The Way of Sorrows

by Jon Steele

  ONE

  Did Marc Rochat have a soul?”

  The girl’s voice echoed through the dark of the nave.

  . . . have a soul . . . a soul . . . a soul . . .

  Harper didn’t answer at first. He was too busy staring at the girl’s face. He knew it was a genetic trait; all the half-breeds were the same. Same almond-shaped eyes, same emerald-colored irises. But just now, seeing those eyes watching him from under the brim of a black floppy hat, Harper flashed Marc Rochat as if he had risen from the grave . . . Bloody hell. Harper blinked, told himself it wasn’t the lad resurrected; told himself it was the new one.

  He checked back over his shoulder.

  Krinkle, the rock-and-roll roadie in denim overalls and steel-toed boots, was on the altar square, leaning over Astruc’s unconscious form and checking for a pulse. Sensing he was being watched, he looked up.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Harper shrugged.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m kind of busy with Brother Astruc at the moment. Stick with rules and regs. You’ll be fine,” Krinkle said, nudging Astruc into alignment with a heading of due east.

  “Right.”

  Harper turned to the girl, his mind sorting rules and regs on revealing info about human souls . . . Sod it.

  “Yes, mademoiselle, the lad had a soul. So do you, so do all the half—”

  His voice was lost in the drone of the execution bell tumbling from the belfry and rolling through the nave. Clémence was the bell’s name, and she was tolling in threes and sixes. They’re dying, the children are dying. Harper watched the girl with the lantern hanging from her right hand, half hidden in the folds of her black cloak. Her eyes appearing to follow the waves of mournful bell sound now rounding the ambulatory, then looking at Harper.

  “Where is it?” she said.

  . . . where is it, where is it, where is it . . .

  “Sorry?”

  “Where is his soul?”

  . . . his soul, his soul, his soul . . .

  Harper ran through his timeline, trying to see the lad from the cathedral job again. The girl pronounced his name not ten seconds ago and the lad’s face had flashed through his eyes. But the microchip embedded in Harper’s brain kicked in one second later and presto: gone. No name, no face; just a silhouette on a timeline.

  “I don’t know where his soul is, mademoiselle. I wish I did, but I don’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Just the way it is, I’m afraid.”

  The girl furrowed her brow. Harper scanned her eyes. The human half of her brain was releasing electrochemical signals in the form of memories at a speed of one five-hundredth of a second, but the part of her bred by Harper’s kind was flashing a timeline even faster. The expression on her face read she was slipping from nowtimes.

  “Mademoiselle, look at me.”

  She tried, but her eyes lost focus.

  Harper clocked she’d gone back ten minutes in time, to where Harper shot his way into the cathedral. Then Harper and Krinkle hauling a battered Astruc up the center aisle and dropping him on the crossing square like a bag of lead, hearing their voices calling for Monsieur Gabriel the messenger, but Gabriel was gone. Then seeing their fierce and road-worn faces in the shaft of light pouring through the cathedral rose high in the south transept wall, knowing they were men of violence. But watching the one in the mackintosh, the one with bloodied bandages wrapped around the palms of his hands; watching him brush his brown hair from his face. Is he the one? Seeing his emerald-colored eyes, seeing he was younger than the other two men; but the lines around those eyes made him older somehow. Then listening to the sound of his voice coaxing her from the shadows:

  “Be not afraid, I know who you are. I’ve seen you from my balcony, in the old city on Rue Vuillermet. I see you when you call the hour to the north.”

  “You haven’t come to kill me?”

  . . . to kill me, kill me, kill me . . .

  “No, I’m here to protect you.”

  Harper watched the girl blink herself back to nowtimes, but it was too fast. Her human memories caught up with her timeline; the jolt shook her hard.

  “It’s all right, mademoiselle, stay with me,” he said.

  But she was suddenly unsure of the man who coaxed her from the shadows.

  “Hann sagði að þú vildi vera einn. Það er það sem hann sagði.”

