IGMS Issue 50 (4 page)

As Ferri holds me she tells me of her life two centuries ago, before becoming a vampire. While not one of the Bentivoglios, who ruled Bologna at the time, she'd still been tied by blood to a minor noble family. Her father was a noted architect and her mother a painter. They'd encouraged her to attend the university, something women in no other city in Italy could do.

She was nearing her final year of studies when Pope Julius II besieged the city and captured it. Bologna was now part of the Papal States with a cardinal legato in charge.

Ferri and her family were imprisoned, as were many leading members of the city. All Ferri had to do to be released was pledge loyalty to the Pope and the cardinal legato, but she refused. She cursed the cardinal. Called him an evil man driven by inhuman desires. Said he wasn't a true Christian.

So she was cut.

She and the other resisters were taken to the lowest levels of the cardinal's palace and chained to the rack. No part of their flesh was harmed. Instead, the cardinal prayed over their bodies one by one, asking the Lord to remove the emotions tainting their souls.

Then the cardinal held a sacred knife over their heads. The knife flickered as if by magic, its blade like a reflection which vanished and reappeared depending on how one looked upon it. One by one the cardinal plunged the knife into the prisoners' heads. The knife didn't cut their bones or flesh or draw a single drop of blood, but still they screamed.

Everyone else chained to the rack died. But Ferri survived. She felt the ethereal knife cut each of her emotions one by one until she felt nothing at all. Then the cardinal branded her with his seal so she would always obey the orders of himself and his successors.

"I'm sorry," Ferri says. "Cardinal Battista has trapped you just like that cardinal centuries ago trapped me."

I reach around Ferri's cold flesh and hug her tight. Even if neither of us feels excitement from our touch, we can still hold each other until it's time to leave this room.

The next night Ferri and I again roam the city. That's when we notice the baker has returned to his small shop. As we step inside, the warm scent of baking bread wraps around us.

Ferri walks across the shop and sits down at the flour-coated table. The baker and four men from the neighborhood already sit there. Other men stand behind them, all armed with rapiers and clubs.

"I hope your family are still in the countryside," Ferri says.

"They are," the baker replies.

"That is good. I wouldn't want them to be harmed."

The men around the baker grumble and tense as the baker slams his fist on the table, raising a puff of flour. "Don't torture us like this," he demands. "Attack and be done with it."

"Cardinal Battista thinks you fled the city, so I've no orders to kill you. Unless you attack me first . . ."

The baker laughs nervously, followed by several of his men. Everyone relaxes, no one wanting to be the first to test Ferri's strength. "So what happens now?" the baker asks. "Do you return tomorrow night after Cardinal Battista orders you to kill us?"

"I imagine that will happen," Ferri says. "The cardinal is predictable in his response to anyone who challenges him."

The baker nods to this truth as Ferri stands. "I suggest you don't flee this time," she tells the baker. "The cardinal will likely order me to find you no matter how far you go. The farther you run the more people I'll be forced to kill to find you." She looks at the other men. "I doubt he'll order me to hunt down your men if they flee."

The baker says he understands and Ferri and I leave his shop. As we walk up the hill back to the palace, I beg her not to tell Cardinal Battista the baker has returned.

"I've no choice," Ferri says. "He'll order me to tell all I've heard tonight. And tomorrow he'll have me kill the baker."

I remember how Cardinal Battista would one day order Ferri to kill me. "Do you think the cardinal will tell you to kill me tonight?"

"I doubt it, Uccello. He will most likely wait until you've almost forgotten what I am. That's when he'll order me to strike."

That morning I lie beside Ferri in her coffin but don't fall asleep. When I'm convinced she won't wake, I climb out of the coffin and into the tunnel and walk to the city.

I wear a hat and scarf so no one will recognize me--remembering well Cardinal Battista's order to imprison and torture me--but as I enter the baker's neighborhood I still imagine people are watching me. That a soldier or magistrate will arrest me at any moment.

It's almost a relief when I finally reach the baker's shop and stride inside.

The baker and several of his men are still sitting around the table discussing what to do. They fall silent when they see me.

"I thought vampires couldn't go out in the sun," the baker says.

"I'm no vampire," I say in my unmistakable voice. The men curse and one of them calls me a damned capon. The baker tells the man to shut up.

"Why are you here?" the baker asks. "We've all heard the cardinal's order about the young castrato. If we turn you in to the magistrate, maybe the cardinal will call off his pet vampire."

"You know he won't."

The men nod to the sad truth of this.

"I can't help your fight against Cardinal Battista," I say. "But I can help you stop Ferri. Maybe."

The baker and his men recoil from me when I approach the table and sit down--as if castration is something they might catch from merely a touch--but still they hear me out.

I'm sitting at the baker's table when Ferri enters the shop that evening. All the other men have fled the city. Except for the baker, who sits beside me.

On the table before me rests a single rapier.

