The Fallen (34 page)

SIXTY SIX

R
OME
. I
TALY
.

Inside the monastery, Tacit had cleared the building of Inquisitors, as far as he could tell, and had gone back up into the upper floors. He kicked the bathroom door within Sister Malpighi's residence off its hinges and immediately deflected the aimed rifle-butt with his right forearm. He wrenched it free and pointed a finger at its wielder.

“It's me,” he growled, handing the weapon back to Henry.

“Thank God. Is it –”

“Over?” Tacit shook his head. “No, but the fighting has moved away from the monastery.” Isabella ran into his arms and he embraced her, pulling her close to him for a moment.

“Kell?” asked Henry.

Tacit grimaced and shook his head.

“Sandrine?” he asked, even more urgently.

“Not seen her. Come on,” Tacit said, stepping back out through the door of the bathroom and past the hanging body of the Sister for the final time. “Let's get out of here.”

“How did they know we were here?” asked Isabella.

“We were ambushed.” Tacit pressed his fingers hard into his exhausted eyes. His head throbbed with noise and the early tightening screws of a hangover.

“The Inquisition, they ambushed us,” said Henry, his words simmering with rage. “They knew we'd be here.”

“Grand Inquisitor Düül,” muttered Tacit.

“Who the hell is he?”

“Someone to avoid. That's who he is. They tracked us, with dogs.”

“Are they still here?” asked Isabella, her hand to her neck.

“No, they've moved off. Sounds like they've got more pressing problems to deal with.”

“Such as?”

At that moment howls tore across the skyline of Rome and Isabella had her answer.

They ran down the corridor, following Tacit without hesitation or question. Henry looked back to the Sister's room for a final time.

“I have never witnessed such a thing before,” he thrust with his thumb over his shoulder.

“It's a vision,” replied Tacit.

“A vision? Of what?” asked Isabella.

“Hell,” Tacit replied. “The manner of the wounds, the way the Sister was crucified upside down. It was a satanic ritual, although for what end, I don't know.” He rubbed his hand against the sides of his temple, as if grinding some memory from his mind.

“Perhaps this killing is a single event?” Henry suggested, ducking through the doorway where bodies of Inquisitors were piled.

“No, this is just the beginning,” replied Tacit, a knowing look in his eye.

“How do you know that?”

“This ritual. It is the first. Others will follow. The coins, left behind. They're a sign, a payment to greater forces to unleash something into the world.”

“The coins? They were Austro-Hungarian Krone?”

“That's where the culmination of the ritual will take place. Something is telling me this was the first act. The lust of the eyes.”

“The lust of the eyes?” asked Henry, his own growing large. “What is that?”

“One of the three sins.” Tacit knew where the ritual was leading. There would be bloodshed, there would be carnage, the loss of many, many lives. And his mind turned to the war, to Italy's recent entry, the rumours of battles on the border, of new battles which were coming, of Italian and Austro-Hungarian forces meeting on the border between Italy and Slovenia.

“I don't understand,” said Isabella, accepting Tacit's hand and being lead through an open door into the cool of the Italian night. After the fog and stench of the Sister's apartment, the fresh air was like a tonic, washing them clean. “What do you mean ‘it is the first'.”

“The first of three rituals.”

“And what are they?” asked Henry.

“The beginning.”

“Of what?”

“The end.”

SIXTY SEVEN

T
HE
V
ATICAN
. V
ATICAN
C
ITY
.

There was uproar in the Holy See that evening. Shouts reverberated around the inquisitional hall, cries of panic and alarm from all who had flooded into the chamber to listen and make their fears known about what was occurring in Rome. Cardinal Berberino was at the head of the outburst, laying out the facts like charges.

“I do wish you would calm down, Cardinal Berberino!” said Cardinal Secretary of State Casado, shaking his head, trying to give the appearance of stability and control.

“Calm down?” the thick-set Cardinal retorted, the wide neck of his collar stained yellow with sweat. “There are wolves running wild in the streets of Rome, Casado!”

“And we have Inquisitors dealing with them,” Casado tried to reason with him.

“Are you hearing me correctly, Secretary of State? There are wolves, in Rome! There has never been such a thing before! Are we to think we have lost control of the city?”

“Far from it,” Casado assured him.

“And what of Sister Malpighi!” shouted Cardinal Bishop Korek. “Murdered!”

“Cut apart, I heard!” someone else exclaimed, burying his head in his handkerchief.

“Whatever will become of us and our faith?” lamented another Priest.

“Gunfights within Rome's streets! Wolves running amok! I thought it bad enough when it was Inquisitors, but wolves?”

“The Devil has already planted one cloven foot within our land!” warned Cardinal Bishop Korek, waving with his finger.

