in a light as silvery as the box he held. Above her, millions of stars filled the night sky.

“I will learn to read this, Holy Mother,” the boy whispered. “I will learn to read this and do whatever it is you wish me to do.”

KUWAIT † 1991

Yellow.

Everything was yellow. Not just the desert; not just the sun. Everything.

The sky.

The heat itself.

All of it — yellow.

It had been bearable until a few moments ago. Until then the sky, at least, had been blue — a pale blue, not the brilliant blue of the sky at home, but at least the right color. Then, only a few moments ago, it had changed. The wind had picked up, a stain had spread across the sky, a stain the color of camel urine.

As the sandstorm raced across the desert the convoy ground to a halt, the transport trucks themselves seeming to hunker low to the ground against the howling force that swept toward them. It came at a terrifying speed. The men who couldn’t see it — the ones deep at the front of the truck, where at least there was a layer of canvas to protect them from the pale yellow nightmare — even they looked as if they were trying to shrink within themselves, to withdraw their extremities as might a turtle, were it so foolish to be caught in a gathering maelstrom.

But as the yellow wall surrounded the convoy, then caved in upon it, there was a strange beauty to the storm — a beauty so rare that the man in the very back of the truck rose from his defensive crouch, his hands gripping his camera. Swinging his legs over the back of the truck, he dropped to the ground, then scuttled into its lee. The wind was blocked just enough by the truck for him to straighten up, but its force was still strong enough to tear at his face.

He ignored the pain, pressed the shutter release.

He could feel the camera vibrate slightly in his hands as the film advanced.

Twisting first one way then another, he kept his finger on the release, catching one yellow image after another. Then, in the corner of the viewfinder, he thought he saw a shape.

A man?

He turned toward it, trying to center it in his lens, but even as the image began to shift, he realized his mistake.

Realized it, and tried to rectify it.

Too late.

The force slammed into his chest as he dropped to the ground.

The camera fell from his hands, bounced, and skidded under the truck.

Peering down at his chest — which somehow didn’t seem to hurt at all, despite the force of the blow — he wondered what it was that had struck him. A moment later, as a dark red stain blossomed on his khaki shirt, he knew.

He tried to speak, but his words sank in the blood that filled his mouth, and when he tried to spit, the howling wind slashed back at him, adding dust, grit, and sand to the mix of blood and saliva.

As he tried to swallow the whole grotesque mixture, fast enough at least to catch his breath, the truth of what was happening slowly sank in.

He was dying.

Dying here in the desert with the wind and sand howling around him. He cried out for help, but knew it was already far too late.

A sense of calm began to overtake him, as if the eternal tranquility of death was already embracing him.

He choked, coughed again, and struggled for the next breath.

A breath that seemed hours — an eternity — away.

Make peace.

The thought came softly to him amid the twin storms that were now raging around him, one as his organs struggled to survive, the other bent only on grinding him down into the sand that surrounded him.

Make peace.

There was no pain at all, but now his mind refused to focus. Too much of his attention was being demanded by his failing body, when already his spirit knew there were more important things at hand. His body suddenly seemed to be nothing more than an inconvenience, interfering with all that was truly important.

He had things to do.

He needed to pray.

He needed to make peace.

Yet this was not the way he was supposed to die.

Not so young, not with so much left to do.

But it was happening again.

He was dying like his father had died.

Like his grandfather had died.

The roar of the storm faded from his ears as his mind began turning away from his body until he finally knew that his ruined body and its discomfort were no longer of any concern to him at all. He felt a softness, a lightness of being.

Make peace.

Though almost beyond his control, his fingers made their way to his chest, to the crucifix that had been worn by all the generations of his family.

The crucifix that was supposed to have protected them.

But it had never protected any of them.

Never helped any of them to survive, to see a child grow up, a grandchild born.

With the last of his physical energy, he tore the thing from around his neck.

Then he felt hands on him, and a soldier’s face was close to his, shouting over the howling wind.

But it was too late.

Far too late.

He pressed the crucifix into the soldier’s hand, and felt eternal peace begin spreading through his soul.

“Protect…,” he whispered. “…son…”

He closed his eyes and gave himself to death.