The two figures did not move. They said nothing.
They simply watched.
The empty eyes, in the dark.
Time stretched, measured only by Martinez's accelerated heartbeat and Valesi's labored breathing. The small square was a well of silence, broken only by the distant buzz of a scooter fading away on via Cola di Rienzo. The streetlight behind the figures cast long shadows that stretched menacingly toward the Giulietta, almost as if wanting to touch it.
“Don’t shoot,” murmured Valesi, his voice a razor’s edge. “Not yet.”
His hand had settled on her arm, a cold touch through her jacket. Martinez hadn't even realized she had drawn the Glock, she had just felt it, familiar and heavy, in her sweaty palm. The sights were instinctively aimed at the figure on the left, at center mass.
“Who are they?” she hissed, without looking away.
“Sentinels,” replied Valesi, and the word seemed to condense the damp night air. “Or spectators. I don’t know. But if we shoot, all we know is that we are here.”
One of the two figures, the one on the right, made a movement. Slow, mechanical. It raised an arm. Not to threaten, not to point. Simply raised it, as if to adjust an invisible watch on its wrist. Then its head tilted to the side, at an unnatural angle, like a bird’s.
Martinez felt a shiver run down her spine. “They’re not human.”
"They are not anymore." Valesi shot a quick glance at the Giulietta. Martinez's door was still open. His, closed. The engine off. A chill ran down his back. "Slowly. Let's get back in the car. Without turning our backs."
They moved in unison, a step sideways, then another, as in a macabre dance. Martinez kept the weapon raised, her finger off the trigger but ready. The figures did not react. They continued to watch, their faces still lost in the shadow against the light behind them.
When Martinez’s shoulder bumped against the door frame, a jolt of almost painful relief crossed her chest. She slid inside, keeping the pistol aimed out the window. Valesi did the same from the driver's side, inserting the key with a trembling hand he cursed under his breath.
The Giulietta’s engine roared to life in the night, an extraordinarily normal sound.
Valesi slammed the accelerator, tires screeching on the wet asphalt. The car skidded slightly, then straightened, shooting out of the small square. The instant they turned the corner, Martinez turned to look in the rearview mirror.
The square was empty.
The figures had vanished.
"Fuck," he exhaled, letting the gun lower, resting it on his thigh. The metal was warm. "Fuck, Valesi. What were they?"
He didn't answer immediately. He drove with narrowed eyes, knuckles white on the wheel. He took Via Luisa di Savoia, then plunged into a maze of side streets, a zigzagging route to confuse any possible pursuer. He checked the rearview mirror every three seconds, scrutinizing the shadows between the buildings. There was no one. Or at least, no one who let themselves be seen.
"Did you see the clothes?" he finally asked, his voice hoarse.
Martinez thought about it. The image was burned into his retina. Dark, long coats. Classic cut, not modern. Wide-brimmed hats, pulled low. "Yes. Like... like in an old photograph."Exactly. Like the old *gabellieri*. The ushers of the Campidoglio, in the '50s. Or members of certain brotherhoods." He shook his head. "It might mean nothing. It might be a message."Another message." Martinez checked his watch. Sixteen hours and thirty minutes. Time was flowing like sand in an hourglass. "We need to get back to Neri. He must have found something on that professor."Not directly. If those things found us here, they might know we're investigating Silvestri's apartment. Going there now is like showing up for an appointment." Valesi double-parked on a tree-lined avenue, killed the engine. Silence invaded the car again, but now it was different. Now they knew silence could hide watching eyes. "We call. Use my phone. Yours might be easier to trace."
Martinez nodded, taking the heavy Nokia. Dialing Neri's number with the rubber keys felt like an operation from the last century.
A young, tense voice answered on the third ring. "Hello? Costa."Costa, it's Agent Martinez. Put Neri on."
A moment's pause, a whisper. "Inspector Neri is... busy, Agent. He's examining something with Dr. Rosi. There's... well, they found something."Found what?" pressed Martinez, putting it on speaker so Valesi could hear.
