Rooks and Romanticide

by J. I. Radke

  Cain moved against his leg. Perhaps it was because Levi was accustomed to the smell of gunpowder and the ringing in his ears, the almost merry jingle of ammunition as revolvers and pistols were reloaded, but he thought that the warmth and twitch of Cain’s body was very tempting, and here, below the painting and the candles, he could take Cain again and again right on the velvet prayer stools. What a creature he had become, what a monster of a man, to think something like that during a gunfight! Cold metal and murderous intent had become normal to him, then.

  Levi looked at Cain again, the brutal and terrifying shadows of his icy gray eyes. There was no meticulous Earl here, just a man imprisoned by his own dark, cold desperation, shooting a gun with exquisite aim. He looked innocent and savage all at once—no elegance, only lethal intent. Levi wanted to smile.

  Yes, there was a parallel here, wasn’t there? This gunfight between them was like the conflict of their souls, the internal war between right and wrong and death and salvation. Because Levi loved the monstrous, homicidal look on Cain’s face and the way his body twitched with the gunshots. He loved it. He desired it in a desperate, carnal, primal way. He was hungry for it. Ravenous. Sex.

  The Blond One was laughing again, a maniacal laugh. It echoed around the ruined sanctuary. Levi wanted to hit him for it. He tried to look around, to gauge where everyone was. How was this fray supposed to end? Were they going to run out of bullets and come to an impasse, where nobody knew what to do next? Would BLACK not be satisfied until Levi did something drastic and regrettable?

  Two loud shots shattered the eerie silence between firing. One hit the icon of the Theotokos again, scraping across the gold leaf of the Virgin’s face. The second didn’t seem to hit anything, but Cain went tumbling into the Flemish stand with all the prayer candles, and the most frightening part of it was that he didn’t make a sound.

  Cain.

  What happened next was something of a blur. Levi sprang to his feet, acting wholly on impulse, and by the time he blinked to clear his vision and understood that he had done something, his ears rang and he watched in the upper gallery as Claude fell over the balustrade and hit the sanctuary floor, his face and neck a simple smear of dark crimson red.

  And Levi still had his gun aimed, and he’d fired the bullet that had blazed right through Claude’s throat and its gushing arteries, because Claude had climbed above like a sniper.

  The Blond One’s cries of distress sounded to Levi as if they came from underwater, muffled and far away. The Blond One—no, he deserved to be known by name. Spider. Petyr….

  Levi watched, in a state of dumb confusion, while the world moved a little too fast for him to keep up. Petyr stumbled up the altar steps, dropping his gun and falling to his knees near Claude, whose glasses had bent in his fall from the balcony. His hands were still twitching, and Petyr held one tightly, bawling so hard his scrawny body shook, and it was hard to think of him as a gunslinger, for at that moment he seemed just a broken soul.

  Tempt not a desperate man.

  Suddenly Levi’s cousin William was there next to Petyr and Claude, his mouth moving, but Levi didn’t hear a word. Will checked Claude’s pulse. Petyr rocked to and fro, the very image of agony. And wasn’t there a long-running joke between them all, that Petyr and Claude were lovers? How terrible, then! Oh, well. That was life. And Claude had shot Cain, after all.

  Nobody was shooting anymore. The tension in the air had soured. The gunfight was over. Levi had shot Claude in the face, or the throat—somewhere in that fatal vicinity. Blood had probably spattered in the gallery like it pooled on the altar floor.

  Tempt not a desperate man.

  In one sudden dizzying rush of clarity that left his ears ringing again, everything swung back into focus, and Levi turned to Cain and the prayer corner.

  Cain’s hair was tousled and his face drawn tight. He leaned against the candle stand with his hair falling in his face and his arms limp in his lap, breathing with great labor. He seemed to sense Levi’s eyes and lifted his hands slowly, pale fingers shaking. Levi had to gather willpower to wrench his gaze from the awful blooming red across Cain’s left shoulder and throat.

  Cain had dropped his revolver. Levi kicked it aside, hearing BLACK as they became panicked with Claude’s gory demise. Petyr screamed and screamed. Levi heard him kick something over as they tried to calm him. Levi crouched on his haunches and grabbed Cain’s hands, pressing them to his face to let Cain know he was there. Cain’s eyes flashed, so alive and bright still. Oh God, he was going to suffer—

  “You cannot,” Levi blurted stupidly, grabbing Cain’s face.

