The Demon Catchers of Milan #2: The Halcyon Bird (20 page)

All we need now is to run into someone’s clothesline
, I thought madly.
And have a dog chase us
.

Instead, we had to weave between traffic bollards. I leaned against Bernardo, feeling like an expert, even—like a girlfriend.

We rounded a corner and nearly ran into a couple. Steering around them, Bernardo called
“mi dispiace”
over his shoulder before we shot forward again, bouncing up another set of steps, just in time to see the Mercedes gunning across the Via Mercato and into the Via Brera. We saw Giuliano and Emilio ripping past, Emilio whooping with delight or adrenaline or both, his hair blowing back, one arm waving wildly. For a split second, I saw Francesco in him, gangly and happy.

Bernardo whooped back, his rib cage expanding against my arms in a most satisfying way. I wanted to shout, too, but I didn’t want to deafen my driver. We curved out in a mad joyful arc, turning into the Via Madonnina.

“He must be going toward your shop,” announced Bernardo.

He was right. We had to slow down in the Via Fiori Chiari, but we were still in time to see the Mercedes slam to a stop in front of the candle shop, its owner leaping out to pound on our door, screaming, “Bring him back, bring him back, you cowards, you bastards!”

Giuliano and Emilio pulled to a stop ahead of us.

I had never seen anyone like this. Signore Strozzi had begun battering his hands against the doorframe, not seeming to care about the pain.

“Tranquillo,”
counseled Giuliano, approaching him.

Bernardo brought his
motorino
to a stop, but caught my sleeve when I started to climb off.

“Wait,” he whispered. “That man is dangerous.”

I was happy to wait on the back of the
motorino
, touched by his concern. How did other demon catchers focus on their work when they were in love?

Signore Strozzi was spitting and foaming at the mouth. My eye was drawn to the doorframe, where his hands were leaving smears of blood. I felt my stomach turn.

Giuliano came to stand beside him, facing the door to our shop. Francesco had pulled up beside us, on the back of a
motorino
driven by Dottore Komnenos, of all people.

The Greek
, I said to myself, comprehending.

“Don’t open the door, don’t open the door,” chanted Francesco under his breath as he alighted. I frowned, wondering where Anna Maria and Uncle Matteo were, before I remembered they would have stayed behind at the Strozzi apartment.

Signore Strozzi had stopped screaming and was looking straight at Nonno.

“You have destroyed me,” he told Giuliano, in a voice wholly his own, a voice of such utter despair that it brought tears to my eyes.

Nonno held out a hand to Signore Strozzi.

“There is hope yet,” he said. “Come inside.”

With that, he unlocked the door.

Signore Strozzi stared at him, then walked into the shop. The rest of us unfroze from where we were standing and followed the two of them. As I started forward, Bernardo beside
me, I saw his father reach out and take his arm. They did not enter the shop.

“I tell you, you have destroyed me,” Signore Strozzi was repeating as we entered.

Once inside, I could feel clearly that the exorcism really had worked; there was no sign of the hump-headed demon with the crawling hands, no feel of him, no smell of stagnant water or corpse-stink. The few candles that were still lit shuddered with our movements and nothing else. Emilio, Francesco, and Dottore Komnenos came in behind me.

Giuliano turned on the lamp.

I don’t think even he guessed what would happen next.

“I cannot bear you to look at me,” Signore Strozzi said calmly. And, reaching under the lampshade, he crushed the burning bulb in his bare hand.

I
screamed. I know I wasn’t the only one. Signore Strozzi didn’t even seem to notice the smell of singed flesh, or the pain, or the blood that dripped from his fist.

I heard Emilio gasp. We stood in the dark, and I half expected to hear and feel as I had inside the Second House.

“You have destroyed me. You have destroyed my family,” Signore Strozzi said, his voice even. Then, softly, “Don’t you understand? He was the root. Without him, I’m nothing. Our money will flow away like water, and no more will come in. I will lose my wife, my son, my home, my car, my clothes. Everything. Don’t you understand? Everything! He was the root, the source, and you pulled him up, like a weed! You
damned Della Torre fools!” he finished, his voice breaking at last.

The sky was brightening, but the only real light came from the handful of candles. All I could see were Signore Strozzi’s shuddering shoulders, against the darkness of the shop, and the faint light shining on Giuliano’s face. I could see his eyes calculating rapidly, watching Signore Strozzi heave and rock, but he made no answer. He simply stood and listened and watched.

