The Devil's Madonna

by Sharon Potts

  Javier was watching her. “I sense from your reaction that you already know a great deal of the story. About the painting. Perhaps even about your own lineage?”

  Kali was breathing too hard and it was impairing her ability to think. Slow down. Keep calm. If he’d wanted to kill her, he would have already done so. He’d had plenty of opportunities. “What do you want?”

  “All in good time. But first, it’s important that you know the entire story. That you base your decision on information, rather than on hateful lies and propaganda.”

  “What decision?”

  “You, my dear, have the opportunity to change the course of history and save the human race in the bargain.”

  Gizmo was scratching at the pocket door. There was no one who could help her. Not Seth. Not Neil. She was on her own.

  “When your grandmother fled Berlin, our Leader sent my father to find and kill her, and recover a very special painting.”

  Kali’s hands tightened around the edge of the sofa.

  “No, no. Please don’t worry. No one’s going to hurt you. Quite the contrary. You may not know this, but my father was in love with your grandmother. The choice he had to make—obey his Führer or his heart—was agonizing. And to tell you the truth, had he apprehended her, I’m not sure what he would have done.”

  She could hear Gizmo growling through the door, occasionally emitting a sharp bark.

  “My father followed her to the English Channel Islands. Unfortunately, Leli Lenz got a new identity and slipped away. The war intervened and my father was unable to continue his search for several years. He never completed his mission, but he told me everything he knew. For most of my adult life, I have been working toward turning my father’s dream into a reality.”

  “And what exactly was his dream?” Her voice sounded amazingly strong to her ears. Keep him talking. Maybe she’d figure something out.

  “That he and the German people would be vindicated. That society would once again embrace the core values of love of family and country that our Leader advocated.”

  “How was that supposed to happen?”

  “Through the miraculous painting. A painting that displays the humanity that was always in the Führer’s heart.”

  Kali shook her head. “Humanity?”

  His lips contorted into a smile. “But my father never knew there was a stronger link that could inspire lost generations. He never realized that the Führer had planted his seed.”

  Kali tensed. “There’s no proof.”

  “Oh, but there is. You see, our Leader left something else behind for posterity. Once your DNA has been matched with the blood from the signature on the painting there will be no doubt.”

  Hitler’s DNA? She touched her braid. Was that why her hair-brush was missing?

  “You will be revered, Kali, as the true descendent of the great Leader.”

  Revered? What was he talking about? That he was going to turn her into some kind of freak show?

  “How could you believe that I’d ever condone the most monstrous mass murderer in history?”

  “I know you’ve been brainwashed your entire life. I went through a similar experience when I was growing up, so I completely understand. But I hope I can persuade you to listen to me.” He got up from the chair and came around to the sofa.

  Her insides felt as though they’d liquefied. She started to get up. He pushed her down.

  “Please, Kali.” He sat down next to her, squeezing her into the corner of the sofa. “Hear me out.”

  She could smell cigarette smoke and sweat as he pressed against her. The same smell she’d picked up in the house the day her grandmother had been killed.

  “You’re alone now,” he was saying. “You believe no one wants you, but that’s not the case. Millions will want you. Want your child.”

  Her child. The word brought her terror to the next level. She tried to push around him. “Get away from me.”

  Gizmo snarled and barked on the other side of the pocket door.

  Javier tightened his grip on her arm. “Be reasonable.” With his other hand, he ran his fingertips up and down her neck. “I’m the best option you have. I can protect you.”

  His fingers closed around the gold heart. She felt the chain dig into her neck, then release as the safety pin popped open.

  “Everything’s in place,” he said. “One click on my computer and hundreds of thousands of the Führer’s followers will know all about you. You and the child will reign over the greatest kingdom on earth with me. Together we will restore the world to the glory that the Führer envisioned.”

  “You’ll never have me or my baby.”

  He pressed his hand against her abdomen. “I know you’ll be a wonderful mother, that’s why you have to think about what’s best for the little one. When word gets out on Hailstorm, there will be those who will try to destroy you. There are many who believe the Führer’s blood to be evil.”

