Separation (8 page)

“I am taking them to see our friends,” Leo
replied, his face devoid of all expression. “They want all of us,
not just you.”

This was madness, but the group started off
in the direction of the van. Overton muttered something about
walking to his grave, but one of the thugs clubbed him over the
head with the butt of his machine gun. “Be quiet!”

Overton staggered, but managed to remain
upright, and they continued on. Halfway there, though, another
smell, not of blood but of fur, entered Harry’s nostrils. He took a
careful sniff and took greater care to hide his reaction. Yes, it
was animal fur, not human skin. Leo was far smarter than he let
on.

Anastasia gave a wink. She’d also smelled the
same thing. The smell grew more intense, and just as they reached
the van, three figures burst from the darkness and leaped on the
posse, smashing them into the ground. They never even got off one
shot. The difference here, though, was that the new crew didn’t
bother killing them. They simply beat them up—hard.

Once they stopped, though, they stood up,
panting, and nodded at Leo. The leader, a tall mix of man and bear
with an ursine face and bearlike body, uttered something in
guttural Italian. Leo answered and gestured to Harry and Anastasia.
“He say his name is Paulo. He is countryside leader.”

He pointed at the other two beings, both of
them short and squat, mixes of what looked to be pit bulls and men,
with stocky, muscular bodies and canine faces accompanied by
piggish eyes. A few more words passed between them. “They are his
guards. They know what happen here. They say we are safe now.”

After Harry retrieved the computer, an air of
calm ensued and he felt his heart rate return to normal. While the
transgenic helpers relieved the hit squad of their weapons and tied
them up using their clothes as rope, Overton walked over, rubbing
his head and wincing. “What’s the plan?”

Anastasia threw him a quick look, and then
turned her gaze to Leo. “Can you ask your friends to drop fearless
leader off at the nearest hospital?”

Overton started to protest. “Hey, wait a
minute—”

“Wait nothing,” she cut him off. “You’re
hurt, and you’ll just slow us down. We don’t have time to fix you
up.”

The agent continued to protest, and Harry had
half a mind to slug him just to shut him up, but he reined in his
temper. “Agent Overton, Anastasia’s right. You’re just dead weight.
We need to go on alone. Leo, could you tell your guys, please?”

Once Leo did the honors, the leader nodded.
“We take him to hospital.”

The three men quickly hustled the protesting
Overton off through the darkness, and Harry and Anastasia got into
the van, Harry at the wheel. Leo clambered into the passenger seat
beside Anastasia. “I show you way to Rome,” he said.

They set off, with Leo guiding them along.
Roughly an hour later, they arrived near the center of the city
with the mole-man pointing excitedly to the side of the road. “Stop
here. We walk.”

Abandoning the van, Leo took the lead and
guided them through the narrow streets, occasionally stopping to
sniff the ground as well as the air. “I check for our people as
well as for
polizia.
The police, they wear different shoes.
My nose smells difference. I smell the leather.”

It seemed like the appropriate thing to say.
Once they got within range of the Vatican, Leo stopped. “There are
guards there. They no know you, but they know me. We must be
careful and wait.”

“Wait for whom?” Anastasia wanted to
know.

A click caused Harry to whirl around. Five
men-but-not-men stood in front of them. They’d come up very
quietly, so quietly he hadn’t heard them, and he let out a soft
curse. He couldn’t afford to let his guard down for a moment. “Do
not move,” one of them said.

The men advanced on them. They all held
pistols, and at this range they couldn’t miss. Leo seemed paralyzed
by indecision, but Anastasia backed up a step, a low but intense
whine coming from her throat.

A second later, Leo found his spine and
softly spoke to the advancing group. The leader halted and put up
his fist, signaling his compadres to stop. He tucked his pistol
into a pair of torn jeans and advanced slowly. As he came into the
dim light of early morn, Harry made out his features.

He wasn’t human, not entirely. Like the
transgenics in the countryside, this man resembled a cross between
a German shepherd and a man... with the canine part predominating.
With massive arms and a thick neck, he presented a most formidable
image. He and Leo conferred with one another, and the dog-man
turned to Harry.

