“Like I said,” she said, raising the revolver, “you never leave me behind again!”
She peeled away from him and fired at the first shape she saw wandering out of the smoke. The Inquisitor was thrown backwards, going down with a cry.
“Where’s Henry?” asked Tacit, taking the rifle from his shoulder and ejecting the spent cartridge.
“Here!” Henry called, hobbling through the slowly dissipating smoke, before turning and battering an Inquisitor full in the face with the butt of his rifle. “It’s no use!”, he shouted, stooping low as gunfire buffeted the walls behind them, his weight set on his right foot to protect his blasted boot. “There’s too many of them!” At that moment, three Inquisitors swam into view and Tacit shot two through the head with the rifle, Henry wrestling the third by his collar onto the floor. Isabella’s gun flashed and another Inquisitor collapsed as he ran towards them through the swirling mist. Henry dragged himself slowly to his feet, shaking the pain out of his bleeding knuckles. “We can’t win this!”
“Rubbish!” cried Tacit, taking the smoking barrel of the rifle in his hands and wielding it like a club. “Just more bodies for the crypts! Follow me and stay close!” He waded deeper into the smoke, Henry and Isabella in his wake. He took an Inquisitor, who saw Tacit too late, in the throat with a round, and then another in the eye, blowing the rear of his skull out. “The door!” Tacit called, spotting its dark outline. “Let’s make for the door!” He battled his way towards it, any Inquisitors in his path bludgeoned down, Henry and Isabella picking off any who stepped close enough to be spotted through the smoke. They broke out into the street, eyes stinging, rasping breaths straining at the clean air outside. Dawn was a vague pink smudge on the horizon. A line of Inquisitors faced them from the buildings and streets opposite, each one with his gun trained on them.
“Drop your weapons!” one of them cried, as Tacit pushed Henry and Isabella back into the smoked-out ruin.
“No way through!” he warned, dropping to his haunches, “We’re trapped!”
The night was suddenly filled with the sound of howls, a tumultuous noise that shredded nerves and bowed bodies, spreading fear deep within everyone who heard it. Inquisitors looked at each other, confused and alarmed, fingering their weapons clumsily in their hands. They’d been assured that the wolves had been cleared from this part of the city, disposed of.
And then the vast feral creatures came, tearing like a grey black wave into the road, enveloping the Inquisitors in their stinking monstrous tide. Gunfire erupted, but screams and the tearing of flesh soon overwhelmed the sound. From everywhere, it seemed, huge wolves appeared, from side-streets, from rooftops, from out of the sewers. And everything turned grey and crimson and black.
“Hombre Lobo!” wept the cries, as Tacit shouted “Go!” from the doorway in which they crouched, watching the carnage unfold. He pushed them back into the clearing fog of the building behind them. “Go! Go! Get out of here!”
They sprinted blindly through the house, Inquisitors now running with them, out into the back-street beyond, not daring for a moment to pause, not daring to look back at the carnage and destruction left behind by Sandrine and the wolves she had brought with her.
SEVENTY FIVE
THE ITALIAN FRONT. THE SOČA RIVER. NORTHWEST SLOVENIA.
There was a long line of mules to the left of Pablo, twelve of them linked together by a rope, being guided by soldiers positioned at the shoulder of every other animal. Not that they need guiding, it seemed to Pablo. Like him, like all the soldiers of the Italian Third Army, there seemed only one way they could go: up, towards the noise and smoke and violence.
They were laden down with goods of all kinds, boxes of food, ammunition, picks and tools, cooking pots and utensils precariously strapped to their backs as they sure-footedly followed the vague path in the mountain-side, all clanking and knocking about, the sound reminding him of goat herds in the hills of Riano.
Pablo had fallen in with a ragged unit of infantrymen going up the mountain. They’d not seen any action in hours, although ahead of them he heard rifle-fire, and behind him the Staff Sergeant bawled in his ear when he suspected that the unit was slouching and not making progress fast enough. The Sergeant seemed to have picked Pablo out for special treatment and struck him every now and then across the shoulders and back, making him turn around constantly to see when the next blow was coming.