  She could hear Gizmo furiously scratching at the door.

  “But you’re pure and beautiful, Kali. You have his eyes and his spirit. All I want is to be one with you, and together we will lead our people.”

  He pushed her against the arm of the sofa and climbed on top of her as she writhed and kicked. He was breathing hard, his cigarette breath foul in her face, his mutant eye too close. She could feel his hand slip between them and he fumbled to open his pants.

  “Get off me,” she screamed, flailing her arms, clawing at his vile eye.

  He grabbed both her wrists.

  The banging against the pocket door became frantic.

  She craned her neck to the side and dug her teeth deep into his arm.

  “Bitch.” He released her wrists and smacked her hard across the face.

  The room went white, then black. There was a pulsing pain in her nose, as a warm metallic-tasting liquid ran into her mouth.

  Javier pinned her shoulders against the sofa, his face contorted. “Stupid bitch. I would have treated you like a queen. Now, I’ll lock you away until the child is born, and I’ll fuck you like the cunt you are.” He held one hand around her neck, so she could hardly breathe. With the other, he pushed up her dress and ripped off her panties.

  His breath hit her face in short, fetid gusts.

  She struggled, but his full body weight pressed against her. Something pricked her side. The safety pin from the necklace. Her hand closed around it. It was large enough to do some damage. With her fingers, she manipulated the pointed side straight, then gripped it in her fist like a tiny ice pick.

  She was dizzy from the lack of oxygen, the room swirling around her. His red face was inches from hers.

  She had to save her baby.

  Like a vicious cat, she swiped the sharp pin at Javier’s face. One, two, three rapid slices across his cheek.

  He roared in pain, releasing his hand from her neck.

  She lunged forward, this time jabbing the end of the pin into his hateful iris.

  “Fucking bitch.” He lurched upright and covered his eye.

  Gizmo was baying like a crazed hyena.

  She squeezed out from under Javier and threw herself off the sofa to the floor. No way could she overpower him by herself. She crawled between the sofa and coffee table, then scuttled across the Oriental rug on her hands and knees toward the TV room. Toward Gizmo.

  She reached the end of the rug and her raw knees felt the cold marble floor. A few more feet. Almost there. Her fingertip grazed the pocket door, just as Javier’s hand clamped down on her ankle.

  “Noooo.” She kicked at him with her free leg. He gave her a painful chop across her calf, then flipped her over on her back. Her head banged against the hard marble.

  “Where the fuck are you going? Do you think you’ll be able to get away from me?” He sat on top of her, holding her down with his hands and fingers splayed across her chest. Below his rolled-up shirt-sleeve, she could see a circle of red puncture marks across the swastika tattoo where her teeth had penet
rated his skin.

  She squirmed and managed to free her left arm. The pocket door was less than an inch away. She reached toward it. A little more. A little more. The door rattled and shook as Gizmo flung his body against it.

  Javier was pressing down so hard, she feared her chest would collapse beneath his weight. He looked at her with his left eye. His right was squeezed shut, something oozing from the closed lid running down his torn, bloody cheek. “You’ll never escape from me,” he grunted.

  Her arm felt like it would pull out of its socket as she strained. A little more. A little more. Had to save her baby. Her fingers touched the crack between the door and the doorway. She clawed at it with her fingertips and broken nails, burrowing into the narrow opening as Gizmo scratched against the other side.

  A little more. A little more. The door slid open slightly.

  “Gizmo, come,” she shrieked.

  Gizmo forced the narrow opening and rushed through, filling the room with hysterical barking.

  Kali saw the brown form dive through the air, hurling itself against Javier. The big man fell to the side of her. He grabbed the dog’s flanks in an effort to keep him at bay, but Gizmo’s bared teeth clamped down on Javier’s throat. The man let loose a muffled yelp as Gizmo swung his head from side to side, tearing flesh, flinging blood. Javier tried to pull open the dog’s jaw, to no avail. Blood gushed from the gaping hole in Javier’s neck, spewing over Kali’s face and arms. Still Gizmo held on, shaking his head in a frenzy.

