The Immortal Greek (15 page)

Alexander repressed a chuckle. “Don’t worry, Martina. He likes to be beaten by pretty ladies.”

The woman became beet red, but smiled encouragingly at Samuel. Alexander had never understood why the angel had chosen to appear as a cripple to the humans. The man Martina was reluctantly taking to the ring couldn’t walk without a cane and looked rather sickly.

“Samuel?” Alexander called to him from the door, his hand on the handle. “Close the gym for me, would you?”

“Sure thing.” Enthralled by Martina, Samuel didn’t turn, but feinted to the right to avoid being hit by her roundhouse kick.

Alexander entered his car with the intention of driving straight home to have a shower, but halfway through, he turned around and took the fastest route to the Appian Way. He looked disheveled and needed a strong painkiller, but he had to see Ravenna first. The afternoon commuters had already filled the roads, and by the time he arrived at her house, his longing for her had overwhelmed his senses.

Relieved to see the cars Samuel had asked for were already parked before Ravenna’s, he checked if her R8 was nearby. When he located it under the eucalyptus tree that must be her favorite spot, he strode to the entry of her house, taking the steps two at a time. His heart was beating fast and he had to stop at the door and calm himself. He rang the bell with a shaking hand, then passed it over his jaw and discovered he was in need of a good shave. Ravenna took her time to answer the door, and it added to his anxiousness. Finally, he saw movement from behind the window and rehearsed what he wanted to say. A split moment before the door opened, he decided to forgo words and kiss her senseless instead.

The door inched open. “Yes? What can I do for you?” A man’s head peeked from behind the door.

Alexander stared at the man, unable to speak.

“Is everything all right out there?” The man’s eyes went to the detailing cars. “May I offer you anything? A cup of coffee? Water?”

Alexander blinked. “No… thank you.”

“I can’t thank you enough for keeping my fiancé safe.” The man smiled warmly. “I’m Karl by the way.”

Alexander’s heart broke into a million pieces. He mumbled his first name.

Karl, Ravenna’s fiancé, tilted his head and looked at him with interest. “Your face looks so familiar.” A timer went off inside of the house, and he turned back for a moment. “I’m sorry, but I must check on the lasagna.” He pointed a finger to behind the door.

Alexander felt dazed. “I only wanted to be sure everything was okay.”

Karl waved his hand and started closing the door, already heading toward the kitchen. Only then Alexander realized why the man had kept behind the door the whole time. Karl was only wearing an apron. Ravenna’s fiancé was cooking for her in the nude.

Alexander was shocked to discover Ravenna was officially promised to another man, and for a moment he couldn’t understand his own feelings. Then he saw her, looking at him, her eyes wide, her hand on the passenger’s door of a car that had just come to a halt before her house, and he felt pain tearing his heart apart.

****

Ravenna saw the scene unfold, panic rising in her chest. Alexander was talking to Karl. Karl, her ex fiancé, who still had the keys to her house. She tried to move from the car, but her legs were made of lead, and her heart had stopped beating the moment her eyes had locked with Alexander’s.

He descended the stairs with a slow gait, never lowering his eyes, then he stopped before her, and stood as still and silent as a statue.

“Alexander, I can explain—”

A cold smile appeared on his face. “Miss Del Sarto, it was great fun last night. Hopefully, you and your fiancé will consider attending my next bacchanalia. I’m sure you’ll both enjoy the entertainment offered.” He bowed his head and turned.

Ravenna stepped forward with the intent of following him, but he entered his car and left before she could stop him. She watched as his Mercedes disappeared behind the corner of her house, and a tear rolled down her face. Heavy-hearted, she took the stairs and entered her house.

“Ravenna, you’re home.” Karl welcomed her with open arms and nothing else, besides one of her aprons.

“You must leave at once.” She didn’t want to argue with him.

Karl adjusted the apron to cover himself better. “But, Ravenna, give me a chance. You were tired the other day and didn’t think it through. We’ve been together for so long—”

She put her keys on the bowl at the entry, removed her shoes, and walked past him. “Leave the keys.”

Alexander, usually joyous and carefree, had looked at her with such contempt, she felt as if he had slapped her. She had wanted to say she had just come back from his house, but Alexander had frozen her with his demeanor. She blinked and realized Karl hadn’t left. He was hovering behind her. She walked back to him. “Karl, there’s nothing left between us. I cared for you, but not anymore.” She had never loved him. In fact, she had never understood what love was before falling for Alexander.

“I—” Karl raised one hand as if to caress her face, but left it in midair, then passed it through his hair. “I thought we could fix this.”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

Karl lowered his eyes to his ensemble and repressed a nervous laugh. “Give me a moment.”

