From Hell with Love (29 page)

“Are you FUCKING kidding?” he shouted out, his voice filled with anger and pain.  “What the FUCK did I do?  I didn’t do a
damn
thing wrong when I was just Niccolo Vespucci.  I was a good son, I was nice to everyone and I turned the other goddamned cheek!  The only crimes I’ve committed have happened since you gave
this
,” he shouted before tearing away the bandages from his rotting arm and shoving it skyward, “to me!”  He then pointed his disgusting, weeping arm at the pain-ridden wooden effigy, blame pouring through his finger and words.

“You want to talk about sin?  You want to talk about people who deserve to go through life crippled and maimed?  How about Giovanni Simonetti?  That rich, entitled piece of shit just stole the love of my life and then
pissed on me
?  In the middle of the
street
?  How much more do you want me to suffer?  How much more do you want to tease me and torture me before sending me to Hell?  That’s
obviously
where you want me to go!” he screamed, bringing his arm down and gripping the altar tightly with both hands.

“I am
not
Job.  I’m just a man.  And if this is how you want to play this, then I’ll welcome the Devil with open arms,” he muttered, his eyes narrowing as he looked at the pain-ridden messiah on the wall.

“God, I hope they never take your tongue,” a voice echoed throughout the room, but Niccolo didn’t bother to give into surprise; he already knew who was speaking to him.  It was the first voice to betray him.

“Innocenti, this is
not
a good time.  I can still strangle you with my bare hands,” he said before turning and watching the merchant approach him.  Instead of looking threatened, the smaller man dressed in his simple, purple outfit just shrugged.

“I know, I saw.”

“I wanted to kill you, Innocenti.  You betrayed me.  And now,” Niccolo said as he limped away from the altar and ignored the pain in his ribs, which had returned now that the shock had worn off, “now I’m just looking for the excuse to kill someone.”

“I can certainly give you that, Nico, but I never betrayed you.  I had hoped the viper would have worked, but you can never really trust medicine and doctors,” Innocenti said in a dismayed voice before walking over to a divider and setting his weight on it.  “Poor luck on your part.”

“Out…with it, Lorenzo,” Niccolo said, flinching as the intake of air caused a spasm to rock through his torso.  He cradled his right side with his rotten arm, unable to ignore the pain any longer.

“Work for me in Napoli.  I’ve been looking for some more…permanent means to persuade some vocal opponents and officials.  With the right equipment, I’m sure we could make use of your,” he said before looking him up and down before cocking his head to the right, “finesse.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked, wary of what the scheming merchant could want from him.  Innocenti just sighed before clasping his hands in front of his hips.

“It’s not very often that I come across a man who has been trained in combat, who has the ability to kill with impunity,” he said, the subtlety disappearing from his words.  Niccolo straightened up, feeling the pain in his ribs but not letting his face show it.

“How do you…”

“Please, Nico,” Innocenti said as he rolled his eyes and paced in front of the leper.  “I’ve been keeping an eye on you, mostly because I thought you were going to kill me, but it became apparent that you know how to kill a man and get away with it.  I had heard you were skilled with a blade, but it seems that you’re simply just skilled in most things you try.”

“You want me to kill people for you?” Niccolo asked, raising an eyebrow and feeling the scabs by his eye cracking a bit.  He wished that he had not done that, but tried to pretend that blood was not about to start trickling down his face.

“Yes.  I think you’d be good at that.  We’ll mend those bones of yours, teach you the ways of the East, and after you’ve repaid me with some years of work, we’ll get you back to kill this Simonetti character.  I feel like that’s a fair deal,” Innocenti said before squaring up to Niccolo and breathing in deeply.  Niccolo considered the man’s words for a moment, realizing that he might be throwing away more than just a few years, but then he smelled the urine on his clothes.  He remembered Camilla’s frightened and sorrowful face.  When Niccolo looked up at Innocenti, there was very little of the kind, light-hearted, merchant prince he used to be.

“A few years?” he asked, but Innocenti just shrugged again.

“I have to get
something
out of you.  I feel bad about the viper, but a man must make his living,” he almost seemed to breathe out before staring back into Niccolo’s eyes.  The leper just stepped forward and placed his rotten arm by his side, the pain in his torso a distant ache.  Thoughts of revenge had clouded his senses.

