Sixtine- The Complete Trilogy Box Set

by Caroline Vermalle

  “If you take my jacket,” he said, slipping his tuxedo jacket off his broad shoulders, “I’ll go with you.”

  “Thank you, I have a coat in the cloakroom.”

  He accompanied her without her asking, and that reassured her. Jessica couldn’t explain why she felt this man’s presence offered her protection and comfort. Paradoxical, especially since he was so attractive; a dangerous companion for a young bride. Jessica had blind faith in her love for Seth, nothing could separate them, he had said it so many times, and she was convinced that he was telling the truth.

  Then why was there such anguish about Seth’s absence?

  The upstairs balcony overlooked the ballroom and a few guests were already there, wrapped in fur coats, with pale, cold hands holding thin cigarettes. Jessica was tempted to look inside, but she preferred to think that he had already returned.

  Ignorance was more tender than truth.

  “Excuse me,” she said, her voice hoarse from the cold. “I didn’t catch your name.”

  The man took out a small platinum case out of the inner pocket of his jacket and retrieved another cigar out of it. The case had the initials E.V.W. engraved on it.

  “What if we were to do this without the usual dance?” he replied without looking at it. “If we could free ourselves from our birth, just for one evening? Enjoy the present moment as equal beings?”

  “Do you actually believe in equality?”

  Her question made him turn to her, and he rested his elbows on the railing of the balcony with a quiet grin. “To be honest, someone in my family, an ancestor or a half-brother, probably offended yours, I just have my back. I can’t even swear that I had nothing to do with it.”

  Jessica’s brow furrowed. Did he not know who she was? “Were you afraid I was a Capulet, Mr Montague?”

  Jessica immediately blushed at her own audacity: referring to Romeo and Juliet in this magical setting, as the companion of a man of undeniable charm, was pure provocation. She blamed it on the reflexes of her life as a young single woman, which had ended only four weeks earlier.

  But wasn’t that the attraction of this proposal? Wasn’t it delicious to pretend for a moment that she, an orphan, belonged to this great world?

  The line had already hit the nail on the head, as her mysterious companion looked amused and disbelieving. She even thought he would continue in a seductive tone, but her eyes were veiled with weariness, as if the game was lost in advance. “I already know your name anyway. Mr. E.V.W.,” she said.

  “Excuse me?”

  Jessica motioned to the monogrammed cigarette case.

  “Touched. But no,” he said, slipping it back into his pocket.

  Jessica pursed her lips in a quiet acknowledgement, and turned to the sublime view before her. Ice had landed on the trees in Central Park, its leaves frozen in an eternal crystal. Some had collapsed under the weight of this sparkling grip, others were tinting in the wind. The melancholic music invited itself all the way to the balcony and the man with the grey eyes who smoked his cigar. The smoke crept through the night, unfolding its fingers from faraway places over Manhattan and its millions of orange lights.

  “If you are his friend,” Jessica pointed out, “perhaps you can tell me where Seth is?”

  “Didn’t you know Seth has the gift of ubiquity? This is the secret of his success. At any given moment, he is able to sign the contract of the century, commit the perfect crime and seduce the most beautiful woman in New York. He’s really quite an exceptional person.”

  “I’m flattered by your words, but tonight he’s nowhere to be found, and it’s our engagement party.”

  “Maybe he retired to reflect on his mistake.”

  Jessica challenged him with her eyes. He was provoking her, of course. She wanted to ask him if he really thought Seth was making a mistake, but that would have been playing into his game. Instead she smiled and said, “Can love ever be a mistake?”

  He turned around, leaned against the stone balustrade and cocked his head. He stared at the high French windows behind which the party which was in full swing.

  His silence eventually embarrassed her, and she added, “I know half of marriages end in divorce, but isn’t it better to have the courage to believe in it than not to love at all? At the risk of sounding like a delusional little girl – ”

  “A delusional little girl,” he smirked. “I think if it were the only symptom of a lost love, I would give my heart to all passing souls. To you, even, if you wanted it.”

