by Tal Bauer
Lotario collapsed, falling to his ass with a shaking sigh. His hand rose, covering his face.
No one moved for a long time.
Chapter Fifteen
Dawn’s first light scratched across the wooden floor, rays penetrating the grime of Lotario’s windows and reaching for Alain. His eyes fluttered open, and he struggled to wake against the pounding in his head.
Heaviness hung inside him, a dark weight that seemed to crush his breath. Alain clutched his skin. Burns scorched his chest. A trail of salt ran down his sides. He sat up.
He was in a circle on Lotario’s floor, his shirt ripped open and salt clinging to him. A burn in the shape of a rune designed to hold a demon down was charred into his skin. Across the room, Lotario lay slumped on his broken sofa, face down, one arm dangling off the couch and holding a shotgun.
Next to him, Cristoph lay in his own chalk circle, surrounded by exorcism runes, banishing sigils, and calculations designed to expel and destroy a demonic force. He was face down, his cheek pressed against the floor, but one hand reached toward Alain.
Alain dragged himself across the floor, scrabbling when his legs weakened and he couldn’t crawl. He crossed the chalk lines of the circle easily, palms smearing the seals and sigils. At least he knew the demon was gone.
Memories snapped and cracked in his mind, smears and screams and flashes of images, out of sequence and distorted. He remembered getting the call. Going to the Campo. The plunge of his heart when he realized Cristoph was the next victim. Charging the incubus as it held Cristoph. And then… lust, a burning that couldn’t be quenched. An insatiable need. Cristoph, beneath him, in his arms, all around him.
Agony. Searing, brutal agony.
Followed by darkness. Nothing.
Waking in a circle.
Alain wrapped Cristoph up in his arms, dragging him onto his chest and tucking his face into Alain’s neck. “Cristoph,” he murmured, burying his face in Cristoph’s sweaty hair. “God, Cristoph…” He held Cristoph tight to him, rocking back and forth, one hand sliding into Cristoph’s hair, fingers slipping through the strands as he pressed his cheek to Cristoph’s forehead. “Cristoph…”
Everything had happened so quickly, and it had been such a whirlwind of cascading bad and worse news. The incubus running loose in the Campo. Angelo’s call, seeing a duplicate of Alain at a bar with a young blond. He hadn’t dared to think it at first, hadn’t dared to believe Cristoph would want him in the same way he desired Cristoph. Why would he, when Alain had so thoroughly destroyed their fledgling friendship? Had shoved Cristoph aside?
Why had the incubus picked Cristoph? Out of all of the people in Rome, in the Campo, why Cristoph?
This was every one of his deepest fears suddenly made so vividly real. This was why he isolated himself. This was why he never wanted to feel anything at all for anybody. This was why he’d buried his heart twelve years ago and had vowed to never love again.
Alain closed his eyes and pressed his lips to the top of Cristoph’s head, breathing in the scent of his hair.
Damn this man. Damn him and his stubborn insistence on being exactly who he was. He was confrontational, had an attitude the length of the Tiber, and yet, he was also exactly himself. He refused easy explanations and wouldn’t leave Alain well enough alone. He was the breath of life Alain needed. He was a flower growing on a corpse grave. He was the sunlight after a storm at sea, the dove after the flood.
He also wanted something from him, something Alain had vowed to never give again.
Something he had lost to Cristoph already.
His heart ached, trembling. What now? What now, after Cristoph had been possessed and lay in the remnants of a banishing circle after an exorcism? There was no way to wave away this one, to try to force Cristoph to accept a nonsense explanation that hurt to lie through. What now, when all he wanted was to keep Cristoph safe and the only way to do that was to keep him far, far away from Alain?
A tiny part of him protested, the lonely part of his soul reaching out for Cristoph. Was there ever a future where he could hold Cristoph like this? Where he could wait for Cristoph to wake, to smile at him and lift his chin for a gentle kiss? A future where there might be a beach and Cristoph’s happiness? Where he didn’t have to watch over his shoulder for demons and vampires and ghouls and revenants? Was there ever a future where he could accept this desire? Give in to his heart?
