The Fallen (32 page)

Tacit, however, did not look back at him. His focus was solely on the naked figure in front of him.

Hanging upside down, the woman's arms and legs were tied tightly to the walls and rafters by what looked like ropes. On closer inspection Tacit saw that the Sister had been strung up by her own entrails, each limb wrapped in such a way that it tensed white against the strain of her own organs. At her belly was a wide and deep cut, her drying bloodied innards, crimson and blue, slumping down over her withered breasts to the bony line of her chin. Holes had been drilled into her wrists and ankles through which entrails had been threaded and pulled. Tacit had witnessed crucifixions before, when he was younger, but never anything like this, never a victim crucified by their own intestines. No human heart could ever conceive such a horrific desecration.

He turned towards the side of the room, as if intuition called him that way. A chill seemed to emanate from nearby and he could see vomit on the floor. Something caught his attention in the far corner of the room: three coins, piled on top of each other. He stepped over the pools of sick and reached down to pick the money up. Round golden Austro-Hungarian Krone coins.

“What have you got there?” asked Kell.

“A payment for the Ferryman in the east,” he said, weighing the coins in the palm of his closed hand.

SIXTY

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The first suggestion of amber dawn light was feeling its way through the city. One of the three dark-gowned Priests coughed to clear his throat and announce their arrival but there had been no need to do so. In the quiet of the capital at that hour of the morning, Georgi had heard the men's footsteps from the moment they had stepped onto the Trevi Fountain's long flagstone approach.

“The first ritual is complete.” Georgi said, brushing the surface of the water with his fingers. “Did you not feel the change? Did you not sense the gathering powers? Now the second of the three can be performed.”

“What did you do?” asked the Priest, playing awkwardly with his hands at the front of his robe, the other two standing silent either side of him, their heads bowed as if in awe of the man.

“Why do you ask?”

“We have been sent to ask.”

“I see. Does our master in the Holy See wish to know all the sordid little details?”

The lead Inquisitor nodded and Georgi smiled, producing a small soft brown pouch marked with patches of discoloured fabric, tossing it to the member of the Darkest Hand. “I took her eyes, among other things.”

“What am I supposed to do with these?” asked the Priest, holding the damp mottled bag away from him by the tie.

“Whatever you wish. Their value has been spent. They can give no more.”

Georgi smiled and looked up into the tall heights of the Vatican, seeing the dawn brighten behind it.

“They are concerned,” the Priest to his left said, following Georgi's eye to St Peter's Basilica.

“What have they to be concerned about?” Georgi asked. “All is going according to plan. The war in the Carso proceeds as hoped. Word has returned that they have found the one who will be sacrificed, as was foreseen.”

“Tacit,” the leading Priest spoke.

“What about him?”

“We hear that he was seen in the Vatican. In Benigni's office. That Inquisitors cornered him. That they fought.”

Georgi laughed and nodded. “Something to warm Tacit up after his long incarceration, no doubt?”

“Our master doesn't see the funny side of it,” the Priest said, his face grave. “We need to be careful, especially now we know Tacit is back and the Sodalitium Pianum are sniffing around.”

“The Sodalitium Pianum are finished,” Georgi replied, striking with a voice like iron. He turned back to the Trevi Fountain and once more absently brushed the surface of the water, watching the long ripples with something approaching wonder in his eyes. “Benigni is dead. With him gone, the Sodalitium Pianum will collapse.”

“And the file he was gathering on you? On us and our plans?”

“Removed.”

The Priest nodded, relieved to hear this.

“But what of Tacit?” he asked.

“What about him?”

“Does it not worry you that he is back? He might ruin everything?”

But Georgi shook his head. “Have you listened to nothing? Tacit cannot ruin anything, for he is bound up with everything. The prophecy. Without him, we cannot hope to achieve our vision. I promise you, I would be more concerned if Tacit was still rotting in that Inquisitional Prison.” Georgi cracked his knuckles and worked the tension from them. “He must be present, to play his part. Although I doubt he realises yet that he is central to the plan.”

“It just wasn't expected for Tacit to have been drawn to events quite so soon,” said the Priest. “The prophecy, of course, predicts his involvement. We were expecting him to eventually escape from Toulouse, but …”

“Isabella. He loves her,” said Georgi, almost fancifully. He peered into the dark waters of the fountain, staring into its depths for a long time, before continuing to speak. “Even I was surprised by the speed by which he returned to the Vatican and found their safe house. He cares for her very much. I suspected he loved her, but I never realised to what extent.” And then he laughed and shook his head. “Love! What has love ever brought Poldek Tacit other than pain and anguish?” The laughter evaporated on his lips. “You would have thought he would have learnt to control his emotions by now? But that was always his weakness.” Georgi looked back to the surface of the water, his face pink from his outburst.

