by Tal Bauer
Lotario pulled the last cigarette from his pack with his lips and threw the empty behind him to the backseat, where it landed in a pile of discarded cigarette packs, fast food wrappers, and old newspapers. “Amen,” he grunted around the cigarette, lighting it one-handed as he shifted the car into drive. They puttered down the main parkway toward Rome, back to the Vatican.
To home.
* * *
Saint Martha’s residence, tucked along the edge of the Vatican to the south of St. Peter’s Basilica, housed a handful of the bishops and archbishops who called the Eternal City home within its gilded walls.
Only five hundred people lived full time within the Holy See. Of those five hundred, a third were members of the Curia, the Holy City’s government, both of the state and the church. The rest, mostly Swiss Guards, lived in the barracks. The Secretariat, the Vatican’s office of the secretary of state, housed a handful of diplomat priests in the Holy City, in support of their nunciatures around the world. A scattering of priests, nuns, monks, seminarians, and habits dotted the Vatican grounds. The pope and the cardinal secretary of state for the Holy See lived in the Apostolic Palace overlooking St. Peter’s Square.
Archbishop Santino Acossio, the number two man in the Vatican Secretariat, lived alone in Saint Martha’s in a three-thousand-square-foot apartment, decked with handwoven rugs from the thirteenth-century Orient, hand-carved furniture from the Merovingian kingdom in France’s history, and ornamented with Renaissance artwork. Such were the slim pickings from the Vatican warehouse, the repository of mostly-baroque furniture and priceless art for the highest-ranking Vatican officials to pick and choose from as they outfitted their homes.
Original Michelangelo sketches, framed in gold, adorned the walls. Bramante’s charcoal designs for St. Peter’s Basilica hung opposite a picture window overlooking the Basilica’s dome and the Arch of the Bells. Every hour, the bells tolled, a peal that quaked the bones of every soul in the Vatican.
The residence was dark at three in the morning, save for lit candles warming the windows of Santino’s apartment. Heavy curtains concealed his apartment from wandering eyes lifting up from the Arch of the Bells.
As Santino watched, a curl of smoke rose from a black candle, centered in the middle of a circle laid from melted silver burned into the floor, then covered with salt. A pentagram drawn in chalk lay within the circle, runes sketched out on each arm. Incense wafted from thuribles hanging in the corners, wormwood, yew, and willow mixed with mold and rot scraped from the edge of a grave. Black and white candles sat at the four cardinal directions, next to shallow bowls spattered with drops of blood.
Santino stood outside the circle. He wore his black cassock, his Roman collar, his scarlet fascia. He’d taken off his pectoral cross for this. He held a jagged black blade made from a human arm bone. His blood stained the blade’s edge.
Black smoke rising from the candle tumbled and roiled, coalesced in the center of the circle. A twisted face pushed out of the darkness. Deathly pale, the face hardened, becoming a perfect parody of a smiling Venetian mask, porcelain smooth with empty, open eyes. The smoke fluttered into the vague shape of a dark body, incorporeal, insubstantial, hovering in the center of the circle.
The being tilted its head and lifted one wraith-like arm, shadows tumbling from the gesture. “You called me, Santino Acossio.”
“Do I speak with Asmodeus?” Santino brandished his bone blade. “Do I speak with a prince of Hell, Asmodeus, the ruler of passions?”
One shadowed arm drifted lazily around the inside of Santino’s circle. Sparks burst in its path. “You do speak with Asmodeus.”
Santino lowered the blade and bowed, touching his forehead to the bloody bone. “Asmodeus,” he breathed, “I give you my honor and my worship.”
Asmodeus smiled. The demon traveled the inside of the circle, tracing a smoke arm over the entire perimeter. Sparks rained like fireworks within the silver and salt circle. “Your circle is strong. You have prepared well.”
Santino stayed silent.
“Why have you summoned me?” Asmodeus spun and pressed his face against the silver and salt line, staring into Santino’s eyes. “What do you want?”
Santino sank to his knees, bowing. His body protested his, his knees screaming. He was an old man, an old man running out of time. “Asmodeus,” he pleaded, his voice shaking. “I was told to summon you. I was told you would have something for me.”
