Sixtine- The Complete Trilogy Box Set

by Caroline Vermalle

  There were a few men in the distant landscape: two boats floated on the river that was lost among the mountains, and forming a V on the water surface, as if large birds were accompanying them in their wake.

  Max also detected a few lonely silhouettes, with their feet in the water of the rice fields, leaning over the rice shoots. In the middle of this magnificent landscape, was the river that made it all surreal. Dark green and, in many places, dazzling orange pink, as if the dawn sky was both above and below, but the river water had multiplied its brilliance. This mirror effect almost made Max dizzy, as if they were floating on the edge of two worlds.

  “It is called the Rivière aux Eaux Roses,” Bian explained.

  Max smiled, his heart suddenly twice as big as he had rarely seen such a majestic and peaceful landscape.

  The mountains, the serenity of the colors, the complex smells and the splendid silence, everything forced contemplation, and he devoted himself to it, alongside Bian, happy to have made him discover this corner of paradise.

  They let themselves float, none of them daring to break the charm. But a sad glow had taken hold of Bian’s eyes. It was in a place like this that a man would want to die.

  “Back to Eden,” Max whispered.

  Bian sighed, then nodded.

  With a stroke of the paddle, they sank into this grandiose landscape where large clouds began to darken.

  16

  Franklin’s words had injected a terrible venom in Sixtine’s mind.

  The more she refused to believe in Thaddeus’s guilt, the more it grew, and the more the poison spread. It had already infected some of her memories.

  On January 15th, she celebrated her engagement with Seth at the lavish engagement party. She lied to Franklin, of course. In fact, Thaddeus had missed most of the reception. This was what had led to the misunderstanding that probably sealed their destiny: Seth had proposed to Jessica so soon after they met that she had not met any of his friends. Thaddeus arrived at the reception long after the presentations, so he had talked to Jessica without knowing who she was. They had danced together, and fell in love. Then Seth arrived, and Thaddeus understood that she was the “chosen one”. From that day on, he promised himself to become her guardian angel.

  He had kept this promise, risking his life and his freedom.

  How, then, could she doubt Thaddeus when she knew he was the man for her?

  And yet her mind played the same image again: that of the silver cigarette case, whose engraved initials spelled E.v. W. Why would Thaddeus have been in possession of the cigarette case of a sister he despised? The same one she saw in Cybelle’s hands, at Yohannes De Bok’s house during dinner. What did that mean?

  Sixtine paced around in the empty apartment. That night, she was having dinner with Thaddeus, and for the first time since they met, she was apprehensive about this moment.

  She had even forgotten the death certificate. An administrative error, coupled with an absurd irony: she was considered dead the day she was born. This was not the first mistake of the small town hall of the village where she had grown up. The one about his mother’s death was also incorrect. The cause of death was recorded as accidental.

  Sixtine fixed her ring and tried to reason. She had to take the risk of proving her fiancé’s innocence. In a few days, they could leave all these deaths behind. The vision of the dunes would become a reality, and they would be happy together forever.

  She walked through the room, where there was only one bed and a few scattered boxes. She walked along the empty corridor, crossed one of the lounges. A table, two chairs, an armchair. Speakers on the floor. The apartment had been completely emptied of everything belonging to Seth. The time to leave was approaching.

  A digital ringing tone spread through the empty vastness. Under the tattoo, Sixtine’s stomach turned for a moment by a strange and delicious current, immediately followed by anguish and sadness.

  He had arrived.

  She slipped on her coat, took her leather gloves and an elegant clutch. She checked the inside of the pocket yet again: it contained a small empty envelope. Her stomach turned again, and a few moments later, the doors of her private elevator opened to the lobby of the building.

  The gray eyes of the man she loved met hers, breathing a little dizziness into every step that brought her closer to him. His immobile silhouette in a custom-made suit, the extreme perfection of his angular profile and all the invisible of which only Sixtine knew the secret, his scars, his demons, this complicated and rare soul.

  Thaddeus di Blumagia was here for her and suddenly every second was worth gold.

  “Good evening, Sixtine.”

  He ran his fingers along her jaw and she felt the rough skin of her lover’s hands along her neck. He pressed his lips against hers, the strange current multiplied, invading every corner of her mind. His cologne had seeped into the pores of her skin, which burned with the need to be with him.

  She was where she was supposed to be.

  With every kiss, every minute she spent with him, she accepted everything had brought her to him. She understood why she had returned from the pyramid, why the judges of the afterlife had said her heart had betrayed her. What she had felt for Seth, those shivers she had mistaken for love, were really just ersatz made by the glare; the source was external.

  “An empty apartment and you come out of it looking great,” Thaddeus whispered. “What is your secret?”

  “Keep only the essentials.”

  “Glad to hear I’m a part of it.”

  “And be ready, if we have to run away tonight.”

  “Not a chance in those heels.”

  “Don’t underestimate me,” Sixtine grinned.

  “Those who did, are no longer here to talk about it, so I won’t try.”

  “Where are we going?” she asked as she glanced adoringly at Thaddeus.

  “A new place to take our mind off things.” Thaddeus opened the passenger door of his blue sports car.

