Inquisitor

by John Barrowman

  Trastevere was a labyrinth of winding alleys and narrow corridors, punctuated with cobbled piazzas and garden patios. The morning sun was already baking the neighbourhood, brightening the colours and clouding the shabbiness of the shuttered apartments and the pastel-painted shops and cafés. Luca rolled his stiff shoulders. It always took a few minutes to adjust his posture from divine to human. His angelic form was closer to his human body than his true bestial essence. That he saved for special occasions. His shirt itched against his skin and his legs tingled, but these were feelings he knew would dissipate quickly.

  When he was fully human, his musculature was tall and sculpted, his reddish-blond hair framing emerald eyes and high distinctive cheekbones. His skin was light brown and, since he had no body hair, looked translucent in direct sunlight. He threaded his way through packs of tourists strolling along the Via Del Moro. One or two caught his eye and he smiled, knowing he’d made their hearts skip, their breath catch.

  A blonde woman in a short summer dress sloshed a mop on the stones in front of the newsagents across the narrow street, her forearms furrowed with ropey muscles, her calf muscles tense. Luca stopped at the end of the queue outside his favourite café. Drinking the strange dark brew was another of his trivial human pleasures. Cutting to the front of the line would be easy: a shoulder tap here, a wicked look there. But Luca’s patience was unlimited. Time didn’t concern him in the ways it rattled and jabbed at humans. He inhaled the heady mix of impatience, repressed anger, and polite submission that enveloped the queue, and revelled in it all.

  The sun glinted off his silver-tipped cowboy boots, and the flash of brilliance for an instant fractured his indulgence. His mind went to Sebina, as it often did. He let his memories roll out, stoking his wrath against those who had taken her from him centuries ago.

  Rome

  1610

  13.

  Metamorphosis

  Luca crouched like a gargoyle on the ramparts of his castle’s keep. Perched on a protruding water spout, his wings were folded against his broad back, his head down, his hands clenched in fists under his chin. From here, the Nephilim had a clear view over the walled Piazza di Santa Maria where Sebina was to be executed within the hour.

  The alleys and streets surrounding the castle walls were unusually quiet. No men on horseback, no peasants hauling their wares, no vendors wheeling their carts over the stony ground. No patrons in gilded carriages, no prostitutes calling out to them.

  The walled piazza and its surrounding townhouses belonged to the Trastamaras, one side of Luca’s human family. As far as the world was concerned, Trastamara patronage ensured that the Basilica di San Pietro honoured the founder of the church of Rome. Luca knew better. The Camarilla knew better. The Christian edifice was a farce, a front. Built simply to conceal the sacred catacombs that protected the way to the Temple of Orpheus, and what lay beneath.

  The crowd gathered in the piazza hummed with excitement. Luca squeezed his fists, searing his palms, the stench of his own charred flesh more tolerable than the amalgam of excitement, horror and lust rising from the crowd. Hundreds of torches blazed from iron sconces. The crowd was growing restless. They’d been promised a spectacle. Luca tightened his wings round his body. He would make sure they weren’t denied.

  He absorbed the darkness, letting it drape him like a shroud. Then he spread his wings and rose from the battlements, swooping over the chimneys and the uneven rooftops, landing with a fizz of pale light behind the statues of the nine muses on the Basilica.

  There was a trumpet blast. Thanks to the artist Caravaggio and his cowardly disappearance, Luca was no longer the Imperial Commander of the Camarilla. His replacement marched out of the open doors of the Basilica and paused on the wide steps under the columned portico. The crowd cheered and Corso Donati lifted a hand in acknowledgement. Two legions dressed in red and gold tunics stood inside the walls, their heads shaved to the scalp to display the mark of the Camarilla.

  The warm evening breeze brought a stringent whiff of body odour, overlaid with lavender – and the sharp scent of citrus. Luca’s wings stiffened.

  His father was here.

  Donati signalled to a musician to blow the horn. The crowd sorted themselves quickly, marching in pairs into the Basilica. Luca dropped down on to the portico as the horn player, the last person to go inside, was pulling the heavy wooden doors closed behind him. He slipped past like a chill wind, into the church, where he flew unseen up to the highest gable above the altar. There, he folded his wings over his body and waited.

