by J M Robison
I find the road we took last night to our first hotel, discovering quickly it’s a straight shot back to the gate. I walk with hands in my pockets, and head bowed against the rain. And so I won’t accidentally see another poster of my wife.
My first and likely last visit to Rome, and I pass by what must be world class iconic sights left over from an empire who tromped over and owned all of the–then –known world. A piece of Hadrian’s Wall can be found in England. And I don’t care about any of it.
I’m one of the few out in this weather. Will make it easier to see Joseara. Or Carlo, whose face is burned into permanent memory. To think I was within arm’s reach of him at one point. I never thought he’d cut through the Fae Gate and enter upon my home. I have to remember he’s not the side-show magician I dueled at the gypsy camp. These men cut off limbs in their devotion to the devil in a request for spells.
I enter upon the massive square with the Egyptian pillar in its center. The constables are still at work searching people desiring entry through the arch, though the trickle coming through is less than what I fought through last night. The rain must have discouraged people for the time, seeking shelter outside of Rome. The rug peddler is still in his spot, all his wares soaked but he keeps at it. He lures a lone female to him, but a quick glance and he spies me looking at him. He speaks with the female who shakes her head, and after a moment she leaves under cover of her umbrella.
I cup both hands to my mouth. “Joseara!”
I catch the attention of several people, but that is all. I spin around to holler the other direction, and I nearly step on Eudora.
“Eudora?” I try to say, but I no longer have lungs or a heartbeat, and nothing comes out.
She’s here. I’m staring at her. She grins and reaches her arms up to me. “Fǽder!”
I don’t know how, but I don’t care. I’m craving my family so badly I forgive Eudora for following me across Europe. I’m not even in the state of mind to question how she did it so quickly when we flew on the back of a dragon most of the way.
I reach down to scoop her into my arms, but they go right through her.
“Fǽder, I—” She whirls around to look behind her. And vanishes.
My knees buckle, and I drop to the ground, arms shaking as they attempt to hold my body upright.
I’ve lost my mind. It’s gone. Broken. Irreparable. Seeing the poster of my wife in the arms of another man earlier today, broke me without my notice. But that’s how madness works. It’s a warm, silky thing, bleeding in to fill the cracks of the mind, so you don’t feel it invade because it’s just replacing the empty spaces. First, I had an acute sense that Eudora stood next to me on the ferry across the channel, then I smelled rosemary. Heard her say “father” while I had an emotional episode at the river in France. Now I’ve seen her. It’s almost like…
My strength zaps back into me. It’s almost like Eudora is traveling through each Fae layer to come upon the Human Realm. I have no doubt Eudora threatened some flying creature in the Fae Realm to fly her to Rome on the Fae side. Of course, there would be nothing but hills and trees in place of Rome in the Fae Realm, but at least she’d be with me–which is what she wanted–beit even five layers away.
But for Eudora to travel through the layers on her own without a Fae Arch? Impossible. The Fae Realm functions on a different plane of time, and the Fae Arches are to bring a person to a particular time at a particular place. To come through those five layers without the aid of an Arch would rip a void into both realms, and I can’t even guess what would happen, though I suspect a significant time rift would follow at the very least.
So no, Eudora isn’t coming through the Fae layers on her own. She’s not that knowledgeable in magic yet to know how to do so–I can’t even fathom a spell for it–and the Fae would never allow that spell to happen.
I didn’t see Eudora just now. I saw and heard the fabrications of my own madness.
I sit at the fountain where we waited last night. I sit there until just before curfew. I’m no good to Brynn in the dungeon. I walk back to the hotel. I’ll try again tomorrow. I just hope my madness won’t consume me completely before I see my wife in two days.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Darik
Girl number two disappears behind Sigismondo’s rug cart. It will be the last one because it’s nearly dark and the curfew bell will be trilling shortly. Sure enough, as soon as the girl is pushed through the doorway behind the rug, Sigismondo starts gathering up his wares and the fence barring entry into Rome through the Popolo Gate rattles shut.
