Something suddenly occurred to Tacit and he turned his attention to the sides of the chamber. On the far wall, opposite the archway through which they had entered and partially obscured by the hanging body of Düül, a wide stone altar stood, flanked by hundreds of skulls. A robed skeleton stood at end of the altar, and Tacit knew his instinct had been correct. “What is it?” asked Isabella, stepping next to him to see, as Tacit raised the lantern to shine a light on his new grisly find.
Grand Inquisitor Düül’s skin, bloodied and raw, had been draped around the skeleton, hanging limp on its bones. With fascination Tacit realised it had not been placed haphazardly; it had been stitched, tailored carefully into a suit.
But this was no suit for any human. This was made for a unique and terrible figure. The elongated crooked shape of the limbs and back. The tail. The cloven feet.
SEVENTY NINE
ROME. ITALY.
Georgi wiped Düül’s blood from his hands with a cloth the Inquisitor had given to him as he walked to the automobile. He handed it back to the Darkest Hand member and bowed his head to enter the back of the car.
There were two Inquisitors waiting for him in the front compartment of the Sedan, and they both turned to look as he settled himself in the seat.
“It’s done,” growled Georgi, looking with heavy eyes out of the partially opened window to the moonlit streets of Rome. “Drive. Let’s get out of this city.”
The driver released the handbrake and the car jolted forward, one of his comrades asking, “Everything is complete?”
“Yes, the second ritual is done. Another layer has been peeled back. Just one more remains.”
“And Sister Isabella will play her part?”
“Tacit will play his part,” replied Georgi, scratching at his nose and smelling blood. “Sister Isabella will have no say in events, in what happens to her. And Tacit will not give her up easily. He has already proved that once. All will be fine.”
“She has spirit. She will not go willingly,” warned the driver, turning the black wheel slowly in his hands and guiding the car onto the main route north out of Rome.
“And that is why she is perfect. She always was perfect.”
EIGHTY
THE ITALIANFRONT. THE SOČA RIVER. NORTHWESTSLOVENIA.
Clouds of sulphur billowed over the butchered mountainside, a sickly grey in colour. It stung eyes and caught in throats, making lungs tighten and shriek against the chemical stench. At every point there were junior officers willing their men on, boys, not men, with wild staring eyes, horrified at what they were witnessing, at what they had been sent to do. To kill or be killed. It came down to that.
The sun had now climbed over the rim of the eastern mountainside to shine on Pablo and Corporal Abelli, and from points all along the summit machineguns and rifles opened up, bristling the lower slopes, tearing the advancing Italians to bits.
Pablo no longer conceived any thoughts. He just did. He no longer fired his rifle. He had no more rounds to fire anyway, even if he had the desire to do so or the initiative to replenish his stocks by stealing from the dead who covered every inch of the mountainside. He kept moving, as he was told to by his Staff Sergeant, always two paces behind him, as he had been commanded to do from the very beginning, days ago. Or was it weeks? Pablo no longer remembered.
He reached the circle of wire which separated the Italians from the Carso summit and, almost on cue, machineguns swept the ground around them. Engineers crumpled and fell, snagging on the mesh of razor wire, their bodies dancing under the torrent of bullets, limbs frayed, chests and stomachs sprayed open, uniforms sagging and oozing blood, as the hard rain tore them apart.
Panic started to catch hold at the wire. The soldiers were wedged in. They could go neither forward nor back. The front row crumpled and fell, followed by the second and then the third wave falling on top of them, crushed by the hail of bullets and the charging ranks of Italian infantry. Wire-cutters were snatched from the gore-churned ground and desperately worked against the wire to cut a way through. The air was filled with bullets and cries and explosions from every angle. A fine drizzle of blood drenched everyone. Men wept and pissed their trousers. Holes were finally made in the defences and the soldiers streamed through, climbing over the mound of bodies.