  The sanctuary was ripe with orange blossoms that carpeted the altar. Below Luca’s perch, the worshippers sat according to their social class and importance to the Camarilla’s cause and the Inquisitor’s plans. Seated first were the aristocracy: men and women wrapped in maroon silk cloaks whose descendants were the original patrician families of the city and whose ancestors had pledged their allegiance to the Camarilla. Behind them were the merchants and their families, and behind them, in black leather tunics and long capes, their identities hidden behind gold masks, stood the elite order of the First Legion: ten men and women, five Animare and their Guardian companions, whose duty was to protect the First Watcher. Luca’s skin felt hot and his intentions began to waver. The presence of the First Legion meant his father was somewhere close.

  The worshippers dropped to their knees as the bronze bull was wheeled down the wide nave. A brass bed layered with red-hot coals hissed and spat inside the bull, its eyes and nostrils spewing smoke.

  The Inquisitor appeared behind the bull. His scarlet cape lay draped over a white lace and red silk cassock, his red pointed biretta covering his thick white hair, his hands clasped in front of him, and his enchanted pitch pipe hanging from a gold chain around his neck.

  Luca’s skin tightened. He pressed his wings against the fresco that covered the walls and ceiling, and watched Corso Donati lead Sebina in chains on to the altar. When he saw what the Inquisitor had done to her, his body buckled and his flesh softened. His humanity overwhelmed him.

  Luca began to transform.

  14.

  Burning Gold

  Sebina was dragged to the altar in chains, a hammered gold scold’s bridle locked on her head to mute her screams and limit her powers, its weight pressing her head against her chest.

  The scent of orange blossoms was making Luca ill. Sebina’s will pressured him to stay out of sight, and he remained cowering on the massive beams in his naked human form. To his shame, overwhelmed with love for Sebina, he was paralyzed and powerless to act.

  The Inquisitor sat on the throne in front of the altar.

  ‘My son,’ he called, pleasantly. The sound echoed around the Basilica. ‘My dear Lucius, I know you are here somewhere. Heed this moment. When mistakes are made, retribution must follow. Nothing can come between me and my future, not even Sebina, my daughter. She has failed me. But you have a second chance. Nurture your anger, let it fester, and use it against the men and women who will thwart our divine plans.’

  The coals beneath the sarcophagus blazed red-hot. Swarms of beetles scrambled up through the spaces between the planks of wood, pattering across the pews. The worshippers dropped to their knees.

  Luca’s mind filled with darkness as he thought of the artist. He should never have let Caravaggio escape.

  Sebina’s neck was bent awkwardly from the weight of the bridle, her flimsy blue gown trailing off her body like her soul in relief. Donati pushed her forward. Shrugging him off, Sebina dropped her gown on the altar, and climbed into the sarcophagus by herself.

  Luca groaned in despair.

  With the ability to skin walk – to alter her exterior like a creature of the desert or a deadly flower in the jungle – Sebina had always been impetuous and impossible to ignore. It was why Luca loved her. Dark-haired, brown-skinned like her mother, an Egyptian queen, she had a softness to her features that belied the toughness of her character. The memory of Sebina’s fingers brushed his neck, her
lips on his cheeks absorbing his tears, then her hand on his chest, and her whispers pledging undying love.

  Donati slowly lowered the heavy brass lid of her scorching tomb. The flames beneath the sarcophagus hissed like a thousand snakes. The Inquisitor smiled up at the rafters, and bowed his head.

  Rome

  Present Day

  15.

  A Pocket Full of Pebbles

  A young priest sat at one of the café tables, head bowed, hands flat on the pages of the International Herald Tribune. An empty expresso cup and his mobile phone held down the corners of its pages. A slight breeze caught on the awning above his head, sprinkling a touch of the recent rain on to his newspaper, but he kept reading. From his position in the queue, Luca smiled to himself. Nothing in this world was that interesting.

  The woman in front of him was wearing a scarf wrapped in swooping waves around her pale thin neck. In his head, Luca reached for the two ends and tugged until the woman’s eyes popped. Amused at the thought, he tapped her on the shoulder.

  ‘May I skip ahead?’ he asked in Italian.

