A Time to Rise_Second Edition

by Tal Bauer

  “She was a lost girl,” Nuzzi said slowly, his Italian accent rumbling through the words. “I was only trying to help her.”

  I bet you were. Alain pressed his lips together and looked down. “How long had you been seeing Madelena? How long had you been intimate with her?”

  “Only a few weeks. Not long.”

  “How did you meet?”

  “She came up to me one day when I was out in Rome. I was giving alms and saying prayers over the city’s homeless. Small Masses and prayers for the people. She was in the back during one and followed me. I bought her a cappuccino. She said she wanted to talk.” Nuzzi closed his eyes and exhaled. “I went back to her apartment.” He spread his hands, looking up at Lotario and across to Alain. “It happened so fast… I only wanted to help her.”

  “I’m sure,” Alain demurred. A lost, frightened, lonely woman was not the same person they had met, downing whiskey straight from a plastic bottle and sucking on the nub ends of cigarettes. He’d seen it before. Women and men who played a part, determined to wile their way into another person’s heart. It was always for an end. Always.

  “How would she have had access to your computer? Did you bring her here?”

  “No, no.” Nuzzi pinched the bridge of his nose. “I would visit her. Three days ago, I spent the morning at the seminary. I was guest lecturing, and I had my laptop with me. After, I went to see her. It was the only time I had it at her apartment.”

  “She must have ripped the files then.” Lotario, leaning on the back of Alain’s sofa, pushed himself up and paced in the walkway behind the sitting room. Marble statues bracketed both ends of the hallway and a plush Turkish rug softened his heavy footfalls. Gold glittered from mosaics hanging on the walls.

  “If you are not with the Congregation for the Clergy, then who are you with?” Nuzzi frowned. “What did you say your names were?”

  “Father Roberto,” Lotario smoothly lied, straightening his jacket. “And this is Father Hasse.”

  Alain’s breath hitched. He turned, sending a withering glare over his shoulder.

  Lotario ignored Alain. “We are on His Holiness’s special commission,” he continued. It wasn’t too far from the truth.

  “Which one?” Nuzzi cocked his head. “I know all of them and I don’t know you two.”

  Lotario grinned, his teeth seemingly feral, almost savage. “You don’t know them all.”

  “That’s enough.” Alain stood, still glaring at Lotario. Lotario held up his hands and backed away. Alain turned back to Nuzzi. “Thank you for your time, Cardinal Nuzzi. We believe we can contain this situation. No one will know about your indiscretion.”

  “Ah. You must be lawyers, then.”

  “Not quite.” Alain buttoned his suit jacket and headed for the cardinal’s door. Lotario’s borrowed Roman collar pinched his throat. He needed to get rid of it, now.

  “You have my thanks all the same.” The cardinal tried to smile. “If you please.” Nuzzi called out, his fingers wringing together. “Where is Madelena now?”

  Alain looked down.

  “She’s dead,” Lotario said. He didn’t blink.

  Nuzzi fell sideways, his shoulder leaning against the wall. One wizened hand grasped a marble statue. “My God.” He crossed himself and closed his eyes.

  And then opened them, fixing Alain and Lotario with a hard glare. “I think it’s time for you to leave.”

  * * *

  On his way out of Rome, Cristoph headed to the Campo.

  Music threaded around him, European dance tracks and Korean pop and Russian heavy metal from a dozen different bars along the square. The sun was setting on Rome, and long shadows stretched across the Campo as tourists and farmers’ markets traded places with barflies and wandering groups of drunks. A gaggle of women in barely-there sequined dresses smoked cigarettes while men stared at the long lines of their legs.

  Cristoph watched out the window of his bar. He turned back to the bar and hung his head over a shot of whiskey, glaring at the bar top.

  Someone jostled him, bumping into his back as they passed the bar. He was ready for a fight. Eager for one. Almost desperate for a chance to lash out. He turned on his bar stool, wobbled slightly, and snarled.

  Words died in his throat. His hand clenched on the tumbler of whiskey. Rage swirled in his head, dizzying his thoughts, but everything within him stilled when his gaze stuttered to a stop at the bar’s entrance.

