Sixtine- The Complete Trilogy Box Set

by Caroline Vermalle

  Nefertiti had appeared, gigantic, haughty and sprawling, making every shadow her kingdom. Anguish threatened to take over all of Sixtine, but still she ran, faster and more recklessly as ever, away from men, away from guilt, away from darkness and the queen ruling over it. Finally, light spilled out, faint at first then more generous in its blueish glow. Hapi’s cries receded and a strange, improbable sound echoed through the tunnels of the underground labyrinth: drums beating furiously. With every step she took, they grew louder and louder.

  “O my heart of my mother, O my heart of my mother, O viscera of my heart of my earthly existence, do not rise against me!”

  Sixtine rushed to the source of the noise and the light. The tunnel opened into a large quarry. Its walls were covered in elaborate graffiti and seemed to move, animated by the shadows of a dancing crowd: an underground rave.

  She pushed her way through a hundred bodies disarticulated by trance. Most of them were high on drugs, and dressed in outrageous costume. They drank and kissed and laughed. But suddenly, the monkey’s screams rose over the deafening music.

  Out of nowhere, Horus, the Egyptian god, appeared before her, blocking her way.

  Then other Egyptian gods blocked her way. She pushed them away from her violently; they fell to the ground as if in slow motion. As she passed others with rhinestone wigs, angel wings or scuba tanks, she realized they were just kids, dressing up for Halloween. Yet her heart drummed so hard on her chest, she wanted to vomit.

  Still running, she stumbled inside a chamber as large as a theatre, where a stripper danced before the eyes of greedy men. The nauseating display of lust and greed conspired with her own anguish to bring up bile in her throat. She pushed past an artist painting a giant wave against the catacomb wall. She almost tripped over a junkie sleeping in a corner, his eyes open. She ran without stopping.

  “Greetings to you, sweetheart! Greetings to you, gutter of my heart! Greetings to you, my breast! Greetings to you, these pre-eminent gods, tell me to Re!”

  Finally, the noise of the other men vanished; storm lamps on the walls of the tunnel kept the darkness at bay. When the echo of her own steps was the only sound disturbing the silence, she collapsed, knees on the ground, hands in the mud, her hair dripping with sweat. Her chest heaved, her breathing was ragged. She spat on the ground, grumbled, clutching at her flashlight.

  “May I be enduring on Earth, may I not die in the West, may I be a blessed one there! May I be a blessed man there? May I be a blessed one there,” the monkey whispered?

  Then the animal stopped speaking, as if out of breath, too. Nefertiti was gone. No one had followed her.

  Sixtine leaned back against the wall. The pungent smell of the sewers stung her nose. She listened again, but only heard distant drops falling into invisible puddles. She glanced around, inspected the ceiling, looking for an exit. She had to leave the realm of the dead, and face the big bright world above.

  She found no exit, but three tunnels, like a crossroads. They all looked alike. Where to go?

  She squinted as a soft glow appeared from deep inside one of them, a brightness born to die almost immediately. As if something had passed briefly through, and vanished. But it was the green hue that troubled her.

  Green, like the river of her nightmares.

  Wincing in pain, fighting against the powerful nausea inside her, she headed towards the light. The beam of her flashlight searched the walls and ceiling for steps, doors, signs, in vain. What she found at the bend of a turn, however, took her breath away.

  The Green River.

  The river of her nightmares and ghostly warnings, lay still before her, glowing so bright she couldn’t take her eyes off it. In an almost unconscious move, as if her body knew better than she did, Sixtine knelt down and plunged her hand into the emerald water. As the ripples of the water calmed down, her eyes caught sight of an islet in the middle of it, and someone on it. Her eyes widened and her heart beat fiercely, painfully in her chest.

  Her husband, Seth. His eyes were open, but he didn’t move. He was naked, perched on a mineral altar. Hovering above him was a man dressed as a priest, his face bathed in tears and rage. Above them hung massive and menacing stalactites. The priest stuck a dagger into Seth’s heat, and his hand plunged into his chest. Seth’s body slipped from the altar, as everything around him was flooded with red. Then a scream rang out.

