Suicide Kings (25 page)

Who would even miss her? Not her father who paid her barely any mind; Siobhan might be a friend, but she’d find lucrative employ elsewhere with her particular set of skills. Truth be told, Diana had never been adept at cultivating a close cabal of friends and colleagues. Her mark upon this Earth, were she to leave it suddenly, would amount to nothing at all.

Her eyes alighted upon her father’s pistol, her loyal companion in all of this. Her fingers trembled as she reached out for it. In her hands the heavy wood felt good, an anchor of reality for such a surreal night. She’d taken lives with this instrument. The first had deserved it; a murderous degenerate unmissed by the world. The second, though…only a youth caught up in an unfortunate moment. What might his life had been had their paths not intersected? This pistol had blood on it, blood that flowed over onto her hands in copious amounts. What would one more matter?

Hands shaking, she cocked forward the hammer and put the barrel against her temple. What would it feel like, the hard ball going through her brain? Would there be a moment of intense pain before the darkness came? Would her life just snuff out like a candle? The old man downstairs would find her, fetch the gendarmes perhaps or simply call the gravemen to take her body away. That would be it, just another soul lost on the bonfire night.

Diana thought of the priestly warnings about suicide. An eternity in Hell, unforgiven by God. Where was God though on a night like this? She didn’t know if she ever really felt his presence. Tonight the city of man seemed orphaned of any God. Only this rock of a world, with men and women rutting, killing, cowering in fear like any animal. No matter the course of their lives, each of them ended in a miserable, painful death. Could there be any sense left in prolonging that pain? If God lived, he’d simply have to forgive her…or not.

Still, this was a decidedly final decision. Once the trigger pulled, no second thoughts, quite literally. The steel against her skin cold, repellant. Her hand tensed and released over and over, in time with her shallow breathing. A dozen times she made a decision—pull the trigger, no, don’t, do it, don’t!

Her mind flashed to that image of her mother, hands raised up desperately, that last look of terror frozen on her face for as long as it took for the flesh to melt away to bone. That face—that accusation—would be with her for always…for as long as she lived. How long could she endure a life like that?

She would just have to take her chances with God’s wrath. “Lord God,” she whispered, “If you even exist. If this is not your will, then I ask for your intercession.” She doubted that little prayer would buy her much sympathy if this ultimately proved to be a spiritually horrible decision, but at least it was something.

She sucked in a deep breath, then another. Her free hand rubbed her left temple. Her head seared with pain. Very well, it was now or never.

She squeezed her eyes together tightly. Her finger trembled on the trigger. She hoisted the heavy pistol up so it was perpendicular to the floor. The ball would go straight through her skull, no glancing shots. She hoped this wouldn’t hurt too much.

The decision made, it was still so hard to choose the exact second. Much like diving into a cold pond. Though the course of action was set, every moment seemed precious. Enough of this. With a surge of adrenaline and determination, she pulled the trigger.

She felt the concussion as the hammer slammed down, felt the wheel inside the pistol grind as it threw off sparks. Then nothing. Just the empty echo of the hammer against steel dying away.

Diana released her breath and opened her eyes wide. She was still alive. She jumped up and threw the pistol onto the table like it was a snake. Disbelieving, she stared at it, her mind struggling to comprehend. Breath came fast and shallow. She could still feel the cold circle of steel against the side of her head.

The pistol sat motionless on the table where she had thrown it. Though it seemed somehow alive to her now, another entity, it gave no signs of life.

Diana looked down at her hands, stretched her fingers. Still alive, despite her best intentions. Had her prayer been answered? Was it God’s intercession on her behalf? Slowly it dawned on her what had happened. She’d fired the gun earlier when she’d killed the youth who accosted their group on the way to the convent. In the ensuing chaos, rescuing Francesca, finding her mother, she’d never reloaded it. Stupid really. Not a miracle. Just her own ineptitude.

Nonetheless, that itself could have been the Lord’s method, couldn’t it? She’d never forgotten to reload it before. If she simply tried again, would that be a more flagrant disregard for God’s will? Surely he wouldn’t rescue her twice.