  Cain uttered a gentle moan at the sudden movement. Levi guessed that the bullet was still somewhere inside him, and that it had entered at the curve of his neck and shoulder, the warm place that Levi so loved to kiss. That meant it was lodged somewhere dangerous, oh, somewhere very, very dangerous.

  “I cannot what?” Cain croaked, and it was terribly weak and choked.

  He sounded as though he couldn’t breathe well, and Levi wondered if the bullet had gone through his lungs or his windpipe.

  “You cannot go,” Levi mumbled. He could feel himself breaking. He was a grown man, for Christ’s sake, he could not break—he could not let the emotion clench like that around his heart, he could not let the tears spring up in his eyes—panic, oh panic. “Cain, you cannot go! We have a pact to make, we have a feud to end, Cain. Everyone I’ve ever loved has left me, and you cannot, you cannot!”

  Levi broke under the weight of it all like an overwhelmed little boy because Cain smiled the most soft, angelic smile then.

  “Kill me,” he whispered, very flat and faint.

  And that was Cain Dietrich, wasn’t it? Shaken and scarred, a beautiful, dark thing, giving nothing and taking it all. Why wouldn’t he smile so beautifully as he asked for death? Because that was what he wanted. Release from the hell of his own soul.

  Love had not been enough.

  “Tempt not a desperate man!” Levi cried, using Cain’s very words. And damn the obsession, damn the tragedy, damn the entire world and its demons of hatred and spite! Where was the justice here? He was not a fighter, damn it, he was a romantic, but the world didn’t seem to be fond of romantics.

  Eliott was there suddenly. He grabbed him. Levi shook him off. He wrapped his arms around Cain, carefully, and cradled him close below the ruined painting of the Virgin Mary and baby Christ.

  “Levi!” Eliott hissed, and he didn’t have to say anything else.

  Levi understood. They were leaving him. They were done with this. Claude was dead. It was probably better if they left. The Blond One—Petyr—was unpredictable and full of grief.

  “Go,” Levi husked.

  “Levi, bring him with you, for Christ’s sake!” Eliott was near hysterical. Petyr’s shrieks were echoes from outside the sanctuary now, like the howl of the wind. “Bring him with you,” Eliott urged, pulling on Levi’s shoulders. “Please. Good Lord, Levi, they’ve got Claude’s body outside, but we can figure this out—”

  Eliott must have realized it was futile. He fell suddenly still and silent, and Levi didn’t look at him because it was about time Eliott realized Levi was doomed, anyway.

  His father hated him. His household and gang hated him. There would be no peace, no justice, no relief for him if he left the church with BLACK, even bringing Cain. He wasn’t even supposed to be back in New London, and now he’d killed Claude. He was utterly and wholly doomed, and he suspected he had been from the day he’d been born.

  Eliott lingered a few more heartbreaking moments, and then his rapid footsteps echoed as he fled the sanctuary.

  BLACK left.

  There was just the silence in St. Mikael’s.

  The flicker of candles reflected in the dark puddle on the altar floor and the commingling scents of gunpowder, melting wax, timeless secrets, holiness, and spilled blood.

  “Poor Romeo,” Cain cooed.

  He looked dizzy. He had to rest h
is head on Levi’s shoulder. Levi didn’t mind. Cain was dying. What did it feel like when a soul left from your arms like this?

  “How are you joking with me even now?” Levi gritted out. The emotion was so much, it came in waves—overwhelming, painful, and then nothing, only to wash back through him in crushing currents.

  Cain smiled faintly, eyes hooded. In the candlelight it was brutally gorgeous. “Because,” he gasped, “you’re my friend.”

  Levi laughed, although it sounded something like a sob. His eyes stung. He felt like a boy again, so alive with the most tragic of emotions. “Oh, please tell me I’m more than that!”

  Cain peered up at him as if dazed. He looked comfortable against Levi’s shoulder, at least, his clothes stained dark red. Levi reached down to brush hair out of his pale eyes.

  “You are, you are,” Cain managed. “I promise you that.” He paused as if he’d lost his breath. “I love you, somehow,” he said next, and it was Levi’s turn to go breathless.

