by Tal Bauer
“Busy? With that? What kind of special projects are you working on?”
He scrambled, trying to come up with something, anything. “Nothing much. Just liaison work with the gendarmes.”
“First you were busy, now it’s nothing much…” Cristoph leaned side to side, a teasing smile twisting his lips. “Sure you’re not just doing nothing, conning the Guard out of keeping you around?”
Alain laughed. “That’s it exactly. You’ve caught me. I’m utterly, utterly useless.”
“Knew it.” Cristoph winked.
Silence stretched long, but this time, not strained or fragile, about to shatter into a billion shards that could cut too deep. Alain drained his Fanta, leaned back against the stone walls. Listened to the rhythmic thumping of Cristoph’s blows and slices, his soft grunts and the whispered songs he sang to himself.
“I’m glad you showed the team what you’re made of,” Alain said, breaking the silence. He rolled his head against the stone, smiling.
Cristoph’s neck flushed, but he said nothing.
“You know…” A thought wormed its way into Alain’s mind. A stupid, dangerous, idiotic thought. He shouldn’t say it. He shouldn’t continue. “You know, you’ve been on shift or on punishment details for a few weeks now. Not really had much time to work out.”
Cristoph’s gaze slid sidelong, fixing on Alain.
“Want to work out a bit before the football season starts? Preseason matches are just a week away.”
“With you?” Cristoph’s tone was careful, measured. Skeptical.
Alain scoffed. “You think I’m some old man that can’t take it?” He had revenant burns across his back, werewolf slashes across his hip, poisoned cuts scarred down his thigh, and the roughened shredded scars of a wraith’s wither down his side. He survived because he was fast, and because he was strong. And because Lotario had his back. “I’ll show you a work out, Halberdier!”
Cristoph grinned. “Deal.”
* * *
It was a bad idea. It was a stupid, terrible, no good, bad idea. He never should have offered to train with Cristoph, should never have offered to go to the gym with him.
But here they were, in the Guards’ gym.
A dozen pairs of eyeballs had skittered their way as they entered together. Men stopped, mid-curl, mid-chest press, gawking.
How many years had it been since Alain had been in the Guards’ gym? His strength was more of the survival variety. He and Lotario hit up the meathead gym down in Trastevere. It was a hole in the wall gym of punching bags and free weights and the stench of sweat, where metal music pounded from the rafters and shook the peeling mirrors on the walls, and no one cared at all who they were.
The Swiss Guards’ gym was sparkling bright, outfitted with the latest in gym equipment sent down from Switzerland by Catholic donors to the Guard. Massive machines lined the walls, and free weights squatted next to weigh benches and mats spread on the floor. In the rear of the gym, a space had been cleared and laid with mats for sparring practice.
Cristoph waved to two of the guards working out on the squat machines. One waved back, slowly, his eyes glued to Alain.
Yes, the gargoyle has come out into the daylight, Alain wanted to snap. He’s entered the world of man. Cheeks burning, he padded after Cristoph to the free weights.
The spotted each other on their favorite routines. Chest presses and shoulder work from Cristoph, core strength and calisthenics from Alain. Alain stared down into Cristoph’s flushed, sweat-soaked face as he counted out his chest press reps, fingers brushing over Cristoph’s wrists, the heat of his skin.
Everyone stared. Everyone.
Alain ignored them, as always. But how did Cristoph?
Was he used to being stared at, too? Used to ignoring everyone?
* * *
He sprang Cristoph from punishment duty early the next day as the uniform pile was dwindling down to the dregs. Instead of the gym, Alain steered them toward the gardens. He couldn’t take the wash of public humiliation two days in a row.
Luca would probably be there, anyway. He had probably heard all about him and Cristoph in the gym the day before. He’d no doubt pounce the first moment he could. Tear into Cristoph for being away from his punishment duties, rip Alain a new one for flaunting Luca’s authority.
He couldn’t take that from Luca. Couldn’t take his spite and fury and so much hatred distilled into every dark glare. As if the sight of Alain was offensive to Luca’s soul.
It probably was.
