Inquisitor

by John Barrowman

  ‘My love,’ he said in wonder. ‘We have endured.’

  He pulled her into his arms and lifted her back into the air, feeling her body warm against his. The clouds rumbled and fingers of horizontal lightning shot across the sky.

  ‘I’ve been sick without you,’ Luca murmured, pressing his lips to her hair as they sank back down on to the top of the arch beside Zach. ‘Why did you hide for so long? How was it that you were helping Orion?’

  ‘We shared a similar ambition. To destroy the Inquisitor.’

  Luca could understand that.

  ‘The Duke of Albion and the Order of Era Mina saved my life,’ Sebina went on. ‘They created an animation to be executed in my place. We knew the Inquisitor would not die easily. And so I made a deal: to be bound in a painting until our common purpose came to pass. Then the Order would strike. And so would I. I was released when the Conjuror, Rémy, was born. I knew the final battle was coming.’

  Luca frowned. ‘Orion knew twenty years ago that this might happen?’

  ‘They had contacts in America. Word spread that Rémy Dupree Rush would be a Conjuror unlike any other. A Conjuror to raise the Second Kingdom, or if we were lucky destroy it. There was no way of telling which.’

  Zach tapped his mum’s shoulder. ‘Who,’ he signed, and then corrected it to: ‘What are you?’

  ‘Still your mum,’ she signed back with a kiss. ‘Just a bit older than I look.’ She turned back to Luca. ‘I spent four hundred years bound in a portrait in the Abbey at Auchinmurn’s vaults,’ she said quietly. ‘Four hundred years of thinking about the last thing someone said to me.’

  ‘Which was?’

  Her eyes were bleak. ‘You are forgiven.’

  95.

  Midnight Confessions

  Sebina hadn’t thought of Brother Ignatius Gallo in a long time. She hoped he’d lived a long life. She knew he had taken her secret to his grave, because no one in her former life, not even Luca, had ever guessed that she was still alive.

  She had been imprisoned in the catacombs of the Basilica di Santa Maria shortly after she and Luca had lost Caravaggio and the Devil’s Interval, and chained to a wall that ran wet with piss from a courtyard above. Her head was locked beneath a hammered gold scold’s bridle, and any movement tore the skin from her scalp and punctured her cheeks, the taste of her own blood her only nourishment. Until the old monk appeared.

  Brother Gallo had poured water gently into the bridle so that it pooled under her chin, allowing her tongue to lap it up a little at a time. He came again, and again. He brought her sustenance, and something she didn’t know she needed or wanted: forgiveness.

  ‘To lighten another’s suffering is my path to God,’ he’d told her.

  On his fourth visit, Sebina felt a human emotion that shocked her. Shame. It burrowed into her like a leech. She’d eased no one’s suffering. She’d only caused it.

  A lot of it.

  On his fifth visit, Brother Gallo had smuggled a book of poetry inside the cell under his cassock. He had read to her, his head pressed close to hers as if in prayer. When he finished, she found that salt tears had mingled with the fresh water in her bridle.

  She remembered most the ash covering Brother Gallo’s cassock when he had helped her into a small boat and, like Moses, sent her down the Tiber, out of Rome, to safety, to be bound in a painting until she’d faded from the memory of everyone who had known her.

  Or – it seemed – almost everyone.

  *

  ‘I did many terrible things in my long life on Earth,’ she said now. ‘Four hundred years of considering your sins makes a difference to a person. When I came out, I hated myself.

  ‘During my first months in this world, Vaughn and I grew close. He was lonely and sad, and I was broken.’ She smiled at Zach. ‘And you were the result. If I wasn’t sure of my destiny before, it was clear the moment you were born. I could not let you live in a world controlled by the Camarilla.’

  ‘So Vaughn is my biological father?’ Zach signed, a little shakily, but somehow not surprised.

  ‘Yes.’

  Luca stood. ‘We should go.’ He swept them both into his arms.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Home.’

  London

  96.

