Daughter of Ashes, page 22
“Lavinia, are you there? I thought I might come and see you, if you’re free. I need to talk to you.”
Which actually meant, I need you, like some distant moon, like a light in the darkness, like a star I can cling to as it passes by so that I can fly away from here. In the silence that followed, Teresa could hear her own heartbeat.
And the moon quickly revealed itself to be nothing but a hollow crater.
“You want to come here to air your dirty laundry, don’t you?”
Teresa instinctively cradled her womb, as if it had suddenly been left exposed.
“What . . . ?”
“I did not appreciate that phone call the other night. Remember, it’s my brother we’re talking about.”
“Lavinia . . .”
“If you’re no longer interested in him, just leave him, but for God’s sake don’t drag me into your problems. What am I supposed to do when I see him?”
Teresa felt a teardrop fall from the tip of her chin all the way to her hand, curled around the metal telephone cable.
“I need help.”
The words had come out in a whisper—the fading arpeggios in the background mirroring her dwindling hope.
“I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to deal with this on your own.”
The gods often argued with each other, Teresa thought. They even clashed sometimes. But they never took mortal form just to rescue an insignificant human. No amount of love, compassion, or even basic pity was enough to make them truly forsake their own tribe. What dwelt in the heavens remained in the heavens.
Lavinia hung up, and something in Teresa’s universe, in the sidereal realm above her, suddenly ceased to shine.
“Battaglia!”
Teresa turned around, the now-quiet receiver still in her grasp, her ear refusing to register the silence at the other end.
Lorenzi’s head was peeking out from the elevator, the rest of his body jamming the doors open.
“We’ve just received the warrant, Inspector Battaglia. We need to call the hospital to get them to send us their files on the staff of the orthopedics ward. Superintendent Lona said to ask you to do it.”
Teresa dried her tears with the edge of her sleeve and picked up her bag.
“What, so that they’re warned we’re coming? Absolutely not. I’ll go there myself.”
She dropped the receiver, letting it hang from its cord.
39
Today
TERESA HAD WANTED TO see Giacomo alone. As soon as she walked into the room, she realized that she had always known, deep down, that someday she would find him right where he was now. Not in a morgue, not in a prison cell he’d never get out of, but in a hospital bed. Somehow, he’d found a way to return to where it all began.
She sat next to him. He was asleep. The brush against death—his own—had exhausted him.
She tucked the sheet in and fixed the elastic band of his oxygen mask so that it wouldn’t cut into his cheeks.
“Oh, Giacomo. Did you really have to?” She sighed. She was exhausted, too. “I’m not sure I can bear it, you know.”
She held his hand. That strong hand, capable of delivering both death and salvation, now lay calm and inert. Perhaps it had finally found peace now that he had used it to shed his own blood.
Giacomo had turned on himself, as was often the case in stories like his—generating a maelstrom of destruction before crashing back down into a heart that was often too tired to beat on, that had never come into its own.
Teresa ran her thumb over the dressing on his wrist. His veins had been repaired with stitches, and the bandages were straining to hold together the flesh of his tattered life. Teresa reflected on the bitterness that characterized certain cursed existences. She had once risked the same fate herself.
She rested her face in his palm. She could smell the same medical scent that had marked their shared history—a history that continued to torment them both. Shoved deep inside one of the two gashes, the surgeon had found a pearlescent marble tile. Teresa had no doubt that it was the missing piece from the portrait he’d made of her. Of all the leftover pieces that had been found, it was the only one that had been carved into any kind of shape: a hexagon, which symbolized their bond and fit perfectly in the empty spot.
Buried stories will always remain inside of us, tucked away in some cold recess, the dark room everyone avoids and where the lights are never on. But that means the dust can never settle. Everything remains exactly as it was.
Giacomo’s cry for help was still there, twenty-seven years later. Teresa had never been able to untangle the knot of hurt he carried in his chest.
She reluctantly let go of his hand.
“I’ll be back soon. Don’t go anywhere.”
As she walked out of the room, she kept her eyes fixed on his face, hoping to catch even the slightest trace of movement, and when she closed the door behind her, she did so very gently, as she would have done if he’d been a little boy, fast asleep and dreaming of his toys.
But who knew what Giacomo was actually dreaming of, or whether there was a place somewhere, in some other universe, where violence was not a curse destined to be passed on from generation to generation, and where he might get the chance to feel what it was like to be like other people—no better or worse than anybody else.
A TEAR SLIPPED out of Giacomo’s eye and slid down his cheekbone, until it hung suspended from his jaw.
The nurse who had come in to check on his vitals quickly wiped it dry with a piece of rough gauze. Had he actually been asleep, this would have woken him up.
How careless the nurse’s gestures felt—especially after how gentle Teresa had been.
Giacomo kept his eyes shut to the world.
He was suffering, but it was a different from the pain that made him kill.
It was a sad pain, but it was also kind.