On an almost vertical shard of rock Pablo saw a field gun teetering, one wheel having vanished over the side of the mountain completely, the drop a thousand feet to the twisting valley below. All around, tall muscular men, stripped to the waist, battled to heave the precious small-calibre artillery piece out of danger. The Italian army had too few of these guns and to lose one this way would be a tragedy, far more than the loss of a man, or even a unit of men. Watching them try to save the gun, shouting and straining, gesticulating and rushing this way and that to tie ropes and set themselves against the wheels, Pablo realised that a man’s place had been reduced to less than a piece of hardware. Or perhaps each one of them was nothing more than a piece of hardware for the war effort, something to move and lug and shoot and kill? And die.
The gun faltered and slipped back. Someone gave a cry and instinctively every man trying to drag the gun to safety sprang clear. The rope tied to the mule at the head went tight. The beast dug in its hooves, but it was battling against a half-ton gun and gravity. The gun slipped back further, the mule tumbled after it and then both gun and animal vanished over the edge. Everyone who had tried to save the artillery piece rushed to the edge in time to see it crash and break apart on the rocks below.
“Fuck it to hell!” someone shouted, and the bare-chested artillerymen circled the ground for a little while, inspecting the spot where they had lost their piece, appearing unsure what to do now they didn’t have a weapon to drag to the summit.
One mile behind the front line, a small assembly of black figures stepped to the side of the mangled remains of a cannon and its mule and continued up the mountain path.
SEVENTY SIX
ROME. ITALY.
Grand Inquisitor Düül pushed the broad wooden door to the church of Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini open and stood back, his gun tight to his side, his eyes glued to the darkness beyond. From the palisade he had climbed to reach the door, he could hear the dwindling sounds of gunfire and howls across the city, but in front of him all was quiet within the church.
He stood at the doorway listening, watching, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the light from the flickering candles and the silver moonlight streaming through the high windows above.
“Tacit?” the white-robed man called, lifting his head to hear, sniffing at the air like a dog. “Tacit? I know you’re here.”
There was no reply, nothing but the echo of his voice. For a moment he thought about backing out of the church and returning to his command within the city. But his curiosity overwhelmed him and he stepped forward, his hobnailed boots grating on the marble floor.
He would have smiled, if he had any humour in him, at the arrogance of the man in coming here, to this church. To think he could hide from him here. Düül knew Tacit was good, but so was he, and Tacit had spent nine months chained to a prison wall. That would have slowed him, made him dull, cautious. Even so, the prospect of facing the feared Inquisitor alone teased Düül, and he swallowed and felt his gut twist.
He walked down the main aisle, past the narrow plain wooden pews on either side, over the white and grey marble towards the altar, bathed in moonlight and flame, the expensive glint of gold across it and inlaid into the murals and antiquities all around, shining like rich treasure. Five strides from it, Düül heard the sound of movement from the far right corner of the auditorium and went towards it slowly.
“Tacit?”
He knew where the sounds had come from, from below, from something down in the crypt. There were six of them, the crypts of bones, small chambers lined with the mouldering
skeletal remains of four thousand friars, nailed, hung and piled high around the walls, a macabre place of haunting power and mystery.
“I know you’re hiding down there, Tacit! Hoping to pass the night away, were you?” The Grand Inquisitor turned his ear to the dark beyond and heard a boot scrape against the stone, someone inching themselves into the shadows. “It’s over. Someone saw you come here. Come out where I can see you. It’ll be easier for you that way.”
Düül took a lantern from the table beside the stairs and stepped down into the darkness, lifting the light high as he went, his hand gripped firm to his revolver. The stairs ended in a long narrow corridor which ran back along the length of the church. Düül swallowed and tested the weight of his revolver in his hand. He was a big man, tough, yet to be bested by anything, man or beast. But Tacit, he knew the man well, and the stories too. He swore silently under his breath, reminding himself who he was, the feared Grand Inquisitor, chasing away any suspicions of doubt and finally taking a first step along the corridor.
