Battista screamed as the force hit him, as his body curled in half, as he hit the floor once again.
“Aurelia.” Her name slipped from his lips as the blackness took him.
Pain. First came the pain upon his skin.
Battista lay on the floor, not trying to get up, hands reaching to his face and the skin that burned as if the fire had devoured him. His face stung at the touch, but his skin was still smooth, still intact, merely scorched raw by the explosion.
With a quavering breath, a groan of exertion, he pulled himself up to a sitting position, raising his knees and dropping his head between them as he whirled from the effort.
“Aurelia!” He called her name, her well-being the second thought to batter his already-battered mind. Receiving no answer, he called again, and yet again. But still her voice he did not hear. The vaguest recollection came to him, of her face, more than one of them, blurry in the haze and chaos of the explosions.
As soon as his body allowed, as soon as the nauseating dizziness subsided, Battista rolled up to his feet, brushing at the burn holes upon his shirt and breeches, feeling for the satchel about his shoulder, and looking about.
Smoke and sparks filled the air, but the river of gold no longer existed—no longer burned—only a small fire rustled, flames sputtering as they clung to life, where the pool of gold had been. He could barely see through the miasma filling the air.
Battista shoved his hands into his hair, eyes bulging as they racked backward.
He couldn’t see the painting; the fire must have destroyed it. He walked forward, stumbling in disbelief, breath hitching with incoherent protests.
“Aurelia!” he cried once more, needing her to be there, unable to bear the loss of both, her and the painting. All he had hoped for Firenze, his homeland, would be lost. And yet it paled in comparison. He had sacrificed too much this time.
Battista moved closer to the small blaze popping and crackling as the last vestiges of liquid caught and flamed. Behind him, a ribbon of soot curled along the floor where the river of gold had been. In front of him—
“Dio mio!” Battista cried out, hand clenching his chest, heart bursting with equal parts revelation and rapture.
A few feet beyond the fire, the painting sat upon its tripod, still in existence, still in perfect condition. He could not make out the details through the smoke, an ever-billowing cloud rising from the small fire, thicker and thicker. He could not see it clearly, though he saw no soot stains, no black-charred splotches.
“Aurelia!” Battista stepped around the small fire, waving his hand to dissipate the blinding smoke, coughing on it nonetheless. “Aurelia! It’s here.”
No answer came; he turned from the silence, refusing it and what it meant.
As he neared the painting, an especially dense pocket of air nearly devoured it, the haze of smoke thicker than ever. Fearing he would lose it, that it would somehow disappear beyond the vapor, Battista rushed forward.
“Aur—”
Her name died on his tongue, for there she was in front of him ... in the painting.
His knees broke ... his legs wobbled ... failing him.
Battista toppled to the floor, stricken gaze frozen on the canvas above him.
“What madness is this?” He shook his head, denying what he saw, looking away, for the vision burned his eyes, scarred his mind. “Dear Lord, what madness is this?”
He gawked at the center panel of the triptych ... the green gown, the three women, the palazzo behind them.
Battista stared into Aurelia’s face; he knew it as assuredly as he knew his own name, as he would know the face of his mother.
Upper lip curling, barely containing his cries, Battista dared to look up once more.
He gasped for breath, unable to tell if his heart crashed or stopped. Aurelia’s changeable eyes looked down at him, dark and bereft of the glimmer of mischief that had come into them since she had met him. Teeth together, lips open, the full upper lip dominating the luscious mouth.
And there was the relic, the long, narrow piece of sculpted stone covered with hieroglyphics, gently pointed at one end, curved in an almost-circular curl at the other. He saw it in her hand, or did he? The object glowed from the center of the painting—as if it came away from it—at the very center of her body, but its radiance distorted the details, and he could not differentiate if her hands held it, if it hovered in the air in front of her or just behind her. With what he saw with a squinty-eyed glare, the main figure appeared slightly translucent as well, though not as lucent as the two on the sides.
Battista rubbed his eyes, achy with effort to see, and lifted on his knees, staring now at the two women beside her. Faintly though they were rendered—their translucence a statement of their transitory existence—just a portion of their faces visible behind the first, it was clearly the same face ... the same woman. They were all Aurelia.
Thirty-one
Behold a God more powerful than I
who comes to rule over me
—La Vita Nuova
“What madness is this?” Battista said yet again, still upon Whis knees, crawling forward toward the painting. He asked himself the question, for he thought himself alone. He was not.
She stepped softly up behind him, as hesitant to disturb as to approach. Aurelia wanted no more of this. If she possessed the power to turn time in upon itself, no matter the danger, she would have done it gladly.
Battista reached up, two quivering hands reaching for each side of the painting.
“I cannot allow you to do that, Battista.”
With a relieved cry, he flinched round. But she held him fast ... with the tip of a dagger.
“Please, don’t.” Silent tears slipped down her face, her voice thick with emotion. If she must kill him, she could not glimpse his face again, could not bear the beauty and the pain of it.
“Aurelia, amore mia, thank God you are alive.” The harsh prick of the dagger stabbed him in the neck and his lyrical relief turned into a grating hiss. “What is this? What are you doing?”
