Suicide Kings (24 page)

She shuddered. Could it be possible…could there still be time?

This time they passed unhindered through the city. Seven heavily armed Swiss was enough to dissuade even the largest gangs. Siobhan held her hand tightly as they walked, saying nothing. Diana couldn’t so much as meet her eyes.

The torched books cast their shadows long against the basilica doors. Embers flew about like fireflies. Somewhere in the crowd a woman screamed.

Agon climbed the stone steps to the basilica door, tried the handle, banged on the solid wood with a mailed fist. He turned to one of his men. “Crack it open.”

Silent, like a zombie, the Swiss broke apart the door lock and pulled open the big doors. Into the cold void they shuffled leaving the fiery mass behind them. One of the Swiss set about lighting candles inside the nave. Just left of the entrance stood the tomb of Isabella Savrano. A stone plate marked the spot where her coffin recessed into the wall. Entwined with it, two female angels stared with cold marble eyes, wings unfurled, daring the onlooker to defile the sepulcher.

Diana stood before it, nails driving grooves into her palms. “Mother,” she whispered.

“Get it open,” Siobhan ordered stepping in front of her, nearer to the sarcophagus.

Agon’s men moved past her, pry bars ready. They went at the stone face without hesitation. With all they must have done and seen in their lives, the mere act of desecrating a grave must have been a minor matter indeed. They groaned and grimaced as they heaved and pushed their weight against the metal bars. Screams split the frigid air as stone ground against metal. At last the stone plate broke free and collapsed to the ground, shattering into several big pieces.

Siobhan gasped and leapt back. Diana stood her ground, ignoring the pain as flecks of granite pierced her ankles.

“Hold, in the name of the Republic!” Swords were drawn. Shouts were raised. Diana turned. Republic gendarmes, a half dozen or more. As she watched one got too close and a Swiss blade lunged. The gendarme managed to block it and retreated back to the circle of his comrades. Half a dozen gendarmes would never be a match for an equal number of her Swiss. Yet behind the first half dozen would be another and another.

“Our business is none of yours!” Agon shouted back at them.

Diana opened her mouth, but no words came.

“You are defiling sacred ground,” responded a shadow at the door, a silhouette against the inferno in the square. Weaponless, the figure strode in through the gendarmes with a cool confidence that put even the Swiss to hesitation. Finally, he moved into the light of the candles.

“Niccolo,” Diana gasped.

His eyes went wide. “Lady Savrano, how have you come to be at the center of this madness?”

Siobhan stepped in front of him. “We’ve just this night taken the nun Sister Francesca from death’s grip. We’ve come to do the same for Isabella Savrano.”

Niccolo frowned at her words. He looked to Diana.

“My mother,” she pleaded. “Nightshade.”

Niccolo looked to the tomb, already half opened. After a heartbeat he motioned to the Swiss. “Proceed.”

The threat of battle eased, they turned back to the open tomb. Two of them reached in, arms and torsos into the gaping maw of the mausoleum. They heaved and hauled out the front half of Isabella’s heavy coffin. As they pulled it free, more of the Swiss moved to take up the middle section and the end.

A smell like forgotten wet clothes hung heavy in the cold air. It could be just the natural smell of the dank tomb, couldn’t it?

Niccolo looked at her, his expression tight and difficult to read.

Diana didn’t know what to expect. Her mother had lain in the tomb for days. Even if she had been paralyzed by nightshade as Francesca had been, did any hope remain that she might live? The basilica grew cold, especially at night. Could her mother survive in such conditions for so long? Perhaps it hadn’t been nightshade at all. If her mother had killed herself, certainly she wouldn’t have chosen such an uncertain method. If it had been someone else, what purpose was served in such a torturous death?

Niccolo motioned with his fingers. “Open it.”

Diana held her breath. Inside could be her mother, still alive, rescued like Francesca. Nothing could bring greater joy to Diana’s heart. A remote hope to be sure, but she dared to think it might be possible. If God had any love for her at all, could he not grant her just this one thing…that she was not too late to save her mother?

Agon put a pry bar between the coffin lid and body and pushed down, forcing the nails loose. He knelt, fingers under the now loosened lid. Lifting from his legs, he heaved, pulled the lid open. From the top of the lid, tatters of lining hung down, torn apart as if by some animal. Lines were gored into the wood of the coffin lid itself. The odor of mildew became pervasive, stinging Diana’s nose. She stepped forward.