  “You tell me this now!” he cried, hating that Cain waited for such a moment to be honest. He’d probably seen it as weakness until then. Levi was sure of it. But no, he didn’t hate Cain for it. He hated love. Damn the obsession. Damn the indiscriminate need, the force to end all forces. Damn it all!

  “I don’t want to leave, Levi,” Cain mumbled hoarsely, frowning. It was stubborn.

  Levi shook his head. Cain reached up with quivering fingers, pushing hair out of Levi’s eyes. Levi let him. “I don’t want you to leave either,” he insisted.

  “Not like that.” Cain made a face of silent laughter. “I don’t want to leave the church, I mean.”

  “What do you mean, malysh?” Levi’s voice had hardly left his lips before he regretted using the pet name, but nothing changed on Cain’s face. His gaze was dark, and his hand sank back down to his lap. He took a slow breath, shaking a little against Levi’s chest. Levi held him tighter for it, like a frightened child clinging to company. The shadows danced in the sanctuary.

  “Levi, I don’t want to leave, because it’s so peaceful here.” Cain looked up at him in almost sarcastic awe. “I shot Christ’s face,” he whispered, in wonderment of himself.

  “Yes, you did,” Levi said, chuckling even as the tears broke free.

  “But I still feel Christ here.” The words were raspy, almost inaudible.

  Cain’s gaze had fixed on the ceiling of the sanctuary, like he was thinking about something distant and deep. His brow furrowed. He drew another tremulous breath. Levi could hear the death in it already, the wheeze and the shiver and the slightly wet sound of blood somewhere in Cain’s chest.

  And what a terribly daunting moment, this instant where Cain spoke of Christ. He, the bloodstained earl of the turbulent kingdom of revenge and violence and sin. He looked absolutely spiritual suddenly. Surely, staring up at the ceiling, he seemed torn between the dark forgotten world of his soul and the beauty of life bursting around him in the rafters and corners of the church, and Levi choked up. He tried not to let Cain see it, but he felt too cold—too full of a desperate, irreparable ache that was half love and half horror. Certainly this pain was what those who suffered in Hell would experience for eternity, and it was excruciating.

  “Levi,” Cain murmured, meeting his eyes again. It was undeniable. Cain saw the nascent terror in Levi’s face, and Levi clenched his teeth against it, brow knotting. Cain shrugged with one shoulder, peering up at him comfortably. “I like this,” he said. “I like the peace here. It’s beautiful. It’s so comfortable against your chest, and I love you, I love you—”

  There were the tears Levi didn’t realize he’d been waiting to see. They bubbled up in Cain’s thick lashes and rolled down his cheeks. Levi thumbed some away, shaking his head. Yes, Cain loved him for who he was, and Levi loved him too.

  “Don’t cry, Cain. You won’t be able to breathe,” he whispered.

  It didn’t matter. Cain couldn’t breathe anyway. His body was jerking with each sharp breath as he spoke, urgently.

  “We’re all doomed, Levi,” he said. His eyes widened suddenly. His hands were cold when they touched Levi’s face, forcing eye contact. With the tears and the terrible look on his face, he looked mad, and Levi didn’t like it. “There is no salvation. Just please let me feel this peace a little longer before—”

  Levi shook his head. This was taking far too long. It was torturous. He pushed Cain’s hands from his face. “No, not doomed. You’re not doomed.”

  The sound when Cain’s body rattled with a deep cough was unsettling. It deepened Levi’s despair. The cough became a wet choke, something just short of a retch, and it stained Cain’s hands with blood, thick and dark in his hand, on the end of his sleeve. Levi tightened his arms around him, eyes widening. Surely the anguish could choke him to death, crush him, one emotion at a time.

  Cain tried to say something more, the perfect image of humiliation and hopelessness. He looked up at Levi with such an expression of fear that Levi groaned. He was dying. “I just wanted them to pay for what they did to my family,” he whimpered.

  “Don’t you leave me alone, Cain,” Levi gasped. “Don’t you say those things. They don’t matter now.”

