The Fallen

by Tarn Richardson

  The air filled with clouds of choking masonry and plaster, clinging to her nostrils and choking her throat. She shook the dust from her hair and stars from her eyes, gathering herself gingerly to her feet. Through the hole above an Inquisitor appeared, levelling a revolver at her. She spun aside as the round buffeted the floor, and hurled herself through an open doorway.

  There was a window at the far end of the corridor into which she had run, and she burst through it, not caring where it led, whether there was a dramatic drop beyond it or not, just desperate to get away from her pursuer. She thrust forward, her eyes closed, her arms held out in front of her, glass and wood splintering in every direction. She tumbled out onto a sloping roof and rolled and slithered down it, her hands and clothing ripped by the shattered window, coming to a halt at the edge of the eaves. An eight-foot drop onto the street below greeted her and she threw herself into space, sinking onto her haunches to cushion the fall. She was powdered white with plaster dust, as if she had risen from the dead.

  And she was also aware of eyes on her. An Inquisitor towered over the ashen woman, smiling a wicked broken smile as he pointed his gun at her skull.

  SIX

  BERLIN. GERMANY.

  Something loathsome howled in the dark of the bedchamber, a voice more like a dog’s than the young child’s it should have been. The guttural noises were coarse and profane, an abuse to the ears, and there were words woven within the noises, indistinct and masked. And the words were as putrid as the stench from the tiny person strapped to the bed.

  “It’s a child,” muttered the Priest to the exhausted Inquisitor waiting in the shadows outside the bedchamber, wiping the beads of sweat from his lined brow. “No more than eight years old. An only child.”

  If the Inquisitor felt any sympathy for the little one, he did not show it. “Eight? For how long has she been like this?”

  “He. And this is the third day.”

  “When were you first alerted that something was wrong?” The Inquisitor’s tone was pressing.

  “At first the smell. We thought something had climbed under the floorboards beneath the bed and died. We took some up but …”

  “You found nothing?”

  The Priest nodded and looked back to the open door as the howling changed to yelps, like those of jackal around a kill. “We thought it prudent to send for the Inquisition after the second day, when the child’s condition worsened.” He looked across at the Inquisitor, into his searching eyes. “Rages. Profanity. Bleeding from orifices.” He swallowed, his throat dry, and ran his tongue across his chapped lips. “We bound him to the bed after the first day, to protect him and the others within the dormitory, and isolated him after the second.”

  The Inquisitor’s fingers curled into a gloved fist. “You should have sent for the Inquisition on the very first day. Not left this child to the torment of the beast within him.”

  “I heard you were overstretched. I didn’t want to bother you.”

  “We are stretched, but we would have come.”

  A long high-pitched shrieking cry wound out of the room, suddenly stifled, after which a longer stream of profanity tore from the child’s lips.

  “Good Lord,” muttered the Priest, his hand clamped firmly to his mouth. “Saints preserve us.”

  “I suspect they won’t,” replied the tall man next to him, moving half a step to his right to allow him a view into the bedroom. He saw it then, the possessed child, a mottled and twisted shape, blackened and sickly green as if the plague had taken him, strapped firm to the bedposts by greying bonds tensed tight against every corner of the bed. The fourth victim he had visited this very week.

  “I have been told that this is the third occurrence of possession just today within the city,” muttered the Priest. “Can it be true?”

  “I am not at liberty to say. Leave me to do my job.”

  The Inquisitor moved towards the open door, but the Priest caught hold of his wrist.

  “There were seven last week. I know. Priests talk.”

  The Inquisitor turned briefly to look at him, saying nothing, his eyes searching the dark places of the terrified Priest’s face.

  “I fear this is the start of something,” trembled the Priest, “with so many possessions within the city, something is coming. He is gathering his strength to return.”

  The Inquisitor looked back to the open door. Instantly the child’s eyes latched malevolently onto him, as if the mention of the Devil had drawn his evil gaze. It pierced the Inquisitor with a glare, its blue oily maw turning upwards into a dripping toothless grin.