  It came from a woman standing a few feet away by the altar. Her face was frozen in horror and despair. The woman was herself when she was still Jessica.

  The vision disappeared but the scream still resonated in the underground: her own, which soon died. The green water was empty now, but the images were etched into Sixtine’s skull, and fear rippling inside her mind. She was still shaking when she heard the echo of metal against stone. She knew instantly that it wasn’t a vision – it was happening in the tunnel. There was something there.

  Sixtine crawled into a corner to hide, trembling as she glanced in terror at the Green River. Suddenly hands grappled her neck and dragged her backward, causing her to lose her balance. She couldn’t shout, or see, or think. She only felt the invincible arms taking control of her, a body with a strange density against her own, and a suffocating smell.

  Mineral, infernal, like rotting moss in a wintry forest.

  When Sixtine was plunged into darkness, Nefertiti’s empty eyes glowed in her skull like moons behind gray clouds. As her anguish grew, the front of her body was slammed against the wall. Her hands were twisted behind her back, her face pressed against the cold, damp, dirty stone. Light came back, but brought little relief. When a sharp pain pierced her right index finger, a hoarse voice with an uncertain accent, slithered into her consciousness.

  “I already warned you once, Jessica Pryce. Oxan Aslanian always keeps his promises.”

  2

  Plaza Hotel, New York City, nine months earlier

  A glass of champagne in her hand, her heart pounding in her chest, Jessica stood in front of two hundred guests. Most of them she had never met before. It was her engagement party.

  Seth had made an eloquent and tender speech, and he had insisted she say a few words as well. The bride-to-be inhaled deeply and smiled. “When I was a little girl, my mother told me to always dream big, but neither she nor I, I believe, could have imagined that my engagement would be so dazzling, and my prince would be so charming.”

  She gazed upon her future husband with eyes sparkling with emotion. Seth squeezed her hand. For a dizzying second, Jessica was lost in the luxurious vastness of the Plaza Hotel’s ballroom. When her strength and courage returned, she beamed: “I couldn’t have dreamed of being in such brilliant company tonight. Thank you all for welcoming me into your big family.”

  She gave the microphone back to one of the organizers and everyone raised their glasses.

  “To Jessica and Seth!” the guests’ cried, their cheers drowned by the clinking sounds of their glasses.

  The musicians settled behind their instruments and the singer returned to the stage. The first notes of a languid jazz number smoothed out the edge of conversations.

  Jessica, her cheeks still flushed from nervousness, snuggled up against her fiancé.

  “I hate speeches,” she murmured.

  “The best ones are the shortest ones. You were perfect. Most importantly, it allowed all the guests to admire you. This dress, on you, is sin itself. I don’t know if I can wait until tonight to…”

  He squeezed her against him, causing her to laugh happily.

  “And I thought you loved me for my mind.”

  He ran his fingers through her golden hair, touched her chin and lured her lips to his mouth for a long kiss. Suddenly he winced, his body jerked. Jessica didn’t move. Stomach spasms. It happened more and more lately. She stroked his forehead in a motherly manner, and wrapped her arms around him.

  Every time she had brought up the subject of doctors, he had become annoyed. It was nothing, he always claimed. Seth was far to
o demanding on himself, and far too proud, to allow his pain to slow him down in on the way to world domination. In the few weeks she had known him, she had learned not to ask questions.

  “Come,” he said, after taking a deep breath and smoothing his tuxedo jacket, “I’ll make the introductions.”

  Seth greeted each guest personally and introduced them to Jessica. The lightning-fast engagement, only four weeks after their first date, had certainly been the subject of gossip. The lovers had first planned an intimate gathering, and Jessica had only invited a few close friends. But the event, organized exclusively by Seth, had soon turned into a larger, and considerably more lavish reception. That too, she had learned to accept. Seth didn’t like anything small.

