Cross

Book 3 Chapter IX - In Which The Catacombs Are A Nightmare

Chapter 27 - In Which The Catacombs Are A Nightmare

"What on Earth is going on?" Dani asked, looking around the alleyway David had pulled her into for no apparent reason.

"I just realised the stupidity of travelling anywhere in plain sight when Abihira has probably reported back to Terror," he said.

"Why did she even bother speaking to us?" That was something she'd wondered ever since their encounter.

"Who knows why she does anything?" David said, half to himself. "She'd send herself to a gullotine without flinching if she felt like it. Anyway, as much as I hate to admit it, we've got to find some way of contacting Brown. Hopefully, he'll have found my note and will be on his way here now, but Nightmare might decide to attack him if she finds him before he finds us."

"Hello? Who is this?" O'Hara yelled down the line, almost deafening Dani.

She held the mobile David had "found" somewhere (or so he said; she had her doubts) as far away from her ear as possible. "Hello, O'Hara? Is Jackson or Lacey there?"

"Who is this?"

"It's Dani."

"Dani?!?! Where the 'ell are ya? We've been searchin' all o'er the bloody town for ya!"

"Didn't you find the note David left?"

"Note? What note?"

"...Nevermind. I'm in Rome. It's a long story. Now could you let me speak to Jackson or Lacey?"

There was a lot of background noise and distant voices, but finally Lacey got to the phone. She didn't waste any time with "how are you?" or anything of the sort.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN ROME?"

David leaned over Dani's shoulder and snatched the mobile away from here. "Mrs. Brown? This is Cross. It's my fault we're in Rome."

Lacey's yell of "What?" could have been heard in Australia.

"You see, we were followed by Nightmare De Mon, took shelter in a shopping mall, were attacked by Nightmare, and I tried to teleport here but we ended up in Rome."

Dani couldn't hear what the response was, but judging by the tone and David's reaction, it was something along the lines of "What were you thinking?"

Fifteen minutes later, David had somehow convinced her that no, he had not deliberately taken them to Rome, and they needed someone to come and pick them up.

The vampire handed the mobile back to Dani. "Turn it off; I don't know how."

She did so, wondering how someone could be from an advanced planet like he said Vampiru was and not know how to turn off a mobile phone.

"Now what?"

"Now we head to some place called "The Catacombs Of Rome". Mrs. Brown is sending Lieutenant Reide here ahead of the rest of the team and he'll meet us there. Apparently, there are signs pointing there, so it should be easy to find."

"But Jack won't get here until tomorrow at least," Dani objected. "So what do we do until then?"

"We try to find the place. I'd rather not leave it to the last minute to find it and have no idea where to go."

~~~~

David had no idea what catacombs were, so he had a vague image of cats and combs jumbled up together, possibly as some sort of "modern art" statue. He was considerably surprised to find that "catacombs" were underground tunnels. He was also annoyed to find that as it was 9:30 PM when they found them after wandering over half of Rome, they were closed for the night.