Page 10

Chapter Ten

Our wounds close in hours, and he reopens them. The creature has taken blood and dignity from all of us, except Paolina. He is either saving her for last or finds her utterly distasteful. She is the only one who doesn’t obey his commands automatically. The only one not in utter thrall to him.

How many days are we in this state? I don’t know. Could be the space between new moon and full. He is our world. He feeds us scraps he finds in the carnage above. We feed him and create a carnage below.

He comes down to us bearing half-eaten food and dank water. He strips off the bloody clothes he stole to blend in among the people of Rome, browbeating us with the sight of our violation. When he is erect, he will feed. We avert our eyes.

“The sack continues,” the nameless monster reports.

We already know that from the color of the water in the pool.

“There are constant screams. It is ugly. The beauty of Rome is being wrecked brick by brick. Blood runs in the gutters. I can follow it, but there is no source. The entire city is the source. And yet, how many times have I walked in on death, ready to deliver more, only to find there is not a drop of blood to be had?” He faces me.

“It’s not the Normans. I scent them. I am not alone here. Rome is infested with my kind.”

We just wait to be chosen. He paces. The first time I see him turn into a massive raven and fly through the tunnel, I think it’s a dream. It’s not.

It’s not long before the points of his bones are covered in muscle.

He is strong enough to pick us up with one hand, but instead he moves us like a puppet master, on invisible strings.

He creates fire in his hand so we can watch each other’s wounds heal.

He can throw us across the pool with his mind, then mends the bones and bruises with his hand.

He knows where we are, what we’re doing, and how we feel, because once he takes our blood, he is inside us.

He does unspeakable things.

The spell he started with is nothing.

We are in too deep a thrall to run away.

He doesn’t need to touch us to throw us, lift us, bend our heads to expose our throats.

He gets stronger.

We get weaker.

“My sister was in thrall to one of his kind,” Isabella told us as she nursed Agata on the first day.

“He waited outside the gate in the middle of the night. She’d get right up and walk to him.

Nothing our father did could stop her. When he tied her down, she pulled so hard she broke her wrist, but she was begging him to tie her tighter.

Her mind was her own, even when he controlled the rest of her. ”

Now I know it would be easier if he took the mind as well.

The creature goes up to the city more frequently. Without him, the firelight shrinks. We whisper in the dark. Without him, we are just free enough to think for ourselves.

“Did you find where he put the gun?” Tinoro asks. “It’s in that place? The purgatory?”

When he drinks from us, we experience too much pain and pleasure to perceive a heaven or hell. Our physical bodies slip into a place in-between, without light or dark. I shudder to imagine being trapped there.

“Yes. I don’t know how to get there. Not without…” I don’t finish.

“It’s okay, my friend.” He puts his hand on mine and squeezes. I return the gesture for a moment, then pull back. I don’t want him to waste comfort on me.

“He will use me at some point,” Paolina says from behind Tinoro. “If he brings me to the purgatory, I’ll get it.”

“No.” I deny her without thinking. The purgatory—the gray space where nothing seems real—is for when he drains us nearest to death. Agata has been brought there so many times her mind hasn’t left.

“Why not?”

“Because you are a woman.” Tinoro doesn’t speak for me. I denied her to protect her. He denies her to protect his sense of himself.

“Thank you,” she says. “I was not aware I was useless for anything but opening my legs.”

“Now you know,” he snarls.

“We three are left,” I say. “Agata hasn’t spoken since he took her. Isabella is weaker every hour. If your plan is to kill each other before he can, you’re well on your way.”

In frustration, Tinoro walks away from us to crouch against a wall. I start to go to him, but Paolina puts her hand on my arm.

“Carmine.” I barely move. I am numb. What made me think I could comfort Tinoro? “When he talks to you, does he reveal any weakness?”

I don’t want to remember the last time he dragged me to the other side of the pool, but what my mind is too dull to analyze might hold an escape.

“Buttons,” I say. “He brought me a bloody vest. He asked, ‘Why are these?’ I put on a dead man’s clothes to show him.”

“Recently,” she prods.

“A clock face. It had gears hanging out the back, but it was broken. I couldn’t make it work.” I pinch my eyes with my knuckles. “I’m not a fucking clockmaker. The glass on the face, he kept asking how. How? I don’t know! Go to Venice and ask the Muranos!”

“Teach him what you can.”

“Of course. I do what he tells me before he even asks. I would learn how a clock works to survive another day. Why can’t I run?”

“Because he told you not to.” She brushes hair off my face. “You have to trust me, Carmine. I’m not in thrall. I’m the only one here who won’t be fighting him and their own heart at the same time.”

“Why though? Why has your throat been spared?” I ask. “He’s taken Agata I don’t know how many times, but you… not at all.”

“You have to trust me.”

“I make no question of trust. But what are his reasons? Why would he save your blood?”

She purses her lips and looks behind her to make sure we’re alone.

“My mother…” She starts, then shakes off the first explanation in favor of another tack. “I grew up outside Benevento, in a small village of women.” She reaches under her collar and shows me a silver charm on a chain—an upside-down tree with ornaments hanging from it. A hand. A snake. A feather.

“Is this charm why he doesn’t choose you?”

“No. This is for something else.” She slips it back under her shirt. “He is one of many kinds of threat. But these creatures… him… they are our enemy. We are strong. We fight them.”

“You’ve met one of these before?”

“At first I thought he was something different. The sons of Vesuvia in Benevento were frail and completely mad. Not like this one. He is more powerful, and not as mad. He is father to all of them.”

“No.” I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter. You need to do what I’ve been telling you. You need to run, now, before you can’t.”

“He knows I won’t leave you.” She holds my hand.

He knows what we will do, but not what we think. So what if I did what I knew he’d demand, but not in the way he expects? Can I not surprise him?

“If I knock him down, will you run?” I ask.

“You won’t.”

“But what if I do? Will you run for me?”

“If you do, I will run so fast the saints won’t see me enter heaven.” She’ll promise anything she thinks impossible.

“Make that good enough.”

“Oh, God,” Tinoro groans. “He’s back.”

I hear the wings of a bird, then a scuffle from above.

He clings to the ceiling like a four-legged spider then drops in front of us.

“Beautiful one.” He opens his fist, revealing a single wooden bead from a merchant’s abacus. He’s going to want me to explain math.

He wants me to go to him. Before he can control how I move and before he expects it, I use all my weight to launch myself at him like a bullet, but even a bullet is too slow for him.