  Alain waited, just inside the bar’s entrance. He watched Cristoph, sent him a tiny smile, a little wave. Slowly, he pushed through the crowd, making his way to Cristoph’s side.

  Cristoph followed his every move, his eyes glued to Alain’s dark frame.

  “Hey.” Alain rested one hand on the back of Cristoph’s barstool, right above his ass. Alain’s thigh pressed against Cristoph’s. “Can we talk?”

  Warmth slid up Cristoph’s spine. The smell of roses and rot tickled the air. He coughed. “Do you smell that? Like… rotten eggs?” Something sulfurous hung in the air.

  “Maybe something burned in the kitchen.” One of Alain’s hands dropped to Cristoph’s arm.

  His thumb stroked over Cristoph’s wrist.

  A heat haze slithered through Cristoph’s mind. The buzz of the bar faded away, the bustle of people surrounding them, the music threading through the air. Only the faint scent of sulfur hung in the air, mixed with dead roses and a faint stench of rot.

  But Cristoph wasn’t paying attention to the smell. Not anymore.

  He had eyes only for Alain now—and a warm, shy grin.

  Alain smiled back, a dark gleam edging his eyes. “Is that better?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lotario’s phone rang as he and Alain thundered down the steps of the Apostolic Palace. Angelo.

  “You on the way?” Lotario pulled a cigarette out of his pack with his lips and lit it one-handed.

  “Something’s come up.”

  Alain jogged close to Lotario’s side as Angelo’s voice grunted out of Lotario’s speaker. “What’s going on?”

  “Just got a call routed from the emergency line. Someone in the Campo called in a murder. The description fits the profile of an incubus.”

  Lotario rolled his eyes as Alain groaned. “An incubus? Now? Seriously?” Lotario sucked down his cigarette after speaking. “I swear, there’s too much going on right now. This has to be coming from the crazed vampire. What else could explain all this shit?”

  “The hell are you talking about?” Angelo snapped at Lotario through the phone.

  “We’ll fill you in later.” Alain grabbed the phone from Lotario and jerked his head toward the car park behind the barracks. Three other cars had boxed in Lotario’s Bug, nearly blocking the rusted yellow monstrosity. Lotario cursed. “We talked to Nuzzi. He’s clueless. We’ll need to get a look at that flash drive and see what she stole. Then go from there. But we think we have a lead on what’s been happening recently.”

  They slipped into Lotario’s Bug, doors slamming on rusted, creaking hinges.

  “Fucking Vatican gendarmerie,” Lotario fumed. “Can’t control the fucking parking around here. Can’t trust them with fucking anything.”

  Angelo snorted at Lotario’s outburst. “I’ll give you the drive when you get here. Head for the Campo. We gotta get this incubus first.”

  Lotario puffed his cigarette as he started up his car, nudged a Lexus and a Mercedes, and then rumbled out of the Vatican. “So what are we rolling to?”

  The crackle of a polizia radio echoed over the phone. “We got a call routed to us about ten minutes ago. Some barfly went out to the back alley behind the Siam Hookabar and found a desiccated corpse. Young male, late twenties. He was still warm when the medics showed up, but drained dry.”

  Lotario swerved through Rome’s ever-present traffic. The sun was setting, dusk falling on the city like damp silk. Plum light bled into shadows, painting the capital in shades of amber and onyx and midnight. Traffic lights winked on. “How do
we know it wasn’t a vampire?” Smoke breathed from Lotario’s mouth with every word.

  “No fang marks. The corpse wasn’t bled out. It was desiccated. All fluids gone, not just the blood. Eyes, lungs, muscles, everything dried and destroyed. Looked like a piece of jerky. A dried-up husk. There was also anal penetration, but no semen. No condom on the ground, either. Beyond that… even I could tell the soul had been ripped out.”

  “How could you tell that?” Lotario grunted around the cigarette bouncing on his lips.

  “Just could. You know, I do listen to your weirdness. I’ve picked up a few things these past few years.”

  “We’ll deputize you, Angelo. Join the club.” Lotario turned left down an alley, barely missing oncoming traffic. “We’re headed for the Campo. Want us to meet you at the Hookabar?”

