Villa Regnier, outside Florence
April 1666
THE AFTERNOON SKY ABOVE THE rolling landscape was dark and overcast, threatening a spring storm. In the barn, the horses nickered uncertainly and tossed their heads, their eyes widening as Giuliana Regnier, the signora of the house, glided among them. She had been restless all day, moving from the bustling kitchen to the clucking henhouse to the more peaceful barn, not finding whatever it was she was looking for, and still having no idea what that was, precisely.
Thunder rumbled. She put her hand protectively over her rounded abdomen. The babe within seemed restless as well, which frightened her. He (for she was certain it was a son) had at least two more months before it was time to greet the world. Her midwife had examined her yesterday, assuring her that all was well. But today Giuliana’s back ached and she couldn’t seem to stay in one place. She worried that these were portents that something was amiss with her child.
Everyone in the villa was on edge today. Concetta, the cook, had slapped the chambermaid and told her to get her filthy hands out of her kitchen. Two of the field hands had come to blows over a young girl in the village who, it turned out, was betrothed to someone else entirely, a young Florentine from a very good family apprenticed to a banker.
Worst of all was the news from the winemaster: there was something wrong with the fields. The earth contained a type of mold he had never seen before, and he feared it would harm the grapes. He could not be sure; it was outside the realm of his expertise.
Giuliana tried to tell herself that these things happened; there were days like this in every person’s life. Other vintners had had trouble with rot and mold, and in fact, some wines had prospered from such things in the past. But, truth be told, she was frightened. Her husband, Richard, was far away, and on a dangerous errand: He had received a missive over five months ago from Kilij Arslan, a great Ottoman sorcerer. She had memorized the letter, so often had she read it:
To M. Richard Regnier, Most Renowned Brother in Magic
Cher Monsieur le Chevalier,
I, Kilij Arslan, send you greetings. As my situation is most desperate, please forgive my dispensing with all the civility due a man of your illustrious station and allow me to speak quickly and plainly.
I hold in captivity one whom you have sought, namely, that base conjurer of the black arts named Giacomo Fulcanelli. He was already known to me as a most evil sorcerer and a villain before coming to this our beloved Empire, but I, alas, was unable to persuade my master (Allah give him long life!) to shun him and send him away. For he promised My Lord Suleiman many wondrous things, including prosperity for all his people, and thus was my master inclined to listen not to me, but to Fulcanelli, believing my warnings were those of a jealous rival. Not that I blame my master, for he must constantly attend the needs of his subjects, and Fulcanelli assured him that all good things would flow into our Empire.
Instead, as I’m sure you may well imagine, Fulcanelli has delivered only misery and sorrow, most particularly in the form of a most grave insult to My Lord’s youngest daughter, who has therefore come to an untimely end at her own hand.
The scales having fallen at last from My Lord’s eyes, Fulcanelli has been cast out of favor and sentenced to death. Charged with the wizard’s destruction, I bound him within the walls of a remote desert fortress whose location is known only to me and to my master.
When the evil one realized that I had triumphed over him in this small way, he cursed and reviled not only me, but mentioned you by name several times, uttering curses against you and your house. Of course you were already known to me as a Champion of Good, and I have heard stories of your unending quest to dispatch this creature of darkness from this world. Alas, I have myself been unable to do so; save my success in binding him, he has thwarted every spell of destruction which I have visited upon him.
Therefore I beg you in the name of Allah, Who is most wise and beneficent, to come to my fortress and assist me in the destruction of this evil creature. I fear that the time will soon come when he will overpower my binding spell and free himself. My own life shall surely be forfeit in that moment, although if the loss of it could effect his death, I would count it a small price to pay. Yet I fear my end will count for nothing toward his own death, and in desperation—and with great hopes—I turn to you, oh most revered Monsieur Regnier.
I have enclosed a map with Hamza, my trusted confidant, who brings you this letter and who shall escort you. You will in turn be met by a retinue of my guards, who await your arrival at the border of our Empire.