Wherever that future was, it wasn’t here, not yet. Maybe not ever. He pressed his cheek to Cristoph’s hair and shuddered as he wrapped his arms tighter around him. He’d hold him for a moment longer, then no more.
A hand grabbed his arm, squeezing.
Alain froze.
“Alain?” Cristoph whispered, his voice throaty and choked. “Alain… What happened?”
A long exhale as Alain blinked fast. He swallowed.
“Don’t you dare tell me any lies,” Cristoph growled. “Don’t you fucking dare. Not after this.”
“What do you remember?” Alain finally breathed.
He didn’t let go of Cristoph, and Cristoph made no move to escape. His hand stayed wrapped around Alain’s arm, slowly inching its way toward his wrist.
Cristoph rolled his face into Alain’s neck, his chest. He exhaled. “I thought you were there at that bar. I thought you’d come to find me. I was drinking. I wanted to get smashed before my train left Rome. You showed up and said we should talk. You put your hands on me. You were touching me.”
Alain’s teeth ground together, his jaw clenched so hard his bones hurt.
“That wasn’t you, was it?”
He shook his head. He couldn’t speak.
“Of course not.” Cristoph swallowed. Alain felt the slow gulp through their tightly pressed bodies. “What was it?”
“An incubus. A demon. They shape-shift. Take the form of—” He couldn’t say it.
He couldn’t believe it.
“I saw you tackle it. The thing that had me.” Cristoph tried to smile, and Alain felt the curve of his lips brush across his neck. “Tackle yourself.”
Alain nodded.
“What happened to us?” Cristoph nodded to the edge of the circle. “Is this more magic? Another spell of yours?” He growled. “Don’t lie to me.”
“Yes,” Alain choked out. “It’s a kind of magic. An exorcism. That demon… it possessed both of us. But you’re okay. You’re all right now. Lotario, he exorcised it.”
“That asshole priest of yours?”
“Yes, that’s Lotario.”
Silence. Alain held Cristoph, savoring the moment. He didn’t want to let go. Didn’t want the moment to end. Didn’t want to face everything that came after this moment.
“So nothing it said was true?”
“What did it say?”
A pause. “That you were… that he… it… was—” Cristoph frowned. “It said you were a hunter. That you hunted demons and dark creatures.”
Alain closed his eyes and buried his face in Cristoph’s hair again.
“But then it wanted me to tell it everything I knew about you. What had I seen? What did I know about your hunting?”
A chill tickled down Alain’s spine. “What did you say?”
Cristoph shook his head. His hand squeezed down on Alain’s, almost threading their fingers together. “I don’t know much. Just the things I’ve seen. You wouldn’t tell me anything. I… didn’t know it wasn’t you. I thought we were finally talking. And I was confused. There was a lot of… of groping. Flirting. I don’t remember much.” He squeezed his eyes shut. Sighed. “Did I give something away?”
“I don’t know,” Alain whispered. “I don’t know.”
“It’s true? You are some kind of demon hunter? That’s what everything’s been about? The stuff in your apartment? When you said vampires? Does all of that really exist?”
The moment of truth. Alain buried his nose in the warm scent of the man. “It’s all real, Cristoph.”
It felt like damnation. Like
ruin, like he’d carved a piece of his soul out. Like he’d damned his heart to forever break, even before anything happened. He’d never told another soul before. Not in twelve years had he revealed this secret, the truth of his life. Not once.
“Shit,” Cristoph breathed. “Holy fuck.”
Alain chuckled. “That’s one way to put it.” He nuzzled Cristoph for another moment before pulling back.
Cristoph clung to Alain’s hand, refusing to let go. Alain shifted until Cristoph was sitting with his back to Alain’s chest and Alain’s arms were wrapped around his shoulders. Cristoph tangled their fingers together over his heart.
“Do you know anything about the Order of the Knights Templar?” Alain tucked his face against the side of Cristoph’s head, speaking softly into Cristoph’s ear.
“Old knights of the crusades, right? They were arrested for being heretics, right? For turning against the church? For… having a bunch of occult stuff?”
