CHAPTER NINE
J ules carried the unconscious exorcist down the stairs. The building was burning. Normal flames this time, not the demon fire that had raged earlier. He tried to shake the memory of those flames. The way they’d wrapped him in a heat so intense they might have consumed his very soul.
The fight flashed through his mind. By the time Jules had found his feet and followed the exorcist into the orphanage, she looked half dead, and the demon not much better. Her power had sung in the thickened atmosphere, slicing the air as she fought. In that moment, he realized the difference between the exorcists he’d seen at the front and this girl—a true Vatican elite. A legend made flesh. Next to her, other exorcists paled like candles beside a halogen lamp.
He gently shifted her as blood trickled down her arm and off her index finger. Beneath the iron tang hid a unique scent, and Jules wondered if it was the vestiges of her magic fresh from her veins.
He thought of the seconds before the demon’s body had burned away, destroyed by his own immense power, when a light of recognition lit the demon’s cobalt eyes. Then Kian’s killer had warned him in a disintegrating voice: You cannot trust them. The Vatican, and all Rome, are your enemy. A small smile had touched the demon’s lips as he was undone.
Freezing air greeted Jules when he stumbled outside with the exorcist cradled in his arms.
Matron made orderly queues from the chaos and a wave of relief washed over him when he spotted Marcel. Soot-stained and teary-eyed but alive. As Jules watched, Matron knelt to wipe soot off the child’s cheeks. Sniffing, he said something that made Matron freeze.
There was no surprise on Matron’s face when she stood to find Jules, only a tightening at the corners of her lips.
Adjusting his hand beneath the exorcist’s knees, Jules tried not to back away as Matron stormed toward him. ‘What are you doing back here?’ she asked, her voice terribly cold. Cold as the demon’s flames burned hot.
Behind her, lights approached the gates. An ambulance drove onto the orphanage grounds while the police and a convoy of black town cars glided to a stop on the street.
His cheeks flared with heat and he pulled the exorcist to his chest like a shield. Madness. She’d probably turn on him too if she were conscious.
What survived of his military uniform hung off his frame in charred rags, and Matron’s sharp eyes focused on the hand holding the exorcist’s ribcage. Her eyes roved over the marks on his fingers before trailing up his bicep to find the band of thorns that had been carved into his flesh as a babe.
Little thorn .
Nobody else knew where her name for him had come from.
Perhaps even she had forgotten why she first called him that. He’d been the thorn in her side before he could talk.
Her expression twisted. ‘I asked you a question.’
Jules swallowed, taking a half-step back. ‘I … We—’
She flinched. ‘We?’
‘Kian and I.’
Four years at war meant nothing standing before her now, obediently answering her questions.
‘Where is Kian?’
Snow began to fall. Wet and fat, the flakes hissed as they landed on his hot skin. Glancing down at the girl in his arms, concerned, he realized her clothes were smouldering where they touched him, and his hands burned through the rich wool of her Vatican uniform.
He was burning her. Yet his skin was smooth and unmarked.
It reminded Jules that once, when he and Kian had come back from playing with scraped knees and bloody palms, by the time they stood before Matron only Kian had anything to show for it. No wonder she hated him. Always the instigator, never the victim. He’d always healed so fast. Panic clawed up his throat at the thought. He pushed it away. No. No, no, no. The horror of the night was playing tricks with his mind. That had to be it. That was all it was. That and nothing more—
‘Where is he?’ Matron’s trembling voice intruded on his thoughts.
The answer caught in his throat.
A pair of nuns—sisters of medicine by the looks of them—rushed up with a stretcher, the crossed spears of the Deathless God at their throats where long ago nuns might have worn a crucifix. Instead of rosaries and prayers, now they carried guns and magic born of blood. ‘Out of the way.’
Matron turned and scooped up Marcel, though her eyes continued to burn into Jules. He’d need to answer her questions eventually.
A small nun with a pretty elfin face noticed him then. ‘Lieutenant D’Alessandro, she’s over here!’
‘Selene!’ A man approached with long strides, wearing the polished buttons and black military garb of the exorcists. Twin swords hung at his hip. Unlike the nuns, it was clear he wasn’t here to tend the wounded. A spark of panic lit his eyes when they locked on the girl limp in Jules’s arms.