  To the Missing

  The Kitten sisters hadn’t hosted this many people for dinner in years.

  It was two days since the destruction of the tomb, and the Raphael Terrace dining room was aglow with candlelight and conversation. There was a blazing fire in the hearth despite the warmth outside, and the lit sconces on the walls washed the Victorian room in a fitting aura of gold.

  Em’s dress was a sleeveless dark blue sheath, its cut showing off her toned shoulders and arms. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d worn a dress. She was feeling a strange cocktail of emotions. Contentment that Zach was back in her life even if he wasn’t here at the party; excitement that they’d destroyed the Inquisitor; and a spike of desire every time she caught Rémy looking across the room at her.

  The sideboard was spread with silver platters of bacon-wrapped figs, stuffed mushrooms, plump shrimp and a vast array of cheeses and meats. In front of the spread, Matt and Callum were chatting, both dressed in variations on the same theme of black shirts and skinny jeans. In the middle of the large room, Anthea was fussing with the table settings on the long elegantly dressed table, the light twinkling brilliantly off the crystal glasses from the candelabra in the centre.

  ‘You look beautiful,’ Rémy said, handing Em a glass of champagne.

  ‘You clean up nicely too,’ she said, smiling.

  The attraction between them sizzled in the air as Matt joined them at the fireplace.

  ‘Get on and kiss already,’ he advised.

  Em frowned at her brother. ‘Mattie? Stay out of my head and my business.’

  Matt laughed, his eyes flickering like diamonds in the light. ‘It doesn’t take a mind-reader to see what you’re thinking.’

  From across the room, Violet closed the dining-room doors and tapped her champagne glass. ‘May I ask you all to take your places?’ she called over the hubbub.

  ‘Shouldn’t we wait for Vaughn?’ said Em.

  ‘He’s still in Rome, working on clean-up with Fiera Orsini. And I will not keep chef from serving on time.’

  The sisters sat at either end of the table as the meal began. Rémy and Matt sat down one long side, with Em and Callum opposite. An empty place was laid mid-way down the table.

  Em leaned close to Callum as they moved through the first course. ‘Is your dad joining us?’

  ‘God, I hope not,’ said Callum, lifting his wine glass awkwardly with his left hand, not yet used to the cast on his right arm from when he’d hit the wall in the tomb. ‘I’m still working up to that reunion.’

  Em put her hand on his. ‘You’ll be fine.’

  ‘I know.’ His voice caught in his throat. ‘I just wish Pietra had survived. You’d have really liked her.’ He looked across the table at the others. ‘She’d have liked all of you.’

  Rémy lifted his glass. ‘To Pietra. Who found what we needed to save the world.’

  ‘To Pietra!’ they said, glasses raised in unison.

  ‘And Alessandro,’ Rémy added. His heart broke every time he thought of his mentor and protector. ‘Who died to save us all.’

  ‘To Alessandro!’

  The main course passed without incident, and was as delicious as any meal ever was in the Kitten household. But when they reached dessert, a sudden crash from the other side of the house caught everyone’s attention.

  ‘What was that?’ said Rémy.

  ‘I’m sure it’s nothing,’ said Violet, nodding to the waiter to serve the pudding.

  Matt and Rémy were on their feet as a chill mist seeped into the room through the panelled walls. The painting of the suffragettes above the fireplace banged against the wall and the shutters on the tall leaded glass windows flew open.

  �
�That is definitely something,’ said Rémy, staring at the rattling dining-room doors.

  97.

  Clootie Dumpling

  The doors flew open and Jeannie marched into the room in full Highland dress. Em screamed; Matt leapt to his feet.

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ Jeannie said, unfazed. ‘I thought I’d join you, but I forgot how exhausting all this fading can be.’ She turned to the looming waiter. ‘Whisky please. And make it a double.’

  When everyone had recovered from the shock and the clootie dumpling and cream had been served, Jeannie filled in the blanks.