Alain shook his head, and the motions transferred to Cristoph. “The politics of the Templars’ arrest go further than just heresy. The king of France was broke and he pressured Pope Clement to issue the arrest warrant for the Templars and to disband the Order. That gave the monarchs the right to seize the Order’s assets. The king wanted the treasure they were supposed to have found.”
“They found some kind of treasure in Jerusalem? Something buried under the old Temple, right?”
“What they found changed the world, Cristoph. Changed everything. And you’ve never heard of it. No one has.”
“What do you mean?” Cristoph rolled his eyes up, frowning at Alain. “And why are you telling me all of this?”
“What the Knights Templar found, beneath the Temple in the Well of Souls, has never been revealed to any outsider. It’s been a secret of our Order for almost a millennium. Since the very beginning.”
Cristoph’s eyes went wide. “You—”
“They found a doorway. A portal that crossed the Veil and that connected our world and the etheric world. The other side. The world of demons, and darkness, and all of the terrible stories you’ve ever heard.” Cristoph stared at Alain, staying silent. “The stories say it was like a nightmare, what the original knights found down there. But they were able to close the portal and seal the Veil. The knowledge of this, and what they learned, has been passed down through each generation of knights. Until—”
Alain closed his eyes. What he was doing, what he was saying, was punishable by death according to the old law. Not that there was anyone left to enforce the law, but still. He could feel hundreds and hundreds of years of censure crawling up his spine.
“The secret of the Order has always been this: the knights, the Templars, they always had a deeper mission. They were hunters. They fought demons, darkness, and evil. Anything that crossed the Veil to our side. That mission has never stopped, not even after they were arrested. Tried. Killed.
“The Knights Templar weren’t totally destroyed in 1307. So many were captured and tortured. They were burned at the stake and worse. But others escaped to what was then the first Swiss confederacy. Do you remember your Swiss history? History teaches that knights, dressed in white with red crosses, moved into the Swiss Alps during the first confederacy, right? They came from nowhere, but they were the best fighters on the continent. They helped fight for the Swiss confederacy, training others just like they were trained.
“Our home, Cristoph. The birth of Switzerland came from them, the surviving Knights Templar making a new country for themselves.” Alain tried to imagine it, his forefathers, the birth of their homeland. “They continued on in secret, training who they could to join their Order.”
“The Knights Templar hid in Switzerland?” Cristoph craned his head around, staring at Alain. “Our home?”
“The Templar created our home.” Alain exhaled. Pressed his lips together. “And, three hundred years later, in 1506, the Swiss Guard entered Rome, serving the pope as holy protectors.” He tried to smile. “You know this. Swiss Guard 101. But the soldiers who came to Rome weren’t just soldiers. They were the knights. The Knights Templar came home. They came back to the Vatican, and to the pope, and to their mission.”
Cristoph shook his head. “The Templars still exist?”
“You’re looking at one.” He tried to grin. He failed. “For five hundred years, since the founding of the Swiss Guard, at least one of the guard has been knighted by His Holiness and elevated to the Secret Order of the Resurrected Knights Templar. There used to be dozens of knights. Now, it’s usually only one or two at a time. Twelve years ago, I was chosen. I was knighted.”
“And now you fight demons?” Cristoph blinked. “Wait, knighted by the pope?”
“Yes.” Alain really did smile. “The knights report directly to him. Only His Holiness and Commandant Best know my true purpose.”
Cristoph fell back against Alain’s chest. “The commandant, too?”
“Best recruited me. He was the knight of the Order on guard against the darkness before he picked me.” Alain’s throat clenched tight. “Me… and another.”
Alain saw Cristoph’s eyes dart across the room to Lotario’s ungainly crash on the couch. “No. Lotario comes from the Vatican. Personally appointed by the Holy Father. He was trained as an exorcist in his seminary days and spent a decade in solitude at a monastery, training for this life. We—the knights—partner with the Vatican, with their specially trained priests. We hunt together in secret.”
