The Man From Rome

by Dylan James Quarles

  Tracking all of this at regular, human speed, Hannity’s eyes widened. The Kimber rose, and his pupils constricted to a point. Lit by the muzzle flash, a geyser of pulp and blood vented into the air, splattering the hallway’s ceiling. Dead long before time resumed its normal flow, Mr. Hannity crumpled at Louisa’s feet.

  Strength waning, she let the Kimber drop to the floor. It landed in the pool of blood, and hissed. She shut her eyes, leaning back against the wall. The freeze in her guts had grown worse, spreading to every corner of her body, yet for some reason she no longer cared. In the light that filtered through her closed eyelids, she saw faces taking shape, figures coming out to greet her. As consciousness slipped away, they drew nearer, and their arms outstretched to take Louisa in a warm and endless embrace.

  …

  Cato emptied his Uzi at the two of the Spartoi, trying to drive them off his embattled Benefactor. When the weapon clicked, he threw it aside and drew the Springfield. Boreas broke from the assault and rushed toward him.

  Like a lion protecting his cub, the Benefactor roared and tackled the Spartoi to the ground before he could reach Cato. Pulling a thin band of gold chains from his pocket, he wrapped them around Boreas’s neck and twisted upwards. As he did so, Notus attacked again, sinking his blade deep into the Man’s back. He reared, grabbing at the boy who dangled in the air by the hilt of his knife.

  Trying to get a clear shot, Cato moved forward.

  “No!” Bellowed the Benefactor, waving an arm. “This is not your battle! Go!”

  Faltering, Cato glanced at the cemetery, then looked back.

  “Go Cato!” The Benefactor snarled. “Think of Leta! Avenge her!”

  As if slapped, Cato gave a jolted and leaped into action. Spinning around, he sprinted through the gates, leaving his Benefactor to triumph, or die by his own ability. At the top of the hill, an ancient mausoleum waited for him, cut from a single piece of living grey rock. Cato entered through broken bars and found a shaft of hand-carved stairs, dropping away into the yawning darkness of the earth. His skin crawled claustrophobically, yet something within gave him the strength he needed to push on.

  At the bottom of the shaft, more broken bars opened upon a low tunnel, carved, it would appear by the crudest of stone chisels. Cato came off the stairs and followed the track, twisting first to the right, then the left. As the daylight faded behind him, he slowed and used the wall to edge his way along. The floor sloped downward and the air took on the odor of damp rock. Again Cato was struck by a sense of claustrophobia, and again the feeling was repelled.

  Rounding the next bend, he emerged from the darkness and into a wash of weak, rippling light. A glowing aperture appeared at the end of the tunnel, unblinking and ominous. Cato moved toward it, stepping through onto a small ledge, or balcony. Below, a huge iron tripod cradled the smoldering ashes of a dying fire. Like a macabre Roman bathhouse, a tiled pool filled the center of the chamber. However, instead of clean, clear waters, the pool overflowed with hundreds of rotten corpses.

  Animated by the firelight, Artemis waded into the scene. Smudged with ancient death and mumbling incoherently to herself, she moved through the festering heap in a panic. Stopping here and there, she snatched up bodies and spoke to them in a strange tongue that Cato did not recognize. When the corpses failed to reply, she threw them aside and moved on to another. Raising his Springfield, Cato clicked the hammer back. Echoing louder than it should have, the sound caused Artemis to stop what she was doing and look up. Met with an expression of indescribable desperation, Cato wavered. Face streaked with soot and tears, Artemis stared past the gun and into his eyes.

  “Where is Apollo?” She asked miserably. “I can’t find him—he’s not here! Please, where is my twin?”

  An image entered Cato’s mind—the photo of Leta and him as children. Exhaling, he gave his answered by pulling the trigger. There was a deafening bang and the chamber filled with light. Artemis jerked in surprise and put a hand to her heart. The report faded into the darkness, and the chamber became silent once more. Burrowing from between Artemis’ bloody fingers, a yellow finch sprang from the wound. Oily and discolored, it flew a little ways, then dropped to the ground and fluttered feebly.

  Closing her eyes, Artemis wilted. Her perfect features became marred, and a fresh trickle of tears crept down her cheeks.

