The Oracle Read Online Free PDF Page B

motionless for an instant against the wall before a red stain spread over her chest, her legs crumpled and her eyes fluttered shut.
    He raced up the stairs, indifferent to the shots, the shouts, the thick dust. He reached the girl an instant before she hit the floor. He lifted her up. The officer at the bottom of the stairs had pulled out his pistol and was aiming it at him. Claudio turned desperately to the left, to the right. He saw the door of an elevator and threw himself against it, hitting the call button with his elbow. The lift was right there and the door opened. He dived in and closed the door just an instant before the butt of a rifle could block it. He pressed the ground floor button and the elevator jerked into service as numerous shots rang against the door. He dropped to the floor with Heleni in his arms while two, three bullet holes opened in the sheet metal and the sharp odour of gunpowder invaded the chamber. The elevator started to descend. As soon as the door opened on to the ground floor, Claudio ran out, carrying Heleni, unconscious and pale as death. She was covered with blood. The stairs resounded with the stamping of his pursuers’ boots. He found himself in front of an open classroom and hid with the girl under the professor’s desk. The soldiers entered, took a long look around, then ran off down the hall.
    Claudio left the room and made his way towards the building’s rear wing where he found the staff door unlocked. He ran out into the courtyard on Tositsa Street, flattened himself against the wall and waited until the street was clear.
    He could hear more shooting, crying, howls of protest and rage, the roar of engines, vehicles burning rubber down Patissìon Street, harshly delivered orders. The revolt had been put down. Only the pealing of the bells continued to rip through the darkness of the night, obsessive and despairing.
    He lay Heleni on the ground and ran towards the little gate that led on to the street. He opened it, turned back to get her and raced through the courtyard as fast as he could, nearly running into Norman and Michel. Claudio was unrecognizable. His eyes were red, his face burnt black and his clothing shredded. He held Heleni’s motionless body in his arms and his shirt and jeans were soaked with her blood. When he saw his friends, he collapsed to his knees and managed to blurt out amidst his tears: ‘It’s me. Help me, please.’
    A RI JERKED AWAKE at the tolling of the bells and the noise of the shooting, but he was so tired that he couldn’t snap out of his slumber. It seemed like another one of the countless nightmares that had tormented his brief sleep. A stitch in his side woke him up fully and he got to his feet, rubbing the painful area. The woeful alarm sounded by the church bells was muffled in that underground chamber, making it even more unreal and ominous. He switched on the light and looked back towards the wall: the edges of the blanket had fallen off the vase and it gleamed brightly in front of him as cries of rage and pain and gunshots echoed outside. He covered it, knotting the corners well, and hid it hurriedly under a table, then headed towards the service exit. He heard a noise at the door. Someone was banging at it, trying to get it open. ‘Who’s there?’ he asked. ‘What do you want?’
    ‘Open up, for the love of God, we’re students. One of us is wounded.’ Ari opened the door and several youths tumbled in: three boys, one of them carrying a girl who was unconscious and seemed seriously wounded.
    ‘Ari, is that you?’ said Michel. ‘What luck. I thought you were at Parga with Harvatis.’
    ‘Michel? I was in Parga, I just . . . I just arrived. But why have you come here? This girl has to be brought to the hospital immediately.’
    Claudio approached him, clutching Heleni to his chest. She seemed to have regained consciousness; a low moan came from her mouth. ‘She’s been shot. If we take her to a hospital we’ll all be