At the urging of the nun, Jules gently lowered the exorcist onto a stretcher. Careful not to touch her skin, he cradled the back of her head with what remained of Kian’s police jacket.
‘Captain Alleva?’ the nun said, patting her cheek with the back of her hand. ‘This is bad, Eliot. I need to get to work.’
Eliot pushed the nun’s hands aside, leaning over Selene with an expression of such sincere longing Jules was surprised nobody looked away.
Jules tipped his head, looking down at the girl. His fingers flexed and then curled into fists at the sight of the bruises on her neck and exposed collarbone. It was like seeing one of the war falcons with an injured wing—so beautiful and so broken.
‘Eliot, we need to move.’
He ignored her. ‘ Selene .’
Selene Alleva stirred with a soft moan of pain and her eyes opened, flicking between the nun and Eliot before finding Jules, catching his eyes in an amber hold so intense he couldn’t move. Then her lashes fluttered closed, sealing all the power of that gaze away.
‘Fuck …’ Eliot dropped his head back to stare at the sky.
Matron’s voice came from behind Jules, quieter now. ‘Where is Kian?’
Such a simple question.
Such a final answer. ‘Dead.’
Everything happened in fits and starts, silence crowding in on him in the seconds between too many things happening at once. Matron’s scream broke the quiet and she crumpled to her knees.
Jules squeezed his eyes closed.
A nun medic rushed over with a pile of blankets, moving to cover his shoulders so he wouldn’t be standing nearly naked in the snow, but he backed away. She shot him a strange look and turned her attention to Matron, crouching beside her shaking form.
Fluffy snowflakes continued to fall and melt against his skin.
‘I have to go,’ he muttered, mostly to himself, and stepped right into Matron’s palm.
She delivered a stinging slap across his face. Her expression flickered between rage and pain as she curled shiny reddened fingers. Scalded, as though by boiling water. ‘Curse you,’ she snarled softly. ‘Kian’s life is on your head. Go!’
Jules backed away, raising his hands as Eliot looked up with dark, intelligent eyes, observing the ruckus. He should leave, like Matron said. Put distance between himself and everything that had happened here.
The edges of the world were dark and crowding in.
He wanted to defend himself but he’d never been able to before. Why would he now? And how could he protest his innocence when this time she was right?
Matron picked up a discarded broom and broke it over his back, her expression one of agony and grief. ‘Go! Go, little thorn!’
He felt Selene’s eyes on him again as he crossed the yard.
The sister of medicine bent over Selene. ‘Please stay still, Captain. You’ve been badly wounded, but you’ll be fine.’
But the exorcist ignored the nun, pushing herself onto her elbow with her other arm cradled against her body. It was red-raw and burned to the muscle and her curled fingers showed glimpses of bone. Agony washed all colour from her face, but her eyes remained locked on Jules, burning brighter than the yellow lamps edging the tree-lined street. Fear lanced through him as her dry, lovely lips formed words he couldn’t hear.
Then the nun pressed two fingers against the exorcist’s forehead and Selene slumped back onto the stretcher.
Jules let out a breath, backing away until he was fully out of sight beneath the row of big old trees. He had to leave before they clocked him. His eyes adjusted quickly, and he saw Eliot standing in the shadows.
Without thinking, Jules drifted nearer. Remaining in the deeper dark of the orphanage wall until he could lean his back against a trunk, out of sight, but close enough to hear soft voices.
‘No casualties,’ Eliot said, which showed how much he knew. ‘Remarkable.’
‘First Saint-Jeannet, now this? It’s weird.’
‘That’s putting it mildly, Altamura.’
‘And this demon bested her , our own Macellaia di Roma .’
The Butcher of Rome.
Jules knew that name.
The most notorious young exorcist to come out of the Academy in Rome. The top student of an entire cohort who were feared and … worshipped in a kind of unholy union of war heroes and gods.
‘ Sì . This doesn’t bode well.’
‘Get in the ambulance, D’Alessandro!’ the small nun shouted from the open doors. She swung the first shut with finality, reaching for the other. ‘Or I leave you behind.’
Eliot swore and took off into the dark.
Jules stilled, waiting for Eliot to pass him and climb into the ambulance. When its tail lights disappeared from view, he released a breath. Blue cigarette smoke coiled around him in the dark beneath the elm and a smoke-sweet breath spoke behind his ear. ‘Hello.’