Siobhan, closer to the casket, gasped, a hand coming up to her mouth. She turned and gaped at Diana. Past her, rising up just past the lid, fingers stretched out, flesh emaciated and clinging to the bone. Like claws, they hung frozen, immobile in the cold. A glint from a lantern reflected something embedded in the coffin lid. Stuck in a tract of brown, a fingernail.

Siobhan moved to block Diana’s way. “Don’t,” she said. “There’s nothing to be done.”

Diana shoved her aside. All eyes were on her, the Swiss, the gendarmes, Niccolo. There could be no mistaking the collective look, sorrow, uncertainty, horror. It didn’t matter, she had to see for herself.

Forward she moved, until the clawed fingers revealed arms like the wings of a baby bird. A jolt of a memory—Diana stroking the cold flesh on the night of her mother’s burial. The flesh hadn’t been blemished. She’d taken notice of it on Francesca, why not with her own mother?

Diana could see her mother’s burial dress now, already staining from the process of decay. Above them her mother’s arms reached up, skeletal, as if to embrace her. Her mother stared at her, face sunken in, the flesh mottled and gray. Her eyes were open; lifeless orbs covered with milky glaze. Around her face, her long dark hair still framed the process of death in a kind of ironic beauty. Her mother’s mouth hung open, teeth bared like an angry dog, lips pulled back in the unmistakable rictus of a terrified death scream.

A touch on her arm. Diana shrugged it away violently. Her hands covered her mouth, eyes strained open so wide that the corners hurt. A sound in her ears like the rushing of a vicious ocean deafened her. When she opened her mouth, it felt as if her soul came rushing out in one long breath. If she screamed, she could not hear it.

She stared up at the others, at her Swiss guardians. Where so recently they had looked upon her as a miracle, now their eyes quivered. Agon, could only gape at her. The gendarmes collectively skitted back as if she were some form of haunting. Niccolo stepped forward, his mouth moved. She couldn’t hear what he said. He reached out with one hand but Diana recoiled. She could not bear human touch.

Through the mass of bodies she rushed. Where she moved, each of them stepped away, giving her easy access to the open door. The sound in her ears pounded, throbbed, and became louder still. She ran as if to escape it, but it followed her endlessly. Out into the night she burst, and the cold served to contrast cruelly with her fervor. The bonfire raged ever higher, and for a moment she thought to fling herself on the conflagration. Instead she turned, turned to the right for no particular reason and ran as fast as she could. Away from Siobhan, away from Niccolo and the other men in the church, away from the accusing glare of her mother’s body.

She had failed, failed to save her mother when she might have done so. There would be no excuses, no forgiveness, no redemption. She could only run, ignoring the others on the street, ignoring the burning behind her, ignoring the crippling pains in her lungs as she sucked in lifeless air. At last her body could take no more and she collapsed against the corner of a building. Bereft of energy, she found herself immersed in the most painful and unimaginable void ever.

Chapter Fourteen

The Unkindest Cut of All

On and on, round and round, Diana walked the streets of Firenze. Around her in the dark the city still tittered. Ash and snow mixed in the sky. Forms gathered together in the streets or lurked in doorways. They stared at Diana as she passed, watching, sometimes whispering together, but none of them approached her. She, in turn, took little enough notice of them.

Black, hateful emotions swirled within her chest, tearing at her organs like a ravenous beast. Should she have taken someone into her confidence and attempted to relay her feelings, she could never have done them justice. Losing her mother was bad enough. Knowing she had failed to save her defied comfort.

Cold and tired she found herself outside an inn, a weary old place that catered to traveling merchants of modest means. Here the streets were reasonably quiet. Savonarola’s bonfire glowed in the distance, orienting her to where she had wandered. Most of the excitement in Firenze centered closer to the flames. Here, she stood alone in a remote corner of Hell.

Her joints hurt and she could no longer feel her fingers. She looked up at the plain wooden door. She couldn’t go back home…face her father. She couldn’t bear the thought of anyone’s eyes on her. She’d crack open.

Placing one cold hand on the rickety wooden railing, she ascended the stairs to the doorway in fatigue. An unsteady hand worked the knob and her shoulder nudged the thin door aside. Wearily, she shuffled in.

