The Devil Will Come by Glenn Cooper Read Free Book Online Page A

hospital is secular. The Church is most decidedly not.’
    The apartment buzzer rang.
    ‘Who the hell is that?’ Carlo growled. ‘On a Sunday?’ He lumbered toward the hall.
    ‘Maybe it’s Arturo,’ Zazo said, eliciting a snort from Micaela.
    Elisabetta quietly put her fork down and got up.
    They heard Carlo shouting into the scratchy intercom and when he returned to the dining room he had a puzzled expression.
    ‘There’s a guy downstairs who says he’s Archbishop Luongo’s driver. He says he’s here to pick up Elisabetta.’
    ‘He’s early,’ Elisabetta said, adjusting her leather belt. ‘I was going to tell you.’
    ‘Tell us what?’ Zazo asked.
    ‘My old professor, Tommaso De Stefano, visited me. He’s still with the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archeology. He wants my help with a project. I said no but he insisted. I’ve got to run. I’m sorry to leave the dishes.’
    ‘Where are you going?’ Micaela asked, dumbstruck. In fact, they all stared. Elisabetta’s life was so predictable that this deviation from routine seemed to catch them mightily by surprise.
    ‘The catacombs,’ she said. ‘St Callixtus. But please don’t tell anyone.’
    It seemed as though a lifetime had passed since Elisabetta had last entered these grounds. The entrance to St Callixtus was off the Appian Way which, on a late Sunday afternoon, was nearly deserted. She’d forgotten how quickly the land turned rural when one passed through the ancient southern walls of the city.
    Off the main road, the avenue leading to the catacombs was lined by stands of tall cypresses, their tops glowing orange in the dwindling sunlight. Beyond was a large tract of wooded and agricultural land owned by the Church and containing an old Trappist monastery, a dormitory for the catacomb guides and the Quo Vadis? church. To the west lay the Catacombs of Domitilla. To the east, the Catacombs of San Sebastiano. The whole region was sacred.
    The driver – who had remained mute during their journey – sprung out and opened the car door before Elisabetta had a chance to work the handle herself. Professor De Stefano was waiting at the public entrance, a low structure which resembled a simple Mediterranean villa.
    Inside, De Stefano led her past the policeman who stood guard at the visitors’ iron gate. From there they headed down a stone stairway into the bowels of the earth.
    ‘It’s a walk,’ he said. ‘Halfway to Domitilla. There’s really no short cut.’
    Elisabetta lifted her robes just enough to prevent herself from tripping. The subterranean air was dead and familiar. ‘I remember the way,’ she replied. She felt a disturbing blend of apprehension and excitement course through her as she remembered her previous times here and thought ahead to the imminent new revelations.
    They moved briskly through the normal tourist areas. The galleries, cut by pickaxes and shovels from the soft volcanic tufo from the second through the fifth centuries AD , were somber remains of a broad sweep of history. The Romans had always buried or cremated their dead in necropolises outside the city walls for it was strictly forbidden to do so within the city limits. The wealthy built family tombs. The poor were crammed into mass graves.
    Yet the early Christians stubbornly refused to mix their dead with pagan bones and most of them were too poor to afford proper tombs. A solution was found on the rural estates of sympathizers. Dig your necropolises, they were told. Burrow as extensively as you please, come and visit your dead freely, but leave our fields intact. Thus the catacombs were spawned at all compass points outside the city walls but especially to the south, off the Appian Way.
    Over the centuries vast networks of subterranean galleries were tunneled to hold the remains of Popes and martyrs, commoners and the lofty. The Popes had elaborate frescoed vaults where pilgrims came to venerate them. The poor had small loculi, not much more than stone