  Before she had the chance to answer, he continued. “Love transforms us into saviors as well as traitors. It makes us believe others belong to us. The loved one becomes a treasure, a treasure whose clarity makes us shine. What happens when the treasure escapes us? They say hatred is the counterpart of love. It probably is, but hatred can still do great things, such as restoring justice. But the worst one… Do you know what it is?”

  Jessica shook her head, not uttering a word.

  “Lust.”

  There was such intensity in his eyes that Jessica felt the February cold infiltrate her bones, and she pulled up the collar of her fur jacket.

  He noticed this and smiled at her more gently. “You shouldn’t listen to me. Me, talking about love, what a joke! That would make Seth laugh.”

  He stopped just long enough for the sweet voice of the jazz singer to reach them. Then he gazed at her with his beautiful eyes, and they instantly shone a little brighter.

  “But you never know, a meeting, a balcony, the light of the moon – ”

  Jessica smiled without looking at him, raised her hand as if to indicate that she was not succumbing to such an obvious and clumsy flirtation from her fiancé’s best friend, her diamond ring reflected the ice hanging from the trees. When she turned back to him, he no longer looked at her, but stared out at the dark horizon.

  No, this man wasn’t trying to seduce her, she thought to herself.

  Yet she felt something in the pit of her stomach she couldn’t define. A fraternal understanding, perhaps. The entire evening she had felt like a stranger here at her own party. The man with the grey eyes too, seemed to be an outsider. She felt his eyes on her, but rather than finding a threat, she suddenly felt like she was enjoying a new kind of freedom.

  Her anguish had turned into mistrust. Seth would come back eventually, and she wasn’t going to let that mistake ruin the party she’d dreamed of all her life.

  “If I can’t ask you what you do for a living, then maybe I can ask you what you don’t do?”

  “In life?” he asked in an almost grateful tone.

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s see, what I’ve never done. A lot of things, after all, but what I’ll never do until my last breath? I spare you the crimes, and even then, you never know, for love, or to save humanity… No, I know, I know. What all the atoms of my body and the specter of my soul forbid me for eternity and beyond…”

  The young woman was hanging on his every word and he made this pleasure last.

  It's dancing.”

  Jessica burst out into a fit of laughter whose spontaneity delighted her companion, even if he tried to remain serious.

  As the music faded into silence, a drunk couple burst onto the balcony and the French windows let in an intoxicating heat. The orchestra then began the first notes of Misty, one of Jessica’s favorite songs. She would have wanted to waltz with Seth so badly, but she repelled the anguish that was rising again by taking her mysterious companion with the grey eyes by the arm.

  Yes, she was going to have fun, even if Seth wasn’t there.

  “When you die, you will regret having had principles,” she told him, gently dragging him into the room.

  “The dead only dance in Mexico City. How about I take you there instead? We’re leaving tonight.”

  “Don’t be an idiot. You’re Seth’s best friend, he’ll never forgive me.”

  “Oh, he will forgive you,” he answered. “But I will never forgive you.”


  As the music played, his hand seemed to calm down in hers as they glided across the floor. Above all, and in spite of herself, she felt the whole room being reduced to her, to this handsome man. His sublime smell mixed with a toxic note, his vulnerable hand in hers, their sweet proximity. Suddenly everything and everyone seemed to fade into the background. They were alone in New York, alone with the sweet voice that guided their bodies. They danced in an inevitable maelstrom, and with each passing second, the rest of the world moved further away. Their eyes met and Jessica’s heart began to beat far too fast.

  “Why do you say that Seth should forgive you?”

  “Because…” Jessica began. “You were there when Seth gave his speech, weren’t you?”

  “No. But I know you are Jessica Desroches.”

  She nodded. She wanted to smile at this almost deliberate misunderstanding, the foreseeable consequence of an absurd little game. But man’s eyes, resolutely gazing deeply into her own, radiated unexpected and disproportionate things. Serious thing.

  To Jessica, who still stared at him, they confided in a troubled, sprawling emotion. She slid her hand from his grasp, withdrawing from his touch. She was on the verge of saying something light to defuse this overly intense moment, but a presence seemed to create a shadow in the corner of her eye.