Written in my own hand, and with cordial greetings to my esteemed brother in the arts.
Kilij Arslan, Court Magician to the Ottoman Empire
Giuliana was abjectly sorry that she had encouraged him to go. For things were not right here in Florence, and he was not here to protect his house and his progeny. He had been gone many months, almost five, and she had not had a letter from him for almost two.
Nor had she informed him of her condition, thinking that it would worry him, or worse, bring him home before his mission was completed. But today she worried for her baby, and she wondered if she had been foolish not to insist upon the magickal protection of her husband. To be sure, the midwife had set wards around the perimeter of the property and given her an amulet to wear, but the wisewoman’s expertise lay in the realm of old wives’ tales, and not in the more enlightened and authentic magick that was the provenance of her husband.
The thunder rumbled again. The horses whinnied uneasily. Giuliana murmured, “Easy, easy, mi bambini,” but she herself was not easy. It seemed dishonest to assure any living creature that all was right with the world, and she reflected that a mother’s duty lay in part in the perpetuation of such a lie. Every lullaby sang of that lie.
And yet, if a child had a mother and a father who loved him and would die for him, was it falsehood to promise the child safe harbor?
Unhappy with her thoughts, she left the bam and walked across the meadow toward the villa proper. It was called the Court of the Roses, for its dozens of lovely rosebushes. Richard had designed it himself, after the pleasant and airy buildings of Catherine de’ Medici’s court at Fontainebleau. The de’ Medici had been a Florentine also. So the lovely villa mixed his memories of her and her time with that of his wife. “Queen of my conscience, and queen of my soul,” he was wont to say.
It was quite something to be the queen of a magician’s soul.
“So we should not fear, caro mio,” she murmured to her son. “God watches over us, and so does your father.”
She crossed herself and entered one of the villa’s outbuildings, the fragrant hut where the peasant women dried herbs for cooking and poultices. The entire building smelled of rosemary and lavender, and Giuliana thought she might swoon with delight at the heavy, rich fragrances. Surely naught could be ill in a world that produced such perfume.
Then her abdomen clenched tightly. Groaning deep in her throat, she clutched at it and felt it harden like a rock. Terrified, she took a breath and struggled to stay calm. Too soon, much too soon, she was laboring.
“No,” she whispered to her child. “No, my darling, wait.”
She groaned as another pain ripped through her, making her shudder and fall to her knees.
“Signora?” a soft voice queried. It was Signorina Alessandra, sent to Giuliana by one of the nuns in the nearby convent. Alessandra had worked for the sisters for three years, and she could keep secrets as well as any priest within the confessional. Giuliana was not naive enough to suppose that her servants did not talk with other servants, but she wished to keep the truth of impending motherhood as private as possible.
“Signora?” the voice echoed.
Giuliana moved her hand to the front of her gown, pressing it against her body. When she saw the blood, she gasped and burst into tears. “My child. God help me. Riccardo!”
Her plea for her husband was a wail lost in the booming thunder, much louder now. As she grew dizzy, she lost sense of where she was. After a hazy passage of time, she became aware of rain pelting her and people carrying her into the house. Of being put into her bed. Of straining and screaming.
And then, of the chambermaid, bursting into the room and shrieking, “Men riding the backs of devils! They come!”
It was then that Giuliana fought hardest against the birth of her child. She wrestled with the Virgin herself to keep him safe inside her body.
But Signorina Alessandra whispered to her, “Lady, if these men are coming to do us mischief, it would be better to give the child to me to hide. I will find safe haven for him. I swear it.”
Grunting like an animal, sobbing with fear and pain, Giuliana gripped Alessandra’s hand and rasped, “Are you an angel of mercy, then? Or do you mean to deliver my half-formed son into the hands of murderers?”