If it were the case he wanted her alive, for what purpose? To find her mother’s killer? She’d proven herself far from competent at such a task. She doubted it could be simple love. He treated his creations with too much contempt and cruelty to understand love.

Either way, what did it matter? What God wants, God gets. Fine then, she’d leave matters more fully in His hands.

She approached the table, reaching gingerly for the gun. It didn’t burn her fingers when she touched it, didn’t bite.

She hefted it in her hand, regarding it like a mischievous child. More deep breaths to steady her nerves. Carefully, her hands still quivering, she took out the powder and shot, reloaded the weapon. No more errors. It would be just God’s decision this time.

With the pistol fully loaded, she cocked forward the hammer once again. She approached the bed, laid out waiting for her. The bed was generous in size, large enough for two people. Two straw filled pillows provided comfort for the sleepers’ heads. Nothing remotely like the comforts of her own bed at home, but not terrible for an inn. Gently she placed the pistol on the left pillow, barrel pointed inward to the right side of the bed, hammer free to swing. She took care to be sure the barrel faced the middle of the right pillow.

She moved around the outside of her bed, fingers lightly tracing along the blanket. She pushed down once gently to test the mattress. Filled with straw. Scratchy. Even in her present state, her mind protested the unpleasant accommodations. Exhaustion threatened to overwhelm her. Even if she could bear to return to her own home, which she could not, her body could take no more exertions. Her calf muscles ached with each step; her feet felt like they were on fire. The grinding pain in her head simply wouldn’t stop. Her brain had no energy left to work on either; all she could contemplate was sleep, whether she woke or not.

Once, she turned and stared for a moment outside the window. Burning pages rose up in drafts of hot air, only to flutter down to Earth again like fallen angels. So many ideas, so much knowledge. Beyond the fire, Firenze, her beloved city stretched out, mere shadows in the deep darkness.

With a sigh, she turned away and finished her circumnavigation of the bed moving over to the right side. With a tired hand, she pushed back the blankets. At very least it was too cold for insects. She saw none of the bedbugs or lice she might have expected. She sat on the edge of the bed and pulled off her boots. Her toes felt like they had been holding their breath and were finally allowed to breath. She wiggled them in the cold air, before swinging her legs up and over into the bed. She pulled the blanket over onto herself before the cold could get at her too badly.

Gently, she eased her torso down. As she had feared, jagged bits of straw poked at her. How anyone managed to sleep like this, day in and day out, she could never guess. For tonight, she’d manage. Fatigue would help her see past the discomfort. Her head settled into the straw pillow. With bones aching, she turned onto her right side.

The open barrel of the pistol stared her down, like a lover, or like a mortal enemy, she couldn’t quite decide which. Together they had taken lives, the first well-deserved certainly, the second an unfortunate victim of circumstance, although still beyond her control. The third, well…Diana had no doubt this pistol would take a third life. The only question was whether that would prove to be her own. God would decide that. If He wished her to live…to press on, to endure, well she’d know that by tomorrow morning. If He preferred to end her misery tonight, so be it.

Diana wondered how much she tended to toss and turn at night. Just the right bump could be enough to loosen the hammer, send the wheel inside the pistol spinning, spraying sparks against the powder within. She’d never hear the shot, never wake to realize what had been done. It would be God’s hand, not her own. Surely, He couldn’t fault her that.

She blinked, eyes feeling languid. They closed for a moment, burning with the need to remain closed. Still, she forced them open for one more look at the pistol, her most steadfast companion. What would her dreams be like tonight? What kinds of horrors could she expect?

Sleep could not be put off forever. Her eyes demanded to close. Perhaps just for a moment. She’d let them rest. Rest quickly turned to sleep and sleep to dreaming.

The dreams that came were, in their way, a surprise. No horrors visited her in her sleep, only memories of her mother in better days, years gone by. Long before her death, long before the Sacred Council of Apostles, Diana herself merely a girl, they walked hand in hand in gardens above the city. The air was warm, the weather serene, and when her mother turned and smiled at her all felt right with the world.

