CHAPTER FIVE
C hill air greeted Selene when she stepped outside. She fought the urge to look back at the Vatican proper. To her right, the Academy building, home for half her life, annexed St Peter’s, mirroring the palaces where His Holiness the Exorcist Primus lived.
Or rather subsisted.
He was dying. In truth, he’d been dying for years.
She jogged down the wide steps, past a returning team of exorcists. Only a few dared glance at her carved-up arm. Fewer still realized what it meant. The difference between their magic and hers was too vast. Too many of them thought she refused to use her power for conscientious reasons to realize that tonight she had tapped her magic. Not that she’d enlighten them. It suited her much better this way. She was the Butcher of Rome, always covered in blood. They didn’t need to know most of it was hers.
‘Exorcist.’
Selene’s expression twisted to one of dislike even before she turned to the tall man holding a slender cigarette between his fingers and a folded newspaper in his other hand.
He smiled, amused, breathing out a coil of cobalt smoke. ‘At least pretend to be pleased to see me.’
‘Sparrow.’
‘You’ve already hit the news. Condolences.’ He tapped the newspaper with his index finger, handing it to her.
She tucked it under her arm without looking.
Shifting in place, Sparrow leaned one shoulder more comfortably against the vast column that shadowed his form. Selene joined him in the deeper dark and tipped her chin to look up at him. One eye pierced the dark, blue and too knowing.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘Something. I don’t know yet.’
She spread her hands, palms up. ‘Not sure what you want me to do with that.’
He sighed, straightening to his full height, and looked down at her. ‘There’s talk in the underground, that’s all. Nobody’s saying what they’ve seen. Of course, I can only speak for those still alive.’
Selene frowned. ‘I hadn’t heard of any recent deaths.’
‘It’s not yours doing the killing.’ This time. Sparrow left the words unsaid. ‘All I know is … something’s stirring.’ His gaze shifted away, a bar of pale light crossing his scarred and ruined eye. He knew more than he was saying. They called him the Eye of the Underworld for a reason. What was he holding back?
He arched a brow, looking at her blood-soaked sleeve. ‘This is rare. Usually you aren’t the one left bleeding.’
Selene pressed her palm to the leather armguard, grimacing. Of all people, why did Sparrow have to be witness to her shame? She tightened the straps again, ignoring the pallor of her bloodless fingers. Why did she need to spill her blood and carve her bones for magic?
Why her and nobody else? It was cruel.
Of course she knew why. But the truth of it, nestled deep inside her ribcage, did not lessen the hurt.
She frowned as she walked away. Sparrow rarely sought her out, and never with something as nebulous as this. Presumably he wanted to know what she knew. Was it possible that Sparrow had already heard about a powerful demon somewhere in France?
Again she had that sense that something imperceptible had changed. The world as she knew it had shifted just enough to throw her off balance.
Her earlier thought trickled through her mind. Unusual meant something had changed.
This went beyond unusual. And death is sure to follow.
Before she passed beneath the colonnade, she turned back to read the inscription through a flurry of her own dark hair: IN HONOREM PRINCIPUM ROMAE EXORCISTAE ROMAE ANNO MCMV POST SAECULUM BELLUM DAEMONIUM CONTRA DEUM ET CIVITATEM.
The vast travertine frieze on the Basilica’s portico had said something different once. Words that had been lost to time and insignificance. Selene touched her brow as she turned her back on the words. Words that had carved their way into her bones in no less tangible a way than her knife had earlier. In honour of the Princes of Rome, the Roman exorcists, in 1905, a century after Demons declared war on God and Humanity.
And now these same vaunted exorcists walked the knife edge. Few guessed that they existed in that grey area between the shining light of God and the shadows cast by the demons they hunted. The populace saw exorcists as their intermediaries with the divine. What they could never know was that if an exorcist failed to balance his magic, he would, himself, unleash evil on the world. Sometimes Selene felt dangerously close to that inevitable tipping point.
Frustration dug its teeth into her. How easy it was for others. They could go years without consequence. Her magic was a vast and untamed thing that made each use a roll of the dice. Would this be the time she used too much power and burned herself out?
Perhaps.
Absently she caressed the pistol at her thigh. The matched pair had been a graduation gift from her uncle and she was already earning them a reputation. An origin story written in blood. No wonder Rome called her Butcher. All they saw was the carnage she left behind.
She considered Cesare’s parting words.
