Sixtine- The Complete Trilogy Box Set

by Caroline Vermalle

  The voices of the guests, gathered in the great library, came to him once he had crossed the hall. Han put his hand on the doorknob and stopped. He recognized a feminine laugh, a cheerful cough, a crackling fireplace, a crackling repartee. They were happy to be together, but nervous at the same time. They had no idea why they were here. They hadn’t seen Sixtine in almost a year.

  Han checked his watch. One of the guests had not yet arrived, but he could no longer afford to wait for her. It was time to face those who were already there, and reveal to them the real reason for Sixtine’s call.

  He opened the door and entered the room. “Ladies, gentlemen.”

  Max, leaning against the fireplace, with a book in his hand, turned towards Han. His face naturally projected curiosity and friendship, but his features were drawn by nervousness. A frank intensity, almost childish, animated his eyes. He closed his book with delicacy.

  Florence’s face emerged from the worn leather of a white wing-back chair, and a mischievous smile greeted Han.

  Franklin sat in a chair facing the fire, turning a match in circles with his fingers. The flames made the gold shine in his earring.

  Aziza Rust was the only one who moved at all. One hand dug in the pocket of her tight jeans, another against her ear, holding a mobile phone, and she paced at the back of the library. When Han approached the group, she hung up and walked towards him.

  “Hello Han, do you know what time you can release us?”

  “Miss, no one is holding you prisoner.”

  “I have appointments in London. Do you think we’ll be done in two hours?”

  Han stared at Aziza with his sparkling eyes and raised his voice enough for others to hear.

  “Yes, we’ll be done in two hours.”

  Aziza grabbed her mobile phone, ready to send a message, but Han’s voice made her look up from her phone.

  “But if I may say so, when we’re done, I don’t think you’ll want to leave Falmouth Manor tonight.”

  Four pairs of eyes stared wordlessly at him.

  “A room has been prepared for each of you, where you will find everything you need to spend the night.”

  Aziza frowned and typed on her smartphone, but Han noted with satisfaction that the others seemed delighted with this turn of events.

  “I know you are eager to know what Sixtine will tell you, and why it was so important for you to be gathered here today. Your time is precious, and we are grateful for the efforts you have made to get here.”

  “The efforts you made to bring us here,” Franklin interrupted in a joking tone.

  Han knew that, among them, Franklin was the most uncomfortable with the private chartered jets and the various compensation needed to arrange for their emergency arrival in Falmouth Manor. Aziza had accepted through legal documentation on each transaction and Florence had hardly paid any attention to it. Max had simply refused any payment.

  None of them had expected to find the others there.

  “I would like to say it again, Mr. Hunter, that no one is a prisoner here. We just thought you might want to take your time to think about Sixtine’s proposal. After all, a decision that will change the course of your life deserves to be considered under the best possible conditions, doesn’t it? Dinner will be served at eight-thirty. If you want to take the trouble to follow me.”

  Sixtine was perfectly calm. The palms of her hands were dry, her fingers quiet, her heartbeat steady and calm. A tiny smile stretched her lips and lit up the green of her eyes a little more. She knew that the shocks, the grief, the visions were still there. By accepting them, she had made them sink into the underground by herself. The surface was clear and serene. And she knew her destiny.

  Now it was time to tell them.

  When she heard the disordered steps against the marble of the corridor, a slight shiver ran through her. It was the point of no return. She breathed deeply, her breath creating a circle of mist that grew and vanished like a huge flower over the Falmouth Manor gardens.

  The gardens of Vivant Mornay.

  She did not turn around when she heard the double doors open behind her. She waited for silence. Then she turned and faced them.

  “I don’t need to ask you if you believe in angels? Each of you here has come back from death,” she said calmly, her voice echoing through the room, and she fixed her gaze on Franklin.

  “Franklin, that car wreck in Boulaq. The sun was setting, the call to prayer was echoing in the neighborhood, there was blood, yours, on the stoned leather seat. Aziza offered you a second chance by placing another body in your military coffin.”

  Her boots made the floor crack.

  “Florence, the cave, the depths of the green water, the shiny cliffs, the centipedes, and the smell of algae. Max, the sound of rats looking for a way out, like you, in the collapsed tunnel.”

  “Aziza, the sticky marble tiling of gasoline and gold particles that blur your view – ”

  “I don’t think all this is necessary,” Aziza objected.

