The Broken Angel (9 page)

“Why didn’t you call me?” Quintilius asked.

“We were in that mess because of the vampire blood. I wanted to call you, but I couldn’t. Leandro, Miranda…” The boy sobbed. “They kept calling the whole night, telling me to give them the baby. I agreed to see them the day after. I thought I could make them see reason, but they were crazy and wouldn’t listen. Then you arrived—” He looked up at Samuel. “We ran back to my place. At that point, I thought they were finally going to agree with me and get us some help with the baby, but someone called on Leandro’s cell phone without leaving a message. He became paranoid and hit me in the head with my laptop. When I came to, they were gone and had taken the baby. Then Leandro—”

Both Samuel and Quintilius let the boy cry for a while.

“I’m so sorry, Uncle. I didn’t mean for this to happen.” The boy fell on the floor.

Samuel walked away from him and reached his studio to talk with Quintilius away from the boy’s ears. “What did you do with the baby?”

Quintilius took a moment to answer. Samuel heard the noises coming from the other end of the line change in quality. When the werewolf spoke, in the background there was Rome’s distinct dins, but none of the fragmented chats Samuel had heard earlier.

“I’ll give the baby to a family who will love him.”

“And what about his parents?”

Quintilius made a sound that was partially covered by honking. “I looked for them. He wasn’t born at the paranormal hospital and wasn’t registered. If they ever come to claim him, we’ll deal with it.”

Samuel heard Marcus’s voice and his heavy steps rounding the corner. “The brats’ limo is here.”

Samuel walked back into the hallway, nodded at Marcus, then pulled up Sandro, who was still on the floor where he had left him. Talking into the phone, he led the boy to the living room. “Quintilius, your guy just arrived. I’ll escort the kids downstairs.” He heard a long sigh followed by a stretched silence, and was about to hang up when the werewolf spoke.

“Samuel, thank you.”

Samuel dismissed Quintilius with a polite response, then memorized the werewolf’s number for his cell. He had a hunch he would need it later.

Martina nursed the tall glass of blond beer she had ordered just to have something to do with her hands while she listened to Ophelia talking about her latest trip to Malaysia. Once in a while, she looked at the mirror behind Ophelia, where the pub’s door was reflected. They had been waiting for the guys to arrive for a while, and she had started worrying. When her eyes focused back on Ophelia, she saw the clock on the wall—one of those pieces resembling more a modern sculpture made of melted metal than a clock—and realized the long wait hadn’t even amounted to fifteen minutes. Yet she thought it had been too long already.

“What do you do for a living?” Ophelia had politely kept the conversation going, whereas Martina had kept silent the whole time.

Part of the reason was that Martina wanted to see Samuel coming through that door safe and sound—although the more she thought about it, the more she wondered if he had ever been in any need of rescuing. But part of the reason for her silence was also because she felt intimidated by the beautiful Amazon in front of her. Normally, Martina would have liked nothing more than talk about her job. This time, she had to make an effort to answer Ophelia. “I am a pro bono lawyer. I help women in need.”

Ophelia smiled, showing a perfect set of white teeth shining against her dark skin. “That’s wonderful. I wish there were more people like you in this world. In my job, I only come in contact with the worst humanity has to offer—” For a moment, her eyes lost focus.

“What do you do?”

Ophelia focused back on the glass before her, then on Martina. “I’m a forensic anthropologist.” She circled the rim of the glass with one long fingernail painted in alternated matte and glossy black stripes.

“That’s a tough job.” Martina looked down at her fingers, found them in need of a manicure, and promptly removed them from the glass she was nursing and hid them under the table. Then she stole another look at the mirror as the door opened and three girls entered the pub. She exhaled a long sigh before she could stop.

“He’s fine.”

Martina was startled by Ophelia’s words.

“Samuel can take care of himself.” Ophelia brought her glass to her lips and took a sip from it, and satisfied, sighed heavily. She had ordered a specialty beer Martina had never heard of. The beverage’s color resembled chocolate and it didn’t look appealing, but Ophelia seemed to like it.

“I noticed that.” Martina had been thinking about Samuel’s formidable strength. Images of him fighting opponents who should have easily beaten him kept playing over and over in her mind.

Ophelia placed her glass back on the cork coaster and let it slide from hand to hand on the polished wooden surface of the table. “Do you like him?” She looked at Martina with her big brown eyes, the corner of her lips turned up in a small, sad smile.

“Of course I like him.” Martina gulped some of her beer. “He’s such a sweet guy. You want to protect him.”

Ophelia’s eyebrows shot up. “I never thought of Samuel like one in need of protection.”

Martina’s imagination gifted her with an image of Samuel and Ophelia in an intimate setting. Her stomach lurched as she said to herself that they didn’t match at all. Ophelia was at least a whole head taller than he, and she couldn’t possibly like Samuel romantically. “He’s a great guy.”