  “No. The medics have taken the body. We need to find the incubus. I’ve set up a perimeter around the square, but I need your help to narrow the search.”

  Lotario swung the car around the back alleys leading to the Campo, turning left, then right, and left again and driving them up to the polizia barricade near the Hookabar. “We’re at the scene,” Alain said, pushing open the rusted Bug’s door. “We’ll get the incubus’s energy and call you back.”

  They headed for the polizia tape, ducking beneath the barrier and nodding to the officers who politely ignored their existence. Ahead, the outline of a body had been sketched on the ground and numbered evidence tents lay scattered around the concrete. Not as many, though, as there would be with a human murder. No bullet casings or blood spatter. Just a desiccated corpse and a string of questions.

  Lotario dropped down next to the sketch and pressed his palm to the warm concrete, right where the victim’s heart would have been.

  Alain stood back. If he wanted to, he could drop down and tap into the etheric alongside Lotario. He could press his palm to the ground and try to trace the last vestiges of energy from the corpse and from the incubus. He could cast charms and work healing spells and wield so much more than just his iron blades, salt shotgun, and specially tipped bullets.

  But that brought him back to the last time he’d ever touched the etheric. The night he’d lost everything.

  “It was the first kill.” Lotario squinted up at Alain. “The incubus was gathering his strength. This one was sloppy. He left some of his energy in the corpse.”

  “Enough to track?” Alain rubbed his fingers over his forehead. His head was starting to pound, an ache that burned behind his eyeballs.

  Nodding, Lotario stood and wiped his hands. “Got the map?”

  They headed back to Lotario’s Bug and laid the map of Rome out on the front of the car. Lotario rubbed a quartz pendulum between his palms and dangled the crystal above the streets of the Campo. It twitched, slipping sideways, and swung over the northwest corner, shivering with the energy of the incubus.

  Alain dialed Angelo on Lotario’s phone. “Angelo, northwest corner. We’re looking for any couple that seems out of touch. Lost in their own world. The incubus will portray their target’s deepest desire back at them. Be whoever they need to be for the target. Watch for a man taking someone away for privacy. The incubus will want to be alone when he starts eating their soul. It’ll start with sex, though. It’s how the incubus gets going, feeds their energy.”

  “I’m moving my men there now. Do you have any idea how much sex happens here in the Campo? You’re asking for a needle in a very large haystack.”

  Alain chuckled. “We’re on our way. You and your men start from the southwest. We’ll meet in the middle. Lotario’s got the scent. We’ll have him soon.”

  * * *

  Angelo moved his men across the Campo, sweeping a squad down the southwest corner. They peered into bars, eyeballing patrons and drunks and couples making out in dark corners of lounges and on dance floors. They were able to split everyone apart, tear each partner from the other with ease.

  Every time, they got a curse and angry words, coming from clear eyes and a human face. No possessions yet.

  They moved down the line of bars, searching.

  At the fourth, Angelo stopped short, glaring through the front windows at two men seated at the bar.

  * * *

  Lotario’s phone rang loudly in Alain’s pocket. He slid it out, turning away from the entrance of the bar on the north side of the square and cupped his hand over the mouthpiece. “What?”

  “Where are you?”

  Alain frowned. “We’re outside…” He backed up, searching for the bar’s name. “Sugar. We’re moving your way.”

  “You’re not inside Moondust? Not sitting at the bar next to a young blond?”

  Alain’s blood went cold. His throat clenched. “No. No, I’m not.”

  Through the windows of Sugar, Lotario looked up, as if he could sense Alain’s sudden shock. He started pushing through the crowd, heading for the door.

  “I’m looking at an exact copy of you, Alain,” Angelo growled. “Even your messed-up hair.”

  “Where?” Alain headed north, leaving Lotario behind.

  “Moondust, one of the clubs—” Angelo cursed, and the sounds of a group of people laughing and passing him by jingled over the line. “You’re— Shit.”

  “What?” Alain moved faster, breaking out into a jog. “What happened?”

  “I lost you. I mean him. It. I lost it.”

  “What do you mean you lost it?” Alain ran full speed, tearing down the Campo toward Angelo and Moondust. “What happened?”

