“She was at my place earlier,” I said, “but she left in a rush without telling me where she was going.”
“How long ago?”
“An hour.”
“When is she coming back?”
“I don’t know that she is.”
“You expect us to believe that?” one of the others asked.
“It’s true,” said a cool female voice. Rachella appeared next to Hamilton and linked her arm in his. “And this lovely man is my guest. If you touch him again, I will claw your eyes out and feed them to you.”
“How do you know he’s telling the truth?”
“Because I saw it happen.”
“Where did you—”
“Little priest,” Rachella said, “you are not in charge here. Now fly back to your ring, Henry. All of you.”
“Marcus told us to bring these two inside,” Henry said.
“Then why are we standing out here?”
Shadows flickered past us as the four acolytes led Rachella, Hamilton and me across the parking lot to a side entrance. Normally the vampires flashing around us would remain invisible, but they were obviously slowing as a result of Hamilton’s presence, checking the situation.
“You are in for such a treat,” Rachella told Hamilton.
“Rachella,” Hamilton said, “I am already being treated to the privilege of your company.”
I coughed.
Rachella shot me an evil look before turning to Hamilton, kissing him on the cheek, and saying, “You are so sweet.”
And getting sweeter by the minute, morphing into a jelly-filled glazed vampire donut.
The seven of us passed inside and turned down a short dark corridor leading to a pair of heavy metal doors. Two large vampires blocked this entrance. Muscular Nordic men in identical black suits and ties, they looked like Hans and Franz after becoming H and F of MIB Special Forces. At our approach, they stood aside and shoved the doors open.
We passed through them, under a cracked, broken RESTRICTED sign topped by a pulsating scarlet “49.”
Chapter 45
After promising Kari I would never kill again, I hoped we would not encounter another person who deserved an early demise. That did not work out, exactly, though I did not betray Karina.
One afternoon, Laurena crossed the field adjacent to ours, the land owned by Samuel Gervase, a local apprentice to the blacksmith. I had warned both my children not to cut across his property, but knew the kids did not truly understand the danger. Gervase was rough and ignorant, a potentially deadly combination in a strong man. He caught Laurena on his pasture and dragged her to his house where he tied her up, preparatory to beating her for trespassing.
When my daughter did not arrive home as expected, I rode to the property where Gervase lived with his wife.
I reined in outside the door of the house and leaped from the saddle, a shrill cry hanging on the air. Kicking in the front door, I saw Laurena bleeding and crying, bound to a chair with rough rope. Moving past her without a word, I advanced on Gervase.
Our fight turned out to be a very short contest. During the battle, he picked up a knife and stabbed me in the side. I slammed him into a wall and told him to drop the weapon. He tried to stick me again. I smashed him against the wall once more, unintentionally killing him when his head snapped back and struck the hard surface.
I untied Laurena and carried her out of the house. A man stood in the doorway, holding the reins to Perseus: Father Bartholomew, a priest of our church. He had apparently been a witness to the fight. He gave me a strange smile as he handed me the reins before I galloped away with Laurena.
Three days after killing Gervase, my men and I were repairing a fence on the eastern border of my vineyards when Father Bartholomew panted up.
We exchanged pleasantries. I wondered why he had walked all the way out here. Sweat dripped along his cheeks. He used the sleeve of his robe to wipe his face clean.
He inquired after my wife and children and I asked him how the church fared. Pleasantries finished, I asked, “May I help you, father?”
“The church would like you to deed us the field to the west.”
“What do you mean? The church wishes to buy my property? You know I would never sell it.”
“No, not buy. We want you to donate it to us. A gift to the church.”
“I already give enough to the parish, father.”
“This would be a handsome gesture, worthy of a man of your wealth and social standing.”
I watched him. He would not keep pressuring me with such a confident smile on his face if he didn’t have something he could hold over my head. He knew my properties had belonged to the Monteros for decades and that I had turned down all offers to sell them.
The reason for wanting the property was not hard to divine. Possession of it meant hundreds of pounds of revenue every year, being one of the most fertile farms in the land. I wondered why he thought I would give it away.
He said, “You will not be tried for killing Gervase, will you?”
So that was it. “Is this a negotiation, father?”
“Consider it a promise. I will say nothing about what I saw that day if you deed us the land.”
I would never give up my ancestral lands. Against them, my reputation had no weight. “I am sorry, but I cannot give the west pasture to you monks.”
“Such a sad situation,” he said. “It is my civic duty to report what I saw, of course.”
“And what did you see?”
“That you killed a defenseless man.”
“He was holding a knife. He had abducted my daughter. I was protecting us.”
“We only have your word for that.”
“You saw her. Her dress was ripped and her nose was bleeding.”
“You could have done that.”
I began to wonder if I would be acquitted in a trial. If the prosecution was clever, or worse, the judge biased, I did not think so. It didn’t matter. “If you must report what you saw, you must.”
He looked taken aback. “You would risk your freedom for a bit of property?”