I follow my same route as yesterday, to Santa Maria in Trivio. I don’t see the priest right away, so I hide in my usual spot until he leaves and locks the door behind him.
In the past when the Camorra knew I was still alive, they’d keep two separate groups of girls in separate locations, so if I rescued one group, I was slim to rescue the other. Clearly, I’m the only Camorra-hating vigilante in Rome who does something about it, but now that I’m “dead,” I can’t imagine they’d still be so precautious and keep two groups separate.
I make it to the brick wall, where I remove a brick to peer into the chamber. The Camorra has beat me here with the last unconscious girl. All eight girls are in the cage. Some are awake, kept silent–if not whimpering–by the crossbow pointed at them. I’ve yet to see the Camorra shoot any of them, but the girls don’t know that.
Yesterday’s batch of girls had been kept drugged all day, but that would stop so they could be fresh and prime for the sale in the morning.
I sit down and rest my back against the wall at an angle where I can still see into the chamber. It will be another hour or two before the two Camorra bed down. One will keep watch, as usual. Unless they’d become so relaxed since my death that they’d both sleep, which is likely.
The two Camorra who brought in the last girl chat together with the two keeping watch, and then, bidding their “ciaos,” they leave.
The remaining two–Cesare and Paolo–sit down to dinner, mumbling and making crude statements about the girls in the cage.
“What do you want with us?” a pretty blond cries, clutching the bars and shaking. Her fine dress and heavy jewels have me guessing she’s the daughter of a political officer, likely left home without an escort in a moment of teenage rebellion. “My father will find me, and he will have you charged!”
The Camorra ignore her.
“I have a husband!” another wails. “He’ll pay you. His name is Tomasso Sciacchitano. We live at—”
“Shut it!” Cesare throws his tin cup at the bars, splattering the occupants with cheap potato beer.
The girls squeal and huddle together in a sisterhood of misery. My rage flares, but I’ll free them soon enough. The other six don’t protest; likely foreigners come to Rome and don’t speak Italian. They sit daunted, nearing acceptance to their doom.
The Camorra finish their dinner, Cesare going to the corner to piss in a hole in the dirt. He buttons his pants and returns to his companion who’s guzzling beer, Adam’s apple bobbing.
“Let’s relieve these girls’ effects and go to bed,” Cesare says.
Paolo sets his cup on the stone slab they’ve rigged for a table and reaches for his crossbow. Like a cat approaching a mouse cage, all the conscious girls cower back. Two girls remain unconscious under the holds of the drug, one of them the masked girl taken yesterday.
Paolo and his crossbow stand near the cage door.
“Try anything on us and Paolo will shoot you dead and hang your corpse from Constantine’s Arch,” Cesare warns, turning the lock.
Paolo nods once.
The door grinds open. Cesare points. “You, come over here and hand over everything but your clothes.”
A young girl with wet cheeks stands and approaches. I doubt she’s even sixteen. Whimpering, she unclasps her locket.
“Anything else?” Cesare snaps. Paolo bounces his crossbow for effect.
“No…” She’s bar
ely breathing.
“Sit over there.” He points to a vacant corner of the cage. “Next!”
One by one the girls approach and hand over their jewelry with obvious relief as if they had feared more than just their jewelry would be taken by these men. The foreigners approach and hand over their items without question, not understanding the commands but mimicking the girls who went before them.
“I’ve never taken my wedding band off,” the married girl sobs. She tugs on it.
Cesare snatches her hand and spits on her finger. He strains, and the ring slips off. “Just needed some lubrication. Sit over there.”
Cesare kneels beside one of the two unconscious girls and checks wrists, hands, and throat. “Nothing on this one. Sigismondo forgets this is how me and you get paid.”
“Or doesn’t care.”
“He’ll care when I punch his teeth out.” Cesare pulls a small jar out of his pocket, unscrews the lid, and waves it under the girl’s nose. She wakes with a start. “Over there.” Cesare points to the huddle of six girls, then moves to stand next to the masked girl. “Why do you suppose this one’s masked?”
