The Darkest Hand Trilogy Box Set

by Tarn Richardson

  “This is terrible,” muttered Tacit, his mouth wide. Tocco shrugged. “Do they still cast these people out in this way, still create these beasts?”

  Tocco shook his head. “No. The mystics of the Church, those who hold the long forgotten knowledge and rarely venture from their libraries deep in the belly of the Vatican, they were the ones who devised the method. And, as far as I know, such rituals have been ripped from the pages of their tomes. None know how to perform the rite and it is unlikely that we could repeat their methods if we tried today.” Tocco chuckled coldly, showing chipped teeth. “But then again, why would we want to create any more of them? We spend enough of our time trying to destroy them.

  Most often they gather in clans, those cast out by the most resolute of Catholic edicts far from civilisation and the mob’s persecution, together in packs plotting the downfall of those who had ensured that their own downfall had been total.

  Of course, there are so many who have sinned in this way in the past and our masters of old were determined when ensuring that justice was total regarding these fallen deviants. Soon we had a problem of our own making, so many werewolves created by the Church, so many cast out by the faith, cast out by civilisation, bringing their own terror and rage to the populace near to where they settled, often in large groups, always wicked and always hungry at night. And, of course, perversely threatening the reputation and even the survival of the Catholic Church by their very existence.”

  Tacit understood what Inquisitor Tocco was insinuating but waited for him to continue. “If the existence of Hombre Lobo, and how they came into being, was ever revealed, then … ” He looked up at the last of the sun and blinked. “We’ve long stopped creating their type, but whilst the last of them still exist within the world, we’ll keep exterminating them.”

  He slapped his thigh and stood up enthusiastically. “Hence the reason we are here. To clean up our masters’ dirty work. Remember,” Tocco said, pulling his pack onto his back, “your generation is our future. You are one of the keepers of our faith, the protectors of our ways. We look to you to uphold the faith, Tacit, and bring damnation to our enemies.” He slapped Tacit hard on the shoulder. “The world within which most people live is a falsehood. We control its secrets. We manage the direction of our faith, our Church and the way the world turns. We keep the faith strong, our prospects good and our enemies weak.”

  He stood and took the small bottle out of his coat pocket again. “And after everything else, we go to war.” He toasted the sun before sipping from the bottle’s lip. “When you think about it, after nearly two thousand years, really very little has changed,” he said, before turning to face the cave with his revolver in his hand.

  THIRTY-THREE

  22:58. TUESDAY, 13 OCTOBER 1914. ARRAS. FRANCE.

  Tacit poured himself a large measure of brandy and stared out of the window onto the square below. His face was void of any emotion, a mask; one hand on the window surround, the other snatched tightly to the glass.

  He drank deeply from it and stuck a finger into an eye socket, pushing it in hard to try to unhinge a pain which had found purchase there. Headaches. They were getting worse.

  Tacit coughed and drained his drink. He had been relieved when the Sister said she would not be spending any more time with him today. She’d left shortly after the Cardinal and chorister, in a flurry of waved arms and protestations. He’d ignored her, drinking, his back turned to her – his eyes on the window until the shouting had abated and the door slammed. He wanted to be alone. He always wanted to be alone but particularly this evening. He had to think in peace, to consider the murder of the Father, the confession by the chorister about the dark-haired woman, the reluctance of the Cardinal to allow the boy to speak; thin threads from which he had to construct a rope with which to tie up this assignment. He’d sat on the end of his bed, turning his hands over and over, examining the deep lines within them, until a knock on the door announced the arrival of his dinner.

  Over a simple mutton stew, bread and two bottles of wine, Tacit toiled with the fragments of evidence regarding the crime but nothing revealed itself, not even the freedom of thought that the second bottle of wine provided could help.

  He sat in the dark, the empty plate and bottles on the table, and looked to the dark of the city outside. He felt trapped, fettered by his thoughts, the room, the assignment, his lack of understanding. Shortly before ten, no further forward in comprehending but also undissuaded from his dogged line of thinking, he had risen groggily and stumbled out. He’d headed for the East Gate and where his fuddled instincts told him to go: those people who had voiced their displeasure of the Catholic faith, the Orthodox Christians. He headed for where he knew an enclave of them lived in the city. He decided that if the answers didn’t come to him, he would go to the answers.