They ran up and down the Vatican garden steps, racing each other from the tree-lined walls to the top of the flower beds, the elegant topiaries and the papal crest grown from roses. Alain nearly sprained a lung racing Cristoph from the heliport—in the indefatigable spirit of holiness that drenched the Holy See—to the Vatican radio tower. He won, though, and the look of shock on Cristoph’s face was worth the heaving, the pounding in his chest. The way his heart seemed to seize as Cristoph threw his head back and laughed, sun dazzling over his face, tiny rainbows glinting off each bead of sweat.
* * *
Running, the next day, was out.
Alain could barely move. He let Lotario take the lead on a ghoul chase at midnight, winding their way through the twisting streets of Trastevere in Rome, the medieval village opposite the Vatican, just off the Janiculum. He stayed in Lotario’s Bug, inching his way up and down alleys, pointing his flashlight out the broken driver’s window as Lotario poked into manhole covers, clambered into refuse bins, and crawled into dark alleys.
“You owe me,” Lotario had growled, puffing on a cigarette. “A lot of booze.”
“Anything you say.” Alain’s legs screamed as he shifted gears, pointing the Bug back to the Vatican. “No ghoul?”
“Not tonight. Unless you count my stench.”
Alain had leaned his head out the Bug’s window as they crossed the Tiber and headed back for the Vatican.
He was still sore in the morning, and paracetamol did nothing to blunt the way his legs were shredding from the inside, every muscle on fire, every nerve split in two.
But Cristoph was working on his last two uniforms, and Luca hadn’t brought another pile to be shredded. Possibly, Cristoph had shredded every last uniform destined for the trash. What would Luca do, if Cristoph freed himself from his purgatory?
“I’ve got football practice later. The team is meeting at midnight when we’re all off shifts.” Cristoph triumphantly shredded the last stretch of yellow fabric into two lopsided squares and tossed them into the basket. He grinned at Alain, his blue eyes shining, brilliantly, spectacularly illuminated like a diamond washed in the ocean. “I think this means I’m free. What do we do now?”
Alain shifted. He couldn’t hold back his own beaming smile. “Congratulations. You just sent a record time.”
“Major Bader wanted to bury me alive in here. I know it.”
“How did you get through them so fast?”
“When I couldn’t sleep, I’d come down and chop some more.” Cristoph shrugged. “I just wanted it done with. Wanted to be anywhere but in here, locked in this damn closet.”
A pang sounded in some distant part of Alain’s heart. This closet, these moments, were the times he’d stolen away to spend with Cristoph. They were moments he’d started to build his days around, moments that had leached into the rest of his life like seeping blood, like an infection that couldn’t be contained. His smile turned brittle.
“You’ve won your freedom.” Alain mimicked the sign of the cross in the air. “You are released from purgatory, my son.” He winced. “Now what?”
Cristoph blinked. His electric gaze bored into Alain’s. “My shift isn’t until eighteen hundred. I thought we could hit the gym again?”
His first taste of freedom, and he wanted to spend it with Alain. If it weren’t for the ways his legs wanted to break off at his hips and run away, flee back to his bed and never leave his sheets, Alain might have gone weak at the knees.
His heart might have thumped, an extra pitter patter.
But her forced it all away. Pushed it all down.
Cristoph was his mentee. Nothing more.
No one could ever be anything more.
No matter how wonderful.
Cristoph was still staring at him, confusion starting to darken his sky-blue eyes. “But are you busy?” he grunted. “More… special projects?” He sounded dubious at best about Alain’s supposed job in the Swiss Guard, in the Vatican.
Most days, Alain was just as dubious.
Alain’s throat clenched. “No, I’m free this afternoon.” He smiled to cover the grimace as he stood. “Meet you in the gym in ten?”
* * *
There wasn’t an off time in the Swiss Guards’ gym. With the three rotating shifts covering all hours of the day and night, there were always groups of men coming on and off duty, starting or ending their day with a workout. Alain prayed for a football game, a midday group outing to the pubs, or a party on the halberdiers’ barracks roof with fondue and an inflatable pool. Anything to empty the gym.
