He licked his dry lips, they felt like a piece of sandpaper. “You got to be kidding me,” he said, glancing around the cavernous room. “Welcome to Hell, buddy,” someone wheezed beside him. He was in a dark room which smelled damp and mildewy, like the Lascaux caves in France he had visited as a kid. Hanging lanterns cast a dim light against the walls. Between the lanterns, two bony men hung shackled by their wrists, suspended to the wall. He looked up, rattled the manacles around his own wrists. He lifted his foot as something small scurried across the floor. He was in a damned medieval dungeon. “Where are we?” he asked to no-one in particular. He glimpsed a movement in the shadow, blinked a couple of times as he willed his sight to adapt to the dark. The faint glint of the lanterns reflected in a serpentine eye. The figure emerged from the shadows. It was Father Casanellas. “You’re in a prison for religious exiles, deep beneath Vatican City.” “Why?” Casanellas unbuttoned his black shirt and pulled it off.
