The Devil's Labyrinth

CHAPTER 25

RYAN FINISHED THE last of the algebra problems, closed his math book, and stretched his cramped muscles. If he were still at home, he’d go out and run a few blocks before he went to bed, but a glance at the clock told him it was only twenty minutes until lights out. But even if there was enough time, he didn’t really want to run up and down Beacon Hill, at least not just before going to bed. Sighing, he picked up the Catholic History text and flipped to the first of the pages that Melody had flagged for him after dinner.

He could feel his eyes getting heavy with just the first paragraph but steeled himself to keep going. You don’t get into Princeton with anything less than A’s, he reminded himself. But in Catholic History? What was that about? Wasn’t it the same as real history? Not that it made any difference — in this case, at least, it was only the grade that counted. Besides, there wasn’t anything else to do until Clay came out of the bathroom and he’d have his turn to shower.

Taking a deep breath he finished the first of the highlighted paragraphs — which seemed to be trying to defend the Spanish Inquisition the same way Father Sebastian had this morning — and turned to the next section, which looked like it was going to have something to do with satanism. When his cell phone vibrated and he saw Melody Hunt’s name on the caller ID, he happily pushed the book aside.

“Well, speak of the devil,” he said.

If Melody got his attempt at humor, she ignored it. “Ryan, Sofia’s not back in our room yet,” she said, and even over the bad cellular connection, Ryan could hear the worry in her voice. “I went looking for Sister Mary David but couldn’t find her. And the nun in the admin office said that Sofia was in the infirmary.”

“The infirmary?” Ryan echoed.

“Yes! But when I asked what was wrong with her, the nun told me it was none of my concern, and when I called the infirmary, nobody even answered!”

“What do you mean, they didn’t answer?”

“Just that! There wasn’t anybody there!”

“Maybe they were taking care of Sofia,” Ryan suggested. “If she’s sick, or cut herself or something, they might just be too busy to answer the phone.”

“But I’m worried!” Melody insisted, her voice trembling.

“Can’t you just go to the infirmary and ask to see her?”

“No,” Melody wailed. “They have rules about visitors, and even if they didn’t, it’s almost lights out.”

Ryan thought for a moment, fingering the edges of the textbook he didn’t really want to read. “How about if I go? Even if I don’t make it back in time and get caught, I can pretend I was coming back from the library, and got lost.”

“Would you really do that?” Melody asked.

“Why not?” Ryan countered, putting more bravado into his voice than he was really feeling. “I mean, what are they going to do, kick me out?” Melody’s silence was enough to tell him that she thought that might very well be exactly what they’d do. “Besides,” he went on. “I’m not going to get caught.” Before Melody could try to talk him out of it, Ryan snapped his phone closed, stuck his head in the bathroom to tell Clay he’d be back before lights out, and stuffed his map of the school into his pocket.

† † †

Less than two minutes later he was at the door to the infirmary, which occupied half of the second floor of a building that looked like it might once have been a private home, but had been absorbed by the school so long ago that most of its original rooms had long since vanished. And all Ryan found at the top of the main staircase was a door.

A locked door, with a frosted glass panel.

And no light behind the panel.

Black-edged gold letters informed him that the infirmary was open daily from 7AM to 3PM. There was also an emergency phone number, which Ryan wasn’t about to dial.

Instead he called Melody back.

“There’s nobody here,” he said as soon as she answered. “The door’s locked and all the lights are off.”

“There has to be somebody there. If Sofia’s there, somebody has to be there,” Melody protested. “If Sofia’s sick, or got hurt or something, they wouldn’t just turn the lights out and leave her by herself!”

“Well, unless there’s some other way in besides the front door—”

“There is another way in!” Melody broke in. “Oh, God, why didn’t I think of it before? The back way!”

“Back way?” Ryan repeated. “What are you talking about? There aren’t any other doors here, and there aren’t any on the main floor, either.”

“You have to go though the basements,” Melody told him. “Can you make it to the dining hall without getting caught?”

“Yeah.”