No such luck.
Cristoph warmed up on the treadmill while Alain stretched and stretched, trying to breathe through the hellfire that coursed through his battered leg muscles. Ten years Cristoph’s senior, and he’d had a footrace with the man. What was he thinking? He deserved this punishment, certainly.
“Right.” Cristoph ambled over to him, long limbs loose, shoulders shaking out, hands loosely clenched. He grinned down at Alain, spread out on the wrestling mats. His blond hair, just a shade past regulation length, curled over his forehead, ends dipping past his eyebrows and dusting over his eyes. He smiled as the fluorescent lights droned behind his head, haloing Cristoph in dull neon and burned-plastic yellow.
He looked like the first morning’s sunlight shining through St. Peter’s. Like hope, and like Alain’s first day in the Swiss Guard, full of dreams and wonder, gazing at the glory of the world.
Alain couldn’t breathe.
“Wanna practice combatives?” Cristoph held out his hand.
Chapter Seven
“Are you finally off punishment?” Halberdier Andreas Zeigler slid in across from Cristoph in the barracks canteen, his metal tray clattering across the knotted wood planks of the dining table. Sausage and baked apples seeped into Zeigler’s potatoes and sauerkraut. The tastes of home, of Switzerland, made fresh in the barracks by a team of nuns who were, possibly, older than the Vatican itself.
Cristoph speared a baked apple slice and popped it into his mouth, nodding. “Finished shredding the last uniform days ago.”
“Thanks, man.” Halberdier Konrad Muller plopped down next to Cristoph, his rolls tumbling from their perch on top of his mountain of food on his tray. “Now the rest of us can all go out and stir up trouble and there will be nothing for us to do.” He winked at Zeigler before shoveling potatoes into his mouth.
Cristoph snorted. “I’m sure Major Bader will find something. And for you?” He elbowed Muller, digging into his ribs. “Probably have to lick the toilets clean.”
“Nah, I think that’s next on your list.” Zeigler grinned around his sauerkraut. He hesitated, looking Cristoph up and down. “You’re really good? I mean, you can actually play tonight?”
The football preseason always opened with a game between the Swiss Guard and the Vatican fire brigade, and the fire brigade continued to obliterate the Guard, in preseason and the rest of the games. The preseason opener had set the tone for the past three years—decisive trouncing.
But, when Cristoph was finally allowed to play during practice—thank you, Alain—Captain Ewe and the other players seemed to rejoice: he was the striker they had been looking for. He wasn’t the best footballer, but he’d played for years. Three years of secondary school, and then he was the striker on the pickup league he’d put together on his humanitarian deployment in West Africa. Playing against the West African locals had been the best form of training. He’d had his ass handed to him over and over again until he could hold his own.
Now, in the Vatican, he was practically considered a gift from God. Or at least from the football gods.
He’d gone from shunned outcast to welcomed footballer almost overnight. Zeigler and Muller, the duo of strikers, welcomed him into their fold, descending on him with arms around his shoulders as they dragged him off for beers and pretzels.
If he squinted, it could be friendship. Almost.
Cristoph nodded. “Yeah, I’ll be there. I got my shifts moved around so I’m free during the game.”
“Surprised the major let you do that,” Muller spoke around a mouthful of sausage.
“He may hate me, but even he wants to crush those fire jockeys.”
Laughter broke out across the table, strained just slightly along the edges. Cristoph sipped his water, his gaze darting between the two men as he leaned back in his chair.
His chest clenched, a heaviness hovering between his lungs. Deep inside, frantic clawing tried to scratch its way out of his belly, but he did his best to ignore it.
Things had turned out all right. Things were working themselves out. He was finding his feet. There was no need to run.
Still, that mad, hectic itch just beneath his skin worried at his soul.
Could he really stay? Would he finally find a place to belong? Or would he need to pack up and leave—again?
Yes, it was shit at the start. It had sucked. But try just one more day. Just one more. You’re not alone this time.
He would probably be bitterly angry and furiously unemployed back in Switzerland if it weren’t for the second chance he’d been given.
