The Rome Prophecy

49

Tom sleeps for several hours.

He wakes curled up in Valentina’s bed, still thinking about a hundred things all at once.

Valentina.

Temples. Goddesses. Cults.

Valentina.

Triangles. Churches. Corpses.

Valentina.

He’s in that state of warm fuzziness where he could fall back asleep, or – with considerable willpower – get himself together.

He thinks he should grab a coffee and try to do something with the remainder of the day before she comes home.

But he doesn’t.

Sleep wins.

Tom drifts back into even deeper dreams.

He sees the tall black necks of gondolas bobbing like black swans through the mists of Venice. Somehow the thick fog has rolled inland from the lagoon and is filling the alleyways and shops and restaurants. Everyone is choking and drowning in the gathering darkness. He sees himself with Valentina in a cafe, and the dark fog is creeping dangerously towards them. They’re holding hands like Hollywood lovers and running from the relentless sea of smoke.

It’s all so strange, and yet so real that he actually feels like he’s choking.

Then he realises he is.

He sits bolt upright in bed.

Gasps.

His lungs are filled with smoke.

The apartment is covered in blackness.

Thick, deadly smoke is pouring into the bedroom.

He jumps from the quilt and resists the urge to open the window. If there’s a fire outside the room, then the draught will only fan it.

He drops to the floor and looks through the crack beneath the door.

Red and orange flickering lights.

Flames!

The apartment is several floors up. There are no trees close to the window. No fire escape. The only way out is through the lounge and the front door.

Tom’s eyes are stinging. His throat is raw. The lack of oxygen is already making him weak as he tugs the quilt off the bed and steps into the small en suite. He quickly soaks the quilt in the shower and wraps several wet towels around his head and hands. His feet are bare and he knows there’s no hope of finding his shoes.

He returns to the bedroom and very carefully opens the door to the rest of the apartment.

Palls of dark smoke and fire seem to turn like dragons and swirl towards him.

For a moment he’s thrown.

He’d expected the seat of the blaze to be confined to the kitchen, no doubt caused by him forgetting to turn something off on the cooker.

But that’s not the case.

The flames have already engulfed the entrance area. A wall of fire stands between him and the safety of the front door.

There’s no more time to think.

Wrapped in the quilt, he runs into the heart of the blaze.

The front door is burned to cinders.

He crashes through the charred frame, ripping into a hinge as he stumbles out on to the concrete landing.

The quilt is on fire.

Tom sheds it.

One of the towels wrapped around his hands is burning like a torch. He drops it and steps away.

The fresh, cold air fills his lungs so sharply that it hurts.

People are running past him. Screaming. Carrying children in their arms or on their backs. They’re bowling each other over in the crush to get down the narrow stairwell and out into the street.

Tom runs barefoot after them. Glass cracks beneath the soles of his feet.

By the time he reaches the safety of the street, most of the apartment block is ablaze.

Some streets away are the frantic klaxons of approaching fire engines.

Only now does he care about the fact that he’s completely naked.