  “You were sitting at the bar with this young blond man and then you were gone!”

  “Fuck!” Alain ran, spotting Angelo through the crowds milling in the square. He shoved his way through the mess of humanity. “What did he look like? The blond?”

  Ahead, Alain saw Angelo ordering his men into the club and heard the angry shouts of a club being sacked by the polizia. He ran toward Angelo, still listening to him over the phone.

  “Young, mid-to-late twenties. Tall. Clean cut. Blond and German-looking, like he was one of your guards. And he held himself like a soldier.”

  “Goddammit!” Alain ripped the phone away from his head as he found Angelo. “Goddammit, it’s Cristoph.”

  “Who?” Angelo pocketed his cell as he glared at Alain. “Why is the incubus impersonating you?”

  Alain ignored Angelo’s questions. “He’s taking Cristoph away to kill him. Have your men found them yet?”

  The radio in Angelo’s hand spat static, and then rough Italian from the polizia forces reporting in. No luck. They’d lost the incubus wearing Alain’s face.

  Alain threw himself into the club and the crazed mix of partygoers, bass beats, and polizia officers. The officers were slow, moving methodically, shining flashlights in every patron’s face. They’d only managed to work their way through the front part of the club. The packed dance floor in the back didn’t even know the polizia were there.

  Alain pushed through the crowds, shoving his way onto the dance floor. He searched for a blond head of hair and a wide set of shoulders, shoulders he had memorized and imagined nearly every day since he’d met the man. Cristoph… God, where are you Cristoph?

  His gaze caught on the club’s back door, swinging closed.

  He took off, barreling his way through the crowd. Elbows flew, and he pushed women in dresses and men with popped collars out of the way. He hollered over his shoulder at Angelo’s men, but didn’t stop to wait for them. Cristoph, Cristoph, Cristoph… What had happened? Why was Cristoph here? How had an incubus found him, of all people?

  Alain threw himself through the back door, nearly stumbled when he hit the rancid summer air of the back alley. His shoes splashed in a puddle and the stench of urine hit his nose.

  Rotten roses, a heavy musk, and the tang of sulfur crept over his skin. He shook his head, trying to clear away the heat haze. Blinked fast.

  Against the bricks behind the club, the incubus—a replica of himself—pressed Cristoph back, hi
s hands cradling Cristoph’s face, their hips grinding together. Cristoph’s shirt hitched up. His taut stomach gleamed in the neon light, one of the incubus’s—Alain’s—hands trailing over his skin. Cristoph was panting, thrusting his hips against the incubus’s, grabbing at the black suit jacket the incubus wore.

  The incubus’s eyes glowed bronze. An amber light shone beneath its skin. “Show me everything you know about the hunter,” the incubus whispered as he leaned in and sealed his lips over Cristoph’s.

  “No!” Alain bellowed. He took off, racing toward Cristoph and the incubus, right as the back door to Moondust slammed open and Angelo and Lotario rushed out.

  “Alain! Wait! You’ll be sucked in!”

  Alain ignored Lotario’s shouts. He ran at the incubus. Steps away, Cristoph wailed, shrieking into the incubus’s kiss as the first tears in his soul started. Amber light blazed from Cristoph’s eyes as his body shook, quaking in the incubus’s grip.

  He launched himself at the incubus, slamming into the demon wearing his skin and tackled him to the ground, tearing him from Cristoph. The incubus shifted, his stolen image wavering, face flickering from Alain’s to Cristoph’s, and then back to Alain.

  Stumbling, Alain got to his feet and faced off against the incubus. It mirrored him, every one of his movements. Alain swung at the incubus, his movements growing sloppy. He didn’t have long. He was too close. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he knew this. Gasping, the heady scent of rotten roses and sulfur swam up into his mind.

  Next to the brawl, Cristoph sagged to the ground, grasping his head, moaning.

  “Cristoph!” Alain turned away from the incubus for a moment. He reached—

  The incubus grabbed him, swung him back around.

  Its face and body had changed. Now, Cristoph’s double stared back at Alain, grinning that lopsided, flirty grin. Alain froze.