40
IV Century
LUSIUS WAS DEAD, MURDERED by a fellow Roman in the temple of the Christian god. The news had traveled from mouth to ear in whispered breaths among the campfires outside the city walls of Aquileia. The soldiers bristled with fury and doubt, but their orders were to stay put. They must not show any signs of unrest, or else the enemy would strike again—not just against one man this time, but the whole legion.
“He might still be alive,” the optio murmured to his commander. “Nobody saw what happened.”
Claudius Cornelius Tacitus took his helmet from his assistant’s hands.
“He’s dead.”
He stepped out of the tent, and the scent of ritual incense was quickly replaced by the smells of the encampment: leather and braziers, roast meat and male skin, sand, the metal of the soldiers’ weapons, dried fish, and the sweet, heady fragrance of open wineskins. But the men’s goblets were still full to the brim, and so they would remain. Any semblance of calm was a fiction.
The milites rose to their feet as he walked past. They beat their fists against their chests.
Claudius put his helmet on and tightened its leather strap. He was getting ready to leave behind the only life he’d ever known.
And for what? the fear inside of him asked. Did faith truly have the power to subvert all logic, and to solidify within a man’s heart what had, in fact, no solid form at all?
He would soon find out.
Feronia and Mist were raring to go. The mare was stronger and wilder than Mist, and Claudius decided to ride her first. She was quicker, too, and would carry him far, while Mist’s stamina would serve Claudius better during the daylight hours.
He slipped his foot into the stirrups and heaved himself onto the horse. Feronia absorbed his weight with a grunt. Claudius patted her neck. He could feel her energy quivering between his thighs.
“Calm down, now. You’ll be running soon.”
The encampment was an expanse of torchlight and quickened, agitated breaths.
Claudius gazed into the distance. It was getting dangerous to wait any longer than he already had.
“It’s late. There isn’t much time left until the changing of the guard,” said the optio, voicing what many of the others were thinking. “The barriers . . .”
Claudius grabbed the reins and banished all doubt.
“The barriers will open.”
Feronia was restless, causing Mist—who was tethered to her—to neigh in response. Claudius would only let her walk in circles, storing up the power that would shortly be released with thunderous, inexorable force at just a clip of her rider’s heels. Meanwhile his own fervor was growing, too, matching the mare’s.
One of the soldiers pointed toward the eastern edge of the encampment.
“There’s someone coming!”
They could not yet make out the identity of the figure running toward them, but he was too slight to cause any kind of alarm. A young man, a boy, approaching alone.
“That’s Lusius’s servant.”
Lusius was definitely dead; that was clear to everyone now. Claudius felt his insides churning.
Other figures were following in the young man’s wake. A tribune and his centurions. They were still quite far away.
Claudius leaned toward the optio.
“Protect the boy. Find out who wished to see Lusius dead, and kill him in turn.”
He maneuvered Feronia into the attacking gait that had brought them so many triumphs. The mare launched herself forward like an arrow from the bowstring, but Claudius did not direct her toward the barriers yet. He galloped instead toward the boy, but stopped the horses several yards short, ordering the young servant to throw what Lusius had given him for safekeeping.
The boy, well-trained and experienced in battle, didn’t hesitate.
Claudius pulled at the reins, and Feronia reared on her hind legs. With one hand he caught the bundle out of the air, and with the other, he tugged again at the horse’s harness.
Now he was racing furiously toward the barriers that sealed the encampment like sluices. The doors that faced north were supposed to open at his arrival. If they didn’t, he would be doomed.
Behind him, the milites were busy slowing the advance of the tribune and his centurions, resuming their military community’s evening activities as if nothing unusual had happened. They were protecting the boy, recognizing in his loyalty to Lusius the spirit of a true soldier of Rome.
Claudius was almost at the gates, illuminated by torches and braziers. He was close enough to be able to look into the eyes of the four sentries who’d been stationed to guard it.
The horse’s heart was his own. Their courage, too, was shared. The mare showed no signs of hesitation, and she would only ever stop at his signal, even at the cost of her life. Mist did not pull back either, keeping pace with their advance, emboldened by blind faith in his fellow beast and their master.
Claudius spurred Feronia on. He was about to find out whether the sentries’ loyalty had also held.
The men recognized him. Someone yelled an order, and the thick wooden bars that secured the gates were pulled aside.
Claudius crossed the border of the encampment through streaks of torchlight and a flurry of dust, and in the cacophony, he caught the sound of someone behind him calling out the name of the goddess—like a blessing, and a reminder that he must never betray her.
Claudius waited until darkness had engulfed him completely before giving himself and the horses a break, and slowing their pace. Only several miles later did he stop to turn and take in the distant lights of Aquileia, the Empire’s resplendent bulwark.
Before him lay a dark and silent hollow where the light of Rome did not shine. Every day now, Roman blood was shed in that land that stretched from Constantinople all the way to the Julian Alps.
He took off his helmet and placed it inside the sack that Mist carried on his flank. He took out a black cloak and pulled it over his military robes.