  “The Holy See,” said the Inquisitor. “They know, and they are doing all they can to help.” Without another word the Inquisitor strode quickly into the room, his case clutched firmly in his hand. Seconds later invisible forces slammed the door of the bedchamber shut behind him.

  SEVEN

  ROME. ITALY.

  “You should never have run,” the Inquisitor grinned, pointing his gun at Isabella. She could see his left ear was missing, torn fragments all that remained from a previous mission. “It would have been easier if you hadn’t.”

  “Easier for whom?” asked Isabella, watching his finger whiten against the trigger. She shut her eyes and turned away grimacing, waiting for impact.

  The mechanism turned over and jammed. Isabella heard it and, like a flash, lashed out with her foot, knocking the Inquisitor off balance. He swore and ejected the snagged round, slamming the chamber shut, moments before Isabella struck him as hard as she could on the leg with a lump of discarded wood. The revolver fired wide as the Inquisitor’s tibia snapped under the blow and he went down with a pained cry, his free hand clutched to his shattered limb.

  Isabella sprang to her feet and kicked out again, booting him hard in the side of the head, feeling the force of her blow run the length of her leg and gather like a jolt in her thigh. The Inquisitor went over with a groan, rolling onto his front and lying still, the gun spinning out of his hand. She snatched it from the ground and turned the very instant two more Inquisitors dropped into the street from the roof above her. She fired twice, killing both instantly before they had a chance to level their own weapons at her.

  Staring aghast at the lifeless bodies lying before her, Isabella let her gun hand drop slowly to her side. She’d murdered two people. She’d killed them with such ease and without a moment’s thought.

  What have I done? What have I become?

  Darkness swept into her mind, spinning every sense into a bewildering whirling frenzy; unconsciousness beckoned her. The revolver trembled against her thigh before slipping from her fingers and clacking onto the flagstone floor.

  A noise from somewhere nearby, the approaching footsteps of more Inquisitors, snapped her out of her malaise and she turned away, her hand to her mouth, smelling cordite on her fingers, stepping over the bodies and back out onto a main street, reaching a flight of stairs down from where she had emerged.

  At the bottom an Inquisitor came at her from the right and she ducked under his lunging arms, sprinting away. The man cursed, overbalanced and staggered after her. She turned right and darted into another cramped and cobbled street, but stumbled over an unseen hole in the floor and went down in a heap, gashing her elbows and knees. A shadow loomed and she rolled over onto her back, her bloodied knees raised, staring up at the Inquisitor. He shook his head and scowled, pointing the barrel of the gun at her chest.

  “You’re dead,” he growled.

  But then another voice, English, spoke from the darkness.

  “Heads up!” it chirped, and the Inquisitor looked up just in time to see the butt of a rifle pummel hard into his face. He groaned and slumped backwards onto the ground, blood gathering fast around his right eye. The Englishman looked down at her and offered a hand, smiling.

  “Sister Isabella,” said Henry, turning his hand palm up in an invitation for her to take it. “It’s been a while.”

  EIGHT

  TOULOUSE INQUISITI
ONAL PRISON. TOULOUSE. FRANCE.

  A wicked chuckle of laughter came from outside the cell door, and Tacit turned as a large heavy key was inserted into the lock. A crowd had gathered to watch proceedings. They often liked to watch, the wardens and guards at the prison. Tacit, the great Inquisitor, the murderer of Cardinals, fallen. He always drew a crowd.

  Tacit moved himself onto his side and sat up as the door to his cell was unlocked. He swung his legs over the edge of his bed and leaned his weight onto them, his elbows on his knees. When he had first arrived at the prison, he had fought the guards every day for three weeks in an attempt to avoid the torture sessions. In doing so, he’d wounded thirteen of them, seven seriously, so much so that they’d never walk again. But more guards came, eventually overwhelming him, the cudgels falling with more venom each time he fought back. And he knew he was only putting off the inevitable, that the torture sessions would never be halted. For the first time in his life, Tacit learnt that it was easier to go to one’s fate than resist it, a lesson he never believed he would, or could, learn.