  ‘Of course,’ she replied, softening like wax.

  An attractive male in a skin-tight T-shirt and skinny black pants was now directly ahead of Luca, swiping through his phone for the next perfect song. The man’s chest was sculpted and his nipples poked at the flimsy material of his tee. Luca dreamily plunged his fist into the music lover’s chest, tearing out his heart and dropping it at his feet. He blew cool breath on the man’s neck.

  The man turned in annoyance, saw Luca’s smile and flushed.

  ‘May I?’ Luca said gently.

  He slaughtered the rest of the line in increasingly inventive ways until he reached the barista, a youth with a sculpted beard and ears studded with silver. Luca’s spirits were considerably more buoyant now.

  ‘Sorry for the wait,’ said the barista, whose name-tag said ‘Thatcher’ in bold script. ‘Making a good cup of coffee takes time.’ He swirled a fleur-de-lis into the snowy foam on the cup in front of him before adding with a laugh, ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day, you know.’

  Thatcher’s Italian was awkward and choppy, and his phrasing was punctuated with pauses at all the wrong places. Luca thought it was charming, and did nothing to correct him. He was wrong about Rome though. The Rome Luca first knew had emerged from a battlefield saturated in blood, brick-and-mortar temples and palaces rising with the sun to greet the malevolent victor, his father. It had been a paradise on earth, if you were one of the blessed. And he had been, for a long long time – until Sebina’s execution fractured his loyalty.

  ‘Nice to see you again, signore,’ said Thatcher. ‘It’s been a while. Have you been travelling?’

  ‘I’ve been… recuperating,’ said Luca, letting his eyes linger on Thatcher’s smiling face.

  ‘What can I get you?’ Thatcher’s bad Italian translated as ‘What is your pleasure?’ Luca appreciated that. Desire was a currency he regularly employed in his human transactions. He enjoyed giving pleasure – and taking it away.

  ‘A little information.’ Luca squeezed the barista’s shoulder. Thatcher started, knocking a cup to the ground. ‘The priest with the newspaper. How long has he been coming to the café?’

  Thatcher gave a kind of babbling gah, gah, gah and then a croak.

  ‘Take your time,’ Luca murmured. ‘The customers behind me are happy to wait.’

  Thatcher mopped his forehead with a towel tucked into the waistband of his jeans. ‘For a few days,’ he replied, in English.

  ‘The priest? Is he Italian?’

  ‘No idea. Never heard him speak. He’s deaf. Signs and reads lips.’

  Luca kept his eyes on the young barista. ‘Tell me what you’ve noticed about him.’

  ‘He’s always on a laptop, tapping away. Keeps to himself.’

  ‘And?’

  Thatcher squirmed. ‘He’s got a strange tattoo on the inside of his wrist. I’ve seen it when he picks up his order.’

  ‘Like this?’ Luca lifted his T-shirt, exposing a red mark like a brand above his hip, three lines between what looked like parenthesis above and beneath.

  Thatcher stared. ‘Yeah. Just like that. What is it?’

  ‘It’s an ancient musical instrument and my calling.’ Luca slipped his hand into the front pocket of his jeans and pulled out a small polished pebble that he handed to Thatcher. ‘You’ve been helpful. Thank you.’

  Thatcher rolled the worthless pebble in his hand with a glazed expression on his face. ‘Wow. Thanks, man.’ He dropped it into the tip jar. ‘You want coffee?’

  ‘A double shot.’ Luca pointed to a scalloped plate layered with flaky powdered-sugared pastries. ‘And due chiacchiere.’

  ‘Angel wings,’ said Thatcher, smiling. ‘Good choice.’

  16.

  Desperado

  In a frenzy, Callum yanked the T-shirts and pamphlets from below the counter where he’d hidden the satchel, falling back on his heels with relief when he saw it was still there. Lifting the strap over his head, he hugged it against his chest and came out from behind the counter. If he left now, he’d be late for Signora Orsini, but at least he’d make it.