A light bloomed out of the corner of my eye. Francesco was lighting more candles. I saw Emilio’s bright head tilt toward him in thanks.

I realized someone was moving his hands beside me, blurred in the dim light. He was weaving his hands back and forth, pinching his fingers together as if tying knots, then parting his hands, running his fingers along invisible lines. I turned my head to see Dottore Komnenos. His eyes were fixed on Signore Strozzi, but he must have noticed me out of the corner of his eye, because he whispered impatiently, “Don’t look at what I’m doing. It makes it fall apart.”

I turned my head away quickly, embarrassed, realizing that no one else was looking either. I tried to focus on Signore Strozzi, who was now staring Nonno full in the face. I could see his eyes, fixed and calm, looking straight back into those of the banker, could feel the tension rising in the room. My own nerves were tingling wildly.

Yet I also felt my mind opening outward, taking in the
room and everyone in it, even, out of the corner of my eye, the continuing movement of Dottore Komnenos’s hands. I couldn’t tell what was sparkling between his fingers. Was it really a net, with a pearl at every knot? I could feel, now, that my consciousness of what he was doing was indeed interfering, so I turned my head again, and glanced toward the shelves on the wall beside the door. The candle that had gone out the night Tommaso Strozzi had visited us sat dark and dormant. Francesco hadn’t started on that shelf yet.

I found myself expecting to see the candle burst into flame. Something was straining, struggling in the air; I smelled the faintest whiff of stagnant water. Yet I knew no demon could enter here without being invited by a member of my family.

Signore Strozzi leaped at Giuliano.

Everyone cried out at once, then Emilio and Francesco caught the banker in their arms; by the dim candlelight, I could see his bloody hands waving.

Dottore Komnenos hadn’t moved. He kept weaving his hands, back and forth. Now I really could see the pearls, floating in the darkness.

Giuliano hadn’t moved, either. He stood firm, but his shoulders were tight.

“Nearly done, Augusto?” he asked.

“Nearly,” the Greek replied evenly. “Now,” he added. “Hold him!” he said to Emilio and Francesco as they restrained Signore Strozzi.

Dottore Komnenos opened his hands outward and flung the net of pearl knots over Signore Strozzi. I thought I saw pearls passing through the arms and hands of Francesco and Emilio. Dottore Komnenos yanked back on a set of strings only he could see, pulling tight.

Signore Strozzi sank to his knees. I saw the pearls emerge again, this time with something invisible struggling inside them, that fought and shook as the net trembled and shivered. Dottore Komnenos pulled it tight, the pearls closing together until they were no more than an inch apart, still jerking and shuddering to the movements of their captive. I expected to smell rot and stagnation again, but I didn’t. What was this, if it wasn’t the demon? The Greek turned and headed for the door.

“O Dio, O Dio
,” sobbed Signore Strozzi. “
É partito, partito
. It’s gone, gone.”

This was the way I got to see a man go completely mad for the first time. In the movies, people shudder and laugh maniacally when they lose it. But Signore Strozzi just stopped being there. He began to repeat that one word,
partito
, over and over to himself.
“Par-ti-to. Par-ti-to.”
He reminded me of one of the homeless people that wandered around downtown in Center Plains. He even looked like they did, like he was staring into a world that had nothing to do with this one or the next.

I felt my eyes fill with tears. Signore Strozzi bowed his head, clasping his hands, and I could see the bruises and blood
on them. Outside, daylight had begun to creep into the Via Fiori Oscuri.

Dottore Komnenos returned, and Giuliano asked him a question with his eyes.

“It worked,” Dottore Komnenos said. “Whether it did any good, I do not know.”

Signore Strozzi didn’t seem to hear him. He knelt on the floor, chanting his word.

“Should I call the Ospedale San Giuseppe?” suggested Emilio.

“I suppose you had better,” Giuliano said, looking down at the man in front of him.

That’s when I saw how Nonno’s shoulders hunched, how he held his fists tight at his sides. He was furious, but why?

Francesco and Emilio stayed by Signore Strozzi. I watched in a daze as Emilio dialed the mental hospital. Dottore Komnenos took my arm and said, “You know you are shaking? Perhaps we should step outside.”

I followed him obediently. Signore Tedesco was sitting on his
motorino
, lighting a cigarette. It dawned on me that we hadn’t been inside for very long. Bernardo looked at us as we approached.