"Uccello," Ferri says with a nod. "I'd hoped you had escaped. I see I was wrong."

"There's nowhere for me to go. But I might be able to help you."

Ferri looks from the rapier to me. The baker holds his hands well away from the weapon, not wanting to force Ferri to attack him prematurely.

"I'm only here to kill the baker," she says. "He hasn't ordered me to kill you, Uccello. But if anyone attacks me, I have standing orders to defend myself."

I smile as I stand slowly and pick up the rapier. "I'm not attacking you," I say, holding the tip in front of me. "I'm helping you. I'm freeing you from the evil fate the church forced onto you." I begin to walk toward Ferri, aiming the sword at her heart. All she has to do is let me free her from this life.

Instead, Ferri laughs, a forced laugh with no emotion behind it but a laugh all the same. "Do you expect me to impale myself on your blade?" she asks. "Will you sing a dirge for me as I turn to dust and blow away, all my centuries of suffering released because you cared enough to kill me?"

Ferri shakes her head, still laughing. The baker and I stare at each other, unsure what to do now.

"I like you, Uccello," she says. "You're still a little boy who thinks boyish thoughts, but I like you."

Before I can react, Ferri dashes past me and grabs the baker, snapping his neck. I scream as the squat man falls backwards onto the flour-coated tiles.

Ferri snatches the rapier from my hands and taps the blade on the top of my head. "I don't want to die," she says. "While I feel no emotions, I still want to live. All people are like that."

She hands the rapier back to me as she feeds on the baker's blood. When she finishes, I follow her back to the palace.

"You know, of course, Cardinal Battista will order me to tell what happened tonight. When he learns what you tried to do, he'll hurt you. If you're lucky, he'll order me to kill you. If he's in a foul mood, he'll cut your emotions and try to turn you into a creature like myself."

I nod, dragging the rapier's tip across the stepping stones of the tunnel as we climb to Ferri's room. But instead of going to sleep like we usually do, Ferri opens the door to the rest of the palace.

"I must report to Cardinal Battista. Would you like to hear what I tell him?"

"I don't need to hear the cardinal order my death."

Since irritation is an emotion, Ferri doesn't look irritated. But she stares at me as if I've given the wrong answer. "Do you know that in the past I not only carried out the cardinals' dirty work but also protected them? But Cardinal Battista dislikes what I am. Hates me as much as he hates the castrati. Oh, he uses my services, just as he'll have a castrato sing for him. But he doesn't want either of us around more than necessary."

I nod. That's why Ferri lives in this room, as far from the cardinal as she can be while still staying in his palace.

"And?" I ask, unsure what she's trying to say.

"And I don't protect this cardinal. He has guards to do that. But not me. He's never ordered me to protect him. I can't personally harm him, but I don't have to protect him."

I finally understand and grip my rapier tight. I follow Ferri to the cardinal's room.

I should have known Ferri would have access to secret rooms and stairways--after all, the Pope's representative in Bologna can't have a vampire walking through the hallways beside priests and servants and passing visitors.

By the time we reach Cardinal Battista's bedchamber on the top floor it is nearly midnight. Ferri glances out the window at the lights of the town below.

"How did it go, Ferri?" Cardinal Battista asks, sitting up in his bed and stretching. "Hurry and tell me. I've a busy day tomorrow and don't want to miss sleep on account of something like you."

"The baker is dead," Ferri says. "The baker's men had already fled the city."

"I see. Anything else happen in town?"

"Yes. Uccello was waiting for me in the baker's shop. He tried to convince me to let myself be killed. I suppose he wanted to stop my reign of unholy terror."

Cardinal Battista laughs. "I'll have to do something about him sooner rather than later. Ah well. Such are the difficulties of dealing with those cast beyond God's grace."

The cardinal stands out of bed, his nightgown hanging loose from his body as he squats over a chamber pot. Ferri looks at me and I know this is my only chance. The cardinal hasn't seen me yet. He hasn't called for his guards or ordered Ferri to kill me.

I remember Siface and how he never turned away from a performance. I walk silently across the room and stab the rapier through Cardinal Battista's back. He screams. I clamp my hand over his mouth, desperate to keep him from ordering Ferri to help him. The rapier breaks as we fall to the floor but I stab him over and over with the broken blade until he stops moving and stares at me with uncurious eyes.

Two guards and a servant enter the bedchamber from the main door. The guards curse and charge at me with their rapiers.

I stand straight, ready to die with honor like Siface did in hundreds of operatic performances. But instead, Ferri rips through the guards, her teeth and fingers slicing necks and hearts from flesh and bone. The servant turns to run but Ferri leaps onto him and latches her mouth over his neck, riding him like a horse as she drains his blood.

When she finishes, she laughs her emotionless laugh as she closes and latches the door. "No one else knows of my hidden stairway," she says. "I suggest you flee before the other guards arrive."