CHAPTER TEN
T he Vatican beat Jules to the French Alps. Because, of course they did.
By the time he stepped off the train from Nice—at a station little more than a platform in a field—it was already fading to winter dark and his path to Saint-Jeannet was blocked by two police cars parked at an angle on the narrow cliffside road. Police, not so strange. The Vatican nuns smoking slim pastel cigarettes by the edge, however, certainly was.
One nun pored over a map spread across the car hood, her knee propped up to show a stretch of slender leg.
The other, impressively, managed to stand upright despite the massive gatling gun slung across her back. She tapped her cigarette, turning to blow smoke over her shoulder. Half angel, half warrior, her face was a mess of scars but otherwise her brown skin was luminous. Altamura .
He instantly recognized the first as the sister of medicine who’d treated the Butcher of Rome in Nice that morning. Dieu Immortel , he cursed. At least the exorcist he’d first seen at the Gare de Nice-Ville would be down for the count. She’d almost lost an arm in the fire.
Instead of attempting the road—and testing the nuns—Jules decided to bypass the checkpoint entirely. Backtracking a few hundred feet, he set his toe in a crevice and began to climb. There was no world in which he wanted to tempt the nun and her beast of a gatling.
Nor did he particularly want to give Altamura back her coat.
Jules had stolen a white linen shirt off a back-alley line, which would be enough in the C?te d’Azur’s forgiving climate, especially after his time in Ostrava. But without the woollen overcoat the chill would be bitter this high in the Alps.
Once he was fifty feet above the road, Jules edged along the cliff, moving more carefully as he neared the checkpoint below. He made sure to keep the sparse bushes clinging to the steep rock between him and the road. Though he was out of sight, he was very much within their hearing range. But his steps were true.
Then his hand landed on scales. Aghast, he yanked it back to his chest as an asp viper flicked its stubby tail and retreated into a crevice. Sand trickled down the cliff face. Jules froze, rabbit-like. When no shout came, he let out a breath and turned his gaze ahead.
Rounding the bend, he choked on his next breath.
Saint-Jeannet was in ruins.
Nothing was left of the stone buildings but blackened sticks piercing the wintry sky. Only a single stone tower remained, belonging to the old church of Saint-Pierre where he’d been born. Or, at the very least, where he’d been left. Beyond it, the remnants of Saint-Jeannet’s medieval castle had been spilled across the valley—ancient chunks of stone visible only as lumps beneath the coating snow.
Jules’s heel skidded from beneath him and rocky scree tumbled down the hill.
Grabbing a handful of brittle twigs, he thought for a second that he’d saved himself, but they snapped beneath his grip.
‘ Fermati! ’ Altamura shouted from below, as Jules scrambled for another handful of bush, trying to pull himself against the shelter of the cliff, but the roots came free of the rocky crevice, sending him into freefall.
He covered his head, rolling and sliding down the length of the steep incline until he slammed onto the road.
‘Stop! Vatican!’ The same voice, this time in heavily accented French.
Jules didn’t stop. He launched himself to his feet and threw himself off the opposite side of the narrow road, tumbling down the scree in only a slightly more controlled fall than before. At least this time his feet were beneath him. He attempted to manage his speed with fistfuls of sad winter shrubbery and rocky handholds.
The ground in front of his feet was chewed up by a force more violent than nature. Splintered shards of stone ricocheted in every direction beneath the heavy-calibre bullets.
‘ Stop .’
Jules skidded to a halt on the steep shale. Turning slowly with his hands up, he tried a smile. ‘This … is me stopping.’ He looked up to where the nun still stood on the edge of the road.
‘ You— ’ Recognition lit Altamura’s eyes. She leapt from the cliff, landing with a light step, seeming unfazed when limestone cracked beneath her feet from the height. These Vatican monsters were a different species. ‘Stupid, ignorant trash. Do you want to become red mist, boy?’
‘Not really.’
Altamura slid down the hill, swinging the rifle onto her back and pulling a long pistol in the same fluent movement, levelling it at him. ‘You don’t sound so sure, maybe we should test it.’
