Page 44 of Light Me Up

One of the men stopped at the first entrance to the Sala, and peered over the shoulders of the people inside, looking for his clear shot. Clearly reluctantto step inside.

A palace corridor full of marble columns and statuary was a crap place to improvise a weapon. The only thing small enough to move was a painting on the wall depicting an old man with a skullcap. Not as big as she would have liked, but it had a heavy gilded frame.

Caro lifted it off the wall, holding it high. More laughter and bursts of applause coming from the Sala helped her as she rushed the guy from behind, slamming thepainting down.

Crack.The corner of the frame hit back of the man’s head. He teetered, and slumped to the floor.

The picture crashed to the ground, but the noise was masked by a fresh roar of applause.

Caro scrambled across the corridor to grab the Glock handgun sliding across the floor before it hit the wall. She sidled toward the other door, using the statues as cover.

The second man who’d taken the far door was stocky and bearded. Clearly, he hadn’t heard the commotion over the noise from the Sala. The light reflected off the cross lit up his squinted eyes and frowning face as he raised his gun in both hands…and took aim.

She did too. At the biggest, bulkiest part of his body.

She squeezed the trigger. Both guns went off at once. The lights in the Sala flash-popped and went out.

Then the screaming began.

When Caro’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, the man she shot was staring at her. He put his hand to his collarbone. Dark blood gushed and welled between his fingers.

He raised his gun again, as if aiming it at her, but the barrel kept on slowly going up and up until he fell backwardsto the ground.

Caro dashed away, flattening herself against the wall between two statues as the panicked conference guests stampeded out. She spotted the old lady in pink chiffon who’d shushed them, galloping out at top speed and shoving a frail old man with a cane out of her way. The old man fell down onto his knees, then his face. The big heavy guy with the stifling cologne and the Rolex sprinted out, tripped over the old guy and hit the floor screaming. Another man crawled toward them on all fours, trying tohelp them both.

Then it was too many of them to see. A surging, yelling mass of frightened people in the dark who trampled the fallen gunman as they went.

Chapter 13

Noah canceled out the protection on the shield lenses as he shoved his way through the room, but didn’t see the distinctive, flower-like pattern of Caro’s sig anywhere.

Some scholar was winding up her multimedia presentation. The room erupted inwild applause.

He’d known this thing would go sideways. Known it in his balls, but he’d ignored it. And now look at him. Caro lost, and him with no gun, dressed up in a goddamn tux and running around the Renaissance funhouse from hell. What thefuck hadpossessed him?

He had his own personal curse. It blew whatever Orazio’s cross was cursed with right out of the water. Evil, danger, and death followedhim everywhere.

And Carowould be next.

Something terrible was about to happen. He felt it in the air. He had to find Caro. Get these people away from that fucking fake cross. It had to be the cross.

The scholar was smiling broadly as she acknowledged the applause. Morelli was next to the dais now, whispering urgently into Lella’s ear but Lella just stared back at the younger man, a blank, clouded expression on his disfigured face. Mouth still open.

Obviously frustrated, Morelli stepped up onto the dais and shouldered the woman at the lectern aside. She looked outraged as Morelli leaned down intothe microphone.

“Ladies and gentlemen,signore e signori.” His voice was hard-edged. “I regret to inform you that we have a security problem. We must now ask you all to leave the room immediately, in a calm and orderly fashion.” He repeated the same phrase in Italian and then switched back to English. “If those closest to the door could exit now, to make way for the restof us? Please.”

Stefano’s sig was blazing around him. A hot orange glow, well defined. Typical of an aggressive, organized person. Marked with alarm and stress, but not enough to compromise function.

Then Noah looked at Lella…and suddenly stopped breathing.

The glow of colors around the man’s body revealed a huge, ragged dark hole. As if black mold had eaten away at it. Someone had suppressed that guy’s brain and was remote-piloting him. There was a dark red hot spot on the side of his skull. The crawling toxic blackness seemed to ooze out of that.

Oh shit. Lella had an implant in his head. It was fuckingwith him. Hard.

Lella followed Morelli up onto the dais, lurching and stumbling. He tripped and almost fell, like a man carrying an unaccustomed weight.

Because he was. Literally. The man was bigger than he’d been this afternoon. He’d been stocky to begin with, but right now, he looked as bulky as a linebacker.

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