The Darkest Hand Trilogy Box Set

by Tarn Richardson

  “Well, what we need to do is find that little voice again because we need to ask it some questions about yesterday. Would that be okay, to try and do that?” Isabella pressed gently.

  The child began to nod his head but, as he did so, he stopped and began to shake it instead.

  “It’s Julio, isn’t it?” she asked.

  A nod grew out of the shake.

  “That’s a lovely name,” the Sister said to the boy. “Okay, why don’t you sit yourself down here on the end of the bed, Julio, and we’ll try and find that little voice inside of you? Okay?”

  She led the boy to the bed and sat him down on her gown, crouching before him. Isabella trusted that the boy’s backside was cleaner than Tacit’s bed. Tacit looked down at them contemptuously and made no attempt to a hide a yawn.

  “So, my name is Sister Isabella,” she began in a warm and deliciously inviting voice. “I am here to help find out what happened and to try and make everything all okay? Okay, Julio?”

  The boy nodded, looked up at the Cardinal and then looked back at the Sister, nodding again.

  “So, you’ve had a horrible fright and you don’t want to talk about it and I completely understand that.” She rested her hands on the thin thighs of the boy in front of her. “It was awful what happened to poor Father Andreas and that is why we need you to tell us what you know, what you saw, anything that might help us find who did this to the Father.”

  The boy looked up at the Cardinal and then back down into his lap. Isabella smiled and rubbed the side of his head.

  “Did you like the Father?” she asked.

  The boy nodded slowly and sniffed.

  “Was he kind to you?”

  The boy nodded and sniffed again, twisting his hands together in his lap.

  “Oh, poor lamb,” Isabella continued. “Then help us find who did this thing to your friend.”

  The boy twitched with his mouth and looked up from Isabella to the Cardinal and back again. He pursed his lips, as if willing himself to speak, but then shook his head and dropped his eyes back to his lap.

  “Speak boy!” shouted Tacit, resting an elbow on the top of his case. Isabella shot him a glare. The child stared up at him wide-eyed. “Stop wasting our time! Tell us what you know!”

  “Please, Tacit!” the Cardinal cried, his hands together in prayer. “Be gentle with your questioning. This child has witnessed much and his torment is terrible. He’s scared witless!” As if the words had awoken a sudden protectiveness within the Cardinal, he strode forward, his hands held aloft. “Enough!” he announced, reaching out to gather the child from the bed.

  Instantly, Inquisitor Tacit picked up the steel revolver from the table and pointed it directly at the child.

  “Speak,” he growled, staring down the long barrel of the gun into the wide terror of the child’s eyes.

  The chorister cried out and froze. The Cardinal fell against the wall muttering, his hand to his mouth.

  “Tacit, have you lost control of your senses?” he cried.

  Tacit gritted his teeth and cocked the pistol.

  “Speak!”

  Isabella hung her head in a hand and shook it gently. She slipped to one side, her back against a wall, her face deep in her fingers, hiding a look combining disbelief and shame. The child began to sob uncontrollably and looked fearfully from the barrel of the gun to the Cardinal. He began to raise his hands to the Cardinal as a means of rescue.

  “Please, for all that is holy in the world,” Cardinal Poré begged, stepping forward to guide the Inquisitor’s aim to one side.

  Tacit stepped beyond him and pushed the barrel tight into the forehead of the child. “Speak,” he said. “Last chance.”

  “For goodness’ sake!” the Cardinal cried, but at the same time the chorister blurted out, “The woman!” through tears and sobs.

  “The woman, what?” Tacit asked, the gun still tight to the child’s forehead.

  “She’d come to see Father Andreas, yesterday, earlier on, that morning, before lunchtime.” He ran the words into each other, as if he couldn’t get them out quick enough. “She came to see him. She carried a parcel. She gave it to him. Father Andreas seemed upset, but he took the parcel.”

  “Parcel? What was it like?”

  “Wrapped in paper. Size of a, I don’t know, a baby or a large fish.”

  “What did he do with it?”

  “Put it in the antechamber of the Cathedral.”

  “In its paper wrapping?”

