A Line in the Sand

by K. A. Stewart

  Chapter 8

  Needless to say, when Cameron knocked on my door at eight in the morning, I wasn’t exactly the happiest camper. The heavenly cup of coffee that Lorena pressed into my hands, though, went a long way toward cheering me up. Normally, I was a take-it-or-leave-it coffee guy, but after the night I’d had, it was the nectar of the gods.

  Ivan, on the other hand, looked markedly better than he had the day before. Some color had come back into his cheeks, and the hollows under his eyes weren’t quite so dark. He grinned and flirted with our hostess in Italian, and while I couldn’t understand a word of it, the old guy seemed to be pretty smooth.

  Sveta did not appear to be so amused by our leader’s skills, and at one point, she stalked from the table, muttering to herself in Ukrainian. Ivan’s gaze followed her, sadness drifting into his blue eyes, but when he caught me watching him, he quickly turned his attention back to our lovely hostess.

  “So, our guide is going to meet us a few blocks that way,” Cam pointed somewhere vaguely west, as he sat down with his coffee and some kind of gooey pastry. “Thought we could walk around, check out some of the lesser-known sights, then have a nice lunch at this little place she knows.”

  “On foot?” He nodded at me, and I glanced at Ivan. “You want to sit this one out? Just spend the day here being pampered?”

  The old man’s glare could have frosted over Lake Michigan. “I am to be fully capable of spending a pleasant day walking and seeing the sights.”

  I held up my hands in surrender. “Of course you are. Just…offering.”

  In honor of our team-building exercise, or whatever the hell this was going to be, I donned a gray t-shirt that said “Auto correct can go duck itself”, and glanced longingly at the sword case underneath my bed. I’d feel a lot better with that bone hilt riding at my hip. It’s just a day out, like normal people do. Not everything is a fight to the death. I said it several times, but I never quite convinced myself.

  My one comfort was knowing that Sveta would be armed to the teeth, possibly literally. I might not see whatever it was she was carrying, but it would be there, and she of all of us had the least compunction about using lethal force.

  Like good little ducklings, we formed up just outside the front door, bidding a cheerful farewell to Lorena, and then we headed out, following Cameron through the streets of Rome. We weren’t alone by any means, life in the city beginning bright and early, but it didn’t take long to figure out that we were moving against most of the foot traffic.

  “So, what do they know that we don’t?” When Cam looked at me questioningly, I nodded toward the obvious herd of tourists heading the opposite direction. “Is there some grand attraction we’re missing?”

  “Oh, well… Vatican City is about three blocks that way,” he gestured, “so they’re probably all heading to get in line for the tours. The lines form early, there.”

  I gave him a skeptical look. “We’re going on a tour of Rome, but not visiting the kinda major thing that’s just a few blocks from our hotel?”

  Cameron rolled his eyes at me. “Everyone goes to see the Vatican, Jesse. The Sistine Chapel, all that? We can hit that later once we get our audience. Thought maybe we’d visit some of the less well-known venues.”

  “Worst. Tour. Ever.” I gave him a look of annoyance until we both broke into smirks.

  All in all, it was probably a good thing we weren’t trying to join the throng of camera-wielding tour enthusiasts. We definitely didn’t fit in with the eager, wide-eyed groups that went out of their way to skirt around us on the sidewalks.

  Cam, in his stark black priestly garb, had point, being the only one of us who knew where we were going, but it didn’t escape my notice that Ivan and Sveta had deliberately chosen to bring up the rear and flanking positions, respectively. All without a word, they’d formed a protective wall around me, leaving my right side to be protected by whatever building we were passing. Every time we crossed a street, leaving that side exposed, I felt Sveta tense up, and her frosty gaze swept the drivers of any cars, staring until they would drop their eyes under the sheer force of her personality.

  While I was fairly certain that her sense of caution was maybe a bit over-pronounced, I found myself watching her left as she watched my right, waiting to see something big and nasty jump out of the café we just passed or the group of elderly women who went tottering along under the direction of a handsome young tour guide.

