She had killed him—and nearly died herself.
Her thoughts were flying back and forth between those two poles, like a shuttlecock, and the cold spot in her gut was only getting colder. She had a whole pharmacy in the bag beside her, but she had no idea what to take. She began searching the glove compartment, the storage slots in the doors, and under the driver’s seat, where she finally found what she was looking for. It was an old, dented flask, but she unscrewed the top and took a whiff of what smelled like good Irish whiskey. She took a gulp, then another, and felt the warmth of the alcohol blooming like a rose inside her. She closed her eyes for a second, willing herself to breathe more slowly, and let the feeling diffuse. An owl hooted in the trees, reminding her of her own Glaucus back home. Her cluttered little apartment in Florence had never seemed so appealing.
And then, glancing at her ashen face in the rearview mirror, she shook her head, as if to physically dismiss all the fears from her mind, and pinched her own cheeks, hard. She could not afford the luxury of a breakdown at that moment. Not while David and Ascanio were still out there. Not while the job was still undone. She knew David. She knew he would not give up. His sister’s life was at stake, and even in the short time they had been together, she had seen what a fierce and unbreakable bond that was. She took another sip of the whiskey, and even though she was not a religious woman—for her, churches were places to tour, not worship—she found herself praying all the same. Not to Jesus or Mother Mary. But to the miraculous powers of the universe, the benign and unseen forces in which she did believe. Olivia’s mind had always been open, and as she stared into the darkness of the trees, she prayed, with a fervency she had never felt before, that she would see David emerge again, safe and unscathed. It would not be fair, she thought, for something so wonderful, something that she had waited so long for, to come to such an abrupt and awful end. A wave of indignation came over her—not an uncustomary sensation for someone of her temperament—and it felt good. She felt like she was coming back to herself. Indignation, in her opinion, was very underrated.
Chapter 41
In the bedroom at the top of the turret, David found Ascanio tying a tourniquet around his leg to stop the bleeding; he had snapped a leg off a chair and made a rough splint to hold the broken bone straight.
On the bed, David saw the shape of a body, wrapped tightly in a blood-soaked sheet.
Ascanio’s eyes went straight to the Medusa hanging from David’s neck.
“Bene,” he said, nodding his approval. He glanced at the bloody sword that David had returned to his belt. “You finished it?”
“Yes.”
“He’s dead?”
“Yes.”
Ascanio gave him a long look, wanting to be sure.
“You should have told me … everything … before we came.”
Ascanio nodded, as if in agreement. “We did not think it would be necessary. It could have been too much to hold in your mind.”
“Never underestimate me again,” David said.
“I won’t,” Ascanio replied. “You can be sure of that.” Tucking the garland into the backpack, he threw an arm around David’s shoulder for support, and said, “Now let’s get out of this damn place.” Limping alongside him, they descended from the tower, all the while keeping an eye out for Rigaud.
As they passed through the armor hall, Ascanio stopped above the decapitated body of Linz, which lay in a sticky pool of coagulating blood. The tails of the robe were spread out like a bat’s wings. “Heil, Hitler,” he muttered, kicking the axe away.
Then, before stepping around it, he asked David, “But what did you do with the head?”
“I let it fall,” David said.
“Where?” Ascanio said.
“Right here,” David said. But it wasn’t there now. Ducking to look under the refectory table, he didn’t see it there, either.
Which meant that someone—Rigaud?—must have removed it.
“Come on,” David said, looping a strong arm around Ascanio’s waist and helping him to hop from the room. From the grimace on Ascanio’s face, David could tell that each step was excruciating, but he knew that there wasn’t a second to waste.
Once they’d made it to the kitchen, Ascanio plopped onto a chair, sweat dripping from his brow.
“We have to keep going!” David said. “We can’t rest yet!”
Waving at the stove, Ascanio said, “Quick, turn on all the burners.”
“What?” David said. “Why?”
“Just do it, David!”
And he did.
“Now, blow out the pilot lights.”
David blew them out … and suddenly understood. It was another little detail that Ascanio had not shared with him.