  The boy nodded despairingly, moans and tears clutching in his throat.

  “What’s her name? The woman?”

  “I don’t know,” the boy whimpered.

  “Seen her before?”

  “No.”

  “Did you hear what they said to each other?”

  The chorister tried to shake his head but found the revolver made any movement difficult. “No, I was sent away to collect the hymn books for the Mass that evening, while they talked.”

  “How long did she stay?”

  “A few minutes.”

  “Did she say anything to you as she left?”

  “No. She just left.”

  “Had you seen her before?”

  “No.”

  “What did she look like?”

  “Dark hair. Tall. Slim.”

  “Do you recognise the description?” Tacit threw the question at the Cardinal.

  “Good heavens, no!” Poré roared back, his face crimson with fury.

  “Did Father Andreas say anything else, after she had left?” Tacit asked Julio again.

  The boy hesitated, misunderstanding what Tacit was asking.

  He scowled and raised his voice even louder. “Did he say anything more about the woman to you, after she had gone?” the Inquisitor hissed, pushing the barrel hard into the skull of the child.

  “No. No, he didn’t.”

  Tacit’s finger tightened around the trigger of the gun. The chorister cried out, pleading to be spared. Cardinal Poré screamed, reaching forward for the revolver.

  The gun clicked.

  Tacit turned and wandered nonchalantly back to the case, Isabella staring open mouthed at him.

  “It’s okay,” he grunted, as he put the revolver back onto the table. “The gun was never loaded.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  1893. THE VATICAN. VATICAN CITY.

  The man Tacit was introduced to had kindly features, but there was a distance and darkness within his eyes. He pressed his hand firmly into Tacit’s, so that the bones in the young man’s palm crunched.

  “Inquisitor Tocco,” he introduced himself, and rose up to his full height over the young man. “So, you’re the one they’ve been talking about, are you?” he asked, his hand still tight around Tacit’s clammy fingers. “The new Inquisitor?”

  “Well, I don’t know,” Tacit hesitated, finally managing to extract his hand and giving his fingers a surreptitious test behind his back. “I’ve just been told to come and see you.”

  “How old are you, boy? Sixteen?”

  “Fifteen. But I’m nearly sixteen.”

  “Makes all the difference, that one year,” Tocco joked, feigning a smile, and Tacit realised he was being mocked. “Can you handle yourself?”

  “I … I wouldn’t know.”

  “You’ve seen blood before?”

  Somewhere buried deep in his mind, a woman’s voice screamed.

  “Again, I wouldn’t know.”

  “Course you wouldn’t,” the Inquisitor hissed, and his eyes burnt hard into him. For several moments he stared into the depths of Tacit’s eyes, as if trying to retrieve memories from the young man’s mind. Then, without warning, he snapped himself straight and looked the young man up and down.

  “Well, you look strong enough. Are you up for a new challenge?”

  “I suppose so,” Tacit replied, watching the man leave the hall.

  “About time,” the Inquisitor said. “Come with me.”

  “Where are w
e going?”

  “Into Rome.”

  “Rome?”

  “You want to be an Inquisitor?”

  “They’ve told me I should be one.”

  “Then let’s see if they are correct.”

  They walked unmolested through the streets of the Italian capital, raising no suspicion, drawing no glances. But why should they, a dark-clad Priest and his young acolyte pacing through Rome on an errand?

  After a little while walking, the Inquisitor said, “They tell me you have a past. My advice to you, boy, is don’t ignore it. Use it. You’ll need it.”

  “Need it? I don’t know what you mean.”

  The Inquisitor stood back. He looked away up the street. Tacit saw scars on his cheek, through the bristle on his jawbone. They ran down his neck into the collar of his cassock. “Toughest job in the Church,” he said, putting his attention back onto the boy. “Guard yourself against the demons. And not just the ones around you.”

  He tapped his skull and stared hard at the boy, before reaching into his pocket and drawing out a small glass bottle encased in tendrils of metal across its surface. He unscrewed the lid and put the lip of the bottle to his mouth.

  He champed against the bitterness of the tincture. “Use what you can to get through,” Tocco said, raising the bottle to the boy. “You’ll find a way. Most do.”