  “Why?” She breathed.

  “You know why,” said Cato.

  Sadly, almost regretfully, Artemis nodded and reopened her eyes.

  “I do. And yet, do you?”

  Cato went to pull the trigger again, but Artemis flicked her fingers, sending the Springfield flying from his hand. Clumsily, he spun around and snatched after it. In that instant, she closed her fist, yanking Cato down into the pit with an invisible tether. Greeted by splintering bones and dusty flesh, he landed atop the heap of corpses in utter shock. Stunned by the force of Artemis’s subatomic touch, he fought to regain his breath.

  “Poor boy,” she spoke, reaching out to capture him. “What a mess your Benefactor has made of your life.”

  Cato struggled to his feet, tripping over shifting limbs. Impossibly long, Artemis’s ivory arms wrapped around him, drawing him in. Completing the embrace, she placed one hand across his face and held him to her breast. Warm blood leaked from the bullet hole, painting Cato’s cheek and running down his chin.

  “Poor boy,” she repeated with a shuddered. “Poor, misguided boy.”

  Straining against her, Cato tried to get away, but even with the gunshot wound, Artemis was far too strong. She clamped down, fingernails digging into his flesh.

  “You are no killer, Cato Fin,” she murmured. “Though you were made to kill again and again, such actions brought you no pleasure. I can read it in your eyes—read it in your heart. You do not want this—”

  She coughed and fresh blood gurgled from the open wound.

  “Look upon me and say otherwise,” she swallowed. Tell me you wish to snuff me out, and I will make no effort to stop you. But no, that is not what you want is it, Cato Fin? I know what you want.”

  Pinned as he was, Cato had no recourse but to squirm.

  “A thousand lifetimes I have lived—ten thousand, ten million. I have seen the walls of Troy with my own eyes, and climbed the crumbling tower of Babel. I stood upon the Mountain of Skulls when the dragon fell from Heaven and ringed the world in fire. There is nothing I have not seen, or done.”

  Artemis heaved a wet sigh.

  “Yet, that is all in the past. The world is different now, and I am but name—barely remembered. Still, I could live with such a fate. Others like me have faded into happy obscurity—some even thrive in it. The difference is that I am alone, Cato Fin, and I was never meant to be. From the moment I drew my first breath until the moment he drew his last, he was always there with me—Apollón, Apollón, Apollón…”

  The name struck Cato’s ears, penetrating deep.

  “We were born together,” Artemis whispered. “A single being with two hearts, and two minds—born to call this earth our home.”

  An edge of anger crept into her voice.

  “But your Benefactor, beast that he is, had other plans. The Gods, he hunted. Our divinity, he ignored. So we fought back. What would you have done in our place?”

  “You’re insane,” Cato managed. “You’re fucking crazy!”

  “What I am, you cannot possibly understand,” said Artemis, stroking his hair. “I see the world in colors you do not even know exist. I hear the music of starlight, and feel the breathing of the forests upon my naked skin. The atoms that comprise your body are the ashes of my first cook-fires. Insanity is merely a matter of perspective, and compared to me, you have none.”

  She drew back and lifted Cato’s face to hers.

  “But there is one thing we share in common, Cato Fin. We have both lost that which completed us—our better halves. True, the pain I feel is immeasurably more profound than yours, yet still we understand one another in this regard, d
on’t we?”

  Cato thrashed, trying to break away. Smiling sadly, Artemis held him fast.

  “Your Benefactor uses you, my love,” she said. “He amplifies your pain with lies and deceit—amplifies it with venom. I can smell his stench, coursing through your veins like poison. Don’t worry though, I’ll suck it out—clear you mind. Then we can talk about fixing our broken lives, together.”

  She leaned in and Cato thrashed harder. Nevertheless, Artemis closed upon him and pressed her lips to his. There was a flare of blinding pain, and suddenly Cato’s blood began to reverse direction, flowing against the current of his own pumping heart. Like the draining of an abscess, a sense of perverse release came over him, making his entire body go limp. Artemis pulled back and spat out a mouthful of black and gold oil. It sputtered as it landed upon the corpses.

  “There,” she smiled, pale from the effort. “I’ve purged his Ichor from your body. Think clearly now—think for yourself.”