In the wave behind, Pablo slipped and fell, his right hand sinking up to his elbow in the blasted stomach wound of a dead soldier. The smell and sight made him gag, but nothing came up. He’d not eaten for forty-eight hours. He’d not been able to eat, not since the assault had begun.
Hours passed, perhaps longer. Time had stopped on that mountainside. All he knew was that he was in hell. He swore that should he survive, he would live a good life. Two soldiers to his left were raked with machinegun-fire and without thinking he fell onto his front, the bullets passing over his head and buffeting the men charging behind. He sunk his head into the dirt thinking it was a good time to die, the sun on his back, among all his fallen colleagues.
And then a hand touched him and it seemed that a warmth shimmered through his body.
“Go on,” Corporal Abelli said to him. “Go on. It’s not safe here.” There was a light in his green eyes, both reverential and urgent.
“But the gunfire!” cried Pablo, and the Corporal shook his head.
“We will protect you.”
EIGHTY ONE
THE VATICAN. VATICAN CITY.
Cardinal Berberino caught sight of the messenger the instant he appeared at the entrance to St Peter’s Basilica and headed him off at the doors leading down into the bowels of the building.
“You have something for us?” he enquired of the young messenger, caked with dust from his hard ride south into the city. He smelt of grass and horses.
“I was instructed to take it to the Holy See directly, Cardinal Berberino,” the messenger replied swiftly, “not linger in the outer chambers.” He clutched a letter tight to his chest in clamped white fingers. Berberino appeared flushed to him, troubled, his skin waxy, his eyes wild and unfocused. “Is everything quite all right, Cardinal Berberino?” the messenger asked.
“No,” replied Berberino honestly. He hung his head and rested gently against the young man’s shoulder, shuddering gently as if weeping. “Chaos is erupting. Rome is enflamed. Wolves are running wild. I had hoped for news. Some news. Any news. Anything to give a little hope.”
“I am not sure if it is good news,” the messenger replied, “but I was told to bring it to the addressee within the Holy See with utmost speed. However, considering your anxiety, and as you are a senior member of the Holy See, I see no reason why …”
The messenger tentatively proffered the letter, Berberino snatching it urgently from him. He marched away towards the inquisitional chamber, tearing open the envelope as he walked and reading the contents silently, his darting eyes growing wide and his paunchy face slackening at the news it contained.
EIGHTY TWO
THE ITALIAN FRONT. THE SOČA RIVER. NORTHWEST SLOVENIA.
They had taken the Austro-Hungarian post, but at a terrible cost. All across the mountainside behind the new Italian front line, thousands of corpses lay strewn among the rubble and shattered rocks of the Carso, the night too dark, the open too dangerous, to clear them away. So instead they lay there, a generation crushed and torn, strewn over and beneath rocks, like seaweed deserted on the shore.
Now all Pablo wanted to do was sleep, hoping he might find a little solace and peace from the roar and seething torment of war.
He dreamt he was in a ward full of other soldiers, all lying prostrate on beds, all bound up in bloody, tight bandages. There was a smelt of disinfectant and the mutter of quiet serious voices, the clack of hard heels on the wood floor, the clatter of surgical instruments as they were placed into metal dishes, the moaning, the constant moaning. While the other noises rose and receded as patients were inspected and doctors swept out into other wards, the moaning remained always, a maddening constant, like the itch beneath the
bandages which could never be scratched.
Pablo rose and left his bed, immediately thinking it strange that when his feet touched the floor, his eyes were level with the mattress upon which he had been lying. He looked down and swooned, horrified to see that his legs had been blasted to bloodied stumps, maggot-riddled beneath the greying cloth, just like so many limbs he had witnessed on the climb to the summit.
And then his horror changed to surprise that he was able to walk upon his stumps without discomfort or pain. All thoughts of shock where chased away and he left his bed and walked around it in an awkward waddle, like the dwarf he had become. He stepped down the aisle which ran between the rows of beds and out of the ward, following where the nurses had gone. Something told him he had to go and look, a nagging doubt as to who they really were and what exactly they were doing beyond the confines of the ward. He didn’t trust them, not any of them, the way they looked at him, the way they tended his wounds, spoke to him with soothing words.