  She was speaking Icelandic. It took Harper half a second to upload the language. He said you would be the one. That’s what he said.

  “Monsieur Gabriel, you mean. He told you I’d come, yeah? It’s all right, I know him. All of us know him.”

  She shook her head no. She edged back to the dark of the nave. Watching her reach the steps of the altar square, Harper realized the girl was damn good at hiding in shadows. Three steps down, tuck the lantern in her cloak, and she’d disappear for good. Something was off, Harper thought; this couldn’t be the setup. The girl was far too fragile to be left like this. Like leaving a child with an acetylene torch. He raised the palm of his right hand, intersected her eyeline.

  “Tecum sum semper.”

  The girl slowed, then stopped.

  “Hvað viljið þér mér herra?” What do you want from me, monsieur?

  Harper read her eyes again. Still here and not here at the same time. And the sound of her voice . . . familiar, waiting for him to find her.

  “Tell me your name, mademoiselle,” Harper said.

  The girl waited a long moment, then her voice was whisper-like.

  “Ella Mínervudóttir. I’m the new guet de Lausanne.”

  He worked her surname for lines of causality. Mínervudóttir: Nordic matronymic of Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom and crafts. A poet named Virgil called her the goddess of a thousand works. Nothing connected. He ran his timeline, landed on a briefing he received about her after the cathedral job. Got it.

  “You’re from Iceland. From Reykjavík, I think.”

  “From Selfoss, monsieur. It’s in the south. It’s very small and there are horses there. They’re small, too.”

  “Horses. Small ones.”

  He could hold her for only three minutes before the free will of her human side would break the spell. He grabbed at something else he had heard: eighteen, vegetarian, shy . . . then he flashed one of Minerva’s thousand works: goddess of music.

  “I was told you play classical guitar in the belfry. You play near the oldest bell, the one that calls the hour. What’s her name?”

  “Marie-Madeleine. But she’s not the oldest bell, monsieur. The oldest bell is Couvre-feu, the smallest one. Marie is the biggest bell. That’s why she calls the hour.”

  Harper nodded.

  “Marie-Madeleine, right. I’ve met her. She is big. And loud. They told me you play guitar to keep her company while she’s resting. So she won’t be sad, they said.”

  The girl smiled a little. She was pretty, Harper thought. Light brown hair hanging from under her hat, just touching her shoulders, framing the eyes of a half-breed.

  “Marie likes the cello better, monsieur. She says the music is rounder, so I play cello now.”

  “Rounder?”

  The girl made a circle with her left hand. “Eins og svo.” Like this.

  “Rounder, right. That’s good. That it sounds rounder, I mean.”

  “Would you like to come to the belfry, monsieur? You can listen to me play for Marie-Madeleine.”

  A shuffling sound reminded Harper that he and the girl weren’t alone on the altar square. He looked back, saw Krinkle pressing his big hands along Astruc’s sides and stomach.

  “Sure,” he said, turning back to the girl.

  “When?”

  “Sometime.”

  “Soon?”

  “Sure. But just now I want you to listen to the sound of my voice, all right?”

  “Ég er að hlusta.” I’m listening.

  “The soul of the one you named, the lad who called the ho
ur from the belfry before you. His soul was comforted at the time of his death and born into a new life. But I don’t know where it is. That’s just the way it works.”

  She accepted his words without question this time. Ella’s eyes slid to Krinkle and Astruc. She watched the roadie press down hard on the priest’s chest . . . A painful groan echoed through the nave.

  “Why are you hurting him?” she said.

  Krinkle realized the girl was talking to him. He stood, looked at her, no idea what it was she was talking about.

  “What now?” the roadie said, looking at Harper.

  Harper nodded to le guet.

  “She wants to know why you’re hurting him.”

  Krinkle adjusted the shoulder straps of his denim overalls.

  “I’m not. I’m helping him.”

  The girl looked at Astruc’s battered form on the floor, then to Krinkle. Her face was expressionless.

