The Fallen

by Tarn Richardson

  Suddenly something caught in his cloth, something tacky, globulous. He rubbed harder, confused and surprised that such a stain should have found its way onto the statue. Perhaps it had fallen from the ceiling above? But the liquid was slick, and the more he polished, the more it seemed to flow, as if he was working at an open wound. The cloth had become dark, and his hands too were now slick and dark, as if he were bleeding. He stopped and held the cloth close to his eyes, crimson and drenched.

  And then he realised what the liquid was. The bucket dropped from his arm, falling to the floor, splashing its discoloured contents far across the tiles of St Peter’s Basilica. Antonio felt himself topple backwards after it. He cried out and lunged for the ladder, just managing to snag his crooked fingers to the nearest rung and pull himself to safety before he fell too.

  Blood!

  The statue of Jesus was bleeding, bleeding from every inch of his skin, as if the marble had been stripped away to reveal haemorrhaging flesh inside.

  PART FIVE

  “Their tongue is a deadly arrow; It speaks deceit; With his mouth one speaks peace to his neighbour, but inwardly he sets an ambush for him.”

  Jeremiah 9:18

  SEVENTY ONE

  SLOVENIA. NEAR THE ITALIAN BORDER.

  Poré watched the flames of his camp fire dance, tendrils of amber and red weaving like an enchantment in front of his eyes, drawing him nearer to sleep with every rhythmic sway. He had walked for days, every part of him ached, particularly his wounded leg, which now seemed to groan with every step, his limp more pronounced than ever before. He was sick and broken but he knew he could not give up. Not now. His eyes closed and he shook his head. He still had more miles to put between himself and where he had now chosen to rest before he finally succumbed to exhaustion. After all, he knew that every minute was precious, a race against time and great forces which, if unleashed, might well control time itself.

  His eroded thoughts drifted to another time and place, exploring the dark recesses of his mind and his past, a young boy waiting anxiously at his classroom desk, a boy who never had any aspirations or dreams, only to be happy and to bring happiness to the world. And Poré was a happy child, until the man who entered the room, looking like an apparition of death himself, came into his life. Even now, thirty years later, Poré’s guts hardened, just as they had then on seeing the man.

  Up until that moment, Poré had never seen a man like him before, his life being always so full of light and colour, not dark like the savage who had visited, dressed in black from head to toe, a hood of felt covering the crown of his heavy square head. He had stood statuesque at the far end of the chamber, his large fists on his hips, staring at each child in turn, eyes boring, deciphering what he could from the young boys’ appearance and manner, his mouth locked in a perpetual sneer, after which he had shifted his weight from his left to his right foot, stepping forward between the rows of desks, his long strides pacing the length of the room in an instant. The large shadow he had thrown seemed to shrivel and chill anyone caught beneath it, like a curse. Poré could still recall the sound of metal clanking dully beneath his tattered black robe with every heavy step he took, as if the bones under his shirt were exposed and made of iron.

  Poré hung his head and clutched his hands, trying to choke the memories from his mind. But they refused to leave, growing clearer and even more real.

  Although at the time Poré feared he knew who the man was, he had never dared to guess that the Inquisitor had come to call him away to join the acolytes for the Inquisition. When all that remained of the class was a ragtag collection of slight and brittle-looking children, only bloodless strained faces staring back, Poré had allowed himself a fleeting surge of hope that he would not be one of those called. But all too quickly his name was called, and afterwards nothing was ever the same again.

  “What’s the matter, boy?” the Inquisitor had hissed, as Poré had approached him that first time from his desk. “Where’s your pride at being chosen for the Inquisition?”

  Poré had tried to speak, but words had failed him and he’d hung his head lower and shuddered with tears.

  “Is there some mistake?” the Inquisitor had spat, looking across to the man leaning with his elbows upon the heavy leather tome of names. “Can this whelp surely be one of the chosen?” He’d looked at the boy as if he were a piece of discarded filth. “He weeps like a child and has the arms of a girl.”