  Gigi’s poor health had prevented her from making the trip to New York, and Jessica’s best friends were stuck in a provincial airport due to the icy storm raging in the city.

  Some of Seth’s family were visibly upset that they had not been introduced earlier. Jessica caught an old lady mumbling that the young people these days no longer respected the values of marriage. The other guests had the good grace to appear charmed by their whirlwind romance.

  So for nearly an hour, the guests congratulated the couple. They were thrilled by Jessica, transfixed with her beauty, envious of how lucky she was, even her solitaire diamond engagement ring of several carats which fit perfectly on her slender finger.

  Everything about the reception was bright, delightful and filled with giddy joy. Jessica, whirled around, almost trembling with gratitude in the midst of such opulence.

  Three hours later, the luxury was still there, as were the refined guests and the gold on the rim of the champagne glasses. But Seth had disappeared, and an icy anguish was poisoning Jessica and the world around her.

  Jessica’s best friends, Clara and Beatrice, had arrived late because of the storm. They had missed Seth’s speech and the round of introductions, and had still not met the man their friend was going to marry. They gently mocked Jessica when she admitted that she didn’t know where he was, but her friends were too dazzled by the celebration to let this minor little detail disturb their joy. They rushed to the dance floor and left Jessica worried, standing alone amongst the acquaintances who would soon be her family.

  No one seemed to have noticed the absence of their host. He could be hidden behind any of the dozens of gigantic columns which passed through it. All men looked alike in their black tuxedos. Jessica had already asked several people. They all thought they had seen Seth and pointed in a vague direction; but when Jessica came to check, Seth was nowhere in sight.

  Since they knew each other, Seth hadn’t left her side, even for a second. She had even surprised herself, once or twice, feeling suffocated by this overflowing love. Why today, this day of all days, did her fiancé disappear like a mirage?

  His various associates had all been invited and it would not have surprised anyone if Mr Pryce had retired from the joyful chaos of the ballroom for a moment to continue a quiet business conversation, but the night moved forward and his absence was prolonged.

  Not to mention Seth’s atypical medical condition, which she had only learned of earlier this evening.

  Seth and Jessica had just arrived and she had noticed something strange.

  Seth Pryce was nervous.

  They were both talking to a group of women, but Seth was distracted and not even listening to the conversation. He stood beside one of the columns lit by blue light that surrounded a crowd intoxicated with opulence. His haughty, determined face, sculpted as much by the fortunes he had lost as by those he had won, radiated with masculinity.

  Seth was a man whose best side was revealed under the pressure of the world, like a conquering Atlas. If she didn’t know him so well, Jessica would have said he was tormented. The turmoil, like other more subtle states of souls, had never been part of the repertoire of emotions that Seth Pryce allowed himself to display.

  So why this rigid face, these sharp head movements, these almost furtive looks?

  Now, this enigmatic gravity of Seth, combined with this absurd absence, threatened to suddenly turn off all the lights of that moment. Jessica, with a tight throat, decided to put an end to the dramatic scenarios which played out in her head.

  She had to find Seth now, even if it meant she had to leave the party.

  With her chest tight and her breathing still strained, she walked through the ballroom towards the exit. With every step she took, the ballroom seemed bigger, noisier, and the people more foreign. Glancing around her, she did not see Seth on the outside of the double doors, or on the balcony.

  She tried to call him, but he didn’t answer, the ringing endless in her ear.

  She checked the cloakroom at the end of one of the caulked halls, but with similar results. In a voice as detached as possible, she asked if anyone had seen Mr Pryce.

  “No, Madam, I have not seen Mr Pryce,” the employee replied.

  “Can you tell me if his coat is still here? A black cashmere coat, his initials are embroidered on the inside pocket. »

  She could not help but stammer this request, and blamed herself for the absurd nervousness which made her palms clammy and flushed her cheeks. The employee scanned through the hangers while talking to a colleague, a large woman who was taking her break at the back of the locker room.

