Chapter 4
1067 Words
4
THE UPPER BAY SPARKLED and rays of bright sun illuminated the magnificence of the city below.
His city.
Gilles Noiret never tired of this view, never grew weary of the myriad possibilities that New York could offer those who grabbed for them.
He ran his company from this towering pinnacle, the seventy-second floor of the Chrysler Building. Officially, the escalator finished at the seventy-first floor, but after purchasing the highest levels for his exclusive investment company, Gilles had constructed this sanctuary in the tangle of concrete supports and electrical equipment under the chrome-plated cap of the building. He loved staring out from the Art Deco turret, its silver starburst pattern pointing towards the spire above, with the knowledge that millions of eyes turned towards it every day, orientating themselves by its height and beauty.
Gilles took a tentative breath and felt it catch, sweat prickling as he dreaded the attack to come. He began to cough, a hacking sound that shook his whole body for several minutes.
Clutching his desk, Gilles retched, gasping for air until his lungs released the phlegm that clogged them. He hawked up a glob of bloody mess and spat it carefully into a handkerchief, the warm softness of it in his hand making his stomach clench. It was a piece of him, evidence of his disease. Every time he suffered an attack, he feared it would be his last.
It offended him to be so physically degraded, so broken, and the thought of dying here, choking to death on his own rotting flesh, set his resolve. He had not lived at the pinnacle of wealth to die in the same way as any poor man living rough on the streets. That was not how the American dream was meant to end.
He flipped open his laptop and played the video of the dying nun, her face contorted as she burned. He felt a rising excitement as he watched, the only physical pleasure he could summon as his body rotted from within.
As the video ended, a cloud passed overhead and Gilles caught a reflection of himself in the glass, bent double like an old man. His face was disfigured by the poison he had imbibed just a few years ago at a dinner held by his own brother, meant to kill him so he wouldn't have to share their inheritance. The immigrant sons of Russian and French ancestors, they had taken competition to extremes, both in business and their personal life. But it was Gaspard who had ended that night in the morgue and Gilles had never regretted finishing the brother who had only ever been a rival.
There would always be more to compete with in this city of alphas: those with an edge of the blade in their ambition.
Gaspard had left his mark nonetheless, and the dioxin had caused rapid hyper-pigmentation. Gilles' once handsome face was marred with patches of darker skin as well as hyperkeratosis, where the skin thickened and became scaly and bumpy. It itched and ached, but the surface ruin was nothing to what the poison had done internally.
In recent months, even the most advanced medicine had failed, so Gilles had sought alternative remedies from the fringes of health and spirituality. He had tried injections made from the tinctures of plants from the deepest sss and potions made from endangered animals. He had hired healers of all stripes, from those who chanted and gave him herbs to smoke, to those who told him to look inside and cleanse his soul. He had even paid for muti, traditional medicine from South Africa made from body parts.
Nothing had worked yet, but he wouldn't give up until his dying breath.
During nights of pain-wracked insomnia, he had ventured into the margins of society, obscure message boards on the dark web – that part of the internet hidden from search engines and accessed via proxy servers. Gilles found things there that turned even his stomach, but he'd also found a glimmer of hope on a religious conspiracy message board that talked of a powerful relic with healing properties.
The group called themselves the Confessors, a word used in the Eastern Orthodox Church to signify a saint who had suffered persecution and torture for their faith, but had not been martyred: someone who suffered in the world but was not yet dead. Gilles understood what those words meant, and that day had begun his quest for the relic. He had pretended piety with the Monseigneur, assuring the Confessors that he only wanted to cleanse his soul and that they would have the relic for their Order.
But that blood would be his … and so soon now.
It was almost within his grasp. His men had sent word they were on their way from the Cloisters with the cross, and Gilles had not notified the Monseigneur. He would see what they had first.
The intercom buzzed.
Gilles smiled and pressed the button to let the men in, counting the seconds as they ascended in his private elevator.
A knock came on the door and two men dressed in cassocks walked in, their bearing proud in fulfillment of the mission and expectation of reward.
"Any problems?" Gilles said, staying behind his desk to save his energy even though he was desperate to see inside the case.
"None at all," the man carrying the case said. He set it on Gilles' desk and turned it to face his employer.
Gilles pulled the case towards him. A smile dawned on his face as he beheld the stunning Cloisters Cross, the sunlight making the ivory gleam. He ran a fingertip over the surface, tracing the lines of the Tree of Life, signifying his own resurrection. This time he was close … He had to be.
The Confessors believed that the blood was held within a vial inside the cross. Gilles' heart beat faster as he reached for the shaft with a shaking hand, tipping it over as he lifted it up so he could see within.
The ivory was indeed hollow, but there was nothing inside.
"Where is it?" Gilles whispered. He shook the shaft, coughing with the effort, but nothing fell out. "It's not here!"
His eyes blazed and the two men backed away from his anger, hands raised in supplication.
"Get down to the Sisters of the Guardian Angel," he rasped. "No subtlety this time. I want that vial, whatever it takes."
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