him? “Give up and—and I’ll make it quick for you,” he said, dredging up half-remembered dialogue from some movie in an attempt to sound more threatening.
It didn’t work. “You couldn’t be quick if you tried, you fucking greaseball! Come on, get your fat ass down here—if it’ll squeeze through the door!”
Anger rising over his anxiety, Agnelli started to jog, right hand stretched out to feel his way along the tunnel wall as he held the gun at the ready in his left. There was no way she could slip past him in the passage, so she would be trapped in the end chamber. He went around the last turn, total darkness enshrouding him. Now he’d show her that he had more muscle than fat—
Something snagged around his ankles—and he went flying over the makeshift trip wire Nina had made from the air conditioner’s power cable, slamming down face-first in the small room. Before he could recover a foot drove into his side, followed by another kick that caught his elbow. He yelled, then panic returned as he realized he had let go of the gun.
Nina heard the clatter of metal on the floor. Run while Agnelli was down, or go for the gun and turn the tables? She chose the latter, crouching and fumbling in the blackness. Stone and dirt were all she felt. She heard the Italian also groping blindly for his fallen weapon. Where was the damn thing?
Cold, angular steel. She grabbed the gun, trying to flip it around to get a proper hold—
Agnelli gripped her wrist.
He was too strong for her to pull free, dragging her toward him. She lashed out with her other hand, hitting the side of his face, but before she could go for his eyes he bashed her hand against the floor.
She gasped in pain. Agnelli pounded her hand down again, harder. The pistol jolted loose and clacked onto the stone. The Italian batted savagely at her body with his other arm, then scrambled for the weapon—
A bell sounded, its clamor echoing through the catacomb.
Agnelli let out a gasp of horror as he realized what it meant. The wounded Popadopoulos must have managed to drag himself to the archive entrance and set off the alarm. More members of the Brotherhood would be on their way—and the old man would tell them everything.
He abandoned the gun and leapt back to his feet, scrambling down the tunnel. Ribs aching where he had hit her, Nina found the pistol in the blackness, then quickly followed the panicked Italian.
She soon reached the lit junction and paused, listening. Agnelli was heading deeper into the tunnels. She ran after him. Where was he going?
Another exit, maybe one even Belardinelli didn’t know about. The old man had said that Agnelli spent a lot of time exploring the catacombs.
The bell faded as she moved farther into the maze. She noticed that some passages were unlit, their loculi empty. Not even the Brotherhood’s vast collection of stolen records could fill the space donated to them. But the running man was following the lights, with a specific destination in mind …
She slowed sharply as she realized she could no longer hear Agnelli’s steps. But he couldn’t be far away; she had been gaining on the lumbering youth. Cautious, gun raised, Nina advanced. There was a room ahead, a larger chamber than any she had seen so far—and straining sounds of movement came from it.
A glance through the entrance simultaneously told her the room’s purpose and excited her aesthetic and archaeological sensibilities. It was a crypt; not the dank Gothic tomb of vampire lore, but a high-ceilinged space decorated with elaborately carved pilaster columns and painted friezes, tiers of large burial nooks built for the members of an entire family around the walls.
But no Agnelli.
Confused, she warily entered. The crypt was lit by only a single bulb above the entrance, the farthest corners in shadow. She aimed the gun at each in turn, but still saw no sign of the Italian—until a noise from above made her whip the weapon up.
Despite his size and weight, Agnelli clearly had some skill at climbing. He had scaled the loculi before pulling himself up one of the pilasters, and was now more than twenty feet above and still ascending. “Stop!” Nina shouted, taking aim.
He ignored her, toes scrabbling at footholds as he headed for a dark opening where a block had either fallen or been removed from the vaulted roof. She repeated her command, but knew she