  ‘Two things underscored our plan. The first was Luca Ferrante. We knew that he was more committed to taking his revenge on Caravaggio and the Camarilla than to enslaving the world. We decided to exploit that. We sent Zach to join his mother undercover with the Camarilla. Zach’s position also gave us the chance to tag Luca and follow him in case he double-crossed us.’

  Jeannie smiled down the table at Rémy. ‘But for everything else we owe a debt to your mum, Rémy. It was her journal that did most of the heavy lifting.’ She lifted her glass in Rémy’s direction. ‘A toast to Annie Dupree Rush. May she rest in peace and may her voice live on.’

  ‘To Annie!’

  Sensing Rémy’s tightly held emotions, Em rested her head against his shoulder.

  ‘When Cecilia announced her concert,’ said Jeannie, ‘we knew that would be the Camarilla’s moment. We had to use Orianna and Zach and bring things to a head. With their help, we knew in advance about Luca’s mission to put an end to the Order of Era Mina.’

  ‘And you emptied the vaults and the Council Chamber before Luca destroyed them,’ Em guessed.

  ‘Ach, Em,’ said Jeannie comfortably. ‘You didn’t think we’d destroy the art on purpose? Your grandfather would have strangled us all. Although I must admit, there were one or two members of the Council I would happily have seen vaporized that day.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Matt.

  Jeannie sighed. ‘They refused to accept what was happening until I showed them this.’

  She reached into her purse that was tucked under her chair. One by one they passed a photograph around the table.

  It was a collage of four clear and convincing images taken at dawn in Rome while the sun was an orange ball rising through the ruins. In the first image, a brooding Luca was crouched naked on top of the Arc of Constantine, his head bowed, his hair draped over his shoulders. In the second, the photographer had caught Luca standing with his black and silver wings unfolding as he began his transformation to his divine form, preparing to take flight. The third image caught Luca’s silhouette against the rising sun like Icarus. The final photograph was taken at a distance. It was Luca in human form dressed in a black suit and white shirt escorting a portly older man in an Italian military uniform up the steps of the Museum of Antiquities.

  The man was looking back, unaware of a camera snapping photographs from a building across the way. Luigi Silvestri, Sir Giles’ second-in-command on the European Council of Guardians was caught at an angle, but there was no doubt it was him.

  ‘Zach took the pictures,’ said Jeannie with a smile.

  This time Em lifted her glass first. ‘To Zach!’

  This was not as it turned out the final toast of the night. The celebration continued well into the wee hours of the next morning.

  America

  Two Months Later

  98.

  Ten Mississippi

  Em carried a tray of mint juleps out on to the wide veranda, a sticky breeze rustling the hem of her cotton dress. Her feet were bare and her skin had erupted in freckles. She set the tray on a wicker table and leaned over Matt’s shoulder to take a closer look at the canvas he was working on.

  ‘Mattie, it’s stunning.’

  ‘Think so?’ He accepted a drink, his cargo shorts hung low at his hips, the wound at his side a red puckered scar. ‘It’s amazing what I can see when I control the light.’

  Matt’s shades were doing nothing more than holding his hair from his face. It was as if he was capturing the landscape spread out in front of him in the present and the past. The trees dripped with moss like history was weighing down their limbs, and the brush strokes creating the old wooden hut at the end of the dock looked like children at its windows.

  ‘Do you think Annie knew she had the information about the deed to the Dupree Plantation house and its land tucked into the extra pages of her journal all along?’ Em asked.

  Matt shrugged. ‘I think there’s a lot Annie didn’t realize, but I’m glad Rémy’s found his home.’

  Em left him mixing colours and walked around to the other side of the veranda, where a porch swing creaked in the breeze. Eyes closed, Rémy lay stretched out on it, his hands crossed on top of his chest, his guitar standing against the wooden railing.

  Em set the ice-cold bottom of the glass on his forehead. His eyes snapped open and he grabbed her hand and pulled her on top of him, spilling his drink.