"A kind of... hiding place. In the bookcase. A panel that opened. There was a folder inside." Costa's voice grew lower, confidential. "And there was blood, Agent. Old, dry. On the edge of the panel. Rosi says it's not Silvestri's. The blood type is different."
Valesi and Martinez exchanged a loaded glance. Blood. Not Silvestri's.
"In the folder," Martinez continued. "What was in it?"Documents. Dense notes. And a letter. Neri is reading it now. Hold on, I'll pass it to him."
Sounds of footsteps, whispers. Then Neri's deep, weary voice filled the phone's earpiece.
"Claudio? Valesi. What does that letter say?"
Neri took a deep breath. "It's addressed to us. Or to whoever found it. It's not signed, but Silvestri wrote it, I'm sure. The handwriting is the same as the project notes." A pause, the rustle of paper. "It says: 'If you are reading this, I have been removed. The Passage exists. The Custodian protects it, but he is not a guardian. He is a jailer. Seek the Professor. He knows where the Threshold is. But beware: Roma watches. And Roma does not forgive foreigners who dig too deep.' Then there's an address. Via della Gatta, 7. And a date. Today. Midnight."Midnight," Valesi repeated. He looked at the dashboard. 23:07. "Is there more?"Notes on the Temple of Vesta. Drawings, calculations. References to an ancient text, the 'Liber de Ostia Romana'. And... a photograph." Neri's voice cracked a millimeter. "It's a group photo. Silvestri, an older man who must be the Professor, and... the Mayor. Borghese. They're together, smiling. In the background you can see what looks like an archaeological dig site. The date on the back: September last year."
The chill that had followed Martinez from the square solidified in his stomach. Borghese. Involved. Not just a frightened politician receiving threats, but someone who *knew*. Who had always known, from the beginning.
"Claudio," said Valesi, his tone flat, dangerous. "Lock everything up. Take the folder and keep it with you. You, Rosi, and Costa get out of there. Now. Don't wait. If someone knocks, don't open. If you see strange figures on the street, call headquarters and say they're the *gabellieri*. Repeat, *gabellieri*. Then leave. We'll meet at the station in half an hour."The *gabellieri*? Claudio, what..."Do it, Neri. Now."
He hung up. The silence in the car had become something alive, pulsing, laden with terrible implications.
"Borghese," said Martinez, the word a poison in his mouth. "He lied. He pretended to be a victim, to be receiving threats."Or the threats are real, but he knew why he was getting them." Valesi ran a hand over his face. "A passage. A Custodian-jailer. A mayor hiding the truth. And a professor waiting for an appointment at midnight in an alley called 'della Gatta'. This doesn't look good."We have to go there. It's the only lead."It's a trap. We'd be stupid to go."
Martinez looked at him. The faint light from the dashboard illuminated his tired features, his eyes ringed with dark shadows. "We have fifteen hours and fifty-three minutes, commissario. Then I shoot. Or sooner, if those things decide to show us what a 'removal' is. We have no choice."
Valesi looked at her for a long time. He saw the determination, the fear held in check by iron discipline, the desperation of someone who knows they have a timer strapped to their wrist. He nodded, once, sharply.
"Via della Gatta. It's behind the Pantheon. An alley that hardly exists anymore." He started the engine. "Let's prepare to meet the Professor. And prepare for everything else."
* * *
Via della Gatta was one of those alleys in the city center that time seemed to have forgotten. Narrow, paved with worn and slick cobblestones from the damp, it snaked between two Renaissance palazzos like a scar. There were no streetlamps. Only the faint light filtering from the end that emerged onto a small side square off piazza della Rotonda. The air smelled of damp, of old stone, and of something sweetish and rotten – a smell that could come from forgotten garbage or from something else, more unsettling.
It was 11:48 PM.
Valesi and Martinez had taken position in the doorway of a closed main entrance a few meters from the intersection. They had decided not to show themselves in the open. They wanted to see who, or what, would arrive at number 7.
Number 7 was a massive wooden entrance, darkened by time, with no doorbell, no nameplate. It seemed no one had crossed it in years.
“You think it’s here?” murmured Martinez. He held his gun low, along his thigh. His body was a taut cord.