  Sixtine ignored her.

  “Han, sixty-three years ago. The overloaded boat was green and white.”

  The old butler barely moved, yet Sixtine detected the surprise on his face and he lowered his gaze.

  “It is said that man is not capable of knowing the time of his or her own death. That is not true, those who saw it face to face once do not forget it. That’s why I brought you here. To talk to you about your second chance.”

  She sat on the table, and stared at them. “Thaddeus has brought us together. He’s the one who led Florence and Max to the pyramid. Franklin was already on his trail, and in a way, so was Aziza. He hired Han to look after me when Seth died.”

  Then she stopped, and a mischievous smile appeared on her lips. “And someone other than Thaddeus has put in our way, will join us, at any moment.”

  At that moment, the double door opened. They all turned around. The energy in the room changed. Sixtine could have sworn that the characters in the portraits huddled together.

  “Did I miss anything?” Her skeleton face, framed in this baroque setting, was magnificent.

  “You all know Cybelle,” Sixtine introduced her nonchalantly.

  Max’s jaw dropped from surprise, and Florence looked at her from the corner of her eye, fascinated. Cybelle settled next to Sixtine and crossed her endless legs molded in black coir.

  “We were just talking about second chances,” Sixtine told her.

  Cybelle slowly nodded. She too had come a long way.

  “And Thaddeus.”

  Sixtine smiled, gazing briefly at the stars above the gardens of Falmouth Manor.

  “Thaddeus was an angel. His destiny was to avenge the women victims of Humanitas, especially those murdered during the years when his sister was at the head of the organization. It was their bloodiest time, with more than thirty people killed. He also had to make sure that Humanitas was destroyed forever, and that their infamous acts would be included in the history books to prevent them from happening again.”

  Florence lowered her head, and her fingers played with the hem of her T-shirt.

  “That is what he managed to do with the international scandal caused by Nefertiti. Not only has he fulfilled his destiny, but I’d like to believe that he has changed the world.”

  A shiver ran through her skin and she hesitated. It was time to accept her new reality. The last rays of sunlight projected an orange shine on her profile. She looked straight ahead, she had to. Looking back would not amount to anything.

  “Two angels. One to save, the other to avenge. The one who avenged is no longer of this world. The one left, is me. I am the guardian angel.”

  Cybelle was the first to react. Chin high, she gave Sixtine a complicit and proud smile. Franklin turned his gold wedding ring on the dry skin of his finger and looked at Aziza, who silently replied with glittering eyes of anticipation. Florence, with her arms crossed, stared at a point somewhere in the gardens. Max watched Sixtine with his dark eye
s where a restrained and impassive intensity shone. He lowered them when the young woman glanced at him, then decided to support her gaze.

  Finally, Sixtine grabbed the leather-bound book and placed it on the table. She flipped through several pages, on which names were calligraphed, and Florence stretched her neck to see.

  “I have here the list of names of the victims of the secret society of Vivant Mornay and Humanitas. I counted forty-two. No one can save them anymore, but if they remained anonymous, they would die a second time. It is by discovering who they were, how they came into Elizabeth von Wär’s hands and where they are buried so that we can honor them. I have spent the last few months retracing their stories, their steps. I managed to reconstruct thirty-seven lives.” Sixtine stroked the pages of the book. “But there are five missing.”

  She opened the last page. It had five female first names on it. No date. No last name. No details.

  “Five women who were picked while they had their whole lives ahead of them. Five women who were lied to and forced into a grave. Five women who died without anyone noticing, without anyone claiming them. Five lives interrupted, and no prints on earth.”

  Her fists clenched, as did her throat, but she forced herself to continue.

  “A life, even the shortest, most ordinary, always leaves a mark. These women deserve to be found, to be given their place back, and above all, to have their stories told. So that it doesn’t happen again. So that little girls know that they are the only guardians of their wealth, that they are the queens who decide their own destiny. That their beauty does not exist for us to collect. I want the stories of these women to be told and so that no man will ever again consider a woman as his treasure, or his possession ever again.”

  The silence had settled, full of emotion. A black bird landed on the window, stood still for a moment, then spread its wings to the night and disappeared.

  “I know why I came back,” Sixtine said, her heart beating in her throat. “It’s my destiny, but I don’t intend to do it alone. The reason I invited you here is to ask the question: why did you come back from death? What is your destiny?”