“Then who is the other knight? You’re always alone. Everyone thinks you’re practically a demon yourself. What they say about you.” Cristoph’s face scrunched up, anger and determination warring in his expression. “Who else is working with you? Why don’t they defend you?”
Alain tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. He squeezed his eyes shut as his arms wrapped around Cristoph’s chest. He cleared his throat, but even then, when he spoke, his words caught in his throat, ripped apart by twelve-year-old grief. “He doesn’t exist anymore. He’s gone.”
Silence. Alain felt the weight of Cristoph’s burning curiosity hanging heavy in the air.
“I lost him,” Alain breathed. He buried his face in Cristoph’s neck. “I lost him, and I swore I’d never lose anyone ever again. Which is why I never wanted you to know all this. I never wanted to put you at risk.”
“Hey.” Cristoph pulled free, turning in Alain’s arms until they were eyeball to eyeball. “I’m okay. I survived that incubus. We survived together.” He frowned. “You know, I’m not totally worthless. I am a soldier. I’ve managed this far in life, haven’t I?”
Alain looked away.
“And I’m glad I know what the fuck is going on,” Cristoph pressed on, ducking to find Alain’s gaze again. “Do you have any idea how pissed off I was knowing you were lying to me? Wondering what I’d done to make you hate me so much?”
“I don’t hate you. Cristoph, God, I don’t hate you.”
“I really hope not.” Silence stretched long. “I was running away,” Cristoph finally said. “I couldn’t take it anymore. The lies. The bullshit.”
“Don’t go.” Both hands covered Cristoph’s as Alain laced their fingers together. “Don’t go,” he repeated. “I can’t keep you safe if you leave.”
Cristoph frowned. “I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time.”
“You don’t know what’s out there. What can happen—”
“Actually, I do, a little bit at least.” Cristoph interrupted. “I do know what’s out there. I just didn’t want to accept it was real. But, I saw… something. Darkness. Evil. Something I couldn’t explain at the time.” He shook his head and sat back on his heels, pulling his hands free. Alain chased his grasp, tangling their fingers together again. “Before I applied to the Guard, I was assigned to the army disaster relief team. We were in West Africa during the Ebola outbreak. We did what we could, you know? We were in all four of the countries, collecting bodies every day. A never-ending stream of death.
There was blood… everywhere. Jesus, it flowed like rivers.” He closed his eyes.
Alain had seen the headlines, but it had been a distant news event to him at the time, something staticky in the background behind wraiths and hungry ghosts and revenants.
“There was this witch, the local shaman said. Who collected the blood, even though it was infected. She used it in her black magic spells. We had to go and get her.” He shrugged, one shoulder rising and falling. “And… get rid of her.” He inhaled, long and slow. “A shaman did it. There was this ceremony. A lot of drumming. Black smoke everywhere. And they—” He swallowed hard. “She died in the fire.”
“That sounds like more than simple witchcraft,” Alain breathed. There wasn’t much difference between the spells Lotario cast and what witches cast, to be honest. But what Cristoph had described? His blood turned to ice in his veins.
“The shaman said it was evil that lived inside of her. That it had found a hole into our world because of the disease. Because of all of the death. The others in my unit, they thought he was crazy. They wouldn’t help him with the witch. But…” Cristoph met Alain’s gaze. “He was the one who said I should come here, to the Vatican, and try to find answers. Find the truth.” Another shrug. “So that’s why I came.” A tiny, lopsided grin curled up one corner of his lips. “You asked once why I was here. I came to get away from what I saw. To try to understand it all. I guess, in a way, I have.”
“Cristoph…” Alain shook his head, leaning in until their foreheads touched, warm skin nestling against warm skin. There were a lot of empty spaces in Cristoph’s story, holes that Alain could read into. “I’m sorry. You came here to get away from the darkness. Not get pulled into it.” His fingers stroked down Cristoph’s cheeks, thumbs gliding over the high arches of his cheekbones. Cristoph’s eyes fluttered closed, and he leaned into Alain’s touch as his lips parted. A tiny exhale burned the air between them.
“While this is all very touching,” Lotario drawled, “we really do have business to get to. A killer vampire to stop and a spy ring to break.”