The Paris Catacombs smelled of wet chalk and old bones.
Water dripped from the ceiling, echoing in the darkness. Plip. Plip. Plip.
Father Thomas held his lantern high. His hand trembled.
"Are you there?" he whispered.
A shadow detached itself from the wall of skulls.
It was a man. Tall. Thin. Dressed in the simple black cassock of a priest. But the fabric was tight, designed for movement, not prayer.
He wore a wide-brimmed hat that shadowed his face. He didn't speak.
"The Cardinal sent you?" Father Thomas asked.
The figure nodded once.
"Good. The Administrator... he is guarded. The palace is a fortress. You cannot just walk in."
The figure reached into his sleeve.
He pulled out a rosary.
It wasn't made of wood. The beads were steel. The string wasn't thread. It was wire. Piano wire.
The figure stepped toward a large rat that was scurrying along a pile of femurs.
With a flick of his wrist, the rosary lashed out.
Snap.
The wire wrapped around the rat. A jerk of the hand.
The rat's head fell to the floor. The body followed a second later.
Father Thomas swallowed hard. He felt sick. This wasn't a soldier. This was an executioner.
The figure turned to him. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, white card.
He handed it to the priest.
On it, written in elegant calligraphy, was a single name.
Alex Miller.
"You want to know where he is?" Father Thomas asked.
The figure shook his head. He pointed to the name. Then he pointed to his own lips.
He opened his mouth.
Father Thomas gasped.
The man had no tongue. Only a jagged stump of scar tissue.
"The Confessor," Father Thomas whispered. The legends were true. The Vatican's mute cleaner. The man who heard all sins and spoke none.
The Confessor closed his mouth. He smiled. It was a cold, empty expression.
He pointed to the exit.
The hunt had begun.
My bedroom in the Tuileries was too large. Too quiet.
I lay in the center of the massive canopy bed, staring at the ceiling.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
I imagined I could still hear the bomb. It was frozen in the basement of the police station now, but the sound echoed in my head.
I sat up. My chest felt heavy, like a stone was resting on my ribs.
I coughed. A wet, hacking cough that rattled my lungs.
I pressed a handkerchief to my mouth.
When I pulled it away, there were specks of red.
Blood.
I stared at the crimson spots. Not much. But enough.
"The engine is leaking oil," I whispered to the empty room.
The candle by my bedside flickered.
"You should see a doctor, Administrator."
I jumped, reaching for the pistol under my pillow.
"Easy," the voice said.
Joseph Fouché stepped out of the shadows in the corner. He moved like smoke. I hadn't heard the door open.
"Knocking is polite, Joseph," I said, shoving the bloody handkerchief under the sheets.
"Knocking gives people time to hide their secrets," Fouché replied. His pale eyes scanned the room, resting for a moment on the hidden handkerchief. He missed nothing.
"What do you want at 3:00 AM?"
"We received a report from the border. A man crossed from Italy two days ago."
"Many men cross the border."
"Not this man," Fouché said. He walked to the foot of the bed. "He carries a rosary made of steel. He has no tongue."
I felt a chill. "An assassin?"
"The Confessor," Fouché said. "Cardinal Ruffo's personal blade. He kills heretics. He doesn't just kill them, Alex. He makes them an example."
"How?"
"He strangles them. Slowly. While they look him in the eye. He wants them to repent before they die."
I rubbed my chest. The arrhythmia fluttered.
"He's coming for me."
"He is in Paris," Fouché confirmed. "My agents lost him in the Catacombs. He is invisible."
"Then we make him visible," I said. "We give him a target he can't resist."
"You?" Fouché asked.
"No," I said. "I'm too well guarded. He won't attack the palace. He needs a soft target. Someone high profile. Someone whose death sends a message."
I looked at Fouché.
"Where is Talleyrand tonight?"
"The Opera," Fouché said. "He has a private box. The Magic Flute."
"Talleyrand is a Bishop who betrayed the Pope," I said, throwing off the covers. "He's the perfect heretic."
I grabbed my coat.
"Get the carriage. We're going to the Opera."
The Paris Opera House was a jewel box of gold leaf and red velvet.
The music swelled. The soprano hit a high C that vibrated the chandeliers.
In Box 4, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord sipped champagne. He was bored. He hated Mozart. Too many notes.
He adjusted his silk cravat. He looked down at the audience.
The door to his box clicked open.
"Champagne?" Talleyrand asked without turning. "Leave the bottle."
No answer.
A soft rustle of fabric.
Talleyrand turned.
A priest stood there. Tall. Hat pulled low.
"I didn't order a confession," Talleyrand quipped. "I have too many sins. We'd be here all night."
The priest didn't smile. He raised his hands.
Between them stretched a thin, glittering wire.
Talleyrand froze. He saw the steel beads. He saw the dead eyes.
"Who are you?"
The Confessor lunged.
He moved with terrifying speed. He vaulted over the chair.
Talleyrand scrambled back, knocking over the champagne bucket. "Guard! Guard!"
The wire whipped out.
It caught Talleyrand around the neck.
The beads bit into his skin. The wire tightened.
Talleyrand gagged. He clawed at his throat. His face turned red, then purple.
The Confessor leaned in close. He stared into Talleyrand's panic-stricken eyes.
He didn't pull tight enough to kill instantly. He held him there. On the edge.
He reached into his pocket with one hand. He pulled out a tube of lipstick (stolen from a dressing room).
He wrote on the mirror behind them.
R E P E N T.
Talleyrand gurgled. His vision faded.
The door burst open.
"Let him go!"
I stood there, panting from the stairs. I held a heavy silver candelabra I had grabbed from the hallway.
The Confessor turned his head. He looked at me.
He recognized me. The target.
He smiled.
He shoved Talleyrand aside. The Bishop collapsed, gasping for air.
The assassin turned toward me. He spun the wire in his hands. It made a low humming sound.
"Police!" Fouché shouted from the corridor. "In here!"
The Confessor calculated. Two seconds. He could kill me. But he would be trapped.
He chose survival.
He ran for the balcony.
"Stop!" I threw the candelabra.
It spun through the air. It clipped the assassin's shoulder. He didn't even flinch.
He vaulted over the railing.
He dropped twenty feet into the pit below. He landed on a startled musician, rolled, and vanished into the crowded stalls.
Screams erupted from the audience.
I rushed to the railing. I scanned the crowd.
Nothing. Just black coats and panic.
"He's gone," Fouché said, appearing beside me with a drawn pistol.
I turned to Talleyrand.
He was on the floor, clutching his throat. A thin line of blood circled his neck like a necklace.
"He..." Talleyrand wheezed. "He didn't speak."
"He's mute," I said, kneeling beside him. "Are you alright?"
Talleyrand pointed to the mirror.
I looked up.
REPENT.
The red letters looked like fresh blood.
"He wasn't trying to kill me," Talleyrand rasped. "He was practicing."
I stood up. I wiped the lipstick off the glass with my sleeve. It smeared, leaving a pink stain.
"I don't repent," I whispered to the glass.
I turned to Fouché.
"He moves fast. Faster than our reports."
"We need to find him," Fouché said.
"We can't find him if we're always three days behind," I said. "The information lag is killing us."
I looked at the stage. The actors were frozen. The music had stopped.
"We need to move faster," I said. "Faster than horses."
I touched my chest. The heartbeat was erratic. Thump-pause-thump.
"I need to build the wire," I said.
"The wire?" Fouché asked. "To strangle him?"
"No," I said. "To catch him."
I walked out of the box.
"Get me Claude Chappe. And get me the Royal Engineers. We're building a network."