The Devil's Labyrinth

CHAPTER 53

RYAN DID HIS best to focus both his eyes and his mind on the math book on the table in the library, but knew it was hopeless.

Something was wrong — with his body, his brain, his soul. His belly kept churning as if he was about to throw up, but every time he’d felt like he’d better bolt from the room and try to make it to the boys’ room down the hall before he puked his guts out, the nausea subsided just enough to keep him in his seat.

It wasn’t just the nausea, either — it was like his whole body was revolting; when he’d first come into the library, he’d thought someone must have forgotten to turn the heat on, but a couple of minutes later he’d started sweating so bad his shirt was wet. Then, just as he was sure he was going to burn up from the heat, he’d suddenly turned cold again. It was like he had some kind of fever, but at the same time it didn’t feel like a fever at all. Besides, if he had a fever, they’d have kept him in the infirmary, wouldn’t they?

And how had he gotten to the infirmary in the first place? The last thing he really remembered was following Father Sebastian in the tunnels below the school. After that, it was all like a half-remembered dream: some kind of cross hanging above him, and something on his chest and—

And what? The next thing he remembered was waking up in the infirmary, and being told he’d gotten sick last night. But they’d let him go, and most of the morning he’d felt—

Actually, he’d felt weird. At least half a dozen times he had the sensation that someone was standing behind him — really close behind him — but when he turned around to look, nobody was there. Then it had gotten even stranger; it was like somebody was actually inside him. He had a weird feeling like he was being crowded out of his own body. But that was stupid — nothing like that was even possible.

Yet the feeling kept getting stronger, and now he was starting to wonder if maybe he was going crazy. He clamped his eyes shut for a moment as another wave of the strange nausea rose in him. He heard whispering voices all around him, which wasn’t surprising considering that as the news had spread through the school that the Pope was coming — not just to Boston, but to St. Isaac’s — even the nuns had barely been able to keep order in the classrooms. But as the nausea subsided and Ryan opened his eyes again, he saw that no one was talking at all.

All around him, heads were bent over textbooks, and pens were writing on pads of paper.

No one was talking.

Yet the buzz — like an incomprehensible babble of voices — went on.

And then he felt a new sensation: a pressure in his head, as if some strange force was trying to push him out of his own mind. He grabbed his head with both hands as if holding on to the outside of his skull would help him control the chaos that was suddenly going on inside it.

He concentrated on Melody Hunt, who was sitting at the table behind him. The weird thing was that even though she was behind him, if he closed his eyes, he could actually see her just as clearly as if he’d turned around.

And he could feel her, too.

Giving up on trying to study, Ryan put his math book in his backpack and zipped it closed, and when he stood up, he wasn’t surprised to find Melody standing next to him.

She reached over and took his hand.

It was as if an electric current surged through him and he reflexively jerked his hand away.

The sensation faded, leaving only an adrenaline rush.

Melody smiled at him — a strange, almost cold smile, as if she knew exactly what had just happened to him — and then she took his hand again.

The electricity shot up his arm like lightning.

“There’s something we have to do,” Melody said.

Except she hadn’t said it. She hadn’t spoken at all.

Yet he’d heard her words — heard them perfectly clearly.

“Come on.”

Silently, Ryan followed her out of the library and through the corridors until they came to the empty dining room. When she opened the door that would lead them down to the underground tunnels, Ryan felt no fear at all.

But he felt the strange presence — the peculiar “other” inside him — stir.

He wanted to turn away from the door, but as Melody started down the stairs, he felt himself being drawn to follow her. He took one uncertain step down, and then another.

The door closed behind him, enfolding them in complete darkness, and he felt the first tendrils of panic reaching out to him. But even as the panic rose, that strange “other” within him shrugged it off as if it were nothing, and Ryan found himself following Melody on down the stairs and into the tunnels themselves.

As they started off into the darkness, Melody again took his hand, and once more he felt the stream of energy that seemed to flow from her body into his.

And with her energy came her calm.

Her single-minded purpose.

And suddenly the darkness was no longer his enemy. It was as if there was a bright beacon directing them through the dark tunnels; they needed no flashlight — not even so much as a glowing match.

They needed only to follow the energy that guided them.

Together they walked in silence through the blackness, down more steps, through more tunnels, never hesitating at an intersection, moving confidently through the labyrinth.

Then, from somewhere ahead, Ryan saw a light. A pale, greenish glow emanating from an open door.

When they came to the door, Ryan saw the source of the light, and a memory rose from his subconscious. He was gazing at the sarcophagus that held the corpse of Jeffrey Holmes. Indeed, the strange green light glowed right through the cold stone, and he could see Jeffrey offering him the same cold smile Melody had shown him only a little while ago.

Ryan tried to pull away. He willed his feet to stop, resisted the urge to go into that tiny chamber from which emanated the icy chill of death.

The “other” drew him forward, into the room until he and Melody stood on either side of the glowing tomb.

Against Ryan’s own will, his hands reached out and touched the cold stone, and as Melody’s hands joined his own on the lid of the sarcophagus, the slab of marble slid aside.

Ryan gazed down upon the bloated, rotting features of the boy he’d never met, and once again nausea threatened to overwhelm him. He struggled to turn away — at least to step back — but found himself watching helplessly as he and Melody joined hands, then reached down and touched Jeffrey Holmes’s naked chest.

As their palms came to rest on the boy’s bony torso, a new rush of energy gushed into Ryan, and for a moment he thought he must be going crazy. Ice flowed in his veins, and he felt a terrifying power surge through him, chilling first his hands, then his wrists, moving steadily up his arms and into his chest.

Then it reached his heart.

He wasn’t going crazy at all — he was dying.

He knew he was dying — knew it with a certainty as strong as the agonizing pain that tore at his body.

Then it was over.

But he wasn’t dead.

Instead he was glowing.

The same pale, greenish light that had come from Jeffrey Holmes only a moment ago now seemed to be emanating from the flesh of his own body, and when he looked over at Melody, she, too, was surrounded by the pale aura.

Whatever had been in Jeffrey Holmes’s body was now in theirs.

Leaving the stone casket cover askew, Ryan took Melody’s hand and together they left the empty body in its stone coffin and began walking back through the darkness, guided only by the cold light that now dwelt within them.