“I swear, I am God’s own child,” Alessandra had replied. “On the blood of the One Who died for us, I swear that I will find a safe place for him, my lady.”
“They will kill him, as they . . . as they have killed his father,” she said, weeping. The pain in her belly caught her off guard, and she screamed. “Riccardo, where are you? You are dead! They’ve murdered you. Fulcanelli, I curse you! I curse your house!”
“Signora, you must stay calm. Stay quiet,” Alessandra said, holding her hand.
“But it is too soon, and they will kill him.” Giuliana whispered. “Oh, Alessandra, I had thought to give my husband the fairest rose in his garden of roses. After the horrors that his life has been, I wanted beauty for him. Joy.”
Tears spilled down her cheeks, and for a moment, it was six years before, when she was but sixteen, and Riccardo Regnier had come to call at her father’s fine home in the bustling metropolis of Florence. She was practically affianced to another, a gallant named Paolo, and she was very much in love with the idea of being in love with a handsome young man.
Then Riccardo strode into her father’s house, in his satins and silks, much more colorful than one might have expected, if one knew his age and his travails. His chin, so firm, his eye, so piercing. He had looked at her and she had felt a connection that extended beyond the physical, though in her maidenly way, she wanted him ardently. It was more than a physical attraction. No, this was something that bridged soul to soul.
“I am for you,” she had whispered, as they had walked together under the severe gaze of her nurse. “I was created to marry you.”
“I believe this as well, I for you,” he had replied.
And in time, he confessed all. His age, his explorations into the supernatural, and most of all, his enduring vendetta with the hellspawn, Fulcanelli. With each revelation, she was more sure that Providence had sent her to him.
When they married, she had wept tears of joy.
When she had conceived seven months ago, she had done the same, not realizing that night that he had put a child in her belly.
But now . . . ruin.
“Alessandra,” she said, gritting her teeth, as another labor pain wracked her. “If aught should happen, hide him. Shelter him.”
“My lady, nothing will happen,” Alessandra replied, then hesitated. “But I will do as you ask.”
Then, as hoofbeats drowned out her words, she silently inclined her head and nodded.
Pain . . . unimaginable pain . . . and at the last, the plaintive cry of a newborn babe. And Alessandra’s words in her ear: “He is very small, but he is well-formed. I think that he will live.”
And then, footfalls in the hallway. The door crashing open. And a demon gazing down at her, his face contorted with rage.
“Where is the little bastard Regnier filled you with?”
Giuliana screamed. It was Fulcanelli himself. She recognized his countenance from the sketches her husband had made, so that she would know the face of her husband’s most hated nemesis. As she gazed at him in her bed of travail, the blood still wet beneath her hips, she knew the beardless, unlined face, the striking features, the startling crystal-blue eyes.
“You are too late. My child is dead,” Giuliana rasped, tears spilling down her cheeks. “And I shall follow him soon.”
His fury was terrifying. He raised his withered left hand and, with a flick of his wrist, sent a whistling wind through the chamber that shrieked of distress and chilled Giuliana to the bone.
“Tell me where your child is,” Fulcanelli said, bending over her. “And I will be merciful.”
Giuliana swallowed back a scream as something sharp and painful sliced through her breast. She thought it might be a knife, but when she stared down at her chest, she saw no cut, no wound. But she writhed with pain.
“Dead,” she whispered, praying that saying it did not make it true. “He was born too soon.”
The man blinked, and for the first time, she hoped. If he had already known that she was with child, then he probably realized now that she was telling him the truth. Her child had been born too soon. And yet, Alessandra thought he might live.
That, she would never tell Fulcanelli.
“Where’s the body?” he demanded.
Tears spilled down her cheeks. “I know not,” she whispered. “They took him away to spare me further agony. He was baptized and then they took him.”
“Where’s the priest?” the sorcerer asked.
“What?” She caught her breath, realizing she might be caught in her lie. Worrying that she might visit death upon Father Lorenzo, the priest who said mass once a week at the villa but lived in town during the other six days.
