The End

Sicily

Ulrich gave a torturous tug on the leash, bringing the paratrooper to his knees. Rosalie flinched forward but was held at bay by Nadine’s unwavering pistol and her father’s desperate pleads for the German assassin to stop firing. She knew Nadine would not hesitate to kill them, so she decided to remain still and stall her long enough to conceive a plan to escape the volcano’s depths alive while trapping the two German hunters in the subterranean cavern forever.

“You win, Nadine,” Rosalie said with an emphasis of defeat, “I’m not going to run anymore, and I’m not going to fight you. But before you kill us, don't you want to know the secret of Mount Etna?”

Nadine’s lips twisted into a vile smile before playing into the young girl’s silly game, “I don’t need to know any secrets. I have what I’ve come for. Once you’re both dead and excavation begins in the chambers above, I will have solidified my position in history as well as my place alongside the Fuhrer.”

Instead of paying attention to Nadine, Rosalie focused on Ulrich’s facial expressions while he listened to his comrade speak as if he did not exist. There was her opportunity. She needed to pin them against one another. That would be the perfect distraction. But how?

The singing of hair follicles on her left forearm popped the idea into her head. Time. She remembered what her father said about exposure time down in the subterranean oasis. Fifteen minutes was the maximum amount of time a human being could safely remain exposed to the heat. Considering the Mother Goddess guardians were the only ones who knew that information, she was confident that Nadine and Ulrich were ignorant.

“What about you, Ulrich? Rosalie asked, catching both of them off guard, “Do you want to know the secret?”

Her inquiry infuriated Nadine, “You speak to me and only me.”

“On the contrary,” Ulrich said, cutting her off as he ominously stepped closer, “I would very much like to hear this secret. Do not forget, you are only here because of me, Nadine. The Fuhrer sent me to acquire this prize. My need for a mindless killer is the only reason you were invited.”

Rosalie’s plan was working. Until it didn’t.

The young girl was unsure if the brutal temperature had finally broken through her barriers and she was suffering from the onset effects of heat stroke, but the cold splatter of fresh blood stinging the freckles on her cheeks solidified the idea that it was no illusion.

Ulrich’s hands dropped the opposite end of Garret’s leash and prodded helplessly at the deep gash beneath his chin which nearly stretched from earlobe to earlobe, desperately trying to stop the bleeding. he dropped to his knees, let out a sickening number of blood clogged coughs while inaudibly cursing Nadine, then collapsed onto the lava encrusted ground beside him.

Nadine loomed over his body with her dagger dripping with her late lover’s blood. The attack was remarkably quick and the surprised look on her face told Rosalie that she too was shocked at the quickness of her lethality. A part of her almost seemed regretful at what she had done, as if it was as simple as a childish act of losing all self-control which she could apologize for. But the thick wad of hot spit she coated the backside of his skull reinforced Rosalie’s original theory.

That was no accident. And she damn sure didn’t feel bad about it.

The sight of Ulrich’s dead body was a sight Rosalie had yearned for ever since their first encounter. The tall, skinny man with oval glasses who was responsible for the horrendous murders of her employers was finally gone. Even bogged down by the dense air from beneath the mountain, Rosalie found it a little easier to breathe. Unfortunately, her father had nearly slipped into an unconscious state from his loss of blood, and Nadine, the diseased engine driving Hitler’s war machine was still very much alive.

“Love has no place in this world,” Nadine said, as she stalked Rosalie to the ledge of the silver river, fondling the dagger in her blood soaked palm with every step, “It’s a deadly sickness only the most naive are attracted to.”

With the noose loosened from Ulrich’s limp grip, Garret was able to poke three of his fingers in between the rope and his throat allowing air to enter his body. He inhaled deeply, fully acknowledging that the scorching hot gasps would immobilize his lungs, but not before mustering enough strength to make one final act before leaving this world behind forever.

He struggled to his feet, but the deep rumbling of Mount Etna combined with the roiling hum of the rivers kept his movements a secret.

Rosalie knew what Garret was about to do and remained ignorant to his actions. Her heart was furious with her, but Garret’s facial expression was not of fear nor regret. It was of honor and determination. She knew she loved him, and she knew he loved her. She also knew that he was going to die down here, and she sensed that he knew that as well and came to accept his fate. She could not rob him of his final wish. So she focused her attention on Nadine, providing Garret with the few precious seconds he needed.

“Love is what the world needs to survive,” Rosalie said, “The only thing that has no place within it, is you.”

Pouncing like a jaguar from the brush, Garret wrapped the rope around Nadine’s throat and pulled back as hard as he could. As they crashed backwards to the solid rocky ground, Nadine’s trigger finger squeezed four times. The hollow-pointed rounds echoed and bounced off of the subterranean walls with tremendous velocity, disrupting the delicate balance of chemicals and fumes.