As they had crossed through the Vatican gardens, walking in the shadows beneath cypresses and cloud pines lit all in amber, Selene had drawn Ambrose’s ward coin from her pocket, rolling it between her fingers. ‘One of my team found this today.’
Cesare turned to her with mild interest, extending his hand. He took his time inspecting it, then raised both brows at her. ‘You’re concerned?’
‘Well, yes. Aren’t you?’
He chuckled. ‘I have a lot of things to worry about, but this isn’t one of them. A single ward coin?’ He shook his head, thumb rubbing the notched edge. ‘I wonder how long this has been rattling around?’
He flipped the coin into a fountain. It turned end over end and landed with a delicate splash between a mosaic mermaid and a hippocampus, winking in the clear water alongside dozens of others.
None quite so valuable as this one.
‘Well, that was stupid,’ she said, exasperated.
He laughed, stopping her with a hand on her elbow before she could stick her boot into the fountain to go and get it. ‘In a city the size of Rome, one ward coin is insignificant. Also, you may call me stupid, but you will do it with respect.’
She rolled her eyes at him, letting him pull her back. ‘That was very stupid, Imperium.’
She fell into step with him as they passed between neat box hedges, his warm chuckle as golden as the lantern light. ‘Better.’
In the end they shared a smile when Selene recounted with deadpan humour how Ambrose had shoved his arm into the demon’s razor maw. Ambrose and his silly little ill-advised knuckledusters. The hatred that had bled into his eyes wouldn’t usually bother her, except it reminded her too much of the rest of Rome. They hated her too. Her specifically. Not Captain Alleva, Exorcist Second Class. Selene Alleva. And if not hatred, something close to it. But she could live with that, couldn’t she? She was a Roman exorcist. Protector of humanity. And sometimes that meant forgoing hers.
Jules swayed on the station platform, feet numb in his boots. The gash across his ribs had stopped bleeding, and with a shaking hand he buttoned the shirt over the bandages that wrapped his torso. The distinct metallic flap of the Solari board drew his attention and he held his breath, waiting for the letters and numbers to settle.
PARIS GARE DU NORD
The last train out of Ostrava was scheduled to arrive in Paris via Prague. If he was lucky, he might be able to change trains in Metz to get to Nice. Either way, the entire journey would take days. But the siren call of home was all his broken mind could grasp right then.
He felt hollowed out. Existed as nothing more than his next step. Nice— home —was the one place he might find answers. Though he refused to contemplate what those answers might be.
Because you’re like me, Stigmajka.
He slammed his fist against the steam train’s green carriage and pressed his forehead to the cold glass. The gentleman inside gave him a startled look, folded his newspaper and hurried to change seats. Jules choked back his urge to scream.
By the time he stepped off the train in Metz, Jules had lost most identifying aspects of his military uniform. His white shirt was still tucked into his black trousers but the chevrons were missing from his collar, and he’d sewed squares of black cloth over every double-breasted coat button imprinted with the Holy Vatican Empire’s insignia. Jules had nothing to his name but his boots—well made, military issue—and the folded scrap of newspaper in his back pocket. Though it was yesterday’s news, he couldn’t bear to throw it away.
ROME CRIES BLOOD . And so they should. Rome might not give a damn for Farah, but they’d suffer for losing Sergeant Bachelet. He flinched from the memory. There’d be time to grieve later.
A poster greeted him at the platform, one corner already curling away from the wall. He slapped his hand over it, tearing it down.
DESERTER still fluttered in tattered print.
A double row of flyers stretched away from him, wallpapering the station tiles with his face. The official portrait portrayed a solemn Jules in his full dress uniform. Tossing his cigarette, Jules scuffed it out with a boot. He’d thought the confusion of a bloody battle might buy him a few days. Better yet, he’d hoped they’d think he was dead.
Further along the platform, a portly gendarme in blue pasted up more flyers.
Bloody hell. If only half the passengers on his train to Nice saw them he’d count himself lucky.
Of course they wouldn’t just let him go. He was an officer now. The empire’s skilled killer. Stigmajka , the Tsarina had called him. Scarred killer. Jules took three long strides to the train, leaping for the open door just as the whistle sounded.
The gendarme turned, catching him in the act. Flyers tumbled to the platform as he ran after Jules. ‘Hey, you! Stop!’
A hand shot out to grab his elbow, yanking him into the safety of the train.
‘Ay, boyo, did you steal away just to see me?’