“Sure.” She left him in the hallway and went straight to her room, where she found a blanket of rose petals covering her bed. She wasn’t surprised to find candles in the bathroom. She felt the first warning signs of an incoming migraine and welcomed it. Physical pain gave her something to focus on and she hoped for a pounding headache.

“Do you mind?” Karl was at the door, pointing at the pile of his clothes sitting on one of the chairs.

“Go ahead.” She went inside the bathroom and closed the door. Finally, she heard his receding steps, then the main door was opened and closed. She waited a moment, then sat on the edge of the tub and let out all the tears she had been reining in. Memories of the previous night mixed with the present. Alexander’s kisses and caresses were replaced by his emotionless stare.

Ravenna left the bathroom looking for a place where she could curl up and let her sorrow ride its course, but gave a quick glance at her bed and moved outside. In the kitchen, another of Karl’s disastrous attempts at cooking had left food and utensils scattered on every surface. Her house had been marked by Karl in every possible way and she couldn’t stay there. She had to leave. She had to talk to Alexander.

Decision made, she felt better already. She would drive back to his house, and she would make him listen to what she had to say. If she hurried, speeding a little through Rome, she would make it to Piazza Coppedè slightly after him. Driving would do her good. With a lighter heart, she walked to the entry, looking for the shoes she had hastily removed upon entering with the intention of strangling Karl.

The doorbell chimed its four notes and Ravenna’s heart stopped beating once again. “Alexander—”

Raul appeared as she opened the door. “Miss Del Sarto, I was wondering if I could use your phone. My cell just died.”

Ravenna’s disappointment was impossible to hide and she didn’t have the strength to try.

Raul, licorice stick hanging from his lips, gave her a good look and took a step backward. “I could come back later—”

She belatedly remembered her manners and stepped by the side to let him in. “No, please. I’m heading out. The phone is there.” She showed him where the land phone was.

Raul followed her inside. “I’ll be brief.”

Ravenna stepped inside the kitchen and turned on her cell to call Alexander. Her call went straight to the voicemail. She didn’t hear Raul talk and turned to see what the problem was. A hand covered her mouth, while the now-familiar prick of a needle tingled on the side of her throat. Darkness engulfed her before despair did.

****

Alexander had driven away from Ravenna’s house blinded by rage. Blood drumming against his ears, he had pushed his Mercedes to its limits and reached the castle of Santa Severa in less than twenty minutes. He had just taken the trail bordering the medieval walls of the castle and leading down the beach, when his cell phone rang. He saw it was Ravenna and ignored her call. He couldn’t talk to her while he was still shaking. He knew he would have to confront her sooner or later; they were working on a case, but not now.

When he had walked to her, he had been disgusted by his reaction to her proximity. Despite the rage and the hurt, he still had wanted to cradle her in his arms and forget everything else. If he talked to her now, he would fall for whatever lies she told him.

So he had decided to go for a midnight swim. He took the trail, and instead of carefully walking toward the beach, he ran and, fully clothed, dove in from one of the cliffs protruding from the castle. He risked breaking his neck in the shallow natural pool, but safely entered the waters and reemerged a moment later. The sea was cold and it helped clarify his thoughts. He swam for a while, the moon almost full, illuminating everything with a silvery glow.

When he finally came out of the water, his pain had become a physical presence, a slash that cut him deep inside from his heart to his stomach. He could barely breathe and a burning stone pressed on his sternum. His stomach tossed and turned, and the rest of his insides had shrunk to nothing. His legs and arms were numb. His fingers and toes cold.

Not even when Eloisa had died had he felt a sense of loss so strong. Cherry’s departure from the world had been a relief. In her fifties, she had contracted a disease and her life had become miserable. In the end, he had wished for her sufferance to lessen and death had mercifully come to take her. He had loved them dearly and yet had never felt a hurt so unbearable. He wished he had never met Ravenna. He wished she were there, making love to him.

He screamed at the moon, cursed and swore, then fell on the sand, his forehead pressed down as he tried to calm his frayed nerves and overtaxed heart. The drive back was even faster. He reached home, his adrenaline pumping. Once in his bedroom, everything smelled of Ravenna. He yanked the sheets off the bed, then ran downstairs to the laundry room and washed them. Still not exhausted enough to finally fall asleep and get a respite from all his madness, he loaded a laundry basket with the sheets and ran upstairs to the terrace, where he hung the clothes on the clothesline.

Loud ringing awoke Alexander the next morning. He had fallen asleep on the loveseat in his bedroom.