“You’re right.  A man must make his living.  When do we leave?” he asked, which brought a smile to Innocenti’s face.

“Soon.  Within a week, I should say,” he laughed before looking at the effigy of Christ on the wall behind Niccolo.  “I must say, I appreciate the irony of contracting an assassin in the house of God.”  Niccolo looked over his shoulder at the statue’s pained expression and glared at it for a moment.

“What’s so ironic? 
He
did this to me.  Now He gets to watch.”

Chapter 9: A Confederacy of Demons

Niccolo gasped awake, his heart pumping so hard that he thought it might burst out of his chest.  Sweat poured down from his forehead and he could feel his long hair matted onto his skin, but that was not what drew his interest.  Cadmus looked up at him from the corner of his room, peering at him from beneath his hood.

“Nightmare?” he asked, breathing in sharply as he recovered from his own nap.  Niccolo brought up his rotten arm and massaged the ruined skin of his face, breathing shakily as he recalled the images in his mind.  From time to time, he would still think about those long years in Napoli and the destruction he had caused in his anger.  Though, in his dreams, Innocenti was never the small man who had taught him the way of an assassin.  He was what Niccolo thought God might look like, long flowing robes and light radiating from his skin.  Before he had come to Hell, Niccolo thought that he was special, that God was personally punishing him.

Now he knew better.

“Just some memories, you know how it is,” Niccolo muttered as he tried to calm down the heart pumping furiously within his chest.  He did not know why his body pretended to function anymore, the whole thing was essentially a vestigial organ, but somehow it helped Niccolo feel more at peace.  It was the last bit of humanity left to him, so he was grateful when he could still wake up from his dreams in a panic.

Niccolo looked at his friend in the corner and sighed.  Cadmus had chosen not to return to his quarters and opted to sleep on the rigid chair in Niccolo’s room.  It was far too dangerous for them to separate, Niccolo agreed, but he imagined the reaper’s back was a canvas of aches and pains.

“Did you get much sleep?” Niccolo asked as he swung his legs over to the right side of his straw bed.  If nothing else, at least they didn’t have to deal with bedbugs in Hell; the only insects they encountered were conjured by demons or gigantic versions of their earthly cousins.  Niccolo played with a stray piece of straw as Cadmus set down his scythe and yawned.

“Not particularly, but I’m used to that,” the reaper tried to say, but his words were warped by the yawn.  The leper shrugged before standing up and feeling echoes of cramps along his entire body, cursing this rotten business with the Cult.  Both of them had slept in full armor, as they could not guarantee the Shroud would not send any agents to silence them during the night.

It was exactly what Niccolo would have done if he wanted to kill
his
enemies.

“How long was I out?” Niccolo asked as he stretched his limbs and prepared for the day.  He knew things were about to get completely out of control.

“Just a few hours, but I think we can start heading over to the palace.  All your bones in the right place?” Cadmus asked with a slight laugh, but Niccolo gave him a disapproving look.

“Yes, I’m fine,” he grumbled, still ashamed that he had been beaten so thoroughly by Mammon and Marchosias.  His bones were fine; his pride had not fared so well.  The leper walked over to the window of his room and peered out, looking for any possible dangers in their path.  He was apprehensive, but the clearing in front of the stables was completely empty.

“Then I guess we’d better get going,” Cadmus breathed out, leaning heavily on his scythe as always.  Niccolo scoffed at that, but pushed open the door to the clearing covered in mist.  Hell was an odd place, but Niccolo had found out very early on that the priests and mystics were all wrong.  There was fire, certainly, but there was wind and water and ice, as well.  Just like Earth, Hell had its own ecosystem and perpetual fire was never going to be sustainable.  From his first dawn in the Pestilence Quarter, Niccolo had always known the dark, morning mist to cover his home for the first few hours.

The two of them exited Niccolo’s home and felt the morning dew clinging to their skin and clothing.  They could barely see in front of them, the fog was so thick, but they pushed on anyway.  On any other day, Niccolo would have stayed inside his modest home until the mist abated, he preferred to stay dry, but they did not particularly have a choice.  As they passed by the archery targets, Niccolo remembered his first years in Hell.  Barbas had done what he could to make him feel more at home and Niccolo owed the fallen a debt, but he was not sure he would ever be able to repay it.