  “Mr Pryce,” she said, peering through the gap in the doorway to see Jessica, behind the rows of clothes. “Mr Pryce, he’s the one getting married, right? I saw him leaving the hotel through the staff entrance, a little less than two hours ago.”

  “He probably didn’t come out unless he took his coat,” Jessica said in a neutral tone, not wanting to sound as panicked as she was.

  The woman stood from her seat with difficulty and waddled to the counter. “That’s what I thought too. It must be minus five degrees outside at this time, and with the storm.”

  “He probably went outside for a cigarette,” Jessica said curtly. “Thank you very much. Have a good evening.”

  Jessica hurried back without really seeing where she was going, seeking solitude to hide the tears which threatened to overflow. She found refuge in an empty corridor, leaned against the wall, her bare back framed in lace against the icy plaster, and closed her eyes.

  Seth didn’t smoke.

  The voice of the jazz singer snaked up to her, suffocating her as she recognized the words.

  ‘Please remember I still want you, and in case you wonder why. Well, just wake up. Kiss the good life goodbye.’

  Kiss the good life goodbye.

  Say goodbye to the good life, Jessica. Breathe. Breathe. Calm that acid fear that runs through your veins. Breathe in. Exhale.

  A spicy, exotic scent filled her nostrils, and it was both pungent and sudden, it was strangely soothing. When she opened her eyes, scattered smoke danced in front of her for a moment, then disappeared.

  Instinctively, she took a few steps towards where they had been just a moment ago, but she stopped suddenly. A man sat casually on the steps of the emergency exit, under a ‘No Smoking’ sign illuminated by a small neon light. He smoked a small cigar, with a narrow blue ring.

  “We think we planned the entire party to perfection,” he said vaguely not looking at Jessica, and she was unsure whether he spoke to her, or to himself. “But something is still missing, isn’t it?”

  “What’s missing?” she murmured.

  He stared at her for an elongated moment, studying the features of her face. “Silence.”

  He sat perfectly motionless, his grey eyes focused on Jessica, only the smoke moved. He reminded her a lot of Seth, probably the same age as well. Although, her fiancé’s features were carved in stone, this man seemed to be made of a more friable mineral, and even rarer. The fingers holding the cigar were slender, but the skin seemed rough, almost damaged. It was strange, as these hands did not match the fine, smooth features of his proud face.

  “Are you a friend of Seth’s?” Jessica asked, w
ho had held her breath up until that moment.

  “The best. At least I think so,” he mumbled with a smile.

  His smile was beautiful and melancholic, but he seemed to get lost elsewhere, as if dark thoughts had torn him from the present moment. Jessica turned towards the ballroom, as if she was going to run away; but faced with the humiliation of Seth’s absence waiting for her there, her body refused to move. When her eyes returned to the man, he was still looking at her and Jessica became aware of two things.

  One, he was very handsome.

  Two, during the introductions to all the guests at the party, Seth had forgotten to introduce her to his best friend. How could her fiancé not introduce her to his best friend? Either this man was lying or Seth had hidden it for a particular reason. Which one was it, though?

  A shiver ran down Jessica’s spine and instinctively she curled up, her hand trying to warm her bare arm. The man with the cigar rose to his feet, as if to protect her, but she took a tiny step back, which he also noticed.

  “I … excuse me,” he said, clumsily. A reflex.

  They stood facing one another, alone in the middle of a wide corridor and yet their proximity seemed to tighten with each word, each movement.

  “I thought they were illegal,” Jessica pointed out suddenly.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Cuban cigars. Aren’t they illegal?”

  “Yes,” he smiled, studying his cigar at his fingertips. “Absolutely illegal. Maybe that’s the reason why I love them so much. Who knows why men always like what they can’t have? The human condition is an enigma.” He paused for a moment before saying, “You’re cold.”

  It was not a question, and yet he looked at it as if he was waiting for an answer.

  “I think I need some air. Do you know where the exit to the balcony is?”