Succubus lord 16, p.17
Succubus Lord 16, page 17
Chapter 11
“Secret religious shit hidden deep in ancient underground catacombs?” Todd snickered as we cautiously made our way through the Vatican. “We totally are goin’ on a Last Crusade adventure this time, aren’t we?”
“No,” I retorted, “we’re totally doing DaVinci Code right now. I mean, for fuck’s sake, we’re in the Vatican, of all places.”
“We are doing neither.” Isabella grumbled. “Those movies are both so full of shit.”
Todd stopped in his tracks, spun around, and glared at the BPI Agent.
“Now, hold it right there, Jane Wick,” he warned. “I don’t really give a fuck if you’re not into adventure movies like Jakey and me, but I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let you stand there and tarnish the pearly-white soul of Tom Hanks. That man is a national treasure, you hear?”
“He’s overrated.” Isabella shrugged.
Todd’s mouth fell wide open, and then he began to look back and forth between the agent and me as he gestured wildly. He must have blinked at her blankly a million times before he finally gave up with a sigh.
“Oh, well,” the imp in disguise grumbled. “I’m totally still gonna play Robert Langdon, and you’re not gonna stop me. And Jakey’s gonna be my sexy brunette sidekick, aren’t ya, bro?”
“Wait,” I protested, “why do I have to be the woman?”
“Because, Jakey… ” Todd emphasized with an eye roll, “you’re the only one of us here with brown hair.”
“Aruna’s hair is--” I began, but then the Rakshasi’s chocolate locks quickly faded away into a strawberry blonde wash.
The tigress assassin shot me a knowing wink and a shrug.
“What about Jane?” I continued. “She’s a literal brunette woman.”
“But then you’d be outta main characters to play, bro,” Todd admitted, “unless you wanna play that bitch-ass Silas. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy, Jakey.”
“If you two are done bantering,” Isabella huffed, “we are almost at the Necropolis.”
“Does this mean we’re going grave digging?” Invidia grinned with a twinkle in her eyes. “Because that would be sooooo badass.”
“Unless Lucifer intends to impregnate a corpse, no,” Sia chuckled to herself.
“Don’t be kink-shamin,’ Strawberry Shortcake,” Todd snickered. “I wouldn’t put it past Lucy to enjoy crackin’ open a cold one every now and again.”
“Brooooooooo,” I gasped.
“What?” Todd cackled. “Was that too dark? Because I can go darker.”
“Please don’t,” Superbia groaned.
“Please do!” Invidia said as she slapped her hand over Sia’s mouth.
“The ‘ayes’ have it!” The imp puffed out his chest. “Why do some corpses have an erection? Because they die hard!”
“Jesus… ” I muttered as I placed my face in my hands.
“Ya know necrophilia was a-okay back in the day, Jakey?” Todd snickered. “But now? Fucking dead.”
The imp imitated a snare drum as he played the fake instruments before him, and then he adjusted his collar.
“Enough with the jokes.” Isabella rolled her eyes.
“What jokes?” Todd giggled. “I’m dead serious.”
“The Necropolis might be where we are headed, but we’re going to have to go much deeper to find out what we are looking for,” the BPI Agent finally changed the subject. “The Church only allows the public into certain parts of the mausoleum, but the catacombs of the city wind on for hundreds upon hundreds of miles. Vacant, unstable, unexplored miles.”
“You know what they say.” I shrugged. “The journey of a thousand miles and all that. Let’s get down there first, and then we can search for clues.”
“That might be harder than it sounds,” Oliver sighed. “Since it’s so late at night, the Necropolis is closed to the public, blocked off by stanchions, police vehicles, and security guards.”
“Please, Ollie.” Todd waved his hand dismissively. “I can get past those jabronis in a heartbeat. All I gotta do is talk the poor bastard’s ear off about something he doesn’t give a shit about, and then he’ll go running in the opposite direction. It’s the reason I don’t have very many friends.”
“That… seems very sad.” Gula frowned.