“Grand Inquisitor Düül,” the lead Priest said, at length.

“What about him?”

“He has taken personal control of the situation. He is using dogs to
track Tacit and those he has fallen in with, enemies against us. They have tracked them to Trastevere Monastery.”

Georgi pondered the news carefully. “Nothing can be done. And nor should it. Our hand must not be revealed, not yet.”

“But what of Tacit, of his safety?”

“Like I said, Tacit is tied up within the prophecy. It was destined to be that he found this path and walks upon it. He will not come to any harm, not until his part is played. But this soldier, the half-wolf, and these other Inquisitors who have joined with them, they are of no consequence. We need to tighten the cordon around the prophecy and remove anyone unnecessary. We cannot risk anything interfering with its true course.

“Make sure our followers fight, and fight hard, but target the soldier and his bitch especially. Kill them, but let Tacit and Sister Isabella live. Let them both go. Let them discover what they must. The prophecy is well advanced. They cannot stop what has begun and they will not know that their role is caught up within it until it is too late.” He looked again at the water's surface, as if it held a fascination, and smiled, watching the sun shatter into a thousand shards across the ripples. “And by then Tacit will be as irretrievably tied to the darkness that is coming as the rest of us. In the meantime, I will carry out the second ritual.” Georgi looked up and smiled, his eyes flashing eagerly. “By doing so, we will not only be a step closer to their returning, but will also have rid ourselves of one of the problems which so concerns you.”

SIXTY ONE

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“They're here!” Tacit cried, his voice like a bark in the silence of the dreadful room. “Inquisitors!”

Trouble had found them, the eruption of brief gunfire confirming his fears. He knew that the three Inquisitors left waiting for them downstairs were now dead.

Kell pushed past him to look himself. From the window he could see
a figure holding a lantern cross the cobbles at speed. Tacit strode past the grim discovery of the hanging Sister, checking the corridor beyond for movement. “Do you know if there's another way out of here?” he called to Kell.

“I don't,” replied Kell urgently, taking out his own gun and stepping alongside. “Only one way to find out. You go right, I go left?”

Sandrine stood between them, her face determined. “Then let us waste no time!” she said, and Henry at once knew what she meant to do.

“No, Sandrine! No!” he cried, stepping to block her path. “You can't fight them. There's too many of them.” Noises came from the depths of the convent, the sound of many boots climbing long creaking wooden staircases, armies of men scouting down dark corridors, all of them drawing nearer to their targets. “They'll be prepared this time. They know what you are, after what happened before at the last safe house.” Tacit was peering both ways down the corridor. He vanished right, Kell going left, both trying to detect the sounds of the coming Inquisitors and the direction from which they were approaching. Sandrine tried to push past Henry, but he caught hold of her arm. “I'm not letting you do this.”

But Sandrine laughed, a short cruel laugh of defiance, and followed it with a cold smile. “Stay here, with her,” she said, looking back at Isabella. “If they break through, take the window and climb to the roof.”

She pulled herself free of Henry's grip and prowled to the door, Henry trailing in her wake, trying to draw her back. She spun on him, a wild terrible look about her. At once his hand gripped unconsciously at the pendant at his neck.

“Get out of here!” she half shouted, half growled at him, before turning back to the door and dropping to her knees. And then Henry did step back, no longer attempting to reason with her, knowing it was too late for negotiation, his heart dredged with fear and angst. His right shoulder hit the wall behind him and he grabbed hold of Isabella, navigating their way through the open door into the bathroom beyond, looking back desperately one final time to see Sandrine's head lolling uncontrollably on her shoulders.

He closed the door and stood against it.

“Do you have it?” he asked Isabella urgently. She looked at him confused before she realised what he meant, dragging the pendant of Francis of Assisi out from under her top. “Good. Keep it on display at all times.” He rose his finger to his lips. “And keep quiet, for God's sake, at least until she's gone.”

Gunfire and cries rattled the corridor outside the residence. A howl,
horrible and vengeful, came from the chamber. Something rocked the corridor outside Malpighi's room, and the cries and gunfire smashed together, a mangled and terrible cacophony.

Inside the bathroom, Henry and Isabella held onto each other, their eyes, wide with fear and loss, filled with tears and focused on the door.

SIXTY TWO

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For a team of Inquisitors attempting to stalk an enemy on the upper floors of a monastery, they were making a hell of a racket. Tacit would have lamented their lack of procedure if it wasn't for the fact they were now his enemy.

He heard the first two Inquisitors long before they appeared on the stairs of the right-hand corridor down which he had run. He took their heads off with two clean shots from his revolver before they had even caught sight of him. The empty casings hadn't even spun from the cylinder and hit the ground before he was down on one knee and fishing in a pocket for replacements.