“I did not kill a harmless man. It was self-defense.”
“The sheriff might not see it that way.”
“And your testimony would convince him I had killed the man wantonly, is that it?”
“I saw you crush his skull against the wall.”
“I was trying to force him to drop the knife. You must have seen that Laurena was tied up.”
“I didn’t notice, but even if I had, you could have done that yourself.”
I didn’t bother to keep the disgust off my face. “What do you believe happened, Father Bartholomew?”
He avoided my gaze. “That does not matter. I will not be passing judgment on you, after all.”
“Is that really a good enough reason for you to be able to sleep at night? That you will not be giving the actual order to hang me?”
“I won’t be.”
“The commandments mean less to you priests than they do to the men in the average pub. Whenever I am unfortunate enough to hear one of you preaching, I can’t stand the hypocrisy.”
His face burned red. “I will not be lying! I am only telling what I saw!”
“But you won’t say anything at all if I give you the west field.”
“It’s best for the church.”
“Always the same justification. And what are you really doing for the church? Threatening a man with the possibility you may purposely misrepresent the facts about him. It may not be lying, father, but the implication you can create is a false one, and you know it.”
“I do not know it.”
“Ridiculous. You know I would not kill Gervase without a very good reason, and you know his temper and what he might have done to my daughter.”
“That’s not reason enough to kill him.”
“No. When he picked up the knife, though, he made the fight one of life and death.”
“I didn’t see that.”
“I don’t remember it. Only you bashing his head.”
“Even then, I was not trying to kill him. Answer me: What do you believe happened?”
“That doesn’t matter,” he said again.
Continuing at this point would have been fruitless. He knew I did not kill Gervase out of malice. And so far, he was only threatening to do something. That was not a sin, exactly. Once he presented slanted evidence against me, though, it was. “You must do what you think is right, of course.”
The trial caused a sensation throughout the county. People came to Tarragona from many miles away to see the “murderer” in the flesh.
The bishop deciding the case was not from our town and did not know Gervase or me. That made Father Bartholomew’s testimony all the more damning.
The prosecution was a young man who knew how to manipulate the law well. He had expanded on the idea of premeditation and had the judge believing I had orchestrated the entire thing.
My attorney was also young and smart. He just had nothing to work with. He argued that I had no motive for the crime. That did not have much effect in a homicide hearing decided by people who did not know any of the participants.
It was the last day of the trial and there was no doubt I would be prosecuted for unlawful homicide. The worst part, I discovered, was that the monks intended to request all my lands be forfeited to the church. My family would be left with nothing.
I had never laid hands on a man of the cloth in my life, but I thought I would make an exception for Father Bartholomew.
That’s when it happened.
The bailiff introduced a surprise witness for the defense: Gervase’s wife. It had come out during testimony that she had witnessed the encounter, watching the whole thing from a back window. She was exempt from giving evidence against her husband, but had the right to do so. I wondered what she was going to say. After she was sworn in, my lawyer, Mr. Keenan, approached her.
“Mrs. Gervase, were you a witness to the death of your husband?”
“I was.”
“Could you tell us what you saw?”
“My husband came in with the little girl, pulling her by her hair. She was screaming in pain. He was yelling something about trespassing and that he was going to teach her what it meant to break the law. He tied her to the chair. Then he slapped her. She started wailing, the poor dear, and this time he struck her so hard it made her nose bleed.”
My hands balled into tight fists. I relaxed them when I remembered I had already killed the man responsible for hurting my child.
“What happened then?” Keenan asked.
“Mr. Montero broke through the front door and went straight for Samuel. He punched him in the face then kicked him.”
“Did that kill Mr. Gervase?”
“No, he wasn’t even hurt. That’s when Samuel picked up a knife from the table. He stabbed Mr. Montero with it. But that didn’t stop Mr. Montero from slamming my husband into the wall. They continued fighting and Mr. Montero slammed Samuel again and his head hit the wall hard. That’s when Samuel fell to the ground.”
“You said Mr. Gervase stabbed Mr. Montero?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you,” Keenan said, giving the prosecuting attorney a smile.
The prosecution did not bother to cross-examine the widow Gervase, knowing he could never undo the damage caused by her statement.
In a fit of anger over the waste of the trial (and his valuable time), the bishop charged Father Bartholomew with perjury. Bartholomew was placed under house arrest. More importantly, his credibility and stature no longer existed. Several months later, I heard he had been expelled from his chapter.
Four years after the trial, a storm had been raging for hours one night when, incredibly, there was a knock at the door. Kari, the children and I were gathered in front of the fireplace, making up stories about the shadows on the wall. The knock came again.
I picked up a hatchet and with a gesture, had the children and Karina move into the bedroom. I opened the door.
A gust of freezing wind blasted me in the face. A bowed shadow stood without. It took me a moment to recognize the man.
“You!” I said, stunned.
Bartholomew stood outside in the dark, soaked, his face streaming with water. His look of superiority had been replaced by plain misery.