“Good morning, Alexander.” Marta walked in and took in the scene he presented. She smiled. “I’ll ring for a double espresso. Anything to eat?”

He felt the sand on his tongue and the headache that made him see two Martas. “Something greasy, please.”

“Tough night, ah?” Marta had seen him at his worst, but the funny thing was, he didn’t black out usually.

Alexander couldn’t remember when he had gone to the cellar, but the two empty bottles of Crystal on the coffee table confirmed he had, at some point, done that.

“I see that you’ve also been busy doing laundry. I didn’t even know you could.” The maid chuckled, then pointed a finger at the phone that meanwhile had stopped ringing and restarted once again. “I think someone wants to talk to you. Should I get the call in your stead?”

Alexander nodded.

Marta raised the phone and answered the call, then mouthed to him if he wanted to talk.

“Man or woman?” He nursed his headache, caressing his temples.

Marta whispered, “Man.”

Two fingers pinching the arch of his nose, Alexander used his left hand to make a come hither gesture for Marta to pass him the phone. “Thank you, Marta.” He took it from her and brought the handset to his right ear. “Who is it?”

“Alexander, it’s Samuel.” A long pause followed the angel’s statement.

“What is it?” A rampaging migraine impaired Alexander’s faculties, but he focused on the present at the best of his capabilities.

“Ravenna has been kidnapped—from her home last night, and Malina is missing too.”

Ravenna felt the steps nearing, but she couldn’t see anything. She had been awake for several minutes, but had kept still as to not to alert her captors. Her hands were tied together and she was sitting on a cold floor. She had heard two men talking. Unfortunately, they hadn’t said anything to give her any idea of who they were or what they wanted from her.

Big, callous hands touched her head. “Don’t try anything funny. There’s no escape.” The man yanked off the blindfold from Ravenna’s face. “I’ll behead you if you do.” A cold, metal edge was pressed against her throat.

The man inhaled close to her ear, as if he were smelling her, and she winced. To her right she could see Malina. The shifter looked unconscious. Thankfully, her captor stood and without another word left the room.

She waited for him to close the door, then focused on the shifter, whose breathing came in shallow pants, her face marred by darkening bruises. “Malina?”

Malina didn’t move. Like Ravenna, the were-panther was shackled to an old cast iron radiator. The radiator had been painted over with several layers of white paint, but rusty patches appeared between the elements, and the residue from water spilling from underneath it had created white stains on the marble floor. She pulled at the chain securing her leather cuffs to one of the radiator’s elements, but it didn’t give an inch; it only made unnecessary noise.

Sharp banging from outside the door was the immediate response to her action.

Ravenna adjusted her body so she could see more of the room. A small chair, antique looking—a piece of frail furniture that would have been perfect in Alexander’s house—was to her left. The frame was intricately carved, but the upholstery was in tatters. She raised her eyes to the ceiling and saw plain white stucco, while the four walls closing the room in a small box were upholstered with dusty wallpaper. A variety of equally dusty frames hung on the walls and lined up in two rows against the baseboards. The pictures were mostly landscapes. From the look of them, they must have been old prints. To her right, a small window let the sounds from the outside world in. The glass panels were opaque, but the shadow grid from the bars caging the window on the outside was outlined by natural light. They weren’t underground and it was day.

Malina finally stirred, but didn’t give any sign she was coming to. Ravenna didn’t have enough data to make any assumption regarding her companion’s health, but she felt nauseous and dizzy, even sitting on the floor. The likeliest reason why Malina was still under was because she must have put up much more of a fight and she had been drugged with a stronger dose of whatever Raul had injected into Ravenna’s system.

She was ashamed at how easily the man had taken her by surprise. Her first error had been not checking her details’ identities with Samuel. Her second error had been not rectifying her first as soon as possible. It pained her that she had been more preoccupied with Alexander than doing her job. A sudden noise outside the window interrupted her self-recriminating thoughts. The loud screech of brakes engaged at the last moment, followed by the collision of metal on metal echoed inside the cell and Malina gasped.

The shifter’s eyes opened wide, and she looked around, finding Ravenna at the end of her reconnaissance. Malina frowned. “Ravenna…?”

“I was hoping you would have an explanation for this.” Ravenna raised her shackled hands. “Do you remember what happened to you?”

