The Heart Of the Queen, Beating Yet

[Robert Crisman]

Under the altar, steps made of marble led down to the the tunnels, the catacombs, vaults, with their sconces and treasures and skulls, and the scrolls with their stories of murder and greed that gave birth to the god that lay dead in priest's entrails upstairs.
Also the heart that was ripped from the chest of the Queen as killers ate by the river that night.
The heart of the Queen, beating yet.
Down he went, through the tunnels, and her pulse wrapped his own, even as the odor, green vomitous odor, of 10,000 dead filled his nostrils like silt.
His talons fully extended, he came to the room where she lay.