At each narrow archway to a chamber, he stopped and peered inside, each one of them proving empty save for the remains of the long dead friars. After a cursory glance into the dark shadows of each small room, Grand Inquisitor Düül moved on to the following one, the crypt of leg bones, the crypt of pelvises, the crypt of skulls, all of them silent, empty, save for the racks and piles of bones lining the walls. At the ossuary chapel, the next chamber, Düül lifted the lantern high and stopped to study The Souls in Purgatory, surrounded by hundreds of skulls and bones, the altarpiece of the room featuring Francis of Assisi. Empty. He recalled the wolves across his capital and allowed the anger to grow within him. He’d need it, if he was to face Tacit.
One crypt now remained unchecked, the Crypt of the Resurrection. Düül stepped into it, knowing what he expected to find, and raised his lantern and his revolver. There was a figure standing in the corner of the room, his back turned, as if he were studying the depiction of Christ raising Lazarus from the dead, inserted into the wall, at close quarters.
“How apt, Tacit,” Düül growled. “To have picked this chamber. I never realised you liked your theatrics?”
The figure in the corner rocked from foot to foot, and turned to face the Grand Inquisitor.
“Who the hell are you?” Düül asked.
“Don’t you remember me, Grand Inquisitor Düül?” asked Georgi. “Admittedly I did leave your service a long time ago.” His voice seemed to hold Düül in a spell, for the Grand Inquisitor didn’t move or say a word as Georgi stepped towards him, his senses focused entirely on the stranger. “You took me in as a young man, and you trained me to kill, to feel nothing for my actions. Now I have a different master.” Georgi smiled and raised a knife hidden inside the folds of his sleeve, drawing it up close to his face so that its blade shone. “But enough talking,” he said, his eyes flashing, “let me show you one of the skills he imparted. This will hurt, Grand Inquisitor Düül, but the pain you suffer is nothing compared to the pain the Seven Princes have suffered for so long, chained within the Abyss. Princes should not be chained in the darkness. They should be set upon thrones and given kingdoms to rule. And they will, for through your release from this world by my hand, they will take one more step closer to finding theirs.”
SEVENTY SEVEN
SLOVENIA. NEAR THE ITALIAN BORDER.
Poré had not killed the wolf which had attacked him, even though he knew he could have, had he wished to. Frederick Prideux was powerful, even when his pelt had been divided down to a single cut of fur. Poré shivered to think how monstrous he must have been in wolf form when he had lived, if existing as Hombre Lobo, cursed forever under the ground, could be called living. He needed them, the wolf clan who had found him, and supposed letting one wolf live rather than killing it might prove more advantageous.
After the short fight, Poré had receded back into the night, watching the wounded wolf limp back to its lair from a distance, waiting until dawn before he had dared to enter.
The wretched stench from inside the lair assaulted his senses, offending them in every way. The horror of the smell was matched by the sight of the desolation of the wolves’ existence, the passageway littered with the pathetic detritus of their lives, bones of victims, clothing and items of the deceased, but also flowers gathered, as if by an earlier memory, and then discarded at the entrance, ground into the dirt by the coming and going of many feet each dusk and dawn. Poré felt repugnance and shame in equal measure at what he witnessed, swallowing back his nausea and walking on, deeper into the lair complex.
The floor of the cave, littered with spoil, began to descend and Poré inched down it slowly, his hand to the wall to stop himself tumbling forward. Ahead he could make out the feral sounds of the clan, the weeping lamentations at their plight, the ceaseless moans of the bereft and broken.
Poré stopped and looked back. He was standing in almost complete darkness and at once felt vulnerable to anyone or anything lying in wait for him. Behind him, far off, he could see the pale light of dawn filter through the small hole through which he had wriggled to enter. Ahead, there was only darkness and a dark amber light.
He gathered the last of his resolve and pressed on, stepping down into the cavern from where the faint red light emanated. At once the entire cavern erupted into shouts and cries of disbelief, some of the clan shrieking and weeping, but all of them gathering into a group in the centre of the cavern, all of them bowed low on their haunches, their blind pink eyes on the unexpected visitor.
