by Tal Bauer
“Is it always this violent?” Cristoph looked between Lotario and Alain.
“Pretty much.” Lotario wiped his hands and shoved them in his pockets with a sigh.
“But not this personal.” Alain moved closer to the corpse, peering down at the cardinal’s bashed-in face. His arms stayed crossed over his chest. There, at the edges of the cardinal’s eyes, running down his temples. Salt tracks. Tears.
Silence. Lotario watched him carefully. “What makes you say that?”
“His face. Who beats someone’s face in, especially after the killing bite to the neck? There’s not a lot of bleeding around the face. These disfigurations were done after his neck was torn.” Alain met Cristoph’s gaze. “What do you think that means?”
“The vampire knew the cardinal. And he hated his guts,” Cristoph said.
Alain nodded. “Death wasn’t enough. He wanted to erase him.”
Chapter Sixteen
Lotario tried to cast a locating charm using Nuzzi’s spilled blood, the same blood-to-blood locating spell they had used on Madelena’s corpse. They searched carefully for the dark vampire blood, a near-black sludge that pooled differently than human blood.
A drop had fallen next to the silver tea set. A smear of deep burgundy swept over the curved back of a spoon. Perhaps a careless brush, a burn against the vampire’s skin? Lotario had Cristoph hold the spoon while he rolled the tip of the crystal through the vampire’s blood and Alain set the map up on the cardinal’s couch.
After explaining the locating charm behind the spell, Lotario handed the crystal to Cristoph and gestured him to the map. Alain gritted his teeth but stayed still as Cristoph held out the bloody pendulum. This wasn’t right, training Cristoph. Not now. Not when so much was unknown and so much danger lurked in the shadows.
Not ever, if he was honest with himself. He never wanted to train Cristoph. He wanted Cristoph to be normal, safe, and far away from all of this.
He wanted Cristoph to be by his side as he kept him safe. Protected.
The contradictory thoughts made him want to puke. Cristoph wasn’t a child, wasn’t a feeble thing that needed to be protected. He was six feet of military muscle, and he’d stood up to Alain and his bullshit. And when he had every right to run away, forget Alain and all of his dark madness, he’d chosen to stay. He’d chosen to stay to learn how to hold a crystal pendulum covered in vampire blood, suspended over a map of Rome, and feel the first tendrils of the etheric work through him.
They all waited for the charm to spark, for the blood to call out to its owner, blood to blood, and swing across the map before shivering and dripping down, betraying the vampire’s location.
Nothing happened.
“What the fuck?” Lotario scowled.
“Let me see that.” Alain held out his hand. Cristoph gently passed the pendulum over. Lifting it to his nose, Alain inhaled, taking in a whiff of the blood-soaked tip. He turned his head away. Rot and putrescence, the hallmarks of vampire blood. And underneath, the betraying tang of pungent roots. “Monkshood.” He wrapped the pendant back up in its silk cloth, still soaked in blood. “The vampire must have taken it before the murder.”
Cristoph frowned.
“Son of a bitch.” Lotario shook his head. “Fucker knew we’d try to track it.”
Alain nodded.
“Monkshood messes with the magic?” Cristoph’s eyes bounced from Alain to Lotario. “We can’t find the vampire that did this?”
“Monkshood provides invisibility from tracking spells.” Standing, Alain pocketed the crystal. “We can’t track him this way.”
“What now?” Cristoph’s eyes lingered on Alain.
Alain struggled not to shake off the feel of his gaze. “We’ve got to check that flash drive. We need to know what was worth killing both Madelena and Nuzzi.”
* * *
Santino smiled to himself as the elevator creaked and climbed upward to the pope’s apartments in the Apostolic Palace. Cardinal secretary of state. Just what he wanted.
A whisper of wind shook his cassock. He turned, glancing to the side.
He wasn’t alone any longer. A black shadow, the smoky shape of a man, roiled next to him. Asmodeus’s face, the pure white Venetian mask, stared at him, frozen lips turned up in a fake smile.
“You killed Cardinal Nuzzi?”
