Huntik Trilogy. Volume 1 The Battle Against The Specter

Saint Mark's Crypt

The morning air was humid. At that time, those who had spent the night out went home and those who took care of cleaning public places went out.
Zhalia tapped the tip of her shoe on the pavement of Piazza San Marco. She put her cell phone to her ear and waited for an answer.
"Sophie where are you?" she asked looking at Dante, who was waiting for her leaning on one of the two lions in the square.
"Zhalia, why do you keep calling? I told you that when I find the passage in the bell tower, I get in touch!" she answered annoyed.
"You are quite slow in your research. Dante has already found the crypt and so I have to get in. In all likelihood, there is no line down there." she explained looking at Dante holding Metagolem's amulet in his hand.
"I understand, I'm gonna send you a message, then. Use Oversight on as many passes as possible."
"Do not underestimate me, Sophie!" Zhalia smiled. "I will hide Metagolem with Hidesight, it's much more practical. See you later." Zhalia explained and hung up.
"Then let's go in. You are sure, aren't you?" Dante stared at her with a serious look.
"Yes, Dante." Zhalia answered, snorting. "How many times do I have to tell you? I'm not going back home!"
"Very well." Dante smiled walking away a few steps and holding the amulet of Metagolem with two hands.
Zhalia launched Oversight on a group of boys who was jostling at the side of the square.
"Clear the way, Metagolem!" Dante exclaimed evoking the titan that Zhalia promptly concealed with Hidesight.
Metagolem moved the lion statue, revealing a subterranean staircases.
"Don't let anyone come close, Metagolem!" Dante ordered to the titan.
The two entered, walked the entire staircase and disappeared into the darkness, behind one of the first columns.
Dante raised his hand upward.
"Boltflare!" he cried, making a sphere of light appear above them.
"Nobody has come in here for a long time!" Zhalia noted looking at the cobwebs and the dust around her.
"There is also little air down here."
"Here is the amulet!" Dante exclaimed pointing to a large statue of a man seated on a winged lion, placed above the altar in the center of the narrow nave.
"Where is it?" Zhalia asked, her eyes were not yet used to the gloom.
"There, in the eye of Saint Mark!" he said, bringing the Boltflare up to it.
Zhalia bent at the foot of the altar and she also used a Boltflare.
"Dante, there is an inscription here, it says: - Only those with a pure heart can take the amulet of Saint Mark from this place - We have a big problem."
Dante and Zhalia stopped, both staring at the saint's name written in Latin: Marcus; they both liked it.
Dante smiled and helped Zhalia to get up.
"We can say that another problem is solved. We had not come down here for that reason, but if a boy were to be born, we will call him Marcus." he commented.
"Marcus Dante sounds better, don't you think?"
"You are a traditionalist!" Dantesmiled "And if it were to be female?"
"I don't know..."
Dante put his pack on the ground.
"Returning to the real reason for our presence here, I want to try to do something."
Zhalia raised a doubtful eyebrow.
"You don't wanna wait for Sophie, do you?"
"If you remember correctly, in the crypt of Joan of Arc we found ourselves in a similar situation." Dante explained. "The ceiling collapsed ononly one person, while we were trying to reach the crypt, and it was you."
"Are you insinuating that I'm not pure in heart?" Zhalia asked suspiciously.
"It's just a hypothesis." Dante justified himself. "I only say that, in my opinion, it is worth the risk." and he went away with Hyperstride.
Zhalia watched him how he easily removed the statue's amulet. The amulet of Saint Mark, Protector, bonded with Dante immediately.
Zhalia heard voices calling her and her partner.
"Lok and Sophie are at the entrance!"
"Then, let's reach them!" Dante exclaimed.

Lok looked at Metagolem at the entrance to the passage.
"Hey, Sophie did you see how strange?"
"What, Lok? Metagolem has finally decided to let us pass?" Sophie asked, leaning against the lion in front of the secret passage.
"Someone has engraved Chiare fresche e dolci acque at the foot of this lion. Is it a Petrarca's poem?"
Sophie's face lit up.
"Yes. I see you can remember something, from time to time."
"It's strange... it has nothing to do with Saint Mark and who wrote it has also signed himself with Cld. He also left a dedication - To you, my love, because this feeling of mine remains as secret as this titan -"
Sophie frowned.
"We looked everywhere for the second titan of Saint Mark. Where can it be?"
Lok looked at one of the niches high up on the side of the bell tower from the side they were. On the top there was the winged lion, symbol of the saint.
"The titan is up there. Look!" he suddenly exclaimed.
"In the mouth of that stone lion?" Sophieasked.
"And I will arrive before you can!" a black figure behind them exclaimed.
"Shadow?!" Lok exclaimed surprised. "Charge, Ironsquire!"
"Fight with us, Sabriel!" Sophie imitated him.
At that moment Zhalia and Dante emerged from the crypt.
"Fight for your lady, Kilthane!"
"Come, Caliban and Ariel!"
Shadow smiled pleased, looking with satisfaction at the different Titans lined up against him.
"There you are, then. Very well, I invoke my most powerful titans only for you!" Shadowsneered, putting his hand to three amulets. "Bushtale, Preigast and Zodiac, come!"
Next to the usual titan used by Shadow against the team, appeared a Krono-Titan composed of water and fire and a Draco-Titan that recalled a centaur with goat's legs, the tail of a scorpion and two human busts. The snouts were those of a male lion and a woman with marine characteristics and gills.
"Raypulse!" Lok shouted, launching his attacks with ferocity against the titans.
Having launched the attack first, Dante rushed to cover him.
"Dragonfist!"
Thus began a pursuit without exclusion of blows. Dante and Sophie managed to get close to Shadow, but, using Hyperstride first, Shadow arrived to the amulet on top of the bell tower and took it away with him, disappearing with a Darkfog.
Dante landed next to Zhalia and stood up.
"He managed to escape!" Lok exclaimed irritably.
"All is not lost." Dante pointed out, showing him the other amulet. "The two Titans are made to work in symbiosis. Without this, Shadow cannot do anything."
"Dante there is a poem here!"
"Yes Lok, it's from who has sealed for the last time this place."
Zhalia started reading "Chiare... Chiara... Clara!"
"Clara Zhalia sounds better." Dantesmiled.
"Like Marcus Dante." Zhalia retorted.
"What are you two talking about?" Lokasked confused.
"The name of the child, Lok, is so basic!" Sophie snorted.
"Stop making the acquaintance!" Lokgrowled.
"Who has just let Leones escape?" she snapped.
Dante intervened putting himself between the two.
"Guys, enough! Let's go home!"
"We always have Protector!" Cherit specified.