  At the bottom of the stairs, he paused in front of the heavy wooden door. The entire brass plate and handle looked like a cartoon splat, resembling Edvard Munch’s famous screaming man. Callum touched his finger curiously to the mass of metal. He thought he could remember it melting, but how was that possible? He felt as if he was coming off ecstasy – hyper-aware and muddled at the same time. Callum swallowed gulps of air, trying to repress his anxiety.

  A warm breeze brushed the top of his head. A door slammed upstairs. He had no idea how long he’d been sitting there, but through the small slats of leaded glass at the top of the door, he could see it was still bright outside. Callum stood up. The entryway was small, and he was over six feet. From the second stair up, he kicked hard at the wood above the door’s melted lock. Twice. Pain shot up his leg, but the door didn’t budge.

  His phone pinged. He looked at the text.

  Where were you?

  Ran into some problems. Need to postpone.

  Not happy.

  I’ll be in touch, I swear.

  *

  Back upstairs in the library, Callum headed for the butler’s pantry and rattled the handle. It was locked. He fished the museum keys out of his pocket. The key got half-way then wouldn’t budge. Something was wedged inside the lock.

  In a moment of clarity, Callum wondered if someone had deliberately trapped him inside the museum. He ought to have no problem convincing the curator a thief was responsible. After all, some serious flirting and provocative promises were all it had taken to seduce him into trusting Callum with the keys in the first place.

  A thief…

  He ran into Keats’ manuscript room, sliding round the displays, whacking his hip on the sharp edge of a case. He unlocked the lid of the folio case, and with the alarm counting down, flipped open the leather envelope containing Polidori’s ‘The Fall of the Angels’.

  His forgery was gone.

  He slammed the case and locked it again, heart hammering. The alarm stopped beeping. Leaning against the glass case, he knew he had a decision to make. Put the original back and all would be well. No one the wiser. Go back to Edinburgh, tail between legs. The months of preparing and the dreams for naught.

  Not a chance. He owed that much to Pietra.

  Decision made, he ran back into Keats’ bedroom, which had the only window in the museum that didn’t have bars. Outside, the sun was gilding the Spanish Steps in gold. As Callum pulled his sleeve over his fist and punched through the glass, an alarm screamed. He hauled himself up and out of the window, dangling on the other side for only a second before letting himself drop.

  17.

  Let’s Make a Deal

  Humans in large numbers could be difficult to control. Luca knew this from experience. That was why the First Watcher wanted to open Chaos. He needed a
little company to help quell the masses, to build his Second Kingdom.

  The agitation among the waiting customers in the café was on the rise. They had jobs to get to. Their rising shuffles and growing murmurs gave Luca a chance to observe the priest folding his newspaper and stepping inside to bus his dishes. He caught the priest’s eye for the first time.

  ‘Enjoy your breakfast, Father?’ he inquired.

  The young man tilted his head, his eyes on Luca’s lips. Luca guessed he was no more a priest than Luca was, but in Rome, a cassock and collar gave men a freedom of movement more than any other uniforms, even the police.

  In a blur of movement Luca flipped the table in front of the young man, scaring him. The murmurs in the café became screams and shouts. Luca raised a hand.

  ‘Quiet,’ he said. His voice was calm, his words draping them like a soft blanket. ‘Nothing’s happening here.’

  Slowly, the café settled back into its usual morning routine. Thatcher began taking orders from the queue again. Waiters wound around the upturned table in the centre of the room, delivering coffees and pastries as if it wasn’t there.

  The priest signed: ‘I’m Zach.’

  ‘Ah, you’re the Animare.’

  The young man’s eyes glittered. ‘Something like that,’ he signed.

  Luca nodded. ‘So,’ he said. ‘To business.’

  He reached over and dropped the blinds on the window.

  18.

  A Friend of the Devil

  ‘She has a message for you,’ signed Zach.

  ‘Deliver it,’ said Luca simply.

  Zach’s fingers framed the words carefully. ‘You’ve been distracted. The Conjuror has escaped your grasp again. You’re spending too much time among humans and it’s making you weak.’

  Luca’s anger crept up his spine, but he shrugged it off. Killing an Animare would be a waste of power that he might need one day. He took in everything about the bold young man before him. His height, his lean build: a good fighter, he thought. His ruffled short blond hair, his emphatic chin. Luca would much rather seduce him than tolerate his disrespect.