“The priest.”
“He left.” She closed her eyes. “Please, signor, I am so tired and bereft. I need rest.”
He slapped her.
* * *
The chambermaid, the cook, and three of Giuliana’s other female servants were dragged into the room by men in hooded robes and thrown, sobbing, to the floor.
“Kill the old one,” Fulcanelli said carelessly.
“No, stop!” Giuliana cried, raising herself on her elbows.
As she watched in horror, one of the hooded men grabbed Concetta, the cook, and yanked back her head. Lightning fast, the other man pulled a stiletto from his sleeve and slit her throat.
Blood spurted everywhere, cascading over the shrieking women on the floor, the two men, and on Giuliana herself. But Fulcanelli remained untouched.
“Where is Regnier’s heir?” he shouted at Giuliana. “Tell me, or everyone in this house dies!”
“Dead,” Giuliana sobbed. “He is dead.”
Fulcanelli said to the blood-soaked men. “Kill the youngest one.”
“No, no!” screamed the chambermaid as they hoisted her to her feet. “My lady, signora, I beg you, tell them!”
“Tell them what?” Giuliana said desperately, staring hard at the young girl, willing her to help, begging her to spare her child.
The chambermaid stared back at her for a long instant. And then she burst into tears and moaned.
“Tell them that he is dead,” the girl murmured in a defeated, flat voice.
The slaughter in Giuliana’s bedchamber took mere minutes. Afterwards, Fulcanelli’s henchmen dragged her from her bed and forced her to stand in the courtyard as every single living creature at the villa was cut down, some by the two dozen hooded men who had come with Fulcanelli, others by hideous monsters the sorcerer called from the air. Giuliana saw the might and strength of the evil he commanded, and wept as her servants and tenants were rent limb from limb, as they were set ablaze, as their bodies were shattered like crystal with a flick of Fulcanelli’s wrist.
Men, boys, little girls, it made no difference. They went to their deaths terrified and begging their signora to save them.
She did not. She would not. And none of the very few who knew what had happened—that her child had lived—betrayed her.
Alessandra was not discovered, and Giuliana began to hope that she and the child would survive.
Then Fulcanelli’s followers mounted strange, shadowy horses and cantered away. Only one remained behind, holding a mount for his master.
Fulcanelli turned to Giuliana and caressed her cheek.
“You were right. You will die soon, from loss of blood,” he said.
“And I will be with the Holy Mother, while the Devil waits for you,” she whispered.
He laughed. Then he spit in her face. His spittle reeked of the grave as it traced a path down her cheek.
“The Devil and I have a pact,” he said, “which includes the assurance that our enemies will suffer at our hands at every possible occasion. Your husband would grieve that you died shortly after childbirth. But many women die in that way. It is a fact of nature.”
He leered at her. “But if he knew you were tortured to death, slowly and expertly, while he was away on a fool’s errand, well, that would make him suffer.”
“A fool’s . . .” she breathed.
“Who do you think sent him that letter?”
Then he raised his hands and held them toward her.
The entire villa fell into total blackness. Giuliana caught her breath, and smelled the fragance of roses, withering as if in grief.
Something came up behind her. Something enormous. Something as cold as the grave.
“Ciao, bella,” Fulcanelli said jauntily.
There was the creak of leather as someone climbed onto a mount. Hoofbeats rumbled in counterpoint to Giuliana’s rapid heartbeat, weak and fluttering as a hummingbird’s. She understood: Fulcanelli was leaving her with whatever it was he had conjured to deal her death.
Perhaps, she thought hopefully, I will die this very minute.
* * *
Because death would be welcome as a lover, she thought, as she writhed in agony. Dying will make it all right.
The landscape blazed as brightly as day. In the distance, she saw the Duomo and the city; around her, the beautiful roses. Her eyes filled with tears as she stared at the landscape.