  A chill had descended on the city by the time he stepped into the streets, but Tacit never felt the cold that evening, fortified by alcohol and the theories churning in his mind. He swerved drunkenly past a couple of Arras residents taking in the last of the night air, barely able to hide his rage when he reasoned that the Father’s murder must have been a hate crime. He couldn’t see any other reason for it, the pointless savagery against a man with no apparent enemies.

  At once he realised it was foolish to think of Andreas, a devout man of the Catholic Church, with no enemies. Andreas’ faith and position in that persecuted oppressed religion would have assured him of enough enemies to last a lifetime, what little lifetime Andreas had had.

  Tacit stumbled into a wall and held himself tight against it until his head had stopped spinning. A passing French soldier asked if he was alright, but the caustic glare he received to the question sent him sharply on his way. In that instant, Tacit felt sickened by the facile nature of the world. A soldier hadn’t hesitated to help a fellow man in a street, but put a gun in his hands and he revelled in becoming a killer. Tacit muttered a passage from Revelation and swayed on into the night.

  Now the facts were coming to him quickly. Whoever committed the crime had wanted to make a statement, make a point against the Catholic faith. Tacit knew that Orthodox Christians had long settled in the city and their ways were now growing in popularity, like a cancer. Just like weeds, the only way to deal with them would be by pulling them up by the roots. Tacit swallowed in anticipation and staggered on to where he knew their enclave to be.

  They wouldn’t want to talk tonight, to reveal who was responsible, to explain why. But that was their problem, it wouldn’t be his.

  He was fuming, bristling with fury, as he paced with exaggerated steps to the club he knew the Orthodox attended. He felt the sharp shimmer of adrenaline mix with the alcohol. It gave Tacit a potent mix of anger and invincibility.

  He was relieved to find the club popular with Orthodox was still open, undamaged by bombs or failing trade. As he pushed the door open, he thought it ironic that he was pleased to find an Orthodox Christian establishment safe and well.

  The barman’s courtesy and welcome surprised him. He was expecting, and ready for, displeasure and possible violence, but instead received a friendly greeting from him, seemingly unperturbed at Tacit’s appearance.

  “Father!” he called, wiping down the bar with a towel, “a little off the beaten track aren’t we?” He laughed and threw the towel to one side. There was a string band playing a perky tune and some of the patrons were doing dance turns on the available space in the cramped building. The air was heavy with smoke and incense. It made Tacit feel sick. He walked over to the bar, as the barman asked, “So, what are you doing? Recruiting or converting?” which brought a ripple of laughter from those nearby.

  But Tacit was in no mood to laugh with the heretics. Spurred on with alcohol and disgusted at this jovial welcome, he shot forward and grabbed the man by the collar, dragging him over the bar to the crashing of glasses and bottles. Cries called out at once, turning to gasps and shrieks, when Tacit drew the man level with his eyes and head butted
him hard across the bridge of the nose.

  The barman went down like a stone, blood splattering across his face, the bar and floor. He scrabbled around, his hand to his nose, shuddering and floundering in shock and disbelief. A number of men drew forward out of the crowd towards Tacit. Before they could reach him, Tacit had dragged the bartender up off the ground and held him tight around the neck, his fingers dug deep into the man’s neck, slowly strangling the life out of him.

  “Take another step,” Tacit growled drunkenly, “and I’ll break his neck,” he warned, lifting the barman clean off the ground in his fist. His feet dangled like a man on the gallows.

  The men stopped in their tracks and glared at this intruder. They looked at each other, weighing up their chances of rushing the bull of a man. For the time being, they decided to stand and wait and see.