They summoned their horses, Plague and Mercy drawing into physical form while the mist swirled around them, but they did not feel the need to bother with theatrics.  Both of them climbed onto their mounts with little fanfare, still trying to wake up after their small amount of sleep.  Niccolo felt like he was not nearly rested enough for the coming events.

Plague and Mercy slowly walked through the foggy, open ground, their hooves creating suction sounds as they were lifted out of the mud.  They had plenty of time to get to the palace before the kings would arrive, so each fell into their own thoughts.  After just a few minutes of walking, a dark shadow condensed ahead of them, which caused both men to prepare themselves for a fight.  Perhaps they would meet this Shroud before the Council, after all.

However, their worries were proved groundless as they drew closer, seeing the kind face of Barbas.  The fallen angel was dressed in simple, brown robes with a twisted, wooden staff in his left hand, but he had always been one for dressing modestly.  The demon’s face was a mess of wrinkles and grey hair, making him look to be in his late fifties, but his eyes had never lost that spark of divinity.  From twenty feet away, the two Horsemen could see his vibrant, light-green eyes shining in the low fog.

“Going somewhere, boys?” he asked, bringing his staff in front of him and setting both of his wrinkled hands on top of the curled, knobby end.  Niccolo stammered at first, Plague drawing him closer to his master, and could not find a reasonable excuse for his behavior.

“The palace,” Cadmus ventured, drawing the gaze of the old demon.  “Lucifer wanted extra security when the kings arrived.”

“I don’t doubt he needs the security,” Barbas said as he continued to stare into the reaper’s eyes, his eyelids twitching ever so slightly before giving a thin smile, “but that is what the Hell Knights are for.  He doesn’t need two young pups to watch his back, even if he has stolen the two of you away from me.”

“He’s actually…he wants to show us to the kings,” Niccolo said, his voice weak and making him feel so small in front of the demon who raised him up from the dirt.  “Since the Apocalypse seems so close, he felt like it would be a good idea for them to see us and get to know who we are.”

Barbas straightened his back, his spine popping and cracking as the old bones moved around, and then shuffled toward the Horsemen, not bothering to look at either of them.  When he was just a foot away from the horses, he lifted one of his withered hands and scratched the hair on Plague’s neck.

“Two hundred years.  Two hundred years and this boy still thinks he can lie to me,” Barbas said as he continued to stroke the horse’s neck with fondness.  Plague leaned into the demon’s caress and closed his eyes, but he did not stay silent.

“Perhaps he thinks it’s better for you to stay ignorant, master,” Plague’s deep voice resonated in the wet air, bringing a friendly smile to the fallen’s face.

“Don’t call me that, Plague.  I’m no one’s master.  Just an old man with a foolish streak,” he said before looking up at the boy on the black horse.  “How else could I explain caring for an arrogant bastard who just doesn’t know when to quit?”

“I thought you liked that about him,” Cadmus interjected.  Barbas chuckled for a moment, but he did not stop looking at the leper above him.

“I guess that’s fair,” he said, his eyes shining just a little brighter.  “Is there any chance I can convince the two of you to stay out of trouble?”

“We could tell you what we’re…” Niccolo started, his levity absent as he faltered under his master’s gaze.  The demon just shook his head ever so slightly and sighed.

“No, I think Plague had the right of it.  I guess I just need to resign myself to cleaning up the mess after you’ve made your mistakes,” he said, his eyes still gazing straight into Niccolo’s face.  It made the leper feel awkward and he shifted in his saddle, wondering why Barbas would not break his stare.

“I’ll keep him safe, old man,” Cadmus said, which made the fallen angel finally turn away from his young student.  The smile on his face broke for a moment, and Cadmus could have sworn that his lip quivered.

“Yes, I’m sure you’ll try.  It’s such a shame that he goes and puts himself in danger anyway,” he said before stroking Mercy’s white face and whispering something to the reaper’s mount.  His hand shook as it left the white horse and his gaze returned to Cadmus.  “I don’t see why the two of you need to get into trouble so much.”  When he finished his criticism, the old demon turned back to his student and set his right hand on Niccolo’s knee.  The leper could feel it trembling.