When they arrived at home, Dante contacted Metz, who was not happy to know that only half of the mission had succeeded.
"Dante, to control all the power of Protector you need Leones! It's the only way we have to defeat Shadow. Do you understand me?"
"Yes and I promise it will never happen again!" the seeker said, bowing his head.
"I hope so, Dante!" said Metz.

During the following days, Dante tried to summon Protector and discovered he could control him, but his power was limited.
Zhalia waited with anxiety and concern for the birth of the child; she had been pregnant for almost eight months now and couldn't move almost anymore.
"Dante, I'm really curious to see to who your son will look like!" Lok said in the kitchen taoking with the seeker, looking at Zhalia, intent on meditating cross-legged under the living room window.
"Me too, Lok!" Dante replied, studying Zhalia's breath.
"I like children very much, but in all my life I haven't seen one born..." Cherit commented on Dante's shoulder.
"How come you've been alive for over ten thousand years and you've never seen a baby born?" Lok asked.
"It's one of the things I miss..."
Dante became serious.
"What's up, Dante?" Lok asked him.
"I have to go away with Zhalia, before the baby is born, and come back here in a couple of years." he answered, frowning.
"Why?"
"Because Shadow said that he will be there that day and that it will be my end. Your father will help us to disappear."
"Where will you go?" Lok asked.
"I think London or New York... I still have to decide."
"Does Zhalia know?" Cherit asked.
"No."
"What are you waiting to tell her?" Lok added.
"To know where to go."
"What do you mean with - where to go - ?" Zhalia asked, standing next to Dante.
"Zhalia! How much did you hear?" he asked her.
"Only that you don't know where to go. When should we leave?"
"How do you know you and I have to leave?"
"I sensed it!"
Dante sighed and put his hands on her shoulders.
"Where do you prefer: London or New York?"
"London is closer and I don't get too tired in my state."
"We leave tomorrow." Dantesentenced.
"Tomorrow? So soon?"
"Our son can not be born here." Dante sighed. "None of us is safe. It's the first time someone has been raging against me with so much insistence and cruelty."
Cherit looked at Zhalia's eyes darkened. The female seeker broke away from Dante and headed for the upper floor.

The little titan followed Zhalia and found her sitting on the bed in the bedroom.
"Are you okay, Zhalia?" Cherit asked entering the open door.
"I don't know." she answered, caressing her belly. "The doctors have said that everything is going well, he or she is so small that the only idea that he or she can go through what I've been through is frightening me."
"Are you afraid of anything else?" Cherit asked, resting on his shoulder.
"So, let's see, Dante disappearing again, that I become the cause of Dante's defeat and, above all, that I am not ready to take care of the child, if I have the good fortune to see him or her growing up."
Cherit sighed.
"I cannot know what will happen in the future." he looked at Zhalia's eyes closeing. "But I know that Dante will never give up. You're not the only one who's insecure about her parental role, even Dante can't believe that he's about to become a father."
"Do you have some advice?" Zhalia asked, opening her eyes and looking out of the window.
"You and Dante must support each other more and come closer. If you are together, the smallest fears will be overcome." Cherit explained. "This speech will be repeated as identical to Dante."
"Thank you, Cherit. I reacted like that before because I felt..."
"Attacked?" Cherit asked and Zhalia nodded. "You know, when you're used to be alone and then you find someone to be with, it's not always easy to figure out how much you can show about yourself. In over ten thousand years, this is what I've learned."
Zhalia got out of bed.
"Luggage can't prepare themselves."
Cherit detached herself from Zhalia's shoulder and settled on the bed.
"I bet Dante got rid of Lok and now he's coming here to find out how you're doing."
As soon as Cherit had finished speaking, Dante came to the door of the room.
"Zhalia, I wanted to apologize with you for what happened before. I was too direct and not very delicate."
Zhalia sighed.
"You can be forgiven if you start packing and I think Cherit could come with us."
Cherit smiled.
"Do you really want me to come with you?"
"I have very soft wool socks and they are better than Lok's backpack stuffing." Zhalia smiled.
"I cannot wait to leave!" Cherit exclaimed.
Dante hugged Zhalia, kissed her forehead and together with her began to pack.