“Then meet me there,” Melody told him. “Right across the hall from the big dining room there’s a door that leads to the stairs to the basements. I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”

This time it was Melody who broke the connection, and for an instant Ryan was tempted to call her back and tell her it was too dangerous — she was sure to get caught. But even as the thought came to him, he rejected it, certain that Melody was already on her way and that no matter what he said, she was going to finish what he’d begun. Putting the phone back in his pocket, he started toward the dining hall. If he hurried, he’d barely make it before lights out.

After that, they’d just have to take their chances.

† † †

Melody was already waiting when Ryan got to the dining hall, holding the door ajar. As he slipped through and she pulled the door closed behind him, he checked the faintly glowing hands of his watch. They were now officially breaking the rules, and if they got caught, he might be able to plead ignorance, but Melody would be in serious trouble. “Maybe we ought to just go back to the dorms,” Ryan said. “What if the nun didn’t know what she was talking about?”

Melody shook her head. “She knew. And if they’d taken Sofia to the hospital, why wouldn’t she tell me?”

“Maybe she just got it wrong,” Ryan suggested.

Melody shook her head again. “Not Sister Frances. She never gets anything wrong — she’s the only reason Father Laughlin can keep his job. She keeps track of everything for him.” She started down the stairs. “Have you been down in the tunnels yet?” Now it was Ryan who shook his head. “There’s hardly any light, so watch your step. But once you get to know them, the tunnels are the fastest way to get around the school, especially if you’re going somewhere you’re not supposed to.

“C’mon,” Melody told him, glancing back over her shoulder. “It’s not far. Down these steps, under the administration building and then the infirmary. All we have to do is go up the old back stairs that nobody ever uses anymore. I don’t think anyone but the kids even knows they’re there.” She headed on down the stairs, and after only a second or two of hesitation, Ryan gripped the handrail and followed.

At the foot of the stairs a tunnel led off in either direction. A dim light glowed off to the left, but Melody turned to the right, where it seemed to Ryan that there was nothing but blackness.

She took his hand and led him forward. “Don’t worry,” she whispered. “I know exactly where we are, and I know exactly how far we have to go.”

Ryan’s heart started beating a little faster as she led him away from the light, but he told himself it was the excitement of holding her hand that was making his pulse speed up, not any kind of discomfort with the darkness.

They moved straight down the narrow corridor for several yards, then came to a second corridor, and Melody turned left. A few moments later she turned right again, and then, as the darkness started to make Ryan feel almost dizzy, he lost track of the next turns and didn’t even try to keep track of how many steps he’d taken. If he lost his hold on Melody’s hand, or if it turned out she didn’t really know where they were going—

He put the thought out of his mind, not even wanting to think about the possibility of being lost down here in the tangle of dark corridors that seemed to lead nowhere. His heart was pounding now, and it seemed like it was getting harder and harder to breathe.

Then, as tendrils of panic were starting to twist around Ryan, Melody suddenly spoke.

“We’re almost there.”

“So far, so good,” Ryan muttered, hoping his near-panic wouldn’t show in his voice. “Is it really stuffy down here or—” he began, but Melody stopped so quickly he ran right into her.

“Shh!” she hissed, her fingers tightening on his hand.

Ryan leaned close so he was whispering into her ear. “What is it?”

“I heard—” Melody began, but then fell instantly silent.

This time, Ryan heard it, too.

A faint scraping sound, as if a door were brushing against the stone floor.

But was it opening, or closing?

And where was it?

Ryan strained his ears, but couldn’t tell if it came from in front of or behind them.

“What should we do?” Ryan whispered.

“Shh,” Melody repeated. “Listen.”

Ryan stood absolutely still, trying not to breathe at all, ears straining, but heard nothing. Now, though, it wasn’t just the darkness that felt like it was closing in on him, but the walls themselves.

He shivered involuntarily as his whole body suddenly broke out in a cold sweat.

All he wanted to do was run.

Run, and find the closest stairs that would lead him up and out of this labyrinth, into the clear, cool night air.

Melody was moving again, and Ryan forced his panic down once more, following her down what now felt like an endless corridor.

Endless, and closing further in on him with every second that passed.

