CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
C rack . The ring of metal nails through wood was distant. It didn’t concern Jules. Crack .
He towered over Rome, but it was a Rome he didn’t recognize. The Vatican was smooth and pale, instead of the thing bent on violence and martial primacy it had become.
And he wasn’t Jules .
Looking at his hands, he saw that gold blood ran through his veins, his fingers were tanned and strong, his nails pale moons. These were not his hands. And this was not Selene’s Rome. What little remained of Jules’s mind was consumed by the Deathless God’s memories. Smoke rose in billows that blackened the sky as, all around, Rome burned, fires licking toward the sky. Below him, the steady pace of life accelerated as fear spread like a plague through the winding streets.
Jules— not Jules —stepped from the edge of the roof, and by the time he landed with force on the broad flagstones below, any tattered remnants of his mind inside the memory were gone. The stones ruptured beneath his feet, but he barely felt it through bones that were built to withstand so much more and muscles like corded steel.
Turning, he caught his reflection in the paintwork of a shiny black car. A crown of briars was twined in his hair, the soft petals of pink roses standing out against dark curls. Wicked curved thorns protruded through his hair. This pale imitation was all he had left to show for his rightful place.
Rightful place? The thought flickered and was gone, replaced entirely by now as a frisson of energy licked up his spine. He pivoted, facing the one he knew would come.
And, sure enough, the Kairos woman stepped from the shadows beneath Bernini’s colonnade. She was as beautiful now as she had ever looked in his bed. He could see the threads of chaos spreading from the tips of her fingers, extending into the city.
His heart broke and he turned his head away, not wanting her to see pain steal across his face. ‘I missed you this morning,’ he said softly, rubbing the pad of his thumb over his lower lip. ‘When I woke up you were gone.’
She smiled, flashing pearlescent teeth. ‘Places to be, cities to burn. You know how it is, Arius.’
A wordless hiss escaped his lips at her use of his name. Stolen now that she was no longer beneath him, tangled in his sheets.
Her amusement died. ‘Apologies, my king.’ She shifted, drawing something from beneath her coat and set it atop her own raven hair, smiling slightly. A smile reserved for the cat that got the cream. ‘But aren’t you missing something?’
The silver diadem was the wrought-metal version of the briars that twisted in his hair, and to see it stolen like she’d stolen his name made him angry. In the moments of quiet between her revealing his stolen crown and the moment their fight began, he saw it play out.
The way she would draw her weapon of choice, the spear of her family, from thin air and they would clash all across this holy place, a place humans valued and that should be respected. But he did not choose to destroy this city, though destroy it he would. Finally his love would kill him, slamming the spear into his chest, splitting his ribs for her satisfaction. But not before he exorcised her, sending her home. He would wound her soul so she could not return. Not for perhaps another two hundred years. Time enough for his father to decide on a plan. To protect these small, strange creatures. This … humanity .
Yes, he would die. But death was something he could live with.
‘Kill me if you can, my love.’
‘Your wish, my command,’ she purred, hand striking out, punching through the fabric of reality as charcoal smoke coalesced around her wrist, and she yanked the spear of her blood from the other side. ‘Anything for my uncrowned king .’
Valeria!
Agony. Yearning. Despair.
Beneath his own emotions, Jules could feel the same from the Deathless God.
Please … let me die.
Pain was the first thing Jules knew as he was ripped out of the Deathless God’s memories and into his own head. Agony shot up his arm from his hand.
There was a loud crack and he slipped, his feet hitting a hard surface before he fell to his knees, hanging by one arm.
He screamed, agonizing pain shaking him out of his half-sleep.
Kian was the first thing he saw, his expression as wild as his flame-hued hair as he hacked through the chains around Jules’s wrist, the sound ringing like a hammer. A bloody spike had been discarded on the stones beside him, and Jules raised a hand to his face. A gaping hole had been carved through his palm.
Dreading what he’d find, he looked up. But his other arm was only bound by chains to the crossbeams behind him. They hadn’t had time to drive in the second nail.
‘Kian …’
As the chain broke beneath Kian’s assault, Jules fell to the cobbled stones. The winter sun hung low over the rooftops now, stretching Jules’s shadow beneath his feet as he tried and failed to stand.
The wordless presence of the Deathless God was impossible to ignore. A sharp pain behind his eyes spread into a raging headache. The immense weight of God’s mind against his own affected his entire body. It was like an enormous hand grasped his chest, tightening its fingers by the inch. He slid back into a sitting position, too tired to hold himself up.
Kian dropped down beside him. ‘I’ve got you. Let’s get out of here.’
Jules’s head lolled and he saw feet. He trailed the feet to the legs, tossed akimbo in the unmistakable repose of death. Kian had killed someone to get to him. ‘He said I wouldn’t die. I don’t think he let me die.’
‘What?’ Kian asked.
Jules squeezed his eyes shut.
‘No time, boyo. We’re walking.’ Kian slapped his cheeks. ‘That crazy blonde shorty and the tall scary one are covering our retreat.’
Jules tried to push himself up, but his legs were weak.
‘Who are … you,’ Jules began hoarsely, ‘to call anyone shorty ?’
The ache in his skull made everything seem slightly dimmer than it had before. Why did the Deathless God want to hurt him? Before the question fully formed, he knew the answer: God was suffering.
