The Rome Prophecy

131

Valentina swings open the heavy iron door and slowly steps into the child’s cell. ‘I’m not going to hurt you. You can trust me. I’m going to take you out of here.’

It’s a gamble the child’s ready to take.

She runs to the policewoman, grabs her waist and presses herself tightly against her.

It breaks Valentina’s heart to see such desperation.

She strokes the youngster’s hair and lets her cling for a moment.

From the grip around her, it’s clearly been a long time since the kid felt safe in someone’s arms.

She stoops a little and puts her hands either side of the child’s dirty and bruised face. ‘My name is Valentina. I’m in the Carabinieri and I’m going to look after you.’ She strokes her cheek tenderly. ‘What’s your name?’

Tears well up in the youngster’s big brown eyes. She shakes her head.

‘It’s okay, you can tell me. What are you called, sweetheart?’

The child opens her mouth, but no words come out.

Valentina is about to ask again when the girl shows her teeth and jabs a finger pointedly to the back of her throat.

‘Oh my God!’ Valentina grabs her and hugs her tight. ‘You poor baby.’

Someone has cut out the child’s tongue.

Valentina tears up.

How could anyone do such a thing?

There’s a noise from the stairwell.

Footsteps coming their way.

The kid bolts from Valentina’s arms and disappears into the shadows.

She thinks about running after her, but instead rushes to where Shooter is laid out. She quickly grabs him under the arms and pulls him back and out of sight behind the stairwell.

The gate buzzes and clicks open.

Valentina listens intently.

The door clicks closed.

No voices.

One set of footsteps.

She draws the Glock from her waistband.

It’s a man.

Valentina recognises his hunched shoulders and thin outline.

Trench Coat.

Shooter’s radio unexpectedly crackles.

Trench Coat turns.

Valentina has no choice.

Her first shot hits him in the face.

The second blows a hole in the centre of his rib cage.

He hits the ground with a thump and Valentina sees something shimmer as it spills from him.

She runs to the body.

Handcuffs.

Her mind is working at warp speed.

She digs for the key in his pocket and runs to the gate at the foot of the stairs.

The cuffs won’t help her bypass the fingerprint scanner, but they will stop Shooter’s friends getting down. She clicks one of them to the gate and the other to the bars of the pillar, near the sensor.

Now she sets off after the kid.

But she’s not in her cell.

She must have run off during the shooting.

Valentina walks past the other cages.

Ahead in the darkness, off to the right, she sees a pool of light. A staircase, leading down.

There are no locked gates, no guards.

The stone steps lead to an open area of marble.

There’s a centrepiece made up of three identical waist-high statues of Cybele. They are arranged with their backs to each other to form a triangle.

Beyond the statues are two huge oak doors. Sitting beside them is the child from the cell, her head buried in her hands.

She looks up as she hears Valentina.

Instead of being comforted, she looks terrified.

Valentina realises she’s still holding the Glock.

She slides the gun into the back of her waistband. ‘Please, sweetheart, let me help you; let me look after you. If you do what I say and stay with me, everything will be all right.’

The kid stares intently into the policewoman’s eyes. She’s learned the hard way – the only way that abused children understand – that lies show in the eyes of adults long before they leave their mouths.

Valentina stretches out her hand and takes hold of the tiny fingers.

They’re icy cold.

She gives them a gentle squeeze, then covers them with both her own hands. ‘I’m going to call you Sweetheart until I learn your name.’ She lifts the chilly hand, kisses it and clasps it between her own palms. ‘We need to get you warmed up. When we get out of here, I promise you the biggest, creamiest hot chocolate drink that’s ever been made.’

The little girl smiles.

Valentina helps her stand.

They walk together to the giant doors and push one open.

The kid clings tight and becomes even more anxious.

Beyond the doors is a vast space.

Uneven in dimensions.

Scalene in proportions.

A temple.

The walls are decorated with rich and intricate woodland scenes from Phrygia, Crete, Turkey, Greece and Italy. All depict Cybele and her prophetesses.

The ceiling is as beautifully painted as that of the Sistine Chapel. The floor is covered in minuscule mosaics.

The whole place is lit by dozens of torches burning in triangular cones fixed on the walls.

Against the longest wall is a huge elevated altar covered in hundreds of multicoloured flower petals. Opposite, three metres off the ground, is what looks like a marble ledge. Valentina presumes it’s a pulpit for priests or priestesses.

In the middle of the temple floor there is a large triangular grid. Valentina doesn’t walk across it, but she peers down and can see that it’s a big drop. She knows enough about ancient religions to guess that this is a sacrificial pit.

A loud, dull thud makes her turn.

The heavy oak door they came through has swung shut.

There’s another sound.

Dull and repetitive.

Muffled.

Valentina thinks it’s coming from beneath her feet rather than outside the temple.

She struggles to place it.

It’s an even, almost rhythmical knocking noise, now so loud she really should be able to see what’s causing it.

But she can’t.

It stops as unexpectedly as it started.

But the peace lasts barely a second.

An even stranger noise starts.

A high-pitched buzz.

Not electronic. Something more natural.

The sound grows quickly.

More bass than treble.

The kind of noise you feel more than hear.

The kind of tone that makes your heart shake.

A black fountain erupts from the triangular pit.

It springs up as though someone has struck oil.

Valentina pulls Sweetheart close to her.

The spray spins high in the air, swirls like a typhoon and slowly starts to lose its shape.

It’s not oil.

It’s a dense cloud of frenzied flies.

Sarcophagidae.

Flesh flies.

Gruesome insects that feed on the dead. Mannerless little monsters that lay their eggs in corpses.

Valentina’s seen them many times.

But only under a microscope. Only dead and clamped between the metal teeth of a pathologist’s tweezers.

Never like this.

Never loose and wild and in their millions.