  Confused, dizzy, Cato blinked. Only half grasping what had just happened to him, he sought to regain the crystalline focus he had possessed just a moment before.

  “Surely you know why I am here,” said Artemis, returning his head to her bosom. “Vengeance is a fine thrill, but I will gladly sacrifice it to have Apollo by my side again. Even I don’t hate your Benefactor that much.”

  She coughed.

  “End your Vendetta against me, Cato Fin—help me resurrect my brother. In return, I can give you what you really want. I can give you your sister back.”

  “You’re wasting your breath, Diana,” sounded a voice from above.

  Coming into the cave, the Benefactor gazed down from the ledge. Slashed, maimed, and holding the severed head of a Spartoi like a trophy, he darted his golden eyes.

  “Cato won’t fall for the same tricks as Cosimo Bruno. He is Orphanus. He is immune to your disease, aren’t you my son?”

  Artemis hissed and clung to Cato protectively.

  “Defiler,” she seethed. “You are the disease. You are the God-Killer! Where is Apollo’s body—what have you done with it? Tell me!”

  The Benefactor disregarded Artemis’s demand and glanced at Cato.

  “Honor your sister,” he said. “Obey me. Vengeance is with you.”

  “No!” Artemis countered. “Boy—turn deaf ears to that monster and listen to me instead. Do what I have asked—help me, and I will help you.”

  “Leta,” Cato grunted. “You’ll go into Elysium and find her for me?”

  “Yes!” Artemis hissed. “Yes, yes, yes!”

  Slowly, carefully, Cato slid a hand into his pocket and grasped the arrowhead.

  “You’ll tell her something for me—give her a message?”

  “Yes!”

  Raising his eyes to meet Artemis’, Cato stared into them for a long moment. She smiled back at him, a mother’s smile—a sister’s. In a fast, upward thrust, Cato struck, driving the arrowhead deep into Artemis’s unguarded neck.

  “Tell her I say hi,” he growled. “Tell her it was me who sent you there.”

  Artemis gasped and released him, vanishing into a cloud of dry leaves. And yet, as if tethered by the Adamantine, she reappeared beside the pit, and choked up a bright mouthful of blood. Grasping fruitlessly at the embedded arrowhead, she pitched forward on failing legs. Crawling across the floor, she reached for her bow and quiver.

  Cato looked on, his mind a mixture of triumph and horror. With considerable strain, Artemis knocked an arrow and raised the point until it was aimed squarely at his heart. For a beat, she held it there, her green eyes locked upon his. Then, as the last of her strength died, Artemis swept the bow up and let her arrow sail toward the Benefactor instead.

  Slowed by his injuries, the Man snapped at it, catching the bolt just as it sank between his ribs. He pulled the silver barb from his chest and broke the shaft in two. Eyes fluttering, Artemis—Goddess of the Hunt and of the Moon, exhaled a final bloody breath, then went out like a candle at the end of its wick.

  LIV

  When Louisa Anastasi reopened her eyes, she had no idea where she was or how she had gotten there. Vibrating brilliantly, her world swam with foreign shapes and sounds. In it, machinery beeped, tubes pricked her arm, and metal clamps held her wrists. Taking a moment to make sense of it all, her mind gradually came back on-line, and her vision stopped playing tricks with her. She was in a hospital room, handcuffed to the bed.

  Coughing dryly, Louisa tried to sit up, but the machines responded with alarm.

  “Oh, hey, hey, hey,” came a friendly voice, moving toward her.

  Nunzio appeared, placing a hand on Louisa’s shoulder to ease her back down.

  “Don’t strain yourself—lay back, lay back.”

  “What—” she rasped.

  “Hold on,” Nunzio interrupted. “Don’t try to speak—drink this first.”

  He picked up a cup of water from the nightstand and inserted a straw.

  “Here.”

  Taking a small sip, Louisa promptly forgot her confusion and drained the rest of the cup so fast it made her cough again. This time, the action brought with it a hollow stab of pain that shot from her guts to her head. A crack broke through the dam of mental repression, and like so much water, her memories came flooding back in. Louisa’s eyes flew to the handcuffs and she tugged at them desperately.

  “Hush,” Nunzio warned. “There are men outside your room—men from Interpol.”

