Gabriella’s scream took a while to die down.
‘We’re safe,’ Sam said, calming her down by sitting with her in the gondola and holding her hands, her frightened face illuminated by his little phone light. ‘It’s OK now. Wow, you sure have some pipes on you.’
‘Pipes?’ Gabriella said.
‘Vocal pipes, your voice. You’re very loud, when you want to be.’
She gave Sam a nervous smile.
Sam shone the phone’s light back down the tunnel for one last look at the entrance that had nearly buried them in rocks—it was completely impassable, tonnes of stone and rubble blocking it off. No way the Agents will get through that in a hurry.
‘Well, I guess we now get to see where this tunnel leads,’ Sam said, and passed Gabriella his phone as he pushed off with the oar. He smiled, elated at having outrun his fate. But his smile faded as he thought of what might lie ahead.
The tunnel ended at a small stone platform. A rusted steel door was inset into the wall, held shut by a bar set across it.
Sam helped Gabriella out of the gondola and they tried lifting the bar from the door. It creaked and moaned and eventually popped free and clattered to the ground with an almighty CLANG!
The door opened towards them, slowly, bit by bit, against aged, rusty hinges.
Beyond was a room the size of a broom closet. Peering harder into the darkness Sam could faintly make out metal rungs set into the wall, disappearing into the void above. A way out.
‘Looks like we gotta climb.’
Gabriella hesitated and pulled at Sam’s sleeve. ‘But my dream … the man in black was above, waiting for me. I don’t think I can …’ her eyes welled up with fearful tears.
‘It’s OK, I’m here now,’ Sam said gently. ‘We’re not even coming out in the same place. We changed it.’
Gabriella looked unconvinced. ‘Don’t leave me, Sam. I don’t want to be alone.’
Sam gave her a brief hug and smiled. ‘We’ll have backup, don’t worry.’
At the top of the ladder the square manhole cover seemed to weigh about as much as the bookcase in the Vatican. After a few minutes of pushing and shoving, Sam managed to lift it just enough to slide the door’s bar through, then he used that as a lever, heaved the cover up and pushed it across the ground with an ear-splitting grating noise.
He climbed out and fell into a heap on a smooth cobblestone surface, a starry sky above them.
‘This isn’t the place from my dream,’ Gabriella said, her eyes darting around the quiet piazza as Sam helped her out of the manhole. He could hear the fear in Gabriella’s voice. ‘The Campo de’ Fiori!’ Gabriella said, her eyes wide with recognition. ‘We’re in Campo de’ Fiori!’
‘Stay calm,’ said Sam, looking around the empty civic square and catching his breath.
‘But couldn’t he still find us? He’s looking for me—and that book,’ Gabriella shot back. ‘Sam, I want to go. Now.’
‘No problem, follow me,’ Sam said, recognising she was going into shock. He pointed towards a narrow alleyway branching off from the square. ‘We’ll head down that way, out of the open, and I’ll call for us to get picked up.’
Sam and Gabriella waited in an old sandstone doorway while he called Lora, silently thanking Jedi for making his phone, and bag, waterproof.
Sam was starting to feel more confident in his task now that he had survived his fatal premonition. He looked at Gabriella pressed hard against the wooden door behind her, obviously still anxious and afraid, and trying to conceal as much of herself as possible in the shadows.
‘So, who was that statue of, back there in the square?’
‘Giordano Bruno,’ Gabriella said.
‘He was holding a book too,’ said Sam. Huh.
‘Time to find out what we’ve got,’ Sam said, taking off his backpack and pulling out the heavy old book. ‘There’s this XII marking on the outside and a clasp at the side, looks old …’
They both studied the book resting on Sam’s knees, just able to make out the details in the alleyway streetlight.
‘Strange … this book has no title, no other markings,’ Gabriella murmured.
‘Maybe it’s not a book,’ Sam said, studying the shoebox-sized book from all angles. ‘It feels way heavier than it should.’
‘And, it’s locked.’ Gabriella pointed to the brass clasp holding the cover shut.
Sam looked closer at the clasp on the side, set with a tiny keyhole.
A star-shaped lock!
Sam took off his dreamcatcher necklace and produced the golden key. He inserted it into the locking mechanism, turning it gently.
‘Stop!’ Gabriella said.
Sam looked at her, her expression still anxious.
‘What if we’re not supposed to open it? I mean, I feel that we are, but what if it could release something evil?’
‘Well, I don’t know for sure what will happen, but we have to trust our instincts,’ Sam said, repeating the Professor’s advice. ‘We must have dreamed all these things for a reason, don’t you think? Besides, I don’t think an old book is going to give us any problems.’
Gabriella nodded and bit her lip.
‘OK, here goes …’
He turned the key.
CLICK.