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“No, we just don’t know his motivations yet,” Ally replied. “We’ll get there.”
She still wasn’t sure her past was something she wanted to remember. All those deaths—all that dying. And why? Because whatever the alternative was, she had decided it was worse. That learning the truth about herself and her fate was so bad…that the grave was a better option.
But it had to stop somewhere.
Set us free.
“Here we are.” Rinaldo reached the end of one of the aisles. There, at the end of the row, on a table pressed up against the wall…was a corpse.
But not like any corpse she had ever seen before in her life.
It was a skeleton—nothing left of the flesh or tendons that had held the body together in life was left behind. But it had been carefully reassembled to be lying upon a row of pillows and cushions in full repose.
And it was covered in gold and jewels. Rubies, leafed in pure gold and bedecked in shining emeralds were placed into the empty sockets. Even the teeth were inlaid with precious metals. It wore a crown, and its skeletal frame was clothed in shining tapestries and cloth. And every ounce of bone was coated in gold…as if it had been dipped in the substance and then wired together once it was done.
Rinaldo stepped aside. Ally stayed close to the end of the aisle. It…this was what they had brought her to see. A golden skeleton, wreathed in easily tens of thousands of dollars in glittering diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, rubies, pearls, and opals.
“Wh…what is this?” She didn’t want to get any closer. Not until she knew.
“Made to look like a catacomb saint.” Rinaldo leaned back against the shelf and looked away from the golden skeleton like the sight of it bothered him. “During the Reformation—when people got really pissed about holy relics and went around destroying them all—the Vatican dug up old skeletons from beneath the city here to be shipped around to churches bedecked like this. Said they were the bodies of old Christian martyrs. Most of them are fake. Some’ve been destroyed, some are still around as morbid attractions.”
“And this one?”
Rinaldo jerked his head toward the skeleton. “Ask him yourself.”
Maggie stared at the older priest and raised her voice above a whisper for the first time since she had set foot in the creepy vault of dangerous and spooky things. “Excuse the fuck out of me?”
“Princess…my princess…”
She froze. A feeling like ice water rushed down her spine. She stared at the skeleton—it hadn’t moved. It hadn’t done anything. But it had somehow talked. The voice was a haggard, tired whisper. But it had definitely come from the gold-coated corpse.
But that wasn’t why adrenaline was ripping through her like wildfire. Like she wanted to turn on her heel and run for her life.
It was because she knew that voice.
She didn’t know how. She didn’t know from where. But she knew she recognized it. Whoever it was whose remains had been so morbidly put on display by a craftsman, she didn’t know. But she knew him all the same. Suddenly she was shaking, trembling like a leaf, and she didn’t know what to say or do in response. She just stared, wide-eyed and horrified—and felt caught like a deer in headlights.
She was terrified.
And she didn’t know why.
Ally sighed. “Gabriel was right.”
Rinaldo swore quietly. “I hate it when he’s right. Always gets us into trouble. Look…Maggie. This thing—this monstrosity—hasn’t talked for two hundred years. It went quiet. But before then, all it could talk about was the ‘princess and the necromancer.’ Saying that Faust would come for his Marguerite. We thought he was referencing the poem, even if it was after his time, but…then when you turned up, well, we put two and two together.”
“Princess—my beloved princess…it has been so long. Is it really you?” The rasping voice called out to her. She could almost picture the bony, golden hand stretching out to touch her, although it didn’t move.
Maggie was covered in cold sweat as her body battled the terror that was still coursing through her veins. “Wh…who…?” She couldn’t muster anything more. That voice. It cut through her like a hot knife through butter. She felt ripped open, like it was her bones on display, not his.
“We don’t know…we were hoping maybe he’d tell you. The Order hasn’t gotten anything out of him except the ravings of a lunatic since he’s been here.”
“F…” She paused and forced herself to breathe. She felt lightheaded, and she didn’t realize until she was dizzy that she had forgotten to do just that. “How…long?”
“Vatican records say he has been here for about four hundred years. Give or take. 1602?” Ally chewed her lip. “Are you all right, Maggie?”
“No. No, I’m not.” She couldn’t take her eyes off the skeleton. She could feel it calling to her—begging her—a desperate and silent cry for her to step closer. “Can…can I do this in private, please?”
Rinaldo and Ally exchanged glances. Ally nodded. Rinaldo clearly seemed upset by this and grunted. It seemed the lack of full trust went both ways between Maggie and the holy warriors. But Ally leveled a glare at Rinaldo which could only be produced by a woman in a relationship, and Rinaldo let out a long, frustrated sigh. “Fine,” he relented. “We’ll walk away. But you tell us everything he says—everything you learn. You understand?”