As the pain made her heart stop—
“My God, Buffy!” Angel shouted.
“What!” she shouted back, bolting upright. Then she fell back into his arms, intensely dizzy, and said, “I’m not Buffy. I am Giuliana Regnier.”
She blinked. Oz stood on the other side of the saggy mattress in their Florentine pension and said, “Uh-oh.”
“Wait. I’m okay,” she said.
“You had no pulse,” Angel accused.
“I do now, all right?” She frowned. “And why’d you let me fall asleep?”
“You were tired,” Oz pointed out.
“What did you dream?” Angel asked urgently. “Tell me, before you forget.”
She shrugged. “Like I could forget. Not so pleasant. It was one of those dreams.” She glanced at Oz. “Something true usually gets mixed up with the weird parts. It happens to me now and then. It’s a Slayer thing.”
“I know what you mean,” Oz assured her. “I dreamed I flunked senior year and had to repeat it. Except there were no weird parts. So that must be the special Slayer feature.”
She smiled at him, then turned to Angel. “I was at a villa and I smelled roses. Lots of roses. I’m thinking, Court of the Roses might not be the address, but the name of the villa. And I had a great view of a city.” She paused. “A city a long time ago. But I saw a big church dome.”
Oz said, “Which Florence has.”
“Okay,” Angel said, reaching for the phone. “Do you want Giles or the Gatekeeper?”
“Let’s go straight to the source,” Buffy suggested. “The Gatekeeper.”
Angel began to punch in numbers.
* * *
Giles pulled into the parking lot of his condo complex, smiling as Willow shifted the bouquet of flowers in her lap to reach for the door handle. It had been a brilliant idea on Joyce Summers’s behalf to invite everyone over for dinner. They needed a moment simply to be together without having to fight monsters or bind breaches. In short, to be kids.
“Y’know, the flowers are going to make her think you have a crush on her,” Xander said from the back seat. “Especially since you turned your back on the cheap bouquets with all the daisies and went for the chrysanthemums.”
“Ah, yes, chrysanthemums,” Giles said archly. “The flower of extravagance and romance.”
Cordelia sighed. “Xander, civilized people bring each other flowers all the time. If you had any class at all, you’d know that. Mrs. Summers will know Giles is just being nice.”
“Indeed she will,” Giles replied, “since she’s the one who suggested I pick some up.”
“Oh.” Xander huffed. “Well, I was just looking out for you. Y’know, it could have been awkward, her being Buffy’s mom and all.”
“Thank you for your concern,” Giles said, getting out of the car. “But it’s totally unwarranted, I assure you.”
“Yeah, break her heart, Buffy would probably stake you.”
Giles decided not to tell Xander that that thought had, on occasion, crossed his mind.
“All right, then,” Giles said. “If someone can get the cheesecake, I think we’re ready to have a pleasant evening.”
They got out of the car and trooped around the building to the main entrance. Giles paused to check his mail while the others went on ahead. He caught up with them, silently grousing at the handful of bills—his credit card bill was bound to be astronomical—and reached for his keys.
“Hey, um,” Willow said, tentatively pushing on the door. It swung open.
She looked worriedly at Giles, who stepped past her and swept into the room. The odor of burning food permeated the apartment.
“Joyce?” he called. He took the stairs to the right, his heart clutching as he recalled a similar scenario—going up these very steps, to find Jenny’s dead, staring eyes gazing at him from his bed.
Nothing. He sagged with relief as he stared at the neatly made bed. No signs of a scuffle. Nothing in the loo, either.
He hurried down the stairs as Xander pointed to a large ceramic vase of flowers plunked down on the corner of the coffee table.
“What’s that?” the boy asked.
“Um, flowers?” Cordelia guessed.
“Joyce?” Giles called again, checking the downstairs bathroom.
“Maybe she just went to the store,” Willow said anxiously.
