The Blessed (9 page)

“He is here. The dark one,” Tessa said, panting, eyes wide as they searched the hall.

“Inside?” Gianni shouted, shoving Daria behind him. “Where did you see him, Daria? Where?” he snapped back at her, moving forward.

“There,” Daria whispered, backing up until the cold wall met her back. “He was down the hall, by Lord Devenue's room.” The men moved forward as a group, leaving Tessa and Daria behind them.

“Not there, darling,” whispered Amidei, lowly in her ear. Daria whirled and Tessa screamed. “Here, I am here,” he whispered again, now in her other ear. Daria turned quickly and Gianni came running.

But Piero was already beside her. He placed small hands on her shoulders. “Daria,” he said, shaking her slightly. “Daria!”

She glanced at him, eyes wild.

He pulled Tessa to him with one arm and then forced the child's face up to look at him. She was as crazed with fear as her mistress. “It is naught but an apparition. Amidei's dark magic, nothing more. He is not truly here!”

Vito arrived back at the end of the hall, Lord Devenue by his side. He shook his head at Gianni.
Nothing. No one.

“He was here,” Daria said, almost shouting. “I felt him.”

“As did I! I was certain of it,” Tessa said.

“I experienced something similar once,” Gianni said, drawing Daria into his arms, cradling her head beneath his chin. “He is powerful, in his magic. I almost cut a man down, as I whirled upon Amidei. But he was naught but smoke.”

“Listen to me,” Piero said, still staring at woman and girl. “This mansion now houses more than twenty-five men who will do everything to keep you safe.”

“But how does one stop a man who moves in smoke?” Daria whispered.

“He wants to interfere. He knows why we are now present here, at Lord Devenue's mansion. If he can stop you from healing the lord, he can consider a battle won. We beat him, Daria, sorely, on his own dark isle. We must beat him back here. Quickly, Daria. You go to the lord and be about your business of healing. Take whom you wish with you to feel safe. I will take the others, make certain we are all safe from invasion, and utilize the others in prayer. Be at peace, daughter.” He reached out a hand and cradled her cheek. “We will inundate this house with prayer, with God's own light.” A smile grew across his face. “And you, you shall see the greatest evidence of the Lord's power yet.”

Piero turned to pace between them all. “The devil opposes those most when they are doing the greatest good for God. This is not the last time that we will encounter Lord Amidei and his minions. But we shall remain strong. And vigilant. We shall not cave to fear. We shall not give in. This region will know the Lord on High because he will work through us, right now, here in this mansion. And he will use that for his own good, his own purposes. We are blessed to be his humble servants. Let us go about serving him, shall we?”

Daria smiled. Her priest. Speaking as if he were more a warlord encouraging the troops than a theologian. But she loved him, every little bit of him. She glanced up at the ceiling, breathing a sigh of a prayer of thanks to her God. She would fill her mind and heart with thoughts of the Christ, rather than let it be taken over by thoughts of Amidei, memories . . . black memories. Nay, not those. That is what he counted upon, why he preyed upon her. She had suffered at his hands, suffered his ill intentions, his abuse. He counted on her remembering that. Remembering doubt, remembering fear. But nay, she would not consider that now.

She stepped forward. “Gianni, Vito, Tess, Anette, you four come with me. We shall go about our God's business, not Lord Amidei's.” She eyed the man down the hall. “Lord Devenue, prepare yourself. We aim to enter your quarters and not leave until you are free. God has sent us here to heal you. Do you believe?”

“I . . . I wish to.”

Daria took strides forward, galvanized now with the enemy's line so near. “Cease your wishing, m'lord. You must delve within you, deep within, like a drowning man searching his lungs for but one more half breath.” She walked onward, until Lord Devenue was forced to take a step backward. “Lord Devenue, I must hear it from your own lips.”

He retreated until his back was against the stone bricks.

Daria paused before him. He stared downward.

Slowly, gently, she raised her hands so that he could see them in his line of vision and continued until one hand was on either side of his misshapen head.