“Probably ugly as the seven deadly sins.”
Cesare squarely blocks my view of her. “Ho! So she is. Look at her, Paolo.”
“Good thing we’re not selling her face.”
“And if that bothers ‘em, they can put a bag over her head.”
They both laugh. Cesare searches the woman’s wrists and fingers. “Got one.” He lifts a silver chain off her neck with one finger, pulling a large red pendant out of her shirt. It’s large enough I can see it from my hiding spot.
“Bless the Pope, it’s a ruby!” He fists the pendant. “I’ll—”
The sound of displaced air makes my ears pop, and from the other side of the cage wall from Cesare, a white and black striped winged creature literally explodes into existence. I’m not the only one who sees it, because Cesare jumps back and Paolo screams.
If this creature were a dog, or a bird, appearing so unexplainably, I’d be more at ease because those are normal, real things I live with. I’ve no idea what this thing is. The size of a dog, it’s hairless and white with elaborate black swirls over its body…hooves instead of paws, and a jaw so massive it rams its teeth against the bars and shakes it, wanting in at the many bodies screaming on the opposite side, including Cesare. A tinkling follows this aggressive motion, which I suspect to be its wings which are made up of hundreds of clear discs strung together like a bead curtain.
“Shoot it!” Cesare screams.
Paolo shakes himself out of his stupor and fires. I don’t see where the bolt hit, but it wasn’t fatal, and the demon whirls on him. Paolo is still fumbling with the reload when the demon crushes his head between massive jaws. His head comes clean off, body crashing beside his crossbow on the floor.
Cesare bounds to the cage door and slams it shut. The demon spins toward the sound and rams its fangs against the bars as if trying to force its way between them. The workmanship is sub-par, so given enough time and determination, it could be done.
The demon’s back is to me. I quickly and quietly remove the bricks from the wall and crawl out of hiding, removing my mask.
Cesare’s gaze shoots toward me and widens. “Darik?”
I re-pin the mask across my face. “My last words in death were to Sant’Antonio for one last moment on earth to extract justice on the Camorra.”
The creature doesn’t turn around, its full attention on the food in the cage.
“Free the girls, and I will summon this demon back to Diavolo’s hell and allow you to live.”
“Take them! Take them!” Cesare shouts the second louder than the first and with more emphasis. “Now send it back!”
I hoist up Paolo’s crossbow and load it. I walk around until I have a perfect broad-side shot. I fire.
The demon barks as if all its air was punched out. I lock the string back and reload. The demon turns, wings dragging as it gallops toward me. I fire again, through its fat neck. It stops, gurgles, and falls onto its side. I wait for it to vanish as suddenly as it appeared, but it doesn’t. It bleeds red like any real thing. I look at Cesare. He fumbles with the lock, and the door opens. He’s the first to sprint out of there, and I’m fairly certain it’s not to call for reinforcements.
I’ll keep the crossbow.
The girls don’t move out of the cage, fearful of me.
“That was all an act,” I reassure. “I didn’t summon that thing. I have no idea what it is. I’m here to free you. Follow me.” I walk to the staircase the Camorra had been using for entry. I look behind me. They all finally stand up and follow. I’ll come back to the unconscious girl with the ruby necklace.
I lead the girls through the shortest route I know to get them back top side, and from there they scuttle away. At least one of them said thank you.
I return to the chamber. Cesare took the smelling salts with him. I kneel next to the girl and shake her. Her closed eyes not covered by the mask scrunch tightly, but that’s it. When another vigorous shake doesn’t yield better results, I thrash my knuckles up and down her sternum. “Hey, wake up.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Joseara
“Ehi, svegliati.”
Pain flares up my sternum and into my throat. I’m zapped awake, and I find a masked body kneeling over me.
Instincts flash into my muscles, and I spit out a relocation spell upon the person.
