Prologue
Geraint
San Antonio, Texas
Blood. It washes from my skin as if the heavens themselves are absolving me. Rain falls on saints and sinners alike tonight, but on the day of reckoning, only the virtuous will be raised up to paradise. The wicked will be cast down into the fiery pits of hell and burn forevermore in untold agony.
What a load of bullshit.
I wipe my knife clean on the dead man’s jeans. Looking up through the rain, I see what has put me in a godly frame of mind tonight: a great white cross mounted atop the high brick wall next to me. I’ve killed a man behind a Catholic church.
Snorting with amusement, I stand up and sheath the hunting knife inside my jacket. I really made a mess of my hit. Normally, it would have just been a slit throat—fast and, I don’t know, painless? Probably not. But less painful than what I did to him. Both Achilles tendons cut so he couldn’t run. Tongue sliced out so he couldn’t scream. Several well-placed stab wounds meant he bled out slowly, watching me smile while I watched him die.
This one was personal. You blab about a job, Arthur wants you dead. It’s as simple as that. I have no problem killing people who can’t keep their mouth shut, especially with Trefor preparing to go undercover among Adelmo Lange and his men. This will send a message to anyone else who thinks of double-crossing the Cavalieri Della Morte.
Don’t fuck with us. We fuck back. Harder.
“And don’t insult my mother,” I say to the corpse, giving it a kick for calling me a son of a bitch. “It might have been quicker if you didn’t insult my mother.”
The man’s face is blank and wet and shines in the light from a distant streetlamp. My mother never did anything wrong in this life and I won’t stand for her being insulted by fucking scum now she’s in the next.
As I walk away, I pull my hood up and give an ironic nod to the cross atop the wall. Someone will find the body in the morning and the location will make the news even more sensational. Brutal murder in the dead of night behind Catholic church. Desecration!
This is an old part of San Antonio where the churches are grand and the streets are quiet and empty at two in the morning in heavy rain. I round the corner and see a sign on the high wall: Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church and Convent. The sisters will be all tucked up in their beds, safe and sound, where all good girls should be. I’m nearly back to my car when something comes tearing out of a side street and barrels into my chest. It struggles but I hold it fast, wondering what small and angry thing is attacking me. I hear a whimper and feel rib bones and wet cotton beneath my fingers.
It’s a girl.
No. It’s a woman. She can’t be much more than eighteen but terror has made her childlike. Her eyes are wide as she stares up at me and her pallor is startlingly white against her straggled black hair.
“Why, hello. Where did you come from?” Her dress is soaked through and clinging to her skin. She has no handbag and her feet are bare. Mud is splattered on her calves. Though she’s skinny, she’s not underfed, and her hair has seen a comb recently. Not a street kid. A runaway? Someone trying to hurt her? I look up and down the street but see no one.
She tries to pull away from me and then seems to give up, sinking down to her knees on the cracked sidewalk. Her arm slides through my grip until I’m holding onto her hand. She crosses herself shakily, her lips moving silently in prayer as she rocks back and forth.
What the hell?
I murdered a man not two hundred feet from here and I’m itching to get out of town. Arthur’s expecting me to report in. The rain continues to fall on us, and she’s so slight the heavy downpour could almost drown her. Her hand tightens in mine and she looks up at me with those big, scared eyes. Any sonova bitch finds her, he could do anything to her.
Ah, fuck.
I glance around and see the church, from the front this time. Soft light glows through the stained-glass windows, a warm, welcoming sight.
I know what the guys would say if they could see me now. That I’m a fucking idiot for putting my life in jeopardy for a stranger. That if this girl can’t keep herself alive then maybe she doesn’t have any business living.
That I only feel the need to do a good deed after seeing all this Jesus shit everywhere tonight.
But I’m not a believer and it’s not that. We’ve all got our weaknesses and girls on their knees is mine. Couldn’t leave one down there begging me silently, even if I had a gun to my head. I can spare exactly sixty seconds and then I’m out of here.
“Church it is,” I say, scooping the young woman into my arms. She barely weighs a thing. I shoulder through the creaky gate and find the door to the church is locked, so I kick it with my steel-toe boots. A booming sound echoes within. Fuck me sideways.
I just murdered a man behind this church and now I’m announcing my presence as clearly as if I’d climbed the tower and started ringing the goddamn bell.
There are sounds from within, shuffling footsteps approaching. The slide of a bolt and then the door opens a crack.
I keep my head bowed, peering through the gap from beneath my hoodie. “Found this girl. Needs your help.”
The door opens wider and I see a frail old woman in a thick black dressing gown and slippers, her white hair twisted up and pinned tightly. I can tell she’s a nun even though she’s not wearing a habit.
Her watery blue eyes fasten on the girl in my arms. “Oh, poor child. Bring her inside.” The nun turns away and disappears into the church. I consider dumping the girl on the doorstep and getting the hell away from this place, but she seems to have fallen into unconsciousness in my arms, her cheek resting against my shoulder. Too tired to run. Too tired to fight or even care what happens to her.
Inside, the church is quiet and warm and steeped in shadows. I can make out the pews and the altar at the far end, and off to one side is a row of burning candles. Votive candles, lit by those who’ve come to pray.
The nun takes me through to a side room that looks to be an office, and waves me over to a sofa against the wall. I place the young woman on the cushions and she makes a small sound before clutching at my jacket, as if reluctant to let me go. I smooth her dark hair back from her face. At least she’ll be safe here and the sisters will look after her until she’s strong enough to go back to wherever she came from. If she can go back.
When I straighten, I see the nun is eyeing my clothing and I wonder if she can see the dark stains of blood even on the black fabric. I wonder if she can smell it. My face is in shadows beneath the hood, but she looks me right in the eye.
“God sees everything you do, and He is merciful.”
It’s like she knows. Not about the murder, but that helping this girl is my first good deed in a long, long time. As soon as this nun hears tomorrow there’s a body behind the church, she’s going to know I did it. There won’t be much she can tell the police though, and by the time she talks, I’ll be over state lines. Six foot three or four. Caucasian. Didn’t say much, wore black, kept his face in shadows.
My eyes land on the gold crucifix on the wall, the tiny, grim effigy of a slowly dying man. Untold suffering in this life, but that’s okay because the next life will be better. I never saw the comfort in that. I’ll take what I can get in this life.
I turn to leave, and take one last look at the girl. Her eyes are closed, dark lashes resting against her pale cheeks. She’s so damn small and sweet and I feel the urge to snatch her up again and take her with me. Except where I’m going, she can’t come with me.
The nun calls after me, “I’ll pray for you.”
My footsteps sound through the empty church as I head for the door. “Yeah. Don’t bother.”
Geraint
New Orleans, five months later
“It’s Trefor, isn’t it. He’s dead.”