The bull tore through the narrow tunnel beneath the Vatican like a shotgun slug down a barrel. Two thousand pounds of rippling white flesh, a ring through his nose, an incongruous wreath of pine boughs bouncing around his neck, and a pair of wickedly curved horns aimed straight at Selene’s rib cage.
She loosed an arrow with more instinct than accuracy. The shaft lodged in the creature’s shoulder, only enraging him further.
There was nowhere to hide, no place to dodge. But Selene had honed her fighting skills in the cramped alleys of New York City. At the last second, she dove forward, sliding beneath the beast’s belly. His hooves churned inches from her head.
She jackknifed to her feet as the animal clattered to a skidding halt behind her.
He twisted like a mutant dog chasing its tail until he faced her again, nostrils pumping air.
Before she could grab another arrow, he charged. Like the bull-leapers of ancient Knossos, where Theseus once faced the Minotaur in the heart of the twisting Labyrinth, Selene sprang up. She planted one hand on the animal’s spine and flipped her legs toward the ceiling, hovering for just a moment in a precarious handstand. The bull bucked beneath her. She pushed off and landed behind him, her bow still gripped in her other hand.
She nocked another shaft. The heaving bull lowered his head just after she loosed her arrow. It sailed harmlessly above the beast’s horns.
Without missing a beat, Selene sent another shaft through the animal’s back, hoping to slow him down. The beast bellowed, the sound resonating in the narrow tunnel like a war horn blown from the battlements of Troy. Selene cursed under her breath. So “Lady of Clamors” it is.
She thought about sprinting back toward the exit and shimmying up the cement shaft, but it was too soon. Flint would still be resting in some clinic, unable to distract the guards while she emerged into the plaza. She’d be thrown in jail and lose any hope of rescuing Zeus before the solstice.
Father, if you’re down here, she prayed, now would be a great time to stage a distraction. Unsurprisingly, no thunder rocked the underground passage, no lightning flashed before her.
Instead, she heard two men farther down the tunnel jabbering worriedly in German. She knew little of their tongue, only enough to catch something about a bull. Their prize animal has escaped, she realized, but they don’t know about me yet.
The bull himself, unfortunately, knew exactly where she was. Despite his wounds, he closed the distance between them. She sent an arrow into the meat of his chest. He kept coming.
She dodged aside, but he turned his head and pinned her to the wall between his long, curved horns. The bull panted hot against her face like an overeager suitor cornering a blushing virgin. She managed to reach for another arrow. I never could stand the attentions of smelly men. She raised the shaft overhead, ready to drive it through the top of the beast’s skull.
“Halt!” Two men stood before her in Swiss Guard uniforms, guns raised.
These were no mere Papal soldiers patrolling the Vatican’s secret spaces; she knew that the moment one turned to the other and said, “Sie ist Diana.” Only initiated members of the Host would know her true identity.
“We need that bull more than we need you,” the younger man said in English. “So either drop the arrow or we put a bullet through your brain.”
Still trapped between the bull’s horns, she had little choice but to comply. She put down the arrow but kept her bow, holding it out of sight beneath the animal’s body.
The older guard stepped forward to place the barrel of his gun against her head. The other clipped a rope to the ring in the bull’s nose and led him away.
Free of the horns, Selene ducked away from the guard’s gun and smashed her bow into his knees. He buckled but pulled the trigger—his bullet cracked into the wall behind her, dispelling any last hope that these men had orders to take her alive.
She whipped her bow around to kick the gun away, then back to crack it against the guard’s jaw. As his head snapped to the side, Selene sprinted in the other direction. She caught just a glimpse of the second guard reaching for a black device on his belt.
A walkie-talkie, she thought, until two probes shot out faster than even her eyes could follow. They ripped into her neck. Convulsions racked her body.
Darkness slammed her to the ground.