Chapter Eight
Despite his intention to make Barnes pay for having disrupted his time with Martina, Samuel didn’t break any speed limit on his way back to Rome. Instead, he drove leisurely, stretching his time with her as long as he could.
They had been talking about their jobs when Martina mentioned the phone calls he had exchanged earlier in the morning. “What was all that about? Was a baby kidnapped?”
He nodded.
“To have a child taken away from you must be agony.” Her expression darkened and she looked outside at the passing stretch of Umbria; field after field of wild flowers that in the summer would become rows of sunflowers or tobacco, and the occasional medieval hamlet perched on a ridge overlooking the highway.
“I can’t even imagine what it must feel like.”
Martina brought both hands to her stomach in a defensive gesture. She then looked at him, a question on her mouth and hesitation in her eyes.
“What do you want to know?”
She lowered her eyes. “I was wondering about the whole thing about having kids, and… you.”
Several semi-trucks decided he was driving too slow and started passing him, forcing him to focus on the road. “Yes?”
“Can you? What I mean to ask is, have you ever had kids?”
He looked back at her. “No, I can’t have children. I’m barren.” He never talked about it, but his friends having kids had reopened an ancient wound he carried around hidden deep in his heart. Of all the creator’s progeny, he had always felt less because of his inability to propagate his own species.
“Oh… I’m barren myself. Giulio wanted a big family, and when it became clear I couldn’t give him kids, he changed and turned against me.” She rested her head on the backrest of her seat.
“You know it isn’t your fault.” He reached for her chin and caressed it.
“I know, but when I was young, I dreamed of one day having children. I even named them.” She smiled, but it was a sad smile and it hurt him.
He lowered his hand and laid it on her leg. “I was never a kid.”
“What do you mean?” She covered his hand with hers and squeezed it.
“I sprang to life exactly the way you see me.” Sometimes, he walked to the park across his apartment in Rome and watched mothers and kids play.
“Wow. That’s…” She stared at him, eyes wide, and puzzled expression on her face. “I don’t even know what to say.” She shook her head, then opened her arms, hands up. “Somehow, I keep forgetting you’re not human and that there’s a whole world I don’t know anything about. And I have so many questions-”
One eye on the road, he turned slightly toward her. “Go ahead.”
She brought a finger to her lips and made an mmm sound. “Your friends—?”
“They aren’t human.”
“I assume from what you told me that they aren’t angels, right?”
“Marcus and Alexander are immortals. Ancient gods turned them two thousand years ago.”
She raised one hand. “Wait a moment. Were they alive in Roman times?”
“Yes. They were both centurions in the imperial army.” He passed a few trucks on the slow lane.
“And Ophelia?”
Samuel noticed how Martina turned toward the window. “Ophelia is a werewolf.”
She wrung her hands in her lap and kept her body angled away from him. “Oh—”
He waited for her to add anything to that, but she let the silence prolong until it became awkward. “What is it?”
“She is very beautiful, isn’t she?”
Samuel merged into the slow lane. “Yes, she is. She’s also good, and caring.”
Martina’s shoulders hunched, and her body shrank farther away from him.
He heard her intake of breath and reached for her leg. “But most of all, Ophelia is a loyal friend.”
She moved ever so slightly toward him. “Nothing more?”
“Please, look at me.” He applied some pressure to his hold. “I’d rather talk to you than to the back of your head.” He drove to the emergency lane and stopped the car.
She dropped her head. “I’m sorry. I’m so embarrassed. I know better than to ask those kind of questions, but I couldn’t stop myself.”
“Come here.” He took her by her waist and pulled her away from her seat and onto his lap, then lowered his forehead to hers. “I haven’t felt any attraction to anyone in over a thousand years, but I saw you and I did everything in my power to get to know you.”
She leaned away, a small smile on her mouth. “Did you really?”
He nodded. “Sparring together was my idea, not Alexander’s. And I asked him to call me when you were at the gym.”
“Every time I came to exercise, I hoped you were there.” She closed the gap she had created and kissed the point of his nose. “Samuel…” When she looked at him, her eyes were wide and her chest raised and fell against his. “I’ve never felt anything like this before.”
The tense moment was gone, replaced by an undercurrent that left both of them breathless. “My Martina…” He took possession of her lips as his hands caressed her back and pressed her closer to him at the same time. He kissed her with abandon, letting his senses govern his actions, uncaring of the cars whizzing by mere centimeters from them. His hands found their way under her top. He was unhooking her bra when a truck’s horn made them jump.
Samuel laughed and hugged her to him. “You drive me crazy.”
The digital clock on the dashboard changed numbers and Martina gasped. “We must hurry or I’ll be late.”
He let her reach her seat and compose herself, then gave her one last peck on her lips and merged back into traffic, driving fast to make up for the delay. A few minutes later, the traffic in front of them slowed because of the highway toll lines, and he was thankful for those stolen moments with her.
One hand on the steering wheel and the other on hers, he gave her a long look before minding the road again. “Any more questions?”