“I did not choose to be who I am.” Her voice trembled with emotion and she released her head back on her neck, looking to the heavens for the strength to continue. “No, Battista, do not turn.”
But turn he did, refusing to accept her threat, eyes bulging at the blade—one of his own—pressed to his throat. Aurelia swallowed hard as the tip of shiny steel dented the soft stubbled skin below his chin. She had never seen such anger, such disillusion, in the warm eyes turned hard, flicking from the dagger to her face and back again.
Pressing his hands against his thighs, Battista made to stand.
Aurelia thrust herself forward, pressing the blade farther, until a tiny drop of blood, brilliantly red in the surreal gray world, trickled out, running down skin she once caressed.
“No, I cannot allow you to stand.” Aurelia shook her head; she pleaded, but did not care. She could not allow him the advantage of his size.
“You betray me?” he asked with a barely contained growl, inching toward her on his knees.
Aurelia shook her head again, her hair flying about in the air full of smoke and the scent of acidic flame. “Yes,” she answered with fretful dichotomy. “But not for any reason you imagine.”
“You make no sense,” he barked at her, dark eyes black.
“I did not choose to be who I am, what I am, but to my truth I am, and will always be, faithful.”
Battista’s large hands fisted at his sides. He could fell her with one perfectly aimed blow, but he would not.
“Stop speaking to me in riddles.” He unfurled one fist to point at the smoke-screened canvas. “Is that you?”
Aurelia held her chin high, her eyes narrowing with tenacity. “It is.”
She took a step back, the dagger pointed still at his throat, needing space in which to reveal herself and her truth.
“I am a guardian, Battista.”
“A guar—”
“One of a lon
g line of guardians,” she stifled him, “created to guard the artifact. As were those who came before me and those who will come after.”
Battista’s gaze darted to her face and the three mirror images on the canvas.
“Your French king was correct, Battista.” Her words brought him back. He slithered toward her and she scuttled away. “The piece you seek does indeed hold commanding powers, a domination never meant for men of this world.”
“Then why ... what?!” he stumbled and sniped.
“It was created in an age when gods and goddesses walked the earth, those you would call by the names of Zeus, Apollo, Aphrodite, and others like them. It is to be used only should the time come to defend this world from those that would come from others. But its power was too great. It brought one man to destruction, then was buried by the same who wielded it. He destroyed himself, but only after killing he who created it.”
“Praxi—”
“Sì.” Aurelia nodded. “Your king knew much, too much by far. Praxiteles knew of the others and their ways, knew that they could overpower those of our world. With his knowledge, that gleaned from the others themselves, he created the one weapon capable of defeating them. It was never meant for one man to wield it against another.” She shook her head, wiping her moist forehead, creased with worry. “But like all things great, man found a way to abuse it. Like me, all guardians are meant to protect it, to keep it from ever falling into the hands of man again unless its true moment should ever arise. We are unaffected by the relic’s power, it does not corrupt us. And therefore only we can keep it from all those who would be corrupted. “
“But Giotto ...”
Aurelia’s anger rose bitterly in her throat and she swallowed against it. “Giotto, yes. I do not know how he came to be involved. Those who help us—”
“The marquess of Mantua?”
“Yes, the marquess and those of his family line, the woman in Florence, they are all members of the Brotherhood of the Guardians. We can only surmise the artist somehow learned of the piece and its location.” Aurelia pursed her lips like a mother speaking of an errant child. “What impelled him to produce these paintings I do not know. It is clear he worked in collusion with Dante and those of the Brotherhood, but, thankfully, they possessed the foresight to make the finding difficult. But I ... we were told they had been destroyed long ago.”
“Again?” Battista eyed her coldly, hands pressed to his temples. “You said, to keep it from falling into the hands of man again. What did you mean?”
Her head fell with the weight of man’s history, with the devastation that comes from the misuse of power, and the pain it caused. Aurelia shook her head, peering at him through the top of her eyes. “I cannot bear to speak of it. You have heard the names, Attila, Caligula ... and others yet, but only a few. My sisters died in the moments of their triumphs.”
Aurelia sucked in her breath, set her shoulders back, and lifted her head, a blaze of determination in her eye. “I cannot, I will not, allow it to happen again. If victory is to be had, it must be obtained through one’s own actions, deservedly or not at all. Your François was not meant to possess it. No man who would fight another is. What occurs between him and the king of Spain must follow the path meant for them to take. No matter the cost. No matter our cost.”
Battista scowled at her. “And this ... this object. It holds such powers? Gives such powers to he who wields it?”
“It is true, Battista, though I see your doubt.” She leaned toward him, piercing him with her gaze. “Think of all we have seen? Think of the air ships? Would you have believed any of it until you lived it for yourself?”
Battista opened his mouth, yet remained speechless. His dark eyes, their whites shot through with threads of red, scoured about for something tangible. Waves of disbelief and acceptance crested over his red-splotched face. She would convince him; she must.
