by Kat Ross
Alexei rubbed his eyes. It seemed insane. How could the old man be the most revered Pontifex in the history of the Via Sancta?
Just find them. Get them out. Then he could sleep for a year.
Alexei ran through a mental list of every entrance. The OGD couldn’t be watching them all, not with escaped patients to deal with. He sank to one knee and pressed his hand flat against the wet grass. The current of ley was strong but slippery. It surged around his palm but seemed reluctant to enter him. Alexei cleared his mind of everything except his desperate need. A Mark flickered weakly on his left thigh, the first he’d been given after joining the priesthood. The Maiden. A symbol of both faith and innocence. He delved through the surface to the deepest strata of liminal ley where the violet deepened to crimson.
“Help me,” he whispered brokenly.
Shouts erupted near the wall. The electric torches converged. A woman’s voice pierced the night, cursing the fogging rooks. After a moment, two priests with the Golden Bough on their cassocks emerged from the front doors and joined the chase.
Alexei ran up to the doors and ducked inside. The neat stacks of papers at the admitting desk were strewn across the floor. He ran down the corridor to the non-violent wing, fully alert now. All the Wards at the junctions were dead. Only once was he forced to hide in an empty office as a priest strode past.
The door to Misha’s room stood ajar. Alexei pushed it wide, fear and hope warring in his heart. The bedsheets were rumpled as if his brother had been awakened from sleep. He would have heard the commotion when the ley surged. The question was what he did next—
A heavy hand fell on Alexei’s shoulder. He tore a glove off, lips peeled back in a snarl, before he realized it was Spassov, unshaven and haggard but a welcome sight nonetheless.
“Alyosha!” he exclaimed. “They released you?”
“Not exactly.”
Spassov winced and looked around. The corridor was empty, but he drew Alexei into the room and shut the door. “Okay, spare me the details. What are you doing here?”
Alexei met his steady gaze. “This room is my brother’s.”
His partner’s brow twitched, which was Spassov’s equivalent of a shocked gasp. “You never told me.”
“I’m sorry. I should have.”
“No, it’s your business. I understand.”
“I’m not ashamed of him, Patryk. I didn’t tell you because I hoped to catch the mage who Marked him and I was afraid you might try to stop me.”
There was a long silence as Spassov digested this fact. Not a regular Invertido. A Nightmarked Invertido.
“Ah,” he said at last. “Is it the same mage who Marked Massot?”
Alexei nodded. Spassov blew out a breath. “Saints, Alyosha.”
“His name is Mikhail. Number 26. You’ve probably seen him around.”
“Let me guess. The big one with black hair? Sits by the windows?”
“I have to find him, Patryk.”
Spassov laid a sympathetic hand on his arm. “Of course. But we’ve already searched the grounds. Not many places to hide. The ones who were slow are back in their rooms, safe and sound. So he must have made it out before the first knights showed up. Did he have any friends?”
“Here or in the real world?”
“Either.”
Mikhail had a wide circle of acquaintances, but in that last year he’d drifted away from most of them. The Curia had kept it quiet that one of their most decorated captains was both mad and Nightmarked, but word leaked out. Alexei didn’t think anyone else had ever come to visit him.
“Only one,” he said. “A patient.”
“What number?”
“Nine.”
“The old man?”
The edge in his voice made Alexei tense. “What happened?”
“Two bodies were found in his room. I got a look at them before the OGD took over.”
“Tell me, Patryk,” Alexei growled.
Spassov held up a hand. “Not patients. It was those investigators, the ones we gave statements to. OGD claimed the bodies and sealed the scene. The vestals weren’t happy about it, but Kireyev called and smoothed things over.”
“I need to see the old man’s room.”
“You need to get out of here before they catch you.”
“Just a quick look.”
“I can tell you how they died. Gerlach was stabbed, Brodszky had his neck snapped.”
“I need to see for myself. Please, Patryk.”