“Something for you?” Asmodeus’s mask face cocked to the side, an almost playful expression. A tiny laugh, distant-sounding and childish, fell from its thin mouth.
“A mission,” Santino stuttered. “A duty, for your purposes.”
“And who would have told you this?”
“I have spoken to Astaroth.” Santino inhaled, holding his breath. “He said he has given you a task. That you are working on an important project. Something that requires help. I can help. I can—”
“Do not presume to know the workings of demons!” Asmodeus bellowed. “Do not presume to know that of which you are ignorant, human!” The smoke rumbled, thunder cracking within the circle, the shifting blackness rubbing against a palpable darkness. The scrape of iron against stone echoed through the apartment. “You know nothing, Santino Acossio.”
Santino fell forward, prostrating before the demon Asmodeus. “Forgive me, prince of Hell,” he whispered. “Forgive me. I only wish to serve. I only wish to do my part.”
Asmodeus settled in the smoke, backing down until he was floating just above the floorboards, seemingly kneeling with Santino. “And what,” the demon whispered, face rolling to one side, “would a helpful archbishop desire in exchange for his services?”
“Power.” Santino pushed himself up, his hands scrabbling on the Oriental rug beneath him, tearing tufts of priceless silk from the weave. “I want to hold the office of Secretariat of State. I want to run the Vatican.” He was so close, but the years were running out of his life like sand emptying from an hourglass. He was going to die, and his life’s work would be for nothing if he didn’t make it to the top. If he didn’t make an impact upon the world. A man’s deeds lived on long after him, and when a man was in charge of the affairs of eternity, well—
He’d made his peace with the price he had to pay to make his indelible mark on eternity.
Dark chuckles rumbled from the smoke. Overlaid, a second giggle, high pitched like a little child, singsonged from somewhere far away. “It would be most beneficial to have the second-in-command of the Vatican aligned with us.”
“And, maybe one day…” Santino bared his teeth. “To be in charge of the Vatican. The papacy!”
Asmodeus drew back, the smoke folding in on itself and whispering down into the candle’s black flame. “You shall have your mission, Archbishop. You may yet prove useful.” Asmodeus’s pale face, the apparition’s mask, was swallowed by the darkness, pulled backward and torn apart by the shadows, disappearing into the candle’s demon light. “We will be with you,” the smoke whispered. “We will be in contact.”
The candle sputtered, flickering in the sudden stillness of the circle and the whisper of Asmodeus’s final words.
Santino stared at the candle, at the wavering flame, as he tried to catch his breath.
It worked. It had truly worked. He’d summoned—
The candle’s flame winked out.
Chapter Two
Sergeant Alain Autenburg wiped his hands down his dress uniform, trying to smooth the wrinkles from his cropped jacket. He’d meant to steam it, but between the revenant attack and everything else, he hadn’t had time. Besides, he never wore the Swiss Guards’ duty uniform anymore. The regular uniform was not subtle.
The halberdiers—the lowest ranked members of the Swiss Guard—wore a modified Renaissance outfit: garishly striped red, yellow, and blue fabric, ballooning sleeves and pant legs puffing out from shoulders and hips before coming in tight around the forearms and calves. The halberdiers were forever catching their uni
forms on doorknobs around the Vatican.
Day to day, Alain wore the all-black suit of the clergy, and he looked just like a priest, as long as someone didn’t look too closely at the missing Roman collar. He hadn’t had to wear his Swiss Guard uniform for a whole year. Since last May 6th.
Another year, another ceremony. Alain glared at the wrinkles, the dust that clung to the year-old creases. Instead of the red, yellow, and blue of the halberdiers, his uniform was deep maroon and black. His jacket, cropped at his waist and tight across his torso, was black, while his sleeves—puffed like a princess gown to his elbows and then tightened to his forearm with laces—were a mixture of black and maroon stripes. Likewise, his pants, deep maroon, were made of bell-shaped stripes gathered together at his knees. Skin-tight maroon hose stretched to his feet.