He turned, caught.
The nun who had been speaking with Eliot pinched a cigarette near her lips and watched him, amused. Altamura , he recalled. An enormous gatling rested on her shoulder even though she didn’t seem on the edge of violence. But from the way she held herself that didn’t mean much. She was probably always on the edge of violence.
‘Sister,’ he greeted her.
She looked him up and down. ‘You’re positively indecent. Put this on.’ She extended a black wool coat on a crooked finger.
Jules blinked.
Altamura drew a deep drag of her cigarette and crushed it out against the trunk of the tree, a small smile curling her lips as she threw the coat in his face.
He shrugged it on. ‘Do you want something?’
A line appeared between her brows. She was silent a moment, then finally shook her head as though dismissing a thought. ‘Don’t eavesdrop on Vatican exorcists, boy.’ She turned away, speaking over the monster of a gatling. ‘That is all. For now.’
As he watched her go, Jules turned over what he’d learned. The Butcher of Rome, here in Nice. And the town. He knew that name too … Saint-Jeannet, the small village in the French Alps where he’d been born.
Allez! Allez, petite épine!
Selene’s eyes snapped open, staring at the ambulance ceiling. Petite épine . Little thorn. She rubbed a temple, trying to force her sluggish brain into motion. Why did it matter what the matron called him. She bit her lip, hoping the pain would jolt her back into form.
‘Captain?’ Lucia asked with concern.
Her throat felt tight from smoke inhalation. ‘Stop the car,’ Selene husked out.
She forced her tired body to sit, bracing herself for pain. Her arm, however, was perfect once more. Now she had skin where there had been none. Selene shot Lucia a grateful look. Standing, she pressed her hands to the ceiling of the van as the entire convoy pulled over along the Promenade des Anglais. To the side, a rocky beach stretched out of sight, its white pebbles bright in the pre-dawn. Only put to shame by the lonely moon glinting off the ocean.
Lucia scowled at her. ‘I hadn’t finished.’
‘You’ve done enough.’ She rotated her shoulder, wincing. ‘You’ve done beautifully. I’m lucky you were here.’
‘Well.’ Lucia crossed her arms, satisfaction softening her expression. Then she grinned. ‘You created your own luck. Literally. Thanks for the assignment, boss.’
She ignored that. ‘What about the boy?’
Lucia frowned. ‘All the children were fine. Thanks to you.’
Selene rolled her knuckles against her temple, grimacing as she tried to remember. ‘Even the one who was on fire?’
Lucia shifted back. ‘Uh, hate to break it to you, but you were the one on fire.’
Selene rolled her eyes. ‘I’m aware. I recall the excruciating pain. But … wasn’t there a boy? About my age?’
Lucia shook her head. ‘The oldest child was fifteen. Are you sure—?’
‘Forget it.’ Selene scowled. He’d slipped through her fingers. But she couldn’t quite remember why it mattered. ‘I need to go to Saint-Jeannet.’ She braced herself against the ceiling and stood.
‘Captain—’
‘Now.’
‘Selene!’ Lucia grabbed her arm, teeth gritted against her ire. ‘Wait.’
Selene obliged, brow tipping.
Lucia waved one hand, mumbling something unintelligible. Then, quick as a viper, she plunged a syringe into Selene’s bicep with her other. ‘Okay, now you may go. If you can.’ She smiled sweetly.
‘ Lucia … ’ Selene wavered, muscles turning to liquid. She collapsed back on the stretcher and the hand reaching for Lucia’s throat refused to cooperate.
‘Your body will thank me, boss.’
Selene finally let her head drop back, her eyes closing under the influence of the drug. ‘Saint …’ Was that her slurring like a drunkard? She tried to make her words crisp through sheer force of will. ‘Saint … Saint-Jeannet. I want—’
There was a rustle of movement as someone climbed through from the cab.
‘We’re on it, Selene. Trust us. Rest .’
Eliot . His cool palm rested against her forehead and smoothed back her hair. She tried to open her eyes but they wouldn’t obey. She felt a brush of lips against her brow. Even with her eyes closed, she could see Eliot’s gentle smile behind her eyelids.
She fought against exhaustion, against the slow creep of warmth through her muscles. But in vain.
‘Fine.’ It came out as a breath.
And at last she let herself sleep.