*Thump-THUMP.*
The Heart's beat had become a death rattle, an engine choking. Each pulsation made the floor tremble, causing the neon light hanging from the room's beamed ceiling to sway. The shadows of the ancient machinery stretched and shrank like spasmodic fingers.
Valesi looked at the well. The dark red liquid, thick as syrup, pulsed in unison with the sound. He looked at Martinez. Her face was a mask of cold sweat and extreme concentration. Her eyes, however, were no longer those of the rational FBI agent. There was a lucid, desperate determination. Twenty-two hours and ten minutes. Her watch seemed to tick louder than anything else.
On Visconti's screens, the hooded forms – the Sentinels – advanced with an unnatural fluidity. They weren't running. They were gliding. Their compact mass filled the tunnels, a black stain spreading across the thermal maps like an infection. They were close. Very close.
"How many?" asked Valesi, his voice calmer than he felt.
Visconti ran her fingers over the keyboard, her movements frantic. "Impossible to say. The signal is... singular. Like a single organism. Thirty meters from the first access to this chamber. Less than two minutes."Options," growled Valesi, not to her, but to himself, to Martinez.
Martinez pointed to the well. "Is that an exit?"It's an arterial system," replied Visconti, without looking up from the screens. "It connects key points of the ancient city. But it's not an escape route. It's a path. And you don't know where it will take you."We have no weapons here," said Martinez, her gaze sweeping the room. "Nothing to barricade with. We're trapped."
*Thump… thu-THUMP.*
The beat became convulsive. A hiss rose from the well, like pressurized steam. The smell of copper and molasses intensified, becoming almost nauseating.
Valesi looked at Visconti. The woman was motionless, her fingers now still on the keys. Her expression was not one of fear, but of an ancient resignation. "They won't touch me," she murmured. "I am blood of Roma for seven generations. I am the keeper of this place. But you..."We are dissonance," Valesi completed, remembering Father Anselmo's words. The noise in the sacred library.
A sharp, metallic clang echoed from the chamber's main door – a heavy steel slab camouflaged among the shelves. Everyone stiffened. It wasn't the sound of a hoof. It was the sound of a key turning in a heavy lock.
The door opened with a slow creak. Instead of a hooded figure, a man in a Scientific Police jumpsuit, dirty with mud and dust, appeared on the threshold. He held a service pistol in his hand, but not aimed. Lowered. His gaze ran from Valesi to Martinez, to Visconti. Recognition, then a flash of disbelief.
"The voice was hoarse, tired. "How the hell did you get here?"Costa?" Valesi stared at him. The lieutenant had been assigned to the initial investigations, to the surveys at the disappearance sites. He had been listed as missing after the second day, when he hadn't reported to the station. "Where the fuck have you been?"Trying not to disappear," replied Costa, entering and quickly closing the door behind him. He turned a key, then engaged two heavy bolts that no one on the inside had noticed. "And following *them*." He nodded toward the screens. The hooded forms were even closer, blocked, it seemed, by a door or a narrow passage. "They have blind spots. Paths they avoid. This chamber is one of them, but not for much longer. They heard the heartbeat go mad. They know there's an anomaly."Are you with them?" asked Martinez, her voice sharp, her body tense.
Costa looked at her, and for the first time Valesi saw the living horror in the man's eyes. "With *them*? No, Agent. I *study* them. Ever since I saw my wife – born in Viterbo – dissolve before my eyes as we tried to leave the city. I understood that running was useless. We had to understand. I found my grandfather's diaries, he worked for the land registry under fascism. He spoke of 'pressure points,' of 'sacred geography.' I followed the traces. I arrived here a week ago. Dr. Visconti... tolerated me."
Visconti gave a slight nod. "The lieutenant has a... pure motivation. He doesn't seek to control the phenomenon. Only to survive it, understand it. A rare approach."And now?" pressed Valesi. "Do you have a way out that isn't a mysterious bloodbath?" He pointed to the well.
Costa approached the edge, looked down. He grimaced. "The Well of Currents. Leads to the Tiber, in theory. But that's not water. It's the Heart's fluid. The lymph. You only jump in there if you want to be digested."So?" hammered Martinez. Time was slipping away, visible in the ticking of her wrist.
Costa turned toward a wall that seemed full of old metal boxes. He began moving them, revealing a heavy wooden hatch, reinforced with iron bands. "There's a passage. Not on Visconti's map. An emergency refuge of the first custodians, centuries ago. It leads to the surface, near the Teatro di Marcello. It's narrow, dangerous. But it's clean."Clean?" asked Valesi.
"Not patrolled. They... the Sentinels... don't like places that have been 'contaminated' by later reconstructions. The Teatro di Marcello was remodeled in the Middle Ages, used as a fortress, then as a noble palace. To them, it's impure. They avoid it."