“What are you doing here?” spat one of the larger and most corrupt looking of the pallid creatures. “This is no place for a man who walks the world above.”
But Poré held up his hand in a sign of amity and acknowledgement.
“I do not come here as a man who walks the world above,” he said, pulling out the pelt and holding it aloft. “I come here as one of you, to tell you that your time for skulking in caves is at an end.”
SEVENTY EIGHT
ROME, ITALY.
“Seems like we’re late,” said Tacit, looking at the open door to the church of Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini.
“Anyone home?” asked Henry, his firearm in his hand, peering over Tacit’s shoulder.
“All quiet,” Tacit said, before stepping inside. He paused, his eyes drawn to the far corner of the building. Without another word he stepped that way, taking a lantern from the table and descending into the cold shadows of the crypts below. Quickly he worked his way methodically from one crypt to the next, as if he knew precisely what he was looking for, until he reached the Crypt of the Resurrection. He then stopped and looked in, Henry and Isabella by his side.
Slowly an image began to appear out of the black and, staring hard, the three of them tried to comprehend what it was they were seeing. A skinned figure of a large man hung upside-down from the ceiling of the room attached by what looked like strings.
“Not again,” said Henry, his voice choked by the gravity of the scene. “Who the hell is it this time?”
“Grand Inquisitor Düül,” replied Tacit, looking from the body to the hook from which it was strung. “Or what’s left of him.” Düül hung contorted and suspended from green-black twisted cords and Tacit knew right away they were intestines, drawn out from a cut in his belly and then looped around his ankles. His skinned arms hung by his head, thick blackened blood running in trails down to his stripped fingers, dripping like bloody stalactites.
“Good God!” said Isabella, from behind them. “Like Sister Malpighi. What have they done to him?” She looked up at the suspended body with growing horror.
Tacit didn’t reply. There was no need to give voice to what his eyes were telling him, another ritualistic killing, the second of three, the injuries made to gain favour with the Devil.
Henry shook his head, his eyes glazed. Something seemed to harden within him, a fierce resolve, a cold vengeful anger crystallising like a sharp frost. “Whoever did this to him,
they’ve not just murdered him. The bastards. The fucking bastards. They’ve defiled him!” Isabella thought she could hear Henry sob. “They’ve fucking … they’ve fucking tortured and humiliated him, the bastards!”
“The Darkest Hand,” hissed Isabella, venom infecting her features. “They know no limits.”
“But this?” cried Henry incredulously, his hands and fingers wide, wrenching his eyes away, while Tacit held the light up to the hanging butchered figure.
“I wouldn’t get too upset for him,” cautioned Tacit. “He was a mean bastard while he was alive. Probably deserved this death ten times over. Be more concerned for where this is leading.” The light revealed the full extent of the wounds to the Grand Inquisitor. Even Tacit found his face hardening to see them. “My other concern is whoever did this is tough. Strong. Beating Düül in combat is hard enough, but skinning him alive as well?” He thought back to all his old opponents and creatures he’d faced who were still alive, still existed, but doubted any of them were capable of this crime.
“Why’ve they done this?” asked Isabella, close to weeping.
“Lust of the flesh,” said Tacit, scrutinising every inch of the Inquisitor’s carcass. “Freshly killed, by the look and smell of him. Must have just missed the killer.”
Henry swore again, reaching out for a stone ledge into which to collapse, nursing his face in a hand as if he could no longer bring himself to look at the body.
“They’ve taken his skin,” Tacit revealed, steel in his voice, “whoever did this. They were proficient with the blade, whoever went to work on him.”
“Maybe an Inquisitor?” Isabella suggested.
He looked at the floor directly beneath the body and dropped to a crouch. The blood had collected in deep curdling puddles on the cold flagstones. Isabella stepped around the body, the soles of her boots sticking to the floor. Every inch of the corpse had been cleaned of skin with immaculate attention to detail. The cuts, the precision by which they had been made to the flesh, suggested there was no damage to the muscle or fat, the Inquisitor’s skin having been removed in a single perfect cutting motion from head to toe. Whoever had committed the crime had a skill with a knife unlike anything any of them had seen before.
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