Nomad (37 page)

Pulling the boy out of the dirt, he opened the control room door and peered down the slope. Surging black sludge flattened olive trees just hundreds of feet away, sucking along in it floating cars, the remains of shattered homes and a fishing boat. No, if he wanted to get across, this was the only way. Thick rolls of steam crawled over the sludge below. To his left, fingers of magma flowing from Monterufoli glowed dull red through the darkness. Tremors rattled the metal cage.

Hector crouched on the floor by his feet.

Nico growled. “
Andiamo!
”

God had extinguished the sun above. Leviathan had swallowed the sky, and darkness crawled over the valley. Only God could judge him now.

He reached down to grab the boy.

Hector shot sideways, turned and jumped at Nico, windmilling his arms. Nico tried to grab him, but an explosion of pain in his left side staggered him sideways. Hector scrabbled along the floor, a desperate animal trying to escape, but Nico overcame the flaring new pain and grabbed the boy by the neck.

The boy squealed.

Nico gritted his teeth and looked at his side. With the thickening clouds, light fell by the minute, his eyes still adjusting to the darkness. A jagged piece of metal stuck out of his ribs.

“
Bastardo
,” Nico roared, throwing the child against the metal wall.

Hector thudded to the floor, mewled and curled into a ball.

Grunting, Nico swung open the door from the control room to the cable car itself. He leaned over to grab the boy, dragging him into the cable car and closing the door. Almost pitch black inside. This old machinery didn’t need any power, though. It was gravity operated. From here, two hundred feet above Villa Tosetti on the other side, all he had to do was release the clutch mechanism, the handle protruding from the floor in the middle of the carriage.

Nico cursed at Hector, still curled into a ball at his feet.

Stepping sideways, Nico stood in front of the clutch switch. It was over. He glanced to his left, noticed the other side door of the cable car was open into the empty blackness beyond.

From the shadows at the back of the cable car, Jess watched Nico slam Hector into the wall.

Anger, pure hatred boiled through her veins as she watched him drag the boy into the carriage. She killed three people in the past day. What was one more? Nico caused all this pain. Trapped her family here. Killed Giovanni. Tortured this child. She gripped the Medici dagger in her hand, felt the sharpness of its blade as a part of her.

Nico glanced left, at the open cable car door leading into empty space, a hundred foot drop onto the black rocks below.

Jess stepped forward, brought the blade around Nico’s neck with her right hand, and gripped his body with her left. The booming thunder of Monterufoli erupting echoed off the rock walls of the canyon, the stinking black rain spattering off the metal walls of the cable car, burning her skin and eyes.

Nico’s eyes darted down. “Ah, the Medici dagger.”

He sounded calm.

Jess gritted her teeth and blinked. Tears ran from her burning eyes. She resisted the urge to pull the blade deep into Nico’s neck and feel his hot blood splash across her face. “Why did you bring us here?”

“God brought you here,” Nico replied. His lip twisted into something between a snarl and a smile.

“That Facebook message, convincing my mother to come.” Jess needed to know. She expected him to fight, to try and twist away, but Nico remained loose in Jess’s grip.

Nico snorted. “That wasn’t me. That was God.”

Jess felt the rage rising inside her. She didn’t believe him. If it wasn’t him, then who? It had to be him. “Is this a game to you?” she grunted, forcing the words out between gritted teeth.

“No game. This is no game.” He held one hand out to the churning darkness. “But my hand was forced by events beyond my control.”

“Then what is it?”

“Revenge, you understand revenge, no?” He laughed, his voice hoarse. “I’m no monster, I wasn’t going to kill the boy.”

“Then why take him?”

“You want to know why?” Nico heaved labored breaths in and out. “I wanted nothing to do with this stupidity, but my uncle, Pietro Tosetti, was killed in a car bomb, ten years ago. He was a
padrone
in the Naples mafia.” The veins in Nico’s neck flared, his hands balling into white fists. “That bomb killed my wife and daughter. A bomb the Baron Ruspoli planted there.”

“You’re saying Giovanni planted a bomb?”

“An eye for an eye, that is the Old Testament, no? The Old God of vengeance is upon us today, and I claim the child as my own, for the child taken from me.”

“I can’t let you do that,” Jess said, his voice gravel in her throat.

“Then take your revenge. I know what you feel. Your blood is mine, your rage is mine.”

“It’s not the same.” She pressed the blade to his neck.

“It’s not?” Nico didn’t resist her. “Does it matter that an offense happened many years ago? Does time diminish a crime?”

“Giovanni didn’t kill anyone.”

The squall of black rain pelted the cabin, a sulfurous choking in the air. The cabin rattled as the ground rolled from side to side. Before Jess’s eyes, the other side of the valley slipped, fell into the churning black below in a roaring rush.

“Ask him why he was in Antarctica when his father died,” Nico snarled. “Sons answer for the sins of their fathers.”

There was no time for this. If she let him go, he’d kill her, take the boy. He’d never stop. Jess gritted her teeth.

Nico laughed, his body going limp. “The only thing that burns in hell is the part of you that won’t let go. Hell is no punishment, but a freeing of the soul. I’m not scared of dying, Jessica. If you’re frightened of dying, you’ll see devils tearing your life away at death, but if you’ve made peace—”

“Then you’ll see angels freeing you,” Jess whispered, completing his sentence. Where had she heard that before? Jess’s grip slackened.