A thick leather belt cinched at his waist, his dress sword hanging from his hip. He shoved it to the side and tried to cover the unpolished hilt with his elbow. He’d meant to get everything ready the night before, dammit. Alain grabbed his beret, tugging it to the right until it was just barely hanging on his head and pulled it over his eyebrow. His hair, a dark, wild bird’s nest, fought back.
Thank God he didn’t have to wear this getup every day.
His black-on-black suit was infinitely better than the halberdiers’ daily uniform. He’d suffered through that uniform for a year until his rushed promotion and his new duties became a full-time mission. The halberdiers—ninety percent of the Swiss Guard—wore the red, yellow, and blue ensemble, complete with puffy, striped sleeves, ballooning pants, and striped gaiters over black pointed boots, every day while at their posts inside the Vatican. The lucky few guarding St. Anne’s Gate wore the blue uniforms—a simple coverall tricked up with a dainty white collar.
But today, everyone was decked out in their full finery. Even the steel armor was coming out, chestplates and shoulder pauldrons tied on tight over everything. On everyone’s head, their morion, topped with an ostrich plume. Everyone would be looking their best.
Everyone except Alain. He hadn’t even ironed his uniform. And his armor was unpolished, still sitting in the armory. He couldn’t even get to it now.
If he stood at the very back of the ceremony, out of the way, maybe no one would notice his complete failure.
Drum rolls in the courtyard made him run, storm down the stairs in the officer’s barracks and leap down the last few steps. Outside, in the courtyard of the Swiss Guard, the squad leaders marched the halberdiers out for the officers’ review. Lining the courtyard were everyone’s families, and seated in a place of honor, a mass of priests, bishops, and archbishops who had come to watch the annual ceremony.
Alain froze. There, in the center of the red carpet spread out for the guests of honor, the Holy Father stood, applauding the marching halberdiers with a beaming smile stretching his wrinkled face.
Fuck. No one had told him the Holy Father would be there. He glared down at his sloppy uniform. Looking slovenly in front of the entire Guard and the upper crust of the Roma Curia was one thing. But the pope?
Nothing to be done now. He slipped across the courtyard, bisecting the procession, skipping in front of the families, and cutting behind the honored guests. He kept his head down, trying to hide his face.
He felt the burning stares of four hundred eyeballs digging into his back.
Alain popped to attention at the end of the line of non-commissioned officers. He stared straight ahead, his jaw locked.
Disdain wafted across the courtyard, prickling the hairs on the back of his neck. Major Luca Bader turned his head, fractional inches that Alain swore he could hear, the bones in Luca’s neck grinding as he looked him up and down. Alain stared back.
Raw, undisguised loathing slammed into him as Luca curled his lips. A snort, and then Luca looked away, his chin held high, his jaw clenching in time to the rolling drum beat. Alain closed his eyes, letting the crack of the drums beat against his soul and the rough bellow of the oath of enlistment roll over him.
One by one, the new recruits—thirty-six this year—strode forward, marching in stiff movements that clanked and rattled their gleaming armor. One of the sergeants held the flag of the Swiss Guard in the center of the yard. Each recruit grasped it in one hand and punched the sky with the other, holding three fingers aloft before belting out the oath, promising to give their life for the pope and for the church.
The Holy Father nodded and smiled to each man as he watched them swear their lives to his.
Since 1506, the soldiers of the Swiss Guard had formed the smallest standing army in the world. One hundred and fifty Swiss men guarded the life of the pope in an unbroken stretch of history. Bought and paid for by Pope Julius II, convinced he was about to be invaded and destroyed, the first soldiers of the Swiss Guard proved their worth at the Stand of the Swiss Guard on May 6, 1527. One hundred and forty-seven of the two hundred Swiss Guards fought and died in the brutal sack of Rome and the Vatican, slaughtered on the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica. They gave their lives in sacrifice to forty-two of their comrades, rushing Pope Clement VII across the passetto di Borgo to Castel Sant’Angelo, where Pope Clement VII hid in exile as the Vatican burned. The survivors of the Guard sheltered his life in hiding for a year. And from that day forward, the Swiss Guard never left the Holy Father’s side.