“Can Mia sit with you a moment, gentlemen?” asked Dottore Komnenos.

Bernardo started toward me, asking, “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” I said, shuddering. “I just need to sit.”

He patted the seat of the
motorino
, and I accepted the invitation, sinking down. I felt it rock on its kickstand and adjusted my weight.

“I need to go back in,” Dottore Komnenos told us. “Can you look after her?”

Both men nodded. Signore Tedesco smiled at me, showing crooked teeth.

“Cigarette?” he offered.

“She doesn’t smoke,” said his son.

“I could use one, though,” I said. “If I did.”

Rinaldo Tedesco chuckled. “Well, take a puff of mine, then.”

I did. I’m not a fan of the smoky taste, and I’m just barely old enough to remember the last restaurants in our town that had smoking sections, but somehow it made me feel better. I took a second puff and wheezed. Handing it back to Signore Tedesco, I decided I wouldn’t be making a habit of it.

Time passed like the rising sun, pouring slowly down the sides of the buildings. Sebastiano, one of the guys from the Bar Brera, came down from the Via Pontaccio, and stopped in front of the café door, feeling for his keys. Presently, we heard the rhythmic wail of a siren and saw the flashing lights reflected in the windows along the Via Borgonuovo.

The ambulance pulled up in front of our shop, and Emilio stepped out to meet it. They all disappeared inside. Eventually, Giuliano and Emilio emerged with the head EMT, heads bowed together.

“What’s going on, I wonder?” asked Signore Tedesco. He looked at me. “Do you know?”

“I don’t,” I said. “Shouldn’t they be taking him away?”

“Yes,” he said. “I think so. But perhaps there is no one here who can sign papers for his admission to the mental ward.”

Both Bernardo and I looked at him, enlightened.

We waited in the cold, Bernardo offering me his seat on his
motorino
again. I had to make myself stop thinking about how much nicer and warmer it would be if I had Bernardo’s arms wrapped around me.

“Can’t you go in?” Signore Tedesco asked.

“Oh,” I said. “Are you waiting so you can go?”

“No,” he said. “I want to see this to the end.”

“Me, too,” I said.

He nodded. “But when the café opens I think I’m going to send Bernardo for something hot to drink,” he added with a grin.

Emilio was standing off to the side now, on his cell phone. We heard a shout from inside the shop, and then the EMTs were wrestling Signore Strozzi through the door and into the street. He struggled, then seemed to lose heart again, and fell back onto his knees on the cobblestones. I could see his bloody hands trailing the bandages they had tried to put on him, and the smears where he had pressed his hands to his face. He began to mumble to himself again, and the head EMT gestured to him and said something to Giuliano, as if this clinched the argument. Dottore
Komnenos and Francesco emerged from the shop, and I saw them go over to Emilio and Giuliano. Then they came to us.

“Francesco is taking me home,” Dottore Komnenos said to us. “I can’t do anything more here.”

“It was amazing to watch you,” I said. “I mean, not watch you.”

His solemn face was transformed by a broad smile.

“Thank you,” he said. “I love what I do.” He touched his brow in a salute to the Tedeschi. “Good evening, gentlemen, and thank you, as always.”

Signore Tedesco touched the butt of his cigarette to his forehead in the same gesture and smiled. “You’re welcome. Going all the way back to Venice tonight?”

“No, I have a place here,” said Dottore Komnenos. “That would be a long way for Francesco on a
motorino
,” he added, grinning. Then he looked from me to the banker kneeling on the ground.

“That’s the part of the job I don’t like,” he said. “Well, nice to see you again, Cousin Mia, regardless of the circumstances.
Buona notte o buon giorno, non lo so
. Good-night or good morning, I don’t know.”

“Nice to see you again, too,” I said.
“Arrivederci.”

He chuckled, then kissed my cheek and went away with Francesco. We waited some more, while the EMTs finished binding Signore Strozzi’s hands. The head EMT was getting frustrated with Nonno.

“You look cold,” Bernardo said to me.

“I am,” I said. “Aren’t you?”

He smiled. “A little. But not cold enough not to be a gentleman,” he said, and shrugged off his jacket. He put it around my shoulders, enveloping me in the smell of warm leather and cologne. My face felt incredibly hot all of a sudden. I wanted to joke that his coat had warmed me up quickly, but I felt too shy to say anything except,
“Gr-grazie.”