“Look at me, Battista.” Aurelia stepped to him and held her other hand out, resting it upon his head as his skeptical gaze rose up. “Close your eyes and look at me.”
He opened his mouth as if to refute the illogical command, the words dying in his throat. She pushed with her mind, his eyes closed with a flutter, and his body stiffened.
As if struck, his head flinched back, and he pushed her hand off.
“What ... what was that?”
Aurelia smiled, though there was much sadness in it. “That—was me.”
Battista’s gaze locked upon hers; he sidled away on his knees. “I cannot bear this, Aurelia. It is too much.” Bending at the waist, he plunked his head in his hands.
“You can and you must.”
“Why, Aurelia?” Battista straightened of a sudden and grabbed the hand he had brushed away, squeezing it as if to break the small bones. “Why did you come on this quest? Why did you help me? Would it not have been easier to simply allow me to fail? I must have the truth.”
Aurelia laughed bitterly, a scathing condemnation of her own actions. “I did not intend to help you, not at first. In fact, I meant to hinder you. That conversation you overheard ... in Florence ...” She hung her head in the shame of her perfidy. “... I plotted against you, as you surmised, working with others to find the paintings before you did.”
With her free hand, she reached for him, her palm flattening against his chest where his heart thudded against his ribs. He let her, and with the capitulation a tear escaped her eye, her battle with her sorrow abandoned.
“I used you, Battista,” her voice warbled, her hand fluttered. “Yes, to help me find the paintings, for there was no one better to do so. But I used you for myself as well. To show me a life I have never known ... I have never been allowed to know.”
She smiled timidly, unsuccessful at stemming the grin as she had the tears.
“And at that, you were the best as well.”
His chest hitched beneath her hand, what lived between them prodigious to them both.
“And now I must use you again.”
Her green gaze turned from his glower to the faint vision of the painting.
“You must help me destroy it. We must destroy all of them, once and for all.”
Thirty-two
A fair request should be followed by the deed in silence
—Inferno
The inky world burned red, raw, and stained by the fierceness of his anger.
Her lies, her betrayal, he longed to scream against it, the spew of it rumbling in his chest. And yet Battista could not doubt all that his own eyes had seen, all he had experienced, what had overcome him as her hand rested upon his head.
“How can I trust you?” It was a scathing rejoinder more than a question, and yet he looked to her, to the face of inhuman beauty, as if for an answer.
“For the sake of—”
“All I have done has been for the sake of Florence, of others!” he shouted. “You know of my dedication, and yet you ask for more?”
Aurelia looked to the heavens as she bit her lip. “I know, Battista, I know of your selflessness. But this you must do, you must trust me, for the sake of mankind.”
She lowered the dagger aimed at his throat, holding both arms out, laying herself at his mercy.
Battista moved not an inch; her plea provoked him, her openness beckoned him. But what he had seen her do—the killing committed by the same hand gripping the dagger—restrained him.
As if she read his thoughts, she released the dagger, sent it to clatter upon the stone, and reached out a hand, pulling on him, urging him to stand. For the sake of petulance alone, he could have denied her, but instead he allowed her to guide him to his feet.
Exhaustion made him heavy; he dragged against it as if it meant to keep him tethered to the ground. Battista closed his eyes, head dropping to his chest. He had the strength to overcome her easily, to take the painting—all of them—away and find the artifact with their clues, relieving her of her post and her burden. Battista stumbled away from her, from the small fire vomiting the thic
k smoke that enveloped the painting.
“The time must be now, Battista. There are too many others who know of the paintings’ existence ... your French king ... whoever sent Balda—that other.”
Aurelia bungled the name, tripping upon the essence of a life she herself had ended, pointing at the painting vaguely visible now through the thickening haze. They would lose it soon, in the engulfing smoke. She knew that if the vapor swallowed it completely, they would stumble off the edge of the roof before they found it again, lost in the failure of reaching Paradise.
“I don’t—”
“There is no time!” she screamed at him.
Aurelia jumped forward, grabbed his hand, and shoved it onto her body, pushing it hard against the soft flesh of her stomach.
It came upon him again, the feeling of ultimate possession, of external control by another. But he saw not the ephemeral blazing white form of Aurelia, but blood ... everywhere blood. Dismembered bodies, torn limbs, cities set afire, blood flooding and staining the streets, turning the world to a crimson calamity.
“No!” he screamed.
With a wrench, he pulled away, feet buckling as he staggered backward.
With one graceful move, Aurelia skipped forward, bent, scooped up the dagger, and raised it up before her face.
“You have two choices, Battista, and only two.”
She stomped toward him, face set with such strength of purpose, her skin stretched taut across the sharp bones.
“You must help me destroy the paintings. Or you must plunge this dagger into my heart. For the only way to leave here, alive, with those paintings, and obtain the relic ... is to kill me.”
Battista threw his hands out before him, shaking them as if he washed the air before him clean, taking yet two more steps backward. He was done with this quest, with this mission, and wanted no part of it. Did he destroy the only love he had ever known, betray him though she had, or did he risk the fate of Florence, the constant love throughout his life?
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