Vittorio followed me down the hall. He had an electric fireplace on and a teapot with a cozy on it. His apartment was humble and heartfelt, and I relaxed for the first time in months when I sank into his overstuffed sofa.
“It’s a hospital, apparently, one that used to be very loosely affiliated with the Church, or so I’ve heard. You have to go there to reach him?” Vittorio asked.
“Mm-hmm, it looks that way. He has some kind of private security most of the time, which seems strange as hell for a man of the cloth, but perhaps it’s just delusions of grandeur. Anyway, my brief is very specific. This mark needs to die in a particular place, and it pays extra.” I grinned at Vittorio.
He tugged at his dog collar and glanced away.
“Come on, don’t be judgmental; you know who I am and what I do for work. If not me, then someone else would take that contract and the mark would still die.”
It was our well-worn argument. Vittorio worried for my immortal soul, while I argued that I needed to be practical about my talents and skills and find a job accordingly. I’d never been good at anything else.
“How did you get on in Napoli?” he asked, changing the subject.
I told him briefly of Fabio.
“So you killed him? That was no contract,” Vittorio reminded me.
I stared at him. “So? I wish he’d died slower for what he did to my mother, and me, and who knows how many other women before her.”
Vittorio nodded slowly. “I know, and believe me, I expect that he will be judged and his soul will be sorted accordingly, but the act damages your soul. You will be punished for taking justice into your own hands.”
“And by removing evil from the world, don’t I save someone?” I said with a sigh, sinking back into the couch and staring at the blue light of the electric fire. “If I save even one person from mymother’s fate, isn’t that worth my soul?” I eyed my friend. “Their soul isn’t worth less than mine.”
Vittorio sighed and shook his head. “My brother, you break my heart sometimes.”
“You’ll get over it. Now, what about these holy robes you promised me? I have an important part to play starting tomorrow... I need the right costume.”
2
KATARINA
“And what do you get if you mix red and blue?” I asked.
Tatiana wrinkled her little button nose. “Green?” she guessed.
“Let’s see, shall we?” I said, and watched as her chubby six-year-old fingers closed around the paintbrush eagerly. She dipped the end into the two colors before carefully swirling them onto the last blank corner of my notebook page.
She gasped. “Purple!” She sounded enraptured, making me smile.
“Yes, purple. Green is yellow and blue. You want to try it?”
She bit her lip and nodded. “But there isn’t any paper left.”
With a shrug, I reached for my journal and tore out another page. Yes, it was my most prized possession, and journals were hard to come by at Hallow Hall, but Tatiana deserved to paint as much as she wanted.
“Here, let’s use this one next. Let’s finish the picture of Hallow Hall.”
Hallow Hall. Home. Hell.
Tatiana smiled and nodded, happily going on to try different colors. I sat back and glanced around the rec room. It was morning, and the common space was filled with the usual suspects. Nurses walking briskly to and fro, orderlies making sure no one caused any kind of trouble. The odd nun, their stark black robes somber compared to the riots of color of the medical staff’s scrubs.
Dr. Blackwood, the resident physician, was talking with Sister Vera, head nun, in the doorway to the dining hall. Their gazes moved toward me, and I turned away.
“Who is Myra?”
Tatiana’s voice jerked me from my reverie.
“Who?” I asked.