Bound by the noose, the two soldiers writhed and fought to stay alive. Nadine was jabbing her dagger downward, trying to find flesh, and Garret squeezed until the rope tore through Nadine’s skin. The sudden lack of oxygen forced her to drop both dagger and Luger and she urgently tried to free herself from the paratroopers' stranglehold.

Rosalie leaped forward, aiming for the dagger. Wrapping her fingers around the hilt, she cocked her arm high above her head and brought it down onto Nadine’s chest.

A dramatic burst of hot air and ignited cinnabar knocked Rosalie off balance just as the tip of the blade was about to enter Nadine’s heart. It also dislodged Garret’s hold on the assassin, jostling them free of one another.

Another round of airborne eruptions jostled the entire subterranean cavern, causing a few of the larger stalactites to dive bomb the cavern’s floor. Rosalie jumped and rolled a handful of times to avoid being pierced by ten foot chunks of raining stones.

Somehow finding herself at Garret’s side, the pair watched as Nadine became wedged between two slabs of obsidian quartz. The chaos had disrupted the flowing rivers of scorching silver and altered their course. Nadine’s gargled screams from Garret’s strangulation were satisfyingly silenced as the searing silver liquid slowly poured over her black hair, skull, face, into her mouth and down her throat. Solidifying her to the surrounding rock.

Stalactites continued to fall round them and the cinnabar explosions increased in ferocity.

“We need to help Clement,” Garret said, struggling with every letter.

Rosalie saw the blood stains seeping through his shirt and knew that at least three of Nadine’s wild stabbing motions had found their mark. But there was no time to debate, and her father was still alive. she couldn’t leave him.

Weaving and dodging the cascading rock fragments, Rosalie and Garret each grabbed one of Clement’s arms and tossed them over their shoulders. Before ascending the staircase, an arrangement of barely audible words escaped Clement's lips.

“Lapis…Lazuli…It…will…soothe the…eruption…Throw it…”

Rosalie and Garret shared an uncertain look of understanding and Garret continued on up the stairs, carrying Clement by himself. Rosalie stepped back into the openness of the crumbling subterranean hellfire and removed the necklace dangling from her neck. The brilliant blue glinted off of the airborne heatwaves and she had nothing left but to trust her father’s unconscious words. She had no idea if the stone would actually do anything. How could it? How could one tiny Lapis Lazuli stone prevent the cinnabar from annihilating all of Sicily?

The idea seemed fictitious and remarkably unbelievable but the stone was given back to her by Corrado for a reason. Her brother may be gone, but his spirit and essence were always with her. She brought the stone to her lips, kissed it long and hard, then threw it as high as she could up into the pillowing red clouds of cinnabar.

Rosalie bolted up the stairs as the harmonious sounds of cracking lightning snapped from beneath her. Once she was back up in the main cavern, she saw Garret heaving her father’s body through the gaping crevasse they had entered through from outside. Being mindful of her steps, she quickly caught up to Garret and helped him crawl out into the crisp night air.

Unsure if the trick her father muttered would work, she latched her hands onto the protruding stones and yanked herself free of Monte De Fiore One.

Collapsing onto the loose gravel, Rosalie inhaled fresh air and prayed that the rumbling stopped. Her prayers were soon answered by molten eruptions of cinnabar from Monte De Fiore Two, the twin volcano a hundred meters to the south. The same noxious gasses then began seeping from Mount Etna’s main volcanic cone, as well as from every crevasse and tube along her slopes.

Monte De Fiore One, also began to seep the red smoke. She tried to hustle to her feet and move both her father and Garret to safe distance, but they were too heavy to move simultaneously, and they were both unconscious. Her father had a pulse, although extremely faint, but Garret was ghost white, and soaked in his own blood. His pulse was absent. With no choice but to leave him behind, Rosalie slung both of her arms beneath her father’s shoulders and backpedaled as fast as she could towards the neighboring woodland.

With laden tears streaming down her cheeks blurring and blinding her vision, a sudden pop of deep blue smoke hissed from each of the three volcanic cones. The rumbling subsided and the seeping cinnabar dissipated into the oxidized atmosphere, rendering it inert.

She dropped to the soft Earth, and allowed the breeze to cool down her blistering skin. Elated at the death’s of both Ulrich and Nadine, yet crippled by the loss of her mother, brothers and Garret while unsure if her father was still alive after the aggressive drag across the harsh ground, she watched, smiled and counted the swarm of American and British aircraft soaring north towards Messina and Southern Italy.