Spassov sighed. “By all rights, I should be bringing you in.”
“For what? I’m innocent.” Of Massot’s murder, at least.
“Yeah, I know. Come on.” He held up a finger. “One minute, Alyosha.”
The bloody footprints started about ten meters from the door to the old man’s room. Most were smeared by overlapping traffic after the fact, most likely other patients, but as he passed one of the sconces, Alexei found a well-preserved artifact. Two men, both barefoot. The first set was small, the second enormous. About a size thirteen double-wide. Judging by the stride and weight on the ball of the foot . . . .
“They started running,” Spassov said. “The prints fade out by the admitting area.”
Yellow tape stretched across the door to Number 9’s room. Spassov unlocked it and Alexei ducked under the tape, but didn’t go any further.
More blood stained the floor and wall, though the agents who’d removed the bodies were careful not to disturb the scene more than they had to. This was probably more out of habit than any desire to preserve the evidence, but it left a reasonably clear picture of what had occurred in the old man’s room that night.
“I think Brodszky died first,” Spassov said. “He was on his side with blood soaked into his cassock, but it was clean underneath him, so I figure he was already down when his partner got stabbed.”
The angle of impact indicated that Gerlach had been standing when he was killed. Alexei flipped the lights on and examined the ceiling. There was none of the castoff pattern you’d see from overhead hacking with a blade, just a single arterial spray against one wall and an enormous amount of blood on the floor. The outer edges were tacky and starting to dry.
“They died around the same time the Wards broke,” he said. “Maybe even before. So why were they here in the middle of the night?”
Spassov folded his massive arms, keeping a close eye on the corridor. “I don’t ask those kinds of questions, Alyosha. Not anymore.” He shot his partner a doleful look. “And you shouldn’t either.”
“They haven’t found the old man?”
“Into the wind.”
“What about the staff?”
“OGD is still rounding them up.”
Gerlach and Brodszky. He’d never know for certain, but . . . .
“Patryk, there’s something else I didn’t tell you.”
“Saints, what now?”
“The men who killed Massot were priests. I saw a Raven Mark just before they went over the wall.”
Spassov closed his eyes for a brief moment. “I won’t ask why you kept it to yourself. That’s obvious. But I guess you’re wondering if Gerlach and Brodzsky might have done Massot?”
It was easy to underestimate Spassov. He drank too much and looked like a bouncer at a disreputable nightclub. But Patryk was no fool.
“That’s exactly what I’m wondering.”
“So they were sent to investigate a crime they committed themselves.” He winced. “I want to say that the Archbishop of Novostopol would never condone such blatant corruption, but after what they’ve done to you, the words are sticking in my throat, Alyosha.”
“I think they came here to murder Patient 9.”
“Something to do with the doctor?”
“Because he’s the Pontifex of the Northern Curia.”
Spassov eyed him warily, clearly wondering if Alexei should be issued a pair of white pajamas. “Listen, you’d better get out of here. There’s at least a dozen of Kireyev’s boys
here already and more on the way. I presume they won’t be well disposed towards your presence?”
“He tried to have me killed, too.”
Spassov’s brow furrowed. He dug in his robes for the silver flask and took a long sip. Then he handed it to Alexei. “Keep it. Go find your brother. You need a car?”
“I have one. But Patryk, if you get the call, don’t hurt him, please?”
He touched the Raven on his neck. “I promise.” Voices drifted toward them from the next corridor. “Go!” Spassov mouthed with a frantic shooing motion.
Alexei took off running in the opposite direction. He didn’t encounter anyone on the way back to the parking lot. Judging by the taunting laughter across the grounds, at least one patient was still leading the OGD on a merry chase.
