I walked along the obscure hallway with careful steps as I wasn’t able to see my feet in front of me. My pendant gave me some light but it wasn’t able to illuminate the path in front of me. Leonide on the other hands seems to have no troubles striding in the dark. He trekked in a fast pace to survey the path before us while only halting for a spare second in order to let me keep up.
His scarlet eyes glowed in the obscurity and a thought occurred to me.
“Leonide, are you able to see in the dark?” I asked curiously while trying to keep my trembling voice stable as I feared the dark more than I have ever done before. All those days locked in the dark cellar made me fear obscurity more than I thought possible. It has become an adversary I could not defeat.
I could hear a gentle chuckle as his crimson eyes followed my movement with an accuracy that convinced me that he must be able to see me clearly.
“My clan's red eyes aren’t just for show. It allows us to see in the dark,” Leonide explained and I followed his voice. I walked straight into his arms and with a chuckle, he offered his arm to lead me through the darkness.
“Convenient,” I mused as I was lead through the hallway into a large open area. It was lit by oil lamps which made me flinch. I was grateful for the light but fearful as I could feel my skin heat, warning me that proximity was not an option as the light from the flames would burn me if I approached them.
Leonide’s eyes seemed to stalk something in the shadows which danced on the stone walls. I might not be able to see through the obscurity but I was able to hear something more among the shadows. Eyes followed me from the dark as I tried to locate their source.
“I can see you clearly daemon,” Leonide said lazily.
“Your clan has always been accustom to the dark, Moon child!” A husky voice echoed in the stone hall and caused shivers to run through me like waves.
A dark figure in robes stepped out of the shadows. I swallowed as I witnessed a large figure looking like a starving man with white skin and no eyes, only two dark pits emanating with black smoke, glaring back at me. His mouth was filled with sharp, long teeth which you could get a glimpse of every time he smiled.
The creatures dark pits of eyes turned to me as it grimaced, showing all its teeth. I leaned in closer to Leonide as I wanted to guard myself against his profound gaze.
“But you Child of the Sun is not a common occurrence in these parts. For what might I ask did you risk coming down here for?”
I took a deep breathe to then meet the dark eyes. “I’m looking for answers. Humans have vanished in the catacombs and we… I want to know who is responsible.”
“We… Ah, The Sovereignty has put their claws into the Sun Clan, have they?” The creature’s voice was filled with indifference as I hastily shook my head.
“The request might have come from the Sovereignty but it’s a threat to all of the Ascendants as the humans have started to take notice. They have started to investigate and it’s just a matter of time before they discover the hidden community underneath the city.”
The creature halted and seem to consider my words before he tilted his head. “And they send a newborn to investigate.”
“Someone who wasn’t considered a threat was also the best choice to obtain answers,” I replied trying to ignore the contempt brooding underneath the creature's words.
The creature inspected me as he paced around us from the shadows. “What is your name then, little girl?”
“My name is Valeria Di Santis,” I told him with a steady voice.
“A name I do not know and a presentation which proves your ignorance,” the creature replied with a sigh. Leonide stepped forward.
“She is Valeria Di Santis, kin of Lucretzia Borgia, heir of Alessandro Borgia who is the kin of Ardashir Babakan.”
The creature turned to Leonide with a frown before turning back to me. “That is how an Ascendant introduces themselves. We are nothing without our bloodlines and I do know yours. Ardashir is an old acquaintance of mine. He always visited me and took my ferry along the river Acheron to the underground city Erebus, the hidden city of the Demon Clan. I would not turn his kin away.”
I processed the information as I watched the creature, which truly was Charon from Greek Mythology, pace around the room before he halted with a pondering look on his face. “I do not know the name of who has taken the humans but I know the location which they all have vanished. The Scions have whispered to knowledge to me but proclaims that they refuse to enter the domains of the creature which abducted them.”
“Do you know the motive?” Leonide asked with clear suspicion as he did not trust Charon to tell the truth of the matter.
“I… Have my suspicion,” Charon mused but seemed reluctant to tell us more.
“Is there a reason why you won’t speak of the motive?” I asked with curiosity. I heard whispers from the shadows but could not discern their intent. Charon listened and seem to heed their call as I slowly came to the realization that we were not alone. The hall was filled with the members of the Demon Clan who hid among the shadows.
“It’s… A personal matter. A matter which concerns my clan and is not for the eyes of other clans.”
“It becomes our concern when it threatens us all,” Leonide stubbornly replied as Charon had started to walk back into the obscurity. He turned right back to speak to me.
“You will find your target southeast from here. Underneath San Francesco da Paola.”
I nodded as it made sense. The victims had vanished by Franciscan churches San Francesco d’Assisi, Santa Cristina and Monte dei Cappuccini. San Francesco Da Paola was located in between these three locations.
Charon started to vanish back into obscurity but I heard his last words clearly as he asked me to heed them.
“As you are the kin of an old friend I implore you. Do not enter the lair of the beast as it will devour you.”
