by Tal Bauer
“Sergeant Autenburg!” Commandant Gaëtan Best’s crisp voice broke over the din of the crowd.
Alain cringed. He spun on his heel. “Commandant?” He ignored the way Best’s face creased as he took in Alain’s sloppy uniform and his distinct lack of armor.
“Sergeant, come.” The commandant gestured for him, and one hand rose to the shoulder of a young Swiss Guard recruit standing at his side. “I have someone I want you to meet.”
Alain strode forward. Wariness stole through him as he took in the man beside Commandant Best. It was the same recruit who’d caught his eye during the swearing in. He was older than the others, but still younger than Alain. Mid-twenties. He was tall, the long lines of the uniform only accentuating his height. Swiss blue eyes squinted back at Alain and a square German jaw with a dimpled, blunt chin finished the man’s chiseled face.
A distant part of Alain recognized he was attractive, but he’d ignored that part of himself for so long, the thought was more of a passing observation, a spare thought lost amid his mental notes about the laundry, revenants and ghouls, and his pile of dishes still to wash.
“Ah,” the commandant said, smiling at Alain. He clapped Alain on the shoulder, the same way he had the younger guard, holding both men in his grasp. “Halberdier Cristoph Hasse, I’d like you to meet Sergeant Alain Autenburg. He will be your mentor for your first year in the Guard.”
Alain’s head whipped around so fast he thought he’d snapped his neck. He must have misheard. He didn’t mentor anyone. He couldn’t. Besides, he practically wasn’t in the Swiss Guard at all anymore, not with his special duties. He had no interaction with the rest of the Guard. How could he mentor anyone into a group he didn’t belong to? He was the worst sort of role model, his current uniform a case in point. And, really, there was no time for this. “Sir?”
Commandant Best held his stare and squeezed his shoulder to the point of pain. “Sergeant, Halberdier Hasse is in special need of your counsel and your wisdom. I believe pairing the two of you will bring you both to greater success in each of your endeavors.” He smiled, but it was brittle and didn’t reach his eyes.
Cristoph Hasse stared straight ahead. His eyes flicked to Alain once, then away. His jaw clenched. Sheer misery, followed by disgust, flowed off Cristoph like the waves of the Mediterranean crashing against Italy’s barren shore.
Luca strolled up behind the commandant. He glowered at Alain. “Sergeant, I know you cannot be bothered to follow even the most basic of regulations, but even you, I thought, knew how not to embarrass yourself with your slovenly appearance.” A beat, as Luca looked Alain over, from his shoes to his beret, gone askew. “Apparently not.”
“Major.” The commandant’s bark was short.
“Sir.” It was an apology of sorts, but not to Alain.
Luca eyed Cristoph. He snorted, frowned. When he spoke next, it was in rolling French and directed to the commandant only. “Sir, may I ask what it is you’re doing here?”
The commandant answered in French, sparing Alain a quick nod. “I have decided to partner Halberdier Hasse with Sergeant Autenburg for the halberdier’s mentorship.”
Luca laughed, loud peals echoing off the cold stone walls. His French was smooth, demure, and he grinned at Alain as he spoke, all sharp teeth, his voice cutting. “Don’t you think that’s like asking the fox to guard the hen house?”
Alain looked away. Damn you, Luca. Damn you. Dread settled in his stomach. Across from him, he spied Cristoph’s eyes slide closed. His shoulders shook, though not from laughter. From rage. From wrath.
It seemed the young halberdier knew French, too. Alain shook his head. Just like Luca to assume he was better than everyone else.
Alain spoke up, his French rolling off his tongue less smoothly than the commandant or Luca. He got his point across. “Go fuck yourself, Luca.”
The commandant’s grip on his shoulder turned punishing, and he barely held in his hiss of pain. Luca turned purple, matching his feathered plume. His lips curled. “Sergeant—” Luca started.
“Enough!” The commandant growled at both of them. “Major. You are dismissed.” His eyes bored into Luca’s until the major gave a curt nod and spun on his heel.
Alain caught Cristoph’s tiny, barely-there smirk as he glanced Alain’s way.
