CHAPTER ELEVEN
S elene strode into the field office. Glancing up from his notebook, Eliot lifted the nib of his pen off the page before the ink could bleed. He raised a brow in silent question. So? What have you decided? He still knew her so well.
It had been a short stop in Saint-Jeannet, but it was long enough for her to confirm that it had been Baliel and his distinctive blue flames who destroyed the village.
‘I’m returning to Rome. I’ve seen enough here.’
‘You sure that’s wise?’
She considered that. ‘I saw Baliel’s body undone with my own eyes. That would slow even him down.’
‘And when he returns?’
She recalled the demon’s words. Vatican. At the heart.
When he returned, it wouldn’t be to Nice. It would be to Rome. ‘Nice will be safe.’
Eliot twirled his pen around his finger and thumb, watching her with an expression she couldn’t read. When had his eyes become so liquid deep and knowing ? She felt as though he could see right through her. He didn’t argue, instead he nodded out the open door where Jules chatted easily with Lucia and Caterina. Even handcuffed, he was utterly charming as he won over her subordinates.
‘Who is he?’ Eliot asked.
Though unmarked by the flames that had burned her so terribly, Jules did have a sooty smudge on his cheek. Still, he was as magnetically handsome as the first time she’d seen him ever so briefly in the Gare de Nice-Ville.
She dragged her eyes off Jules Lacroix. Instead of answering, she said, ‘Eliot, I have a favour to ask …’
They waited at a nearby station. If a single small platform in a field could even be called that. Early crocuses dotted the grass, turning blue faces to the evening sky.
Icy wind whipped Selene’s hair against her cheeks and frustration bit at her. She tried not to dwell on the boy who’d turned up like a bad penny at two of the three scenes visited by the demon Baliel. She knew there was something she ought to remember, but it kept slipping through her fingers like sand. What she recalled of the fight had been rent by half-remembered agony. Magic had saved her arm, barely, but it had done little for the pain.
No matter. She didn’t need her memories to know there was more to Corporal Jules Lacroix than met the eye.
‘Lucia?’ She crooked her finger, calling her over. ‘How badly wounded was he? Did you heal him?’
Lucia shook her head. ‘It wasn’t me.’
How had he gone up against the Duke of Briars and walked away with not even a scratch?
‘Huh.’ Selene adjusted her grip on her travel case.
Her arm had finished healing while she slept. Lucia had outdone herself. The flesh was smooth, blending seamlessly with her unburned shoulder. Still, she felt the cold keenly this close to the Alps, especially the wind’s freezing breath on her new skin.
Tightening his wool coat against the chill, Eliot took Lucia’s place at Selene’s side. He nodded past the woods where pale smoke drifted into the sky. ‘Train’s nearly here.’ He set down his case and drew a dossier from beneath his elbow. ‘As you requested.’
She thumbed the soft edges of the portfolio’s contents.
Curiosity got the best of her when she felt the sharp corner of a photograph. Opening it up, she skimmed Jules’s military records in the copper light of the lanterns, drawing out the photo of him as a fifteen-year-old conscript. So very young.
She glanced past Eliot through the flurry of her wind-whipped hair. Jules stood between Caterina and Lucia at the far end of the platform. There was a peal of laughter as Lucia threw her head back at something Jules said, and even Caterina paused her efficient motions to smile, grease streaking her naked fingers as she cleaned and oiled her gatling.
The whistle of the train drew her back. ‘Thank you,’ she said belatedly.
Eliot watched Selene with an expression she couldn’t read.
Hesitantly he reached up, pushing her hair behind her ear so he could properly see her face. Eliot and his serious dark eyes. Those at least were the same. He dropped his hand when the engine came into view, breathing its smoke into the evening.
Moving to take Jules’s elbow, Eliot silently indicated the train easing into the station. A porter smartly whipped open the brass door to the first-class carriage and ushered them inside.
