Out of the Ashes (26 page)

David had to laugh.

“Now, why would I go and do a stupid thing like that?”

Giovanni’s voice came from only a few feet behind them, his words uttered with an assurance that he was in control.

“Because if you don’t, I’m going to put a bullet in Serafina’s pretty little head.”

The deadly determination in his voice put David on guard. He wasn’t about to see if Giovanni would really go that far.

They were nearing the Amphitheatre entrance. Once outside, there would be little between them and the German camp. If David was going to act, he had to do it now. Without breaking his stride, he stuck his foot out in front of Sera, just enough to catch her ankle and trip her.

“Oh!” she cried as she went down.

David’s left arm shot out around her waist to grab her. As they stumbled together, his other hand scooped up a handful of dirt from the ground.

“What are you—”

He spun, tossing the dirt into Giovanni’s eyes.

“
Accidenti
a
te
!
” Damn you!

“Run!” David grabbed Sera’s arm and tugged her toward the
Palaestra
. A bullet ricocheted off the stone walls behind them, followed by another. Two shots, six more to go.

The sound of gunfire would no doubt bring anyone within earshot in this direction. If he could get Giovanni to waste all the bullets, they might have a fighting chance, providing he didn’t have another magazine on him.

Entering the large enclosure, they kept to the shadows of the colonnade. A quick glance revealed that Giovanni was close behind. He fired, hitting the column next to Sera and showering them with a rain of tiny bits of plaster. Three down, five to go.

David shoved Sera behind the next column, using it to shield them. He saw a shadow at the end of the row of pillars duck into an opening. This was their chance to make a run for it.

Grabbing Sera’s hand, he pulled her further down the walkway, ducking behind each column along the way, always watching the end to see if Giovanni reappeared. The main entrance to the
Palaestra
was just ahead. Once they reached it, they would be one block away from the
Via
dell’Abbondanza
, the main thoroughfare through the town. Hopefully, some tourists would be there by then.

David stopped at the archway and peered down the street. It was empty. Bad in that there were no crowds of tourists to disappear in. Good because there was also no sign of Giovanni.

“It’s clear. Come on.” Just as he stepped out into the sunlight, a shot rang out, hitting the wall beside his head.

“Damn!” David shoved Sera back in the archway. “He must have gone around. He cut us off.”

“We have to use the Amphitheatre entrance. It’s the only way out of this side of the ruins.”

David didn’t like it. It was too close to where Giovanni wanted them to be. Too close to the German camp. But they had no choice. Giovanni still had four shots left.

They ran back down the colonnade. David glanced over his shoulder as they reached the end and saw Giovanni’s dark form appear in the archway where they’d been standing only seconds before. He charged after them with fury in his eyes, the gun pointed straight at them.

“Hurry!” David shoved Sera ahead of him. “He’s right behind us.”

Another shot whizzed past as they sprinted down the old road. David thanked God that Giovanni was such a lousy shot. But even lousy shots got lucky sometimes.

As if on cue, a second bullet pinged off the wall to their right, barely missing Sera. Instinct made David pull her to the left, out of danger, but also away from their only way out of the ruins. Taking the only available cover, he yanked her into the darkness of the tunnel leading into the Amphitheatre just as another shot fired behind them. Seven. Only one bullet left.

He practically dragged her through the tunnel, panic making the light at the end look like a beacon of safety. Charging out into the sunlight, they took several strides before the momentum of their flight slowed down.

David looked around them with a sickening feeling. Bad idea. The place offered no protection. Unlike the last time they stood there, not a single tourist was in sight. They were alone in the arena. The entire area was open, with nowhere to hide. They’d never make it to the opposite side and the safety of the other tunnel in time.

David heard the muted sound of Giovanni’s footfalls on the stone-paved floor of the passageway and turned in time to see him charge out into the sunlight from the darkness of the tunnel. Giovanni’s steps slowed to a walk when he saw them standing there. He grinned as he stopped and took careful aim.

Spinning them around, David tried to shield Sera with his body. The last bullet whizzed by them, imbedding itself in the arena floor with a dull thud. His muscles relaxed as reality settled in. They were either very lucky, or Giovanni really was a crappy shot. Either way, somebody up above must have been looking out for them.