Lord Devenue gasped at the feel of her hands upon his head, half in fear at the sensation of touch, half in desperate grief that a lady dared to touch his deformities. His slow sigh made Daria's eyes well with tears. Such sorrow, such loss he had suffered. Holding his head, closing her eyes, she could sense the dearth within him, the wild, yawning chasm and the masses, dark and throbbing within him. She panted, connecting with him, knowing his illness from the inside as if she could see it, reaching out to silence the life within him.

“M'lady?” he asked, breaking her reverie.

Daria opened her eyes, tears streaming down her face now, and looked him in the eye. “Oh, m'lord. I am so sorry. So sorry for your pain. Your grief. I know it now. I feel it.”

Lord Devenue slowly reached up his hands and covered her own, bringing them down to cover his chest in an oddly intimate moment that neither of them could stop. Tears slid down his face as well, such a handsome face beneath the odd bulges that deformed his forehead and skull. But in his eyes, although tears flowed, there was a spark of something else.

Daria smiled through her tears. “You know? You know now. I am here to help, m'lord, only help. God himself has sent me, us, to do his work within you. You are chosen. You are blessed. You shall be whole again. Healed.”

Lord Devenue's wide lips split into a slow grin and he laughed silently. “Yes. Well I know it. While the dark lord dared to make an appearance, so did our Lord's angels. They are behind you still, Lady Daria. Behind you all. I believe.
I believe.
”

Daria turned with Gianni, Anette, Vito, and Tessa, and watched as rays of light, as if from a quickly receding sun, slid up the floors and walls and out the window.

Daria wiped her cheeks and turned back to Lord Devenue. “Countess Anette's men guard our walls. Our people are in unceasing prayer. God's own angels are here to keep out those of the dark. Let us be about our Lord's business without further failure or hesitation.”

 
“THEY grow stronger,” Amidei growled. He leaned against the cave's walls and stared out through the tree branches that shielded their location but gave them a view of Lord Devenue's mansion, alight from every window. “I merely frightened her for a moment. But what I sense now . . . it is as if my action worked in their favor more than our own, master.”

“Fool. For every move we make upon the Gifted, our enemy shall make a countermove. They are precious to him, these Gifted. He obviously intends to use them for something we must stop, at all costs.”

“I have tried everything I can think of. Used everything you have taught me, master.”

“Nay. Not everything.”

His master's deep voice slipped into Abramo's ears, as if more liquid than sound, entering his head, his neck, his heart, warming all as it went. He closed his eyes, relishing the moment of communion, infiltration, oneness with his master. “Yes, yes,” Abramo moaned. “I had wondered . . . considered . . . now I know.” He opened his eyes and stared down at the red tiles of Devenue's roof. “She shall heal the sad, decrepit shell of a man. And then I shall take one of them. Tit for tat. It is only just.”

The master laughed behind him, his laughter resonating in Abramo's own chest. “Yes, my good and faithful servant. It is only just.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

“IT is well with you that Countess Anette is present?” Daria asked. The countess hovered near the door, as if ready to flee, as Lord Devenue lay back upon his bed, following Daria's instructions.

“M'lady, if you are indeed about to heal me, no one more deserves to be present.” His tone was intimate, his heart in his throat, but his focus was on Anette more than Daria. “The countess lost as much through my illness as I.”

Tears threatened again as Daria looked from one to the other. So they both had truly known love once. Could it be again? What had Lord Devenue done to make Anette stay away? Could that, too, be healed? One glance into the countess's wide, blue eyes and the hope therein, and Daria knew that that rift, too, could be bridged.

Lord Devenue sat back, sinking into new feather-filled pillows covered in new linens. He smelled like a new babe, so fresh was his bath. He had even allowed Agata to cut his long, brown, unkempt curls, bringing them back to shoulder length, as was the current style, and trim his beard into something manageable.

Daria stood beside him, hands knit together, and stared at him. “The cancer. Do you believe it to be anywhere else in your body?”

Lord Devenue hesitated for a moment. “Of late, the pain has resonated here, in my chest,” he said, gesturing toward his sternum, “and along my arms. But there is no deformity as one can see atop my head.”

“You must remove your shirt,” Daria said.

He sat up and did as she bid, revealing a thin but well-formed chest, almost entirely devoid of hair. She glanced at Gianni, wondering if he thought it improper, this view of a man's naked chest, but then looked away before he could meet her gaze. Thankfully, Lord Devenue's chest was devoid of any errant bulges.

