Chapter Thirty-seven - Another Descent

The tunnel ended most abruptly. A small metal screen over their heads allowed dull ,broken light into the passage.

There was a door, a low ancient door of rotting wood and heavy hinges.

He pushed it open and, to Meg's surprised, placed his hand firmly over her mouth before drawing her through it.

And she found herself in the midst of death.

They were in a crypt, a chamber of crumbling stone. From every wall, skulls…hundred of skulls neatly stacked…grinned at them. In each corner, mounds of bones were heaped from floor to ceiling.

Propped up against one wall was an open casket. In it rested a withered body in the moldering habit of a nun. The rosary in her gaunt, leathery hands was thick with corrosion.

He held her until he felt her relaxed, felt her adjust to the shock of the charnel house.

"I could not risk your screams," he whispered, releasing her.

From above, they heard the voices of women chanting.

Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariae. Et concepit de Spiritu Sancto…Ecce ancilla Domini. Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum.

Even here, he was not immune to music. He stood listening for a moment, his eyes closed.

The singing grew fainter.

Et Verbum caro factum est. Et habitavit in nobis.

Still holding the mask and the leather bag, she kept her eyes fixed on him, not daring to look at the skulls that stared at her from every direction.

There were a pair of iron handles jutting up from floor. He bent and tugged at them, the warped boards groaning a little as the trapdoor eased open.

More stairs, another descent into the blackness…

She picked her way down steps that had been roughly hacked out of the stone centuries earlier. Behind her, she heard the soft thud of door closing behind them.

She wondered how long it how been, how many hours had passed since the curtain had risen on Don Juan Triumphant.

She could not hold back the poison of exhaustion any longer.

Clinging to the mask and bag as if they could somehow keep her conscious, she collapsed at the bottom of the steps.

She felt the cold, damp ground of the tunnel against her face. If only she could stay here…if only he would let her rest.

Then she felt him bending over her, slipping one arm beneath her shoulders and one behind her aching knees as he lifted her against him.