Isabella held up her hands. “Stop!” she said. “Stop! Look, I am sorry. I am tired and I am cold and this brandy is too strong. You’re telling that great swathes of people have sided with the Devil? That it originates from within the Vatican? That they are attempting to see his return to the world?” She looked across to Henry, hoping to see some sense from him, but the young officer showed no emotion. Isabella looked back at Sandrine. “I will not believe it, not for a moment!”
“And that is why they are allowed to grow, fester like a disease in a wound. For long we have investigated. They are preparing his domain. But he will only return when the world is truly ready, and his lieutenants are in place, the seven princes of hell.”
Isabella shivered and drew the blanket tighter about her. It seemed as if the temperature within the room had dropped at the mention of such things.
“What plans they have, we do not know. But they must be stopped. You saw what they did to Inquisitor Cincenzo. What they tried to do to you. They’ll stop at nothing, nothing to achieve their goals. They’re wicked, black beyond words.”
“How? How did you come to be here, in Rome? To travel all this way?”
“Wolves talk,” replied Sandrine darkly, and Isabella looked at her confused. “After Fampoux, Henry and I went south, both to escape what was intended to happen at the Mass for Peace and to escape the madness of the war.” She looked across at Henry and for the first time Isabella saw her smile, a sad determined smile full of love and admiration for the man seated at the table.
“At Lyon we felt we’d gone far enough away,” continued Henry, picking up the story. “The house we found we rented from the farmer. It was decrepit and small, an old animal shelter, barely big enough for the pair of us, but the farmer seemed happy for us take it and turn it into a home before it fell to stones in the ground.”
Sandrine stepped back to the table, leaning over it, her knuckles white to the wood. “After we settled in the South of France, it was not long until I caught the rumour of clans close to Lyon. I would visit them, cautiously at first, but I garnered their trust over long months and eventually they welcomed me into their burrows. They appreciated the company of others from outside their community who did not balk at the sight and smell of them. They learnt of my past, and I learnt of theirs, and of what they had heard from deep beneath the roots of the Vatican.”
“What had they heard?”
“That the darkness was returning once again. Wolves talk long in their lairs. It is all they have during the hours of sunlight, they talk, and they tunnel and they dig deep and far. And during that time, they caught word that there were dark forces at work within the fabric of Rome. Something rotten growing deep in the heart of the Vatican, something which had been on earth before, and was now returning again. This war all around you, this is a sign that the age of darkness is coming. Indeed, some say, the age has already arrived.”
“And how had they come to learn this? They cannot leave their lairs by daylight, and when they do at night, they are rent of all sanity.”
“Because those who have since become our spies told them.”
Sandrine drained her glass and cleared her throat.
Henry leant forward into the light from the candle and rested his hand on Isabella’s in an attempt to lessen the horror etched into her face. “We are not alone,” he assured her. “There are others who fight with us, both outside and inside the Church.”
“Wolves?” asked Isabella incredulously. “Hombre Lobo? Do they fight for you as well?”
“Those that will,” nodded Henry. “And Inquisitors too.”
“Enemies, now allies?”
“Of sorts,” said Sandrine.
“One being Inquisitor Cincenzo.”
“Precisely.”
“He was working with us, at least until he was found out and killed.”
“Tacit,” said Sandrine.
“What about him?” asked Isabella, suddenly protective at hearing his name mentioned in such a dark conversation.
“You said Inquisitor Cincenzo said his name as he died. Why?”
Isabella shrugged, overwhelmed by the question and the confusion of her mind. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything. Only that I know Tacit, what he is capable of.”
“I know too,” growled Sandrine. “The ruination of our plans in Paris was because of him.”
“And I was to blame too,” countered Isabella, feeling a strength renew within her, “and yet you are talking to me, telling me all you know.”
“So the question is,” Henry mused, picking up the Inquisitor’s brooch from the table and turning it in his fingers, “just what was it about Tacit that was so important to Cincenzo that he spoke his name before he died?”
Isabella hesitated, feeling her stomach lurch. “We need to break him out.”
“Why?”
“You said you needed help. Perhaps Tacit is the one who can? Maybe he’s the only one who can?”
“Where is he now?”
“In Toulouse Inquisitional Prison.”
“Impossible,” replied Henry, shaking his head.
“Why?”
“We have no one there on the inside who can help us.”
But Isabella paused, putting her hand to her lips. “Perhaps the one who can help us is not at the prison.”
Sandrine sat on the table’s edge, leaning a well-toned arm on her raised knee. Candlelight caught once more in her olive-skinned face, turning her features demonic and sly, but her tone was calm. “What do you mean?”
“You talk about us being not many, just a few,” the Sister said, taking up the bottle and refilling her glass. She raised the strong liquor to her lips. “Perhaps then we need someone else to join us. Someone to even up the odds.”
“Can we trust this person?” asked Henry, turning briefly to look at Sandrine doubtfully.
“Probably not, no,” replied Isabella. “But there’s no one better connected I know of who can help. And he cares for Tacit. Maybe he’s the only other person left in the world who does.”
