Lead Demon

Anything

When I’d first visited the Old Lodge, Seven’s house had reminded me of him. His personality was evident here, too, in the geometric details carved into the beams and in the perfectly spaced arches that spanned the widths between columns.

“You built this.”

“Part of it.” Seven’s eyes rose to the curved apse with its image of Christ on His throne, one hand raised and ready to mete out justice. “The nave, mostly. The apse was completed while I was . . . away.”

The composed face of a male saint stared gravely at me from over Seven’s right shoulder. He held a carpenter’s square and a long-stemmed white lily. It was Joseph, the man who asked no questions when he took a pregnant virgin for a wife.

“We have to talk, Seven.” I surveyed the church again. “Maybe we should move this conversation to the château. There’s nowhere to sit.” I had never thought of wooden pews as inviting until I entered a church without them.

“Churches weren’t built for comfort,” Seven said.

“No. But making the faithful miserable couldn’t have been their only purpose.” I searched the murals. If faith and hope were intertwined as closely as Michael suggested, then there might be something here to lighten Seven’s mood.

I found Noah and his ark. A global disaster and the narrowly avoided extinction of all life-forms were not auspicious. A saint heroically slew a dragon, but it was too reminiscent of hunting for my comfort. The entrance of the church was dedicated to the Last Judgment. Rows of angels at the top blew golden trumpets as the tips of their wings swept the floor, but the image of hell at the bottom—positioned so that you couldn’t leave the church without making eye contact with the damned—was horrifying. The resurrection of Lazarus would be little comfort to a vampire. The Virgin Mary wouldn’t help either. She stood across from Joseph at the entrance to the apse, otherworldy and serene, another reminder of all that Seven had lost.

“At least it’s private. Michael seldom sets foot in here,” Seven said tiredly.

“We’ll stay, then.” I took a few steps toward him and plunged in. “What’s wrong, Seven? At first I thought it was the shock of being immersed in a former life, then the prospect of seeing your father again while keeping his death a secret.” Seven remained kneeling, head bowed, his back to me. “But your father knows his future now. So there must be another reason for it.”

The air in the church was oppressive, as if my words had removed all the oxygen from the place. There wasn’t a sound except for the cooing of the birds in the belfry.

“Today is Lucas’s birthday,” Seven said at last.

His words hit me with the force of a blow. I sank to my knees behind him, cranberry skirts pooling around me. Michael was right. I didn’t know Seven as well as I should.

His hand rose and pointed to a spot on the floor between him and Joseph. “He’s buried there, with his mother.”

No inscription on the stone marked what rested underneath. Instead there were smooth hollows, the kind made by the steady passage of feet on stair treads. Seven’s fingers reached out, fit into the grooves perfectly, stilled, withdrew.

“Part of me died when Lucas did. It was the same for Blanca. Her body followed a few days later, but her eyes were empty and her soul already flown. Michael chose his name. It’s Greek for ‘Bright One.’ On the night he was born, Lucas was so white and pale. When the midwife held him up in the darkness, his skin caught the light from the fire the way the moon catches her light from the sun. Strange how after so many years my memory of that night is still clear.” Seven paused in his ramblings, wiped at his eye. His fingers came away red.

“When did you and Blanca meet?”

“I threw snowballs at her during her first winter in the village. I’d do anything to get her attention. She was delicate and remote, and many of us sought her company. By the time spring came, Blanca would let me walk her home from the market. She liked berries. Every summer the hedge outside the church was full of them.” He examined the red streaks on his hand. “Whenever Michael saw the stains from their juice on my fingers, he’d laugh and predict a wedding come autumn.”

“I take it he was right.”

“We wed in October, after the harvest. Blanca was already more than two months pregnant.” Seven could wait to consummate our marriage but hadn’t been able to resist Blanca’s charms. It was far more than I had wanted to know about their relationship.

“We made love for the first time during the heat of August,” he continued. “Blanca was always concerned with pleasing others. When I look back, I wonder if she was abused when she was a child. Not punished—we were all punished, and in ways no modern parent would dream of—but something more. It broke her spirit. My wife had learned to give in to what someone older, stronger, and meaner wanted. I was all of those things, and I wanted her to say yes that summer night, so she did.”

“Ysabeau told me the two of you were deeply in love, Seven. You didn’t force her to do anything against her will.” I wanted to offer him what comfort I could, in spite of the sting his memories inflicted.

“Blanca didn’t possess a will. Not until Lucas. Even then she only exercised it when he was in danger or when I was angry with him. All her life she wanted someone weaker and smaller to protect. Instead Blanca had a succession of what she saw as failures. Lucas wasn’t our first child, and with every miscarriage she grew softer and sweeter, more tractable. Less likely to say no.”