Jules barely had time to register the smooth Marseillais drawl he knew so well before he was shoved into a narrow space with an ornate telephone and the door snapped shut, leaving him alone inside.
‘Daumier, did you see someone just now?’
Jules pressed his ear against the door as the train began to inch away from the station.
‘I don’t think so. I swept the whole train. Nobody that looks like, um, Julian Delacroix?’
‘ Jules La— Never mind.’ The gendarme sounded impatient, puffing like a winded bull as he trotted alongside the moving train. ‘We still have hundreds of flyers to post, hurry up and get off.’
‘Be right there,’ Kian said cheerily, patting his belt. ‘Shoot, I think I forgot my baton!’
‘Constable Daumier, get off that train right now or I’ll have your badge.’
‘But it’s moving so fast ,’ Kian said of the trundling train. ‘God protect me, I’ve missed my chance!’
Jules pushed the door ajar and rolled his eyes at Kian’s theatrics.
Grasping the handhold, Kian swung out to shout back at his dwindling superior. ‘See you back in Nice, sir.’ Wind buffeting his distinctive red hair, he didn’t even try to hide his shit-eating grin.
Jules pulled him inside by the collar, dragging him into a hug. ‘Kian? What the hell are you doing here?’
Even after years apart, Kian had barely changed from the boy he remembered. Jules had spent his entire life at the orphanage, where Matron had taken an immediate dislike to him. Kian, on the other hand, with his hair like flickering candle flame and an infectious smile, had been her favourite. It didn’t help that Matron steadfastly refused to believe any mischief could be Kian’s fault, instead laying the blame for all of it at Jules’s feet.
No wonder Kian liked having him around.
‘Not much, as it happens. Just saving your ass as usual.’
Kian was dressed in uniform and it took Jules a moment to put the word constable together with his troublemaking childhood friend. Snapping the door closed and deadening the train’s metallic clanking, Kian lowered his voice. ‘I tried not to flash your face around too much, but couldn’t entirely avoid it. Try not to draw too much attention. Hard for you, I know.’
They grinned at each other.
‘Reminds me of when we were kids,’ Jules said. ‘Remember how you’d always get us into trouble, and I’d end up taking the rap?’
‘Nope.’
‘You don’t?’
‘ Definitely not.’
‘So … you’re a cop now?’ Jules rubbed his grin away with a thumb. ‘I guess you got so used to Matron polishing your halo, you had to turn being a goody two-shoes into a vocation.’
Kian grinned. ‘We can’t all charm our way out of trouble. Lucky for you I like you a lot more than Matron ever did, so I won’t turn you in—’
Jules laughed. ‘You like me even more than Matron liked you, and that’s truly saying something.’
‘— unless you piss me off,’ Kian continued, as though he hadn’t heard him. ‘Which seems increasingly unlikely.’ Kian’s grin softened to his usual infectious smile and he pushed his hands into his pockets, rocking on his heels. ‘I guess saving your backside became something of a habit.’
Jules widened his eyes. ‘You saving me ? One time does not a pattern make.’
‘Should I tell the train to turn around?’
‘Trains don’t turn around, Kian.’
Expression growing sombre, Kian drew a flyer out of his pocket, smoothing it open. ‘This really true? Are you a deserter, Jules?’
Jules released a shaky breath. ‘Yeah.’
Kian searched his face. ‘They had you long enough. Years longer than Rome deserves.’ He ripped it up, tucking the shredded poster into his inside pocket.
Kian’s words lit warmth in his chest.
‘Never thought an idiot like you would last this long, to be honest,’ Kian continued, not missing a beat. ‘What, did your face scare the enemy away?’
‘Shithead.’ Jules kind of wanted to punch Kian. Instead, he asked, ‘What now? Will I make it?’
‘No question.’ Kian set his kepi atop Jules’s head—the brim shadowing his eyes—and shrugged off his own jacket, helping Jules put it on. It strained across his shoulders. Jules’s trousers were military style, similar enough to Kian’s police uniform to fool the casual observer. So, fortunately, Kian didn’t have to offer up his.
As they walked down the middle of the train, they were greeted by a chorus of ‘Officers!’ and ‘Won’t you join us, Monsieur Policeman?’ from a group of pretty girls.
Ah, France .
Jules touched his kepi, nodding at them. ‘If only, but I’m not paid to enjoy myself, ladies.’
‘You’re not paid at all,’ Kian muttered, wincing when Jules’s elbow dug into his ribs.
Finally they reached the train’s last carriage and were all but alone. Jules flicked Kian’s shoulder board. ‘How did this happen?’