“May I come in?” His teeth were chattering so hard I could barely understand him.
“Who is it?” Karina called.
“Father Bartholomew.”
“What? How dare he!”
“Please,” he said. “I can’t make it to town.”
The man who had tried to have me imprisoned and hanged so he could take my land, making my wife a penniless widow and depriving my children of their father, sought shelter under my roof? Our eyes remained locked together. He saw the hard lines of my face.
“Please,” he said again, a violent shiver taking him.
I took my coat and threw it over my head. “I’ll return in a moment,” I said to Karina and the children. “Stay inside.”
I took the father by the arm as I guided him to the stables. My hand closed on a thin, seemingly fleshless limb. As we splashed through the mud of the courtyard, I noticed his bare feet. He stumbled twice and I had to bear him up. When we reached the barn, I lifted the heavy wooden bar across the front doors and we went inside.
He collapsed on the dry, bare ground heavily. I lit a lantern and set in on a hook. Lifting two horse blankets, I tossed them next to the soaking man.
“You had better get out of those clothes.”
I gathered split logs and got them burning in the small fireplace. By the time it was going strongly, the father was on his knees in front of it, holding his hands almost in the flames. He looked up at me, his eyes reflecting his humiliation.
“May God bless you,” he said. Tears ran down his face. “No one else…”
“Wait here.”
I returned to the house.
“What are you doing?” Karina demanded when I staggered back inside, water streaming from my hair. “That man had better not be anywhere on my property!”
“Sweetheart,” I said, but she overrode me.
“No! That man is a snake! He would have seen you hanged and taken your farm for his own, putting me and the children on the road! He’s a perjurer! He’s—“
“He’s scared,” I interrupted her. “Starving and sick.”
“I don’t care.”
I took her face in my cold hands. “Yes, you do. You’re my love and the mother of my children, and you do not have a hard heart. Kari, it looks like he’ll die if left out in this storm.”
She stared at me, molten fire in her eyes. “I don’t want him in my house.”
I kissed her mouth. Taking two cups, I filled one with a cold stew of meat and local vegetables. I also grabbed a half-full bottle of brandy and a bottle of wine, stuffed them in the pockets of my jacket. I wrapped a thick piece of bread in a cloth, took an old pair of pants and a heavy shirt, and stuck them under my arm.
Karina watched me with slitted eyes, her arms folded across her chest. “Drink? Food? Clothes?”
“Mrs. Montero.”
“Perhaps the children would like to sleep with us tonight, Mr. Montero. I have a headache.”
“Yay!” Laurena cheered.
I laughed with them, though I was not happy about having the nightly lovemaking cancelled. “Yes, darling.”
I opened the door and dashed through the rain. A huge bolt of lightning lit the world, the thunder following it deafening. The flash temporarily blinded me. My hands were full so I kicked on the stable door. Father Bartholomew pushed it open and I strode in, shaking my head and sending droplets flying.
“Here,” I said. I set the food and bottles on the low table I used to repair the horses’ shoes.
He fell on his knees next to the table, slurped the soup, snatched up the bread and began stuffing it
into his mouth. I uncorked the bottle of wine, but he shook his head and pointed at the brandy. I switched bottles and filled the small goblet. He had planned to drink it all at once, but after a gulp, the raw heat of the spirit convinced him to take it in parts. He gave a shuddery sigh and stopped shaking all at once.
Up close in the light of the fire I could see his face clearly. Sunken, rheumy eyes, cheekbones jutting. I wondered how close to starvation he had come. I set the bundle of warm clothes next to him.
“You should change.”
He had taken off his cloak and wrapped himself in the heavy, coarse blankets I had given him, his thin ankles sticking out. Open sores covered his feet.
“I suppose you’re enjoying this,” he said with a trace of his old imperiousness. He took the cup of stew and tipped it into his mouth with both hands, apparently fearful of spilling.
“Not at all.”
I watched him take another gulp from the goblet. Color had returned to his face and hands. He dropped the blanket and picked up the pants I had brought. I stared at his emaciated body, shocked. All of his bones stood etched against his skin, and he had sores on his arms and chest. The portly, well-fed man I had known four years ago was gone, replaced by this cowed scarecrow. He saw my expression.
“Satisfied?”
I have never been a forgiving soul. “No. You deserve worse, much worse.”
“Then why are you helping me?”
“I don’t know that I am. I’m keeping you alive. Perhaps God has worse torments in store for you. I certainly hope so.”
“You judge me? You murdered that man! I saw it!”
“I was defending my daughter. He came at me with a knife. You know that. His own wife testified for me.”
“You are not the Angel of Christ on earth! Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord! You have no right—”
“How do you know?” I interrupted him.
“Know what?”
“How do you know I am not an angel of God?”
He snorted. “You? If that were so, I would know God had turned his back on me forever.”
Ghosts of Atlantis (Immortal Montero Book 3) Page 25