Paper and Fire (The Great Library #2)(67)

That thought strengthened Jess as he moved through the deserted Forum, past empty temples and the shadowy forms of gods. There were no patrols out that he could see, not in this direction, but he went quickly anyway, moving from shadow to shadow, checking constantly in all directions.

Then he was at the statue of Jupiter. It towered far up, and from this foreshortened view it looked massive and monstrous. What if it’s an automaton? The thought struck him with real unease. A colossus like this could crush buildings, destroy armies. He put a hand on the metal. It felt warm, but a natural kind of warmth, residue from the day’s sun.

The foot looked ancient and solid, and Jess ran his hands over the pitted surface, worn by time, and realized that ancient as it was, Jupiter couldn’t have been here for more than a thousand years. This Forum had been a meeting place far longer than that. Roots run deep. Jupiter sat over the entrance.

He found the opening between the statue’s feet, shrouded beneath the falling golden drapes of the toga. Just enough room to squirm under into the hollow spaces, and send a large rat squeaking away in alarm. Set into the cobbles lay an old iron grate. Jess pried it up with his knife and carefully put it aside. The opening was hardly large enough to fit through, but he managed, and dropped into a damp, echoing darkness that smelled of mold and the faint, pungent whisper of rot.

Jess shook a chemical light to life, and the yellowish glow washed over rough stones built in a strong, arched structure only a little taller than his head. It had a shallow trough in the middle, through which ran a slow trickle of moisture. And though—as Dario had promised—these sewers were long disused, except to channel rainwater, the smell of old waste lingered. The tunnel seemed sound, and he went carefully, tossing the light ahead as he went to be sure nothing dangerous waited. The darkness was complete and claustrophobic. It felt like an almost physical weight against his shoulders, and he tried not to think about the old stones pressing down. It’ll collapse someday, he thought. But not today. Keep your nerve. It reminded him of the old tunnels beneath Oxford, but these were far older. He found engraved stones inset in the walls depicting a group of toga-wearing men gathered around a bull. The tunnel angled down. He felt the strain of it in the backs of his legs, and had to be careful not to slip on mold, but then it leveled again and twisted in two directions. The basilica would be to the right, but just in case, he dropped one of the portable glows at the tunnel entrance before going on.

There was no sound here except for the faint rustling of rats and insects running from the light and the trickle of water in the tunnel’s center. He passed another engraving in the left-hand wall, then another, and then, finally, the tunnel split again. One side veered right and up. The other went down.

He dropped another glow and followed the left-hand path into the dark. It seemed to be a long journey, and then, suddenly, he heard something that didn’t belong here. Something up ahead, a scraping noise that sounded deliberate. A faint whirring.

He doused the glow and blinked, because an afterimage of it remained printed on his eyes. No, the glow he saw was a faint red.

Growing brighter now.

Spilling over ridges and curves that he didn’t understand at first, and then suddenly, chillingly, did.

There was a lion in the tunnel.

Jess stopped. Running would be useless; even at his best speed he doubted he could outrun the stride of a Roman lion in these cramped confines. The growling rumble of the thing echoed off the bricks, and he realized that he’d stopped breathing, as if that might hide him. It wouldn’t. Stay ready. Stay calm. Running would be death.

The lion padded toward him at a slow, inexorable pace. He backed away, moving one slow step at a time, and as if in a terrible dance, the lion paced him move for move, gliding forward as he retreated.

Jess stopped cold in his tracks, staring at the lion. He wasn’t looking at the ferocious, crushing jaws now, or the huge paws ready to smash the life out of him. The sphinx’s switch had been hidden just behind the thin beard, under the chin. The design of Roman lions, though different, would follow the same logic. Pick a spot no one in their right mind would reach for. Either inside the mouth, or . . .

Or just underneath it, beneath the lion’s bearded chin. The challenge was that it was much harder to reach.

He heard the low, rumbling growl grow louder and echo in a continuous, angry pulse from the tunnel walls. The lion paused, very still, only a short distance from Jess, and the red illumination of its eyes turned everything bloody. It must have been confused, Jess realized; his High Garda uniform, the band he wore on his wrist must have made it pause and wait to see what he’d do. Any casual intruder would have already been dead.

That didn’t mean the lion wouldn’t decide at any moment that High Garda or not, Library band or not, he needed to die. Don’t hesitate. Just keep moving.

Jess slowly raised his right hand. His fingers were trembling and twitching with the need not to go near this thing, but he controlled that and his natural desire to run for his life. His fingertips touched warm, slightly rough metal: the underside of the lion’s jaw. A jaw that could open at any instant and bite off his entire arm. A mouth that held razor-sharp teeth longer than his fingers and so much more terrifying than the sphinx he’d faced in Alexandria. This is a bad idea. So very bad.

Jess’s sweating, shaking fingers slid along the creature’s jawline. The lion’s eyes sparked as red as blood, and a rumble built inside. The jaws parted, an instant away from clamping onto his arm and ripping it from his body in a spray of blood and torn bone.