  A few minutes later, the car crossed the Brooklyn Bridge, the whole night was bathed in lights and piano notes on hip hop incantations.

  The night invited them to dinner in a sumptuous and opulent setting. They spent two hours talking about everything and nothing, completing each other’s sentences, getting drunk on the discovery of new connections between them, renewed over and over again.

  Sixtine consciously avoided all sensitive subjects. She already had a strand of his hair in her pocket, her sacrifice, the price to pay. The next day, she would see Franklin, and that would be the beginning of a happy tomorrow.

  “You seem distracted,” he murmured tenderly.

  “It’s nothing,” she insisted.

  He lowered his head for a moment, then glanced at her, his features suddenly tired. “I’d like to show you a place two blocks from here. No one in New York has ever seen it before and it’ll get us out of here.”

  Sixtine felt the cold on her face, which brought out her optimism. They walked to the Chrysler Building. Thaddeus entered the hall and said to the security officer. “I am Thaddeus di Blumagia.”

  The officer looked up at him tiredly, smiled at him and then presented his pass to open the turnstile. He even accompanied them to the elevator. He pressed number 61 and withdrew.

  “Good evening, Mr. di Blumagia. Miss.”

  The Art Deco elevator went into action. Thaddeus slipped his fingers through Sixtine’s and a shiver ran through her body, the first signs of desire.

  When the doors opened on the 61st floor, she could not help but be disappointed: there were only empty offices here. She hesitated, but Thaddeus took her hand and led her into a hallway. He opened a door that he had to push with his shoulder because the joints were stuck. Sixtine then discovered a vast white room, completely empty and rather dilapidated, whose paint was peeling off due to water damage. Some debris lay on the ground and the dust whitened the hem of her dress. She rushed to one of the dozens of windows to admire New York, whose millions of
lights lit up the room. The view was even more breathtaking than from Seth’s apartment on the 15th floor. She would never get tired of it. Like the view of the cliffs from her childhood home.

  Thaddeus climbed a few steps up to a French window opening onto a balcony. The icy wind enveloped Sixtine’s body.

  The balcony, composed of a small brick wall and surmounted by a metal bar, was surprisingly ordinary for such an iconic building. In the corner of the balcony, a projector sculpted the Art Deco shapes of the building.

  Snowflakes danced in the white beam, and Thaddeus approached it. Then he did something Sixtine didn’t immediately understand, blinded by the light, he seemed to have gone behind the projector. Beyond the barrier. In a vacuum. And he invited her to join him, reaching out to her.

  The dizziness seized her breath as she saw him standing on a huge eagle-shaped gargoyle.

  “Thaddeus!”

  Sixtine was paralyzed by terror. A bad gust of wind, and he would be projected into the void, sixty-one stories high.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he said to her.

  She didn’t dare take a step towards him, for fear of making his perfectly straight silhouette buckle. He was standing on an eagle no more than six feet wide.

  “Oh, my God, you’re crazy. Come back. Come back here right now!”

  He laughed, but he didn’t lower his hand. “Are you at risk of falling where you are?”

  “No,” Sixtine protested. “But I’m not above the void.”

  “Then you just have to forget the void. Come on, I assure you, the view is splendid.”

  “You’ve lost your mind. I’m cold. I’m going home.”

  “You’re not cold.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re not cold.”

  “Thaddeus, it’s snowing.”

  “I know. Stop resisting, and you’ll see, you won’t feel the temperature anymore. Leave your coat on.”

  Little by little, Sixtine relaxed. Then something extraordinary happened in her body. She felt the cold, but as her muscles stopped fighting, it was no more than a fresh sensation brushing her body. It took her a few more long seconds to dare to let her coat slide off her shoulders and onto the ground.

  “Take off your shoes,” he said.

  She did so, curious to discover the feeling of the soles of her feet against the frozen tiles of the balcony. On contact with the ground, she contracted in a reflex, and the cold sent a burn into her calves. But she remembered to relax, and as quickly as the cold had penetrated her body, it left her, leaving a pleasant warmth in its wake.

  “Ignore the void. Trust me.”

  Thaddeus’s eyes seemed to take the place of the entire New York sky. He still offered her his hand above the metal balustrade.

  Sixtine’s body was then taken with a strange fever. As soon as she remembered the deadly emptiness around her, the icy cold attacked every inch of her skin; but when she looked into his eyes, the sensation disappeared.

  A gust caused her arm to sway, and in a reflex, she grabbed his fingers, as if he would be able to prevent her from falling.

  The heat of his hand warmed her up, even as the snow mixed with her hair. Then, her chest swollen with boldness, she climbed onto the step, and without taking her eyes off Thaddeus, climbed over to him.

  “Don’t look down.”

  The attraction of the void was too powerful, she could not help but bow her head; the thousand icy needles pierced it instantly. In a gesture that almost capsized them both, Thaddeus pressed her up against him, and kissed her mouth. Desire irradiated her entire body.

  Then Sixtine detached herself from Thaddeus and stepped on the eagle’s head. She felt like she was floating above the city.

  Instead of dizziness, she discovered that everything in her vibrated with a new joy.