  She knew who it was before she even saw him.

  Seth.

  Seth stood perfectly still, his shoulders tensed, in the middle of the ballroom, staring at them with an icy look for an elongated moment before he finally approached them.

  The man with the grey eyes smiled at him, with the slightest hint of sadness. “You failed in your duty, Seth.”

  “What duty are you talking about?” Seth asked, taking Jessica’s hand.

  His voice contained no jealousy or hostility. Only a great weariness.

  “Introducing me to this beautiful woman.”

  “Honey, this is Thaddeus di Blumagia,” Seth introduced her with a forced smile. “And this remarkable young lady is Jessica Desroches, my fiancée.”

  “So you are the chosen one,” he whispered in a broken voice. “Congratulations.”

  Thaddeus remained perfectly still, his eyes unashamedly immersed in those of Jessica’s, and she realized she had been holding her breath the entire time.

  Then he disappeared.

  3

  Why did the night of her engagement appear so vividly in her consciousness?

  With the rotten taste of the stone on her lip, the torrid pain that tortured her finger and the stranger’s breath in her neck, did Sixtine already know she was going to die?

  She tried to silence the panic which ravaged her.

  Oxan Aslanian.

  It was him at the museum in Mexico City, the scene of the first warning. So was Al-Shamy’s murder, but everything was now drowning in fear. She tried to free herself, to kick, but her attacker was too strong, and the uneven wall sank into her cheeks, shoulders, hips. Sixtine mentally crouched in a tiny corner of herself and waited for Al-Shamy’s killer to decide her fate.

  I hope it will be quick.

  What followed, she did not expect.

  “If your life is no longer valuable, maybe other people’s lives are. Or is your compassion dead too?”

  He had a strange accent, almost Russian, but with a touch of Latin warmth which flowed through his sentences. He pressed her against the wall with full force and painfully bent her arms in unnatural ways.

  Sixtine closed her eyes, and suddenly felt an unexpected lightness as her arms fell down, dropping to her sides. Aslanian had let them go.

  Instinctively, she examined her finger. A needle was jabbed into the soft skin of her fingertip, tied to something she could not identify. Blood pooled around the metal and she yanked it out with great difficulty. Her skin burned as if it had been set alight, but she held on to the needle in the hollow of her palm. She closed her eyes, allowing the pain to fade away little by little. Sixtine turned her head slightly, seeing her executioner still behind her, but had taken a step back.

  She turned slowly until she faced him and narrowed her eyes to focus. He was tall, with broad shoulders but his stomach was fat and round. An unblemished double chin, a dazzled nose, eyes hidden by sunglasses, a bald head and long, dirty hair by his temples. She saw his hands, long, thin, but there was no weapon. No threat.

  Only the object in her hand.

  She glanced down at it, finally able to see it.

  A brooch.

  “Your life for a promise,” he said.

  She looked for a way out, but found none. The only thing she saw was the Green River less than six feet away.

  “Al-Shamy, is that you?” she whispered into the dark.

  “You brought him here.”

  “I came to free him. I didn’t mean to kill him.”

  “No one ever wants to kill anyone. But we do it anyway. It’s a question of necessity.”

  A cold shiver passed through her body, the absolute certainty that this rational man was ready to eliminate her, and he would not feel any emotion. Life and death were intertwined by a simple act, as simple as opening a door.

  “What is the promise?” she whispered, tasting the wet soil in her mouth again.

  “Don’t look back. Forget the pyramid. Forget everything that happened.”

  “I need to know the truth. Tell me why I was there and I assure you – ”

  “Silence,” Aslanian bellowed, his exclamation echoing through the tunnel. “The truth will destroy you much more than the lie! It will destroy you. It has already driven so many men crazy. Your ignorance, your amnesia. It’s a blessing!”

  He grabbed her again, but immediately threw her down on the ground. She lay in a heap on the ground and he took a breath.