There weren’t any invaders of Rome or pillagers sacking the Vatican these days. The Swiss Guard stood ceremonial postings at the Apostolic Palace, secured the inner reaches of the Vatican, and were the Holy Father’s close personal bodyguards. They ran by the popemobile, walked beside him in the crowds, and the commandant and captains traveled with the pope overseas. And, when bullets flew toward Pope John Paul II, it was the Swiss Guard who threw themselves on top of the Holy Father, shielding him with their lives.
As the recruits moved through their oaths, one man caught Alain’s eyes. He was tall, with a lithe strength perfectly highlighted by the close cut of the uniform. His voice was strong, clipped Swiss German rolling over the cobblestones. There was something there, though, some depth to his voice, a growl in his throat, that caught Alain’s attention.
For a moment only.
He let his eyes drift over the recruit and then close as he repeated the words of the oath under his breath, thirty-six times. Twelve years ago, he’d taken his own oath as a fresh-faced, wide-eyed child, twenty-two years old, barely out of Swiss army training. Luca Bader had been his friend then, and they’d stayed up all night before their oath, drinking cheap wine in the barracks and talking about sacrifice and all they wanted to accomplish in their lives.
Twelve years. Everything—every single thing—was different from what he’d dreamed. Even Luca, who he thought would be his friend until the end of time. Alain’s eyes wandered over the back of Luca’s helmet, watching the flicker and twitch of his aubergine plume. Twelve years, and Luca had rocketed up the ranks. Now he was Major Luca Bader, second-in-command.
And Alain was the eternal sergeant in charge of Special Projects, a duty so droll sounding and distasteful no one bothered him. No one was the wiser to his true duties, save for the commandant and the Holy Father, the only two people he reported to directly.
It must drive Luca insane. To be so powerful and yet still be locked out of Alain’s secrets. He’d hated those secrets, bitterly so, and it had been the crushing weight of everything Alain kept from him that had sent them so terribly sideways for over a decade.
Finally, the oaths were done and the halberdiers were marched back into their formation. The rat-a-tat-tat of the drums beat on, and then Luca barked out everyone’s orders. The formation of guards snapped to attention as the Holy Father stood. He waved down the crowds’ applause, smiling his shy smile before launching into his homily.
Even though the Swiss Guard barracks and the courtyard were only just on the other side of the high stone walls separating the Vatican from the tumult and cacophony of Rome, it seemed as though the entire world had gone silent and their
ancient corner of the Holy See was a medieval village locked in time. The three barracks buildings rose and enclosed the ceremony, their cracked maroon paint flecking off in centuries-old clumps. Narrow, cramped windows—former archers’ windows—overlooked the central courtyard. Limp flags from the cantons the guards hailed from in Switzerland hung in the stale air. At one end of the courtyard, a fountain burbled and, set above it, a marble relief of a medieval Swiss Guard, clad in armor and wielding a broadsword, glared over the ceremony. Patria Memor was carved into the stone. Remember country. Remember home.
Centuries ago, it was a guardsman who invented the word nostalgia. Nostos, meaning sickness, and algos, meaning a longing for home. That guard had been struggling to describe the sickening loss he felt, his ceaseless pain and the aching, heart-scratching loneliness he carried inside. He’d had to create a new word to capture that exquisite longing, the desperate yearning for something he could never have, and the soul-deep purity of his despair.
Alain knew exactly how that felt.
A shadow crossed over his face. He blinked and looked up, squinting as the sun slid behind the Apostolic Palace. Rising above the barracks, the papal apartments within the Apostolic Palace loomed, a sheer cliff rising just beyond their cramped courtyard, breathtakingly close. Alain watched the pope’s third-story bedroom window curtains flutter. With an easy throw, he could lob a stone into the Holy Father’s bedchamber.
The Holy Father blessed the crowd and then the Swiss Guard, thanking them for their oaths and their passion before closing and dismissing the ceremony. Applause rose, family members cheering. Halberdiers dispersed, the youngest and newest going to their families while the veterans stood stiffly to the side and counted the minutes until they could shed their pinching armor.
Alain backed away. If he could slip out unnoticed, maybe the commandant wouldn’t see his dreadful failure in his appearance. Besides, there was work to be done. The revenant, and so much more. He didn’t have time to linger.