  “My God, Thaddeus,” she whispered.

  Never in her life had she felt so strong, so powerful, so invincible. Also complete.

  She released Thaddeus’ hand to move forward to the edge of the eagle, on what represented its head. She opened her arms. The wind and snowflakes danced around her.

  “Be careful,” Thaddeus warned.

  She laughed. Even when her eyes strayed into the void under her feet, she was no longer afraid.

  “It’s so beautiful. How is that possible?” she whispered.

  “When you refuse fear, you invite the extraordinary. Cold, emptiness, they are only perceptions. When you are no longer afraid of them, they disappear.”

  “You say that, and tomorrow I wake up with pneumonia. One wrong move and that’s the end. Fear is useful, it keeps us alive.”

  “Not for us, my love.”

  Happiness infiltrated her being, overflowing from her chest. The earth could stop turning, she could have died at that moment, as long as it was with him, she was no longer afraid.

  “Yes, fear is useful,” she added, facetious. “Even for handsome guys who think they’re invincible. I must admit, it’s part of your charm.”

  It was Thaddeus’s turn to giggle softly. “You don’t want to believe it, do you?”

  “Believe what?”

  “That you and I are different.”

  “It is the privilege of lovers to believe that they are.”

  Despite the light tone of her repartee, something tiny had crumpled inside Sixtine, and a shiver crept into her skin.

  “All these things that happen to you, that you can’t explain, you keep ignoring them,” Thaddeus said gently. “But one day, you’ll have to look them in the eyes.”

  “Looking them in the eyes, as I looked at what happened on my honeymoon, didn’t do any good.”

  “Yes, it did,” he whispered. “Look at us. You and me. I’d say that is something good.”

  “Better than good,” Sixtine admitted, a bitter taste in her mouth. “And we deserved to be able to put all that behind us. I want to turn over a new leaf and start the rest of my life. With you.”

  Thaddeus remained silent.

  “You finished what you wanted to do in New York, didn’t you?” Sixtine asked, her throat tight, the cold stiffening her limbs.

  Thaddeus’ tone was suddenly more serious. “Almost. Just a few more days.”

  “And then we’ll leave, won’t we?” Sixtine asked, a tremble in her voice.

  “That depends solely on you.”

  “I’m ready for it.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Sixtine undid Thaddeus’ arms and turned around to face him. She surprised herself thinking about the emptiness behind her, on each side, and her stomach tightened. But Thaddeus raised her chin with a tender gesture.

  “We can go anywhere, to the ends of the earth if you want, but we’ll never be free until you find out who you are.”

  “I know who I am. And I thought you loved me, as I am.”

  “I love who you really are, because we are alike.”

  “A little arrogant to think that you know me better than I do?” Sixtine replied with defiance.

  Thaddeus shook his head and gave a slight smile, which almost vanished immediately. He gently touched her collarbone and whispered, “Here, inside you, there is someone much more extraordinary than you suspect. But you have to discover your deep vocation.”

  “But,” Sixtine stammered, “once we leave together, when we get there, then I can – ”

  “You don’t understand,” Thaddeus interrupted. “It’s not in the future, it’s here and now. And I can’t help you with… I can’t… I already have too much…”

  He too suddenly stumbled on his words. “I can be your guide, but I can’t fulfill your destiny for you. Only when you do, then you and I can be together. Forever.”

  Sixtine’s entire body trembled and she felt her ring under her fingers.

  The emptiness suddenly drew her attention, she could not detach her eyes from the dark infinite that stretched under her like a gigantic shadow.

  An hour later, the
y were lying on the bed in the empty apartment and Thaddeus was still warming her up. Huddled against him, she was still shaking. They made love as if it were the last time, slowly, clinging to every dizziness, every scent, every caress, praying that their senses would remember it for all eternity.

  Sleep sent Sixtine back to the top of the Chrysler Building, with dreams repeating their words and gestures to perfection. But in her dream, instead of going home, he left her behind the window, in the dilapidated white room, while he returned to the eagle.

  “You’re like me, Sixtine. We come from the invisible. Your true nature, you will only find it in the invisible!”

  And then he dove into the void.

  Sixtine woke up, a scream strangling her dry throat.

  Thaddeus was gone.

  Her panicked breath strained in her chest, sweat sticking the hair strands on her forehead, she sat on the edge of her bed, trying to separate the dream from reality. From the huge window of her room, she could see the Chrysler Building, and the eagle on the 61st floor.

  How long did she stay on her bed, haunted by the nightmare, her heart in pieces?

  She found the strength to get up, to get dressed. Then she checked her pocket. In the envelope was Thaddeus’s strand of hair. The kiss harvest.

  When she presented the envelope to Franklin, the detective thanked her. They didn’t know how to go their separate ways, the farewells were so uncertain. Then they said nothing, and each one went their own way.

  On the streets of New York, winter was raging. No piece of clothing, or place, or thought could warm Sixtine. When she returned to her building, she surprised the man in the black leather jacket as he sat on the steps. He hadn’t seen her.

  Sixtine walked straight towards him, and he noticed her when she was only a few feet away from him.