  Javier toppled over into a puddle of blood on the marble floor and lay motionless. Only then did Gizmo release his grip.

  “Oh, God.” Kali was shivering uncontrollably as she pushed herself up to a sitting position and wrapped her arms around her abdomen. Gizmo crawled beside her, panting. His fur was bloody and matted.

  But they were safe. Safe.

  And then she saw the dead man’s body twitch.

  She screamed.

  Javier’s arm trembled as he reached toward her, his eyes wide— one pale green, the other a dripping black hole.

  “Madonna,” he gasped. “My Madonna.”

  And then he fell still, hand extended, the swastika tattoo visible beneath the spray of red.

  Like four arms entwined in a gory embrace.

  EPILOGUE

  The little girl sat at the kitchen table, gripping a red crayon. She bit down on her lower lip as she dragged the crayon across a piece of blank white paper. The line was wobbly.

  She frowned and pushed the yellow curls out of her eyes. Then, she held the crayon with both hands and made another line. Not so wobbly.

  The smell of burning candles hung in the air. The little girl liked when her mother lit candles. It reminded her of happy birthday.

  She drew another line, then another. Each one a little straighter. Pretty lines. Like hugging arms.

  “Ilse,” her mother called.

  “Coming, Mama.”

  She counted the arms on her beautiful fairy. One, two, three, four.

  Then she slid off the chair and skipped down the hallway, the skirt of her pink pinafore flying out around her.

  If you enjoyed The Devil’s Madonna, you should also enjoy

  In Their Blood

  By

  Sharon Potts

  An excerpt from In Their Blood follows this page.

  Prologue

  Something was off. She had the uneasy feeling of being watched.

  Rachel Stroeb stepped away from the darkened portico, leaving her husband fumbling with his keys, their morose teenage daughter surrounded by a pile of winter coats and luggage.

  Tall hedges and drooping palms hid their neighbors’ houses, a film of dirty clouds blocking the light of the moon. But there was no sign of anyone, or anything amiss.

  “Everything okay, Rachel?” D.C. called.

  “I thought—” Rachel said. “Never mind. It’s probably just the jet lag.”

  “I don’t understand why the sconces aren’t lit,” her husband said. “I can’t see a damn thing.”

  The darkness— that must be why things seemed out of kilter. Or maybe it was disappointment that their family was still incomplete.

  Rachel returned to the stoop, slipping her arm around Elise’s narrow shoulders. Her daughter tensed. Rachel understood. It had been an exhausting flight, an unproductive trip. Just the three of them had returned home to Miami Beach from Madrid. Without Jeremy.

  “Here we go. Finally.” D.C. pushed open the door, depositing their coats, suitcases, and laptops on the white marble floor. “I’ll replace those burned-out bulbs in the morning.”

  Rachel flicked on the foyer light, reassured by the familiar arrangement of photos on the stippled wallpaper, the polished mahogany banister leading to the upstairs bedrooms. But the silence was unsettling. She was accustomed to the radio playing classical music, sounds of healthy family commotion. Their home on Lotus Island, where they’d lived the last twenty years, had mostly been a place of making wonderful memories.

  Rachel took a deep breath and held it for a few seconds. Week-old flowers on the foyer table, and dog. No matter how frequently they bathed poor old Geezer, the smell of ripe fur like a dowager’s ancient fox wrap hung in the air.

  “Geezer.” Rachel whistled. After ten o’clock. He was probably asleep for the night in his corner of their bedroom. Some watchdog.

  Elise was twirling her long dark braid with one hand as she texted with the other. The smattering of freckles on the bridge of her upturned nose always reminded Rachel of cinnamon on vanilla pudding.

  D.C. called from the kitchen. “You wouldn’t believe how much junk mail we got in one week. And Flora left a note. She walked Geezer before she left around four.”

  “Can I go see Carlos?” Elise asked.

  “Sorry, honey,” Rachel said. “It’s late. You have school tomorrow.”

  “Please, Mom. I won’t stay out long. I promise.” Her daughter’s pretty green eyes were bloodshot, probably from crying on the plane. It hadn’t been the winter break any of them had wanted.