So Gerlach and Brodzsky had come to murder the old man and met their own ends instead. He wished he could have examined the body to confirm it, but the evidence strongly suggested that Gerlach had died from a single thrust to the heart. This was far more difficult than one might think. You had to turn the blade sideways to get it between the ribs, find exactly the right angle to the left ventricle, which is the largest chamber of the heart, and finish with a lateral sawing motion to inflict massive damage to the surrounding tissue. Even then the victim might still be alive. But once the blade was withdrawn, the contraction of the muscle would cause blood to jet from the wound. This might only last for one or two seconds, but done right it would cause such catastrophic loss of blood pressure that the victim would black out before their body touched the ground.
Setting aside an intimate knowledge of anatomy, you had to be very strong to get a blade through the tough connective tissue between the ribs. Alexei knew whose hand had wielded it, but where was Misha now?
He could think of only one place. It was a few kilometers from the Institute. Walking distance—even for a pair of Invertido. The tires spat gravel as Alexei sped down the drive.
* * *
One side of the winding road fell away to a hundred-meter drop ending on black surf-beaten rocks. The other was punctuated by private driveways flanked with manicured hedges.
Arbot Hills. The domain of the city’s wealthiest and most powerful dynasties. Most had claimed titles before the Via Sancta abolished the nobility and hoped for an eventual return to the old ways, secretly funding the Conservative wing of the Church. The Bryces had once been dvoryane, just below the princes, but the family line was nearing its end. There would be no new blood. No heirs.
Another of his father’s many disappointments.
Alexei pulled into a long drive ending at a baroque mansion with low towers at the corners, each crowned with vast belvederes of massed stone. Clouds obscured the moon and rain drummed on the roof of the car, turning the windscreen to a dark blur.
He killed the engine. He hadn’t spoken to his father in three years, since Misha was admitted to the Institute. Even before that final rupture, the relationship had not been a warm one.
He fished the flask from his pocket, silently blessing Spassov, and had a generous swig. The vodka hit his empty stomach like a fist. He cracked the car door, breathing deeply.
Lights burned on the top floor. Someone was home.
Alexei took another drink before gathering the courage to go up to the front door and ring the bell. It chimed in the recesses of the house.
The door was opened by a woman named Glaine Days, who had worked for the Bryce family for nearly three decades. She wore a dressing gown and cap, and had clearly been summoned from her bed, but she smiled warmly when she saw him. “Fra Alexei! Were you expected? Your father never mentioned it.”
“I’m sorry to wake you. Is he home?”
“Yes.” The smile faded. Her voice sank to a whisper. “Is it Mikhail?”
Alexei nodded.
“Oh, no.” She clasped her hands at her breast. “Is he . . . ?”
“It’s not that. He escaped from the Institute.”
A scar crossed Glaine’s right eye, a remnant from her days as a slave in Bal Agnar. When she grimaced in surprise, it looked like a wink. “Come inside. Tell me what’s happened.”
Alexei had no desire to step over the threshold. A quick search of the outbuildings and he’d be on his way.
“I’m sorry, I can’t stay. But listen, if he does come, call Fra Patryk Spassov. No one else. Can you promise me?”
“Of course.”
“I’ll write his number down for you.”
“Let me find a pen,” she said, lowering her voice.
The entrance hall opened into a grand salon. He watched her rummage through the tiny drawers of an antique escritoire. Besides the scar on her eye, she was missing three fingers—one for each escape attempt—but the remaining digits were quite nimble and her handwriting was precise and elegant.
When he and Misha were boys, she would talk about what life had been like when mages ruled the twin cities, generally after Alexei had pestered her with incessant questions. As frightening as those stories were, he knew now that she’d been holding back the worst. After the war, Glain had been among the waves of refugees that washed up in Novostopol. His mother hired her to mind the boys, but when she became sick, it was Glain who tended to her during those last months, as their father retreated into work and mute grief.
“Who’s at the door? It’s an ungodly hour!”
Alexei tensed at the deep, peremptory voice.
“It’s Master Alexei.” Glaine straightened from the desk, an anxious smile on her face. “He has some news about Master Mikhail.”