  “He is wise,” the man at the book countered, holding his fingers to the point in the register he had reached. “It is said he has a great mind.”

  Young Poré lasted just two months within the Inquisition. The Inquisitor who had greeted him in the class had also decided to take personal responsibility for him, and subjected the boy to the very worst abuse. Daily beatings, verbal assaults, cruel interrogations and hostility shown to him at every opportunity, all exacerbating the true horrors he was supposed to face and fight as an Inquisitor. From this tortured life he could never find peace, for when the demonic cries of a possessed child or the phantom wails of a spectre had fallen silent, Poré was subjected to the taunts and violence of his master when they returned to their residence.

  When he decided he could stand no more and resolved to leave, his pitiful pleading turning him prostrate before the local Cardinal, his eyes full of tears, he was granted his wish. But at a terrible cost. His mother and father were placed into inquisitional hands.

  Root and branch. It was the Inquisition’s way.

  He’d beseeched the Cardinal to leave his family alone, to take him, but to no avail. He never saw his family again. It was then that the seed of hate was planted and proof, if ever Poré needed it, that at the heart of the faith was a blackness which could only have been forged in hell by the Devil.

  Poré returned from his memory back to the wilderness of the Slovenian-Italian border and his current predicament, his cheek pressed into an open palm. His eyes were full of tears and he wept in pain at his loss and isolation. He was alone, so alone, as he had always been. And at once doubt seized him. How could he, one man, hope to do what had been decreed to him when the word of God had been revealed and assured him and told him to be strong?

  The howl of a wolf thrust his senses back into the forefront of his mind. The crack of a branch sounded, followed by another howl, this one closer and directly ahead of him. Slowly he moved his hand towards the pelt lying at his feet. Another howl came, this time to his left, just beyond the light of the camp fire.

  And now there was movement, a large hulking body running towards him from out of the trees, a vast terrible creature. Without any hesitation, Poré pulled on the pelt and spun to howl down on the approaching wolf with his talons splayed wide and his blood-red jaws open to receive him.

  SEVENTY TWO

  ROME. ITALY.

  “They’re still after us!” said Isabella breathlessly, the moment they had run inside the house Tacit had found for them and locked the door. She leant back against it and swept the hair from her face. “I can hear dogs.”

  “I can hear a lot more than just dogs,” replied Tacit, pacing through the rooms to the rear of the house to check all was clear throughout. All across the city, wolf howls haunted courtyards and narrow side-streets.

  “Sandrine,” muttered Henry, looking to the window.

  “She’ll be fine,” said Isabella, going to his side.

  “Unlikely,” replied Tacit, returning to the room to snatch a bottle from the sideboard and slump into a chair at the table. “But she and her kind are keeping the Inquisition busy.” He twisted the cork off the bottle and set it eagerly to his lips. “That’s all that matters. For now. We need a little time to think.”

  “I just hope Strettavario got away all right from the last place we stayed. Everywhere seems cursed!”

  “Don’t worry about him,” replied Tacit, setting down the bottle and vanishing back into the depths of the house. “They’re not looking for him. And anyway, I’ve known Strettavari
o long enough to know he can handle himself.”

  “Strettavario, he reminds me a little bit of you.”

  Tacit came back with a large roll of paper under his arm, scowling, and shook his head, but there was the suggestion of humour in his face. He set the paper on the table and rolled it out, setting the dead weight of his revolver in the centre of it. Isabella and Henry came forward, seeing that Tacit had found a map of Europe.

  Isabella sat back on the edge of a table and crossed her arms. She flicked her hands to loosen her wrists and tousled her hair, forcing it into some sort of shape.

  The giant of a man gathered an oil lamp from the room opposite, groping in his pocket for matches.

  “Thank goodness,” she said brightly, when he produced a packet of them. “Light! It feels like we’ve been encased in the dark ever since you came back.”

