Let the Games Begin by Niccolo Ammaniti

Author:Niccolo Ammaniti
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Canongate Books

33

Antonio's head bounced on each step and the muffled sound echoed against the vaulted ceiling of the staircase that disappeared into the bowels of the earth. Murder and Zombie dragged the head waiter by his ankles.

The leader of the Beasts, at the head of the gang, shone an electric torch on the walls of the tunnel carved in the tuff rock. Greenish mould and spider webs were all they saw. The air was humid and smelled of wet dirt.

Mantos didn't have the vaguest idea where the stairway led. He had opened an old door and slipped in before anyone could see them.

Silvietta stopped to look at Antonio. ‘Guys, won't all those bangs to the head hurt him?’

Saverio turned to her. ‘He's hard-headed. We're almost there.’

Murder was tired. ‘Thank goodness! We've been going down for ages. It's like a mine.’

In the end they came to a cave. Zombie turned on two torches screwed to the walls, and a part of the room brightened.

It wasn't a cave, but a long room with a low ceiling and rows of rotten barrels and piles of dusty bottles. On each side of the room a rusty grating closed off a narrow tunnel that led who knows where.

‘This place is perfect for a Satanic ritual.’ Murder lifted a bottle and dusted off the label: ‘Amarone 1943.’

‘They must be the royal cellars,’ Silvietta suggested.

‘You don't perform Satanic rituals in a cellar. At most, in a deconsecrated church or in the open air. In any case, by the light of the moon.’ Mantos pointed at a corner underneath the torches: ‘Come on, let's dump my cousin and get out of here. We don't have time to waste.’

Zombie, off to one side, was studying a grate. Silvietta went up to him. ‘That's weird! Four identical tunnels.’ She stuck her hand through the bars. ‘I can feel warm air. I wonder where it comes from?’

Zombie shrugged. ‘Who cares?’

‘You reckon it's safe to leave him here? He won't wake up again, will he?’

‘I don't know . . . And I don't really care that much either.’ Zombie walked away stiffly.

Silvietta looked after him, feeling perplexed. ‘What's your problem? Are you pissed off?’

Zombie started walking up the stairs without answering.

Mantos followed him. ‘Let's move.’

The Beasts had climbed one hundred steps when they heard a muffled noise coming from below. Murder stopped. ‘What was that?’

‘Antonio must have woken up,’ said Silvietta.

Mantos shook his head. ‘Not likely. He'll sleep a couple of hours, at least. Sedaron is strong stuff.’

And they kept climbing.

If, instead, they had gone back down, they would have found Antonio Zauli's body missing.

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