Turns out it’s a man, because he hollers in shock before his back slams into the wall of the cage with a loud bang, shaking the entire structure. Air gushes out of his lungs. His head droops as if he’s been knocked unconscious, but then he looks sharply at me as he must see he’s two feet off the dirt, held to the cage by my spell. “Strega?”
A flock of birds beats in my throat and chest. I swallow to keep them inside, though my surroundings and comprehension of my reality has my mind spinning so I might pass out.
I’m lying on a dirt floor which appears to be under ground, due to the oppressive atmosphere, no windows, and a disjointed pattern of dirt and stone in the walls and ceiling. I struggle back to the first thing I remember.
I’m in Rome. We were searched at the gate. I came through the gate. I saw colorful rugs from a peddler. Peddler talked to me. Now I’m here. I shake my head, though it pounds with a massive headache. No. I don’t remember anything after that. Did the same thing happen to Zadicayn and Jaicom? Did the Illuminati get the jump on us? Bloody hell, please no.
I look sharply at the man still spelled to the cage wall. He’s beating his feet and fists back against the cage, muttering, “Il potere di Cristo ti costringe, strega.”
I don’t think this man means me harm. He doesn’t strike me as Illuminati. After all, he did wake me up. I feel a bit bad. Being back in a realm where my mortality balances between misfortune and divine interference, I’m protective of it.
“What am I doing here?” I ask, just in case he speaks English. “Were two men brought with me?”
He stops kicking and punching the cage. He wears a mask similar to mine, showing only his eyes. “No men. I rescue tu. Bad men wants sell tu.”
“What is tu?”
His eyes squeeze shut as if thinking hard. “You.”
Sell me? Sell me for what? I don’t think he knows enough English to explain it well enough for me to understand. At least he knows some English, which is more than I could have hoped for in an underground chamber in where I hope is still Rome.
I look around the chamber again. Outside the cage is a headless body of a man, and nearby–dead–is a Faewraith. I panic and touch my chest, looking down. Zadicayn’s amulet hangs outside my shirt. Someone pulled it out and touched it. The headless man? Why didn’t the Faewraith eat me, or the man I’ve got pinned to the cage wall?
“You…strega?” he asks. “No. No. You…witch?”
“No,” I say, though I must appear to be. Not only have I slammed his head and back against
the wall, but I’ve also scared the daylights out of him with my magic when he’d already rescued me from whoever the “bad men” are and saved my life by killing the Faewraith…at least, I’m guessing he killed the Faewraith. I release the spell, and he drops to his feet. Unexpected, he falls forward onto his knees, rubbing the back of his head.
So Zadicayn and Jaicom are still free and clear. At least, I have to hope.
“You said you rescued me?” I’m speaking slowly and deliberately since his English is not very strong. “Why?”
He rises to his feet, holding the back of his head. “I rescue girls in the slavery. Bad men take you when you…come to Roma.”
The peddler. He must have drugged me, though I don’t remember it. Only him and his rugs. “When was that? How long have I been down here?”
His mask shifts as he moves his mouth around. “Not today. It was…” He points behind him. I look where he points, but he drops his hand in frustration. “One day behind.”
“Yesterday?”
“Si! Yesterday!”
Now I feel like I’ve been slammed into the cage. My heart skips a beat, and the flock of birds in my chest gush out in a long, slow exhale.
I have Zadicayn’s amulet. He needs it. I’ve no idea when or where he’s supposed to meet up with the Black Magicians to rescue Brynn. What if he’s already met with the Black Magicians? What if they’ve killed him and that’s why there’s a Faewraith down here? What happened to Jaicom, Brynn, and Levi?
A yawning black hole opens to swallow my consciousness. I won’t let it yet, not until I make sure my suspicions are true. If they are true, then I deserve whatever misfortune or divine intervention befalls me.
“You…okay?” he asks.
“I have to get out of here.” I stand and brush by him to the open cage door, looking beyond the headless body to the only entrance into the chamber. I can make it outside, but then what? I’ve never been to Rome. But this man speaks English. “How do I get out of here?”