  As it was, I nearly walked up the back of Cameron’s leg when he stopped abruptly in front of me, waving to someone on the next corner. “Mary Alice! Over here!” I heard the abrupt screech of car tires, a man and woman yelling at each other in Italian, and then Cameron swooped a small figure up in his arms and spun her around in a circle, laughing. Only when he sat her down did I realize that she was wearing a nun’s veil. I was not expecting that.

  She was young, for starters, and if she’d seen thirty yet, I’d eat my hat. Her clothing didn’t immediately denote “nun,” either. Her plain khaki slacks and navy sweater didn’t really stand out, nor did her scuffed sneakers, which did attest to how much time she spent on her feet. A tiny thing, forced to crane her neck to look up at Cameron, she smiled brightly, babbling at him fondly in Italian. He answered her, though it was plain he wasn’t as comfortable in the language as she was, then he turned to present her to the rest of us.

  “Everyone, this is Sister Mary Alice, one of my dearest friends. Mary Alice, this is Jesse Dawson, and Svetlana, and Ivan Zelenko.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you all! Brother Cameron has told me so much about you!” Her English was flawless. Or rather, it wasn’t flawless at all, proving that it was her first language, not one she’d learned later.

  “You’re American?” I asked as we made our introductions.

  “Born and bred in Buffalo, New York.” Green eyes sparkled above cheeks that were indented with adorable dimples, and I was having a hard time reconciling the youthful face with that of a nun. The ones I’d encountered had always been old, and terrifying. “But I’ve lived here in Rome for the last seven years.”

  Her hand felt tiny and fragile in mine, but she gave us all overly enthusiastic handshakes. I even caught Sveta’s eyes widening in surprise as the perky little nun showed absolutely no fear of our scary mercenary. Ivan chuckled, bowing over her hand to kiss it, and she blushed prettily, just like any other girl.

  I was confused. “So, are you part of…?” I left it unfinished, I wasn’t sure how secret Cameron’s order of champions was, within the Church.

  She and Cameron exchanged looks, but it was Cam who answered, somewhat sheepishly. “The Order of St. Silvius doesn’t allow women. Sister Mary Alice is…a helper?”

  The nun smirked a little. “What he means to say is that they can’t seem to get me to go away. And since I’ve proven useful to them, they don’t try so hard, anymore.”

  “Useful how?” Sveta’s question was perhaps a bit blunt, and nosy, but the perky nun didn’t seem to mind.

  “Computers. I run their systems, their catalogue, generally keep their lives from retreating back into the Dark Ages.”

  A light bulb clicked on in my head. “You’re their Viljo!”

  Cameron nodded. “Yes! Exactly. Though, I’ve sparred against her, and she’s fiercer than she looks. She would be a formidable knight, if they’d allow it.”

  Sveta gave the smaller woman a speculative look then, perhaps sensing a kindred spirit. Personally, I thought the two women should get along famously, both having made places for themselves in male-dominated arenas. Lots to talk about, right there.

  “So, where do we want to go first?” The amount of energy pouring off the tiny nun made me wonder just how much good Italian espresso she’d had, already.

  “Show us things the tourists usually miss, but within walking distance. We need to be available if we get called.”

  Mary Alice – Sister Mary Alice? Sister Alice? I wasn’t sure what was proper – pursed her lip
s thoughtfully. “I’m guessing that trying out the mock gladiator training is probably not something you’re interested in, then.” Sveta snorted, and I had to chuckle a little. Yeah, that wasn’t going to end terribly or anything. “All right, let’s start with a visit to Campo de’Fiori. It’s this amazing market. We can eat samples until we get sick.”

  “Isn’t gluttony a sin?” Cameron’s smile at her was fond, and I got the impression they’d played this game before.

  “If I’m sharing, it isn’t gluttony.” And she stuck her tongue out at him. Weirdest nun ever, I decided, but I kinda liked her.