‘Are you sure about this, boss?’ Caterina asked in a low voice, stopping beside her. ‘He’s a deserter. You can’t trust him.’
Selene turned the dossier in her hands. ‘He fought in our army for four years. That kind of dedication doesn’t disappear overnight. He won’t try anything, Caterina, and even if he does …’ She trailed off. Let Caterina infer what she would.
The whistle blasted and the train began inching along the platform. ‘Oh, and—’ Selene looked her subordinate up and down. ‘Altamura, why is the prisoner wearing your coat?’
Taking a few quick steps, Selene leapt onto the step and gripped the handle, calling back to Caterina and Lucia. ‘I’ll be in touch when we arrive in Rome. See if you can’t pinpoint Baliel’s movements. I want to know everything he did between Saint-Jeannet and la Bibliothèque Généalogique . Understand?’
‘Boss.’
Lucia skipped after the train, waving. Caterina leaned one shoulder against a filigreed lamp post. The light cast her face into extremes.
Selene raised a hand in farewell—just for a moment—then they were out of sight.
The train felt like a living creature as it thundered through the French countryside toward Rome. It was a vastly different experience to Jules’s icy journey from Ostrava. Instead of a draughty cargo car, they travelled in luxury. The first-class cabin was warm, scented by rich coffee and walnut-coloured leather. The ceiling was vaulted, ribbed with dark wood and painted to look like a spring sky.
They had bid adieu to Caterina and Lucia in Saint-Jeannet. A shame. They were just beginning to warm to him. Now he’d have to start over. He glanced at Selene in the reflection of the train window and grimaced. He didn’t fancy his chances.
Her lashes were low, shadowing her eyes as she wrote in sharp little strokes of her pen, crossing ‘t’s aggressively and not even bothering with the ‘i’s. Probably a waste of time , he thought. But when she did her ‘y’s, they looped double.
His brows drew together. Not so easy to pin down after all.
Outside the train windows, France sped by. The rocky hills climbing to soaring peaks that made up the French Alps, all of it carpeted in pure white snow.
Without looking up from a leather portfolio bursting with handwritten pages, Selene broke the silence. ‘Why do you think I brought you with me, Lacroix?’
Her musical Roman accent made his name military hard. Or maybe it was just her lips. Plush and lovely as they were, they were like the rest of her—intolerant of time wasted.
They were presently alone in the spacious cabin—the male exorcist, Eliot, was off doing whatever exorcists did when they weren’t strutting about satisfying their saviour complexes.
Jules smiled, leaning back in his seat, and laced his fingers behind his head. ‘How could one such as me expect to know the dark, still waters of your mind, exorcist?’
He saw the dimple in her cheek as she bit the inside of her mouth. Oh, she was too easy .
‘Don’t be evasive.’
He smiled easily, showing teeth. ‘I’m not. I’m genuinely asking a question. So now you’re being evasive.’
‘I am not—’ She cut herself off, laughing humourlessly. ‘ Oh . Oh, you’re the worst.’
‘I’ve been reliably informed that I’m the best.’
‘The best at wha—’ She bit off the question, realization dawning.
Damn, so close . Maybe next time .
Selene leaned forward, drawing a knife from her boot. Face set to neutral, she flipped it between her fingers and used the tip to push against her cuticle. Her voice was soft when she said, ‘You survived the Battle of Drowning Ostrava—’
‘Is that what they’re calling it? Tad sensationalized.’
She continued as though he hadn’t spoken. ‘You survived a demon duke.’ He tried not to react, his attention sharpening. ‘And most impressively, you survived Catarina Altamura. Twice. And you plan to die, here, today, on this train?’
He swallowed, throat suddenly dry.
Her expression said, That’s what I thought . ‘So why not have a conversation? Answer my questions, without sarcasm or innuendo, and maybe we can reach an accord.’
He frowned, thinking of her words. A demon duke. He’d never heard those words in that order before. It almost made the demons sound civilized , not something he could have imagined on the front lines. It made him curious. What other secrets was the Vatican hiding?
