Maria grinned. ‘And if the Vatican was going to be moved, the popes would want the right decorations for the new home of the Catholic Church.’
‘Exactly! And if the pope wanted Michelangelo to do the decorating, then Michelangelo did the decorating.’ Boyd chuckled as he remembered a story about the famous artist. ‘Did you know that Michelangelo didn’t want anything to do with the Sistine Chapel? Rumor has it that Julius II, the pope at the time, bullied him into doing the project. Once beating him with a cane, and once threatening to kill Michelangelo by tossing him off the scaffolding… Not exactly the type of behavior you’d expect from a pope, is it?’
She shook her head. ‘Do you think he forced Michelangelo to do these, too?’
Boyd considered her question. ‘If my memory is correct, the last pope to stay here was Pope Clement VII during Spain’s attack on Rome in 1527. I believe Michelangelo did the Sistine Chapel about twenty years before then, meaning he would’ve had plenty of time to duplicate his scenes on these walls before his death.’
‘Or,’ Maria deadpanned, ‘someone could have done these first, and Michelangelo might have copied them back at the Vatican.’
A flash of excitement crossed Boyd’s face. ‘My dear, you have a bloody good point there! If these were done before the others, then the Sistine Chapel would be nothing more than an imitation. Goodness me! Can you imagine the flak we’d get if we proved that Michelangelo was a forger? We’d never hear the end of it!’
Maria laughed, knowing her dad would have a stroke if she were involved in something like that. ‘That does have controversy written all over it. Doesn’t it?’
Although the concept was controversial, it paled in comparison to things that they were about to discover deeper inside the Catacombs.
While Maria filmed the artwork, Dr Boyd crept down the three stone steps on the left side of the chamber. At the bottom he turned to his right and peered into darkness.
Amazingly, he saw a series of open tombs so great in number that they faded into the depths of the corridor beyond the reach of his light. The ceiling soared above him to a height of over fifty feet and was lined on both sides by an intricate system of niches, built to hold the skeletal remains of the dead. These loculi were cut into the tufaceous walls in straight rows, each rectangle measuring six feet across — just big enough for a body.
‘This is stunning,’ he gasped. ‘Simply stunning!’
Maria hustled after him and focused the camera on one of the unmarked graves. She hoped to get a better view of the long passageway, but it was far too narrow for her to slip past Boyd — no more than three feet from wall to wall.
‘Tell me, Maria, what do you see?’
She smiled. ‘I see dead people.’
But Boyd missed her reference to The Sixth Sense. ‘So do I. Don’t you think that’s strange?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Why can we see the bodies? Per custom, most loculi were sealed with tiles and mortar after the dead were placed inside. Others were covered with a marble slab. But I’ve never seen this before. Why would they leave the bodies exposed?’
She frowned, thinking of the Catacombs of Saint Callixtus in Rome. They were built by Christians in the middle of the second century and encompassed an area of ninety acres, with four levels and more than twelve miles of galleries.
When she was ten, she toured the ruins on a school trip, an experience that she loved so much that she rushed home and told her parents that she wanted to be an archaeologist. Her mom smiled and told her she could be whatever she wanted as long as she worked hard. But it was an answer that didn’t set well with dad. When he finished laughing, he stared Maria in the eyes and told her, in all seriousness, to give up her dreams and concentrate on finding a husband.
It was a moment that she’d never forget. Or forgive.
‘Correct me if I’m wrong,’ she said, ‘but aren’t the Christian tombs at Saint Callixtus open-air as well? I remember seeing a lot of holes in the walls.’
‘You saw holes, but no bodies. It was the custom of early Christians to wrap their dead in a shroud before they sealed it inside the loculi. The holes that you’re referring to were cracked open by looters and scholars. But that’s not the case down here. If you look — ’
Boyd stopped in midsentence, his attention suddenly focused on the passageway ahead. Something was wrong. The corridor stretched into the darkness, snaking through the stone like a black viper. He tried to see the end of the hall but couldn’t. Shadows danced around him, cast by human hands that dangled from their graves like they were reaching for his light. As though his presence had somehow stirred them from their centuries of slumber. In a moment of panic, he stepped backward into one of their outstretched hands and felt icy-cold fingers against the back of his leg. Terror sprang from his lips, soon followed by a shriek from Maria.
‘What happened!’ she demanded. ‘What’s wrong? Did you see something?’
Boyd took a deep breath and laughed, completely embarrassed. ‘I am so sorry… I just scared myself silly.’ His face turned a shade of red. ‘I didn’t mean to scare you. Truly I didn’t. I’m just jumpy. That’s all… I just bumped into a hand, and it startled me.’
‘A hand? You bumped into a hand? Good lord, professore! You almost gave me a stroke.’
‘Trust me, I know the feeling. I almost had one myself.’
Maria put her hand on her chest and closed her eyes. Her heart felt like a jackhammer pounding against her rib cage. She took a deep breath, trying to cope with the rush of adrenaline. ‘You’re sure you’re all right?’
He nodded sheepishly. ‘Yes, my dear, I swear.’
‘Then let’s get moving. I need to burn off all this energy.’
They traveled together for several seconds, passing grave after unmarked grave, never stopping to examine the bodies. They were still too jumpy to do that. Thirty yards later, the corridor split in two. The path on the left led to a stairwell that slowly curled into the darkness below. The hallway on the right continued forward past hundreds of more bodies.
Boyd turned to Maria. ‘Lady’s choice.’
‘Let’s go downstairs. I hear there’s a wonderful gift shop in the basement.’
He nodded, then started down the steps. They were no more than six inches deep — perfect for the feet of yesteryear but small for the modern-day traveler — which forced Boyd to lower himself sideways. To steady his descent, he used the jutting stones in the walls as a handrail.
At the halfway point, he stopped and turned toward the camera. ‘I believe we’re under the upper hallway now, more than twenty feet down. What an incredible achievement, carving this much rock yet keeping it hidden from the outside world. Simply remarkable!’
She asked, ‘Do you think the Empire built these stairs, or was it done in the Middle Ages?’
He paused, soaking in everything — the vaulted ceilings, the high arches, the colors, the smells, the sounds — before he answered. ‘My guess would be the Empire. The shallowness of the steps is the first clue, followed by the basic design. It’s very typical of the ancients.’
Smiling, Boyd continued forward at a methodical pace. Normally he would’ve zipped down the stairs at top speed, but the heat of the outer chamber had sapped his strength. Combine that with a lack of food and sleep, and he was lucky to be standing.
‘Professore? What do you think is down here?’
He was about to answer when the hallway came into view, stretching out before him like an arroyo. No crypts, no graves, no doors. Just an empty corridor for as far as his eye could see.
‘Strange,’ he mumbled. ‘I feel like we’re in a different world down here.’
Maria nodded. ‘It looks like it was decorated by the Amish.’
Boyd ignored her comment and crept down the hall searching for clues. Fifty feet later, he spotted a stone plaque on the left-hand wall. Its color was the same shade of brown as the rest of the passageway, yet its surface was remarkably different. Without saying a word, Boyd ran to it, immediately placing his hands on its cold surface. Then, like a blind man reading, he slid his fingers across it, probing the shallow grooves with slow, tender strokes.
Maria stood back, confused by his strange behavior. She wanted to ask him what the hell was going on, why he was acting more bizarre than he normally did, but all it took was a single glance and she knew the answer. One look at his face and everything made sense.
Her mentor, the one man she actually trusted and believed in, was hiding something.