  Tacit lit the wick and replaced the glass cover, adjusting the flame so that its thin light eked miserably through the darkness. Any light was enough for Isabella. Tacit set the lantern down on the table and spread out the map, softening the edges and creases with his hands so that it lay flat.

  “There are some more chairs through there,” the Inquisitor announced, pointing with his thumb through the doorway from which he had gathered the map, as he leaned over the table, “if anyone wants to sit.”

  “What is this place?” asked Isabella.

  “A very old inquisitional safe house. Known only to a few of us. Most of those who used it are long dead. I’m hoping no one thinks to look for us here.”

  “It sounds like the whole of the Inquisition is against us out there,” Isabella said, as Henry reappeared with two chairs and offered one to her. He set his own across the table from Tacit and dropped into it, exhausted. “The whole Inquisition isn’t against us. We know that,” replied Tacit. “But we need to work quickly. I’m hoping we’ll be safe here, for a little while at least. For long enough.”

  “Long enough for what?” asked Henry

  “Those numbers we found in Benigni’s office.”

  Isabella nodded. “I have them here.” She took the paper onto which she had copied them from her pocket and pushed it across the map towards Tacit.

  “I’ve been thinking,” he said, turning the sheet in front of him. “These aren’t library record numbers at all.”

  “They’re longitude and latitude,” announced Henry suddenly, leaning forward and catching sight of the numbers from where he sat.

  Tacit nodded, impressed.

  “When did you get these?” asked Henry.

  “When you were flat out on Benigni’s floor. But I think you’re right. They’re coordinates on a map.”

  “Northern Italy?” asked Henry, watching Tacit’s finger come to rest over the border with Slovenia.

  “The Carso,” said Tacit. He tapped the spot on the map with the end of his index finger. He looked up at Isabella and then across to Henry. “That’s where the coordinates point. There’s something there. At the Karst Plateau. Something that Cincenzo found there, or believes to be happening there.” He looked at the pair of them. “That’s where we need to go.”

  “Tacit,” said Isabella, her voice wavering. “All this! The murders. The Inquisition. The map.” She closed her eyes for a moment, as if letting the momentum of everything catch up with her. “I’m scared.”

  “Only just now?” he replied, a light coming to his own eyes.

  “This thing we’re getting into, is there no one we can call upon to help? Surely there is someone else you can trust? Someone in the Holy See?”

  “No.”

  “Cardinal Bishop Adansoni?” she suggested. “You speak so highly of him, like he was your father?”

  Tacit’s eyes grew very large and dark. “No.”

  “He’s a good man. He cares for you.” She clutched his hand tighter so that her knuckles whitened. “I know he cares for you very much, from the times I have spoken with him previously. We should try and find him. Maybe he can help explain the map?” she suggested, waving towards the table.

  “No,” Tacit replied firmly, the darkness within him almost instantly crushing any softening of emotion he had shown. “It’s too dangerous to involve an old man like him.” He stood and returned his attention to the table. “This is for us and us alone,” he announced, tapping on the area marked on the map. He looked from Henry to Isabella, and then back at the point on the map he was indicating. In the thin light of the single lantern, Tacit looked more determined than ever, his face butchered and broken from all he had endured.

  “The Karst,” he announced, his finger set to the place on the map where the Italian and Austro-Hungarian borders met. He looked again at the pair of them. “That’s where the coordinates point. There’s something in the Karst. That’s where we need to go.” He saw that the soldier looked troubled. “What is it?” Tacit spat. “Getting cold feet?”

  But Henry ignored him and buried his chin in his hand, his eyes searching the recesses of the room’s far corner.

  “Resurrection,” said Henry. “The Chamber of Bones.” Now both sets of eyes were on the soldier and he dropped both hands to the table. “What Accosi mentioned before. I’ve been thinking. I know of it,” he said. “I’ve heard of it.”

  “What do you mean?” growled Tacit. “You mean it’s a place?” And then it seemed as if the realisation struck him.

  “Nostra Signora della Concezione,” they said together, and Isabella’s eyes widened.