  Louisa stopped short and glanced at the door.

  “Really?”

  “Yes, and keep your damn voice down.”

  “What’s happening?” Louisa asked. “Why am I handcuffed?”

  “Well—” Nunzio wavered. “You were found at the scene of a crime.”

  “I know that—I was there.”

  “You killed a guy though.”

  Recalling her brief, yet transformative interaction with Mr. Hannity, Louisa gestured to her bandaged stomach.

  “It was in self defense. He shot me first.”

  Nunzio made a sorry smile and shook his head.

  “Yes, but the guy you killed—he was involved in these terrorist attacks all across the city. A lot of people are dead, Louisa. And Interpol thinks you might know things…”

  He trailed off and looked away from her. A fresh wave of pain emanated from her guts, making Louisa winced.

  “Why do they think I’m involved?” She asked when it had subsided. “Has Giorgio spoken to them about what happened?”

  Nunzio shrugged and frowned with annoyance.

  “How should I know who Giorgio talks to, or what he says?”

  “What about Niccolò?” Louisa pressed.

  Again, Nunzio shrugged but this time his frown was a cringe.

  “Look,” he said. “You’ve been out for like four days—a lot has happened—”

  “Four days?” Louisa exclaimed.

  “You were shot!” Nunzio whispered nervously. “What do you expect? For Christ’s sake, you’re healing—it’s a miracle you survived. Four days is nothing—it’s miraculous!”

  Louisa chewed her lower lip and glanced back at the door. Faintly visible through the opaque glass, two large Interpol agents stood guard outside.

  “Was anyone else found at the scene?”

  “You mean besides the guy you killed,” Nunzio muttered. “Why yes in fact. There was a headless body in the street as well. Lovely.”

  “What do they think happened?”

  “I not sure,” Nunzio replied. “But the name Cosimo Bruno is all over the news lately. His mansion burned down the day of the attacks—the day you were brought in. He’s missing. Do you know him, Louisa—this Bruno fellow?”

  Sensing a shift in the wind, a shift in the very the essence of the atmosphere itself, Louisa sighed.

  “A lot of people know Cosimo Bruno,” she said. “Even Comandante Savino, I’m told.”

  “Yes, well, it’s you that Interpol has in handcuffs, isn’t it?” Nunzio responded. “Savino is
assisting with their investigation.”

  Louisa sank into the pillows, the full weight of her situation dawning on her like gravity. Even with her knowledge of Savino’s involvement in Bruno’s plot, it would be his word against hers. Anything else they might discover, anything about the officer she had shot, or Cato, or even the mysterious Man from Rome himself, would just be extra evidence in the case against her.

  “I’m late for work,” said Nunzio. “We’ve been swamped lately, but I’ll come back at the end of my shift to check on you.”

  He patted her on the hand and smiled.

  “I’m glad you’re finally awake, and don’t worry—I won’t tell them. I’ll give you a little time to collect your thoughts before they question you. It’s going to be ok in the end, Louisa. You’re a good cop—a hero.”

  Watching him rise and moved toward the door, Louisa didn’t bother to match Nunzio’s optimism. His smile faded and he knocked on the glass. With a click, the lock was retracted.

  ‘See you later,’ he mouthed to her.

  ‘Good bye, Nunzio,’ she nodded back.

  The agent shut the door and relocked it definitively. Closing her eyes, Louisa listened to the rhythmic beep of the machines. It would be very easy for her to give up right now and accept her fate—allow it to carry her away like the tide. At the same time, she found this idea utterly intolerable, nay impossible. She was innocent!

  Sitting up in bed, Louisa reopened her eyes, and tugged on the handcuffs again. They clinked and rattled, but the sidebars to which they were anchored had been welded in place. Looking around for anything she could use to pick the lock, she caught sight of the IV in her arm. Ignoring the sting of pain, she pulled it out in one swift motion. Blood seeped from the wound, but Louisa didn’t care. Peering from the plastic needle, to the keyhole of her handcuffs, she wished she had thought to get a few pointers on lock picking from Cato. All the same, she jammed the catheter in and began working it around at random. Obviously harder than Cato had made it look, the action did nothing to yield the lock. Breaking off, the catheter lodged inside the keyhole and held fast.