  The door was shoved open and a line of familiar figures staggered in, drunk on their power and a desire to witness pain. At their head was a man Tacit had long known, the knots of torn skin and flesh in his face a constant reminder of that fateful day, years ago, when the witch had broken free of Tacit’s hold and exacted her revenge on the head torturer of Toulouse Prison. Over the weeks and months Tacit had come to despise the man more than he had ever believed possible.

  “So, our fallen Inquisitor awakes,” Salamanca spat, his eyes burning wild with anticipation. “Ready for his correction!”

  Laughter and the scuffling of bodies vying for a prized position from which to watch the torture followed, leering wretched faces staring at him like a baying crowd of savages. Salamanca turned and nodded, and three men went forward, ropes and shackles in their hands. Although Tacit made no effort to fight them, they still approached him with caution, knowing the violence and the strength of which the man was capable.

  “So obedient,” Salamanca mocked, watching Tacit being bound, his mouth contorting with cold humour. “Like a whipped dog. How have the mighty fallen,” he hissed, as Tacit was led to the chair and thrust into it, cuffs and chains locked to hold him tightly in place. “So telling that even one like Tacit can have the fight and the spirit beaten from him.”

  “You’ve not beaten me yet, Salamanca,” warned Tacit, his hard eyes unmoving on the torturer.

  “Perhaps not. But we have time. There is no rush. You are going nowhere. We have ways of making people show emotion. Of making people plead. Even people like you, Poldek Tacit. And believe me, you are proving to be the most pleasurable upon which to operate.”

  The torturer’s hand rose to his own torn face, his fingertips tracing the deep grooves and fissures the witch had dug across his cheeks. Not a day had passed without Salamanca remembering the moment when Tacit had failed in his duties and allowed the witch to attack him with her terrible claws. Every incision, every twist of the blade, every scalding touch upon Tacit’s skin had inched Salamanca closer towards something resembling revenge. And yet, to the torturer’s mind, there was still a huge price to be imposed upon the Inquisitor before his debt would be paid in full. He knew it would be many years before that moment was reached.

  “Sitting comfortably?” he asked lightly, turning to the wall and preparing himself for his work. He set down the wooden box of tools he had brought with him, cutting implements, drills, a selection of bladed instruments for delving deep into the flesh to find the most choice and fragile points of pain.

  “You’ll no doubt be pleased to know that I have orders,” announced Salamanca, “orders from the Vatican, to perform these trials upon you. It seems you have caught the eyes of some within the Holy See, some who have come to fear you, resent you, admire you, for what you are, what you represent, what you could be.” He lifted a scalpel from the box and tested its edge with his thumb. “Of course, it’s an honour to act for people so highly regarded within the Church, to know we’re remembered down here in Toulouse, not forgotten about by the Vatican. What miracles we can do, what results we can achieve, given the right opportunities.” He turned his sickly leer to Tacit. “And you, Poldek Tacit, you will be the most rewarding of subjects.”

  Tacit strained momentarily against the chains and manacles, his natural urge to fight against a threat impossible to subdue. But the bonds held him fast and the jeers of the watching audience made him realise attempts to fight were pointless. He knew he had to conserve his energy, focus his mind from the searing pain that was to come. He felt and smelt hot iron and turned his eyes to Salamanca, inches from his face; a smoking brand was in the torturer’s hand.

  “You’re a tough one, Tacit,” he said, licking his thin cracked lips. “I’ll give you that. But you need to understand that no one cares about you. You’re all alone in here, with no one but me. And because of that, you’ll break. Everyone breaks eventually.” He smiled as he lifted the flaming poker and thrust it hard onto Tacit’s exposed skin.

  NINE

  ROME. ITALY.