“My name is Carlo,” he said. His English was
more than fluent, although he spoke with a heavy accent. “You seek
one of our people. Forgive us for being overly cautious, but we
cannot take any chances.”

Message received and understood. Anastasia
cautiously approached from the side, and Harry gave her a
thumbs-up. Carlo led the way, and they moved on over to a metal
grate on a small side street. “This is where we go,” he
whispered.

“Sewers,” Anastasia muttered. “It’s always
sewers.”

As if they had a choice. Carlo gave a mighty
tug and easily lifted the grate off the hole. “Quickly,” he
whispered
sotto voce.
“There might be spies, and the guards
from the Vatican might see us. Not all of them are on our side. We
cannot alert anyone.”

Leo went first and quickly disappeared down
the hole. Anastasia went next, and Harry followed close behind her.
Behind him, he heard the sound of metal being replaced and Carlo
dropped to the ground. “Leo,” he called softly, “Lead the way.”

Obediently, the mole-man dropped to the
ground. They’d entered a sewer, lined with ancient brick. A heavy
smell of mold and age lay thick upon the air, and the smell of the
garbage floating by verged on suffocating. Harry tried to breathe
through his mouth, but still the odors filtered in.

Leo didn’t seem overly bothered by it. He
snuffled along, pausing every now and then to cock his head to one
side, as if listening for something only he could hear. The group
walked in silence for a few minutes, turning left and then right.
The only sounds were of the rushing water and the soft echoes of
their footsteps.

Finally, they came to a brick wall. It was a
dead end. “Where do we go from here?” Harry asked.

“It is magic time, I think you say,” Carlo
responded and moved to the front where he tapped three bricks in
rapid succession. A grating sound resulted, and indeed, as if by
magic, the brick wall seemed to split down the middle. It parted to
reveal a hidden world. It was indeed a marvel of engineering. “I
designed this,” he whispered. “It is my training.”

“We go inside,” Leo said. “We rest, and then
your friend, he will come.”

Following his lead, they stepped into a dry
room, warm and comfortable, and best of all, odor free, once the
door slid closed. “This is our home, at least for now,” Carlo said.
“Welcome.”

The cavern seemed to be large and clean, roughly
thirty feet in circumference, lit by torches. The walls had been
scrubbed smooth by hand, age, and time, and a faint smell of cedar
hung in the air. “It is from the candles,” Leo whispered. “They
have nice smell, yes?”

They did, and inhaling deeply, Harry began to
appreciate the concept of subterranean life. Air, surprisingly
pure, flowed in from vents carved into the rock. No rancid water
flowed. In the past, he and Anastasia had been forced to flee
through the most incredibly rank sewer systems around. This place
was a distinct contrast, and he began to relax somewhat due to
being among people like him. Trust, though, remained an issue.

Off to his left, more chambers had been
hollowed out, and a number of figures, all transgenic and all
different, passed between them. “Some of them have
familia,
”
murmured Leo. “Others, how you say, are unattached?”

“I will show you around,” Carlo said. “After
that, you will meet those whom you seek.”

Hold up a moment... he’d used the plural.
Harry felt a surge of betrayal flow through him. “You have two
people we’re looking for here? What kind of con game is—?”

“It is no game, I assure you. I will show
you. Follow me.”

As they walked along the dirt path, their
feet making soft, hollow sounds, Harry began to wonder if this was
some kind of trap, but then realized this was simply a city beneath
the earth. If Carlo had wanted to attack, he would have already
done so, but he’d holstered his weapon and moved ahead, leaving
himself exposed. No, he wasn’t the problem.

“Harry, hold onto me,” Anastasia whispered.
She staggered, but then managed to right herself.

“What’s wrong,” he whispered back.

“I’m dizzy and I have to throw up,” she
answered.

Carlo must have overheard, for he stopped and
pointed off to the right. “If you need to relieve yourself, there
is a toilet there. It is simple and feeds into the ground, but it
works.”