It echoed through him, through his ligaments and joints, filling Jules and … and emptying him of everything else. The Deathless God’s suffering was his now.
Kian pulled him up, an arm around his waist to force him on.
Jules stiffened, fighting Kian’s guiding hand. ‘No.’
Kian shot him an aggrieved look, tightening his hand on his arm. ‘Move. You’re not going back there.’
‘I have to go—’
‘I won’t let you die again.’
‘Again?’
Kian swallowed audibly. ‘I thought I was too late, Jules …’
Jules finally pulled his eyes up to look at him, reaching up a hand to roughly cup his cheek, bringing his face close so he could press his forehead to Kian’s. ‘You weren’t.’
Kian gave Jules’s forehead a bump. ‘Not through lack of trying.’
Jules winced but a grin stole across his face. ‘Gotta keep you on your toes.’
‘If you wanted me any more on my toes, I’d need pointe shoes.’ Kian laughed, but the sound was strained and he looked toward Bernini’s colonnade. ‘Please, Jules … we need to run.’
Jules shook his head again. ‘Selene—’
‘Sparrow’s here. He’s taken Selene her sword. Like you wanted. So let’s go .’
Jules gripped Kian’s neck as he struggled around to face the Vatican. ‘I have to free my father.’
Jules followed the Deathless God’s pain and Kian grudgingly joined him. But he didn’t let Jules think for a second that he agreed with the plan. Only fear for Selene kept Jules moving, and he only knew the way because he was drawn by the Deathless God’s suffering.
Rushing in—his usual strategy—would only get him killed. Worse, it could get Selene killed. If Cesare was anything like her, he was formidable.
They passed through a familiar five-pointed corridor. A memory that felt as distant as Ostrava returned; he’d seen a map in Matteo Alleva’s notebook that morning. Matteo had painstakingly recreated the halls of the Vatican, the Cor Cordium and stairs, hidden within the dome of St Peter’s. Inside the walls .
He knew where he had to go.
When he arrived at the silent Vatican necropolis, he wished very much that Selene was there with him. The dark ironwork gate blocked the entrance. Beyond it, the damp stone and carved skeletons atop their tombs gave him pause. Ignoring his prickling neck, Jules examined the lock.
‘This is what they have guarding their dead?’ Kian wondered aloud, grabbing the lock and then dropping it with a noisy clang. ‘Looks to me like they’re asking to be robbed, boyo.’
Jules laughed. He slid the knife into the lock and with his eyes closed, and with Kian’s narration in his ears, he unlocked the gate.
An image pressed itself to his consciousness.
A hand. Selene. Her slender, breakable neck beneath his fingers.
… the intent to kill …
He had to hurry.
At the far end of the tomb, Jules saw a destroyed altar to some forgotten god. It had been rebuilt to the Deathless God, but Jules could see the charred remains of the past. Resting atop it was a cross. He reached to touch it, fingers trailing over it before he yanked his hand back, breath coming short and sharp as an oily wrongness seemed to coalesce, coating the hand he’d used to reach close.
Without needing to be told, or knowing how he knew it, Jules was certain that these bones were Elysian. They’d been plucked out of one of his own kind. He had to wonder what they would do if they caught him again. Would they cut him to pieces? Use his strong bones for weapons? For blood or for magic? Would they unwind his eyes in cruel experiments to learn how his very flesh might best serve the Vatican? Only then would they let him die.
He considered the Deathless God, and thought grimly, Maybe not even then . He curled trembling fingers into a fist.
The mosaic of blue lapis, red glass and gold behind the altar was beautiful, but Jules had no respect left for beauty when it served only the Vatican. Beyond it were the stairs he needed. He smashed the mosaic with his elbow.
That putrid scent blew from within the catacombs once more and Jules held himself in place, his hand rising to cover his nose. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he saw the way the stone was being eaten away as if by acid. The steady drip-drip of golden blood was leaching through the floor and destroying the foundation of this corrupt place.
Jules tore his eyes away. The stairs spiralled up and out of sight.
Kian stopped, his complexion ashen.
Jules hesitated, impatience making his voice rough. ‘What?’
‘I can’t go with you.’
‘Stop joking around—’
‘Jules, I can’t go near him. I wouldn’t be able to refuse his commands.’
Of course … before Kian was Jules’s best friend, he had been his father’s. Jules remembered the terrible voice in his mind begging for death. Would Jules have been able to refuse that request if he loved him?
Pulling himself through the gap he’d made in the mosaic, Jules crouched to look back at Kian. His face looked pale and small. He didn’t want to leave him. Reaching past the shattered tile, he scrubbed fingers through Kian’s flame-like hair. ‘Thank you for coming back for me.’
Kian grinned. ‘It’s my job to get your ass out of trouble. One might even say it’s my raison d’être .’
Jules laughed, crossing his arms on his knees. ‘Don’t make me that, boyo. Too much responsibility for me.’
‘Responsibility or culpability?’ Kian’s expression became sombre. ‘Be careful, Jules. He may be your father, but he doesn’t know that. And even if he did … he’s been suffering a long time.’
Jules nodded, then stood to go up the stairs. ‘I already know. I’m afraid his mind’s broken.’