‘Matron put in some extra effort to set me up with a sponsor. Outdid herself, I say. The work ain’t half bad.’
Jules didn’t even feel bitter, too busy feeling boneless with relief that Kian had avoided the draft. He’d spent more than one sleepless night worrying about Kian being sent to war. After another tight hug, Jules looked him over. Taller, maybe a little more flame-haired, but otherwise he was the same as ever. Like nothing had changed.
But it had.
In the four years since they’d seen each other last, Jules had killed . He wasn’t the same na?ve boy who’d left their orphanage to fight in a war he didn’t understand. It made no difference that he’d had little choice in the matter. He had bared his teeth and charged into war, as though he alone was an answer to the problem. He curled his fingers inside his pockets. They had used scars to mark their skin because blood washed off too easily.
An ache filled his chest. All this time he’d fought like it could fix something that was broken. Even when he barely understood what that was. He’d chosen to fight. Even if it hadn’t really been a choice at all, he had fought with the kind of ferocity he thought might make a difference. Now it was his choice not to fight.
He hadn’t killed the Tsarina when her bent neck was beneath his blade. Even as she accused him of being the killer he was.
But was that all he was?
He didn’t know. And he couldn’t fight again until he did.
Jules drew his hand from his pocket, staring at his gloved palm. He wouldn’t even touch a blade. Not until he knew who he was. He couldn’t be Farah’s Corporal Lacroix or Kian’s childhood friend, because neither of those iterations of him existed anymore. They died on the battlefield under the cold gaze of the Caspian Tsarina.
He was not Stigmajka either, because that soldier would never be without a killing blade in his hand.
Now he was choosing to walk away. A real choice this time, not one forced upon him.
Jules peeled the thin leather gloves off one hand at a time.
Marked skin taunted him.
He dropped the gloves to the ground so he could see the scars silvering his hands. Silently he swore on the lives he’d taken and the ones he’d avenged that he would not use a weapon again. Not until he could answer the question that had opened like a pit in his heart: Who is Jules Lacroix?
Kian’s low whistle broke through his thoughts and Jules looked up sharply. Kian’s face had blanched, the freckles standing out more than usual as he stared at Jules’s skin.
Jules shoved his hands into his pockets. Don’t ask , he thought. Please don’t ask. He was no longer the same man Kian remembered. ‘I need a smoke.’
Kian accepted the subject change. ‘I haven’t smoked in a year.’ He laughed, the sound only slightly strained. ‘No, wait, longer.’ He tipped his head back, gazing toward the sky in a gesture Jules knew well, accessing some half-forgotten memory. ‘Ah, that’s right. Not since the packet you left dried up.’
Jules blinked. ‘The one I hid in the clock tower?’
‘That’s the one.’
Jules patted his pocket and pulled out a small tin, opening it up.
His fingers found a slender black cigarette.
Kian whistled in admiration, flinging the last door of the final carriage wide. Pausing in the doorway, Jules lit the cigarette with unsteady fingers, cupping his hands around his mouth. Stepping up beside Kian, he handed him the cigarette and stared at the seemingly endless stretch of track. It smelled like snow and the breeze bit his skin, tearing at him with vicious little teeth.
Kian took a drag and passed the cigarette back, falling easily into a familiar pattern. ‘You’re making me nostalgic. I was there yesterday, you know? I go by every week to check on the kiddos.’
‘How is it?’
The sounds of the train shifted as they entered a tunnel of trees, passing through thick winter woods.
Kian shrugged. ‘This time of year’s always grim. You know how Matron feels about the war. I think she maybe hates it even more than she hates you.’
Matron had lost so many children to the war, most of them conscripted right out of the orphanage. She might’ve lost more than anyone. Pain flared in his chest. ‘And yet I’m the one who came back,’ Jules muttered. ‘Cruel really.’
Kian tackled him and aggressively ruffled his hair. ‘Stop being maudlin. Who gives a damn whether Matron cares that you lived or not? I’m over the moon, and I’m the most important person in Nice.’
‘ Self-appointed most important person.’
‘Doesn’t make it untrue.’
Jules chuckled, shoving him off.
Kian’s smile faded. ‘Are you in trouble?’ He patted the pocket where he’d tucked the torn flyer. ‘More than this, I mean. Something’s happened to you.’ The questions Kian didn’t ask were more telling than the ones he did. He didn’t ask why Jules deserted, guessing whatever was eating him was behind it. He’d always been sharp, now he missed nothing. Being a constable suited him.