Anastasia immediately tore off in the
direction of his finger, and a few seconds later the sounds of
vomiting could be heard, loud enough to wake the dead, as it were.
Harry spotted some sarcophagi wedged into the walls and had the
brief image of bones rising from the stone coffins.

However, this wasn’t the catacombs, not the
pictures he remembered from textbooks. “Where exactly are we?” he
asked Carlo, once Anastasia rejoined them.

“This place is a secret place, directly under
the seat of the Catholic Church, one known only to a few of the
Vatican personnel.”

“Why?”

“It was built centuries ago to guard secrets.
It has remained a secret, just in case we have need of it,” a voice
said from behind them.

Whirling around, Harry beheld a small and
spare man wearing long red robes. Perhaps seventy years old or
more, in the torchlight, his skin resembled ancient parchment. Yet,
his eyes were alive. “My name is Monsignor Morello,” he said in a
dry and unemotional voice. “I am part of the Vatican, and one of
the people you need to talk with. Let me explain.”

Carlo stood guard, and Morello, in spite of
his age and his long robes, dropped gracefully into a seated
position. Everyone else followed suit. Once seated, he laid out the
details one by one. The Vatican had become aware of the troubles
the transgenic community had been experiencing. Initially
suspicious of the animal-people, a few of the cardinals,
sympathetic to the plight of the transgenics, had spoken to the
Pope.

“We call them God’s children,” Morello said,
“for we are all children of God. This is what we must stand for. We
cannot do otherwise.”

“Is the Pope involved?”

Harry tried not to sound overly skeptical. Up
until recently he’d been referred to as a monster, a freak, and an
offspring of Satan, but never as one of a deity’s children.
However, it was a compliment, so he accepted it as such.

“He is not officially involved, for he cannot
be.”

However, as Morello hastened to explain, the
Pope had met with a few of the transgenics, along with a group of
cardinals he trusted. He had reached out to them and offered them
sanctuary.

“We must be careful, though,” Morello
continued, and a note of uncertainty entered his voice. “There are
those among us who will never accept that which is different. At
first, I was hesitant, but I changed my way of thinking. This is
something we must do.”

He went on to add the Pope had already
contacted other religious and non-religious groups in France and
Spain as well as within Italy itself. Once linked, they had decided
upon a plan of action.

“And what kind of plan is that?” Harry wanted
to know more. “All I see are people hiding underground. I can’t
blame you, but what exactly are you going to do?”

Morello offered a wise smile. With a head
full of snowy white hair and wizened features, he resembled an
ancient prophet. “The answer you seek is in the next room.” He
pointed the way. “I must return to the surface and make my
report.”

Carlo came forward to usher him out of the
chamber. Once he’d gone, Anastasia whispered while looking around,
“Do you trust him?”

Trust seemed to be the operative word in this
scenario. Deep down, Harry trusted no one, only his wife and his
two best friends and the man lying in a hospital bed back home.
“Wait and see,” was all he said.

A cough from the next room interrupted their
conversation, and a familiar smell wafted over, one of a pig.
Anastasia broke into a smile and she ran ahead. Harry followed her,
and they soon came upon a pink and rotund little figure wearing a
blue jumpsuit, sitting on a chair and reading a book. When he
looked up, he gave a brief cry of delight. “You are back!”

Harry ran over and along with his wife
embraced Istvan. No words were said, but Istvan sniffled and cried,
and the reunion between old friends was complete.

As Harry had hoped yet dared not believe,
Istvan had escaped during the conflict in the Russian bunker. A
fire had broken out, and he’d manage to circumvent the flames by
burrowing underneath the ground and waiting until the fire had
burned itself out.

“After that, I, how you say, make my way to
Italy,” he related, all the while snacking on some food another
member of the transgenic crew had brought over.

Istvan had not devolved much, unlike the
other transgenics. Harry had a clue as to why, but first he had to
satiate his hunger pangs. He was famished and tore through the
simple meal of bread, meat and cheese, while Anastasia ate twice as
much and three times as fast.

“I’m hungry,” she mumbled as she stuffed in
half a loaf of bread. “I need to eat. If I don’t eat, I get
dizzy.”