“I have so many…” She seemed to think about it for a moment. “What about Ravenna?”
“She is an immortal too, changed during the Renaissance.”
Martina made a sound that was a mix between a laugh and a snort. “I can barely wrap my head around all of this.” She waved her free hand in the air. “And what about their kids? Will be they immortal too?”
“Yes, Alexander’s and Ravenna’s kids will be immortal because both their parents are. If one of the parents is human, then the kids are human.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “The gods’ quirk. Who knows why they did the things they did. They’re all gone now and have left their creations to their own devices.”
She frowned. “So the ancient gods weren’t a myth, but they aren’t around anymore.”
Samuel stopped at the toll booth and lowered the window to pay the highway fare. Once on the road, he took the fast lane and pushed on the accelerator, then resumed their conversation. “They left Earth and now reside on their astral planes.”
“Wow. Just, wow.” She paused, shook her head, then laughed. “This is not a dream.”
“No, it isn’t.” Samuel’s hand slid down her thigh, making her shiver.
She stopped his hand, but smiled. “Don’t start something we can’t finish or I won’t be able to focus on my job until I see you again.”
He sighed out loud. “Okay. Okay, I promise I’ll behave.” He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it. “Ask me something else, anything else.” He gave her a once over that made her blush. “You know, since I can’t have a cold shower.”
She laughed. “Another question…” She drummed her fingers against the glass. “Is Marcus’s wife an immortal too?”
“No, Diana is a vampire.”
“Thousands of years old herself?”
“She’s actually not even two years old. She was turned against her consent and Marcus kept her alive when she was a vampire infant, a vampl
ing.”
“And they have a kid. Can vampires have kids? According to literature, they can’t.”
He nodded. “Vampires can’t have kids. They make vamplings by turning humans, but they are not allowed to change minors. There are rules in place to keep the paranormal world in check.”
“So is the kid Marcus’s?”
“They adopted Daniel. He’s a were-bat—” He saw her confusion and immediately amended, “An infant shifter. Daniel changes into a bat once a month.”
She stared at him, incredulity on her face.
He squeezed her hand. “Maybe you’ve had enough for today.”
“You might be right. I feel dizzy and I’m sitting.”
“It’s a lot to process.”
“And we haven’t even talked about what you really do for a living.”
To his disappointment, they were fast approaching Corso Francia and Martina’s office. “I didn’t lie to you about that. I do work in law enforcement. I’m a liaison between species.” He spent the last few minutes of the ride making her laugh with anecdotes from his hearing sessions and the colorful paranormals he had to deal with every Monday. Too soon, he left her at her office and drove to Castel Sant’ Angelo, only thinking of the moment they would be reunited.
As promised by Barnes, the report he had requested was on his desk. He opened the window, grabbed the yellow folder and sat on the windowsill, his wings free to stretch out in the sky, his feathers ruffled by the breeze. In the past, such happenings usually caused him grief, being reminders of what he had lost. This time, he gave himself liberty to enjoy the moment and realized how pleasant the feeling was. Talking about his past with Martina had exorcised his demons and he now felt free to savor life.
With a smile on his face, he stretched his neck, then opened the folder and perused its contents. Only two pages came out of it. Not surprising in an accident with no evidence of foul play. He perused the pages and went back and forth between notes, but nothing jumped out. The parents of Marcus’s baby had been driving on The Sun Highway toward Naples, probably coming from Rome. The accident had happened at the first light of dawn and the car had been totaled on impact with the road beneath the bridge from which the vehicle had fallen. The absence of skid marks on the asphalt explained that the driver had probably not been awake when the car left the road. They were new parents and likely tired after being awake for who knows how long. Their heads had been crushed when the ceiling had collapsed. It all made sense.
Samuel jumped off the windowsill and paced back and forth in his office. He prepared a teapot and let his favorite jasmine tea brew until it smelled the way he liked, a hint of perfume but not too flowery. Cup in hand, he sat on his reinforced swivel chair and lazily wheeled it between the desk and the wall behind for several counts, before picking up one of the two pages of the report. His eyes went to the names written at the foot of the witnesses’ statement, and one of the two names sounded familiar. Duilio Carta. He had heard this name before, but couldn’t remember when or where.
One of the wheels of his chair got stuck and he spilled a few drops of tea on the document he was holding. At the same time, someone knocked at his door. He dabbed the paper with a napkin, minimizing the damage, but a big splotch of ink had blossomed where the signatures were. “Come in.”
Barnes’s head appeared from behind the door. “Got news regarding the vampire who attacked you last night.”
Samuel motioned for him to enter without taking his eyes from the paper. Then he finally realized what was missing from the document. Hadn’t he been staring at the water stain he would have never seen it. He turned to Barnes, raising the paper for him to see. “Why aren’t there any species mentioned on this form?”
“What?” A frown on his brow, he walked to the desk and took the document from Samuel’s hand. He looked at the bottom of the page. “It’s clearly a mistake. Even if the witnesses were humans, it should’ve been clearly stated.” He handed the page back to Samuel. “I’ll call the precinct that redacted these papers and I’ll let you know.”