With those words, he and all the voices seemed to fade into the darkness from which they came.
Leonide lead me safety outside the church. The sun basked on my face and brought me back to life while Leonide was hiding in the shade trying to avoid direct sunlight. I turned to him with a smile.
“Are you ready? Let’s go back,” he said and I frowned as I started to look at the direction of San Francesco da Paola.
“Don’t even think about it. If not even the Scions want to tangle with the culprit of the kidnappings then we certainly don’t want to either.”
“We have to! We don’t have the name of the culprit yet,” I exclaimed and Leonide rolled his eyes at my meager protest.
“No, we don’t. We have the name of a location of the culprit. That will do,” Leonide replied and I gave him a sweet smile. He grimaced as he seems to sense the incoming argument.
“But we have no clue if it’s the right one. We will need to investigate to make sure that the location is valid.”
Leonide groaned in defeat as he agreed that we should investigate if only to satisfy my curiosity.
We took the automobile to San Francesco da Paola and snuck into the church basement were a similar gargoyle was on the wall. We did as we previously had done and the path opens down to stairs leading into the obscurity again. We wandered down the stairs carefully as we didn’t want to alert anything perilous to our location.
Unlike the last catacomb, where only darkness frightens me, this one was filled with a horrid stench. I could hear water dripping from somewhere beyond my sight and tried my hardest not to slip on the stone floors.
“What is that smell?” I asked with a grimace. I almost walked into Leonide who had suddenly halted. I could hear him sniff the air like a bloodhound and a growl could be heard from him.
“That is the smell of corpses, seems like our victims may have met their end in this place.”
Shivers ran through me as I harken his words. Corpses… I had secretly hoped for them to be rescued but it must have been too much to ask. I tried to push past Leonide refused to let me continue.
“We have what we came for. This is the place!” he growled at me but I refused to leave now. Someone might still be alive. He tried to drag me away but I pulled out my pendant and pushed it in Leonide’s face. He let out a hiss like a serpent as the pendant blinded him and he let me go. With the pendant as a guiding light, I ran down the stairs.
I entered a long and wide hall, filled with giant stone pillars which held up the roof. We must be quite deeply underneath the city as I could not catch the sounds of the buzzing center. All I could hear was dripping of water and all I could see was darkness. I leaned low and crawled along a couple of crates while trying to see my hand before me. I had hidden my pendant as I didn’t want to alert anyone to my present but that also means that I wasn’t able to see.
It was hard to walk in silence as for each step a strange crunching sound echoed in the hall. I wasn’t able to see the floor but it must be covered in debris in order for my steps to make such noise.
I gasped as someone grabbed hold of me and a hand covered my mouth to quell the sound coming out of it. Leonide had caught up to me and hissed for me to be silent. His red eyes were on the floor.
“You should look more closely on what you’re walking on, bambina!”
I looked down on the floor as his word left me uncertain. My instincts told me to not look down but I needed to know. I leaned down and pulled carefully out my pendant and let its light illuminate the floor. I quelled my own scream with my hand as human bones emerged from the darkness. The empty pits of the human skulls stared back at me as I forced myself to look at Leonide.
“Too many to count, this is far more than we originally thought. Must be people who vanished in the war. Seems like not all of them perished in the bombardments. I see gnaw marks on the bones, almost like they have been eaten upon… Rats maybe?” He said bitterly and started to look around. Part of me wanted to ask what he saw but the judicious part refused to inquire in such things.
I suddenly hissed as something bit my leg but on closer inspection, I saw no evidence of what bit me only a trail of blood streaming down my leg.
“You are bleeding,” Leonide mumbled but did not turn his gaze towards me and continued to watch the shadows. It wasn’t a question as I assumed that he must have sensed the blood. A perk of being of the Moon Clan as even I could smell my own blood. I could only hope that the scent of rotting flesh hid my own scent from creatures with similar abilities.
“Something bit me, “ I muttered back and turned my gaze towards him.
“Can you see anything of interest?”
“Yes…”
His reply was short and bitter. His entire body was rigid as he held onto me like he was guarding me against the obscurity.
“Any survivors?”
“No…” He replied silently and I inhaled shakily as I processed what he implied. That could only mean that he is observing the culprit.
“Should we go?” I asked cautiously as I didn’t want to alert the killer to our location.
“I wish we could, bambina. But when you ran into the lair you ripped the spiderweb.”
I stared at Leonide as I registered his words. “Spiderweb? Is there spiders here?”
Leonide let out humorless laughter. He illuminated the room by liting the rotting corpses on fire. I hissed as the fire was to close for comfort and felt burn spread across my exposed skin. Leonide solved this by covering me with his jacket. I stared at the sight which was illuminated by the fire.
The room was filled with millions of spiders crawling along the walls and the floor but they were not the objects of my horror. No, from the ceiling a large entity slowly twisted and turned as it hoisted itself down. Eight hairy legs hit the floor and with the body of a spider but the torso of a woman, black eyes on a female face stared back at me.
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