CHAPTER SEVEN
T he palms of the Promenade des Anglais cast shadows over the tracks as the tram trundled parallel to the beach. Standing in the open door, Jules unfolded the newspaper forgotten by the beautiful girl at the station. It was in Italian, but that didn’t slow him half as much as the salt-scented breeze that rustled the pages. He lit a cigarette, its ember glow all the light he needed to read by.
By Aurelio Sabatino
VATICAN MORE THAN A match for demons, according to the Office of the Imperium Politikos, Adriano de Sanctis.
A vigil is planned for first-year graduate Exorcist Third Class Benedetta Fiore, who died on duty in Trastevere. The last in a line of Fiore exorcists, her superior Captain Selene Alleva reportedly said she ‘died a hero’. This most recent death raises questions about Vatican ability to repopulate the ranks, especially in view of an exodus from the city.
In light of events ongoing, Exorcist Primus Alexander II has been forced to denounce calls to abandon Rome, citing the dogma that Rome is God’s chosen resting place.
Most recently this reporter learned that one prominent family has abandoned their palazzo on the Piazza Farnese for locations unknown. Their young son was expected at the Vatican Academy in the coming months.
This is only the latest and most notable Roman family to abandon their city—and their duty.
This reporter has to ask: whatever happened to noblesse oblige ?
Kian leaned his chin on Jules’s shoulder, reading too. ‘ Noblesse oblige ?’
‘Privilege entails responsibility,’ Jules murmured. ‘ This reporter sounds pretty sympathetic to the Vatican.’ He folded the newspaper and dropped it onto the slatted seat for the next person.
After what he’d witnessed in Ostrava, could he really blame anyone for refusing to send their child to the Vatican Academy? Graduating meant a life of significance, yes. But, like as not, it’d be a short one.
He remembered the exorcists. All that training just to die in the mud beside conscript soldiers. What a waste.
The orphanage was plain by most standards, wedged between a fire station and Nice’s industrial area. A short clock tower was its most interesting feature.
‘Still ugly as fuck.’
‘You’ve been gone a day, Kian. What did you expect?’ Jules tipped his head to look up. The room of moving gears had been their refuge once. ‘Is your stash of mags still behind the clock or did the kids finally figure out your hiding spot?’
‘They’re probably still there.’ Kian grinned. ‘You know, Matron put up a celebratory banner when you aged out. It was kind of a big deal.’ Kian spoke through crumbs as he finished off a croissant.
Jules smirked. ‘What did it say? Praise the Deathless God, little thorn is gone?’
Kian laughed, though he glanced around nervously at Jules invoking the name of God.
Some people drew a hard line at any discussion of the Deathless God. Superstitious nonsense, Jules thought. But he wouldn’t say it. Not when Kian could prosecute an argument drunk and half asleep. Kian always said, ‘Don’t mess with what you don’t understand.’ And maybe he was right.
It was barely five thirty. They had half an hour to find what they wanted before Matron woke with military discipline at six on the dot.
‘Let’s go.’
‘Wait a minute, shouldn’t we—?’
Jules emerged from the concealing shadows. ‘No more waiting.’
The promise of what he might find thrummed in his veins. The Tsarina’s words taunted him. He’d spent most of his life thinking he was nothing—less than shit on Matron’s heel, the little thorn in her side—and too long on the battlefield trying to prove he wasn’t. The Tsarina didn’t get to take that away.
He found a narrow kitchen window unlatched. At seven feet high, it was just above head height for him. He pulled himself through first and narrowly missed a bowl of soaking potatoes as he dropped to a crouch on the kitchen counter. Copper saucepans and knives glinted on the wall, refracting what little moonlight crept in. With some help from Jules, Kian slipped through next, landing feather-light on the counter beside him.
His grin flashed like cook’s favourite cleaver. ‘Nice.’
‘Come on,’ Jules whispered.
A loud sawing sound made them both freeze. Jules’s hand twitched for the Vatican blade he no longer carried. Kian made a choking noise. Shooting him an alarmed look, Jules realized he was smothering a laugh.