“What kind of news do you have?” Samuel put the paper between two napkins and stored the dry one back in the folder.
Barnes hovered before the desk without sitting. “Well, not the best news I guess. I had to release the vampire.”
Samuel raised both hands over his head, pushing his chair back. “But why?”
“He accused you of attacking him first without provocation.” Barnes walked around a chair and finally sat.
“That’s unbelievable.” Samuel sneered.
“I know, but since there weren’t witnesses to the scene, it’s his word against yours.” Barnes crossed and uncrossed his legs.
Samuel noticed his boss’s uneasiness. “Is there more I should know?” He also realized the vampire hadn’t mentioned Martina’s presence.
“Mr. Carta belongs to Claudius’s nest—”
Samuel stilled in his chair, both hands pressed on the surface of the desk. “What did you say his name was?”
Barnes raised an eyebrow. “Carta, and he’s under Claudius’s command.”
“What’s his first name?”
“Duilio. But what’s important is that he’s working for Claudius and you have to be careful.”
Samuel peeled the two napkins from the paper he had left to dry on the desk, and raised it. “You don’t need to contact the precinct to ask for the witness’s species.” He had heard the two policemen read the vampire’s name the night before, but he would have never made the connection without Barnes’s help. “Duilio Carta signed this paper attesting he saw the two were-bats’ car jumping off the bridge. And he’s been following me since the werewolf, involved in yet another case including an infant, came to pay me a visit.” He paused, exhilarated that the case was getting clearer and more complicated at the same time. “And, as you said, on top of everything else, Claudius is somehow behind all of this.”
****
Martina had looked at her cell phone at least ten times in the past two minutes. Samuel had asked her how long she thought she had at the court, and when she had answered she would be back at her office by five thirty in the afternoon, he had answered, “I’ll give you a call soon after.”
At the court hearing, she had finished with a few minutes to spare and hopped on the first bus back to her office. A series of fortuitous coincidences—the stuff of legend, things that happened in Rome once in a lifetime—had cleared the road of red lights. The bus, also unusually empty for that time of the day, had reached her stop in record time. As a result, she had been sitting on her chair, looking outside the window for the last thirty minutes. She called Samuel again but didn’t leave a message.
After turning back to her desk and repositioning the items scattered on it, she felt ready for a brief stroll downstairs to the bar on the ground floor. She left her cell on the desk to avoid punching Samuel’s number one more time. She forwent the elevator and headed to the wide marble staircase leading directly to the foyer, then entered the deserted bar. She had just nodded at Lucia, the bar owner and only employee of the small establishment, when her full name was called. Lucia’s eyes widened and Martina turned on her heels to face two policemen walking toward her.
The taller of the two men, stopped before her. “Martina Colonna, you are asked to answer to the accusation of physical attack against Giulio Severi.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
The other policeman stepped by her side, handcuffs dangling from his right hand, the left resting on his gun holstered to his hip. “We don’t need to use this if you follow us to the precinct without making a scene.”
“I can’t believe this.” Martina automatically went looking for her cell phone, but she was only holding her wallet. “I must go upstairs to grab my purse.”
The policeman who had talked first snatched the wallet from her hand, opened it, and searched it. “You got all you need here.” He showed the other her driver’s license. “Let’s go.” W
ithout handing her wallet back to her, he circled her right elbow with a tight grip and led her outside the bar, exiting from the street side.
Flanked by the two men, Martina was pushed out of the glass doors and into a lateral alley where rarely anyone walked by, closed on three sides by her office building’s back façade and another two buildings’. A police car was parked by the garbage bins.
“Where are you taking me?” Martina looked over her shoulder.
The policeman’s hold on her arm tightened. “To the precinct. Get inside.”
“What precinct?” She tried to stop, but the man pulled her forward and toward the car as the rear door opened.
“Shut up.” The man pushed her inside the car.
Martina found herself staring at her ex-husband.
Giulio sat with a gun resting on his left thigh. “Hi, Martina.”
She blinked. “What are you doing?”
Giulio smiled at her, one hand caressing the gun. “I told you I need a second chance at making things right with you.”
In any other circumstance, her first instinct would be to react, but she saw the manic light in his eyes and the nervous tension he emanated. “Where are you taking me?”
He raised his eyes heavenward. When he looked back at her, the red in his pupil was hard to miss, even in the dim light of the car. “To our house, my love.”
She felt nausea wreaking havoc in her stomach. “You should let me go.”
Giulio’s hand left his thigh to wander on the seat and brush her pants. “No, I don’t think so. We already missed our wedding anniversary. We’ll celebrate our union tonight as it was meant to be.” He waited for the two policemen to sit in the front, then gave them the okay to leave.
Martina adjusted her legs away from him. His touch, even shielded by the thick fabric of her jeans, nauseated her. “How much did you pay them?”
He took the gun and caressed her arm with it. “You, my dear wife, are worth every cent I spent on bribing Rome’s finest.”
The Broken Angel Page 15