Malina gave the room a second, more thorough look, then came back to Ravenna and shook her head. “I was late, driving on the Lungotevere Boulevard, coming back from the were-mitzvah when I saw a police car approaching me from behind, all sirens displayed. I pulled over to the curb. An officer asked for my documents. I leaned toward the glove compartment to retrieve them, then I felt a prick on my neck. I straightened and hit the man through the window, then I opened the car door on him, sending him to the ground. He wasn’t alone though, and someone else grabbed me from behind and finished what the man had started. I can’t remember anything after that.” She tried to caress her neck, but her hands were chained even lower than Ravenna’s, and her fingers only reached the hollow of her throat.

“We’re probably still in Rome. The bars on the window suggest we’re in the city. The light and the fact we can see their shadow, but not any passersby means we’re on an elevated floor. Maybe second or third story. I don’t think we were out for more than a matter of hours, so only a night should have passed. Samuel must have been notified of our kidnapping already. I’m sure he’s looking for us.” Ravenna brought both her legs together, then bent her knees, and sat leaning to her right side.

“This place could be anywhere in Rome though.” Malina’s eyes went to the radiator. “This make can be found in every house older than fifty years.” She tilted her chin toward the chair. “That’s an antique.”

Ravenna moved the weight of her body on her left side. “I think this room must’ve been used as a studio.”

Malina nodded. “Given its dimension and the window—” Then she looked up at the ceiling. “Or maybe a servant’s bedroom. Only houses built in the last ten to twenty years have ceilings that low in the master’s rooms. And the pattern on the marble floor dates this house older than that. I would say older than most houses in Rome anyway. Which makes this room on an elevated floor and low ceiling a servant’s.” Malina slouched on the floor as if all of the thinking had drained her. “We’re probably under the roof of a building situated in the very heart of Rome.” She pointed a finger at the radiator, then at the chair. “This house belongs to dilapidated gentry.” With a loud sigh, she closed her eyes for a moment. “The owner must be a collector of sorts. Those prints”—she tilted her head toward the closest baseboard where the frames were—“are expensive. They are in a numbered series, and the quality of the paper is exceptional. Selling this collection would fetch several hundred thousand euros. And yet, they’re gathering dust in a room that is rarely used.” She straightened her legs before her, then stretched her ankles by flexing her toes up and down. “It gives me the impression whoever owns this house might not care about earthly possessions.”

Ravenna stared speechlessly at Malina. She didn’t know much about of her ex-friend anymore, but she had to admit the woman before her was intriguing.

“We must find a way out of here before nightfall.”

Ravenna brought a finger to her lips, then looked at the door. “Believe me, there’s nothing else on my agenda at the moment.”

“It’s almost a full moon. You can’t be chained close to me when I turn.” Malina’s expression was pained. “I don’t have any control over the panther and I doubt she would recognize you. She wouldn’t be friendly—”

“Well, that would make two of us.” It surprised Ravenna how the hurt was still raw despite everything that had happened in her life.

“Ravenna—”

Ravenna raised an eyebrow. She had caught the wishful inflection in Malina’s voice and regretted her remark.

The shifter sighed again, this time softer. “We should talk about what you think happened between me and your fiancé back then.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.” Ravenna would have thrown her hands in the air; instead, she pulled her cuffs up, causing the chain to rattle against the radiator.

The banging on the door didn’t fail to follow a moment later. This time, their captor added, “Whatever you’re up to, don’t forget my sword is sharp.”

Ravenna gave Malina an angry look.

The were-panther shrugged. “Listen, I don’t know the exact extent of our predicament, but I won’t waste the opportunity to clear the air with you now that we’re stuck together.”

“Really? Now?” Ravenna tried to turn her back to her, but the chain wasn’t long enough.

“I might not have another chance.”

Ravenna shook her head.

“Remember that night you barged into Livio’s stables?” Malina brought her knees up and lowered her chin to them.

“You wouldn’t believe that after all those years I would be able to remember anything at all, yet there are only a few memories I retained as detailed as the ones concerning that night.” Ravenna tried to put as much distance as she could manage between herself and the shifter.

Malina rested one of her cheeks on her knees, so that she looked at Ravenna with her head tilted toward her. “I know. It’s the same for me. If it weren’t for that night, I wouldn’t be here at all.”

Ravenna looked at the window, then at the frames hanging on the wall, then at the chair. She didn’t want to look at the were-panther when she sounded so defeated.

“That night, life as I knew it ended, but the events that led to my demise started in the morning. One of my cousins, Giulia, remember her? She had dared me to enter the haunted house in Via dei Tomacelli—”

Ravenna found herself projected to five hundred years earlier to a time when talking about hateful Giulia had been daily gossip between them. “The house where it was said a witch lived?”