Separated from the rest of his legion, completely on his own, and without the comfort of familiar symbols to remind him who he truly was, Claudius felt the uncertainty that came with the first stirrings of a new kind of freedom.
He stroked Feronia’s head, rewarded her with the kinds of whispered words that would usually be reserved for a woman. The mare nuzzled his hand. Behind them, Mist let out a grunt.
Claudius opened the bundle he was still clutching in one hand and brushed his lips devotedly against the statuette, before tucking it safely away inside the bandages that stopped his breastplate from chafing against his chest. He picked up the reins again and prepared to face the unknown, his gaze alert.
Their faith must survive. It must be carried into new lands that still worshipped pagan gods. Beyond the castrum of Ibligine to the north, all the way past the Alps and into the Noricum; or east, past Forum Julii and across the forests, toward Illyria.
Claudius opted to head east, where the Light of the new day rose, where the Sun returned unvanquished every day after crossing through the most dangerous hours of Night.
It was his turn, now, to overcome that Night.
41
Twenty-seven years ago
ALBERT DECIDED HE’D VISIT the hospital’s administrative department, too, as soon as he found out that was what Teresa intended to do. He couldn’t possibly come second, not even in others’ misguided ventures.
She made no comment, and practiced instead how to channel what few resources she had into moving forward—even when what she had was a narcissistic boss who would step aside for nothing but his own outsize ego.
But at this juncture, Albert represented the state, the team, the will to discover the truth. His presence mattered—as Teresa quickly realized from the behavior of the hospital director, who gave them free access to the personnel records and wasted no time in helping them sift through all the documentation. He seemed to respond particularly well to the embodiment of male authority who stood before him, addressing Albert even when it was Teresa who asked a question. Had she turned up on her own, he probably would have ignored her, and everything would have taken that much longer.
“We’ve come here because a few lines you drew on a map happened to intersect somewhere,” muttered Albert when they were invited to wait in a conference room for the rest of the files they’d requested. “What if it’s all a mistake?”
He was clearly apprehensive about the process he’d set in motion. Scared of damaging his reputation—and consequently his power—because of a misstep that wasn’t even his own.
It was a problem Teresa didn’t have.
“Albert, we’ve come here because our hypothesis aligns with the clues we’ve gathered so far, and because we certainly can’t expect the killer to come to us himself. You have to be willing to take a risk, otherwise we’ll never see the end of this case—at least not the kind of end we’re all hoping for.”
“What you’re hoping for is to see me end up in the stocks.”
“You’re wrong. Anyway, knowing you, you’d probably find a way to send someone else there instead of you.”
But she wasn’t going to let it be her again. She was getting more pregnant by the day; there was no time to lose.
The director and his secretary had returned, carrying the files for several employees.
Out of all the staff in the hospital, those whose characteristics and positions were the closest match for the parameters Teresa had identified were two surgeons, three female nurses, one male nurse, four female orderlies, and two male orderlies, all from the orthopedics department.
Teresa immediately set aside the files corresponding to female personnel. For the first time, the hospital director actually spoke to her.
“Why are you ruling them out?”
“The killer we’re looking for can’t be a woman. And not just because of his physical build, which we can deduce from the handful of footprints we have identified.”
Albert interrupted her.
“Though those could, of course, be easily altered with oversize shoes.”
“So if that’s not the main reason, then what is?”
“Statistics, and psychological profiles.” Teresa pressed a finger on the stack of files. “Female serial killers are very rare, and more importantly . . .”
“More importantly, you’re basically harmless.”
So much sloppy thinking, cheapening a science that had already achieved so much, and had made such a significant contribution to their cause.
“We may be relatively uncommon, but more importantly, our approach is more targeted,” she replied. “Female serial killers tend to choose their victims from among a narrow circle of family and loved ones. They take advantage of relationships of mutual trust and care. They do not like to resort to physical violence and bloodshed, but tend to develop more sophisticated methods—which are consequently more difficult to spot. They are equipped with an exceptional capacity for camouflage, and they hardly ever get caught. And so they keep on killing, for years and years. That doesn’t exactly sound harmless, does it?”
Albert glared at her.
“Shall we proceed?”
Teresa leafed through the two surgeons’ files. They were both middle-aged, with spotless and fairly straightforward professional records. Albert leaned in to take a closer look.
Teresa was doubtful.
“The age range isn’t right.”
“But they would have access to the training and the tools needed to remove the bones the victims were missing. Besides, you haven’t got some kind of crystal ball. You might be wrong.”
“The amputations performed on the first two victims were a mess.”
“But the third was clean.”
“He could have learned along the way. He must have, in fact.”
“Though according to Parri, the killer was already using a scalpel by the time he got to the second victim.”
But they still hadn’t figured out what the murderer was looking for in those bodies, why he removed fragments from a different bone each time. What did he do with them? What did they represent? Why did he always carve his victims’ chests open?