Ophelia raised her hand to wave at someone behind Martina. “He is.”

From the reflection in the mirror, Martina saw Samuel looking at her from the entrance and a shiver ran down her back, sending all of her senses in overdrive. She waited until he reached their booth to turn and greet him. The whole time they had kept their eyes locked. When she finally averted her gaze, she noticed Ophelia looking at her. Martina didn’t detect malice in the woman’s eyes, but she had the impression she was being judged. Samuel slid on the bench by her side and sat close to her to make space for Alexander, while Marcus sat on the shorter bench with Ophelia. The easy banter she had already experienced back at Samuel’s resumed, and soon she was laughing and joking with the others. By the time she checked the clock on the wall, it was well past one in the morning.

“I must get back home. Baby’s teething and Diana needs some help with chores.” Marcus stood, and reached for his wallet in the back of his jeans. “Tonight’s my treat.”

Everyone thanked him and wished him well with the baby.

Martina couldn’t help but ask, “Your wife cleans the house so late at night?” Her eyes went to the clock once again. “Or better yet, so early in the morning?” She had meant it as a joke, but couldn’t help feel as if she had just insulted Marcus’s wife by the awkward silence that ensued. “Anyway, even without a kid to take care of, I wouldn’t be able to do anything at home so late.” She paused, sensing the four of them relax. “She must be superwoman.”

Marcus’s eyes widened at her last statement, then his face lit in a big grin. “She’s
my
superwoman.”

Martina did notice Marcus hadn’t been the only one reacting to her words. Ophelia too had made a face, but immediately grabbed her glass and drank from it. She had also felt Samuel tensing at her side. Thankfully, Marcus had everyone smiling with his sweet comment about his wife and the moment passed.

“I’m tired too.” Ophelia yawned, said her good nights, and followed by Alexander, left the pub.

“Care for a little trip, milady?” Samuel had scooted away from her and sat at the opposite end of the bench, intently looking at her.

Despite the physical distance he had created between them, she felt him closer, as if he were touching her with his gaze. She tried twice before being able to let out a choked, single-word question. “Now?”

His whole face lit when he smiled. “Now. I need to vent a bit, if you don’t mind. And I don’t want to leave you alone tonight.”

She had told Ophelia that Samuel inspired others to protect him, but when he looked at her with those intense, unwavering aquamarine eyes, she wondered if she had it all wrong. “Where to?”

He leaned against the column at the end of the bench.
“Todi.”

“Todi?” She laughed. “Todi in Umbria.”
She shook her head in disbelief and he nodded. “We’re going to Todi?” The mirth in her eyes wavered. “You’re not kidding.”

“No, I’m not.” He laid his hand on the table and walked his fingers toward her. “So, are you coming with me or not?”

“Yes, I’m coming with you.” She couldn’t help but laugh again, feeling lighter and younger. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.” She took his hand in hers and squeezed it. “I just need to make a quick stop at my place to grab another change of clothes and my toothbrush.”

A foreign euphoria taking hold of her, she followed him out of the pub, eager for the first time in several years to act upon a whim for the sheer pleasure of it. She almost caught herself leaning toward Samuel as they walked toward his car, but she kept her distance, the hand that had almost reached for his safely tugged to the side. They silently reached the spot where he had parked earlier in the afternoon, and he opened the passenger door for her.

An eerie feeling of being watched marred her carefree moment and made her scan the dark alley before them. Nothing moved except a cat rummaging inside an open garbage bin.

****

Samuel had first seen the vampire when he had left his apartment with Alexander and Marcus, then had seen him again the moment he and Martina had stepped out of the pub. The man hadn’t made an effort to conceal his presence from him; he had actually gone the extra mile to make sure Martina had sensed him as well. Although unnerved by the vampire’s silent threat, Samuel decided Martina deserved a better end to the last couple of days that had proved challenging for her. So, although he knew it wasn’t the safest thing to do, he still took her to her apartment to give her a semblance of normality. He left Rome, took the highway, and drove the two and a half hours to Todi, conversing with her about all the little things she liked and disliked. The whole time, he checked for tails, and only when he left Latium county behind and entered Umbria did he start relaxing behind the wheel.

He stopped the car outside Todi’s medieval city walls—it wasn’t possible to park anywhere inside the burg—gave a last look around to see if anyone had followed them, then opened Martina’s door and let her out. The air in Todi was crisper than in Rome, and mist swirled around the bricked walls of the ancient buildings, wedging itself between the narrow streets and alleys. He saw Martina instinctively hug herself and he removed his sweater and wrapped it around her shoulders. The walk to the little square that hosted his house was short, but he enjoyed her wonderment at the beauty of the small city. She commented on details he had never noticed before.