“Oh, right, and left something in the oven to burn,” Xander shot back. Then he cocked his head. “But now that you mention it, that’s the kind of thing my mom would do.”
“Yeah, but Buffy’s mom knows how to cook. And she wouldn’t leave the door unlocked. Even if she didn’t have the key to get back in.”
Giles shook his head. “She has a key.”
He crossed to the flowers. There was a gift card on a plastic stake; he plucked it up and read, “Thinking of you. Love, Buffy.”
He looked at the kids. “Well, obviously, Buffy didn’t send this from, ah, Sherwood Florist.” He paused. He had once bought Jenny a little bouquet from the same shop. Coincidence?
“I’d say not,” Cordelia sniffed. “Everyone knows Dandelions is the only decent florist in town.”
“Really.” Giles pushed up his glasses and examined the card.
“Giles.” Xander’s voice came from the hallway. “Giles, come quick.”
“Oh, my God, what?” Willow breathed.
Giles dashed out the door and joined Xander, who knelt on one knee and pointed to some splotches of red on the concrete.
“It’s blood, isn’t it?” Xander asked shakily.
Giles nodded, a terrible sensation of dread washing over him. “Yes. I’m afraid it is.”
* * *
Willow made fists of her hands and put them under her chin as Giles placed the call to the florist shop and went through the pleasantries. His eyes on Giles’s every move, Xander took the burned chicken out of the oven and doused it with water from the kitchen sink.
Cordelia worried.
She didn’t know what else to do.
“And you say a man came in and ordered what kind of flowers?”
As Giles listened, he swiveled toward the bouquet and studied it, his eyes narrowing. He nodded slowly, including the kids in his nod. These must be the ones.
“Missing, you say,” Giles said into the phone.
“What, the flowers?” Cordelia asked anxiously.
Xander made a face and turned the faucet off. The charred nuggets of chicken floated in a sea of water, which sloshed over the side as he set the pan to the side of the sink. For some reason, looking at the mess made Cordelia feel slightly ill. Or maybe that was her nerves.
“Who on earth would bother stealing flowers?” Xander said.
Cordelia shot him a look. “Someone who’s too cheap to ever buy any.”
“Hey.” He scowled at her. “I’ve bought you flowers.” He hesitated. “Haven’t I?”
“You brought Willow flowers when she was in the hospital,” Cordelia retorted. “I guess the only way I’ll ever get flowers from you is if I perform some bizarre ritual and nearly die.”
“Guys,” Willow said sternly. She gestured toward Giles, who was hanging up the phone.
“The flowers were purchased by a pleasant-looking man with glasses. When the shop girl closed up for the evening, she noticed that someone had gone through the laundry. She thinks a few items were taken, but she doesn’t know what. However, the laundry consisted mainly of uniforms.”
“Disguises,” Xander said unhappily. “Florist delivery guy. Who wouldn’t open the door?”
“I wouldn’t,” Cordelia said. “Buffy’s mom has always been too trusting. I mean, she never figured out that Buffy was the Slayer. And Buffy was coming home with bloodstains all over her clothes. I mean, what was up with that?”
Xander puffed out his cheeks, exhaled, looked very worried. “So they tricked Mrs. Summers, who obviously does not watch very many slasher films, into opening the door. Can you say lowlife scum? I knew you could.”
“And then they did something to her that made her bleed,” Willow added miserably.
“So now what? I assume calling the police is out. It always is,” Cordelia said anxiously.
“ ’Cause, y’know, they would be such a big help,” Xander drawled.
Giles picked up the phone again.
“We have to tell Buffy,” he said. “Perhaps she’s already been contacted.”
Cordelia frowned. “Contacted?”
“By the kidnappers,” Giles explained.
Xander flattened his hands on the counter and stared at the flowers. His expression almost frightened Cordelia, it was so filled with anger.
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” he said. “It’s not Buffy’s mom they’re after. It’s Buffy.”