Outside her mind, in the real world, Diana’s mouth stretched into a smile, only inches from the gun barrel. Inside, within Diana’s mind, she knew a moment of peace, of real peace. The first she had known in days. With time this faded, and only a dark empty oblivion replaced it.

Chapter Fifteen

Phoenix

Light streamed through the windows, irritating Diana’s eyes as she blinked away her sloth. Remnants of some dream scattered from her consciousness, slipping away like shadows with the darkness. She couldn’t even recall if the dreams had been pleasant or dreadful.

Momentary confusion overtook her. The unfamiliar surroundings gave her a surreal sensation, as if she might be trapped in one more dream. Gradually her memories returned. Her mother, the burning pyre, her own flirtation with death. One long lurid nightmare that didn’t recede with morning.

She arched her back, the muscles stretching as blood flowed more freely within them. Then she twisted over onto her side and glanced back down the barrel of her pistol. For a moment she just stared into the blackness. So, perhaps God didn’t want her dead after all. At least not by her own hand. True, there was hardly clear proof of divine intervention, but twice down the road of self-destruction had been enough for one twenty-four hour period. Besides, although she could hardly consider herself happy or optimistic or pleased with herself, at least the crushing weight of despair had lifted. Hope, true hope, remained a fleeting fantasy, but in its place she found the steadfastness of someone with nothing left to lose. She’d found the bottom, found herself ready for death. If she were meant to die, then let Mancini do it, or one of the Council themselves. What need was there to do their work for them. Perhaps she might even yet do them some damage in the process.

She took the gun from where it had rested overnight. Carefully, she eased the hammer back down so the weapon was safe. It would do no good for her to blow a hole in her hip while walking. She swung her feet over the edge of the bed and, pistol still in one hand, stretched out her limbs like a cat.

“So now what?” she asked the pistol, hoping her madness had descended far enough that it might respond, perchance with good advice. Only silence answered her though and she returned the pistol to its fashioned holster. She took care of her morning hygiene and collected her few things.

A moment to regard herself in the mirror left her shaking her head. She looked terrible. Her dress was dirty from gallivanting all over the city and rumpled from sleeping in it. Her hair tangled in an abyssal mess. What cosmetics remained from the previous day were hopelessly compromised by tear marks. Had she wished to pass for a whiskey-starved prostitute only her good teeth would have spoiled the disguise.

Sluggish, she struggled with the holster and slid on her coat. Few enough the things she had with her. The clothes on her body, the pistol, some florins in her purse. She might flee to Venezia or Napoli and survive with some thrift for a few months off those coins. She’d hardly be the first Firenzian to flee in such a manner. She could even plead her case to the King of Napoli; her standing was high enough he might grant her an audience and besides, he was ever eager to stir mischief in Firenze.

Perhaps she needn’t go so far. Might there not be a power more locally to whom she could turn? There was only one man whom she could be confident had told her a grim kind of truth. Watching the books burn the night before, she knew with no doubt that if Savonarola wanted her death, she would have been cast onto the flames alongside those despised volumes. Savonarola would not have slipped poison to Isabella Savrano or to Francesca di Lucca. With a word, he would simply have sent either woman to burn upon the stake. Savonarola was a man of grand statements, not slick intrigues. In realizing this, she could be sure that he was one person who was not against her. Whatever else he might be, and Diana saw more than a little of the Devil in him, he was not her avowed enemy, not at this moment. It was time to turn to him and see what succor he might offer.

Down the stairs and through the entrance hall she slinked like a thief. An old woman now watched the inn, and Diana barely glanced at her. Shame burned in her, as if the woman would guess her self-destructive plans for the night before. It would not be possible to be out of the inn too quickly, and if she never returned there it would be for the best.

Diana breathed deeply once she was out the door and back on the streets of Firenze. The air felt much warmer than the day before, and melted snow ran in little streams down the street. Above, gray clouds still loomed, and it was unlikely that this temperate respite would last very long.