A small blaze glowed in a simple fireplace in one corner, the only illumination in the room beyond. Still it offered a fragile reprieve from the frost. Diana’s eyes scanned the room. Behind a simple wooden desk an old man lingered. Probably the bonfire had kept him awake, a spot of luck for her given the hour. He eyed her suspiciously, as if she might have been a ghost passing immaterial through the wooden door.

She couldn’t manage to look him in the eye. “I’d like a room.”

He cleared his throat, an unpleasant sound rich in fluids. “You’ll be wanting a fire and warm water for bathing?”

“Just the fire,” Diana said, her voice barely a whisper. “No amount of water can cleanse me tonight.”

“So be it.” He produced a simple iron key and crossed out from behind his desk. His body wobbled from one side to another as he walked. He passed in front of her toward a narrow flight of stairs leading up into pitch black. Diana could only guess she was meant to follow. Up they went, Diana feeling her way by the railing. A hallway on the floor above blessedly shown with the light of a single candle protected by glass. Rows of unmarked doors lined the narrow hall. Diana might easily have been in a mausoleum.

The old man went to one door and opened it with the key. He left the door open for her, continuing down the hall to light an ember with the candle. Moments later, he returned, using the ember to light kindling in a small fireplace. As the wood sprang to flame, Diana could see her accommodations. The room was of moderate size, bigger than she might have expected. The bed also was larger than she guessed, an old four-poster with thick mattress. True the covers were worn and the wood scratched, but it promised comfort. A small table and chair were unremarkable, as was a tin tub for bathing. A long mirror hung against one wall, and Diana’s pale reflection flickered in the light. She looked away.

Next to the bed a chamber pot, still smelling faintly of urine. Two big windows looked out over the street. As fortune would have it, she could see Savonarola’s bonfire perfectly. If the old man had thoughts about the conflagration, he kept them to himself. Instead he turned to her and said merely, “You’ve got the copper?”

She produced a silver coin and held it aloft between two fingers. Its reflection glimmered in the old man’s eyes. Slowly he reached out and took it from her like some kind of exotic beast. She could feel his eyes on her, appraising her. She stared at the floor.

“If you need anything,” he grunted.

She nodded and he left, closing the door softly.

As the fire took life, the worst of the cold receded. It was enough for her to shrug off her coat, pull the awkward holster off her shoulder. She withdrew the pistol and placed it gingerly on the simple table. Then she sat on the edge of the bed and sank her face in her hands.

Dear God, how things had gone so horribly wrong. Now, alone in this alien room, her grief poured out of her like from an arterial wound. Her body shuddered, and tears poured from her eyes, blocked only by feeble fingers. Her mother, her poor mother, how she had failed her. She’d gone on her hunt for murderers, picking her way mindlessly around the city…whilst all the while her mother lay trapped and terrified in her coffin. How things might have been different had she taken a moment to visit her mother’s grave.

Savonarola had even given her a clue, telling her about the cries the priests had ascribed to ghosts. If only she’d taken a moment to think about what Savonarola had said. Could she have saved her mother?

Now her mother was dead for sure. No mistaking it this time. The image of her mother, skin mottled, clawed fingers reaching out for salvation that never came. That image she could never forget. It was her responsibility. Might as well have been her that slipped poison to her mother.

She could have saved her. She could have saved her…could have saved her.

A flare from outside caught Diana’s attention. Through the window a column of flame shot up from the bonfire as something shifted within the burning mass. A wall of sound quickly followed this as the crowd hooted and hollered their appreciation of the burning. Individual pages rose up into the air on drafts of warm air, their edges glowing with flame. Each returned to the ground only as cold ashes. There, before her eyes, ideas burned. It seemed like the world itself no longer made any sense. The city itself slid toward Hell, with Diana one of its trapped denizens.

She rubbed her temple. Her head throbbed with one of her worst headaches. For once she thought the pain well deserved. She’d become such an utter failure. Her mother dead due to her own incompetence, the mission to find her killers going nowhere, her own life in constant danger. No longer could she bear it. Some other person could take all of this—someone stronger than herself. Every person had their breaking point, and she had reached hers. It would be so much easier if it had been her who had taken the poison. She could be resting quietly in her own grave rather than wallowing in this misery. It happened all the time, didn’t it? God called people back, even those still in their youth. Why not her? Couldn’t it just as easily be her? If God willed it, he could take her life.