‘Caterina!’ The other nun stumbled down the hill, crashing into her tall frame. Caterina didn’t flinch, subtly shifting her weight so they didn’t slide down the rocky slope. Nor did her pistol hand waver.
The sister of medicine gasped, her blue eyes pinning Jules’s face. ‘Thank you. But don’t you dare shoot, Caterina! Look how cute he is.’ Jules turned a sardonic look on the smaller nun. She was at least two heads shorter than him with the heart-shaped face of a china doll. ‘Me?’ he asked, his lips curling slowly. ‘If I’m cute, what are you?’
She smiled a wide toothy smile. ‘Dangerous.’
The nun strolled closer and Jules noticed a slit up her thigh, exposing the long sheer stocking that stopped above her knee, threaded with a slender velvet ribbon.
Jules dragged his gaze back up and her eyes crinkled in amusement. ‘Interesting, um, habit … Sister.’
‘Oh, this? What’s piety without utility?’
‘Lucia, stop flirting.’
‘Me?’ She gasped, pressing a hand to her chest. ‘ He’s flirting with me .’
‘Guilty,’ Jules said with a wink.
Caterina sighed, ratcheting open the magazine to load a few more bullets.
‘ Fine .’ Lucia rolled her eyes at Jules but her expression hardened. ‘What are you doing here? Didn’t you notice the Vatican barriers? Or were you too busy sneaking along the cliff edge in the dark and snow to notice?’
Jules rubbed the back of his neck, trying to look embarrassed. ‘Yeah, you know what? It’s a funny story—’
‘If it’s not actually funny, I shoot,’ Caterina interjected.
He focused on Lucia, switching on his most winning smile. ‘I always heard this town had the prettiest girls. Turns out the rumours were true.’
‘Not funny,’ Caterina said.
‘Shh, shh .’ Lucia reached blindly for Caterina’s gun hand, pushing it down. ‘Let him finish.’
He glanced toward the village and he couldn’t find the words. ‘What happened here?’ His voice was soft, almost plaintive.
‘Fire. Arson. Very sad.’
Jules scoffed and Caterina’s eyes narrowed at his insolence.
He took half a step back. ‘Since when have the Vatican been stealing work from the local fire authorities?’
Lucia tried to smother her laugh. But not very hard.
‘No fire I know can burn stone,’ Jules added, nodding toward the church in the distance.
Caterina stepped between him and the ruins, her eyes intense on him. ‘What do you think happened?’ she asked, and struck a match on her pistol to light another cigarette. It lit her face, flickering against the perfect structure of her bones and scar tissue. Her eyes were as flat as a snake’s as she watched him down the length of her pistol. ‘Kitten,’ she added as an afterthought, blowing out a coil of blue smoke.
Jules knew the answer; it was the only reason they were there. ‘Demon,’ he replied, not missing a beat.
Caterina’s brow edged up in a look of mild surprise. ‘Good guess for a normie, don’t you think, Lucia?’
‘I don’t know.’ Lucia tapped her cheek. ‘What else could burn a town without flames, leaving nothing but the medieval foundations and a lone church tower to reign over it all? Nothing … Nothing but a demon, that is.’
Her lilting voice made the terrible words strangely lovely as she closed the distance between them, stepping in front of him to clamp a delicate silver cuff around one wrist. He pulled away, but she quickly snapped on the other.
The metal seemed to mould to his skin. When they were both in place, Caterina snapped her fingers and a fine silver chain sprang between them. Jules raised his hands, trying to see the mechanism by which the chain had appeared, and shot Lucia a dirty look.
She shrugged. ‘Sorry.’
Caterina breathed a trail of smoke into the sky as she mused quietly, as though to herself. ‘ We know these things. We know about demon fire. We know what happened here … But how does he?’ She dropped her chin, eyes alight with suspicion.
‘I don’t know.’ Lucia lifted her chin, nostrils flaring. ‘But beyond your cigarettes, my love, I smell demon.’
Their stances shifted. They were apex predators and primal fear ignited in his stomach. He threw himself back, his head knocking a sharp rock, his bound wrists restricting his movements. Blood trickled into his eyes, blinding him as he scrambled back. Caterina snatched her gatling rifle over her shoulder and levelled it at him. Damn, she was fast. She braced herself on the hillside with one long leg, the muscles of her thigh coiling as she prepared to make him red mist.