He reached the exit to the ward and looked out, seeing a corridor stretching off into the far distance. There were no doors leading from it, only a single point of light at the very end. He made for it, noticing that with every stride closer to the light his stumps seemed to stick more firmly to the floor, as if he were walking through deepening mud. Every stride grew more difficult but also with every stride the light grew nearer and larger.
In the light there was a battlefield similar to the one on which he had fought, and a circle of Priests, a line of ragged trees behind them. A black-bearded Priest stood in the centre, before him a man on his knees, two daggers held to his throat.
“I don’t want to go to hell!” the man screamed. “I don’t want to go to hell!”
“Then don’t,” counselled the bearded Priest, moments before the blades retracted across the man’s neck and blood flowed over the ground in front of him.
“What are you doing?” a nurse asked Pablo, one among the circle of Priests who had gathered to watch the murderous ceremony. Her voice was gentle but firm.
Pablo tried to talk, but she shooed him into silence and escorted him back to bed, her arm linked around his.
“I can’t go to sleep again,” Pablo pleaded.
“Of course you can,” the nurse told him. “You’re ever so tired, Pablo.” She rolled him under the sheets. “Ever so tired. And you have such an important job still to do. You must get your strength back. After all, everything depends on you.”
EIGHTY THREE
ROME. ITALY.
Henry reached out for the stone wall outside the front door to Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini and tried to make sense of the nightmare in which he seemed to be living. A world at war. A city in flames. Tortured and murdered figures strung from churches. Sandrine gone, maybe dead.
“Come on!” Tacit called, bounding down the church steps to the avenue below them. The second of the rituals had been performed. They had to move if they were to have any chance of stopping the Darkest Hand and the final act. Without a word, Henry and Isabella flew after him.
Terraced buildings, blood-red in the grubby first light of day, flashed by as the three of them ran, guided by Tacit’s barked commands. Every now and then he allowed himself a glance over his shoulder towards the sounds of conflict behind him, the shrieking cries of dying Inquisitors, the terrifying howl of wolves on the rampage. And as he ran he saw the brightening sky turn powder blue, and was aware that dawn, and salvation of a kind, was at hand.
“Over the road!” he roared, as they reached a junction where the narrow street was bisected by another broader one, lined with saplings rich with a new harvest on their branches.
“Where are we going?” called Isabella.
But Tacit did not reply. His eyes scoured the shadows for any movement, any sign of the enemy, whatever guise that enemy might take.
He did see the thing come at him, but too late.
The huge wolf sprang from the street on the right, bundling the giant man over the cobbles, its claws and slavering jaws shimmering in the final rays of moonlight.
“Tacit!” cried Isabella, as the wolf and the Inquisitor rolled and tumbled across the road, smashing into railings on the far side, buckling the blackened, weathered metal bars. Isabella pulled out her revolver and took aim.
“Don’t shoot!” warned Henry, pushing the gun to the side. “You might hit him!”
The wolf climbed over Tacit and raked his chest with its terrible talons, slicing at the chainmail armour beneath his shirt. Tacit kicked the beast clear with the metal toes of his boots and sprang to his feet.
“And that thing might be Sandrine,” Henry added, his eyes glowering with fear.
Isabella batted him aside and prepared to take aim again, but before she could do so Tacit had tumbled away, entwined with the creature, into the shadows of the street.
“If it’s her,” called Tacit, finding his feet and landing a plum punch to the wolf’s midriff, “prepare to be widowed.” He battered the wolf once, twice, in the side of the head, sending it stumbling backwards. There was a flash of silver in his hand. The wolf came back at him without a moment’s pause, but Tacit was now armed, the knife flashing no more, instead dripping red with blood.
