Page 109 of Fiorenzo

Only then did Enzo realize his household guard had all gathered ‘round him in the interim. He glanced up to find them with weapons drawn and ready to receive his orders.

Enzo stood. “Vittorio.”

His hound, who had waited patient and faithful all the while, bounded to meet him.

Enzo willed his hand not to tremble as he reached into the breast-pocket of his waistcoat. If the brigands had immured Fiore, Vittorio could still find him. The finger felt almost alive in his hand, warmed by the heat of his own chest. He grasped it gently and held it out for Vittorio to sniff.

“Find our friend,” Enzo commanded.

Vittorio snapped to attention, then turned and began his investigation, his nose brushing across the bones. He paused at the splashes of blood. Enzo’s heart crept into his throat.

Then Vittorio looked to the left-most tunnel. He glanced back at Enzo for permission. At Enzo’s nod, he trotted off into the darkness.

“Canello, with me,” Enzo hissed. “Zanetta and Ferruzzi, keep watch here.”

All three guards looked reluctant to play the parts Enzo had laid out for them. Nonetheless, they raised no objection. Canello fell into step behind Enzo like his own shadow as he snatched up the hooded lantern and led the way down the tunnel of bones.

Vittorio hadn’t gone far ahead of them before halting and turning to wait for his master. No sooner had the lantern-light found him than he set out again, his claws clicking against the skeletal floor. The lantern likewise illuminated occasional scarlet spattering.

And, when they caught up to Vittorio again, a smeared scarlet handprint on the bone-white wall.

Enzo halted and stared at the mark. It had but three fingers. Instinct bid him reach out and touch them with his own. His hand came away wet. He tried to tell himself this was a good sign. It meant they were close.

Vittorio, meanwhile, hadn’t moved any further down the sepulchral corridor. He sniffed intently at the ground. Then pawed at a particular part of the wall and whined.

The words of the broken-nosed brute echoed in Enzo’s mind. He shot forward. There, where Vittorio tried in vain to dig, a shadow which Enzo had taken for yet another crenelation in the naturally uneven pile of bones proved itself to be a far deeper crack—just barely wide enough for something, or someone, to slip inside.

And as Enzo cast the hooded lantern’s light within it, a pair of eyes glinted back at him whilst ragged breathing rang in his ears.

“Fiore?” Enzo whispered.

The thing in the crevasse scuttled backward, away from the sound of his voice.

More than anything, Enzo wanted to reach for him—wanted to plunge his whole arm into the foreboding passage, and if Fiore tore it off at the shoulder, so be it—but knew full well to venture even mere fingertips toward Fiore in this state would only send him flying further off, perhaps down into some horrible hole from whence Enzo might never retrieve him. He’d had but a glimpse of his face, and that glimpse had shown him the wild, wide-eyed, ghastly pale aspect of primal fear. Terror beyond all reason had seized Fiore; small wonder, given all he’d endured in the few short hours that nonetheless had passed like centuries and frayed Enzo’s own nerves to their breaking point. If Enzo wanted him back, he must offer up something in return.

And so Enzo snatched the mask from his face and cast it aside on the bones.

“Fiore,” he repeated, keeping his voice low and soft, though his heart pounded in his throat. “It’s only me. It’s only your Enzo.”

And as he spoke, he turned the hooded lantern away from the crevasse and cast its flickering light on his own face.

For a long and horrible moment the only sounds that echoed through the catacombs were the lapping of water against the skeletal remains and the ragged breathing from deep within the crevasse. Enzo, blinded by the lamp, could see nothing amidst the shadows.

Then a hand as pale as the surrounding bones shot out of the darkness and seized him by the wrist.

“Steady,” Enzo murmured even as his heart soared. He set the lantern aside and dared to turn his arm in the pale hand’s hold so he might grasp the pale arm in turn. He met with no resistance, though the pale arm trembled like a barren branch in a storm.

Enzo slid his free hand up the sleeve to slip beneath the shoulder and draw Fiore further out. More scuttling sounds echoed from deeper within the crevasse, bone cracking and shards clattering against each other in the darkness as Fiore kicked out his legs to assist in his own rescue. A gentle tug saw Fiore’s head and shoulders slip out into the lantern’s glow. Blood smeared across his face. The sight sent a knife into Enzo’s heart, all the moreso for the haunted and panicked look those dark eyes shot up at him from within a countenance as pale as the moon.

“Easy now,” Enzo murmured again, for his own sake as well as Fiore’s.

Another firm yet ginger pull brought Fiore out to his hips. Enzo, already kneeling, drew him into his lap. Fiore’s body felt not half so warm as it ought. His shirt, its pale linen still darker than his skin, bore a deep crimson stain beneath the bone-white hand that clutched his stomach. At first Enzo supposed this came from the missing finger on that hand. But as Fiore endeavored to curl in upon himself like a dying spider, Enzo’s instincts told him otherwise. He reached for Fiore’s wounded hand. Fiore flinched from his touch.

“It’s all right,” Enzo lied. “Let me see.”

The frantic breaths that hissed through Fiore’s clenched teeth and shuddered through his ribcage slowed. His wide-eyed panic fixed on Enzo’s face. A hard swallow rippled down his slender throat.

And at last, with evident strain, he withdrew his trembling arm so Enzo might behold what pained him.

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