They moved faster, all but ignoring the images of Rome’s early development and battles. The tunnel ended in an arched doorway that led to a T junction. They passed through and found a second arch to the left, leading into a small chamber, and a second hallway to the right. Not wanting to proceed too quickly, King entered the small room and cast his light side to side, stopping at the room’s only feature—a marble tomb. They approached the tomb and found a relief of a woman on its lid. Acca Larentia.

“She’s been here the whole time,” Pierce said, his voice full of the same kind of wonder that Rook displayed when assembling a new weapon. Pierce reached out to touch the woman’s face, but was stopped by a guttural clicking growl. The sound was organic, but inhuman.

King spun and fell to one knee, aiming both flashlight and handgun toward the entrance.

A cloaked figure in the doorway flinched away from the light and blocked its face with the loose fabric of its black sleeve. Clearly uncomfortable in the light, the creature stepped back but made no move to retreat or advance. It simply stood there, crouched and swaying slowly side to side.

Waiting.

King recognized the creature. The cloak and bits of gray face and arm he could see were exactly what Rook and Queen had described. A wraith. One of Hercules’s mysterious gofers. Despite the wraith having an aura of evil, King knew it meant them no harm. He lowered his weapon and aimed his flashlight to the floor.

Free of the intense white beam, the wraith stood taller and lowered its arm. In the dim light reflected off the room’s brown walls, King could make out the lower half of the creature’s face. There was no nose to speak of, simply a horizontal slit in its skin. And its mouth, well, there wasn’t one—just a patch of wrinkled gray flesh.

For a moment, King felt pity for the wraith. It had clearly once been a human being, but now … it was a monster. Then it turned, motioned for them to follow with its hooded head, and hopped up onto the hallway wall. It crawled away like a four-legged spider. Or, King thought, like a gecko.

Keeping his weapon ready, King and Pierce followed the wraith, which paused when they fell behind. It led them through a confusing maze of tunnels through which neither man could retrace his steps. Some tunnels were plain stone bearing no markings of any kind. Others housed portions of ancient columns, ruined busts, and half-buried arches.