Jules leaned his elbows on the railing, flicking his cigarette away. The wind captured his hair. ‘I don’t know where I’m going anymore.’
Kian snorted, unimpressed. ‘What does that even mean?’
‘I mean …’ Jules sighed. ‘I guess I want to know where I’m from. Not knowing was all right for a while. Following orders makes it easy, right? There’s not a lot of time to second-guess anything when death’s waiting.’
‘Where did this come from?’
‘Someone told me something and I need to prove her wrong. Nothing else matters until I do.’
‘Did a girl say you were bad in bed? Because seriously, boyo, man up. We all hear that sometimes.’
Jules shot him a droll look. ‘No. And, no, we don’t.’
A ticket collector rapped on the glass and leaned around the door, his red hat threatening to fly off in the rush of air. ‘Where to?’
‘Nice,’ Kian answered, handing over his ticket as Jules made a show of patting down his jacket. He finished up at the breast pocket embossed with Nice’s police seal. Eyeing his uniform, the ticket collector punched Kian’s ticket and left without a word.
When they were alone, Kian said, ‘I don’t understand. You’re Jules . I’ve known you my whole life. If you’re ever confused, I’ll tell you who you are.’
The Tsarina’s words still echoed between his ears, but they were nowhere near as insistent as the question haunting him. Who is Jules Lacroix?
He smiled faintly. ‘You know who I was . Since then I’ve made my entire self-worth about killing. How many demons I killed, whether I could pay them back for the friends I lost—’
‘Jules …’
He shook his head, about to tell Kian he was fine, but before he could, hot tears streaked down his cheeks. His chest ached, more painful than any battlefield wound, and the words wouldn’t come. Kian squeezed his shoulder. When the warmth of Kian’s hand soaked into his bones, he let out a shuddering sigh. Kian dropped his hand to his forearm and didn’t move it again as Jules began to speak.
‘My commanding officer died a few days back. The day I left. Sergeant—’ He broke off, his next words softer. ‘Farah. She was a good one, Kian. You would’ve liked her.’ A smile touched his lips. ‘The world is a worse place without her in it.’
They stood quietly for a while, watching the scenery of north-east France disappear behind them. The crisp air wrapped around Jules, a fitting match for the sombre mood.
Kian broke the silence. ‘I can’t do anything about Farah, but I might have an idea about your history.’
He tucked his hand in his pocket and drew out a fine silver pocket watch. Jules’s eyes widened and he leaned closer. Kian used his thumbnail to open it, revealing the crystal face. The inner workings ticked away smoothly inside, gold filigree cogs and gears and a small blue sapphire inset into the tip of the big hand.
‘I thought you were a copper now, not a crook.’
Kian rolled his eyes, grinning. ‘I am. This is my inheritance. Damn fine piece, right?’
Jules nodded. ‘I’ll say. But your what ?’
‘Inheritance,’ Kian explained. ‘Matron saves whatever came with you as a baby to give you when you age out. Even if it’s just a threadbare cloth. Even if it’s probably stolen.’ He tapped his pocket watch, grinning sheepishly.
‘Can’t believe she gave you a parting gift.’ Jules made a face. ‘Actually I can . All she ever gave me was a tongue-lashing and a dislocated earlobe.’
‘Ain’t nothing to dislocate in an earlobe.’
‘Shows what you know. I recall a distinct tearing sensation.’
Kian snorted. ‘So she didn’t give you your inheritance?’
Jules arched a brow. ‘Kian, I was abandoned at birth. I hate to admit it, but Matron probably wasn’t just being a cow.’
‘ Everyone had a file,’ Kian insisted. ‘I saw yours once. Remember when Marcel was a baby? He had whooping cough and Matron sent me to find his birth certificate … just in case.’
Jules nodded, grimacing. He remembered.
Even though Jules had been barely a day old when they found him on the doorstep, screaming blue murder as snow piled around him in his bassinet, if Kian said he knew, Jules believed him. On the day he was drafted, Matron had barely let him grab his worn leather boots, let alone lingered long enough to give him his inheritance. Jules felt a stirring of anger toward Matron. It wasn’t a new feeling, but this time it felt darker.
He curled his hand into a fist. ‘I want it.’
Kian raised his chin, smirking slightly. ‘Then let’s get it. One last escapade for the road.’
The train whistled, as though punctuating his statement.
To Nice.