by Tal Bauer
Alain threw his head back, thunking his skull against the wall. “Fuck,” he breathed. “Goddammit.”
“Come on.” Cristoph pulled himself up with hands against the wall and the kitchen table. “You need to get off the floor.” He held his hands out to Alain.
Alain wouldn’t meet his eyes as Cristoph helped him stand. They both winced. Alain stumbled from the kitchen, still trailing his pants behind his boot. He led Cristoph down the hall to his bedroom.
Cristoph followed, limping. He’d let Alain pass out and then get emergency services in there. They could take care of Alain and whatever had happened to him. Whatever break he’d had with reality, whatever had messed up his head. And clean off that blood. And set his foot again, Jesus Christ.
At the door of the bedroom, Cristoph hesitated. Had it only been that morning that he’d woken up in Alain’s bed? The duvet and sheet were still twitched where he’d thrown them when Major Bader had barged in. If there was one legacy from his time at the Vatican, it would be emotional whiplash. How quickly things had changed, over and over again.
Alain collapsed into his bed, some of the blood smearing against the sheets. The side of his face, where Cristoph had rubbed the bloody paste, rubbed clean. Cristoph grimaced, expecting to see mangled skin and a bloody wound, now made worse.
Instead, he saw pink skin, smooth and raw. Like a scab had just been peeled off. Fresh, healed skin. Cristoph stared, his mouth dropping open.
Alain didn’t seem to care, melting back against the mattress and the pillows with a soul-deep exhale. His breathing evened out, no longer hoarse or rasping or wet. His eyes slid shut as Cristoph moved close, hovering next to the bed as he stared at Alain. At his inexplicable recovery, and at the bloody paste that had healed his wounds.
Alain was already out, already unconscious, half in and half out of the bed.
There was a chair pulled close, as if someone had watched over someone sleeping the night before. Cristoph stared at it. Slowly, he sat, resting his broken foot on the edge of the mattress.
When Alain woke, he had some explaining to do.
* * *
He didn’t intend to fall asleep, but a bottle of wine and a handful of painkillers pulled him under. He slept fitfully, jerking in the chair, and kept snorting awake at the slightest twitch from Alain, lost in his own nightmares.
Hours later, his phone vibrated in his pants pocket. Cristoph jumped, almost falling to the floor as he fought off nightmares of bishops grabbing for him, and black eyes, flames rising in a circle in the darkness, and blood dripping from neon green leaves as monkeys howled and disease-filled bodies piled in the streets. Trying to run, trying to escape, and in front of him, Alain beckoned, waving for him. Every time he got near Alain, the older man disappeared, vanishing into the nothing. He tried to scream, but there was no sound.
Then his phone buzzed, vibrating against his thigh, and he nearly toppled the chair.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket, trying to rub the throbbing pain in his foot out over his cast. He winced as he answered. “Hello?”
The priest who worked with Alain—and who’d never given his name—spoke. Cristoph would recognize that gravelly, put-upon tone anywhere, roughened by cigarette smoke and anger. “Who the fuck is this?”
“It’s Cristoph,” he grunted. “Cristoph Hasse.”
A beat. “Fuck. The halberdier?”
“One of ninety-eight.” Cristoph leaned back in the chair. In the dim light slipping through Alain’s bedroom window, he could make out the man’s blood-crusted skin and his ungainly slump, and the tiny sliver of drool running from the corner of his mouth where he’d pillowed his face. “Look—” he started.
“How did you get this fucking number?” The priest interrupted him, and the telltale sucking inhale of a cigarette echoed across the line after his words.
“Look, fuck you too, all right? I don’t want to be talking to you anymore than you want to be talking to me. Alain called you, okay? He lost his phone, and he looked like fucking shit, so I let him use mine—”
The priest broke into a coughing fit as soon as Cristoph said Alain’s name. He interrupted when he was able to breathe again. “Alain? He’s with you? He’s alive?”
“Well, yeah, he’s alive, but fuck, what the hell happened to him? What—”
“Where are you?”
Cristoph exhaled and pursed his lips. He debated hanging up on the priest. But Alain seemed connected to him somehow. Maybe even—
Even if Alain’s choice in men was the fucking worst on the planet, he wasn’t going to be the asshole who kept them apart. “His place,” he grunted. “I found him crawling back—”
The line cut, going silent.