This time he wouldn’t get a warning shot.
He swung around, hands extended. ‘Wait.’ He swiped his bloody forehead against his shoulder.
Lucia prowled closer.
He backed away. ‘Just … wait .’
Caterina smiled, her cigarette burning cherry red and illuminating the planes of her cheeks. She shifted her hold on the rifle, prepared to release a ground-devouring rain of bullets. ‘Speak fast.’
Jules raised bound hands—futile protection if she decided she was done playing. ‘Sorry. Look, I’m not running.’ He planted his feet, squinting one eye open to look at them. ‘I just got a fright.’ He bunched his hand in his shirt, shaking it slightly. ‘I would smell of demon, sister. I just came from Ostrava.’
‘Czechoslovakia?’
He nodded and the nuns shared a look.
‘I’ve killed demons and been covered in their blood,’ he continued. ‘And I survived by listening to the stories of what they can do. Even if I don’t know what’s true or what’s a lie, I can make a guess of it.’
Caterina pursed her lips, nodding thoughtfully. ‘There is a battalion there.’
A test.
‘More than one,’ he corrected.
Caterina’s expression tightened. He’d passed her test, but if anything, she seemed even more irritated by the fact of his existence.
‘Half of us were decimated,’ he said. ‘My superior and entire unit were killed. I’m the last.’ He turned his face toward Saint-Jeannet. ‘And I thought I’d see the town where I was born. Weird, right? Being so close to death—’ He choked off, as though he couldn’t finish the thought. But it was less an act than he liked, his throat tightening at the memory of Kian’s death. Of Farah’s.
Caterina did not look convinced by his performance. Nor did she lower her rifle.
‘Why did you run?’ she asked softly, stepping forward to press her gun between his eyes.
A clear voice rang out from the top of the cliff.
Jules shielded his eyes, trying to make out the figure silhouetted against the glare of headlights. She had a presence like metal on his tongue, as though he’d licked bloody steel. A black town car purred, idling at her back.
‘ Fermatevi! ’ Stop.
The figure skidded down the shale, flinging herself between Jules and the nuns.
‘Captain, you’re awake. We’re in Saint-Jeannet.’ Lucia flung her arms wide as though her superior might have missed the faintly smoking ruins.
‘I know. I’m actually surprised.’
‘Why? You gave the order.’
‘I didn’t think insubordinates like you would listen.’
Selene Alleva , healed and whole once more.
She glanced at him, brow arched. Belatedly, Jules realized he’d spoken aloud, her name decadent on his tongue.
Catching his heel on a rock, Jules stumbled onto his ass, teeth clacking. The Butcher of Rome stepped over his leg, standing between him and Caterina—who gave him a look like her trigger finger might slip.
‘He ran. Twice .’
‘No accounting for taste,’ Lucia quipped.
Selene ignored them, grabbing Jules by the shirt to haul him to his feet. Her eyes narrowed. ‘Out of uniform today, officer ?’
Jules swallowed when his eyes met amber, as cold and hard as stone. He hadn’t thought she’d remember their first encounter at Nice-Ville. ‘About that …’ Jules began, but when he hesitated, searching for a suitable lie, Lucia straightened to her full—inconsiderable—height, ready to squeal. ‘I’m not actually a gendarme.’
‘ And? ’
‘And what?’
‘Who are you really?’ she asked, her voice growing softer. ‘And why do you turn up everywhere you shouldn’t?’ Finally releasing him, she spread her hands, indicating the entirety of Saint-Jeannet in a more sombre mirror of Lucia earlier. ‘Rather suspicious, really.’
‘I’m a soldier.’
‘You’re a long way from the front.’
Jules gritted his teeth. This was getting dangerous. ‘Well, you see. Funny story actually—’
‘Not another one,’ Caterina drawled.
He shot her a wry look. ‘Not funny ha-ha.’
‘Neither was the last.’
‘I mean, this one isn’t supposed to be funny.’
