Chapter 1 - Garrett
Iknew from pictures that Rossaia would be a built-up maze of densely populated stone buildings and cobblestone streets.
But nothing could have prepared me for how lifeless the city felt.
When I stepped out of the train at the central station, I was immediately greeted by the mingling smells of piss and sweat and the swell of hundreds of bodies pressing together.
There was no gate between the station and the city, and I couldn’t help but notice that it would be all too easy for passersby to simply veer to one side, step onto the train, and leave without so much as showing a ticket.
And I wouldn’t blame them.
The station was situated on a small hill overlooking the city—not high enough for a picturesque view, but enough to see the labyrinthine network of streets carved through yellow, pink, and orange stonework buildings.
From here, it almost looked like those buildings were leaning towards one another, threatening to swallow the streets entirely.
Everything cast a shadow. Everything was stone and brick and concrete and glass. And everything stank.
Scanning the crowd for my escort, I pulled a small red handkerchief from my pocket and pressed it against my mouth and nose, breathing in the familiar smell of my own body.
"You’ll get used to it."
The voice came from somewhere behind my left elbow, causing me to gasp so sharply that I nearly inhaled the handkerchief.
When I turned, I was greeted by a wry smile and a raised eyebrow on a face lined with decades of crags and valleys.
He wore a long, black robe with red trim and a red cap atop what was left of his thin, graying hair.
Around him, the crowd parted, eyeing his clothes warily.
The Fratelli were not exactly strangers to the city, but visitors unfamiliar with their work were bound to be surprised by their presence.
"Brother Lucas, I presume?" I finally asked when it became clear he wasn’t going to introduce himself.
He spread his arms slightly and took a mocking bow. "The one and only." He winked. "And you must be Garrett."
"The one and only," I answered, nodding my head.
"You’ll get used to it," he repeated, turning from me and nodding out towards the sprawling mess of a city before us.
"The smell?"
He smirked. "The crowds," he corrected. "I’m not sure what smell you’re talking about. Follow me."
His robes swirled around his ankles as he started forward, not once glancing behind him to ensure I was following.
For a moment, I debated not doing exactly that.
The train behind me still hadn’t left the station.
If I turned around and jumped back on, I could continue all the way to the Adriatic Sea, turning this early mid-life crisis into a simple vacation instead.
After a week on the Italian coast, I could be back in Chicago before my old apartment was rented out.
Turn around. A small, loud part of me whispered. No one would know.
I would know. A larger, quieter voice answered.
And somehow, without even realizing I’d given them permission to do so, my feet began moving. One step at a time, I followed Brother Lucas down the hill and towards the city, until we, too, were swallowed up by the towering stonework.
Whatever I expected of the monastery, the Fratelli Monastery was decidedly not it.
From the outside, the building appeared as nondescript as the rest of the city—several stories of smooth, faded orange stone, lined with windows and a few balconies, with plants and flowers cascading downward from higher floors.
In fact, it blended in so well with the surrounding architecture that I found myself concerned about being able to find it, especially in the dark.
There were no obvious street numbers or building names, no plaque to signal the presence of an ancient order of holy warriors… just plain stonework.
As surreptitiously as possible, while Brother Lucas fumbled with a set of keys from his pocket, I pulled out my phone and dropped a pin on our location. Home, I labeled it, even as my mind fought the designation. Chicago was home.
Chicago would probably never be home again.
Finally, after what felt like an inordinately long time, Brother Lucas succeeded in opening the door.
"This lock will be the death of me," he muttered as he pushed the heavy wooden thing aside and gestured for me to walk ahead of him. "There’s a trick to it, but only Brother Marco has been able to master it. The rest of us simply struggle."
I chuckled agreeably and took in my surroundings as he continued to talk.
"Whatever you do," he said, pushing the door closed once more with both hands, "never leave without your set of keys. All the doors automatically lock, and you will be locked out. And good luck getting anyone to answer the bell. I swear, it’s like a game of not-it, especially early in the morning."
A piece of me stored away his advice for future use, but I was admittedly only partially paying attention. Because the inside of this monastery, if one could even call it that, was nothing like I’d imagined—in the best possible way.
The room was circular, and the floor was polished white marble, so shiny it could almost be used as a mirror.
The walls were stark white and modern, with a series of six black doors evenly spaced around the circle like spokes on a wheel.
The main door, behind us now, was the seventh in the room.
Between each door was a small pillar topped with a vase of red roses, and above those, a series of paintings.
Those were what truly caught my attention.
Each one depicted a different scene—the painting on the furthest left was peaceful.
Humans and merfolk breaking bread along the shores of an ancient canal.
The next showed a council of men, the original Fratelli, as indicated by their robes, arms out, trying to reason with the same merfolk, who now looked vicious and angry.
As I moved rightward through the story, the images became darker and more bleak.
A child washed up on the banks, fish-people hanging from hooks…
in each one, those same merfolk morphed into something more and more sinister.
Finally, the most modern-looking of the images, a group of the Fratelli, banded together, facing off against a gray-skinned, fanged monster with gills along its neck.
I swallowed, eyes drawn to the deep crimson of the blood dripping from the creature’s fangs.
I’d heard the story about the Rossaia monsters—how they were once gentle sea creatures who worked hand in hand with the people of the city before their greed and jealousy turned them into vicious, bloodthirsty killers—but I’d never seen it illustrated so… vividly.
"Don’t worry," Brother Lucas’s voice was gentle, but amused, beside me.
"They don’t actually look like that. Brother Alfredo—the artist—was a bit of an exaggerator, especially in his old age.
He hadn’t been in the field for at least a decade when he painted the last story, and his memory was…
shall we say warped by his own prejudices. "
"So they’re not as terrifying as this?"
He scoffed. "I didn’t say that."
I raised my eyebrows.
"In reality, they’re much more terrifying because they don’t look like this.
In the darkness of the new moon, when they emerge to hunt, they look no different from you or me, or any other innocent human you may come across.
And because the great bulk of them come from the Old King’s family—you’ll learn about that later—most of them are, unfortunately, extremely beautiful women. "
I couldn’t stop the snort that escaped my lips. "I can’t imagine that they’d be that beautiful," I said derisively. "Surely nothing so wicked could remain beautiful with a rotten soul?"
Brother Lucas didn’t answer. He just laughed and strode towards the third door from the left, once again not bothering to check whether I followed.
Eventually, I did, worried that the door would close and lock behind him, leaving me trapped here in the foyer with the disconcerting paintings.
As it turned out, that door was actually an elevator.
It lacked buttons, but I assumed that was because it only went to one of the many floors in the building.
Before the doors slid closed, I glanced once more at the picture of the vampiric monster on the wall, this time looking at its eyes.
They seemed to glow, even in the matte finish of the paint.
I found myself biting the insides of my cheeks, an unbidden rush of fear bubbling up in my stomach.
This is why you came, that small, loud voice whispered in my ear. To do something bigger with your life than working behind a desk and answering emails.
This is what I came for. Monster hunting had found its way into my life, and I was determined to heed its call.