If it weren’t for Alain.
Speak of the Devil. Cristoph’s gaze caught on Alain slipping in through the rear entrance to the canteen, filling up his cup of espresso for what looked like the fourteenth time that morning. Dark circles hung beneath his eyes, standing out against his pale skin. His hair, normally sticking up wild and haphazard as if he didn’t own a comb to smooth it down, was pressed flat in places, pushed down. Grime traced a thin line down his temple.
Cristoph pushed his chair back. It had been days since he’d last seen Alain, since their spar in the gym. Alain’s office had been empty, dark and locked up for the past three days. He’d almost passed by the old punishment closet to see if somehow Alain was there.
Finally seeing him again, but looking like he’d been dragged through the streets, sent a thick clench of worry straight through his guts.
“What’s the deal with that freak?” Zeigler spoke low softly, behind his cup. He downed a quick swallow of espresso, his wide eyes watching Cristoph.
Cristoph froze halfway out of his chair. “What?”
Muller jerked his head toward Alain. “The sergeant.” He shifted, turning quickly when Alain glanced their way. “You know he’s not right? In the head, I mean. And, you know.” Muller thumped his chest. “In the soul.” His gaze darted over his shoulder once, as if he couldn’t look away. He hunched over the table, one finger tapping at the wood as he spoke. “He’s been here for, what, over twelve years? And no one knows what he really does. But it’s weird. And it’s not right. Someone is protecting him.”
“Yeah.” Zeigler jerked on Cristoph’s sleeve, pulling him back down to his seat. “I saw Chaplain Weimers throw him out of the chapel six years ago. He’s never been back.”
Cristoph’s gaze found Alain across the crowded canteen.
“He never comes out of that crazy office of his. Have you seen it?”
“I’ve been there.” Cristoph’s voice was hard.
“That whacked out stuff he has? It’s practically Devil worship.”
Muller leaned forward, as if sharing secrets. “He keeps away from everyone. Hides in that office. Dresses like he’s pretending to be a priest. Looks like hell.” Muller shook his head. “He and Major Bader fight at least once a month. And I don’t mean little fights. Shake the windows kind of shouting. I swear, they’re going to kil
l each other one day. I can’t believe they haven’t already. If he wasn’t being protected, Major Bader would have thrown him out a long time ago.”
“What’s their hist—”
Zeigler cut him off. “So look, he’s some kind of freak and he stays in his little dark hole, but then, all of a sudden, he’s out and about? Spending time with you during your punishment detail?” Zeigler’s eyebrows rose. “Working out with you in the gym? I’ve never seen him in the gym. Ever.”
“What’s going on with him?” Muller squinted at Cristoph. “And you?”
A humorless laugh fell from Cristoph’s lips. “Is that what this is about? You want to know his secrets so you try and chat me up?” He shoved back from the table.
“No, Cristoph,” Zeigler hissed. “We’re trying to protect you.” He swallowed, eyes darting right and left. “Look, he’s dangerous. We all know it and we all stay the hell away from him. But he’s got his claws in you or something. He’s into you for some reason.”
Cristoph’s gaze again shot to Alain. He picked him out, his rumpled black suit and disheveled hair, through the mess of precision uniforms and buzzed, military haircuts. Oblivious to the conversation at Cristoph’s table, Alain waved, wanly smiling through his clear exhaustion. Cristoph groaned when Alain started toward them, picking his way across the canteen.
The guards gave him a wide berth, skirting Alain as if he carried a pit of darkness and shadow in his hands.
“Shit.” Muller hunched forward, as if he could hide within the knots of the wooden table. He kept his eyes down, glaring at Zeigler. “He’s headed our way.”
“To see you.” Zeigler fixed Cristoph with a hard stare.
That desperate clawing in his chest was back, scrabbling up his throat. Cristoph ran his tongue over his teeth, fighting back the urge to snarl. At Muller and Zeigler or at Alain, he couldn’t tell.
It had all seemed too good to be true, this shift in his fortunes. That usually meant it was.