  ‘I do declare,’ she said in an exaggerated southern accent, ‘you’ve ruined mah party dress.’

  ‘Let me make it better.’ Rémy kissed her, his lips lingering before he righted himself and she sat next to him. They rocked in silence for a beat, looking out through the palm fronds and the beech trees to the island in the river where Callum could be seen in diving gear on the deck of a professional salvage barge.

  ‘They should be able to refloat the ship in the next few days,’ said Rémy. ‘Then we’ll transport the bones back to Europe and Africa.’

  Em pulled her dress over her head, revealing more freckles and a bikini underneath. ‘I’m going for a swim out in the bay. Want to join me?’

  ‘You know what?’ said Rémy, stretching out across the swing again. ‘I think I’d like to wallow in the quiet for just a little longer. For the first time in my life, my head is at peace.’

  *

  Five thousand miles away, eight-year-old Wesley Brown was staring out the window of a Delta 747 as it began its descent into Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci airport. The plane shook violently then rocked to one side, popping open the overheard compartments and dropping the oxygen masks.

  ‘Don’t worry, folks,’ said the pilot’s voice comfortably. ‘Just a little turbulence. We’ll circle back around and make another approach.’

  ‘That wasn’t turbulence,’ said Wesley. ‘Look.’

  His mom looked out the window. She could have sworn she saw an angel somersaulting off the tip of the wing.

  We hope you enjoyed this book.

  Glossary

  Acknowledgements

  About John & Carole E. Barrowman

  The Orion Chronicles

  The Hollow Earth Trilogy

  An Invitation from the Publisher

  Glossary

  Animare: A person who can bring their art to life, and who can move in and out of art.

  Binding: Binding is a kind of suspended animation. Animare are bound into a work of art as a last resort when they lose control of their powers or endanger the secret of their existence. There are secure vaults all over the world containing bound paintings.

  Conjuror: The descendant of an ancient African bloodline with power to alter reality with music and song.

  Council of Guardians: A body of powerful Guardians who enforce the Five Rules for Animare. There are five Councils scattered around the world.

  Animare must not animate in public.

  They must always be in control of their imaginations.

  If they endanger the secret of their existence, they may be ‘bound’ (see above).

  They are forbidden from having children with Guardians (see below), as this can result in dangerous hybrids with an unpredictable mix of powers.

  Children cannot be bound.

  Guardian: A Guardian has supernatural powers of mind-control. A Guardian’s ability to influence a person’s thinking is known as ‘inspiriting’. Council members do not always agree about how Animare should be gui
ded. When hybrid children are created, for example, some Guardians believe that their talents should be nurtured; while others believe that binding (see above) is the only safe course of action.

  The Order of Era Mina: The monks in medieval Auchinmurn belonged to the Order of Era Mina, which had a particular mission: locking away the monsters of the superstitious past by drawing them into a bestiary called The Book of Beasts, thereby reinventing the world as a modern place of enlightenment and learning.

  Acknowledgements

  Before you leave these pages, we’d like you to join us in applauding a few members of Team Barrowman who helped make this book possible. Lucy Courtenay, our brilliant editor, has worked with us on six books and has brought insight and energy to each one. Three big cheers, Lucy!

  Exploding high fives to everyone at Head of Zeus, particularly Laura Palmer and Madeleine O’Shea, our agent, Georgina Capel, and the indispensable Kelsey Work.

  A rousing standing ovation to our husbands, Kevin Casey and Scott Gill, our parents, Marion and John Barrowman, and our personal cheering section, Clare, Casey, Finn and Adeline, Turner and Hannah.

  Finally, if you’d like to learn more about the art and the music in Inquisitor, please visit www.barrowmanbooks.com

  With love,

  Carole and John 2018

  About John & Carole E. Barrowman

  JOHN BARROWMAN is an entertainer with a career that includes theatre, television, music and film. He is acclaimed for his portrayal of Captain Jack in Torchwood and Doctor Who, as well as playing Malcolm Merlyn in Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow and The Flash.