“Nah,” Todd scoffed, “I’d say it worked out pretty good for me in the long run. Look at all these besties I have now!”
The imp went to put his arm around Isabella, but the BPI agent’s head whipped around and shot him a look that could peel paint. Todd’s hand froze in place, and he refused to break eye contact as he slowly moved it back and then ran it through his hair as if that’s what he’d always intended.
“Don’t worry about getting inside,” Isabella explained, “I have my ways of taking care of security.”
“We’re not gonna kill anybody,” I sternly reminded the BPI Agent.
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Isabella winked. “Just trust me on this one, Jacob.”
As much as I wanted to question the agent, she had no doubt done this a million times before. So, If I wanted to get in without bloodshed or attracting attention, Isabella was the best way to get it to happen.
We wandered through the Vatican plaza and over to the Basilica once more. However, instead of going into the sprawling stone structure, we followed a line of metal stanchions to the left until we came to an archway. Immediately, I threw myself up against the wall and silently commanded my friends to do the same.
As I peered through the doorway, I saw Oliver’s predictions were correct. There were two blue, compact cars lined up in front of the entrance to the Necropolis, and each one had the word Polizia plastered on the side.
Two officers in white button-up shirts and navy-blue pants leaned against their vehicles as they chatted it up in Italian. One of them was smoking a cigarette nonchalantly, while the other was tossing his Kepi hat up into the air and catching it in every different way he could think of.
Getting past these two should have been easier than stealing candy from a baby, but we still needed to approach with caution.
“Todd?” I whispered. “Can you just turn us all invisible? Then we can walk right past them without worry.”
“No can do, bro.” The imp in disguise shook his head. “It works when we’re all ridin’ in the same vehicle, but it’s waaaaay too hard to coordinate when we’re trying to walk. We’ve all got different girths and shit.”
“Gaits,” Sia corrected Todd with a sigh. “The word you’re looking for is ‘gaits.’”
“Right.” Todd nodded. “Spates. Anywho, it’s gonna be way too hard.”
“It wouldn’t work, anyway,” Isabella admitted. “Those two might look like two simpleton police officers, but they are really members of the Vatican Secret Police, one of the Earth Realm’s most elite armies.”
“What makes you so sure of that?” Aruna mused. “They just look like two regular humans to me.”
“Look at the ends of their sleeves.” The dirty blonde woman nodded toward the officers. “What do you see?”
I squinted as I tried to see what Isabella was talking about, but the only thing I could make out was a small smudge on the inner wrist of the left officer. A smudge in the shape of a cross, like the ones you’d see on Ash Wednesday.
“Is that ash on their wrists?” I questioned.
“It’s a tattoo,” Isabella explained. “A rite of passage for the new soldiers who pass their training. Make no mistake… those men are both highly trained killers, killers who know how to sniff out demonic magic like second nature. They’d realize what was happening before we even made it past the cars. And then? Holy water and enchanted bullets. Even if we survived the initial assault, they’d bring the entire force down on our heads.”
“So, I guess that rules out telekinetic magic, too?” I asked, and Isabella confirmed my fears with a nod. “Great. So, what do you suggest, then?”
“Watch and learn,” Isabella boasted as she stood up, adjusted her blazer, and unbuttoned one more button on her t-shirt.
“Oh, no,” Todd snickered in a hushed voice, “she gonna smother ‘em with her cleavage.”
“If only… ” Aruna sighed, and then she quickly shook out of her trance when we all gave her a confused look. “Hey, a girl can admire, can’t she?”
Isabella held her hands above her head and stepped out into the threshold of the archway.
“Evening, gentlemen!” the BPI Agent called out, cool as a cucumber. “Lovely night for a stroll, isn’t it?”
“You can’t be here, ma’am,” one of the officers explained in stern, broken English. “Visiting hours closed a few hours ago. You want to come back in morning?”
“Nah… ” Isabella scoffed.