Easing his hold on Sera, David turned slowly to face Giovanni.

“That was eight. You’re out of bullets.”

Giovanni pulled the trigger again, and the echo of the empty click made Sera jump at his side. With an angry bellow, he heaved the gun through the air. David turned and ducked, covering Sera’s head with his arm as the heavy metal gun hit him in the back. Maybe he couldn’t shoot worth a damn, but Giovanni sure could throw with a wallop.

When David straightened and turned, the sun was glinting off the blade of a knife in Giovanni’s hand. The guy just wasn’t going to stop until one of them was hurt.

Or dead.

David slowly bent and pulled his own knife from his boot. Now they stood on equal ground. The two men began circling each other, like wolves closing in on their prey.

“Giovanni, it doesn’t have to be this way,” Sera pleaded from somewhere behind them.

Christ, he hoped she stayed out of the way. Hell, he wished she had the sense to run.

“Yes, it does,” Giovanni growled.

“Why? Why are you so intent on turning David in? Besides the money, what good will it do you?”

“I have to.” Giovanni lunged at David, slashing out with his knife.

David jumped back, and the blade sliced through the air.

“I have no choice,” Giovanni growled. “I have to prove my loyalty to them.”

“Why? You’re not German, and you’ve never been a Fascist.”

Giovanni spoke to Sera without ever taking his eyes off David. “You of all people should understand why.”

“No, I don’t understand. None of this makes any sense.”

“Because my grandmother was a Polish Jew.” Giovanni spat out the words, as if they tasted bitter and vile on his tongue.

David almost dropped his knife. Giovanni constantly taunted Sera about her mixed heritage, and the irony of that fact hung heavy in the air around them. Giovanni wasn’t a full-blooded Italian either.

However, Sera’s tainted blood wouldn’t send her to a concentration camp or the gas chamber if the Germans found out. Giovanni’s could very well be a death sentence if the wrong people discovered the truth. David always felt the man had an air of desperation about him, but he had never considered this possibility.

“That’s ridiculous,” Sera said. “That’s two generations back. The Germans won’t care.”

“I’m not going to take that chance. One drop of Jew blood is too much. I need a guarantee so they’ll know I’m loyal to the Reich.” Giovanni pointed his knife at David. “And he’s it.”

“Handing David over to the Germans won’t solve anything. You’ll still be who you are.” Sera’s pleading voice softened somewhere behind David. “I should know. It took me a long time to accept who I am.”

“I won’t go to a concentration camp. I can’t take that risk. He’s coming with me.”

“Over my dead body,” David said.

Giovanni’s eyes took on a crazed look, the black orbs losing any semblance of sanity.

“Well, if that’s the way it has to be…”

He charged at David, slashing his knife across David’s midsection. David hunched back, but the sharp edge still managed to slice through his shirt, grazing his stomach.

The roar of a distant crowd carried on the wind. David glanced at the stands, but they stood empty and barren.

He hardly had time to realize he’d been cut before Giovanni came at him again. David fought back out of reflex and self-preservation. Christ, he didn’t want to have to kill the man, especially not in front of Sera.

Giovanni changed tactics and thrust his knife down in a stabbing motion. David brought his knife up, blocking the strike. The daggers came together, and the hilts caught like fencing foils. But though the blades were shorter, they were no less deadly.

Cheers echoed behind him, but he didn’t dare look to see where they were coming from.

Giovanni twisted the joined knives in a wide arc, breaking the hold and sending David’s blade flying through the air.

They separated and circled once more. Giovanni came at him again, growling like an enraged bear, his knife raised.

David blocked the attack with one arm while he reached for the knife with the other, grabbing Giovanni’s hand in both of his. They wrestled, the weapon caught between them in a fierce tug of war. David refused to let go. If he did, he was a dead man.

All around them, the sound of thousands of feet stomping on stone reverberated through the arena. David tried to focus, to push away the phantom sounds in his head.

He clutched Giovanni’s wrist, struggling to pry the knife out of the man’s hand. He could smell the stench of sweat between them, his and Giovanni’s mixing in the air in a pungent odor of fear and desperation.