  “Father Andreas, Father of Arras Cathedral,” Tacit began, talking over the murmurs of the bar and the choking of the barman. “Murdered. Last night. At the Cathedral. Someone beat him up. Pretty bad. Someone who didn’t much like a Catholic Father. Didn’t like Catholics. He had no enemies. No reason for someone to kill him. Not that I can find. So, someone killed him who didn’t like Catholics. Someone like you lot.”

  Tacit tightened his hand even more firmly around the neck of the barman so that his face turned crimson, and the sound that came out of him was a desperate, guttural choking.

  “So,” Tacit continued, peering around the club, his eyes unable to focus on anyone or anything, just peering, rolling like a blind man’s eyes, “tell me who killed Father Andreas or your beer hop gets killed.” Tacit gave the man’s neck a squeeze. His leg seemed to jolt as if in his final death throes.

  “We don’t know anything!” someone cried.

  “You’re a crazy madman!” another voice called.

  There was a movement of chairs and a slow wall of figures began to form around the bar and where Tacit stood.

  Tacit looked about them. He was aware of ten, maybe twenty pairs of eyes on him. He might be able to take them. Then again, it might be tough. But he was pissed off and fighting mad. That might even the odds a little. But the wine and the spirits. He’d had a bit too much to drink. And clearly these people didn’t know anything. It was a bum steer. Bad advice. Bad idea to come here. And he reasoned that he didn’t want to make a scene, not any more. He might even have got away with not making one, as long as a brawl didn’t kick off. He looked at the man in his grip and tossed him over towards one in the approaching crowd stepping closer than the rest.

  “If you hear anything,” he growled, giving his hand a shake to relieve the tension within his fingers and flick the barman’s blood from them, which had oozed from his pouring nose, “come and find me. I’m staying at the Hôtel Sur la Place,” he said, belching loudly and stumbling backwards. He corrected the capello on his head.

  “We’ll come and burn it down, you bastard!” someone called, as Tacit reached the door.

  “That would be murder,” Tacit replied, raising a finger of warning, “one of the ten commandments. You break that, and I will come looking for you personally.” He stood and stared at the crowd, before turning and stumbling into the street outside. He staggered to his knees and shook his head, fighting back the urge to vomit. Bad mutton, he reasoned. He wouldn’t order the mutton again.

  He picked himself up and stumbled on into the night. Tacit felt barren, unable to focus, to make sense of events. He found himself in a bar, several blocks from his own hotel, for a final drink of the night.

  “Poldek Tacit,” the figure dressed in Priest’s travel gown of brown croaked, leaning alongside at the bar. “I’m surprised to find you in a place like this. You usually favour less salubrious surroundings.”

  Tacit slurped at his drink and set down the empty glass. Even in his drunken state he immediately recognised the short, squat figure of Father Strettavario. Strettavario was an old-school Catholic. Tacit appreciated him for that. There was a rumour that once, many decades ago, Strettavario had been an Inquisitor himself. Tacit had never believed the rumour. Most Inquisitors died in their line of work before they made old bones. Strettavario was fifty, maybe sixty. Too old for an Inquisitor, too alive to have been one. But Tacit was aware that, wherever his assignments took him, Strettavario seemed always to be two steps behind him, walking, waiting, often appearing at a bar, late at night. Tacit was never sure if the Father was watching his back, or simply waiting for an opportunity to deliver the final death blow.

  “I hear you’re raising hell with our Orthodox friends?” the figure muttered out of the corner of his mouth. “Poldek, we can’t have you going out and acting like a loose cannon,” the Father said, when Tacit’s attention had been drawn.

  “Who’s the loose cannon?” Tacit slurred, picking up his glass and finding it empty. “Just looking for answers.”

  “Yes, and like I said, you were looking in the wrong place. Pope Pius, God rest his soul, caused division, split opinion, caused problems, problems we need to heal.”

  “You don’t need to give me the lecture,” muttered Tacit, sagging heavily on an arm. “I know he advocated war, seeing it as a way of dealing with the Serbs, eh? Not such a bad thing.”

  “And that’s exactly the point. What we don’t need is word of an Inquisitor going around pursuing his own personal war against the Orthodox just inside the front line. Besides, they had nothing to do with the murder of Father Andreas.”