The sound came again, followed by a snort. It was cook, snoring in her room adjoining the kitchen. She’d caught Jules with his hand in the breadbasket more than once. Beside him, Kian was fighting for his life. Elbowing him none-too-gently, Jules nodded to the door at the far end of the room.
Locked. No surprise.
Before easing the slender tip of a flick knife into the lock, Kian rummaged in his hair and withdrew a long pin.
Jules bent closer to watch. ‘You’re doing it wrong. More jiggling. With the knife, not the pin.’
‘If you don’t quiet down, I’ll jiggle this knife in your guts.’
Lost in concentration, Kian’s tongue poked past his lips. He jiggled the knife and, Jules noted with silent satisfaction, the door clicked open.
Jules patted his shoulder. ‘Well done, Kian, but whatever did you do?’ Perhaps not-so-silent satisfaction after all.
Straightening, Kian pressed the knife against his stomach. ‘I’m not above disembowelling you like a whiskered catfish, friend.’
Jules disarmed him effortlessly and flourished the knife in a courtly bow.
Kian’s disgruntled look was a reward all its own.
Without exchanging a word they jumped the creaky bottom step, the seventh, and the last two before the landing. At the door to Matron’s office, Jules penned the knife in his hand and went to work on the lock—intent on showing Kian how it was done. In return, Kian favoured him with a stream-of-consciousness narration.
Jules flicked him an annoyed look. ‘Yeah, yeah. You got me.’ His voice was tight, but Kian didn’t seem to care. ‘Grin all you like. This lock’s far trickier.’
‘You say that, boyo, but they look the same to me.’ Finally, the lock disengaged.
During the day, Matron’s office had all the potential to be a large sunny room, but in the dark, filing cabinets loomed ominously and the dusty books lining the bookshelves looked like broken teeth. Jules pulled out a book and dust motes stirred in golden flurries, catching in the bars of orange light that slid through the blinds.
‘It’s gotta be in here,’ Kian said, trying one of the drawers. ‘If I’m wrong, and there ain’t nothing, it’s no reflection on you. You know that, right?’
Jules nodded jerkily, but he didn’t really believe it. ‘I thought you said everyone has something?’
‘I’m a fool. Don’t listen to me.’ Jules’s throat was too tight to answer.
Starting from either end, they were about halfway when Jules’s fingertips brushed a brown envelope, bound shut with string. He knew before he saw his name that it was his.
Lacroix .
Jules shared a glance with Kian as a churning sense of dread twisted his guts.
He weighed it in one hand. It was light. Half its weight had to come from the thick cardboard envelope. He twirled the envelope between his fingers by its corners, hesitating.
Kian cleared his throat and gave an encouraging nod.
Jules’s fingers shook slightly as he unwound the string loop by loop. When he slid the contents onto his waiting palm, he took a moment to identify the object. A circlet made of metal so pale it could be wrought from moonlight, and leaves so detailed—down to the delicate veins—that he might believe they were picked and gilded last night, if somebody told him so. Nestled among the leaves, exquisite workmanship linked tiny perfect thorns curving at irregular intervals. When he tipped his hand, light refracted off the razor edges.
A low scrape interrupted his inspection.
Jules knew the sounds of this place. Knew that one didn’t fit.
‘What is it?’ Kian asked, not looking away from the silver circlet and unaware of Jules’s shift in focus. When he didn’t answer, Kian snatched the circlet for a closer look, hissing when one of the thorns pricked his skin. He sucked on a fingertip that welled with dark blood.
The sound came again, louder now. This time Kian heard it too. The scream of tearing metal. Jules parted the blinds with a finger, finding the imposing iron gates that fronted the orphanage. The bars with their fleur-de-lis spikes bent inexorably inward, straining against the chain that held them closed.
The chain shattered and the gates ruptured open.