“Not I.” The smoke shivered. “One of ours, though. I trust you are pleased.”
Santino smiled sidelong, eyeing Asmodeus’s smoke.
“Our deal remains, Santino. You are in position. We require the information we have now bought and paid for. Find out what we need to know.”
“What is so important about this hunter you seek? Why are you searching for him?”
“That is not your concern.” Asmodeus’s smoke trembled. The temperature in the elevator plunged.
A creak and a thud, and the elevator neared the top landing.
“I’ll find him, as I said I would. But—” Santino faced the demon. “—I want to be rewarded when I do.”
For a moment, Asmodeus stayed still, his shadows no longer twitching, no longer trembling. The elevator dinged, a heavy, brass bell chiming, announcing their arrival to the pope’s guards and secretaries.
A rush of black wind swept through the elevator, swirling around Santino and knocking him sideways. The pressure rose, the shadow squeezing him tight, a coiled cobra ready to devour him. Roaring, like a train barreling through a mountain tunnel, filled his ears. He tried to scream, to fight the shadow off.
It vanished, the smoke and pressure disappearing with a crack as the elevator doors slid open.
Santino leaned against the side of the elevator, panting. Ice dusted the brass handle he grasped.
“Cardinal? Can I help you?” Captain Ewe of the Swiss Guard, standing outside the elevator with one of the Swiss Guard sergeants, extended his hand for Santino. “Is everything all right, sir?”
Santino’s heart raced, a tympanic beat that thundered against his ribs. I am watching you, hissed in his ear. And I will get what I want.
* * *
Lotario left Angelo a voicemail as he finished his cigarette outside Alain’s office. “Angelo, I’ve got an idea. Pull up all the files you’ve got on any unexplained deaths. Any hint of a possibility of an etheric or supernatural murder. If there’s a solitary vampire running loose in the city, then he’s probably been killing for longer than we’ve known. If we can find a body he’s drained, I can track the son of a bitch down.” Lotario stamped out his cigarette and hung up.
Alain couldn’t look at Cristoph as they headed for his office. Inside, Cristoph poked through his shelves, flipping through his tomes and spell books, his runes and relics and his collection of weapons. The loose pile of gendarmerie crime stats and pickpocket reports he normally kept everything hidden under had been tossed aside, Cristoph no longer caring about Alain’s privacy, it seemed.
“I can help,” Cristoph insisted when Alain turned his way, before Alain had opened his mouth.
“No. Not right now. This is too dangerous. It’s too much. Maybe after this is all over—”
“Let the kid stay!” Lotario snapped. “He’s doing good, Alain!”
“Stay out of this, Lotario!”
“I can take care of myself! I can help!” Cristoph glared at Lotario. “And don’t call me ‘kid’!”
Lotario smirked, laughing to himself.
“Help with what? You’re not trained.” Alain tried to turn away.
“Then train me. Teach me. I can help you.” Cristoph pushed the scroll he’d been studying back on the messy shelf and crowded Alain, standing so close their chests brushed against each other. “I want to be here. I want to do this. I know I can help you.”
Alain turned away from Cristoph’s hot stare. “No.”
“This is why I am here. This is why I came to the Vatican. God works in mysterious ways, doesn’t he? This is meant to be, it has to be. You know that. Why won’t you let me help?”
“Alain—”
“I know a little bit about what I’m talking about, Cristoph! The last man who worked with me is gone!” His voice rose until he was shouting, bellowing in Cristoph’s face.
“Alain…” Lotario tried to interrupt, a warning in his voice.
“Shut up!” Alain sent a scathing glare Lotario’s way. Lotario shut his mouth, for once.
“I’m not him! I won’t make the same mistakes he did!” Cristoph’s gaze burned into Alain’s. “Let me stay. Let me help.”
“Damn it, Cristoph. They weren’t his mistakes. They were all mine.” Alain paced away, tipping his head back as a pulse pounded at the base of his skull. “I got him killed.”