  “Cardinal Poré, he says it’s Hombre Lobo.”

  “I know he does. If it is what he thinks it is, the werewolf’s enjoying the hunt.”

  “Enjoying the hunt? What do you mean—”

  “There’s been a second murder. Father Aguillard. An hour ago.”

  “What’s he doing in Arras? Father Aguillard resides in Mons?”

  “Travelled here a few weeks back. Business in the area, according to his secretary. You know what he’s like. Father of the people. Or was. Secretary though didn’t know what the business entailed. He wasn’t privy to any conversation or plans.”

  Tacit belched. “Obviously business didn’t go well for him.”

  “Or it went too well,” Strettavario countered.

  Tacit stumbled on to his feet from the bar stool. “Need to sleep,” he muttered, catching himself against the bar rail. “Long day tomorrow.”

  “Poldek,” the Priest called, catching Tacit by the arm, as he turned to go, “They’re after you, you know that, don’t you? There’s talk. About you. That you’re off the rails, that you’ve lost your way.” Tacit stared vacantly back at him, listing in his boots like a boat cut from its anchor. “Trust no one,” the Father warned. The Inquisitor nodded dully and slumped away.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  16:41. TUESDAY, 13 OCTOBER 1914. PARIS. FRANCE.

  Bishop Guillaume Varsy sprinted into the northern entrance of Notre Dame from the Place de l’Evêché, his cassock pulled away from his scurrying feet by his left hand, his right snapped tight to his capello on his head. He leapt nimbly around a pair of visiting Parisians, calling an apology to them as he dived into the cool shadows of the Cathedral depths.

  Ahead arrangements for the Mass for Peace were almost complete. The ambulatory for the choir had been decked with flowers and olive branches, woven with flair and skill around the shimmering marble and intricately carved wood of the raised platform before the nave where the congregated masses would sit. At the very end of the central aisle, resting bowed on his walking stick, Cardinal Bishop Monteria watched the final proceedings with a reverent look, entranced by the moving and beautiful testament to peace which had been erected before him. So captivated was he by what he saw that he only heard Varsy’s cries when the young Bishop was a few strides from him.

  “Good heavens!” Monteria exclaimed, staggering back at the sight of Bishop Varsy charging towards him, his hand reaching out for a pew behind where he stood in case he needed support. “What is the meaning of this?”

  “Cardinal Monte
ria!” cheered the Bishop, beaming a broad white smile as he fought to catch his breath from his wild charge across the city. “The President! The President of France!”

  “What about him?” retorted Monteria, thinking for the moment that the Bishop had been drinking, such was his level of excitement.

  “President Raymond Poincaré!”

  “Yes, I know who our President is!” he snapped. “What about him?”

  “I have just received notice that he is to attend the Mass.”

  At this news, Cardinal Monteria did stumble backwards, catching himself against the pew.

  “The President?” he muttered, his mouth wide. “Coming to the Mass?”

  Varsy nodded inanely, like a child asked if they wished to dine on a plate of sugared bonbons for their supper.

  Monteria settled himself into the pew, his hand to his chest.

  “Everything,” he muttered, shaking his head in disbelief. He looked up, his old eyes sparkling with renewed vigour and youth. “Everything is progressing according to plan!”

  PART THREE

  “The wolf has the strength of a man but the mind of nine men; the bear has the strength of nine men but the mind of one.”

  Traditional Estonian saying

  THIRTY-FIVE

  07:23. WEDNESDAY, 14 OCTOBER 1914. ARRAS. FRANCE.

  The coffee hadn’t worked. Sister Isabella still felt lumpen and tired. She sank her face into her hands and exhaled loudly. She groaned behind her fingers and rubbed her face in the faint hope that when she pulled her hands away she would wake up and find herself in the warm, comfortable surroundings of the Vatican, a gentle assessment waiting for her on her desk, not like the one she currently faced. Maybe an assignment to tease a wandering hand from a young Bishop, already spotted admiring the younger female members of the congregation with eyes too eager for one of his station or position? How she’d welcome such an opportunity now.