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When you can't trust in angels, you turn to the devil for a pact.
Alessandro Steno is Venice's living legend. Trying to wash old blood off his hands, he hunts the city's...
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In all his years, Alessandro had never been here. Like a cruel angel he picked out the damned and cast them down into the darkness. Venice's prison. A black fortress to break souls and bodies alike.
It was eerily silent, their steps echoing unnaturally loud through the stone halls. Rows of bars lined their path. Even the light of the torches seemed to shiver with dread. They just gave enough light to make it worse than darkness. It was enough to see and yet too little to see.
Enough to imagine, too little to know. Alessandro could see distorted panic or dull resignation on the dirty faces pressed to the bars to stay in the light. Arms stretched out like those of the risen dead, grasping for the life that was paraded past them. There were shadows moving in the twilight, others just limp piles on the ground behind bars. Behind that, it was just black nothing.
The air could be cut with a knife, heavy and thick as it hung around them, pressing the foul, wet smell of old piss and blood into their lungs and threatening to crush them under its weight. A dropping sound echoed around them, fading away again when they passed.
He had damned people to this. He'd stoically present evidence, turn around and let the court decide a fate. A life.
But those people were criminals.They have murdered or stolen. He wasn't a criminal. He was not a criminal. He was not —
A long wail pierced through the silence. Alessandro couldn't tell where it came from, everywhere, nowhere, resounding all around them in a ghostly echo. Despite the fur lined cloak around his shoulders he shivered.
Maybe he should be grateful he would be hanged soon. He wouldn't stay long here in the stench of despair and sickness. For some, he suddenly realized, death could be not something to fear, but a liberation.
The blond scoffed, shaking his head to chase these thoughts away — this was not him.
Get a grip. This is a human's scheme. Humans make mistakes. Humans leave traces. He would find those. He always did.
He noticed Giacinto mustering him with his strange eyes — even in the dirty dark of this prison, the green shone like polished gems. Cold and hard. If the Greek managed to keep his posture so could Alessandro. He straightened up again, caught the satisfied nod the other man sent him as they were shoved along further.
They were pushed into an empty cell at the end of the corridor, two stone-walls and two rows of iron bars caging them. Giacinto stumbled under the force, caught himself and turned around with a spiteful sneer, lips curling in distaste.
A guard stepped forwards to take the chains off — leaving them in the shackles around their wrists. Giacinto spat in his face.
The answering punch snapped his head to the side. Blood trickled from his lips when he straightened up again. The dark glint in his eyes promised nothing good.