Commandant Best finally loosened his grasp on Alain’s shoulder. “Sergeant, Halberdier Hasse is in need of mentorship. You are the mentor best suited for him. I have made my decision and it is final. You will guide this young man through his first year with us. Understood?”
Unspoken in the commandant’s words was the threat that his first year would be his only year. Sent packing if he didn’t fly right, his two-year enlistment cancelled in disgrace.
“Yes, Commandant.” He had no time for mentorship and not the first clue what to do with the young guard, but there wasn’t room to argue. “I’ll do what I can.”
The commandant nodded, clapped both men on the back, and strode off, heading for a gaggle of parents and their young recruits. He smiled and shook the parents’ hands, loudly congratulating them for their sons’ achievement in joining the Guard.
Alain shifted awkwardly next to Cristoph. The silence between them stretched long. “Do you want to see your family, Halberdier?”
Cristoph shook his head. “I have no family here.”
That brought back memories. Alain’s family hadn’t shown up on his enlistment day either. Alain’s eyes darted over the crowd, searching for an escape. His eyes caught on Luca and stuttered to a stop. Luca was rubbing elbows with the archbishops next to Chaplain Hauke Weimers. Figured. Luca never let an opportunity pass to get in front of the higher-ups.
“He’s an asshole,” Cristoph growled. He spat, lobbing a wad to the cobblestones as he glared at Luca.
“Halberdier!” Alain crowded close, looming into the younger man’s space. “Major Bader is your superior officer and you will treat him with the respect his rank affords.”
Slowly, Cristoph’s frigid blue eyes traveled up Alain’s chest, up his neck, his face, and met his gaze. They seared into Alain.
“Attention, Halberdier!” Alain barked.
Cristoph didn’t set any speed records with how he came to attention, but he stood tall and straight, his hands at his sides. He averted his gaze, a darkness falling over his eyes.
So far, his mentorship was off to a fantastic start. Alain stepped back, sighing. “Major Bader is the second-in-command of the Swiss Guard. You can’t fight him. You can’t beat him. You’ll only make yourself miserable if you try. Don’t pick that fight.”
Silence. Cristoph didn’t move a muscle.
“How did you do in your recruit training?” Recruits, prior to enlistment, went through six months of intensive Italian, Roman and Vatican etiquette, Swiss Guard history and procedures, hand-to-hand combatives, and advanced weapons training, as well as marching and specialized halberd training.
It wasn’t easy. The Swiss Guard wasn’t a theme park, and they weren’t colorful cartoon characters, props for the Vatican. Many washed out.
Cristoph nodded once. “Fine,” he said stiffly. “Top marks in all courses.”
“Mmm.” Alain covered up his impressed look. Long ago, he and Luca had jockeyed for top marks in their courses. Alain had come out on top, just barely. It hadn’t been easy, but throwing Luca down in combatives day in and day out had made up for the stress and strain. “And how are you getting along with the rest of the recruits?”
Cristoph turned a withering stare toward Alain. Alain arched his eyebrow in return. We’ll have to work on respect, for starters. No wonder Luca despised the kid. “You’re well on your way to being discharged with that attitude, Halberdier.”
“Maybe I’m fine with that.”
“It’s your first day.” Alain scrunched up his nose as he tried to puzzle the young man—contradictory and full of piss and vinegar—out. “Why take the oath? You don’t want to be here? Then don’t. No one is forcing
you. Don’t waste anyone’s time.”
Swallowing, Cristoph’s jaw clenched again, the muscles bulging outward. “I came here for a reason,” he finally growled.
“And what’s that? Wanted to be a badass? Thought this was all about dark shades and talking in hidden microphones?”
Two kinds of men joined the Swiss Guard. The adrenaline junkies, thinking they were about to be some kind of United States Secret Service Agent. Or the prophets, thinking their experience would bring them closer to God. Both were constantly, consistently disappointed.
“How much longer do I have to be here?” Cristoph glared at the small celebration taking place.
“When is your next shift? You’ll stand guard at your station now that you’re officially enlisted.” Each halberdier would stand a total of eighteen hours at a guard post for two days and then have one day off. However, when the guards were off duty, they could be immediately recalled for any reason. Overtime was an understatement. All in all, it was exhausting work.