‘You wanted to kill me,’ he reminded her.
‘Still sore about that? I changed my mind.’
‘Oh yes, a twelve-hour stay of execution. So generous.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Hypersensitive baby.’
‘It’s not hypersensitive to want to survive the day.’ A muscle feathered in Selene’s jaw as her veneer of patience fractured. He noted the way her hand stilled on the knife. ‘Fine. What did you want to talk about, exorcist?’ He tried to spread his hands, but the chains hindered his movement. Jangling the cuffs obnoxiously, he added, ‘I really hate to break it to you, but if you have to tie them up first, the friendship’s probably one-sided.’
Taunting the exorcist gave him the same thrill of adrenaline he’d been missing since leaving the front. The exhilaration of facing down death with careless abandon.
Crazy motherfucker , he heard in echo.
Selene sat back, watching him from beneath her lashes. ‘Get your boots off the seat.’
‘Make me.’
‘I promise you don’t want me to do that,’ she said with deadly quiet.
He raised a brow. ‘I’ve been on the front lines a long time, lovely. You’d be surprised what I’d do to get a girl’s attention.’
‘Are you trying to provoke me?’ Selene battled the urge to grind her teeth.
‘Whatever for? I’m terrified of you.’
She searched his expression, finding nothing close to terror there. ‘Not nearly terrified enough. Is this funny to you?’
A crooked smile tempted his lips. ‘Maybe. I might as well laugh on the way to the gallows.’
‘Crucifix,’ she corrected.
He blanched.
‘As a deserter, you’d typically die by firing squad. But Roman law dictates the method of execution within the city limits. We prefer crucifixion. It’s kind of symbolic. You can thank the Phoenicians for lending us that. But of course we Romans perfected it.’ She resumed pushing back her cuticles with the tip of her boot dagger. Downside: having something to do with her hands prevented her strangling him. Upside: it would make stabbing him easier. ‘So crucifix, you see? Not gallows.’
He stood to pace, thus removing his boots from the tufted leather.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘Hanging, firing squad …’ His throat bobbed with a swallow. ‘ Crucifixion . It’s something of a moot point given I ultimately end up dead.’
‘You wouldn’t say that if you’d ever witnessed a crucifixion, Lacroix.’
He strode between the door and window and finally decided to lean— casually —against the doorframe. As casually as he could cuffed by metal that had been quenched in the blood of the Deathless God and carved with sacramental symbols for strength and durability—and one particular sigil that would cause intense suffering for any demon trapped within its grip. Unfortunately that one didn’t appear to work on him or he’d look far less smug and far more tormented.
A pity .
At least she knew he wasn’t a demon.
Selene rubbed two fingers between her brows as if to coax her faded memories to return. There was more to Jules Lacroix than met the eye. She didn’t need proof. She knew it to the marrow of her bones.
His throat fluttered. If she listened closely, she could hear his heart thudding. What is he hiding? Selene wanted to unwrap him, uncoil his sinew and muscle and skin until she could see to the heart of the issue. Then she might dissect that too.
She slid the knife back into her boot. ‘Enough games.’ As though he was a frightened animal, Selene approached Jules carefully, palms up. See? No dagger.
He watched her warily.
‘In fact, I don’t want to kill you. If I did, you wouldn’t have survived Saint-Jeannet. Far less paperwork that way. Only a verbal report to my superiors.’ Winning hearts and minds, not her strong suit.
‘Comforting,’ he said dryly.
‘It should be. I loathe paperwork.’
And she loathed mysteries.
Particularly mysteries in the gorgeous packaging of a young French soldier. She hadn’t told Caterina and Lucia what happened at the orphanage or what she suspected—though suspected was perhaps too strong a word given she only half remembered most of it—but Caterina would eventually figure out that Selene would never drag a soldier all the way to Rome for court martial if there wasn’t more to it than simple desertion.
The clock was already ticking.
But that was a future Selene problem.