Of Saints and Shadows (1994) (38 page)

“Yes, Father.”

“I have a job for you, Robert.”

Montesi said nothing.

“Giancarlo Garbarino is lacking in faith. He does not truly believe in our efforts. A less pious man than yourself, even I, might forgive him these sins. But we cannot afford any weakness—in ourselves, in our faith, in our strength . . . in any one of us. We do God’s work, and such weakness is a hindrance to that work. You will take care of it.”

It was not a question.

“At the first opportunity, Father,” he said, and smiled.

“Vincent would be proud.”

“Where is Hannibal?” Peter bellowed into the face of the elder creature’s servant.

“Sir, please calm down. I have told you that the master is sleeping and does not wish to be disturbed.”

The man was clearly rattled to be confronted by six Defiant Ones stepping into the house out of the bright sunshine of a cold February day. And he wasn’t the only one who was rattled.

“Bloody hell, that hurts!” Ellen cursed.

“It’ll go ’way,” Jasmine said, “or at least dat’s what Peter says. But I still don’t quite believe it.”

Meaghan had come up behind them, and now she took Jasmine’s arm as Ellen shook off the warmth of the sun like a dog shaking off fleas. “If you really didn’t believe it,” she said, “you’d be dead.”

She and Jazz locked eyes, then Jasmine smiled.

“You all right, girl.”

Peter went storming about the house. “Wake him up then, Jeeves. I want to see him and I won’t take no for an answer.”

“Sir,” the butler continued, “let me be quite frank with you.”

“Oh,” Sheng joined in with his usual sarcasm. “Please do.”

“The master does not wish to be disturbed and he will not be. There is very little you can do about that. Even if you should turn this house upside down, you will not find him. Rather, he will rest peacefully, unmolested by your group of rabble.”

“‘Rolf,” Sheng snapped. “Kill him.”

As Rolf moved in Peter stopped him.

“No. Only kill when you must.”

Sheng looked annoyed for a moment, but, remarkably, let it go. Alex hugged him.

“I’m proud of you. There’s too much at stake for egos,” she said.

“Tell that to Octavian.”

“All of you, search the house,” Peter said, “but let’s respect our elders. Don’t make too much of a mess. Meaghan, stay with me.”

It wasn’t long before they started to drift back, unhappy. They’d found many things. A number of secret rooms and a cold room with recent kills among them, but they hadn’t found Hannibal’s sleeping quarters. Then Rolf and Alex appeared, Rolf forcibly escorting an attractive young woman with a leather-wrapped chain shackled to her ankle. The other end looked as if it had been pulled right out of the wall, and Peter imagined it had been.

“Who are you?” Peter asked her.

“Why, don’t you recognize me?” the girl snapped. “I’m breakfast.”

“Her name is Tracey,” Alex said. “She’s nothing, a volunteer.”

“A what?” Meaghan asked.

“They come here of their own free will and offer themselves to our kind,” Peter said without turning.

“My God,” she said.

“Yeah,” Tracey said. “That’s what I thought, too.”

“You’ve got guts, Tracey,” Peter said. “Why were you chained?”

“I changed my mind.”

“And smart, too.” Ellen smirked.

“I recognize you, y’know,” Tracey said to Alex, then to Sheng. “You, too. You’re like him, like Hannibal.”

“Yes.”

“But it’s daytime?”

“We’re special,” Sheng said, his nose wrinkling.

“I remember you now,” Alex said to her. “We warned you to stay away from here. You should have listened.”

“I wish I had.”

“Alexandra, why don’t we gel that chain off her?” Peter said, and turned to the butler as Alex was tearing the metal away with her hands. “Jeeves,” he said, “give her your coat.”

“The master will not be pleased with your—”

Unasked, Rolf approached the butler and stripped him of his coat. He handed it to Tracey.

“Go,” Peter said to her, and that was all. In seconds, she was gone, and just as quickly forgotten.

“When master Hannibal awakes, he will be quite angry, I can assure you,” the butler sniffed.

“Well,” Peter said, stepping into the living room and settling on a comfortable hunter-green sofa. “We’ll just have to wait until he wakes up, now, won’t we?”

TRACEY SACCO HAD NEVER RUN BEFORE. Even searching the memories of her childhood, she could not remember ever having run away from anything. But then, she had never been driven by the singular overwhelming motivation that now propelled her: terror.

She had put up enough of a front to convince even herself that she was brave, that she was tough. And yet, faced with demons out of ancient and Hollywood mythology, whatever strength there was inside her reacted with a less than human instinct. Every molecule in her body ordered her to flee.

Certainly her brain knew that the creatures responsible for her freedom, though out in the day, were the same as the creatures who had terrified her the night before, who had pursued and captured her, who had murdered Linda and certainly many others. She knew that the short Oriental man and the black woman had almost commanded her and Linda to turn away from the party the night before.

But it meant nothing. There was nothing but whim and dumb luck involved in her freedom, and perhaps some sort of internecine feud between these creatures. And she was not counting on getting such a break again.

Down the steps she ran, nearly tripping, the butler’s coat around her little protection from the cold. She ran down Calle Bernardo and past Ca Rezzonico, her eyes wide with Tear and shock. It was cold but bright and sunny, and the daylight itself served not to calm, but to solidify her terror until it had become something real, something tangible. She still wondered if she would be pursued. She didn’t think Hannibal could come after her, but then she hadn’t thought that
any
of these things could bear the sunlight.