Snorting, Cristoph stared at the phone for a moment before shoving it back in his pants pocket. The priest was an asshole, and no amount of prayer or benediction was going to change that.
They work for the Devil, Chaplain Weimers had said. He’s no Christian brother of mine.
Swallowing, Cristoph watched Alain through slitted eyes as he slouched. It might be easy to try to believe the asshole priest was some kind of sycophant of the Devil’s, but that was rooted in his pure disdain for the asshole. Carrying that forward and thinking Alain was also some kind of evil worshipper was harder.
But why? Why was that hard to imagine? Alain had all but thrown him out that morning, dumping him into Major Bader’s tender arms instead of helping him personally. And when Cristoph had returned, he’d flat out told him to leave and not come back.
Was he that odious to Alain? And were those truly the actions of an evil Devil worshipper? Or just someone who didn’t like Cristoph? Did that morning erase the kindness, the moments when it had just been the two of them laughing over nothing? When Cristoph had been achingly alone and Alain had been his one unasked-for anchor?
But what about that chest in his kitchen? The skulls? The blades? The herbs and talismans and tarot cards, and all of the occult detritus he’d rummaged through? The blood mixture he’d made had healed skin that had been cut down to the bone in moments. Blood and spit—his own—and ash, mixed together with an incantation.
He’d seen those kinds of things before, though not as powerful as whatever he’d smeared on Alain.
But what was it all doing in the heart of the Vatican, in Alain’s apartment?
Leaning forward, Cristoph buried his face in his hands. He watched Alain over the tips of his fingers. He’s no Christian brother of mine.
What was true?
Cristoph threw his head back against the worn chairback, sighing. His foot throbbed, a pounding, bone-deep ache that pulsed with every beat of his heart. His head hurt, too. A hangover, no doubt. Too much alcohol during his pity party, guest of one.
He hauled himself up and let loose a string of muffled curses as his cast hit the ground. Carrying Alain across the courtyard and up to his apartment hadn’t been his smartest idea ever. Whatever he’d broken in his foot before, it was a hundred times worse now. He couldn’t put an ounce of weight on it, not even faking it. He hopped to Alain’s drab kitchen on one foot and leaned against the wall.
Faded wallpaper, a mustard paisley, rubbed beneath his shoulder. In the kitchen, seventies décor begged for a remodel. Dark wood cabinets, stained-glass windowpanes, and mint green appliances. A bottle of cheap vodka, only a third full, sat on the counter next to a chipped coffee cup.
The place screamed desperate bachelor. Or crazed, weapon-addicted, black magic workaholic.
Cristoph stared at the open chest and the mess of bones, blades, runes, and tarot cards strewn on the floor. Herbs lay scattered, and the bottles of blood lining the kitchen walls seemed to shiver, as if the blood inside was alive somehow. Two skulls, one upside down, had rolled free from the chest, and they collided by the edge of the refrigerator and a line of blood jars. Empty sockets stared at Cristoph. The jaws were unhinged, cockeyed and out of place.
He skirted the tableau and grabbed a glass from
the dish rack, filling it from the faucet and draining it four times. He left the glass in the sink and hobbled back toward Alain’s bedroom.
Boxes in the study caught his eye, as did empty bookshelves.
What was it Major Bader had said? Alain had lived for years in this apartment, but boxes still cluttered his home. His shelves were empty. Well, the guy was a packrat, and not the tidiest. His office looked like some kind of medieval alchemist’s library had exploded inside it.
Shapes in the dust on the shelves caught his eye. Empty spaces, places where the wood of Alain’s shelves shone cleanly. Places where things had sat, very recently.
He limped closer. Peered into the boxes haphazardly arranged in front of the bookshelves. The tops had been folded down, loosely covering the insides. He peeled one flap back.
Crumbling scrolls stared back at him, piled together next to dark, stained leather bags tied with woven cords. Charms and stacks of runes, bits of burned wood and tumbled crystals. Human bones, etched in languages that looked older than the written word. Blades of obsidian, of silver, of iron, and of bone. Curved sickles. Mirrors, both clear and reflective, made of blackened glass, darker than midnight. Candles, burned to nubs. Vials of oil and water with crosses etched on the glass.