But Daria knew that the cancer could dive deep, deep within bones and organs, destroying from within like the devil's best work. She had seen horrendous cases, as a child, alongside her mother . . . cancer like a weed among a dung heap, eating from within and then exploding outward, taking bone, muscle, tendon, anything it could within its wild, hungry wake.

“Forgive me, m'lord, but I must lay my hands upon you.”

“There have been far worse things done to me, m'lady,” he said, eyeing Anette with a grin. She could see that the man had once been skilled in the ways of courtly endeavors. Lord Devenue glanced to Gianni and his grin faded. He closed his eyes and leaned back. “Your love is plainly in the room with us, as is my own, Lady Daria. Be about your work, not as a woman, but as a healer.”

“So be it,” she murmured. She leaned down and again covered his head, feeling the angry heat that resonated there. She covered every inch of his head with her fingertips, then his neck, then his shoulders and arms. Finally his chest. Briefly, she hovered her hands over his legs, a mere inch from his leggings, but sensed nothing there. “Turn over, please,” she instructed. Slowly, methodically, she moved her hands down his spine, out each rib, then lightly down his legs.

“You may rise, Lord Devenue, and turn.”

He did so, and his expression was serene. “Give me thy worst,” he said, staring into her eyes.

Daria hesitated but a moment. “M'lord, the cancer is deep within you. I can feel it within your chest, several ribs, even as far as your forearms. Moreover, I feel it within your belly. It is why you are distended, even after months of self-starvation.”

Lord Devenue paused, his eyes clouding. “But you believe you can cure me? I shall still be healed?”

Daria nodded once.

“Then be about it. I wish not to tarry one moment longer in the realm of the dying when I have living yet to do.” He reached out a hand to Anette, and she stepped across the room, taking his hand in her own, and then sank to the floor, weeping.

“Do not cry, my love,” Lord Devenue said.

“She cries out of relief more than fear,” Tessa said, from the corner of the room. “Can you not feel it, m'lord?”

“Yes, yes, I suppose I might,” he said, in wonder.

Daria placed her hands atop Lord Devenue's head and closed her eyes. Deep in the mansion, she could feel the prayers of Father Piero and the others like a warm blanket, wrapping around their shoulders. Beneath her hands, she could feel Lord Devenue's heartbeat, longing to be set free, grow stronger, flourish. She smiled and opened her eyes.

“Countess Anette?”

“Yes?” The woman raised her head and looked to Daria.

“Please, dry your tears. Lord Devenue is about to be restored to you. I need one thing of you . . . to sing. Sing of our Lord on high. Sing of the Christ. Sing of light. Fill this room with a voice that you, yourself, have never heard before. Allow God to work within you and be present here, from
within
. Can you do that for us?”

Anette nodded tentatively and rose, hope alive in her eyes.

Daria turned to Gianni, Vito, and Tessa. “You three, please pray, incessantly. You knights I trust will be on guard, but even in such a state, the Lord on High shall hear your prayers for Lord Devenue. Every word out of my mouth, please echo silently, as if you were speaking to the Christ, here in the room. You understand?”

The men and child all nodded as one.

She turned back to Lord Devenue. “Before we begin, Lord Devenue. Before you know life again, a life purchased by your Lord God, to be celebrated and praised always, I shall have your Christian name.”

He smiled. “It has been some time since I have heard it uttered by another,” he said in little more than a whisper. “It is Dimitri. I am Dimitri Marciano Devenue.”

“I am most pleased to be of your acquaintance,” Daria said with a nod. “Let us now go about restoring you, Dimitri, once and forever.”

 
DARIA had never experienced anything like it. The more she dropped into the cascade of prayer, the more she could feel the Spirit draw near. Anette's voice, so high, so sweet, pulled her inward, closer to Dimitri. In her mind, she could see the depths of the cancer, wonder that he still lived at all. It was so vast, so strong . . . but in prayer, lost in Anette's song of praise to the God on high, she began to see past the cancer, past the degradation and dismemberment to what Dimitri's body would look like whole.