  “What about those who don’t? Those who don’t find a way?”

  The Inquisitor stowed the flask into the folds of his jacket and removed a revolver from a deep pocket. “Then they’re doomed,” he replied darkly, before turning the handle of the door next to where they stood and stepping cautiously inside.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  1893. ROME AND THE VATICAN. VATICAN CITY.

  That first moment when the apparition fell shrieking upon Tacit, he knew he’d been irretrievably changed, the fervour and panic as the thing came out of the shadows at him forever now branded on his brain. Instantly the air froze, turning Tacit’s blood to ice. He fell away, shielding his eyes, enveloped in a cloud of dust as he tried to roll away from it.

  He could feel the cold tendrils of the thing’s tattered arms raking his back, the sound like a scream in his head. He felt lost in the darkness, swirling mists of unconsciousness engulfing him. He tried to cry out, but no sound came. He whimpered and then, when he thought he was lost for good, he heard a voice, growing louder and louder, calling out: Inquisitor Tocco, barking at the apparition to “Get back! Get back!’’

  Tacit rolled over and looked straight up into the face of the wraith. It turned its wrathful eyes from him onto the Inquisitor, as Tocco leapt into its swirling gaseous form, whipping out his crucifix and at the same time pulling a strange-looking gun from his holster.

  At once the ghost knew it was beaten and reared away, attempting to find some hole into which it could hide. Tocco lowered the pistol and fired.

  “How d’you feel?” the Inquisitor asked Tacit straggling behind him, as they strode through the bowels of the Vatican. He shouted the question into the air above his head, heaving open a heavy oak door and stepping through it. Tocco caught sight of Tacit peering about the dour surroundings. “They don’t decorate down here,” he said, turning right at the next split in the corridor. “Weapons mark the walls too easily. So, how d’you feel?”

  “Fine,” Tacit lied. He swallowed and realised he was shaking.

  “Ghosts are one of the easiest things you’ll face,” the Inquisitor continued, unhelpfully. “They can’t hurt you, not unless you let them in. You just have to remember what they are. Memories, on the wind.” He touched the point of his index finger to his skull. “Sadly, there’s plenty else out there that can hurt you.”

  “What was that thing you fired at it?” Tacit asked, recalling the Inquisitor’s revolver. “I didn’t think ghosts could be hurt by bullets?”

  “They can’t. It was a special revolver. Fired silver charms. Good for dissipating ghosts. Not so good against Hombre Lobo, witches, demons or heretics.”

  “Hombre Lobo?”

  “Werewolves,” the Inquisitor replied, smiling.

  “Where would you get a gun like that?” Tacit asked, wide-eyed.

  “Come,” replied Tocco. “I’ll show you.”

  They stepped through an archway into a vast hall. Along one wall was a wide opening against which Inquisitors stood, leaning forward across a counter towards figures scampering back and forth on the other side. Tables and chairs, backpacks on table tops, black-clad Inquisitors, seated or standing in groups, covered every available space in the chamber.

  “What is this place?” Tacit asked, mesmerised. He’d never seen so many assembled in one hall, not even in St. Peter’s Basilica.

  “Stores,” the Inquisitor replied, guiding Tacit towards an available space in the opening. “We can’t fight with our hands and crucifixes alone.”

  Tocco nodded at the figure behind the opening and wordlessly a high-sided tray, piled with various items and oddments, was placed on the counter in front of him. The Inquisitor pulled it towards him and rummaged carelessly through its contents. “Here, take this,” he said, producing a silver revolver from the pile of contents and handing it absently to Tacit. “My gift to you.”

  Tacit gasped. “But … I can’t take this. It’s a gun!” He shuddered at the weight of the weapon in his hands, turning it over to peer at its intricate mechanisms and the shimmer given off from its metallic parts. “It’s too beautiful. I can’t accept it.”

  “You don’t have a choice. I’m not giving it to you out of the kindness of my heart. You’ll need it. Every Inquisitor needs to be armed.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  16:26. TUESDAY, 13 OCTOBER 1914. ARRAS. FRANCE.