Despite the late hour, his father was dressed in a starched white shirt and wool trousers. Maybe he wasn’t sleeping so well these days, either. Gray threads showed in thick, wavy hair that had once been coal black, but his eyes hadn’t changed. The blue of arctic icecaps and equally warm.
“Alexei,” he said in surprise. “Well, don’t hover on the doorstep. Come inside.”
They walked together to the drawing room, which faced acres of gardens. The smell of the house, a combination of old, polished wood and new-mown grass, always made Alexei feel like a child again.
“Can I bring you anything?” Glain asked.
“Brandy,” his father replied, even though the question had been directed at Alexei. “Two glasses.”
“One,” Alexei said. “I’m not drinking.”
His father frowned, but nodded at Glaine. “You know how I like it.”
She busied herself at a sideboard while the men sat across from each other in matching wing chairs. Alexei could have poured the drink himself. It would be the thirty-year stuff from Nantwich, two fingers, neat. About a hundred fides a shot.
“You look terrible,” his father said.
“I was in a car accident.”
His brow creased. “Do you need a doctor?”
“It was minor.”
They’d come to the room most haunted by the ghost of his mother. A portrait of her hung over the enormous marble fireplace. She was sitting at a table set for tea, leaning forward with her right hand clasped around the wrist of her left, which held a burning cigarette. That his father had kept the painting was evidence of the Bryce masochism, which was apparently a hereditary affliction.
She died from lung cancer when Alexei was nine and Misha was twelve, but the painting had been commissioned when they were small and she looked clever and mysterious, dark hair swept up in a loose chignon. The cigarettes had killed her in the end, but they were inextricably linked to his memories. He never minded when Spassov smoked in the car. Alexei actually liked the smell.
Glaine handed his father the drink and left, casting a quick sympathetic glance at the younger Bryce.
“So what’s your news?” his father asked.
“A surge shorted the Wards at the Institute. Everywhere, actually. The patients got loose.”
“Saints,” his father muttered, tipping the glass back. His sleeves were rolled to the elbow and he wore a chunky gold watch on his right
wrist, over a Mark of a broken crown. “Well, I’m sure they’ll catch him. Isn’t that supposed to be your job?”
Don’t rise to the bait. “I thought he might have come here.”
“Why on earth would he do that?”
“He has nowhere else.”
“Well, if he does show up, I’ll notify the authorities.”
All too predictably, blood started to pound in Alexei’s temples. “He’s still your son. You could pretend to care.”
His father set the glass down. The Mark flared blue. Alexei saw his titanic rage, held tightly in check. “Mikhail made his choice. He dragged our name through the dirt. Betrayed everything he’d fought for. Brought shame and scandal on all of us. And then you—” His father bit off the sentence.
“I what?”
“The Interfectorem. Saints, Alexei! It’s for dimwits and thugs. Not us.”
“I did it for Misha.”
“Your brother doesn’t deserve that kind of sacrifice. Now I’ve lost both my sons!”
“We’re still alive, you know,” Alexei said dryly.
“I don’t want to argue with you. The last few years have been difficult, to say the least.” His mouth set in a line. “I honestly can’t say which of you is the greater disappointment.”
This sort of statement was par for the course, yet it still stung.
“You were happy enough when we were knights.”
“I was happy with Misha as a knight,” his father corrected. “He was bent on joining the Church from the time he could speak. I knew I’d never talk him out of it. But it’s not what I wanted for you.”
Alexei stayed silent. It was an old quarrel. Now he wondered if his father wasn’t right. If he had never bent his knee to take the vows, Mikhail wouldn’t have taken the Nightmark to protect him. And the Beatus Laqueo . . . . He wished he’d never volunteered, but it was the only way to get into Misha’s unit.
“Faith and family,” he muttered. “I just wanted to do the right thing.”
His father sighed. “You threw away a promising career in the law, and for what? To chase down lunatics?”