A man stepped through. No, not a man. He was taller than anyone Jules had ever seen, with bones that sang of nobility. Eyes of blue fire burned in his skull. He looked like a god, but he was no god.
‘ Demon .’
Back at the Gare de Nice-Ville, Selene put in a direct call to the Vatican. Pressing her forehead to the phone booth’s glass window, she waited on Cesare Alleva. The calming instrumental music of the Vatican switchboard set her teeth on edge.
When the line clicked, she didn’t wait for Cesare to speak. ‘Imperium, it was Baliel, Duke of Briars.’
Even if she hadn’t memorized the major signifiers for each of the twelve demon dukes, she would know who she was dealing with. Reports of wildfires of blue flame and the conflagration she’d witnessed with her own eyes … Yes, she knew this demon with his flame magic. Rare enough among demons to be noteworthy. The Vatican texts were clear.
Her uncle’s voice was soft on the other end of the line. ‘Does anyone else know?’
‘Of course not.’
He was silent a moment. The quiet of serious thinking, not the quiet of gears grinding to a halt or wiring misfiring. It was the sound of competence . Selene closed her eyes, praying that Cesare would command her back to the capital. She was already done with the unknown of it. Done waiting for old ghosts. If she ever met Niccolò or their mother again, she’d never walk away unbroken.
‘You’re the best I’ve got, Selene. Find him.’
‘Sir,’ Selene said, as she leaned her forehead against the glass. ‘He’s killed more than three hundred people. He’s well above my class—’
‘Untrue.’
She bit out the pertinent word: ‘— publicly .’
His silence was acknowledgement enough. After a few moments, he sighed. ‘The only reason you’re not an Exorcist First Class is because of politics. That doesn’t mean I’m going to entrust this to anyone else. I’m stuck here until January 15 at the earliest. The Baie des Démons festival will be that weekend. I hesitate to cancel it and give the French another reason to curse Rome. If you haven’t figured this out by then, I’ll join you.’
‘I see.’ Selene pinched the bridge of her nose. Of course. The timing couldn’t be worse.
The festival centred on Nice’s waterfront. At the peak of the festival, a great straw demon effigy would be burned on a raft in the middle of the Bay of Demons. Once named the Bay of Angels, the French had renamed it at some point in the chaotic years after a demon tried to slaughter God. She didn’t know if it was irony or nihilism.
‘Can you do it?’ he asked.
‘Yes, sir.’
Again she thought of the demonic energy that had washed over her when she first stepped off the train. The imprint of it at the still burning Genealogical Library. It had the unmistakable tang of intense power. But that confirmed nothing about the demon who had destroyed Saint-Jeannet. She mentally shook herself. All she knew for sure was that Baliel was here . It could have been another demon that razed Saint-Jeannet—the likelihood of that was infinitesimal, but she still had to know.
She shivered, tightening her coat against the relatively mild night. The Duke of Briars, first and greatest of the twelve known demon dukes.
And the most terrible.
His tells had been catalogued and taught at the Academy, and given almost equal weight as other vital lessons like how to trigger words of power and how to exorcise a demon. At the time, their instructors’ rigour had seemed superfluous—nobody had seen a duke in decades—but now she was glad for it.
Her knuckles were white where she held the receiver to her ear.
When Cesare spoke, his voice was utterly calm. He had faith in her. ‘A support team is en route to you and the head of the Nice headquarters will act as your second until you release him.’
She recalled what Cesare had said in Rome, that he had asked the Nice office to have someone meet her when she arrived. But the presence of a demon duke changed everything. Whoever was mediocre enough to climb to the top job in the Nice office would only be a liability.
‘I don’t need a second.’
She heard the rustling of papers. ‘I take it Eliot D’Alessandro hasn’t arrived yet?’
Her brows furrowed, the glass no longer nice and cool against her burning skin. ‘Excuse me?’
‘You need a second.’
‘I don’t need a second! And what do you mean, Eliot D’Alessandro?’