  “What’s that?” D.C. said, coming in from the kitchen. Two days’ whiskers covered his chiseled cheeks and chin. Jeremy had grown a beard while in Europe this past year and Rachel was taken aback by the striking resemblance between the father and son.

  “I want to go to Carlos’s,” Elise said. “Just for a little bit.”

  “Absolutely not,” D.C. said. “You’re not traipsing over to the Castillos’ at this hour.”

  “Fine,” Elise said, eyes overflowing with tears. “I can see why Jeremy didn’t want to come home.” And she raced up the stairs, the slamming of her bedroom door echoing in the empty house.

  “You didn’t have to be so harsh, D.C.”

  “Jeez, Rachel. So now I have to tiptoe around both my kids?”

  “You could try being a little less righteous.” Rachel slipped off her new boots and stashed them in the closet, noticing blood on them from the nosebleed she’d had on the plane. Her tee shirt was also stained— three drops that looked like splattered tears. She pulled it over her head, hung it from a hook in the closet, and put on one of Elise’s sweatshirts.

  D.C. was pacing beside their luggage and coats. In a stretched-out tee shirt and worn jeans he looked more like one of his students than a professor of international economics. “Less righteous?” he said. “I’ve got a twenty-two-year-old son who’s wasting his life and a teenage daughter who doesn’t like restrictions. What’s wrong with asking them to take some responsibility for a change?”

  “I’m just saying, maybe you should lighten up. Elise is having a tough time. She’s disappointed Jeremy didn’t come home with us.”

  “We’re all disappointed.”

  “Elise is only sixteen. She worships her brother.”

  “Well, maybe our daughter needs to find a new hero.”

  Rachel took a deep breath. Why did her husband have to be so damn stubborn?

  Geezer had made it down the curving stairca
se, tail wagging, arthritic hind legs moving stiffly behind him. He licked Rachel’s hand as she bent to hug him. “Stinky puppy,” she said. “Tomorrow, before I leave, you’re getting a bath.”

  D.C. touched his shirt pocket, perhaps hoping to find a cigarette, but they’d both quit smoking over a year ago, at least in front of each other and the kids. “Look, honey,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’m as upset as you are that he didn’t come home.”

  Rachel picked a wilted chrysanthemum from the vase on the foyer table. “You know, Danny, deep down all Jeremy really wants is for you to be proud of him.”

  “Hey.” Her husband reached for her. He was a foot taller than she, and his chin rested comfortably on her head. “He’ll figure it out.”

  Shortly after eleven o’clock, Rachel and D.C. climbed into their high four-poster bed. The sheets were cool against her cheek. So much nicer than a hotel. Geezer was panting in his sleep in the corner of the room. D.C. slid his arms around her and Rachel pressed against his chest. He smelled like perspiration and smoke. So, he’d found a cigarette after all. She wondered where he kept his stash.

  Rachel snuggled closer to her husband. In twenty-five years of marriage, there had been a few bumps and missteps, and this one, too, would pass. He kissed her hair.

  Before they went to bed, they had taken Geezer for a walk around the island. When they returned home, Rachel had been surprised to get a text message from Elise. Please don’t be upset with me, Mom. I’m over at Carlos’s for a little. He promised to walk me home.

  And Rachel had been furious. But then the anger seeped out with her fatigue. Maybe their restrictiveness was what had pushed Jeremy away from them. Just this once, she’d let it go with Elise.

  A key turned in the front door. Rachel glanced at the clock on the night table. Just before midnight. Elise had to get up at six thirty for school. She’d be exhausted. D.C.’s breathing was deep and even. Rachel hadn’t told him Elise had gone out, preferring to keep her daughter’s secret to starting another altercation. She listened for Elise’s light footsteps running up the stairs. Rachel always left the bedroom door open a few inches to hear her kids coming and going. What was Elise doing downstairs? The thin beam that leaked in through the crack in the open door went out. Elise must have turned off the downstairs foyer light. Why would she have done that?