Silence filled the cramped office. Lotario looked down, scuffing his boots, and then cleared his throat. Smoker’s phlegm curdled as he coughed. “I’ll leave you two to sort it out. I’ve got bodies to examine.” He slipped out, kicking the Malleus Maleficarum away from the door and closing it behind him.
“Cristoph—”
“No, stop, Alain. Don’t do this. Don’t shut me out again. Not after everything.” He shook his head. “You need help. We both know you can’t do this all yourself. I want to stay, with you. Let me do something, anything, to help you. Please.”
“Helping me would be putting you on a plane and sending you to the Caribbean. Getting you far, far away from here.”
“Only if you come with me.”
His dream flashed in his mind again, Cristoph, naked, gloriously naked, and happy, stretched out alongside Alain in a bed overlooking a beach. Alain reached for Cristoph’s hand, his shaking fingers barely brushing over the back of Cristoph’s. “Promise me one thing.”
“What?”
“If I tell you to go, you will. You’ll run, and you’ll stay safe.”
Cristoph frowned. “Only if you’re safe, too.”
Stepping back, Alain cleared his throat. He pulled out the flash drive and sank into his chair in front of his computer. “We have to see what’s on here.”
Cristoph perched on the edge of the desk and watched as Alain plugged the drive into his dusty computer tower.
“Is everything in your office ancient?” Cristoph muttered into Alain’s ear.
“Hush.” Alain almost grinned. “Our budget isn’t large. Petrol prices have risen over the years. Most of our funds go to getting around Rome.”
The flash drive popped up a new window on Alain’s monitor, listing the directory of files ripped from the secretary of state’s laptop.
“I feel like I’m reading God’s email.”
Alain tossed Cristoph a dry look. He popped his knuckles and hovered his fingers over the keyboard. A moment later, he sorted the drive by folder and file date last opened.
“Personnel Files?” Cristoph read the most recent file over Alain’s shoulder. Confusion hung in his voice.
Dread sank in Alain’s stomach. No. God, you bastard. No.
He clicked into the folder. A substring of the Vatican departments the cardinal secretary of state oversaw opened. His eyes scanned the folders, searching.
Pontifical Swiss Guard. His breath stuttered.
The file had been opened two days ago. By Madelena. The spy.
His eyes scanned the rest of the drive. Nothing else had been opened on that day. No other folders. No other files.
Holding his breath, Alain clicked into the Swiss Guard personnel file. One hundred and twenty folders popped up, last names followed by first names.
Alain frowned. One hundred and twenty? He scanned the list, searching for his name.
It wasn’t there.
But Commandant Best’s was, right up top. Recently opened. Best, Gaëtan (Commandant).
“Shit,” he breathed. Clicking into Best’s file felt like he was reading his father’s diary. He didn’t have a right to his information, to Best’s service record. He didn’t want to know what Best was like when he was a younger man, before he was the stalwart, strident knight who had recruited Alain and—
He shut down his thoughts.
It was all there. The date Best joined the Swiss Guard. His training scores. Alain raised his eyebrow as Cristoph chuckled. Their commandant had barely scraped by. Two years as a halberdier, two years as a corporal. And then, in his fifth year, a reassignment. Best, Gaëtan. Promoted to sergeant and reassigned to Special Projects.
“He was the knight before you, right?” Cristoph murmured. His breath tickled through Alain’s hair next to his ear. “He recruited you?”
Alain shivered. “Yes,” he croaked. Coughing, he tried to cover his slip. “And he was recruited by his commandant, Alois Sonnenberg. And Sonnenberg was knighted before him.”
Cristoph squinted at Alain. “You gonna be commandant one day?”
Laughter erupted from him. “Christ, no,” he snorted. “I’m—”
The door ripped open.
Whatever Alain was going to say died as Luca loomed in the doorway. Storm clouds darkened Luca’s eyes and a harsh frown furrowed his brow. “Sergeant,” he bit out. He nodded to Cristoph, slightly less hostile. “Halberdier.”
Alain fought for breath. He stood, but his hands clenched his keyboard, white-knuckling around the plastic. “Luca. What do you want?”