The wolf howled feebly, a pathetic attempt to summon up a cry, and went down onto its hindquarters, a cruel wound to its neck. It struck out with a paw to slice at Tacit a final time, but he reared back and then thrust again, catching the beast under the chin and sinking all eight inches of blade into its flesh. The wolf’s yellow eyes glazed and closed and it slammed forward onto the cobbled pavement between the trees. Tacit stepped back, drenched in his own blood and that of the creature.
“Tacit!” cried Isabella, dashing to his side.
He held up his hand to restrain her, his free hand on his knee, bent over to help draw the air into his lungs. He gulped four deep breaths and skewered Henry with a glare.
“You figure out whose side you’re on, Henry,” he spat, his lips snatched tight to his teeth, “and you figure it out quick. If you’re not on my side then you’re my enemy. And if you’re my enemy, you die like everyone else.”
He slammed the bloodied blade hard into its sheath at his waist, the hilt connecting with a dull ring, before ushering Isabella’s searching hand away from his wounds.
“I’m fine,” he growled, snatching a bottle from his pocket and drinking three gulps from it, as if it were an elixir to heal his wounds. “Come on.” He broke back into a run, “let’s keep going. Let’s get out of this city.” And he shook his head, his hand to his wounds. “Wolves in Rome!” he exclaimed. “I’ve never known of wolves in Rome before.”
Isabella jogged beside him. “Sandrine, she said they had gathered beneath the capital. Beneath the Vatican, in underground lairs, tunnelled by their own hands.”
Tacit nodded. “It seems there is no holding their masses back. For decades they gathered in small groups. They seem now to be banding together in larger and larger clans, as if they sense a change. Perhaps one day they will envelop the entire world. But for now, dawn is coming. And with it, they’ll return to their lairs.” He froze, his eyes snagged by something across the road, half hidden in the dirty light of a side-street.
“So you came back, did you?” he called. Sandrine slunk forward towards them into the street, a long coat she had purloined from somewhere covering her naked flesh beneath, her face vibrant with blood.
“Sandrine!” cried Henry, coming forward. Sandrine accepted his embrace, but her eyes remained fixed on Tacit.
“As I always suspected, you’re a beast,” he growled. “A monster. A half-wolf.” He took three steps towards her and stopped in the middle of the road, his hand resting on the handle of his gun. “I’d be doing you a favour if I killed you now.”
Instantly she dropped from Henry’s arms and sunk lower, her face etched with anger, her eyes wide. “You’re just a man,” she hissed.
“And you’re a half-wolf who’s just reco
vered.” Something malign moved inside him, urging his hand to pull his revolver free from the holster. Tacit ignored it.
“Faced a few of us in your time, have you?”
“No,” muttered Tacit, power bristling within him, “Not half-wolves. But I know enough about your kind. That you’ll be drained. That you can’t change again. Not till you’ve recovered. Even if you could, I would kill you before you even moved.” His hand clenched tighter to the silver revolver strapped to his left thigh. “So, it seems to me, I have the advantage over you. Seems to me, I can rid myself of something I’ve been hunting all my life in a single moment.”
Then his palm dropped from the handle and instead he held out his hand for Sandrine to take it. “But it seems to me that I also owe you a debt of thanks.”
“What do you mean?” hissed Sandrine, rising a little from the protective pose she had adopted, but her eyes still distrusting.
“Back in the monastery, here in the city, you fought like one of us and you fought well. You and your Hombre Lobo. You helped save us.”
He turned his eyes down to his hand as a prompt for Sandrine to take it, and she did so, slipping her fingers over Tacit’s huge palm.
“The wolves,” he said, “they’re still my enemy. What you tried to do in Paris, I will never agree with it or forget. But all that is over now. It’s in the past. Everything now is about the future and what we can do to stop it.”
“And what can we do?” asked Henry, admiration gritted in his face. He played his rifle from his left to his right hand.
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