  “Of course!” she said, her hand to her hairline. “The church of Santa Maria della Concezione of the Capuchins, in Rome!”

  “Beneath which is the Crypt of the Resurrection.”

  “The Chamber of Bones,” confirmed Henry, nodding.

  Tacit’s eyes narrowed. “I wonder how it’s connected? Maybe it’s a location for one of the rituals? If we can get there first–”

  The sound of glass breaking and wood snapping disrupted them, and as one they leapt up from the table and the map.

  “We have company!” hissed Henry, gathering his revolver from his holster. “I thought you said this place was safe?!”

  “Followed!” spat Tacit, taking his own revolver from his thigh. “We must have been followed.”

  SEVENTY THREE

  ROME. ITALY.

  The wild-eyed Inquisitor battered the wolf to one side with the butt of his rifle and vaulted the wall, dashing down the cobbled passageway as fast as his booted feet would carry him.

  He sprinted into the small courtyard where Düül had set up his position of command within the city to direct his men. Three alleyways fed the darkened yard, buildings encircling all sides, making the central location perfect for directing tactics.

  “There’s Hombre Lobo all across Rome, Grand Inquisitor!” the Inquisitor cried, his hands on his knees gasping for breath, the side of his face raked by claws. “They’re everywhere, but we are winning on the southern and western sides. From the east, their numbers are greater than we expected. And we are being slowed by having to burn bodies and hide evidence from the citizens of the city.”

  A howl came from the street out of which the Inquisitor had appeared and moments later a vast wolf bounded in. Instantly Grand Inquisitor Düül’s revolver was in his hand and the barrel flashed. The beast vaulted forward and turned over, coming to a dead stop at their feet.

  “One less,” muttered Düül. “What are you doing here anyway?” he demanded of the Inquisitor, peering down on him with a scowl. “Not just to report to me, surely? Have you found Tacit?”

  The Inquisitor nodded, stepping away from the prostrate wolf to put a little distance between him and creature. “Apparently someone matching his description has been spotted.”

  “Where?”

  “The church of Santa Maria della Concezione. He told me to come and find you.”

  Düül’s scimitar flashed from his hilt and he held the bloodstained blade up to the light. “It ends tonight,” he said. “It ends by my hand.”

&nb
sp; SEVENTY FOUR

  ROME. ITALY.

  One side of the room exploded in fire and debris and noise. Everything shook and seemed to move very far away. It appeared to Tacit as if he had fallen into the earth, the air becoming heavy and hot. The table had been turned on its side, the map ripped and torn, half covering Isabella who lay close by, while Henry sat upright next to her, pointing at his boot which had been blasted to a burnt, bloody mess. He was saying something, but Tacit couldn’t understand the words. Another explosion rocked the room.

  “Find them,” Tacit heard a voice command within the maddening confusion as Inquisitors flooded into the room. He was on his feet and bounding over the table, landing among the attackers in a matter of seconds, his great arms battering and pummelling all within reach. Gunfire erupted, but he paid it no mind, ploughing into the middle of the shocked Inquisitors, breaking jaws and splitting skulls with his hammer-like fists.

  A grenade was tossed and the room flashed with light, filling moments later with smoke and the choking smell of cordite. Tacit began searching for Isabella and Henry, trying to regain his bearings. A figure swam into view and Tacit grappled him around the neck, breaking it easily and letting him fall, snatching the Inquisitor’s rifle as he did so.

  “Isabella!” he cried, stumbling blindly through the fog, knowing the overturned table was nearby. More gunfire sounded and something bit into his thigh. He roared in pain and turned to unleash two returning rounds from his rifle. Someone cried out ahead of him and fell to the ground. Isabella appeared through the haze, coughing, and he clutched hold of her, drawing her close. Her head was cut, blood streaking down one side of her face, but otherwise she looked unharmed. There was a wild look about her and at first Tacit thought she had been driven mad from the assault, until her hand slipped to his holster and she took out his revolver. Their eyes met and Isabella’s flashed.