“And chaos runs free in the streets!” added Berberino, sinking his head into his right palm and swiping the sweat from his tightly wound hair. “End times!” He raised a pointed finger to the ceiling, the noise rising to a crescendo so that no one could be heard against the clash of voices. “We were wrong. End times are not coming! They have arrived!”

Suddenly, a single gunshot thundered in the hall, instantly silencing the raging masses and sending some members of the Holy See cowering beneath their desks. Papers fell from their grasp and knocked glasses rolled
off tables to smash on the flagstones of the hall. Grand Inquisitor Düül stepped forward into the middle of the auditorium, pushing his smoking revolver back into his white holster, his hob-nailed boots crunching hard on the polished wooden floor.

“I think everyone needs to calm down a little,” he announced, looking around the circle of Cardinals and making no effort to hide his disgust. “These pitiful lamentations, your childlike hysterics, they are not becoming of our great faith. It was not built upon fear and weakness, but proud valour and strength, attributes we still retain, particularly in the Inquisition. You all know my methods. For too long you, the Holy See, have debated and considered, safe within your halls and chambers, while people, our people, are dying and a darkness is growing within the Vatican and beyond. No more.” He shook his head slowly, before turning to the Secretary of State. “From this moment, I'm taking control. I'm deciding policy within the Holy See.”

“Is this some sort of coup, Grand Inquisitor?” asked Korek.

“Let's call it a temporary seizure of power, shall we, until this latest incursion is brought under control?”

“Very good,” nodded Casado, bowing his head and linking his fingers together to stop them trembling. “What do you propose?”

“To take the fight to the enemy. They have dared to enter our capital city and they will pay the ultimate price for such a sacrilege. At this very moment the wolves are being hunted and killed in the streets. I've received assurances that they'll be brought under control within the hour.”

Something resembling a ripple of applause responded to this assured announcement. Düül ignored it.

“Meanwhile, I'm going to bring the dog Tacit to heel. Personally. He's still here, within Rome. We've got a lead on him. He slipped out of Trastevere Monastery a short time ago. The rumours you've heard are true. He's murdered Sister Malpighi. He's gone rabid but will be put down before the night is over. My men are in pursuit right at this moment. Once we have him contained, I'll drag him in front of you to explain himself. You can all get your answers from him then, about this so-called ritual, about who else, if anyone, is involved. About what it all means. And once you're done with him, he'll never trouble the Holy See or our faith again. That is my assurance to the house. No one makes a mockery of the Inquisition and lives.”

“Of course,” nodded Casado. “But what exactly will you do with him, Grand Inquisitor Düül?”

Düül threw back his white gown to reveal the array of weaponry at his belt. “Like I said, nobody steps out of line in my Inquisition. Tacit killed a lot of good men in Toulouse Inquisitional Prison, and now he's killed a lot in the Vatican and Travestere Monastery, not to mention Sister Malpighi. When I finally get to work on him, he'll wish he never set foot within Rome, let alone the Inquisition. Salamanca's methods will seem like therapy to him in comparison. I'll take the skin from his back and hang it as a warning to all others in the inquisitional hall.”

SIXTY EIGHT

C
ONSTANTINOPLE
. T
URKEY
. O
TTOMAN
E
MPIRE
.

A blood moon had climbed above the Constantinople skyline, dusk the colour of slaughter. Ragged columns of civilians, Armenian men, women and children, were leaving the city, long snaking lines shepherded by armed guards heading north while behind them calls to prayer rang out from minarets across the city. The excited shriek of Turkish children playing in the streets of their newly emptied capital rose up from the myriad of twisted thoroughfares and squares to meet the exotic smells of evening feasts being prepared in the houses above.

“Sounds like they have starting deporting Armenians,” announced a fat Turkish man as he worked a date into his mouth from the plate in front of him. He stared down over the balcony which overlooked the Galata neighbourhood.

“Finally,” replied Mahmut Sadik. The trader had made his fortune shipping exotic spices and silks into the west through his privately owned caravan lines, but was always generous in sharing his wealth and hospitality and his home with his closest friends. He sat up on one arm and admired the rings on his fingers.

“Never been an advocate of our Armenian neighbours, have you, Mahmut?” asked a dark-skinned man sitting alongside his host.

“Impudent and feckless,” replied Sadik, shaking his head so his ample chin wobbled. “Let's just say I've never trusted them enough to use their
kind as workers on any of my operations. And I know of few other traders who have found them satisfactory employees. If Armenians are unwilling to contribute to our society, then they are deserving of no place within our city.”

“Or elsewhere within the empire,” added his friend opposite, and the ebony-skinned man motioned in agreement. “I hear we're building them their own city?”

“A necropolis,” nodded Sadik, “out in the sands.”

“And they dare to call us oppressors? Ungrateful wretches!”