  Franklin laughed as he shook his head. “Justice, aye.”

  Sixtine just smiled. Franklin’s sparkling glow in her black eyes had already given her the answer she was looking for.

  “Warrior, guardian, fighter,” Florence said softly. “We’re changing the rules. The objective is in agreement with the majority, female in our case. Isn’t that right, Aziza, Cybelle?”

  “Amen, my sister,” Cybelle answered, presenting the palm of her hand to Florence for a high-five.

  As their hands met, Sixtine thought she saw Florence’s cheeks turn pink.

  “The objective is honorable,” Aziza said. “I see that we collectively have the required skills, and your resources. In practice, though, I don’t see how.”

  Sixtine turned her head towards Han, who was waiting for his sign. He opened the drawer of an impressive chest of drawers and pulled out five envelopes.

  “You will find in these envelopes the details of the operation, the conditions of my offer.”

  Florence took several documents out of the envelope. She laughed. “An apartment in Falmouth Manor. If I say yes, can I have my old room?”

  Sixtine nodded. “It’s been ready for two weeks.”

  “And if one of us refuses?” Max asked, without looking at her.

  Sixtine tried to keep her facial expression neutral. She had expected a refusal from everyone but Max. “Then I hope you will still stay for dinner tonight,” she said.

  “No,” Max continued, eyes still on the papers. “No, you can count me in. Even if they all refused, Sixtine, I’m in.”

  He finally looked up at her; he had said that as if it was an obvious fact that exhausted his whole being but that he had resigned himself to no longer fighting.

  Sixtine’s body relaxed and gratitude made her green eyes shine.

  “Yeah, okay,” Florence sighed as well. “I think we can all agree that I needed a new path.”

  Florence’s cheerful tone did not prevent Sixtine from noting that her hand was shaking slightly. They were all shaking, probably. They were all survivors.

  “Okay,” Franklin said, trying to hide his emotions. “I’m just gonna have to get used to English cuisine, but it can’t be any worse than the army, right?”

  “Yes, it can,” Max replied.

  Florence elbowed him and they laughed.

  Cybelle threw the envelope on the table, and swung on her chair.

  “Count me in, Sixtine.”

  Sixtine scanned Aziza again. Her face was still stone cold, but the muscles of her jaw no longer stretched her cheeks. “So, if I let me get this straight. In short, you expect us to give up our lives overnight, settle into your home, and change the world with an angel with only a touching speech and some benefits?”

  “That’s exactly it,” Sixtine replied.

  Aziza stood up, gently placed her envelope on the table and walked towards the window. The garden was plunged into darkness, and only the lights along the terrace illuminated the underside of the trees, whose dark canopy mixed with the sky. “I don’t know if I can give you that promise. I’m not going to tell you that justice is a dirty business. You have suffered more than all of us. Why not enjoy your fortune in the serenity of this place? Start a new life?”

  Sixtine smiled. She knew that Aziza would join her, and that she would be her most loyal ally, but she would take her time to decide.

  “My life is not to be started over,” Sixtine pointed out. “It is to be continued. It finally makes sense now.”

  “Is that all you have to gain? For it to give meaning to your life?”

  “That’s already a lot.”

  Then she approached her and whispered, “But you’re right, I have a lot more to gain. Once my destiny is fulfilled, I will have the keys to my kingdom.”

  Aziza raised an eyebrow. “Your kingdom?”

  Sixtine burst out with a spontaneous and innocent laugh. “A kingdom of cliffs, dunes and immortals. I’ll get married and have children and live happily ever after with my prince charming.”

  Aziza frowned at her in apprehension, and touched her arm in a tender and maternal gesture. “After all you’ve been through, you still believe in fairy tales?”

  Sixtine turned to the window. In the reflection of the glass, she saw Franklin, Max, Florence, Han and Cybelle behind her, illuminated by a new purpose and a brand new friendship. She looked into the clear night dancing on the tops of Falmouth’s trees. The stars aligned and drew a constellation in the shape of a golden scarab.

  “Now more than ever,” she whispered.

  THE END

  Afterword

  SIXTINE will be back!

  A new series, starting where Book 3 ended, will be released in the fall of 2020.

  To stay updated on the release date, subscribe here:

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