The Devil's Labyrinth

CHAPTER 61

IT WAS THE dank cold that woke Ryan.

He’d gone to bed early, leaving Clay Matthews in the common room with José Alvaréz and Darren Bender. He’d opened the window to let the cool spring air into the dorm room, but it hadn’t been cold enough to add an extra blanket to the bed. But now the cold had permeated his whole body, and he felt like he’d never be warm again.

He groped for the covers, but all he touched was something cold and hard and damp, and as the last vestiges of sleep fell away he realized he wasn’t in bed at all.

He wasn’t even in his dorm room.

He was somewhere deep in the tunnels beneath the school, and he was by himself, and he had no memory of how he’d gotten here. But even as he tried to figure out what might have happened, he realized he was moving. As if of their own volition, his legs were carrying him through the tunnel, moving slowly, but deliberately. And when he tried to stop, to pause for a moment to figure out where he was, nothing happened.

He simply kept walking, moving through the dark passage like a zombie, unable to stop, unable even to choose which direction to take when he reached a spot where two passages intersected. But finally, after the third turn, he knew.

Ahead was a door, standing open, yellow light spilling through. A moment later he was gazing into the small chapel hidden deep in the bowels of St. Isaac’s.

And on the floor was the strange labyrinth that had been inscribed around Jeffery Holmes’s coffin.

“Come in, Ryan,” Father Sebastian said, his voice soft.

Ryan didn’t want to go in. All he wanted to do was turn away and run back through the tunnels until he found his way out, found his way back to his room. But even as he struggled to make himself turn away from the open doorway, the two candles flickering on the altar drew him in.

Father Sebastian was standing in the center of the labyrinth, and directly above him hung the enormous crucifix, suspended upside down, the face of Christ seeming to leer at Ryan. Half a dozen candles set around the periphery of the chapel made shadows dance everywhere, and it was a moment or two before Ryan realized the shadows were cast by Sofia Capelli and Melody Hunt, who were standing at two of the entrances to the labyrinth.

Melody turned and smiled at him and held out her hand.

And though he still wanted to turn away — wanted it more than anything else in the world — his legs refused to obey his mind. He took three steps into the room, and found himself at the third entrance to the labyrinth.

A strange tune began, a slow pavane that seemed to come from inside his own head. The beat grew more insistent, throbbing through his body, and Ryan found himself beginning the dance that would end only when he, along with Melody and Sofia, were at the center of the maze.

At last they stood in a triangle around Father Sebastian, and Ryan felt his right arm rise, reaching out until the tips of his fingers touched Melody Hunt’s. A current almost like electricity flowed through him at Melody’s touch, and he felt a dark energy begin gathering around him, flowing into the room as if emanating from the walls themselves.

It was if the very stones in the building had begun to vibrate.

Father Sebastian gazed up at the twisted face of the Christ suspended above him, his eyes glowing as if from some inner flame. “Tonight we combine this trinity into a single being,” he intoned. “A being whose power is far greater than yours — a being who answers only to me.”

His voice dropped, and he whispered a few more words. Sofia Capelli reached out to Ryan, and once again he found himself powerless to resist the impulse to reach back to her. As their fingers touched, the energy in the room redoubled and Ryan’s skin began to tingle, he felt unsteady, and then a wave of nausea washed over him.

As quickly as it came, it was gone, and when it had passed, so too had the unsteadiness and the tingling on his skin.

All that was left was a feeling of power.

That, and an eagerness to hear whatever Father Sebastian was about to tell him.

Father Sebastian took an ancient scroll from the sleeve of his cassock, unrolled the yellowed parchment and began to read. Though he’d never heard the words before, Ryan’s lips, along with those of Melody and Sofia, were forming the phrases in unison with Father Sebastian, and soon their voices began to rise filling the chapel with a hypnotic chant. As their voices rose, the darkness began to swirl around them until the three of them formed a vortex around Father Sebastian.

Their voices continued to rise, and now the chapel itself seemed to be spinning around them. Still their voices soared higher until the walls themselves began to tremble.

Then, as they howled out the last syllable of the chant, a wailing scream erupted from directly above Father Sebastian, and when he looked up, Ryan once again saw the figure of Christ hanging upside down on the suspended cross. The Savior’s mouth was open, and his entire body was writhing in agony. From the wound in his side, blood was streaming, and as Ryan stared upward a few drops hit his face.

His skin burned as if the blood were glowing embers.

Now Ryan’s own hands were bleeding again, his blood once more mixing with Melody’s and Sofia’s.

Father Sebastian’s voice fell silent, and he rolled up the parchment and slipped it back in the sleeve of his cassock. He approached Sofia. His hands, too, were bleeding now, and he held them out to Sofia, laying them on each of her cheeks. “It is through my blood that you live and you are bound to my bidding,” he said.

“I will obey,” Sofia whispered.

Father Sebastian turned to Melody and placed his hands on her face, repeating the words as blood flowed from his palms down Melody’s cheeks.

“I will obey,” Melody said quietly.

Now Father Sebastian was facing Ryan, gazing directly into his eyes, and when his bleeding palms came up to press against the flesh of Ryan’s face, a great exaltation flooded into Ryan, and, as he listened to the priest’s words, he knew what his answer would be.

“It is through my blood that you exist and you are bound to my bidding,” Father Sebastian intoned, his eyes still locked on Ryan.

Ryan stood perfectly still, and his voice rose from his throat, confident and strong: “I will obey.”

Father Sebastian broke the circle and moved to the altar, where three packages lay neatly wrapped. “Here, then, are your vestments for tomorrow,” Father Sebastian said as Ryan and Melody and Sofia followed him from the labyrinth. “Put them on, and then I will instruct you as to exactly what you will do tomorrow.”

Ryan opened his package and took out the crimson cassock, slipping it on over the pajamas that were all he wore. It felt heavy and bulky under the arms, but he ignored the weight and put on the surplice, whose lacy cuffs concealed those of the cassock itself.

Not a single drop of blood from either his hands or his face stained the white surplice when he was finished.

“May Allah be pleased with you all,” Father Sebastian said softly when all three of them were fully clad in their vestments. “Radiya ’Llahu ’anhum. Glory be to God, the one God, the true God!” He closed his eyes and swayed back and forth, then whispered, “Tomorrow it will end, and my ancestors will be avenged. Subhana wa ta’ala.”

As Ryan and Melody and Sofia watched and listened, the priest showed them how to arm the bombs concealed within the cassocks, and where the trigger buttons were concealed in their sleeves.

Finally, he told them the exact moment during tomorrow’s public Mass at which they would press the triggers, ending not only the life of the Pope of Rome, but of themselves as well.

“Subhana wa ta’ala,” Father Sebastian repeated. “Allah is exalted above weakness and indignity.”