NINETEEN
PARIS. FRANCE.
The white sheets of the bed were spattered red with blood, as the woman arched her back screaming, pushing against the infant in her belly.
“Maria!” cried her husband, clutching her hand tight so his own turned white.
“She is fine!” exclaimed the old nurse, shooing him from the bedside in order to examine her from the foot of it. “She is giving birth. That is all. We women have done so for a hundred thousand years. And we shall continue to do for another hundred thousand, if the Lord preserves,” she continued, peering across to the Priest in the shadows of the room and then up at the crucifix nailed to the wall above the bed.
“He shall, and he will,” replied the Priest assuredly, his hand to his heart, and the nurse smiled back, before wiping the sweat from her brow with her sleeve and refocusing her attention on delivering the child.
“Now go and get some more hot water, Duilio!” she said. “And towels!” she called after him, as he fled from his wife’s screams to the kitchen beyond, where he had already stoked a roaring fire in the hearth at the centre of the room. He found that the pan on top of the grille over the fire had boiled dry and at once refilled it from the jug on the side, the water sizzling and steaming into his face as it touched the scorching metal.
Without a moment’s hesitation, he ran back to the room, pushing past the Priest and grasping his wife’s hand again.
“It is a miracle,” Duilio said, tears growing in his eyes as he looked down at her struggle. “For years my wife and I, we tried for a child. And for years our Father did not answer our prayers. And then, when we felt that our time was over and that I would never have an heir, he rewards us!”
Maria’s screams gathered to a crescendo and both Duilio and the Priest gathered round to the nurse as she called, “The baby! The baby is coming! I can see its head!”
“Push, Maria! Push!” urged Duilio, her
hand back in his, his eyes fixed on the nurse’s studious face between her knees. “Let us see our child with our own eyes!”
Suddenly the old nurse’s face changed, turning from wonderment to horror.
“What is it?” asked Duilio urgently, as Maria’s screams faded and the nurse’s took over to shake the foundations of the tiny house. “What’s wrong?”
“What is it?” Maria now asked weakly, feeling no more pain but instead seeing the concern on her husband’s face.
“What is wrong?” Duilio asked again, but the nurse didn’t answer, instead throwing herself away from the bed, the backs of her bloodied hands to her face, covering her eyes from the thing she had pulled from the woman.
As if by a hook, Duilio was dragged to look and now he cried out to see the thing on the bed, his hands clutched tight to the sides of his head, tearing wildly at his hair.
“What’s wrong?” wept Maria, but Duilio never heard her, his ears filled with his own screams.
The infant resembled a grotesque demon, a thing found in fairy tales, rather than a human child: clawed hands, teeth sharpened to points, cat’s eyes flashing wildly in its head, hooves where its feet should have been, a barbed tail lying bloodied and limp between its buttocks. Slick with gore, it stared up at its father and skewered him with a hateful glare.
The air was full of his and the nurse’s shrieking, joined with the beseeching chants of the Priest, fighting against the baleful curses of the devilish thing writhing pathetically on the bed.
At once Duilio lurched forward, grasping hold of it, taking it by the ankles as it bit and scratched at his hand. Without thought, he ran to the flames of the kitchen fire and cast the demented thing into the middle of them, his head buried in his hands, weeping uncontrollably, as the flames burnt the creature’s mottled flesh and the venomous cries from its foul craw faded to silence.
TWENTY
THE VATICAN. ROME.
For a moment Father Strettavario thought it was snowing in July when he caught sight of flakes of grey falling outside his residence window. He peered through the glass, his pale eyes shining with wonder, before he realised that something was burning in the city beyond the Vatican’s walls. The air was full of ashes, rising up on hot thermals from a plume of flailing smoke within Rome and cascading down like a snowstorm upon the Vatican. He opened the window and leaned out. The faint smell of smouldering hay and wood mixed with the spiced scent of incense and lavender coming up from the Vatican’s streets produced an intoxicating mix.
The old Priest rested for a while at the window, the billowing smoke and ashes reminding him of heretics burning in the Riga many decades ago, the stench of burning flesh, the flash of heat, the snatched cries moments before the flames consumed the victims’ bodies and breath and condemned souls. The memories brought the hint of a quiet satisfaction to his wrinkled paunchy face. He’d led a hard life, a dedicated life, doing one’s best, all one was able to do. Yet now, in the twilight of his years, something he’d never felt before, something he’d never expected to find within him, had begun to take seed. Doubt. Doubt about his work, his life, his faith.
Things had changed, within him and also about him. The change had come recently and had come fast, over the last few months. It seemed to Strettavario that the rhetoric of some things within the Church had changed, proclamations hardened, ambitions broadened, intentions darkened. Doors to meetings once held open were now closed. Information shared among the parties was now covert and distributed only to closed groups. No longer was the talk of containment and tolerance. Talk was now of cleansing and preparing. Of torturing fallen Inquisitors and lapsed Priests, rather than trying to redeem them. Of disposing of broken things, rather than trying to fix them.