In the struggle, their joined hands twisted the knife around, the sharp blade disappearing in between their bodies. David felt the sickening give of flesh against steel.

Giovanni clutched at David’s sleeve, a look of surprise on his stunned face. Then his eyes rolled back in his head and his grip eased, his body going limp in David’s arms.

Lowering Giovanni to the ground, David released his hold on the knife protruding from the man’s chest and watched helplessly as blood seeped out from around the hilt to soak the white linen of Giovanni’s shirt.

David stood slowly and stared down at the blood on his hands. They seemed detached, as if they were no longer a part of his body. Thick crimson liquid dripped from his fingers to the sandy ground like red raindrops from an angry sky.

He heard the cheers of thousands echoing in his head, but when he looked up at the stands, no one was there.

Sera’s gasp behind him brought him back to reality. He turned to see her standing there, her hand covering her mouth, her eyes wide as she stared at him.

“Sera. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… I didn’t want to…”

For the second time that day, David heard a gun cock behind him.

“Put your hands above your head and turn around slowly.”

David did as he was told, turning to face four Italian police officers standing a few feet away, their guns aimed at his chest. Two of the men approached, each grabbing him by an arm.

As they forced his hands behind his back, David looked to Sera. She stood completely still, staring at him with a stunned expression on her pale face. The police placed handcuffs on his wrists, the click of the metal teeth ticking like a time bomb as the cuffs bit into his skin.

One of the officers knelt beside Giovanni’s limp form and checked for a pulse. He raised his gaze to his comrades and shook his head, indicating what David already knew.

Giovanni was dead.

Grabbing him by each arm, two of the officers escorted David toward the tunnel. He didn’t look back. He couldn’t bear the sight of Sera standing in the middle of the arena, silently watching the police lead him away.

The slamming of the cell door was jarring. He’d been ready for it, bracing himself for the sounds he knew would come—the bone-grinding clash of metal upon metal, the grate of a key turning in a lock to seal his fate. But prepared though he was, the sound ripped through his body like a gunshot when the metal door finally clanked shut.

He tried not to let his anxiety show, waiting until the guard left before he let out the breath he’d been holding. The musty, stale stench of damp concrete and old urine threatened to smother him. The walls seemed to close in on him, and it took all his willpower to keep from flinging out his arms in a vain attempt to hold them back.

God, he hated confining spaces. He always had.

Looking around at the small six-by-six-foot cell, he couldn’t believe how his life had turned upside down in a matter of hours. The possibility had always been in the back of his mind that he’d end up right where he was right now, only the crime would be espionage, not murder.

Italy had no death penalty for murder, just a life sentence behind bars similar to these. But David found that a small consolation. It was only a matter of time before the authorities looked into a past that didn’t exist and learned the truth about who he was.

Then he was as good as dead, because they did shoot spies here.

* * *

“Oh, this is terrible. What are we going to do?” Marsha paced the length of the living room and back, her thin hands twisting in her white apron until Hershel thought she might tear the material in two.

“I don’t know. It certainly throws a bit of a kink in things, doesn’t it?”

“A
kink
?” Marsha looked at him with disbelieving eyes. “A man is dead, and David is in jail for murder, and you call it a
kink
?” She closed her eyes and shook her head, then resumed her frantic pacing. “It’s a catastrophe, that’s what it is.”

“No,” he softly corrected her. “I think the volcano incident was a catastrophe. This is more like a mini-disaster.”

Marsha glared at him.

“Don’t play semantics with me. You know what I mean.” She marched over and flounced on the couch with a melodramatic flare, burying her face in her hands. “Oh, we are doomed.”

Hershel felt Marsha’s censure, even though she hadn’t come right out and said it was his fault. But she did blame him. He could tell. She might as well get it over with and reach over and slap him on the back of the head like she usually did when he messed things up.

If he could, he’d do it himself because he probably deserved it this time. He felt guilty that he hadn’t been paying close enough attention to the comings and goings at the site and had allowed Giovanni to slip past.

“It’s not like I could have stopped it.” Hershel tried his best to defend himself. “By the time I got there, Giovanni was already dead, and the police had arrested David.”