‘Selene, I’m being called away. Whatever you do, don’t tell anyone else the Duke of Briars is vacationing in the French Riviera. We don’t need a panic on our hands.’
‘Yes, sir,’ she said through gritted teeth.
‘Oh … and say hello to your fiancé for me.’ The line went dead.
Selene slammed the handset into the cradle. And a couple more times for good measure.
‘Damn it! Damn it all .’
The phone let out a high-pitched dial tone and she left it alone.
Backing out of the phone booth, she bumped into a tall figure and whirled on him. ‘How dare you eavesdrop—’
‘I hope that wasn’t about me?’
Dark eyes flicked to the abused telephone handset and back to Selene. She swallowed, inventorying all the ways he’d changed from the slight, pretty boy she’d known to a slight, handsome man. In the intervening years, the roundness of youth had fallen away to reveal the fine aristocratic jaw he’d inherited from his mother. This was, without a doubt, Eliot D’Alessandro.
‘Oh no. No, of course not.’ She didn’t sound convincing, even to her own ears, and saw his expression tighten as the joke became cruel reality.
‘Oh.’
He stood in the wide military stance trained into them at the Academy, but beneath the uniform she could see her dearest childhood friend. Her fiancé .
But the word no longer fitted. She was his superior now. ‘How long have you been here?’ she asked.
‘In Nice?’
‘I … Yes.’ Heat flared in her cheeks and she instantly regretted the question. She didn’t want Eliot to know she hadn’t bothered to follow his postings. When he’d left Rome, she had been a child . Her father newly dead. Her mother gone. Eliot was just one of many losses she’d shouldered that year. But so much time had passed since then, and now Selene wondered how she’d been so complacent.
‘Um. This entire time. Since I was exiled.’
Silence stretched between them, and not for the first time Selene wondered why their teachers had forced him out, making him watch their world from afar.
The phone handset shrieked again and she heard a little voice. ‘ Hello … hello … hello? Vatican switch . Hello? ’
‘Excuse me.’ She smiled, pivoted on her heel, and snatched up the handset. This time when she slammed it down the cradle broke and the phone stopped making any noise at all. Turning back to Eliot, she nodded sagely. ‘I see. Almost seven years.’
‘Seven years this June.’
Seven years … Every memory they shared belonged to two different people. The last time she’d seen him was the day her father died.
‘Look, Eliot—’
‘Selene, I’d love—’
She cocked her head, panic igniting in her chest. He’d love . He’d love what? They were almost eighteen. Was he saying he wanted to marry her?
He smiled. ‘You go.’
She shook her head and waved for him to continue, forgetting her words. All of them.
‘Selene—’
‘Captain,’ she interrupted. Shit .
He hesitated, reaching to loosen his tie.
She wanted to bury her burning face in her hands.
He took a breath. ‘Captain Alleva … Selene … I would love nothing more than to—’
‘I’m sorry, Eliot, but that’s just not possible.’
‘—marry you, but—’
‘What?’
But?
His face fell. ‘Oh. I understand.’
Wait .
In contrast to his dark hair, Eliot’s skin was alabaster. Even in winter, he stood out among the sun-kissed Nicoises. Now his cheeks blotched red, heat creeping to his ears.
‘Eliot.’ He flinched and she grimaced. ‘Let me say something, then I want you to say exactly what you wanted to tell me a moment ago. Agreed?’
His dark gaze flicked up to hers, brows drawing low. ‘Fine.’
‘I don’t want to marry you.’
His eyes widened.
‘Your turn,’ she prompted.
Eliot dampened his lips. ‘Me neither,’ he admitted. ‘In theory I want to marry you, but in practice I’m not ready for that …’ She saw a complex interplay of expressions cross his face, the tug of his brows and the tightening of his jaw. Once she would have known how to read him.
She laughed. ‘I know.’
He pressed his lips into a cautious smile. A frightened deer to her wolf. ‘Should I request a transfer?’
Pain lanced through her at his suggestion.
