Rapture's Edge

20

The guard glanced at his companion, and D continued. “Heard that soldier I knocked out is doing better.”

“Which one?” said the other guard, smiling grimly. He was the bigger of the two, also nervous but determined not to show it, standing there with his legs spread wide and his square chin jutting out like a dare.

Okay, thought D. You first, then.

Before either one could react, D Shifted to Vapor, shed his clothes in a pile on the ground, reappeared behind the cocky guard, and tapped him on the shoulder. The guard spun around, right into the unleashed power of D’s fist. He dropped like a stone, and his rifle went clattering over the cracked marble.

The other guard took one look at D’s massive, naked, tattooed form and promptly dropped the rifle. He held up both hands. “Just make it quick,” he said. “And do me a solid—tell Celian I put up a good fight, will you?”

D almost smiled. He liked this kid. So instead of punching him in the face—which would leave him with a bruise blooming blue and purple over one side and probably a few crushed bones like his friend lying at their feet—he used an old standby…the sleeper hold. Steady, applied pressure to his carotid artery, and after a few twitches, the kid was out like a light.

Just as D finished getting dressed again, he heard a noise behind him. He spun around and saw Constantine leaning against a marble column on the other side of the basilica, slowly clapping in mock applause. His expression was one of amused disbelief. He pushed away from the column and walked toward D.

“Great show. I think Celian really needs to rethink his containment strategy.” When D didn’t answer, he said with exaggerated sarcasm, “Going somewhere?”

D shrugged and crossed his arms over his chest. “Stir-crazy. Needed to get out.”

“Figured as much.”

“You spying on me again, grandma?”

Constantine chuckled. “Something like that. Mind if I join you?”

D paused, examined the expression on Constantine’s face, and then said, “Not really a question, is it?”

Now Constantine’s chuckle was wry, as was the smile that split his face. “You’re pretty sharp for a blunt instrument, you know that?”

“Got all the looks in the family, too.” At that, they both chuckled. “Ladies first,” said D, gesturing toward the hidden door that led to the outside world and freedom. “And if I hear one word about a curfew, I’ll smack that movie-star smile right off your face.”

“Good to know you haven’t lost your sense of humor, D. The thought of you landing a punch on me is seriously hilarious.”

Constantine gave D a friendly shove, and D shoved him back, grinning. Then they both walked out into the starlit Roman night.

Three hours and two bottles of Glenlivet later, D’s mood had sunk a notch below black.

“You want to talk about it?” asked Constantine, watching D stare blankly at the empty glass in his hand.

“When have I ever wanted to talk about it?” D muttered. The camaraderie from hours earlier had evaporated along with the scotch, and D was surlier than ever. He knew from experience that drinking only dulled the pain but didn’t numb it, and that ache beneath his breastbone would need something stronger to kill it than an eighteen-year-old single malt. A machete might do the trick.

“So we’re just going to sit here all night and stare at the walls?”

D glanced up at Constantine, and a hot flash of anger lit through him when he saw the pity on his face. “I seem to remember it was you who insisted on coming,” he snapped.

“If I’d known your little pity party was going to be this much fun, I wouldn’t have.”

D bristled and sat up, glaring at Constantine. “I’m not feeling sorry for myself!”

“Right, you’re just drinking this much because you’re happy.”

“Screw you, Constantine.”

“Get real, D. You need to get a grip on yourself, brother. This can’t go on forever…”

Constantine kept talking, but D didn’t hear the rest because his attention was diverted by the flat-screen television hung above the pool table across the room. It was tuned to a news station, and the picture on the screen froze his blood to ice.

Eliana. Good God, it was her.

Hands cuffed behind her back, dressed only in a man’s wrinkled white button-down shirt, she was being hauled out of a police car by a pair of uniformed gendarmes sporting enough weaponry to outfit a small army. Though her head was turned, he saw her clearly in profile, and the image instantly seared itself into his mind. The proud lift of her chin, the elegant line of her neck, the elongated limbs that lent her the look of a ballerina, pixie-like and delicate. She was exactly as he remembered, except for hair dyed the color of lapis lazuli and an ominous bloodstained bandage wrapped around one bare calf.

The television was muted, but the caption on the screen screamed, “French police apprehend notorious thief!”

Everything around him vanished.

Gone was the dim, smoky room with its rickety tables and tacky décor, gone was the humid fug of cigarettes and stale beer, gone was the flickering neon Peretti sign in the window and the empty scotch bottle on the table next to his left hand. There was only her. Every nerve, every cell and atom of his body came into brilliant, throbbing focus and began to roar: Eliana! Eliana! Eliana!