I dared to peek my head out from cover, and I saw both of the officers were now standing at attention with their hands hovering over their holstered pistols.
“Please, ma’am,” the second guard warned.
“Agent Morrision,” Isabella lied, “CIA.”
Both of the officers looked at each other skeptically.
“US Federal agent?” the hatless officer demanded. “Show ID.”
Isabella gave the men a slow nod before she lowered her right hand, slipped it inside her blazer, and produced her badge. The guards kept a close eye on her as she slunk toward them with her credentials held out high. However, even from my spot back here, I could see Isabella’s hand was covering the majority of her badge.
“Please, ma’am,” the left guard pleaded, “we need to see your--”
Before he could finish his sentence, Isabella lashed out with her left hand, struck him in the throat, and sent him stumbling backward gasping for air.
The second officer went for his holstered pistol, but Isabella was on him in a flash.
She brought her foot up, kicked the weapon out of his hand, and then struck him in the stomach. As he stumbled back, Isabella flicked her hand past her belt and tossed a slew of tiny silver balls into the air, and they exploded like a series of silent firecrackers in front of the man’s face, disorienting him even further.
Isabella reached down, pulled his baton taser from its holster, and spun around just in time to catch the second officer in the neck. The air was filled with an electrical zap as the paralyzing current shot through the officer’s body, and he started to convulse like he was having a seizure.
As the officer on the left went down, the BPI Agent twirled around, ducked under the incoming blow of the other man’s baton, and jabbed the taser into his gut. He seized up and went down instantly.
Isabella stood from her crouch, blew the smoke off the end of the taser, and tossed it onto the ground. Then she glanced back over her shoulder at the rest of the team as she gave us the all-clear.
“Holy shit.” I whistled as we came up on the officers.
“See?” Isabella mused. “Sometimes good, old-fashioned human intuition beats all those fancy demon powers.”
“I totally coulda done that,” Todd boasted. “But I wanted to give you some time to shine, newbie.”
“We should take their walkie talkies,” Sia noted as she bent down and snatched the communicators. “And we should probably do something with their bodies before they wake up.”
“I could turn into a bear and eat them?” Aruna suggested. “That would get rid of all the evidence.”
“No killing,” I reminded the Rakshasi. “We’ll just tie them up and lock ‘em in their squad cars. Get their hands behind their backs.”
Aruna and Gula each grabbed a fallen officer, pulled back their arms, and pushed their wrists together.
I summoned silver Hellfire into my hands, shot it around one of the nearby metal stanchions, and liquified them both in an instant. I then split the liquid metal into four slim ropes and tied off both officers’ feet and wrists.
Once the restraints were good and snug, Aruna and Gula dragged the men over to their vehicles, opened up the back door, and threw them inside. Finally, Gula lit up her hand with red flames and placed it on the door handle.
“I know they don’t have handles on the inside, but just to be sure… ” the Sister of Gluttony noted as she melted the door handle with her spell.
She went around and turned the remaining three handles into a sloppy heap of metal, and then she walked over to the second car and repeated the action in full.
“Excellent,” Isabella said with a satisfied nod. “That should give us at least until morning, and I fucking hope we’ll be gone before then.”
The BPI Agent picked up her pace as she strutted past the police cars and headed toward the entrance of the Necropolis.
We soon came to a set of simple black double doors with the words “Ufficio Scavi” written above them. It honestly looked like the door that led to the back part of a restaurant, not a series of fucking underground tombs.
“They’re surely locked,” Isabella guessed. “You want me to pick it?”
“No need,” I chuckled and summoned silver flames into my hand.
I walked over to the doors, placed my open palm against the deadbolt, and turned it into liquid metal. It ran down the door like the wax of a silver-infused candle as it fell away from its slot and painted the black door with a shiny new coat of metallic paint. Once that was gone, the door popped open with a simple twist of the handle.
I stepped inside, held the door open for my friends, and then gently pushed it closed.
It was dark inside, so we quickly used our red flames to turn our hands into makeshift torches. Then we headed into the Necropolis.