Malina rearranged her legs, slightly lowering them. “Yes, that one. It wasn’t the first time Giulia had tried to get me in trouble. She was jealous of me, of my family, and I knew it. Usually, I didn’t fall for her tricks, but that time she had proclaimed the dare before a boy I liked and he told me he would come with me.” She sadly chuckled. “Needless to say, I should’ve known better. They both played me and I ended up out at night, without a proper chaperon, inside what I thought was a house haunted by ghosts.” Her chain trailed on the floor when she moved once again. “The house was haunted, but not by ethereal presences.”

Ravenna listened to the shifter’s tale with mixed feelings. She remembered that girl who had been her best friend, Malina. “I waited for you the whole afternoon. I had things I wanted to tell you, but you never showed up.” She hadn’t realized she had inched forward and was now almost touching Malina’s knees with hers.

“Giulia had led me on a series of fool’s errands the entire morning. I told her I was to visit with you in the afternoon, and she stranded me on purpose at one of our aunt’s farmhouses outside of Florence. She had the boy drive us there on his cart, then left me while I was talking with my aunt. Later, I discovered she had asked my father if I could spend time with her, so nobody looked for me when it came night and I hadn’t come back home.” Malina crossed her legs, moved her shackled hands, and rested them on her lap.

Ravenna wanted to stand up and stretch her legs, but she could only change position on the floor. “I don’t understand. If you were at your aunt’s farmhouse in the country, how did you come to be at the haunted house later that night?”

“My cousin and her friend, who turned out was her boyfriend, came back for me with a series of excuses that at the time must have sounded plausible. I don’t remember what she told me anymore, but I went back to Florence with them, and even followed them to the house in Via dei Tomacelli. And you know what?” Malina raised her chin and gave Ravenna a penetrating look.

“What?” Ravenna had her back to the radiator. Its elements dug into her shoulder blades, but she pushed against them to soften the knots tightening her muscles.

“The whole time, I thought of you. When I was at my aunt’s waiting for a ride back to the city, I hoped my cousin would arrive in time for me to visit you as promised. Then, when the time for visiting had come and gone, and Giulia had taken me to the haunted house, I thought of how I wanted to have you with me, of how fun it would’ve been to enter that place at night hand in hand.”

“You should’ve come anyway. Even if it was late.”

“I know that now. But then… I was seventeen. I thought I had a whole lifetime of afternoons with you. I wanted to show my cousin I was better than her, that I could do anything she did and more. And there was the boy. I wanted to tell you afterward that I got the boy to kiss me.” Malina’s lips flattened in a grimace. “That too was orchestrated by Giulia.” She paused, her eyes focused on a distant point somewhere beyond the walls of their cell.

Ravenna’s hands reached for Malina’s before she could stop herself. “What happened that night?”

Malina looked at their hands together and blinked some moisture away. “Giulia knew things happened in that house. The rumors were based on truth.” She patted Ravenna’s hands, then moved hers away. “The moment I darkened the steps before the rotten wooden door, I knew something was wrong with that place, but I entered to prove a point. The boy was a step behind me while Giulia waited outside. He brushed my arm and whispered a compliment to me, then pushed me deeper inside the hall. The room was pitch black and I could only hear my heartbeats drumming against my ribcage. I was terrified, but I wasn’t going to admit I wanted out and let Giulia win.”

“You were always so…” Ravenna automatically waved her right hand in the air, pulling at the chain once again.

Malina’s smile for a moment wasn’t marred by sadness, but it didn’t last long. “Stubborn? Volatile? Proud?”

“All of the above. And also not very smart when it came to self-preservation. I remember that time when you stole the eggs from the neighbor’s chicken coop. Your father—” For a moment, Ravenna had forgotten she had grown to hate her best friend.

Malina waited for her to finish her sentence, and her face lit at the memory, then she lowered her shoulders. “It’s okay. You’re right, of course. I wasn’t very smart. You would’ve never ended up like me.”

Ravenna’s heart became heavier with longing. After Malina, there hadn’t been a true friend in her life. Even Tommaso had preferred everybody else’s company over hers, and she had never let Karl close enough to hurt her. “I always thought you and I were similar.”

“No, we weren’t, but I loved you like a sister.” Malina had lowered her voice to a whisper at the end.

Ravenna didn’t react to the statement, but a small wound opened in her heart.

“I was engulfed in darkness. Loud noises and scurrying rodents filled the silence while I tentatively moved around the room, my hands outstretched to feel the place. A sliver of light illuminated the steps outside as the boy opened the door. I saw his silhouette merging with Giulia’s as he joined her on the other side of the threshold. I heard their laughs, but I didn’t want to believe she would leave me alone there.” Malina’s staring at the wall lasted longer this time.