Why attitudes had hardened and fears had begun to manifest within the Vatican, Strettavario could only guess. But after hearing the news that the Eagle Fountain in the grounds of the Vatican was running red with blood, he feared he had more than an inkling of what was to come.
The squat old Priest looked up into the heavens, watching the ashes fall on the city below. He imagined each to be a spirit, spinning and turning like the souls of the departed, darting and falling among the rooftops and ridged towers of the Vatican’s skyline. He watched as many as he was able, as if it were a game, his eyes trying to focus on each passing ash as it fell to the ground below. And then he felt the hard point of a blunt object nestle between his ribs and he froze, staring straight ahead and watching no more ashes fall.
He’d been around and handled enough firearms in his time to know the make of many weapons by the touch of barrel alone. His mind teemed with a thousand possible suspects, names and motives as to who might have ambushed him in his residence. Was this to be his end, a bullet in his back as, like a child, he’d watched the ashes fly? He wondered if he was too old to deflect the weapon and his attacker too naive to fire before he moved. He knew the names of living Inquisitors who could escape from such a predicament, if the gun was pressed to their ribs, but he knew that he himself was too old and too slow to try.
“If you want me dead, shoot me and throw me out of the window,” he said, quite calmly, as if advising his assailant as to the best next move. “The impact from the fall should crush the wound and hide the bullet.”
“Why would I want you dead, Father Strettavario?” replied a voice in stilted Italian, and Henry eased the gun from the Priest’s back, his finger remaining tight to the trigger in case the Priest tried anything foolish.
“Why indeed?” Strettavario replied, allowing a little air back into his lungs. He turned slowly to face his assailant, his hands raised to show he was helpless. But having turned to face his opponent, the old Priest now knew he possessed enough in his limited fighting capability to disarm and incapacitate the young man who had dared to break into his private quarters. He smiled and his pulse slowed. “And what can I do for you, Englishman?” he asked, in English, detecting Henry’s accent. “A long way from home, aren’t we?” Strettavario’s eyes dropped to the curvature of Henry’s chin, the indentation and muscular build of his neck, his broad shoulders, his tanned complexion, and suspected at once British infantry. “Or the western front? I thought Britain and Italy fought on the same side?”
“We do,” replied Henry, a wry smile on his face, “but Vatican City remains neutral.”
“Apparently,” replied the Father.
“And Sister Isabella requires your assistance.”
The Priest’s face hardened at the mention of her name. He laughed, a cold controlled laugh. “And how does someone like you, an English deserter, come to know of Sister Isabella?”
“It doesn’t matter how. Not at the moment. Sister Isabella has told me you’re just the man we require.”
“And why would she suggest that?” Strettavario said, his milk-white eyes intent on the soldier.
Henry shrugged and considered lowering the gun. It seemed to him that there was something rather pathetic about the old man, the stooped curvature of his back, his eyes which seemed half-blind. He played the grip of the revolver gently in his hand and said, “She said you were well connected, that you could be of use getting a message to someone?”
“Pigeons pass on messages,” replied the Father, a smile turning up the edges of his mouth. “Use one of them.”
“Pigeons can’t get to where we wish to reach.”
“Perhaps you’ve been misinformed about my capabilities.”
Henry shook his head gently. “From what I’ve been told, I think not.”
Strettavario’s hands began to drop to his side and at once Henry stepped back out of reach of a lunge should the old man be foolish enough to try anything.
“You do surprise me,” said Strettavario, knotting his hands together. “Sister Isabella?” He chuckled, shaking his head gently, and Henry saw how the folds of skin beneath his chin wobbled. “The last I heard she was engaged by the Chaste with a multitude of Priests willing to pass on any messages she requested. Inde
ed, most would do anything to help that woman, it would seem?”
“Not this time. She needs your help,” said Henry.
“What do you mean, help? I am an old Priest. There is little that I can do.” He opened his hands and Henry saw that they were calloused and thick, hands which had seen action. He gave the Priest a look of suspicion.
“From what I have been told, I do not think you either too old or unable. This is important, Father Strettavario.” He gripped the revolver tightly. “It involves Tacit.”
Strettavario seemed to cool. “Tacit?”
Henry nodded. “We need him back.”
The old Priest’s eyes turned heavenward and he chuckled more freely this time, a quiet laugh into the rafters of the chamber. “Back?” He laughed again, revealing a face that must once have been handsome. “Why on earth would you want Tacit back, or believe that he would choose to return, or is in any way able to?”
“Things have changed.”
At once Strettavario thought again of the Eagle Fountain.
“I am not disposed to going away with strange men,” he said, “especially those who hold me up at gunpoint and tell me they are intending, with my assistance no less, to break convicted murderers out of prison. You need to do more to convince me.”
“You care for him.”
The old Father hesitated, dropping his head to his chest, loose skin hanging in folds beneath his chin. He imagined the instruments of torture being used on his Inquisitor friend at this moment in a cold cell buried deep beneath the earth.
“Who suggested I cared for him?” he asked.
“Sister Isabella, she said you believe in Tacit.”
Strettavario shook his head. “My evidence at his trial helped condemn the man. Life imprisonment. No chance of release.”
The Fallen Page 9