Luca’s eyes lingered on Cristoph, perched on Alain’s desk so close he was almost touching Alain’s leg. “I came to check on Halberdier Hasse,” Luca said. His eyes dragged from Cristoph to Alain, his gaze searing right through to Alain’s soul. “His injury seems to be doing better.”
Cristoph opened his mouth.
Alain spoke first. “He’s still healing,” he said quickly. “I still have duties for him while he recovers.” He held Luca’s stare. “You assigned him to me, and I have duties for him to do. He’s not ready for guard shifts yet. He needs more time.”
Cristoph’s jaw snapped shut.
Luca’s eyes darted his way. “Halberdier. How are you?”
Slipping from the edge of the desk, Cristoph sagged sideways, making a show of limping on his formerly injured foot and falling to the chair beside the desk. “Still hurts, sir.” He grimaced and rubbed his ankle. “I’m very grateful for the time you’ve given me to recover.”
Alain rolled his eyes at Cristoph’s terrible show of acting. Luca’s eyebrows shot high. A pinched look of hilarious disbelief scrawled across his face.
“Anything else you need, Luca?” He stared Luca down, daring him to pick another one of their fights. Not now, Luca. Not now.
Luca’s gaze held his, his eyes deep pools of chestnut brown so dark they looked black. “Not at the moment,” Luca finally said, smooth voice purring over his words. “I’ll be back,” he promised. As he turned away, he paused, his gaze sliding to Cristoph. “Feel better,” he barked.
Silence strained the office until the door slid closed once more.
“The fuck is his problem?” Cristoph exhaled, glaring up at Alain. “Has he never, ever been laid?”
The very last thing he wanted was to discuss Luca, or to have Luca involved in their case in any way. “We need to call the commandant. Someone—something—is searching for him.”
“Because he was a knight? A hunter?”
Alain nodded. He punched in Best’s cell phone number on his desk phone as Cristoph went back to perusing his shelves, his books. Something was out there searching for the hunters, the knights. Vampires had made Madelena a spy, had made her seduce Cardinal Nuzzi and steal his files. She had been guided to seek out the Pontifical Swiss Guard’s personnel files and search for guards assigned to Special Projects.
A chill curled around his heart. Something out there was getting close. The incubus. It must have targeted Cristoph. The questions it asked, trying to find out information on Alain, and on the hunters. Too coincidental to be an accident.
Vampires and demons, both trying to find them. Vampires with Demon Fire. Demons tracking
down information on hunters. A vampire spy searching computer files. The same goal. The same purpose.
Vampires and demons, unbelievably, working together. Something that had never happened before.
“You’re getting your wish.” Alain’s throat clenched and his heart shouted, screaming for him to put Cristoph on the next flight out of Rome, to send him far away. “You’re staying with me for now.”
Cristoph’s eyebrows shot up.
“We’re—the knights— are being targeted. I think you were targeted by that incubus because of me. Someone, somehow, knew we were connected.” His fingers clenched on the phone’s handset. He didn’t want to elaborate on that connection. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
The commandant’s gruff voice breaking over the line cut off Cristoph’s response. In the background, Alain heard the low tones of the Holy Father asking Best who was calling.
Chapter Seventeen
They stayed in Alain’s office for the rest of the day. Alain showed Cristoph how to draw a demon’s trap and a protective circle and had him practice on the cinderblock walls until he made a passable warding sigil.
He gave Cristoph the French treatise on Demon Fire and took the old Germanic poem for himself to study. They drank espressos and read the manuscripts, scribbling notes down and reading passages to each other when they stumbled. In the end, the poem revealed nothing new for Alain. He already knew demons and vampires didn’t get along, that there was no history of any alliance between them, ever.
So what was happening now?
Cristoph’s French treatise didn’t have any new information either. Demon Fire, the monks found, could only be wielded by demons. When the monks tried for themselves, they ended up burning down first their monastery and then their village before a monk finally self-immolated and flung himself into the village well, poisoning the town’s water supply.
“Well, we know how to put it out at least.” Cristoph rubbed his eyes.