  Isabella winced as she leant on Henry’s shoulder and hobbled to the door of the black Fiat 70 automobile he had parked nearby. There were tears in her eyes and the taste of dust and iron in her mouth from where she had bitten her tongue and drawn blood during the chase. Henry reached ahead of her and opened the door to the vehicle, helping her to drop inside. She sighed and sank back into the leather seat, relieved to have the weight taken from her twisted ankle and feel some comfort at her back. She closed her eyes and took slow and measured breaths, trying to collect her racing thoughts.

  Henry shut the door, furtively checking the dark street as he circled the vehicle and cranked the starting handle to fire the engine. Two swift turns shuddered the car into life and, with a final look both ways, he climbed into the driver’s seat, placing his 1912 Mauser rifle in the back.

  Isabella shivered, realising then how cold she was. Exhaustion flooded into her like a tide. “What are you doing here?” she asked Henry, as if waking from deep sleep, her unfocused eyes narrowing.

  “Not now,” Henry replied, guiding the rattling car away from the curb and beyond the pale luminescence from a gas light above. “Let’s talk when we’re away from here.”

  She sat back in the chair resigned, drawing her sodden clothes around her in an attempt to warm her frozen bones. She closed her eyes in another attempt to slow her whirling mind.

  “Are you cold?” asked Henry.

  “A little.”

  “Here.” He reached into the back of the Fiat and took out a blanket, pushing it onto Isabella’s lap. She accepted it willingly and drew it over her shoulders, feeling warmth from it at once. He looked back across at her briefly, before returning his eyes to the dark of the road ahead. “Are you hurt?”

  Isabella shook her head, causing dust to slip from the damp tendrils of her curls, and lowered her forehead into a shaking hand, before reaching down towards her calf with her other hand. “Only my ankle. But it’s all right.” She drew breath firmly. “Inquisitors,” she muttered, disbelievingly. “I killed them. Two of them.” There was bitter emotion tangled in her words. Resentment and grit.

  “Better them than you,” replied Henry, steering the car from the bright lights of the main street into a narrower lane, checking behind him as they slipped from view into the embracing shadows of the side-street.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “Somewhere safe. For a while, I hope.”

  Isabella looked across at him, captured intermittently in faint incandescent light as they slipped past gas- and candlelight from shuttered houses and street lanterns. She thought he looked far older than when they had last met nearly a year ago. Aged.

  He turned onto the main thoroughfare through the city, finding top gear and with it the car’s cruising speed. Isabella peered into the pockets of light and passing crowds of the city as they flew past. Sh
e was aware she was trembling and pulled the blanket tighter around her, her fingers clutching the edge of the fabric and nursing the soft fibres. Its touch reminded her of home and cold winters in northern Spain. She lost hold of the memory and realised she was still clutching the brooch taken from the dead man in the river tight in her aching fingers. She opened them to reveal the green locket embedded in dull silver. An Inquisitor’s broach. She was aware of Henry’s eyes on it and snapped her fingers back tight, as if it were a treasure she wished not to share for the moment.

  “Your name,” she asked, drawing the blanket tighter around her. “I’ve forgotten your name.”

  “Henry,” he replied. “Henry Frost. Lieutenant Henry Frost, though I dropped the title a long time ago.”

  “Fampoux,” she replied, as if the name held a special place in her heart. “I saw you, in Fampoux.”

  Henry nodded, a little ruefully.

  “What are you doing in Rome? What’s changed since to bring you here, Henry?”

  The young officer looked across at her, his face grave. “Everything,” he said.

  With that a gunshot sounded and the windscreen between them cracked, the glass punctured by a single bullet hole. Instinctively, both Henry and Isabella ducked, Henry dragging the wheel, and with it the car, sharply right into a road alongside, thrusting his foot firm to the floor. Behind him, two black sedans turned and roared after them, four Inquisitors in the leading car, three in the one behind. Henry checked over his shoulder and threw the car into third gear, feeling the engine whine a little higher in tone.

  Pedestrians, taking in the last of the city’s night air, scuttled from Henry’s path as he flew past, only to stand open-mouthed as the two chasing Ford Ts plunged after them. Rome flashed by as Henry tore down a side-street and up the other side, crunching second gear and spraying loose rubble from the road.