  In a much calmer voice, he said, “I’m not naive enough to believe that even if I let you go, you’ll keep your promise, but the lives of others depend on it.”

  Sixtine froze, her knees on the ground on the muddy cobblestones and the terror in her heart grew with every passing moment. In her mind, two names burned above everything else.

  “Do you remember Franklin Hunter?”

  “Yes,” Sixtine whispered.

  “He’s dead already.”

  Sixtine’s chest tightened, and a wave of bitterness erupted in her throat.

  “For Max Haussmann, Florence Mornay, it’s almost too late. Do you want me to continue?”

  Sixtine kept her head down, but noticed Aslanian cock his head and say with a smirk, “What about Thaddeus di Blumagia?”

  Sixtine looked up suddenly and heard herself say, with unexpected violence, “What do you want? Do you want me to never go back to Cairo? I wasn’t going to. I just want this to be over. Tell me what I need to do for all of this to be over?”

  A strange gleam passed through Aslanian’s eyes. Surprise? Weakness? His voice was solid and sounded like an order. “You no longer ask questions about the pyramid. You forget Seth Pryce.”

  “How can I forget the man I loved?” she asked with a gasp.

  After an imperceptible pause, with his jaw clenched, he added, “And stay away from Nefertiti’s mummy.”

  “And if I don’t?” she whispered.

  “I’ll know. I will be there, every step you take, everywhere you go, everyone you speak to, I’ll know,” he answered menacingly. “You wouldn’t want anything to happen to your dear great-aunt Gigi, would you?”

  At that moment, Sixtine’s hands recognized the object in her hand. Her gaze dropped down to her blood-covered palm, but she didn’t have to.

  She already knew.

  In her hand was the brooch, adorned with bird-shaped brilliant gemstones that Gigi, her blind great-aunt who raised her, had worn every day since she could remember.

  She was the only family Sixtine had left, and the last person to connect her to her life. Sixtine was still alive for two reasons; to avenge Seth and to spare Gigi.

  “If you lay a single finger on Gig
i’s head – ”

  “Then what?” he growled, crouching down beside her, glaring menacingly at her.

  Sixtine’s words failed her and she simply stared at him wordlessly, frozen with fear.

  “Don’t threaten me, little girl,” he hissed. “I’ll give you three days to convince your friends. The investigation is over. And you, you will go home.”

  “My home is with my husband.”

  “No. Your home is at the cliffs. That’s where you come from, and that’s where you have to go back to. Start your new life there. You should never have left that place.”

  “Why don’t you just say it,” Sixtine spat. “That I came from nothing and all I deserve is to lead a life that no one notices. To stay in that hole on the edge of the cliffs, so everyone forgets me, right? It has nothing to do with the pyramids. It’s just a way to put me in my place. I just wasn’t good enough for Seth, was I?”

  “You can convince yourself of all the lies you want, but that’s not my problem. Understand this, if you’re not at Gigi’s in three days, she’ll die. Is that clear?”

  Aslanian’s words spun around in Sixtine’s mind like vultures circling a dying animal.

  Gigi.

  She imagined Gigi searching the inside of her house on the cliffs with her old fingers, trying to find that lost brooch she was so fond of, and her heart broke into a million sharp shards.

  Sixtine tried to get up as Aslanian stepped away from her, and in the darkness she felt a long piece of metal on the ground. A pipe.

  A possibility of escape.

  “Today is the first day of the rest of my life, right?”

  “That’s it. And this is your last chance,” he said to her.

  “Why would you give me another chance? Why don’t you finish me off right now?” she asked, reaching for the metal pipe, gripping it tightly as she quietly rose to her feet. She didn’t want to make any sudden moves, and moved slowly. Carefully and quietly.

  “I told you. Killing you is not necessary. Not yet.”

  Sixtine’s heart began to beat even faster, but luckily Aslanian hadn’t seen what she was doing. “The police were there, they’ll think I killed Al-Shamy. If they arrest me, they’ll ask questions about my past and…” Her voice trailed off as the cold metal of the pipe pressed against her bloodied palm. “Gigi’s house is so close to here.”