Treasured Secrets (11 page)

‘Have you heard of a rat dungeon?'

‘What? No.' She couldn't drag her eyes from the cage and the hideous creature trapped inside.

‘It's a form of torture. A very effective one, in my experience.'

Her fingers dug into the chair as she glared up at him. ‘Torture! What the hell? Who are you?'

He bared his yellowed teeth in a sick grin.

Panic flashed through her like a blaze of lightning, leaving a metallic taste in her mouth. She jumped up and went for the door, but his fingers snapped around her wrist and he dragged her to his chest. His rotten breath made her gag. One icy blue eye stared at her from beneath the lopsided hood.

‘There are two ways we can do this, Rosalina. One is a little messier than the other.' As he forced her onto the chair, a grating cackle erupted from his throat. It was a long moment before she realised he was laughing.

Rosalina sat with her back rigid against the chair and glared up at the cloaked man. Everything about him was disturbing — his heavy coat, his filthy odour, his rancid breath. Recalling Archer's description of the shark's soulless eyes, she dreaded that she too, was about to look into the eyes of the devil.

After an extended silence, he stepped back, and in one swift movement removed his hood. She snapped her eyes shut, petrified at what she might see.

‘Open your eyes.' His calm voice was more terrifying than if he'd yelled at her. ‘Rosalina, do you want to meet my rat?'

She squeezed her palms into her eyes until colourful dots dazzled the blackness.

‘Get the cage,' he said.

‘No!' When she removed her palms it took all her might to finally glare up at him. She gasped at the horror. His eyes looked like vacant pits, devoid of any human emotion.

‘Now…tell me about the necklace.'

She gripped the chair with renewed fear. She had no answers. ‘I don't know anything.'

He raised his hand and, fearing he was about to hit her, she clenched her teeth, closed her eyes and braced for the pain. But it didn't come. It was several heartbeats before she looked up at him.

His eyes drilled into her. ‘Are you ready to tell me what you know about the treasure?'

She unclenched her jaw. ‘All I know is Archer found the necklace when he was eleven.'

‘Where?'

‘I don't know. He was a kid, scuba diving with his parents. His dad was killed by a shark.' As the words tumbled out, she grew aware of how completely useless the information was.

‘Where? Tell me where!'

‘I don't know!'

He was upon her in an instant and slapped her across her cheek. The force was so brutal, the attack so shocking she was flung off the chair and fell hard onto the stone floor.

As she clutched at her cheek, whimpering, a stark ringing buzzed in her ears and it took her a moment to realise it was his phone. He lifted it to his ear, but his eyes were fixed on Rosalina.

‘Tell me.' Nox's voice was hoarse from infrequent use. ‘So they did call the police?' He leered at Rosalina as she inched away from him on the floor.

‘Yes, but they didn't believe them.' The voice on the other end of the line was a forced whisper.

He looked over at Brother Linthani and cupped the mouthpiece. ‘Tie her up.'

Thanks to a series of damning videos, Linthani was his most devoted follower and Nox had the utmost confidence the feeble priest would do anything he asked.

‘Where are they now?' Nox spoke into the phone as he watched Linthani help Rosalina into the chair. He wasn't surprised that the woman didn't struggle as her wrists were bound with rope. It would have been pointless anyway.

‘Still out the front.'

‘Let me know when they leave.'

‘Yes, sir.'

Satisfied that the woman was secure, he turned his back on Rosalina and exited the room, confident Brother Linthani would lock it behind him. He closed the phone with a smirk twinging at his lips.
This is it! Reward for decades of commitment will soon be mine.
Brimming with purpose, he strode the corridors, and behind him he heard Linthani shuffling to catch up. ‘Get everyone together in the Esagonale room.'

‘Yes, sir.'

***

Nox twisted his bulky antique ring around his middle finger. Its presence exuded sovereignty. The ring was impossible to miss as he drummed his fingers on the ancient wooden table, sounding out an urgent heartbeat for the holy space. Even after nearly thirty years, he was still surprised the ring fitted him, given that he now had rather large, knobbly fingers. It only added to the building evidence that he was the chosen one.