  It had taken Cardinal Poré several hours to calm the chorister and an hour more to calm himself after what had taken place in the Inquisitor’s lodgings. He had never seen anything like it. He knew Inquisitors were cruel and harsh, but Tacit’s behaviour was beyond anything he would ever have expected, even from their bitter kind.

  Once the shaking had worked its way out of his body and he’d tried, and failed, to understand how and why Tacit had done what he had, there were still errands to run and people to see. Only now, late into the afternoon, had Cardinal Poré found a moment to rest. The war had taken its toll, not just on those at the front line but also on those in the nearby towns and cities, caught by the seemingly wanton barrages cast their way. There were so many in his congregation who needed help, a prayer for safety, or simply a kindly word from someone who perhaps could make some sense of the madness which had been thrust upon them. Not that Poré chose to make sense of what had befallen their nation. Instead, as his eyes turned increasingly to the east towards the sounds of war and the plumes of smoke rising from blasted outposts and abandoned homesteads, he found that the grim resolve was growing ever stronger inside him.

  Poré was willing to give all succour who wished it, but right now he needed just a moment’s rest in the quiet of his residence close to the Cathedral of Arras, a moment of peace and reflection, before continuing with his endeavours amongst the population of his city.

  He took a little water and sat with his sad eyes upon the city before him, his mind turning from Tacit and the chorister to the many drawn faces he had looked into that day, reliving the touch of their trembling hands as he’d taken hold of them.

  But nothing, not even their horror etched into their faces, could remove the image of Tacit or the outrage of his behaviour from his mind. A hatred began to catch within him, fuelled by a memory from long ago. He recalled the cruel regime under which he himself had once served, for just a short time when a boy; a terrible time of harsh voices, physical and mental abuse, the stench of leather, blood and soot, coloured only with black and flame and horror. He closed his eyes in an attempt to silence the sneering ghosts of his past, but doing so only worsened his torment, the shriek of wicked things in the dark places of the world rattling within his mind, remembering how he sobbed
at his eventual expulsion from the Inquisition, the inhuman taunts from his inquisitorial teachers as he was sent from the school, the shame which forever followed him in those years after.

  And then, some time later, when the Inquisitors appeared at his home calling for his mother and father to go with them, their plaintive cries of resistance, his tear-drenched pleading for them to be saved, the sharp sting as a subduing truncheon fell across the back of his head. The darkness which flooded in after he’d been hit, pulling him down into an endless blackness; he had never recovered or returned from it.

  So many voices he could never silence. So many questions. Had his failings to make it as an Inquisitor led to their arrest? Had his actions, or inaction, tied his parents to those ghoulish instruments of torture? Had they been made to confess? If so, what did they confess to and what had been done to draw the confessions out? Had their torturers used fire, blades or blunt instruments?

  How had they died?

  Poré never discovered the charges which had been placed against his parents. He had never been given the chance to see them again, once they had been taken that day.

  Their loss drove him to the very edge of madness and beyond, an overwhelming sense of responsibility and shame which, in turn and with time, twisted and writhed into anger and hatred, and to the sworn promise to his dead parents that one day he would take his revenge upon the Inquisition and the faith which had created it.

  Wrath bristling within him, he snatched up his scarlet zucchetto skull cap from the desk beside him and stormed from the room.

  TWENTY-NINE

  21:51. TUESDAY, 13 OCTOBER 1914. ARRAS. FRANCE.

  Father Aguillard looked over his shoulder and tried to put the key to his door in the lock. It wouldn’t go, as if the key was too big for it, as if he’d drawn the wrong one from his pocket. He drew a sleeve over his eyes, stinging with sweat, and peered with renewed focus at the small dark slot, knowing it had to be the right one for he only carried the one key. As a travelling Father of the Church, what need had he of chests or doors? He’d been given the key by the Church on his arrival. He knew it must fit. He tried to breathe a little slower and be more measured and deliberate in his actions. He thought about, once he was packed, returning the key to the Church courtesy of the mail service. Certainly not by hand. He had no intention of staying in Arras a moment longer. Not now, not any more, not now the city wasn’t safe.