  We set out with the tiny nun in the lead, marching into oncoming traffic with little regard for our own personal safety. A horn blared, and Sister Mary Alice yelled something in Italian, which was answered loudly, and I seemed to be the only one who thought this was strange. Several blocks later, when the process had repeated itself several times, I finally had to ask.

  “Okay, is no one going to talk about why the nun is cussing at people?”

  The sister held up a finger, never breaking stride. “First, I’m not cussing. I’m wishing them a blessed day in a very aggressive manner. Second,” she added another finger, “as small as I am, if I wasn’t loud, no one would see me and I’d have been run over years ago.”

  “Well, okay then.” What else could I say to that? Cameron shot me a grin over his shoulder. He’d been dying to introduce this strange, fiery woman into my life, I could just tell.

  Our walk took us over the Tiber River, and we paused on the bridge for a few minutes to watch the small boats trundle up and down the waterway.

  Sister Mary Alice sighed happily. “I just love this river. It has its own moods, its own temperament, and it changes as the light does. I could sit here for hours and just watch.” Next, she pointed out several buildings that were visible from our vantage point. “There are so many little museums and shops that we can duck into, after the market. If you see something that looks interesting, just give a shout out and we’ll stop.”

  Sveta muttered something under her breath, and Ivan chuckled softly, answering her in Ukrainian. I was really starting to get annoyed with being left out of the conversations around me. I mean, I’d busted my ass to learn Spanish, and now they go and speak something else. How was I supposed to keep up?

  “Just gonna start talking to myself in my own made up language,” I grumbled, and Cameron rolled his eyes at me.

  “Italian isn’t very different from Spanish. I bet you could pick some up, if you tried.”

  “I have enough problems with my brain, no point in trying to cram additional languages into it just now.”

  Despite my grumbling – which was really mostly for my own amusement anyway – the morning turned out rather pleasant. Getting to the market quickly became low priority as Alice kept darting into this or that small doorway, always introducing us to a unique merchant or eclectic museum of some obscure notable. To my surprise, Sveta seemed to be getting into the whole tourist bit, even purchasing a few small things that she tucked away in a bag thrown over one shoulder.

  I kept an eye on Ivan as we meandered, but the old man seemed to be keeping up rather well. Our pace was too stop-and-go for him to truly get winded, and once that thought occurred to me, I started watching Mary Alice closer, as well. Sure enough, she would glance toward Ivan before her next tangent had us investigating some famous cobblestone or bike rack, and I realized that Cameron must have said something to her about the old man’s health. She was very carefully staging our tour with Ivan’s illness in mind. Yeah, that settled it. I liked her.

  The Campo de’Fiori was everything she promised, once we reached it. Vendor tents were strewn about the square, surrounding a statue of a hooded figure, head bowed and a book clasped in his hands.

  “That is Giordano Bruno,” Alice explained when I asked. “He was a philosopher who was burnt as a heretic on that very spot.”

  “Oh, that’s right. I remember him.” At one time in my life, I’d thought getting a degree in philosophy was going to mean something to my future career path. I hadn’t been very sure what that path was exactly, but to a young, foolish man, it had seemed intellectual and romantic. Yeah, lookit me use my degree now.

  If my memory of my very-distant education served, Bruno had been burned for contradicting the Catholic Church on some of their major tenets, as well as a then-scandalous view of astronomy and the makeup of the universe. Which had, in time since, proven to be true.

  I shook my head as we passed the statue, giving the silent observer a small salute. “Guess you can say you told them so, now.”

  The market was just crowded enough to make you real friendly with your neighbor, and I smirked to myself when my eye caught the furtive gesture of a pickpocket, lifting the wallet of a tourist about ten yards ahead of us. That thief melted back into the crowd, but once I knew what to look for, I could pick out the stealthy movements of at least four more in our vicinity. None of them came near us, however, and the only time that one found himself in our path, he took one look at Sveta and literally turned on his heel and ran the other way.