How and where he had found the ring could only be accredited to pure destiny. There was no other way to explain what had happened. At the time, he'd been hiding from a group of boys, his daily tormentors. To this day, he still didn't know how the terracotta trumpet being played by the baby in the marble statue literally fell into his hands. He would swear on the Bible that he'd barely touched it.

Nox had been so scared when it had happened that the fragile thing had slipped out of his hands and shattered into dozens of pieces on the floor. He'd actually thought he was going to be struck down by lightning. Nox could still remember his feet being frozen to the floor as he waited for the wrath to come. But as the seconds had ticked by and nothing had happened, and no one had come running at him with balled fists, he'd realised his luck. It wasn't until he'd bent down to pick up the statue's broken pieces that he knew just how lucky he was. Hidden within the trumpet tube was his ring, but it was what the ring had secured that changed his life forever.

The scroll, papery thin animal skin, smooth and feathery to touch, had resisted his unrolling. He had attempted it only once before he'd tucked it and the ring into the pockets of his robe and, abandoning the shattered relic, ran straight to his bedroom. He'd been the only boy in the orphanage who lived alone and it was the first time he'd considered the trappings of his disease as a blessing.

It didn't take long to work out why the scroll wouldn't lie flat. The date on the delicate parchment — inscribed in elegant cursive at the very top — indicated it had been rolled up and secured by the bulky ring for nearly seven hundred years. He'd read the fancy handwriting and although it was brief, it had given him enough information to piece together a secret that those he'd once looked up to had been hiding for centuries.

Nox kept up the drumming with his ring as Linthani and the three other men shuffled into the room. The men had little in common, except that their devotion to Nox was under duress. Some of the video leverage Nox held over them might not be considered especially heinous to a normal man; however, to a priest it was considered downright sinful. And each and every one of them knew it.

When they were all seated, Nox stopped drumming and glared at the men opposite.

For thirty years he had devoted himself entirely to his cause, so far without any success at finding the clues detailed in the scroll. However, the flurry of events in this past week cemented his belief that he was the chosen one. He was destined to find the Calimala treasure. And it was only with reluctance that he admitted he needed the pathetic bunch before him.
For now, that is
.

Draping his hood back from his eyes, he stood up. ‘What do we know about them?'

Pacing the piazza concrete with a sense of uselessness, Archer attempted to put a rescue plan into action. He needed to get into the back of the church, or more precisely, below it.

Alessandro spun to Archer. ‘This is all your fault.'

Archer stiffened. ‘And I'll do anything to save her. She's the most important person in the world to me.'

‘You have an extraordinary way of showing it.'

Archer's stomach lurched. ‘You don't know the whole story.'

‘I know you will not hurt her again. I'll make sure of that.'

The Italian's dark eyes burned into him as Archer conceded a niggling thought — Alessandro's protective jealousy was justified. Archer clenched his teeth and stared at the ground as he fought a powerful urge to bite back.

‘Holy shit!' Archer was way louder than he'd meant to be.

‘Shhh.' Alessandro shot him a warning glare, before he waved an apology at a couple who were walking through the Piazza hand in hand. Alessandro opened his hands as a question.

‘The oval decoration in the floor.'

Alessandro widened his eyes. ‘What about it?'

‘That's how I'll get inside.'

‘You will not!' Alessandro bunched his lips. ‘This church is a holy site. I won't let you violate the crypt.'

‘I won't violate it. Just jump into it. That's where Rosalina is.'

‘You cannot be certain she's in there.'

‘We both heard her screams below here.' He stamped his foot. ‘Don't act like you didn't.'

Silence beat between them.

‘You said they used the oval door to drop bodies into the burial chamber below. So how do we open it?'

There was a long pause before Alessandro shrugged. ‘It's quite simple, really. Push your finger through a hole and lift.'

‘You're kidding?'

‘They weren't worried about people breaking into the crypt eight hundred years ago.'