He wanted to tell her how this small municipality had come to be thanks to his contribution, and how the legend about Hercules killing the monster Cacus and founding the city was all about him defying a local brute who went on a killing rampage. Samuel had liked the Etruscan settlement perched on the tall two-crested hill towering over the river Tiber and the surrounding rolling fields, and decided to build a small hut where to spend his night when he visited. Over time, a whole hamlet had been built around his hut by villagers who felt safe in his proximity.

Samuel was also dying to boast how Hannibal hadn’t been stopped by the double walls protecting the city known in Roman times as Tuder, but it had been him again. He had saved Todi and its citizens from annihilation by fighting away the Carthaginian military commander. Instead, he contented himself to give her the official version.

“I remember visiting Todi on a school trip when I was in high school, but of course I didn’t see anything else then but the boy I liked. My goodness but I should’ve paid better attention. This place is positively enchanting.” Martina hooked her arm around his elbow, falling in step with him. “A car can barely fit on the road. How do they transport things around here?” She pointed at the sharp turn of the street between an arched entryway between two houses. The buildings almost touched from the second story up to their terracotta-tiled roofs. “I can imagine two star-crossed lovers exchanging furtive kisses from those windows.”

Samuel followed her finger to the two big windows facing each other on opposite walls, close enough for one outstretched arm to touch the windowsill of the other. “Tomorrow, we’ll go sightseeing.” He led her to the right and under the arch, then a few steps into the small square, and finally they climbed the short flight of bricked stairs to his place.

“Tomorrow, in a few hours in fact, I should go to work.” She turned on the last step and they stood at the same height, her lips hovering so close to his, her breath coming out in a puff and fanning over him.

He tilted his head, liking the way her eyes had widened and her heartbeats had sped up at his proximity. “Nah, you’ll call in sick.” Her scent was sweet and made him all the more aware of his desire to kiss her.

For a moment, she leaned ever so close to him, only to stop at the last moment. “So you say.”

“So I say.” He passed her on the step, then, on the landing, reached his hand over the narrow metal awning shielding the entry door from the weather. He kept a pair of spare keys inside one of the tuff bricks composing the façade. He blindly counted three bricks from the right just over the awning, found the right one, dislodged the hollowed brick, then felt the hard metal of the keys poking at his fingertips, and smiled. “They’re still here.” He grabbed the keys, dusted off the dirt from them on his jeans, and finally opened the apartment.

“Welcome to I Girasoli, one of my favorite places on earth.” He stepped inside, turned on the light by the door, and made space for her to enter. Again, he wanted to tell her how the hut he had built with his own hands had changed overtime. How he had reinforced the walls with bricks and added a window when the Romans came and usurped the Etruscans. How, much later, during the Renaissance, he had added a second floor for a separate apartment. And how he had maintained the place with a minimal interference from the outside and ever-changing world.

She took a look around. “It’s so… beautiful.”

He saw that her eyes were immediately drawn to the arch buried into the wall, a half-moon still visible through the outline of the bricks jutting out from the smooth Venetian plaster. “Some of the materials used to build the house date back to the Roman times.” When roads were built around the house and the level of the pavement had been raised, he had incorporated a Roman arch into the main structure of the house, wanting to preserve its heritage through time.

“Thought so.”

She then looked at the terracotta floors.

“The cotto tiles are from the medieval times. The rest dates from the early years of the Renaissance.”

Her silent perusal continued with the dark wooden beam on the high ceiling and the wrought iron work covering the windows, which reminded him that none of the old glass panes fit to the frames anymore, letting in the nocturnal breeze that didn’t bother him, but would be too drafty for Martina.

“Sorry the place is cold.” He walked to the right wall. Between a curio cabinet containing his prized china and a coffee table, an old radiator with ball-and-claw lion feet sat. He liked the white washed, obsolete appliance so much he had kept it even if would take at least an hour for it to generate some heat. “Would you like something to drink? A warm tea perhaps?”

She shivered and hugged his sweater closer to her, but gifted him with a big grin. “Tea at three in the morning sounds wonderful.”

He indicated the couch and the loveseat for her to sit. “It’ll take a moment. I’ll get you a blanket as well.” He walked down the small hallway that opened into an equally small kitchen, let the water from the copper faucet run for a few seconds to get rid of the metallic taste, then filled a vintage teakettle, and set out to find anything that could warm her up. He went to his bedroom, rummaged inside the wooden chest at the end of his bed, and found a light-blue patchwork quilt he had bought at a craft fair a few decades back. The colors had faded with time, but he liked the wing décor on it. The teakettle hissed and he hurried back to the kitchen to pour the boiling water in the two teacups where he put two sachets of jasmine tea. He heard soft steps, and turned around to find Martina walking toward him, her chest slowly rising and falling, her eyes to his lips.