It went on for what seemed like hours, the darkness so absolute that Ryan began to see things he knew couldn’t be there at all.

Tiny lights winked at him, always vanishing as he turned to look at them.

He felt things close to him in the darkness, things he didn’t want to imagine, let alone see.

His panic was once more building toward the breaking point when Melody suddenly stopped again.

“Okay,” she whispered. “We’re here. There are some stairs just to the left, and the infirmary is at the top of them.”

Ryan wanted to push his way past her and run up the stairs, but held his growing terror of the darkness in check, letting her lead him to the foot of the stairs.

Then, just as he raised his foot to take that first step up, they heard another sound.

A footstep!

Then another!

Then more. And not just one person, either, but at least two.

And they were coming toward them, every step echoing louder.

Melody froze for an instant, then moved closer to Ryan until her lips were at his ear. “Follow me, and press against the wall.” She said it so softly he barely heard her. A second later he felt her pulling him past the stairs, deeper into the darkness. His heart thundering, he held his breath as if any movement, even of his lungs, might betray them. He pressed himself against the wall, Melody beside him, her hand clinging to his.

They waited.

The footsteps drew nearer until Ryan was certain that whoever was there was not only coming directly toward them, but was about to run right into them.

The steps grew louder, and now Ryan could almost feel the presence of whoever was hidden in the blackness.

He steeled himself, waiting.

And then, at the last possible instant, the steps paused.

Ryan held perfectly still. Had they been heard? Had some tiny noise betrayed them? He waited, certain that at any second a flashlight would come on, blinding him as certainly as the darkness blinded him, but exposing him as well.

Exposing him, and Melody, too.

They would be caught.

And there was nothing he could do.

Silently, Ryan began to pray.

And the steps began again.

But no longer coming toward them. No! Now the steps were going up, climbing the stairs they had been about to climb themselves!

His heart still pounding, Ryan slowly exhaled. A moment later a glow of light emerged from the stairwell. Like a June bug drawn to light, Ryan moved toward the base of the stairs. Melody, still gripping his hand in her own, stayed so close behind him that he could feel the warmth of her breath on the back of his neck.

Stopping just short of the doorway to the staircase, Ryan listened. The footsteps were still audible, but sounded muffled, and when he finally risked a quick look up the stairs, he understood why. The stairs were built around a well, and whoever was climbing them had already made at least one turn.

Ryan’s mind raced. Either they could go back the way they’d come, groping through the suffocating darkness, or they could sneak up the stairs, where there would be a way out that didn’t involve having to pick their way through the maze of subterranean tunnels.

And there was the chance of finding out who else had been down here tonight.

The thought of the darkness — and the terrible claustrophobia that had gripped him — was enough to make up his mind for him. As the footsteps above grew fainter, Ryan started up the stairs, with Melody silently following.

After two turns they came to the first floor landing. A door — unlocked — led into a broad hallway at the end of which was a pair of old-fashioned double doors with panic bars — the kind that could only be locked from outside. And even from where they were, Ryan could see the school’s huge interior courtyard through the glass of the double doors.

They were safe.

But above them, the footsteps had stopped, and now Ryan could hear muffled voices. The words themselves were inaudible, but one of the voices sounded worried, another impatient.

And Melody, her back to the wall so she was almost perfectly invisible from the well above, unless someone leaned over and looked straight down, had moved past him, and was sidling rapidly up toward the next turn. Ryan caught up with her just as she came to the intermediate landing, where she stopped. Pointing upward, she silently mouthed a single word: “Infirmary!”

Ryan peered upward to see the shape of a man, his shoulders draped in the cassock and stole of a priest, standing with his back to the railing around the stairwell.

Then, as they watched, the area above brightened as a light — apparently inside the infirmary — went on. The man turned, and for a terrible moment Ryan was sure he was going to look down. But instead, another shape appeared.

Another head, this one belonging to someone the man was carrying in his arms — someone who was unconscious. And though they got no more than a glimpse of the person the man was carrying, both Ryan and Melody knew instantly who it was.

Sofia.

Melody had been right.

Something was terribly wrong.

And there was nobody they could talk to about it.