We wandered through a few hallways before we came to a set of crumbling stone stairs.
“Now see?” Todd joked. “If we had a tour guide, this is where they would be all ‘watch your step! The Vatican is not liable if you fall and hurt yourself.’ We’re totally getting a sub-par experience, bro.”
As we ventured down the stairs, the white marble walls around us slowly turned into a reddish-orange mixture of dirt and clay. The air became more stale, humid, and foul, and the world around us seemed to grow darker. Finally, the stairs came to an end, and we were met with a massive chamber before us.
“There’s got to be a light switch or breaker around here somewhere…” Jane grumbled as she looked around. “Aha!”
The brunette cultist dashed over to a small box on the wall, tossed it open, and flipped the switch inside. As she did so, the Necropolis was illuminated by a series of powerful flood lights.
We could now see just what we’d gotten ourselves into. It quite literally was a city of the dead, complete with its own miniature buildings, sidewalks, and even several archways that divided up the tombs. Although we were currently in a large, open chamber, there were several tunnels that led to different parts of the “city.”
“Where the fuck do we even start?” I pondered as my voice echoed through the chambers.
“Let’s think about this,” Sia murmured as she stared off, deep in thought. “It was a statue of the Virgin Mary that led us here, so should we maybe search for any images of her down here?”
“Perhaps,” Isabella agreed. “Or maybe we see if there are any tombs of people with similar names?”
“You told us before the juicy secrets would be located in the hidden part of the Necropolis,” Oliver reminded the agent, “in the catacombs.”
“Well, that’s the thing… ” Isabella sighed, “I’m not exactly sure how to access those catacombs. Not from here, at least. We need to find the entrance first.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” Jane grumbled. “At least we have until morning before the cavalry arrives.”
My team spent the next two hours combing through the Necropolis, and we looked for anything that could possibly lead us to the next part of our journey. After going looking over dozens of tombs and inspecting every single nook and cranny, though, I was beginning to feel fatigued and frustrated.
“Nothing,” I growled and wiped the sweat from my brow. “Two hours, and we haven’t found a goddamn thing.”
“Maybe we’re approaching the puzzle from the wrong angle?” Invidia suggested.
“What other angle is there?” Gula groaned. “It’s not like the prophecy was War and Peace. It was only a few sentences, and that’s it. We really don’t have a lot to work with.”
“Welp,” Isabella sighed as she sat down on the ground. “There does not appear to be anything here related to the Virgin Mary whatsoever. We need a new strategy.”
“Why don’t we just start going grave diggin’?” Todd suggested, half-jokingly. “Go around busting open these tombs like they’re pots in a Zelda game and then seein’ what goodies are inside?”
“As much as I appreciate the enthusiasm,” Isabella chuckled, “I want to get out of here with as little collateral damage as possible.”
We all sat there in silence for a long moment as we thought of possible solutions to our predicament.
It was becoming very clear Mary wasn’t the clue we were looking for, but what else could it be? The original prophecy mentioned the woman was going to be “close to the holy city.” Did we need to search the part of the Necropolis that was near the very center of the Vatican or one of its landmarks?
There was also a big deal made about the “eighth son.” Did it have to do with the number eight?
Or maybe it was the scripture Aruna found on the statue?
“Oliver,” I finally blurted out. “Remind me what Hebrews eleven-thirty-eight says again.”
“Uhhh… ‘the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground,’ I believe,” he repeated.
“Hold on… ” Invidia trailed off. “There was a painting of a mountain on one of the tombs I was looking at. Way back on the other side of the Necropolis.”
“It’s worth looking at,” I proclaimed.
We made our way over to the far side of the Necropolis, over to the tomb Vidia had noticed. When we arrived, the Sister of Envy stepped up to the sarcophagus and slapped her hand right above the drawing in question.
It was a very subtle, crude image of a mountain, no more than a simple triangle with a few squiggles to indicate the snow.