“I’m due at the Arch of the Bells in two hours.”
“Get out of here then. And report to my office once a week. We’ll discuss your progress and… mentoring.”
Their eyes met and held before Cristoph hurried off. Alain spotted his quiet contempt buried beneath a weary resignation in the depths of his gaze.
Join the club.
Chapter Three
Alain’s body rocks a slow rhythm, hips pumping down, sliding in and out of a tight heat. Arms spread wide, fingers laced with another’s, pressing his lover’s palms down into the mattress. Lying on his lover’s back, Alain presses his lips into his lover’s hair, breaths in his scent.
Hot breath stutters out of him, whispering over the back of his lover’s neck. Eyes closed, Alain buries his face in between his shoulder blades, mouthing at the sweat-slick skin and the roll of clenching muscles. God, he loves this, loves feeling his lover’s body, loves lying across him, surrounding him, enveloping him. Holding him close.
It hasn’t been like this in years. Not since—
A moan from his lover. A deep, breathy groan, an arch of his back.
Alain’s eyes fly open.
That’s not his lover’s voice. Not the sounds his lover makes.
Pushing back, he rises just enough for Alain to get a glimpse of his partner’s face over his shoulder.
His partner twists around, looking back at Alain, but only half his face is visible. Blond hair and lightning-blue eyes stare back at him, a breathless moan pushed out between kiss-red lips.
It’s Cristoph.
Alain can’t breathe, can’t drag in air. Cristoph rocks beneath him, pushing back, driving Alain deeper inside his body. Another moan, and Cristoph’s eyes close, squeezing shut as he bites his lower lip.
“Alain…” Cristoph breathes, almost a groan. “Alain…”
This isn’t his lover. Cristoph isn’t the man he dreams about, the lover he lost so many years ago and now only sees in his dreams.
His hips drive forward again, plunging deep into Cristoph. Cristoph arches his back and his neck, his fingers squeezing Alain’s before pulling their hands in close. Alain buries his face in Cristoph’s neck again and nuzzles the short blond strands. The scent of Cristoph—green grass, sunshine, and gunpowder—sizzles down his spine. His lips move over Cristoph’s skin, warm and wet on his neck, his jaw. Cristoph turns, craning around for a press of his lips to Alain’s.
Alain should fight it. He should. Cristoph isn’t his lover.
He doesn’t have a lover anymore, except for deep in his dreams, in the dark corners of his memories, and in his deepest, most unfulfilled yearnings.
So he leans forward, driving deeper as he kisses Cristoph, kisses him until he can’t breathe.
He breaks away when his toes curl, when lines of fire begin to thread from the center of his soul, and when the world shrinks to the heat burning beneath his navel. A gasp, and he buries his face in Cristoph’s hair, and then he’s coming apart at the seams for what seems like ages, and white lightning scratches across his vision, and he’s burning, burning from the inside—
* * *
Alain woke with a shout, rolling out of his bed and falling to the floor. One leg tangled in his blankets, still caught on his mattress as his shoulder and head hit the floor in his bedroom.
He lay unmoving, catching his breath as he blinked. The Vatican at night was a somber place, still as death, but it was always lit up like the gates of heaven. St. Peter’s Basilica gleamed, the glow slicing through Alain’s heavy curtains like lines of holy fire and condemnation.
Shifting, he tried to untangle his leg. Wetness in his crotch stilled his movements. Alain lay back, closing his eyes. His dream came back in bits and pieces.
Making love to his long-lost lover. But not his lover, not really. Making love to Cristoph.
Cristoph Hasse, the new recruit, a man who wanted nothing to do with Alain. Who seemed to resent even being there.
God, why him? Why Cristoph? Those kinds of dreams were few and far between as it was, memories replaying from back when he’d been happy, when he’d thought he had it all. Why was Cristoph invading his dreams?
Push it all away. He repeated his old mantra, the words he’d repeated over and over to himself, words he’d needed to cling to through the years. Push it all down. Push it away. Crush everything in the center of your chest.