  “The way Monsieur Gabriel is trying to help the dying ones at Mon Repos?”

  Krinkle pulled at his beard.

  “Um, what makes you ask that particular question, mademoiselle?”

  The girl’s face remained expressionless.

  “Because you’re doing it wrong. That’s not the way to do it. He told me how to do it. He told me to show you how to do it.”

  Krinkle glanced at Harper.

  “Now would be a good time to say something, brother.”

  “Like what?”

  Krinkle shook his head, stepped directly in front of the girl, raised the palm of his hand to her eyes.

  “Dulcis et alta quies placidæque simillima morti.”

  The girl became still, staring off into the big nowhere. Harper watched her breathing slow down, settling at one breath per minute and taking her heartbeat with it. He looked at Krinkle.

  “Half-breeds can go into hibernation mode like us?”

  Krinkle pulled a penlight from the pouch of his overalls and switched it on. He checked the girl’s pupils with a lapis-colored beam.

  “No, but they can be put in hibernation mode by us. Just need to change pitch accents on two syllables in the incantation. And have clearance from management, which I do and you don’t.”

  “Rather cold, isn’t it?” Harper said.

  “How so?”

  “A bit like training a pet. Sit, stay, roll over.”

  Krinkle switched off the light, turned to Harper.

  “You needed her to stay put so you waved your hand and said the magic words. What’s the difference?”

  “I was talking to her soul. She could choose to accept my voice or not.”

  “And if she didn’t?”

  “I’d find another way to sort the manner of her thinking.”

  Krinkle shrugged. “Yeah, well, I suppose that sounds like a plan to a guy with issues.”

  “Issues?”

  “You. In the head,” Krinkle said, nodding to le guet, “with them. And your issues are getting in the way of our orders.”

  Harper gave it two seconds.

  “Maybe you need to run our orders by me again.”

  Krinkle counted down with his fingers. “One: Break into a French jail, snatch one defrocked priest who’s wanted for murder and thinks his only begotten son is the savior of paradise. Two: Put said priest on my excellent tour bus and get him juiced with potions. Three: Deliver him to Lausanne Cathedral by a certain time to be awakened by Monsieur Gabriel because, guess what, the defrocked priest is one of our kind.”

  Clémence, the execution bell, sounded from the belfry in threes and sixes again. Harper checked his watch, waited for Clémence to wail. Second hand still not moving. A certain time?

  “We’re locked in on the negative side of a bloody time warp. There’s no way of knowing what time it is in the cathedral, or anywhere else, for that matter.”

  Krinkle shrugged. “Sure there is, considering we nearly crashed and burned because the enemy knew we were coming and tried to blow us to hell on approach. Not to mention the slaughter of innocents going down two miles from this cathedral and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it. I’d say that makes it five minutes past fucked-up o’clock, here and every place else in the world. Hold that thought.”

  The roadie turned, walked to Astruc, got down on one knee. He checked the priest’s pulse at the carotid artery.

  “Bummer,” Krinkle said.

  He lit up Astruc’s eyes with the penlight. Harper saw the ragged scar running down Astruc’s cheek now illuminated by the lapis-colored beam.

  “Double bummer,” Krinkle said.

  He anchored the penlight between his teeth, removed an injector jet from the pouch of his overalls. He unbuttoned Astruc’s overcoat, tore open the priest’s shirt, and felt along his chest. He set the injector jet between the third and fifth costal cartilages of the priest’s rib cage, right of the sternum, right over the heart . . . Click. Astruc’s body shook as the needle hit his heart and the potions rushed in. The priest snapped to consciousness, knocked the injector jet from Krinkle’s hands, knocked away the penlight, and grabbed at Krinkle’s throat.

  “No! We must all die for our sins!”

  Krinkle countered with a left cross and Astruc hit the floor stones with that same bag-of-lead sound.

  “Not if I can help it, brother,” Krinkle said.

