CHAPTER 50

He wasn’t afraid, not this time, not as he had been before when the killer had come creeping up the stairs into the dome where Pietro was dying in his arms like some hellish Pietà. He had been scared then, as he knew he was meant to be. That was what this ghoul did, what he fed on: fear.

But Thomas had been walking the halls of the dead for the last half hour, and while he did not want to be carved like Satoh, or strung up like the monsignor, he was not afraid of the killer’s ghoulish theatrics, and that was a kind of victory. If he had still had Roberta’s gun, he would have faced the gargoyle down, shot him if he’d had to. But he was unarmed.

He shut off the flashlight and crouched in the darkness, thinking and listening, trying to home in on the ghoul’s snuffling, on the animal noises he had cultivated to scare his victims. A disdainful anger flared in Thomas, and he suddenly didn’t want to hide anymore. He inched back to the wall as silently as he could and reached out with his left hand, fingers spread. He moved it cautiously through space, felt a hard ridge of bone and moved back another foot, carefully so as not to dislodge any of the skulls. The snuffling and hissing was getting closer.

Then there was light at the end of the passage, a flickering, yellow light that cast leaping irregular shadows on the walls. The ghoul had taken a candle from the church, Thomas thought, and the idea pleased him a little, made the ghoul more human. The ghoul didn’t like the dark.

Thomas’s left hand found the edge of the glass box. He traced his fingers lightly over its surface till he found the simple latch. He opened it and blindly raised the lid. He reached in with both hands and lifted the shining skull of the Captain out. Still crouching, he cradled the skull in his lap, then raised the glass box and balanced it on his left hand, like a waiter with a tray of drinks. His right strayed back to the skull, grasping it by the back. Then he squatted there among the bones, his face among the piled skulls, and waited for the ghoulish candle bearer, quite calm, quite uncannily calm.

The killer’s pale, bald head came into view, the candle held aloft, the sputtering flame showing more of him than he could possibly see himself. The ghoul twisted his head suddenly and Thomas saw it again, the batlike face, the filed, jagged teeth. And the curved knife. Thomas saw that too, and his muscles began to tauten like those of a sprinter in the blocks.

The killer took three more paces toward him down the broad passage, and Thomas saw the hungry malevolence in his tiny eyes. A part of him wanted to leap to his feet and run as far and as fast as he could, but the smoldering, bullish anger had taken control now, stifling the urge to flee. The candlelight made the hollows of the ghoul’s cheeks look as deep as those of the skulls around him, and the bones of his naked chest and shoulders showed tight under pale, blood-splashed skin as he came closer: five yards, three yards. Another step and the ghoul would see Thomas crouching in the shadows at the end of the gallery.

And then the bald man froze, candle held high, blade outstretched: he was listening, and something came over his features that changed him utterly. The calculated wickedness faltered and he looked unsure of himself, a transformation that made him smaller, more human.

Thomas could hear it too. It began with the groan of a great door opening, then voices, men’s voices speaking in hushed tones. Thomas couldn’t catch the words, but the music of them was certainly Italian. They had come in through the main door.

Who the hell would come in here at night, letting themselves in as if they owned the place?

The police? Could they have found Pietro already? If so, suspect or no suspect, Thomas’s best chance was with them.

Without pausing to consider further, he leaped to his feet, took one long stride toward the ghoul, and thrust the skull of the Captain into his face with his left hand. The ghoul flinched away in surprise—perhaps even in horror—and as he did so Thomas brought the glass box around hard, smashing it over his head with his other hand. The ghoul crumpled, hissing, dropping the sickle, clawing at his eyes as the blood ran down his face. Thomas kicked once and he dropped entirely, moaning in pain as the blade skittered away into the darkness.

Thomas snapped on the flashlight to see where it had fallen, and in the sudden leap of shadows, the ghoul rolled into a loping retreat. Thomas hesitated, cursing himself, but his moment of advantage was past and pursuit would likely get him killed. This was no time for justice of any stripe, and he wasn’t the person to administer it. Right now, it was more important that he get out in one piece.

Thomas walked quickly toward the entrance, to where the men had come in, though they were now silent. As soon as he rounded the corner, half blinded by their flashlights, he knew they weren’t police. Quite the contrary, in fact. The clothes, the body language were all wrong. One of them had a gun. He had stumbled into the local Mafia who—as Giovanni had warned him—met from time to time in the Fontanelle.