Not wasting any time, Archer stepped over the raised entrance and into the eerie silence of the church. He scanned the room. Confident it was empty, he raced to the oval decoration. Bending over, he found the finger hole Alessandro had mentioned.

The Italian soon joined him. ‘See the hole?'

‘Yeah. Will it be heavy?'

Alessandro raised one eyebrow. ‘I don't know. I haven't lifted one lately.'

Archer didn't need the wisecracks. He grumbled under his breath, then pushed his forefinger into the hole and began to lift.

‘What're you doing?'

Archer frowned at him. ‘I told you.'

‘Now?'

‘Yep.'

‘Are you crazy? What if someone comes?'

‘I don't care. I'm getting in this hole and you can do whatever you want.' He squatted low and pulled. But the damn thing didn't move. His jaw began to ache from clenched teeth, and just when thoughts of needing an alternative plan entered his mind, the seal broke with a muffled sucking noise and the oval door lifted from its trap.

‘It's moving,' Alessandro whispered. ‘
Rapido. Rapido
.'

‘Get your fingers under it.'

‘Me?'

‘Yes, you,' Archer hissed.

Alessandro straddled the oval and pushed his hands under the sides. Once Archer felt the weight of the slab he was grateful for Alessandro's help. There was no way he could've lifted it on his own. When they'd wrestled the slab aside, Archer leant over the hole and peered into the blackness. Then, without hesitation, he sat on the side and dangled his feet in the hole.

‘Jesus, Archer, what are you doing?'

‘See ya.' Archer slipped into the void.

‘Hey,' a deep voice boomed from somewhere above.

Archer looked up through the hole and saw Alessandro freeze. Even from several feet below he saw his eyes were wide. The kind of wide you see on a trapped animal.

‘Run!' Archer yelled. Alessandro looked down at him, his face torn with indecision. To Archer's amazement, Alessandro's feet appeared above and Archer stepped back as the Italian dropped into the burial chamber. ‘What the hell're you doing?' Archer dragged Alessandro back from the light.

‘Saving Rosalina.' The Italian's voice was shrill with panic.

The faint light filtering through the oval was of little assistance in the blackened space and it was impossible to see more than a couple of metres in any direction. Surrounded by shadows, Archer braced for attack from every recess. As he backed away from the light, a sharp scraping noise raised the hairs on his neck. The light began to fade, and moments later they were plunged into complete blackness.

‘
Dio mio
, we're trapped!' Alessandro's rapid breathing was amplified in the enclosed space.

Archer reached for his phone, and with the press of a button the screen illuminated. Alessandro copied.

‘Look around for a door.' Archer held the glowing screen ahead of him. Despite the low roof, the room felt big. It smelt faintly of sweat and grime, but it was the dust that stuck in the back of his throat that dominated the scent. Archer had the impression that this room was once a hive of human activity, but had remained vacant for a very long time. He noticed what looked like a path worn into the uneven cobblestones. It could only have been made from years — hell, more likely centuries — of people walking along it. As he followed the path, he tried to picture what the room had been used for once they stopped throwing bodies down here. Sure enough, the path led to a door.

‘Over here,' Archer whispered. Without much confidence, he pushed down on the handle and couldn't believe it when it moved. The door opened towards him. ‘Turn off your phone.' It would be difficult to navigate without the light, but with it they were glowing targets.

He stepped through the door and a cool breeze tickled his skin.
A tunnel
. When his eyes adjusted to the blackness, he noticed a faint glow in the direction the breeze was heading. ‘This way.' He headed towards the light.

‘How do you know?'

‘Just a hunch.'

‘A hunch! Are you crazy?' Alessandro whispered, but his panic was evident. ‘These places are intricate labyrinths. We could be lost for years.'

‘All right!' Archer sighed loudly. ‘Which way do you think?'

Alessandro's silence was irritating. When he finally spoke, Archer's patience was as thin as fishing line.

‘The oval doorway was centred within the main aisle of the church. Back then, the apse was always built in the east and the stained-glass window was built —'