  The Ukrainian woman chuckled under her breath, proving that she’d been watching the pickpocket crew the same as I was. Mary Alice must have picked up on it too, because she glanced back at us with a look of embarrassment. “Sorry. It’s a thing that happens.”

  “Not to us, apparently.” Was I okay with a bunch of thieves working the crowd? No, not really. But there were only three of us that I trusted to be able to fight, and that wasn’t a battle I wanted to pick just now.

  “Do these tents remain here all of the time?” Sveta asked, munching on a piece of bread that she’d dipped in olive oil from one of the sample trays lining the walkway.

  Sister Mary Alice shook her head. “No, they’ll pack up soon and make way for other things. Footy games, sometimes, and then the little cafes will put tables out for people to sit and eat. At night, it turns into a kind of night-club type atmosphere. We wouldn’t want to come here, then. It’s kind of dangerous. Lots of bad elements come out with the dark.”

  Sveta grinned at that, and I pointed a stern finger at her. “No. Bad Sveta.”

  She gave me her best innocent eyes, which still sent a shiver down my back. “I have done nothing wrong.”

  “You were thinking about it.” She didn’t disagree with me.

  No matter what the feisty little nun said about the dangers of the evening crowds, the pre-lunch set seemed harmless enough. We were surrounded by tourists and locals, church groups and mothers with five kids in tow. I picked out the accents and languages of at least four different nations, and everyone seemed extraordinarily happy to be there. That’s why the tingle up the back of my neck caught me by surprise. It couldn’t be the pickpockets, who hadn’t set off so much as a glimmer of notice from my passengers. It had to be something else. Something worse.

  I stopped in my tracks, forcing Ivan to stop short as well or bounce off of me. Sveta, one stride ahead now, turned back with a frown. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know.” My danger sense, the little extra warning I’d come to rely on so heavily, had gone haywire when I became keeper of the souls. But what I couldn’t see, my passengers often did. Right now, I knew that the white tattoos on my shoulders were slowly creeping up the back of my neck, spreading into my hair invisibly. They were preparing for something. “Keep an eye out, something’s up.”

  Instantly, the two Ukrainians went on hard alert. Sveta’s hand rested at her right hip, and I had no doubt she could produce some kind of weapon there at a second’s notice. Ivan’s white brows drew together as he did a slow turn, surveying the crowd around us.

  Cam and Alice, now yards ahead of us, turned when they realized we weren’t following. “Jesse?”

  I didn’t answer, my own gaze sweeping through the horde of unfamiliar faces that surrounded us. Suddenly, it didn’t seem so cheerful anymore. I felt Sveta’s hand come to rest at the small of my b
ack, subtle pressure prompting me to turn. She kept her eyes on me, but tilted her head ever so slightly to my left, and I fake-casually let my eyes drift in that direction.

  There was no reason to notice the man. He had his back to us, the hood of his sweatshirt drawn up so that I couldn’t even see his hair. He stood alone in the throng, no friends with him that I could see, his shoulders hunched like he was maybe doing something with his phone. Just a lone figure creating an island in the sea of people. A dude, just like any other dude.

  But the longer we watched, the stranger it got. He didn’t move. I mean, at all. Never raised his head to glance around, never checked his watch, never scratched an itch. The crowd moved around him, jostling him from time to time, and he resolutely held his place as if that was the last cobblestone on the planet. Either that, or he knew we were watching him. With his back turned, the only way he could know that was if he had a friend somewhere else in the crowd telling him.

  The souls sent pin pricks of discomfort across my shoulders and down my arms, my torso tingling like mild electric shock. “We need to go.”

  Sveta and Ivan didn’t question it, and we all spun in unison to start marching our way out of the now-confining horde of innocent bystanders.

  “What’s going on?” We brushed past Cameron, who at least followed along behind, towing a very puzzled nun with him.

  The street was less crowded, and we took a hard left without even talking about it, Sveta leading now. Ivan’s long coat flapped around his legs as we took long strides, just shy of actually running.