Bullets. Piles of bullets. Nine-millimeter rounds. But not the kind he’d seen before. Iron tips. Silver tips. Some with crystal tips, what looked like quartz on top of the bullet’s jacket.
Shotgun shells. But not filled with slug or shot. Salt leaked from one broken shell, a thin line falling like snow when he plucked it out of the box.
His eyes caught the windowsill, across the room. Something glittered on the ledge, beneath the glass. He stared. It was too far to walk, dammit, and his foot still hurt.
He recognized it a moment later. Salt. Alain had poured salt under his window, a long line stretching from edge to edge.
Cristoph closed his eyes as he squeezed the shotgun shell in his palm.
What was it all doing in the center of the Vatican? In Alain’s home?
He’s no Christian brother of mine.
His heart lodged in his throat as his breath crashed through him. His chest heaved, trying to draw in air that wasn’t there, trying to breathe through the sudden panic seizing him. The urge to run, the need to flee, screamed from his bones. His skin puckered, desperate to move, and his guts twisted, trying to claw their way out of his body. As if his body wanted to be free of his soul, free of where he was.
Banging crashed through the apartment, wood hitting the cinderblock walls of the front hall. Cristoph jumped. He fell to the side, catching himself on Alain’s empty bookshelf.
“Alain!” The asshole priest’s voice burst through the apartment. “Alain! Where the fuck are you?”
“Shh!” Cristoph stumbled into the main hall. “He’s sleeping, asshole. You want to wake him up?”
The priest glared at him. His nostrils flared and his face turned almost purple as his mouth twisted. Narrowed eyes burned into Cristoph. Finally, the priest spoke again, after a long exhale. “He is alive?” He spoke softer, though his voice still scratched at Cristoph’s eardrums, still grated down his spine.
“Yeah, he’s alive. He’s fine, after he made me smear some kind of bloody bullshit on him. What the fuck happened?”
The priest dragged one hand down his face. He seemed to melt, as if his bones turned to jelly and everything that held him up crumpled within. He sagged forward, shoulders slumping, and shoved past Cristoph as if he wasn’t even there. Cristoph hopped after him, balancing both hands on the wall. He followed the priest into Alain’s bedroom.
The priest was already leaning over Alain, holding his face in both hands, just inches apart. Cristoph limped back to the bedside chair.
“You did this?” The priest gestured to the dried blood flaking off Alain and smeared all over his sheets. It looked like a murder had occurred in his bed.
“Yeah. Alain mixed up ash and blood and a fang. He cut me. Made me spit. Then told me to smear it everywhere.”
The priest clapped his hands on Alain’s face, shaking him gently before pulling back. “You,” he said to Cristoph, weariness clinging to his words, “saved his life.” He squeezing Cristoph’s shoulder. A tiny smile appeared on his face. “Well done.”
He didn’t know what to say. He said nothing.
The priest disappeared down the hallway, heading for the kitchen. Cupboards banged and glasses clinked on the countertop. Footsteps came back down the hall a moment later. The priest returned bearing two glasses of amber liquid. He held one out to Cristoph.
Scotch tickled his nose, a sweet, tawny burn. He fought down a stab of nausea.
“Thanks,” he said, scrunching up his face. “But I’ve had enough of priests offering me alcohol.”
Shrugging, the priest knocked back both, one after the other. “More for me,” he grunted, breathing through the burn with a deep rasp. The priest collapsed on the edge of the bed between Alain and Cristoph.
Alain rolled away, snorting and burying his face in the pillow. Healed skin stretched over the sheets, flaked with dried blood, his muscles flexing in his back as he slept. Cristoph’s narrowed eyes strayed over his body. No more cuts, no more bloody wounds. Scars for days, what looked like a lifetime spent in hand to hand combat. But the bloody, ashy paste was healing Alain, somehow.
His hand ached. Slowly, he unfurled his clenched grasp. A salt-filled shotgun shell lay in his palm.
“What is all this?” He turned his glare to the priest. “What happened to him? He said something about vampires. What is this stuff? The blood? The skulls? The special bullets?” He held out his hand. “The salt? Who are you? Why did Chaplain Weimers throw you out of St. Anne’s?”
“Your foot. It’s broken, right?”
“What?” Cristoph shook his head. “Yeah, it is, but answer my questions.”