The wind picked up, blowing her hair across her face and she brushed it aside to better see this new, fully grown Eliot. She could still see the boy she knew, but he was almost gone.
Surprising herself, she caught his sleeve, pinching it tight to stop him going. ‘No.’
He met her eyes and she saw home there. Though it was one she no longer recognized.
His lips tipped wryly in a barely-there smile, but his gaze turned sharp and assessing. ‘Are you sure? You don’t need a second, remember?’
Damn. He had heard.
‘If I have to work with someone I crushed in every class, at least it’s you.’
The corners of his eyes crinkled in amusement. ‘Is that so?’
‘It is.’
‘Not every class.’
‘Hm. Not my recollection. I bested everyone, including you.’
‘Geography?’ he mused.
‘Truly not even a subject that should be taught at the Academy.’
‘First aid?’
‘Pointless. We have healers for a reason.’
He chuckled and an answering laugh bubbled out of her. She’d missed this. Missed him . And even though the man in front of her wasn’t exactly the same Eliot—this one was something of a stranger to her—she already had the map to his secrets in her pocket.
‘When you left Rome, I thought you’d never graduate.’
Eliot pressed his lips into a tight smile. ‘My grandfather still has his fingers all up in the Vatican’s business. As a favour to him, Beni Sforza trained me up here. From the stories I coaxed out of him, he owed my grandfather a limb or two from their demon-hunting days. When it was time, he even tracked down a demon with me so I could graduate.’
She rocked forward on the balls of her feet, intrigued. ‘What level?’
‘Five.’ A Viscount. He looked away, a blush dusting his cheekbones. He never had been overproud or driven by ego. But this time he deserved to be. Hunting down a higher-level demon was a status symbol and gave him greater power too.
Her gloves muffled her slow clap in the still night. He covered his face with one hand but couldn’t completely hide his grin.
‘Incredible,’ she said earnestly. ‘How did you find a Viscount?’
‘Not easily. Beni had a contact intercepting official telegrams. We arrived in Geneva and killed it a couple of hours before the exorcist deployed from Rome arrived. He was …’
‘Not pleased?’
‘To put it mildly.’
She laughed. ‘Good for you, Eliot. Now they won’t be able to ignore you. Oh, my uncle sends his regards.’
His expression shifted, lashes lowering to cover his dark eyes. ‘Your uncle is too kind. I would imagine myself beneath his notice.’ He withdrew a slim notebook from his pocket and thumbed the pages. ‘Before I forget, I received a message an hour ago. We analysed the residue from the demon fire in Saint-Jeannet. It appears as though the demon didn’t immediately leave town.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He … he went to the church .’
Selene frowned, rubbing two fingers between her brows.
Eliot continued. ‘Even though it was the opposite direction … he went to the church first.’
She filed the information away. Another reason to visit Saint-Jeannet.
‘Even though the Imperium wants you as my second until we find this demon, I know I … kind of steamrolled you on the transfer thing. If that’s what you really want, given everything …’ She faltered over the words, then finally spat them out. ‘Will working for me be a problem for you?’
Eliot shook his head, drawing one of the twin D’Alessandro family swords at his hip. It shone, as wicked sharp as ever. He held it across his palms and bowed at the waist. ‘Whatever you need of me, I’m yours, Captain.’
She trailed her eyes over the sword crossing his hands, taking in the symbols in the metal. It was the D’Alessandro moon blade, traditionally drawn between dusk and dawn. Twin to the sun blade for daytime slaughter. Selene felt him watching her, eyes lingering on her face. But when she looked up he dropped his gaze, a touch of pink colouring his cheeks.
‘Good.’ She smiled. ‘I’m so pleased.’
When he straightened to his full height, she realized how tall he’d become. When they’d last met, Eliot had been precisely her height. And now he looked down at her with an unfamiliar look in his eyes.
‘Eliot—’ she began, throat closing on his name.
He staggered as a familiar wave of demonic power rolled over them. Selene fought down the impulse to vomit.
Her demon was hungry tonight.