At the canal she slopped short, looking out over the shimmering water, where she’d nearly frozen to death the night before. The
traghetto
man, Giuseppe, was nowhere in sight. Then she glanced to her right and breathed a huge sigh of relief. He was there, at the dock, letting out a young tourist couple, each of whom wore a baby in a sack on their chest. Her fear, which had seemed overwhelming, now presented itself as an obstacle to be overcome. She must get away.

She began to cry as she reached the dock, and Giuseppe Schiavoni recognized her right away.

“Signorina,” he said, crossing himself, “thank the Lord you are safe.”

That stopped her. He had warned them, clearly, but she had not recognized how sincere his warning had been. He knew. Maybe not a lot, but enough to be frightened and enough to be frightened for her. Enough to know that he would more than likely be safe, and that many of these tourists had come to Venice this year rather than another specifically because it was so terribly dangerous.

All of this went through her mind in the moment that Giuseppe saw her, and she wanted to talk to him, to find out what he knew and how he knew it. But she couldn’t. All she could do in that moment was run to him, a kind old Italian man who looked more than a little stunned at her tears and her lack of proper winter clothing and the fact that she had thrown her arms around him to be hugged, to be protected.

The young couple bearing twins looked on in bewildered amusement, then walked off as Giuseppe hugged her tight for a moment, then held her away from him to look at her face.

“Girl,” he said in his scratchy, accented English, “get in the gondola and we will leave the trouble behind. Your tears and those things you fear. Let’s go.”

She got in and huddled down low, as the wind off the canal was frightfully cold. Seeing this, Giuseppe took off his own coat and she pulled it up to her neck like a blanket.

“Thank you,” she said, the first words she’d spoken since her facade of courage had broken down. There was courage there, no doubt. But it would take a while for it to return after her instincts had so completely overpowered it.

They made the trip across the Grand Canal in silence after that. Giuseppe looked at her from time to time with sad and nervous eyes, and as they reached the other side, and the Church of Saint Samuel, he bowed his head.

“Where is your friend?” he asked, hoping that the answer he received would not be the one he suspected.

“Dead.”

“I should have stopped you,” he said sadly.

She gave him a hard look, and then it softened as she thought of his kindness. “You tried,” she answered. “There was nothing you could have done.”

“But—” he began, but she interrupted.

“There was nothing you could have done then, but there is now.”

“What. Only tell me and it will be done.”

“Help me.”

He looked at her strangely, as if he had not understood. “What can I do?” he asked.

“Well, for starters, you can tell me why you warned us in the first place. What do you know?”

“I will tell you what I can,” he said, and was surprised at his words. He had always felt safe in this city, safe as long as there were enough people who wanted to be there, to be involved in the devilish events that took place every few years. And he had rarely felt guilt when he heard news of disappearances at carnival. These people had chosen to attend. The pattern had been established before he was born, and he had always assumed it would continue long after he was gone. As a ferryman, he had brought many people, some more dangerous than others, to carnival parties on Calle Bernardo. He had rarely carried them back. And yet, even the night before, he had sensed that unlike most of those special passengers, this young woman didn’t really want to go. He could sense she did not belong. Regardless of her reassurances, he should have done more to stop her.

“The winter days are short,” he said. “It will be dark in two hours or so. Where are you staying?”

“Hotel Atlantico,” she answered.

She understood his concern and appreciated his unspoken offer. Tracey’s terror had become an angry fear, a quiet determination. The reporter was back with a vengeance. She had the world’s most useful tool, most powerful weapon, at her disposal. The media. She wouldn’t rest until she had used it to blow this whole thing apart.

Along the Grand Canal to the Rio del Santissimo, Giuseppe took her. Then past the Venice Theater and into the tangle of canals that make up the true streets of Venice, and finally to the Rio Canonica Palazzo, where Giuseppe bumped the gondola up to the doorstep of the Hotel Atlantico, in sight of the Bridge of Sighs. Any other time Tracey would have found the Journey incredibly romantic, though she was accompanied only by a scruffy old gondolier. Instead, it was painfully time-consuming as darkness approached. But she used the time well.

She discovered that Giuseppe knew very little after all, only myth and rumor and hints he had gotten from previous passengers. He certainly was not aware of the true nature of the Defiant Ones, and probably wouldn’t have believed her if she tried to tell him.

Instead she quietly thanked him, assuring him that there was nothing more to be done, that she would leave immediately for home and never return to Venice for carnival. He apologized profusely for his impotence, and ironically, when he slipped away from the hotel, she felt bad for him rather than for herself, or even for Linda. Linda had gotten what she asked for, though certainly not what she deserved—nobody deserved that.

Once inside the hotel, as she showered and put on warmer clothes, Traccy began to plan. The first thing on her agenda was a call to her friend and boss, Jim Thomas, at CNN.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Now, Hannibal,” Peter said with a gracious smile, “is that any way for a host to treat his guests?”

They’d been wailing for the sun to go down, but it was barely dusk when the host of the Defiant Ones’ Venetian carnival awoke. Hannibal entered his living room to find it occupied by what was left of the rabble that Karl Von Reinman had once called a coven. It surprised him to no end to see Peter Octavian with the others, two of whom had professed only the night before to hate the man. And yet here they were, in his home.