Page 100 of Skotos
A woman in a floral dress slipped and went down hard, her purse spilling its contents across the stones. Three people stepped on her before I could push through to help her up.
“Grazie,” she gasped, blood trickling from her split lip.
I didn’t have time to respond. My eyes swept the chaos, searching for any sign of Will’s frame, his unruly hair, that stubborn set to his shoulders when he was pissed off about something—which, given his current circumstances, he undoubtedly was.
Swiss Guardsmen were trying to restore order, their halberds useless against the tide of human panic. Italian police with whistles and batons formed human chains, attempting to direct the flow of terrified civilians away from the Vatican’s gates. Their voices were lost in the roar of the crowd, their commands drowned out by screams and sobs and the thunder of thousands of feet on stone.
I pushed against the tide, fighting my way toward where I’d last seen Will’s rooftop. Every step was a battle. Bodies pressed against me from all sides. A priest’s elbow caught me in the ribs, a woman’s sharp heel scraped down my shin, someone’s rosary beads tangled briefly in my jacket before snapping and scattering like dark tears across the ground.
The air reeked of sweat and fear.
Sirens wailed in the distance, growing closer, adding their mechanical screams to the human ones already filling the square.
I broke free of the crush near the fountain and sprinted toward the building I’d seen Will on. My lungs burned, my shoulder throbbed, and my vision blurred at the edges; still, I ran.
Behind me, the crowd surged and ebbed like a tide of human misery, but ahead—
There.
A cluster of police cars, their blue lights flashing like angry stars against the ancient stone façades. Officers in crisp uniforms were securing the area, unrolling yellow tape and shouting at civilians to stay back. One car was just pulling away from the curb. Through its rear window I glimpsed dark, sandy hair and a familiar profile.
Will.
“Fermati!” I shouted, breaking into a dead sprint. “Stop!”
The car didn’t slow. Instead, it turned onto a side street, tires squealing slightly on the wet cobbles, and disappeared behind a row of shuttered shops and yellowed apartment buildings.
My breath came in ragged gasps. I slammed my fist against the nearest wall, pain shooting up my arm. The ancient brick didn’t care about my frustration. It had seen empires rise and fall, had weathered barbarian invasions, papal scandals, and worldwars. One more American having a breakdown wasn’t going to make it flinch.
“Shit,” I gasped, leaning against the wall and trying to catch my breath.
Think! Think like a spy, not like a lovesick fool.
Will was alive—I’d seen him in the car, conscious and apparently uninjured. That was something. The Italian police weren’t executioners; they were just doing their job, arresting a foreign national found with a firearm on a rooftop during an assassination attempt. It would’ve been dereliction to leave Will un-arrested.
That meant he’d be taken to a central station for processing.
Rome only had a few facilities large enough to handle a case like this, especially one involving potential international terrorism. The main police headquarters on Via di San Vitale was the most likely destination, a fortress-like building that could handle high-security prisoners.
Getting him out would require more than showing up with our diplomatic credentials. The Italians would want answers, explanations, and official channels. They’d want to know why two Americans were crawling aroundtheirrooftops during a papal appearance. They’d want guarantees, assurances, and a formal apology from the ambassador.
All of which would take time.
Time we didn’t have.
The Order might’ve killed the Pope—or they might’ve failed. Either way, they were still out there, planning and plotting, preparing to take down their next target. We needed clues. We needed leads. We needed any trail we might follow to take them down.
We had nothing.
I pushed off from the wall and started walking back toward the piazza, my mind racing through possibilities. By the time I reached the wide expanse, the crowd had thinned and quieted, but the sirens were louder. Ambulances mixed with police cars, their urgent wails echoing off the surrounding buildings like the cries of mechanical banshees.
The Swiss Guard had formed a human wall, their colorful uniforms no longer ceremonial but deadly serious. Behind them, I saw additional guards, ones carrying modern weapons instead of ornamental halberds. The gates themselves had been sealed with massive iron barriers that looked like they could withstand a siege. I approached the nearest guard, a mountain of a man whose eyes tracked my movement like a predator stalking his prey.
“I need to get inside,” I said in English, then tried my broken Italian. “Ho bisogno di entrare. È urgente.”
“No,” the guard replied simply, his hand moving to rest on the grip of his sidearm. “Nessuno entra. Ordini del Papa.”
No one enters. Orders from the Pope.