“If the Professor is still alive, and if he wants to talk, yes.” Valesi scanned the darkness. His senses, sharpened by decades on the streets, picked up every rustle, every distant echo. “If instead it’s an invitation from ‘them’, then…”
He didn’t finish the sentence. There was no need.
The sound of footsteps echoed in the alley. Slow, measured. Not the hurried step of a man late for a clandestine meeting. They were calculated steps, that seemed to measure the distance between one stone and the next.
A figure emerged from the shadows at the end of the alley. Tall, thin, wrapped in a dark coat. On his head he wore a professor’s cap, not the wide-brimmed hat of the sentinels. He walked with a slight hesitation, his head turning to scrutinize the blind windows above him.
“The Professor,” whispered Valesi.
The man stopped in front of number 7. He didn’t knock. He merely extracted an object from his coat pocket – an old, long key – and inserted it into the lock. The door yielded with an ominous groan that spread through the alley like a lament.
He turned, for a moment, and his glasses reflected a glimmer of distant light. He seemed to look straight toward their hiding place. Then he disappeared inside, and the entrance closed behind him with a dull thud.
“Now,” said Martinez, moving.
Valesi grabbed her by the arm. “Wait. Keep your gun ready. And remember: if he says he only has five minutes, he probably has two.”
They crossed the alley at a run, silently, backs against the damp wall. Valesi tried the handle. It hadn’t been relocked. He exchanged a nod with Martinez, then pushed the door inward.
Beyond the threshold was not an entrance hall, but a narrow stone staircase descending steeply into darkness. A smell of damp earth, of mold and mustiness rose to their nostrils. Not a cellar. Something deeper.
Martinez turned on the tactical flashlight she carried. The beam of white light cut the darkness, revealing steps worn down in the center, walls of rough tufa stone.
“Ready?” asked Valesi, his voice a cavernous echo.
She nodded, gripping her gun with the flashlight coupled to it. They descended.
The staircase seemed endless. It turned twice, becoming ever narrower, ever more suffocating. The air grew cold, heavy. After what felt like an interminable minute, they emerged into a wider space.
Martinez’s flashlight illuminated a circular room with a low ceiling. It was not a modern cellar. It was an ancient structure. The floor was mosaic, white and black, worn but still recognizable: a Roman geometric pattern. The walls were of brick, with traces of red plaster. In the center of the room, a man stood with his back to them. Professor Salviani.
“I was expecting you,” he said, without turning. His voice was calm, but a faint tremor ran through it. “Though I hoped you wouldn’t have to come. For your own good.”
“Professor Salviani,” said Valesi, taking a step forward, his eyes scanning every corner of the room. There were no other exits. “I’m "Valesi and this is Agent Martinez. You left a clue.”
“Arturo left it. I merely guarded the knowledge, until the right time. Or the wrong one.” He finally turned. His face was gaunt, his eyes ringed with deep shadows. Behind the thick lenses, his gaze was that of a man who hadn’t slept in a very, very long time. “You have little time. They know you’re here. They feel the vibrations in the stone. The breath of strangers in the belly of Roma.”
“Who are ‘they’?” asked Martinez, stepping closer. “The Custodian?”
Salviani made a grimace that was meant to be a smile. “The Custodian is just one. The first. The one placed to guard the Threshold when Roma was little more than a camp of huts. But he is not alone. There are the Children of the Threshold. The ones you have seen. The *gabellieri*. The eternal ushers. They are the ones who carry out the removals. Who maintain the balance.”
“What balance?” pressed Valesi.
“Roma is not just a city, commissario. It is an organism. Living, pulsing. And like every organism, it has an immune system. We call it the *Genius Loci*. The spirit of the place. For millennia it has tolerated the presence of foreigners. It has assimilated them, transformed them into Romans. But there is a limit. A threshold of tolerance. When the number of strangers, of the not-born-here, exceeds that limit… the organism reacts. It purifies itself.”
Martinez felt her guts clench. “A purification… the disappearances.”
“The Removal. The *Genius Loci*, through its Children, removes the foreign elements. Takes them away. Beyond the Gate.” Salviani gestured vaguely at the wall behind him. “Where, I don’t know. No one knows. Perhaps to a non-place. Perhaps they simply… cease to exist, like information erased from the city’s memory.”
