Chapter 29 - The Ghost of the Catacombs
The hammer struck the primer, but Julian moved faster than human reflex should have allowed. With a roar ripped from his chest, he drove his shoulder into Clara’s ribs, throwing her down behind the heavy, cold marble of the central communion altar. The bullet gouged a vicious crater into the stone right where her forehead had been a millisecond prior, spraying a rain of white dust and blinding mineral shards across their faces.
"Down! Stay down!" Julian snarled, his body entirely blanketing hers. He racked the slide of his customized Beretta 92FS, his knuckles white against the grip, his eyes wild and scanning the cathedral rafters.
Above them, through the smoke and cascading rain pouring in through the blasted skylight, the cloaked patriarch let out a laugh that sounded like iron chains dragging across concrete.
"Always so chivalrous, young Julian," Don Luciano Valente hissed through the PA speakers. "A dog dying for a bitch who doesn't even know her own name!"
"Luciano!" Constance’s voice didn't waver, but it cut through the din of the dying organ with a razor-thin venom. She stood in the center of the aisle, defying the laser sights that danced across her charcoal Armani coat. Her silver hair was damp with drizzle, her posture as rigid as iron. "I pulled the trigger myself thirty years ago on the docks of Palermo. I watched your lungs fill with saltwater. You are nothing but rot that crawled out of a forgotten grave!"
"You aimed for my chest, my darling Constance," the phantom sneered, descending the iron spiral stairs of the choir loft with terrifying ease. Beneath his dark cowl, the withered, scarred half of his face caught the lightning flashes. "You forgot that a Valente’s heart sits half an inch to the left. A deformity... or perhaps providence."
"Clara, look at me," Julian commanded, his voice dropping into that deadly, focused cadence he only used in the kill zone. He pulled Clara’s chin toward him. Her eyes were wide, dilated with shock, her breath catching as the static from the tactical radio in Julian’s earpiece continued to buzz. *Salieri’s radio was completely dead.*
"The nursery..." Clara choked out, the taste of masonry dust thick on her tongue. Her fingers clawed into Julian’s tactical vest. "Julian, Salieri went silent. The baby—my sister—they took her!"
"We survive the next thirty seconds first," Julian snapped, pulling an incendiary smoke canister from his belt with his teeth. "On three, I flush the perimeter. Constance will breach the east transept. You run for the armored Maybach. Do not look back. Do not stop for anyone."
"I am not leaving you behind!" Clara hissed, her hand dropping instinctively to the compact Glock concealed beneath the silk train of her blood-stained gown. "I killed my uncle. I survived the Harbor. I will put this dead man back in the dirt myself!"
"He’s not alone, Clara!"
Before Julian could pull the pin, the heavy wooden doors at the cathedral’s entrance blew inward with a thunderous percussive shockwave. A dozen operatives in black tactical gear and Kevlar masks swarmed into the pews, their submachine guns raised, their barrels already spitting suppressed fire. Stone angels shattered into dust. The ancient pews splintered into kindling under a relentless hail of copper-jacketed 9mm rounds.
Vittorio, cowering behind a fallen crucifix near the altar steps, suddenly scrambled to his feet with an ecstatic grin. "Don Luciano! I held the line! I delayed them as you ordered!"
From the catwalk above, Luciano didn't even turn his head. He squeezed the trigger of his golden revolver once. The heavy .44 magnum round struck Vittorio square between the eyes. The traitorous councilman collapsed backward, his lifeless body sliding down the blood-smeared marble steps.
"Loose ends," Luciano remarked casually, smoke curling from his barrel. "Burn them all."
Julian hurled the smoke grenade. A wall of blinding, choking phosphor erupted in the aisle, turning the cathedral into a labyrinth of white fog and muzzle flashes.
"Move!" Julian roared.
Clara vaulted over the communion rail, the hem of her gown ripping free, her Glock barking twice into the fog. A mercenary stepped out of the haze; two hollow points found his throat, collapsing him instantly. Beside her, Constance moved like a wraith of vengeance, her silenced pistol firing with surgical, rhythmic precision—*thwip, thwip, thwip*—dropping men into the pews before they could even align their sights.
They reached the heavy brass exit of the transept, Julian kicking the iron bar open into the torrential downpour outside. The cold rain hit Clara like a slap of reality.
In the distance, illuminating the midnight skyline of the city, a pillar of thick, black smoke rose into the clouds.
It was coming directly from the Valente fortress estate.
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"The nursery..." Clara whispered, her knees threatening to buckle as the sickening scent of burning fuel drifted across the city wind. "Oh God, Julian... the house is on fire."
***