A violent blow shook the steel door. A dull roar, like a battering ram. The bolts groaned.
"Decide now," said Costa, lifting the hatch. A smell of damp earth and mold rose from the darkness. A rusty iron ladder disappeared into the black.
Valesi looked at Martinez. She nodded, once, sharply. There was no choice.
"Visconti, come," said Valesi.
The woman shook her head, sitting down in front of the monitors. "My place is here. To monitor the Heart. Someone has to. And I... have no one to save, out there." Her smile was sad. "Hurry. The door won't withstand another blow like that."
A second impact. Stronger. The metal visibly deformed in the center.
Costa went down first, the flashlight between his teeth. Martinez followed, agile despite her fatigue. Valesi took one last look at Visconti, at the room pulsing with a dark mechanical life, at the well of ancient blood. Then he lowered himself into the hatch.
The ladder creaked ominously. The air was icy, saturated with humidity. They descended into the gloom until Costa's feet touched ground. "Here. Forward, straight ahead. Don't touch the walls, they're unstable."
The passage was a makeshift tunnel, dug into the tufa and shored up with rotten wooden beams. They had to proceed hunched over. The sound of the blows against the door of the chamber above them became muffled, then disappeared, replaced by their labored breathing and the dripping of water from some crack.
They walked for what seemed an eternity, in a claustrophobic silence. Then Costa stopped. "Listen."
In the distance, very far away, they heard a sound. Not hooves. It was music. Distorted, mechanical music. An advertising jingle.
"Where are we?" whispered Martinez.
"Under Via del Teatro di Marcello," Costa replied. "The surface is there." He pointed to an iron grate above them, through which filtered a faint orange glow – the city's night lighting.
With a joint effort, they moved the grate, which gave way with a choked squeal. Costa hauled himself up first, checking the street. Then he signaled to the others.
Emerging was like resurfacing in an alien world. They were in a narrow alley, squeezed between the imposing bulk of the Teatro di Marcello and a Renaissance palace. The air was fresh, laden with the night smells of Roma: smog, wet stone, garbage. Normality. And yet, surreal after the nightmare of the underground.
But normality was an illusion. The street was deserted. Not a car, not a pedestrian. The windows of the buildings were all darkened, except for a few, from which faint lights filtered. The advertising jingle came from a television left on in a first-floor apartment, its window slightly ajar. A talk show, empty voices filling the void.
"Where is everyone?" murmured Martinez.
"Locked in their homes. Terrified," said Costa, lowering the grate back into place. "After the first disappearances, after even the 'non-Roman' law enforcement evaporated, people understood. Being outside, at night, is a risk. Even if you're Roman. Some say the Sentinels... change their minds."Borghese," said Valesi suddenly. "The Mayor. We have to reach him."
Costa looked at him as if he were crazy. "Borghese? He's an opportunist. He's probably hidden in his bunker at the Campidoglio, with a praetorian guard of pure-blooded Romans shielding him."Exactly why," insisted Valesi. "He made a pact with them. He admitted it. He knows something more. If there's a solution, or at least a way to stop this madness, he knows it. Or he knows who does."
Martinez leaned a hand against the wall, a sudden dizziness made her stagger. Twenty-one hours and fifty minutes. "We don't have time for political games, Valesi."This isn't a game," he growled. "It's the only lead we have that isn't a hole in the ground full of blood. Costa, can you get us to the Campidoglio? Without being seen?"
Costa hesitated, weighing it. Then he nodded. "I know a route. Under the Imperial Fora. It's... risky. But possible. More risky is what you'll find with Borghese, though."
As they prepared to re-enter the shadows, a noise stopped them. Not from below. From above.
A rustle of heavy cloth.
They looked up.
On the roof of the Renaissance palace, against the ink-black night sky, three figures were aligned.
Tall, motionless, wrapped in dark cloaks that did not move despite the breeze. Their hoods were lowered, but beneath them, instead of faces, there was only a darkness deeper than the night. They had no hooves. They stood, silent, and their heads were turned, unmistakably, toward them.
They hadn't heard them arrive. They had simply appeared.
One of them raised an arm. Not to threaten. To point.
It was not pointing at Valesi, or Costa.
It was pointing at Sarah Martinez.
And then, with a slow and unnatural movement, the index finger of that dark hand shifted, pointing straight at the bulk of the Campidoglio, which stood outlined atop the hill, illuminated by spotlights.
The message was clear.
*That is where you must go. That is where it will all end.*
Before anyone could react, the three figures took a step back and vanished into the darkness of the roof, as if absorbed by the shadow.
The jingle from the television in the slightly open window cut off, replaced by a long, flat sound of an untuned station.
In the sudden, thunderous silence, the ticking of Martinez's watch seemed to echo throughout the deserted street.
*Tick-tock. Tick-tock.*