The priest wrapped one hand around the back of his cast and pulled his foot up into his lap. Cristoph fell back in the chair. “Fuck!”
“My name is Father Lotario Nicosia,” the priest said, cutting off Cristoph’s protests. He pulled a blade from a sheath hidden beneath his suit pants, tied to his lower leg and stretching from his boot to his knee. The silver gleamed, catching the moonlight outside Alain’s window. “You won’t find me in any of the Vatican records. Like all of this, I don’t exist.”
Cristoph gripped the seat arms, his nails digging into the worn corduroy fabric. He tensed, tried to pull away. Lotario slipped the blade inside Cristoph’s cast and slowly sawed through the plaster.
“The fuck are you doing?”
“I work with Alain. Have worked with him for years. He’s very special to me.”
The last bits of the cast broke apart with a gentle tug as Lotario slipped the blade free. He set it aside and pulled the remains of the cast off Cristoph’s foot. Cristoph groaned as the agony of what he’d done to himself scorched its way up his leg. He’d ruined whatever the doctor had tried to set. It was so, so much worse than it had been.
Lotario wrapped his hands around his calf. He dragged his palms down Cristoph’s leg, exhaling in a long, slow breath.
“What are you doing?” Heat built beneath Lotario’s touch, a warmth that was just shy of painful. He flinched, trying to pull away, but Lotario held firm. He squeezed around Cristoph’s ankle, pressing against broken bone with too much force. Cristoph screamed, throwing his head back, and tried to kick free.
White-hot heat slipped under his skin, slithering around his bones. A flash of light burst from Lotario’s palms, flush against Cristoph’s ankle. Cristoph cursed, grasped the chair, tried to breathe through his screams.
And then, it was over. Silence, and the light was gone and so was the pain. Lotario slid his hands down the length of Cristoph’s foot, whisper soft, dry skin on dry skin.
Watching and panting, Cristoph stayed still. He didn’t blink. He didn’t move. Just stared at Lotario.
Slowly, he flexed his ankle.
An ache, a lingering soreness, answered his movements. But not agony. Not screaming pain. Not the crunch of broken bones.
“What did you do to me?”
Lotario smiled, but it was worn on the edges, and it didn’t reach his eyes. “You know, I’ve been rooting for you,” he said. He reached for Cristoph. “Alain needs to be the one to talk to you, though.”
His palm hit Cristoph’s forehead, and then there was darkness.
Chapter Twelve
Cristoph smiles at him, not the sarcastic smile he gives the world, but a warm, gentle smile, something that is for Alain only. He’s lying on his belly, naked, next to Alain. They’re in bed, but not Alain’s bed. They aren’t in the Vatican.
Sheer white curtains behind Cristoph flutter. Beyond, a white sand beach stretches wide. So many bright colors clutter his view, houses and tumbling buildings pressed together, awash in a brilliant sea of happy oranges and vibrant turquoises and screaming yellows. Painted stucco beneath red tiled roofs.
And beyond, a glittering, azure sea, topped with softly rolling waves.
Has he escaped? Have they escaped together? He can’t remember what happened before this moment, what brought him to wake up next to Cristoph, gloriously naked in a room overlooking the sea.
But he’s not going to waste this. Not a single moment.
Alain cups Cristoph’s face and smiles back, and it’s as if the sun is breaking through storm clouds on a bleak and bleary day. The happiness, the radiant joy in Cristoph’s eyes, quakes the foundations of his soul.
He kisses him, slow and sweet, but Cristoph rolls on top of him, a wild grin on his face and mischief in his eyes. Cristoph’s hands stroke down Alain’s sides.
He can barely breathe, his throat closing at the beauty above him. He can feel every heartbeat, every breath of Cristoph’s, every drag of his fingers and his lips across his skin. Cristoph moans, breathes out his name, oh-so-beautifully.
It’s all he can do to grasp Cristoph, try to hold him close, try to merge their bodies into one. His hands rise, stroking up Cristoph’s back, up his neck, and his fingers drag through Cristoph’s hair like Cristoph is his only grip on reality. “I tried so hard,” Alain mutters as Cristoph rains kisses like blessings on his lips, on his face. “I tried so hard to not fall for you. But, God, Cristoph. You’re amazing. You’ve turned me inside out.”