“Oh, this not good.” Marsha looked up from her lap. “
Smithers
is going to have a fit when he finds out about this.”

The mention of their boss’s name made Hershel squirm in his overstuffed easy chair. Then, as an idea came to him, his mood brightened a bit.

“Hey, you don’t suppose this is another one of those tests he’s been putting them through, do you? If that’s the case, we might not be in too much trouble.”

Marsha immediately doused all hope.

“Oh, I don’t think so. He prepared us for the test when the Germans came looking for David. I certainly think he would have alerted us to something as important as Giovanni’s murder.”

“It wasn’t murder!” Hershel felt compelled to stand up for David. “It was self-defense.”

She shook her head at him again, correcting him without saying a word. He really hated when she did that.

“I know that, and you know that. But the police don’t. They’ve arrested him for murder.”

“Well, we’ll just have to wait until the police figure out the truth and let him go.”

“But what if they don’t? They know he and Giovanni hated each other. And with Serafina the only witness to what happened in the Amphitheatre, it doesn’t look good for David. If there’s a trial, he could be found guilty. He might go to prison for the rest of his life. What will become of them then?”

Hershel looked at his wife. He’d never seen her look so hopeless, so fragile. She was always the strong one. She was the one who always knew what to do.

He walked over to sit beside her on the couch. Pulling her into his arms, he hugged her frail shoulders.

“There now, dear. We’ll find a way to get David out. I know we will.”

But in the back of his mind, Hershel worried that they might not. And if they failed again, he doubted David and Serafina would get another chance.

* * *

Sera perched on the small balcony outside her apartment window, the ledge so narrow she had to sit sideways to fit. The night seemed so peaceful and quiet, a stark contrast to the emotions warring inside her.

She felt numb inside. She had never watched someone die, never witnessed their life’s blood pouring onto the ground around them. And yet, the surreal scene had seemed all too familiar, all too close.

A silent scream split through her head, like a long suppressed cry from the ghosts of the arena, a place where tens of thousands had died before. What was one more death to a place like that?

Sera shivered. The death was of someone she had known. Someone who, at one time, she had thought she loved.

She covered her mouth with her hand in an effort to hold back the mournful wail that threatened to rip from her throat. In spite of her efforts, the muffled sound seemed to echo down the empty street.

She took a deep breath in the warm evening air. Tears swam in her eyes again, threatening to spill down her cheeks. She fought them back, afraid if she let one go, the whole dam would burst, and she’d fall to pieces.

She worried about David. He had looked so lost, so hopeless as they led him away from the Amphitheatre. And she had been unable to speak, to tell him…

What? That it was all right? That she didn’t blame him for doing what he had to do?

She knew in her heart that he’d had no choice. If he hadn’t killed Giovanni, it could have just as easily been him lying there lifeless on the ground. But that didn’t make it any easier.

And though Giovanni was no longer a threat, David still wasn’t safe.

Sera ran a hand through her hair, pulling the damp strands away from her face. Five days had passed since his arrest, and the police still hadn’t allowed her to see him. What was happening? Why wouldn’t they tell her anything? She’d given the police her statement about what had happened in the Amphitheatre, telling the truth about everything.

Everything except who David really was.

Oh, David
.

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to hold back the pain. They’d had no chance to talk, to get their stories straight. Had he told the police something else? Was that why they wouldn’t let her see him? Did the police suspect that there was more behind Giovanni’s death than a lovers’ triangle or professional jealousy?

She tried to shake off the despair and succeeded only to have it replaced with another, harsher emotion. Guilt.

The feeling assaulted Sera as she remembered Giovanni’s funeral. Just that afternoon she had stood silently by as his family lowered his coffin into the ground. His parents had stared at her from across the open grave, their eyes condemning her for playing a part in their only son’s death. But they didn’t know the whole story. She didn’t think they were even aware he’d been selling artifacts on the black market or that he’d lost his job at the ruins. They just knew that she had been there when he took his last breath, and that, somehow, she’d been at the center of it.