‘Enough,’ Selene snapped, her fingers tapping a rhythm on her elbow. ‘What is this, a comedy duo? I hate to break it to you, neither of you are funny.’
‘It doesn’t sound like you hate breaking it to them,’ Lucia stage-whispered.
Before Selene could respond, Caterina snapped her fingers. ‘I just figured out how I know his face.’
Selene’s brow edged up irritably. ‘Share it with the whole class, Altamura.’
‘He’s a deserter.’ With quiet triumph Caterina reached into her inner pocket and pulled out a familiar flyer, folded small.
Selene snatched it.
Caterina and Lucia smirked, sharing a knowing look when she accidentally tore it along the softened crease and had to hold its edges together beside his face. Her eyes flicked from the flyer to Jules and back again.
‘Corporal Lacroix?’
‘In the flesh.’
‘All right,’ Selene mused softly, slowly folding the flyer once more. ‘Well, I can hardly free you back onto the streets given your desertion. During a time of war, Lacroix, for shame. I suppose I could execute you. There’s a lot to be said for getting it over and done with.’
‘ Wait— ’
‘I really don’t have time for a court martial.’
‘Notoriously onerous procedures,’ Caterina agreed.
‘And boring,’ Lucia added, poking out her lower lip.
Before Jules could say a word, Selene cut off his protest, raising a finger to silence him. ‘All right, you’ve convinced me. I’ll stay your execution by—’ she angled her wrist, checking her watch—‘twelve whole hours.’
Neither Lucia nor Caterina showed any emotion at this. For her part, Selene looked bored.
‘Twelve hours?’ He wondered at his chances if he tried to run for a third time—probably not great.
The Butcher nodded. ‘I’ll give you until we arrive in Rome to convince me that you can be useful.’
What did that even mean to a Roman exorcist?
‘And I want to believe you won’t breathe a word of what truly happened in Nice.’
Jules arched a brow. ‘So no demon?’
‘Certainly not. I didn’t see one, did you?’
He released a slow breath. ‘Nope. It was a … gas explosion?’
‘Starting in the kitchen,’ Selene agreed with a sharp smile.
‘Horrible really. Praise the Deathless God that they experienced no casualties.’
‘And that the Vatican were so quick to respond, I suppose.’
Selene tucked the folded flyer into her pocket. ‘Oh no. We were nowhere near Nice when it happened. And now that I think about it, neither were you.’ She flicked her hand in a silent order and turned for the road.
Caterina grabbed his elbow, propelling him along in her wake. He watched Selene through narrowed eyes as she climbed the shale with sure steps. If he hadn’t known to look for it, he never would have noticed her favouring the arm she’d wounded, cradling it against her torso.
A frisson of alarm shot through him. Why had his skin remained unmarred, when Selene, with all her considerable power, had almost lost an arm to the blaze? The thoughts slid their way through his mind before he banished them. Now was not the time. Not feet away from the infamous Butcher of Rome.
All he’d seen told him Selene had earned her reputation. Their entire conversation had been a game, one he’d been losing from the very first move. He never stood a chance.
The town car idled, waiting for them on the road.
He dragged his feet. Caterina shoved him between the shoulder blades, making his heel skid out from under him.
‘What do you want ?’ he snapped.
‘I want you to come of your own volition or you’ll ride in the trunk. I’ll leave the decision to you.’
‘Some choice.’
‘Don’t say I never gave you anything, kitten.’
He rolled his eyes, sobering as he caught a final glimpse of the ruined town before they rounded the rocky foot of the cliffs. He glanced at Lucia, who walked beside him with light steps, not seeming to struggle at all on the loose shale. ‘So there’s nothing left of Saint-Jeannet?’ he asked quietly.
‘Nothing, I’m afraid.’ Lucia gave him a lingering look. ‘If you really were here for nostalgia, there’s none of that to be had. Only bodies we’re struggling to reclaim. Only death.’
Selene called over her shoulder. ‘This never happened either.’
Jules sneered at her back. ‘Of course it didn’t. And I was never here. And Saint-Jeannet never existed.’
‘That’s the spirit,’ she said cheerfully.