  “You’ll come to my funeral?” Cain whispered, suddenly calm, staring with such indignation that Levi utterly broke. He sobbed like a child, shaking his head against Cain’s. He didn’t care. He didn’t care about revenge or their families’ nonsensical feud. He didn’t care about BLACK or what had happened two years ago, or contracts or murders or even that wretched gun his father had given him.

  “I refuse to see you in a coffin! Death may want you, jealous thing it is, but I refuse,” he sputtered. That dark sadness was not the last expression Levi wanted to see. It was not Cain. The indomitable spark of pride was him, but not that sad, sad frown.

  “You’re so sweet, love.” Cain’s words were thick with blood.

  “Miserere mei, Deus,” Levi whispered, voice quavering on his lips and skin cold with terror as he went on with the Orthodox rites, hoping it would soothe Cain. There was blood at the corner of his mouth. His lashes fluttered; his head rolled on Levi’s shoulder. He felt it when Cain fell unconscious. He wasn’t dead—perhaps not yet—but he couldn’t breathe. He’d been laboring with it for minutes now, and he’d fainted. It was a strange, unsettling sensation to feel a body go limp in his arms, and Levi did not like it.

  Suddenly the church was too silent.

  Levi stared at the faceless crucifix for a moment, feeling rather empty and numb. The sobbing left him with a single breath; how, he wasn’t sure. That familiar and unforgiving emptiness swallowed him in one gulp.

  His eyes moved to the icon, the Virgin Mary above the flickering candles. He saw Cain’s gun, off to the side. His own was back in its holster. Levi didn’t even remember putting it there.

  Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name.

  Rejoice, O Virgin Theotokos, Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee.

  Have mercy on me, O God.

  How had this happened?

  Cain looked peaceful.

  Levi couldn’t stare at him anymore. He laid Cain down gently on the altar floor and walked around the sanctuary, humming the Cherubic Hymn to himself as he remembered being in St. Mikael’s years and years ago, as a child, meeting the clergyman Kelvin when he’d first entered as Father.

  There was nothing left anymore, really.

  Fate was cruel, and everyone was doomed.

  Levi lit a prayer candle for Cain’s soul. He figured he might as well light one for himself too. And then, one by one, he picked up the candles and threw them around the church until the tapestries were catching fire and the woodwork was smoking. There was a sense of finality, really, as the flames popped. It was heavy and comfortable on Levi’s shoulders.

  His eyes looked their last.

  The sanctuary began to fill with smoke. The flames ate up the dust and wood, and Levi thought that, even bloody and on the horizon of dea
th, Cain was so beautiful.

  Levi sat down beside him, unconscious on the altar floor. He ran his hands through his hair and smiled faintly as he kissed both his closed eyes. Cain’s mouth was limp and pliant when he kissed it next, just a dust of the lips. He did not wipe at his own mouth, if Cain’s blood had stained it. He licked it away if it was there. He tried to position Cain in a proper way, a regal way, a way that Cain would have wanted to be lying. He looked like he was sleeping, serene, a bloodstained angel with fingers laced as Levi had arranged them.

  The smoke stung Levi’s eyes and the flames leapt closer to the crucifix. He could hear shouts, outside, on the wind, unless he just imagined them. But surely by now someone had noticed the church going up in flames and had notified the city.

  There was no other solution that was clear to him. There was no reason for him to be alive anymore. His reason to live was dying, and so should he.

  He and Cain were so very alike, and he knew Cain would have been pleased by that.

  LEVI AND Cain both might have thought it such a shame that when Levi lay down on the altar floor beside Cain, with the pool of Claude’s blood mere yards away, and shot himself in the head with the ROOK, his blood dirtied Cain on the side Claude’s shot hadn’t. But perhaps, in a dark way, one of them might have found it romantic. Intimate, even.

  What a pity, then, that the painting of the Virgin, the shattered face of Christ, and the other effigies of saints and angels were the only witnesses to the curtain closing on the tragedy: the death of the gunslinging romantic and the last, unconscious breath of the bloodstained earl.

  EPILOGUE

  WHEN THE rector arrived with the constabulary, signing cross after cross upon his chest, his stomach was heavy with dread and his nerves electric with fright. He’d expected bodies. He’d expected bloodshed. But he hadn’t expected after frantic neighbors pounded on his door to get up in the dark and cold of the wee hours of a winter morning to find St. Mikael’s was on fire.