* * *
Two days later, the phone rang in Alain’s office as he surfed through reports of dark risings and rumblings in the etheric from his counterparts around the world. The clatter of the ringer—practically an antique with a real brass bell embedded in the phone—made him jump, sloshing espresso across the back of his hand. He held in his curse as he mopped at the mess staining his file folders.
“Sergeant Autenburg.”
“That revenant was a dead priest.”
Alain blinked. Father Lotario was blunt to the point of rude, and he didn’t give a shit what time of day it was, he was himself. He’d once said he didn’t have time for social niceties and since everyone hated him anyway, he didn’t bother. It was an odd thing to find a priest that seemingly everyone despised. Lotario, though, managed to piss off nearly every single person he encountered.
Especially Alain. But Alain was partnered with the man, and he’d come to expect Lotario’s quirks, rely on them even, like relying on the dryer in the barracks basement to eat his socks and burn his dress shirts. It was almost comforting, Lotario’s routine crassness.
“Was it a violent death?”
“The polizia fished him out of the Tiber last week. He was fresh meat in the Vatican. Wet behind the ears. A clerk in the Vatican archives.”
Over the phone, Alain heard the squeal of tires and the smash of a car horn wailing, and then Lotario’s bellowing curse. “Has Angelo sent over the autopsy records yet? Can we figure out how the priest died?”
Lotario was still cursing under his breath. “Yeah, funny thing about that. The death was ruled a suicide. No autopsy was performed. Lungs were full of the Tiber’s shit water, the report said.”
Sighing, Alain let his head fall forward as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Is his body in any recoverable state?” They’d burned the revenant, the remnants of the dead priest’s soul back from the grave, fury at its core. But the body left behind was another matter. If the revenant hadn’t desecrated its own remains, they might be able to take a second look at his death.
Lotario didn’t sound hopeful. A long sigh and a quibbling sort of waver. “Ehh… He wasn’t in one piece, according to Angelo.”
Creaking wood and the turn of a rusting doorknob made Alain freeze.
Halberdier Hasse stood in his doorway. He was dressed in his striped uniform, topped with his duty beret. The beret was angled just off perfect, just enough to be purposeful. Blue eyes narrowed when they met Alain’s.
Alain’s breath stuttered, lost in his eyes, but Cristoph looked away, his gaze fixing to one of Alain’s bo
okshelves and the disorganized clutter piled helter-skelter.
He floundered for words. “Uhh, we’ve still got to check it out,” he stumbled. “Still have to see what we can get from… it.” His dream flashed back, his mind suddenly filled with lightning-blue eyes and breathy moans and strong muscles moving beneath kiss-flushed skin.
“Eh? The hell’s wrong with you?” Another horn honked in the background and a loud curse in Italian flowed over the line. “You, Alain, not the fucking morons on this God forsaken road.”
Of course Lotario would pick up on Alain’s sudden obfuscation. His eyes darted to Cristoph. Push it all away. He motioned the young guard inside, gesturing to one of the seats before his desk. “I have to go. I have company.”
“You?” Lotario scoffed and laughed loud enough his voice bounced off the stone walls of Alain’s office from the phone’s tinny handset. “You never have company!”
“Good-bye.” Alain hung up as Lotario launched into another tirade, this time against a Vespa, as far as Alain could make out from Lotario’s gutter Italian.
He turned back to Cristoph, still standing in his doorway. One arched eyebrow and a pointed look at Alain’s chairs clued him in a moment later. The pair of creaking metal folding chairs huddled together in the cramped space before his desk were stacked with dusty books and files, folios of medieval manuscripts checked out of the Vatican archives, and copies of polizia reports detailing the paranormal. More mundane reports from his actual duties to the Swiss Guard—coordinating special activities between the Vatican gendarmerie and the Swiss Guard—cluttered the second chair.
“Sorry.” Alain bustled the chairs clear, dropping the stacks haphazardly onto his desk. One pile slid sideways, bleeding papers. He smeared over the exposed Latin incantations and runic magic circles with an open folder of pickpocket statistics from St. Peter’s Square before turning around and leaning back against the desk.