He glued himself to her side as they walked the cavernous passages marked by Roman and Egyptian art. Though he’d been all over Egypt and the Middle East, he’d never been inside the catacombs. As a demon, he was attuned to malevolent undercurrents, and the closer they got to the Hall of Caracalla, the stronger the feeling became. He hadn’t studied up on the history of the catacombs, but he knew all the way to his bones that something evil had taken place here.
“There are several tombs within the Hall of Caracalla,” Serena said quietly, so the guide wouldn’t hear them. “Many haven’t been fully explored or excavated. There’s a specific area I’m interested in, closed to the public, but we’ve been given special access.”
Wraith let out a low whistle. “Val has some connections.” In Wraith’s opinion, The Aegis was way too powerful for its own good. He gestured at their guide, who was descending into a stairwell ahead of them. “Will he be watching us the whole time?”
“I hope not.”
Wraith had ways to deal with the guy if he decided to hang out, but after last night’s jaunt into Serena’s head, he was in no hurry to use his gift to get inside anyone else’s mind. He’d never had a problem with recovery time before, but thanks to the whole dying thing, he felt a hell of a lot weaker than he should.
The fact that he hadn’t eaten anything solid since the night before wasn’t helping.
Last night after kissing Serena, he’d fed on a local shopkeeper, and this morning he’d thought about getting some breakfast in the hotel restaurant, but keeping down solids was becoming harder and harder. Seemed like, lately, blood and whiskey were all his stomach could tolerate. Even coffee didn’t appeal to him anymore.
No coffee. He might as well be dead already.
The narrow staircase opened up into a square room, around which were a hivelike series of arched brick tunnels. Serena gestured for him to follow her, and they moved to the right, through an archway that led to a tomb that had been roped off. The guide stood aside, watching warily as they slipped beneath the rope.
The chamber was like every other ancient chamber on the planet. Dark. Dusty. Smelled like the air had been filtered through a dried corpse.
It was the scent of adventure, and already adrenaline was trickling into Wraith’s system.
Wraith turned to the guide, speaking in Arabic. “Why is this chamber off-limits to the public?” The guy just stared. Wraith waved a hand in front of his face. “Hel-lo.”
Serena pinched Wraith’s waist, and he yelped. Her eyes conveyed a private message: Don’t antagonize him. Probably wise. But more boring than necessary.
Wraith let her lead him around the corner to an even smaller chamber. Holding her finger to her lips in a gesture for silence, she eased into a dark recess. Wraith lowered her pack next to her and moved to the corner, where he leaned casually against it to keep an eye on the guide. Behind him, he heard Serena scrounge through her backpack. A moment later, the familiar sounds of digging began.
A few minutes later, the guide yawned and glanced at his watch. He shot Wraith a look of utter distrust before disappearing up the stairs.
“Nothing,” Serena muttered. “There’s nothing here.”
“Need some help?”
“Couldn’t hurt.”
He found her on her knees in front of a fist-sized opening in the limestone wall. On the ground was a pile of excavated stone and a small brick marked by writing and timeworn etchings in a language he didn’t recognize.
“Was there supposed to be something inside the hole?”
“I thought so.”
Wraith crouched next to her and tried not to get distracted by the feminine scent of sun on her warm skin. “What does the writing say?”
“It’s a prayer, of sorts.” She sank down, tucked one leg beneath her, and stared at the brick. A couple of wisps of hair had fallen forward across her bronzed cheeks, and Wraith reached out to brush them back, an excuse to touch her. She rewarded him with a sinful smile before turning back to the brick.
“See, in the year two hundred and fifteen, the emperor Caracalla became enraged at the citizens of Alexandria, and he supposedly slaughtered twenty thousand of them. Many of the dead were brought here. The writing is a wish for any Christian souls to find their way through the mass of heathen souls surrounding them.”
The slaughter explained the feeling of malevolence that crawled on Wraith’s skin like a million stinging ants. “So why did the dude freak out?”
She ran a finger over the text, almost lovingly. He imagined her doing the same to his dermoire, tracing the symbols, caressing the lines with her hands, her tongue… he stifled a groan.
“There are a lot of theories, but Val believes that the Alexandrians insulted him with a satirical play about some of his actions, including the murder of his own brother.”
Fratricide hit a little too close to home, and Wraith quickly brought the subject back to their search. He really wished she’d stop fingering the brick.
“Tragic, but what does all of this have to do with the artifact you’re looking for?”
She cast a sideways glance at him as though she wasn’t sure she wanted to talk, but after a moment she shrugged. “According to some ancient Gnostic texts, there are people walking the earth who are charmed by angels.”
“You’re talking about Marked Sentinels.”