Hugging her knees to her chest, she tried to chase away the ever-present remorse. She didn’t need their condemnation. She choked on the guilt of it every time the tragic memory played through her mind—David with the knife in his blood-covered hand, and Giovanni lying crumpled at his feet, his stunned, dead eyes staring at the open sky.

Shivering in the evening air, she wondered if the horrific image would ever fade from her memory.

Sera leaned her forehead against the wrought iron bars of the balcony railing and looked out on a town blissfully asleep in the night. But peace was not with her. She had to do something to help David before it was too late.

She finally pulled herself to her feet and dragged herself to bed. Lying down, she tossed and turned. Sleep did not want to come, but when it finally did, it gave her little relief.

She stood in the center of the arena, watching helplessly as the police led David away. Then the image wavered before her eyes, like heat rising from a sun-baked street. When it cleared, they were still in the Amphitheatre, but everything was different. The arena was no longer a crumbling ruin around her, but magnificent in the glory of its time, filled with cheering throngs of people. The two men taking David away wore ancient Roman armor. The vision seemed both strange and familiar at the same time.

But it was the sight of David that nearly brought Sera to her knees.

His bloodstained clothes were gone, replaced with a tattered loincloth about his lean hips, while bleeding, raised welts laced his proud back.

Sera wanted to go to him, but her feet were rooted to the ground. She called out to him, but her voice sounded strange, as if she were hearing it from far away. She called him by another name, one that fled her memory as quickly as it left her tongue.

David turned his head and looked at her over his bloody shoulder. He spoke, but she couldn’t hear his voice. She didn’t need to. As the guards led him out of the arena, the words formed by his lips seared straight into her heart.

Save me.

* * *

In all her life, Sera had never stepped foot into
Pompei’s
jailhouse. She’d never had to. Until now.

For the first time since they had arrested him over a week before, the police were allowing her to see David.

They led her down a narrow hallway and through a locked door. The hallway continued on, but the wall on her left was no longer made of solid block and plaster. Instead, it consisted of iron bars from floor to ceiling, stretching down the length of the building.

The large, common cell was where most of the prisoners were kept. Some of them walked the space of the confines, looking like anxious animals caged in a zoo. Others sat on wooden boards supported by concrete blocks, the crude benches serving as both bed and seating. Some of the men talked casually amongst themselves. They glanced at her as she walked by, each hoping that she was someone there to see them, before returning to their private conversations.

She looked at each of their faces, searching for the familiar one she longed to see, but David wasn’t among them. The police didn’t house murderers with the common criminals.

The guard led Sera further down the hallway, past several small individual cells on her right. Stopping before a door with a single barred window, he rapped twice with the long, black stick he carried.

“Corbelli, you have a visitor.”

She heard a shuffling sound, then David’s tall form appeared from the hidden shadows of the cell.

He looked tired. Dark circles marked the tan skin beneath his eyes. She wanted to think she saw a brief flicker of happiness in those brown depths, but when he glanced at the guard standing beside her, the emotion vanished, if it had been there at all.

Sera turned to the guard. “Could you open the door, please?”

“No. You can only speak to him through the bars.”

Disappointed, she tried again. “Then, may we have some privacy?”

The guard gave her a curt nod and took a few steps down the hallway. He stood far enough away that if they whispered, he wouldn’t hear them, but close enough that if David tried to reach through the bars to harm her in any way, the guard could be there in a matter of seconds.

The thought sent a chill through her. Could he, would he, hurt her?

The man she’d come to know wouldn’t. But did she know the real David? Had that been him all this time, or was he someone else entirely? The David she thought she knew wouldn’t have killed anyone, yet the man standing behind the iron bars had. She’d seen him do it with her own eyes.

“I’m sorry, Sera.” His low, soft voice drew her attention back to him. “I never meant to kill Giovanni. I know you cared for him.”

She felt some of the tension in her body ease. Here was the David she knew, the one who’d chiseled his way into her heart.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“But he’s dead just the same.”

Yes, that was true. All the apologies in the world were not going to change that. Instead, she tried to focus on what she could do to help David.

“Are you all right?”

He smiled, but the humor never reached his eyes. “Just peachy.”

She tried to ignore his sarcasm, knowing it was his way of trying to relieve the seriousness of the situation.