  He picked up the penlight, gave the priest’s eyes a quick check. He switched off the light and dropped it in his overalls. He got up and walked toward Harper, scooping up the injector jet along the way.

  “Now, where were we? Oh yeah. I’d be happy to keep juicing Brother Astruc while you and le guet discuss the nature of reincarnated human souls, but no way is a local, half-breed or not, supposed to hear that soul stuff from our kind. Not now, not ever. Besides, we got trouble. Brother Astruc is crashing in his form.”

  Harper looked at the priest.

  “How bad?”

  “Organs shutting down, heart rate at two-five-zero, you could call it dying.”

  “Sorry?”

  “I got some flash traffic from management while you were breaking Brother Astruc from jail. He may have tweaked his homemade juice to trigger a suicide response if his blood came into contact with awakening potion.”

  Harper looked at the injector jet in the roadie’s hand. There were traces of a purple and luminous liquid in the glass tube.

  “And you gave it to him anyway?”

  “Hey, if management tells me to hit him with the shiny stuff when he goes south, I do it. Point is, he’s dying and le guet knew it was going to happen.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “You don’t need to follow me, you just need to park this in your cerebral cortex: Astruc is one of us. The moment his heart stops, he’s supposed to have one hundred eighty seconds before lights-out. But as you say, we’re stuck on the negative side of a time warp.”

  “He’ll have zero seconds.”

  “Bingo.”

  Harper rubbed the back of his neck with a bandaged hand.

  “Right. Seeing as you know what’s going on and I don’t, maybe you’d best talk to the girl. Find out what she knows.”

  “Nope. The cathedral is your patch. Le guet is off-limits to me.”

  “You just put her in hibernation mode.”

  “To keep you from spilling about human souls.”

  “This is bloody daft.”

  “No, this is friggin’ paradise. Listen, brother, le guet knew Astruc was dying because Gabriel revealed himself to her and primed her. You know how it is with Gabriel, he comes and goes. Sometimes he goes for years and we don’t see him.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “This girl wasn’t hiding in the nave, she was waiting for you. She’s been mission-activated by Gabriel.”

  Harper looked at the girl. Mission-activated.

  “No, she’s just a kid.”

  “Open your head, brother. She’s been primed with intel we need to save Astruc, and you need to pry it from her befor
e it’s too late.”

  Harper tried to imagine it.

  “I don’t see it. It can’t be.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I tell you I don’t see it!”

  “And I’m telling you bullshit! You’re choosing not to see it because of what happened during the cathedral job! And you need to get over it, pronto!”

  Krinkle’s voice echoed through the nave and flashes of time ripped through Harper’s eyes. Three years back to the brain-injured lad who imagined Lausanne Cathedral was a hiding place for lost angels. Ended up with the lad falling through the sky, dying on the esplanade, never knowing he’d been mission-activated, never knowing he was a half-breed conceived by Harper’s own kind. Christ, what was his name?

  “All I see is a broken body on the ground, no face. There’s never a face unless someone pronounces his name.”

  Krinkle paced in a slow circle, pulling at his beard, resetting his ponytail, mumbling to himself. He stopped, looked at Harper.

  “Names. Okay, we’re getting somewhere. Focus on this one: Le guet’s given name is Ella.”

  Like flipping a switch.

  Ella: a name of unknown origin. Norman, Germanic, Greek meanings: complete, other, stranger, fairy maiden. Primary meaning in ancient Hebrew: goddess; secondary meaning: torch, sacred light. Harper lowered his eyes to the lantern in the girl’s hand. He saw the delicate flame on the wick of a stunted candle. He raised his eyes to Krinkle.

  “You knew all this before we got to Lausanne?”

  “What I knew before we got here has nothing to do with where we are now.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning we don’t know what’s happening outside Lausanne Cathedral, only that some seriously bad shit has gone down. You know rules and regs in this kind of situation: Proceed as if we’re the only ones left.”

  Harper looked at le guet.

  “You forgot her. Or doesn’t being half our kind qualify her as a member of the club?”