“And Silvestri?” asked Valesi. “Why was he removed? He was from Milan.”
"Arturo... dug too deep. Literally and metaphorically. With me, he was trying to locate the physical breach. He wanted to understand, he wanted to study. He wanted to *bargain* with the Custodian. An absurdity. When he realized they were about to be discovered, he prepared his... testament. The model. A warning for whoever came after." The professor's eyes filled with infinite sadness. "But also a trap. Because he knew that whoever found it would come to me. And I would talk. As I am doing now."
A noise came from above. A light scraping, like nails on stone. Then another. And another. It came from the stairs.
Salviani paled. "They are here. They heard."The access," said Martinez, moving closer to him. "Where is it? How can we stop all this?"Stop it?" The professor laughed, a dry, desperate sound. "You cannot stop a city's immune system. You can only... deceive it. Or appease it. Borghese knows this. That's why he is with us in the photo. He was part of our study group, at the beginning. Then he understood it was too dangerous. He chose to manage the crisis, not to solve it. Someone must have offered him... guarantees."
The noises from above became more distinct. Footsteps. Many footsteps, light, springy. They were coming down the stairs.
"Is there another way out?" asked Valesi, pointing his flashlight at the walls.
Salviani shook his head. "This room is an ancient *sacrarium*. A votive chapel. There is only one access." He approached a point on the wall, where the floor mosaic seemed to break into a circle of black stone. "But this is the Threshold. Not the actual breach, but its... reflection. A point where the veil is thin."
He bent down, and with an effort that made his joints groan, he lifted the disk of black stone. Beneath it was not earth, but a dark, deep void. A polar cold rose from that opening, along with a smell of ozone and compressed time.
"What is it?" hissed Martinez, taking a step back.
"An escape route. But not for you." Salviani looked at them. The footsteps were now at the bottom of the stairs. Shadows could be seen dancing on the wall. "It is for me. My time is up. I have spoken with outsiders. I have become a vessel of forbidden knowledge. They will come to remove me."No," said Valesi, raising his gun toward the entrance of the stairs. "Come with us. We'll fight."You do not fight a city's gods, commissario. Especially when that city is your home." The professor smiled, a sad grimace. "Your only advantage is that you two are Romans. The immune system, for now, does not recognize you as a threat. But you are becoming an infection. You are bringing knowledge to the surface, you are dragging it into the light. Soon, very soon, removal will be triggered for you too."
The first figure appeared at the base of the stairs. A dark coat, a wide-brimmed hat. The face, under the shadow of the brim, was an indistinct smudge. Then another. And another. They filled the entrance, silent, motionless.
Salviani took a step toward the black well. "Look for Borghese. Wrest the truth from him. And look for the *Liber de Ostia Romana*. It is the only thing that might give you a chance. It is a medieval treatise that speaks of the Gates. One copy exists. In the private library of..."
A *gabelliere* moved. Fast as a snake. Its hand, covered by a black glove, reached out toward the professor.
"GO!" yelled Valesi, firing.
The shot echoed in the circular room, deafening. The bullet hit the *gabelliere* in the center of the chest. The man – the thing – jolted, but did not fall. It did not bleed. It simply straightened up, and continued to advance.
Martinez fired in turn. Two shots. To the chest, to the head. The hat flew off, revealing a face that was not a face. It was smooth, featureless, as if molded from wax and then partially melted. The eyes were two black, empty wells.
Professor Salviani, in the moment of stunned shock that paralyzed them all, threw himself into the black well.
There was no scream. Only a whisper of air being swallowed. Then the black stone disk fell back into place with a dull thud, sealing the opening.
The *gabellieri* stopped. Their faceless heads turned, in unison, toward Valesi and Martinez.
They did not advance. They did not threaten.
They simply lined up, blocking the only way out. And remained there, motionless, silent sentinels of a secret they now knew too well.
Martinez and Valesi, back to back, with their still-smoking guns aimed, understood.
They were not there to remove them.
They were there to make sure they went nowhere.
Until the order arrived.