“Yes, you see?” Nico lifted one hand and tried to pull the dagger into his throat. “I’ve paid my demons, now release me.”

Jess pushed back, now using every ounce of her strength to keep the blade from his neck. Looking down, little Hector stood in front of them, staring, the whites of his eyes almost glowing. The little boy’s face disappeared into the blackness.

Vengeance had filled Jess’s life. The desire to get even. The need to punish for past sins.

Enough.

Jess wrenched the dagger away, but held Nico close. “I forgive you,” she whispered into his ear and put the dagger in her right pocket.

Stepping around him, she took Hector’s hand, and backed away to the cable car door on the left, the one open to a hundred feet of empty blackness to the sharp rocks below.

“I’m sorry, Billy,” Jess whispered. She picked up Hector and held him close. Standing at the edge of the open door, she leaned forward and hit the clutch mechanism.

The cable car shuddered and released. It started sliding down across the valley.

Jess stepped back toward the open door, crossed her arms around Hector and fell backward into blackness.

39

C
HIANTI,
I
TALY

WEIGHTLESS, JESS FELL backward through empty space, clutching Hector in her arms. The cable car disappeared upward and away against a maelstrom of black and crimson clouds. Nico’s face stared at her as it receded into the distance.

She hoped she got this just right. Clenching her teeth, she gripped Hector with every ounce of her strength.

The cord bit into her waist and armpits, savagely ripping at her body. She’d wrapped a length of the cord around Hector, and she cradled him, did her best to shield him as she felt the cord stretch behind her, the wind whistling as they swung in a downward arc. Her right foot slammed into the ground, dragged through the grass for an instant before they swung up and away.

Two seconds later they reached the top of the arc, and began to swing back. When she ran up here, through the castle, she arrived before Nico and grabbed the improvised rope swing she’d set up a few days before.

Spinning, holding Hector with her left arm, she pulled the dagger from her right pocket. Lifting it above her head against the cord, she pressed the blade into it, forcing it back with all her might as she felt her leg graze the ground again. The blade cut through and they tumbled through space, landing hard in a tangled heap on the grass. She kept the blade high, felt pain lancing through her shoulder as they crunched into the earth.

Jess spat out a mouthful of dirt and grass and rolled to one side. “Hector,” she groaned, “are you okay?”

It was dark, and Jess struggled to look at Hector. Tangled underneath her, he didn’t move. Panic flooded her veins. “Hector!?”

Coughing, he pulled himself from under her. Trembling, he smiled at Jess. “
Che figata!
”

Jess laughed, squeezing him into her. “You liked that?”

His eyes darted up, and Jess followed them, craning her neck around. The cable car was still visible, halfway across the valley, illuminated by the glow of Monterufoli. Nico’s pale face was a dot of white against black. Booming thunder. The ground trembled again, a thick cloud of ash swirling over the top of the cliffs.

As Jess watched, the cables swung up and down, vibrating with the ground. A cable jumped its guide, and in slow motion, the cable car hopped up and then down, spinning, tumbling from the sky. It fell hundreds of feet into the surging sludge below.

The cloud of ash enveloped them.

“Hector, which way?” Jess coughed.

She knew there was a doorway from the ledge, a tunnel leading into the caves. They used it when Giovanni showed her around, when they first came out there. Sitting upright, she cut away the improvised harness she’d tied around herself.

Wiping dirt and ash from his eyes, Hector stood, looked to his left, then right. He pointed.

“Good boy.” Jess pulled the last of the rope from her body and staggered to her feet.

A blast of hot wind brought with it a soup of ash, fine particles and thick flakes. Jess pulled Hector’s torn t-shirt up around his mouth, doing the same for herself. Holding his hand, she followed him into the swirling black soup, scrambling over rocks. They reached the vertical cliff face, but she could only see for a few feet. Her eyes stung, watered, and she tried to wipe them but that only made it worse.

Hector stood bolt upright, shaking. He wiped his eyes, smearing them black, tears streaming down his face. Cracking thunder boomed, the ground shuddered. Pebbles showered onto them from the cliffs above.

“It’s okay.” Jess held him to her, holding up one hand to shelter them. “Come on.”

She grabbed his hand, pulled him to the left, wiping her eyes. They picked their way through the jumbled rocks, searching for an opening, but they reached a yawning edge of blackness.

Jess swore under her breath. They must have missed it. She didn’t remember this edge. The ground was disappearing from beneath their feet, the cliffs shearing off into the valley. Another blast of hot air enveloped them, the soup of ash swirled thick and acrid. Cradling Hector, she crouched in the rocks by the wall. “We’ll stop for a minute and let this pass.”

But she didn’t know if it would.

The ground pitched sideways in an ear-splitting roar.

“It’ll be okay.” Jess held Hector’s face to her neck, his arms around her, his body stiff with fear. “It’ll be okay.”

She pressed her stinging eyes closed.

Something grabbed her shirt. Opening her eyes, a face loomed out of the darkness, fly-away white hair streaming from a slick scalp.

“Come,” growled Leone, the old groundskeeper.

He wrapped his calloused hands around Jess’s waist and lifted her and Hector up, cradled them in his arms. He ran forward, stepping through the rocks. A sharp left, then downward.