Jon Tracy - The Rome Prophecy

‘Stupid girl! You disgrace us. Look at you lying there on your back, spread out like a cheap peasant whore about to pleasure the dimmest of farmers. You are not fit to be Cybeline.’

A weaker voice answers, ‘I’m sorry. Please, forgive me. It is not my fault that I am like this.’

Louisa feels like her heart is going to break. She was hoping Anna had put the trauma of simultaneous manifestations behind her.

Clearly not.

‘ Sorry? ’ The dominant alter stresses the word poisonously. ‘You do not have the right to even think about apologising to me. You are past that, child. You are lost to me.’

Louisa realises she’s wrong.

This is not just any alter. By the sound of it, this is the ultimate and most powerful one of them all. The Mother.

‘Lost, child! Do you hear me?’

‘No, please!’ Anna begs. ‘I have tried my best. I have done almost everything that you have asked of me.’

Louisa quickly pulls a small notepad from her white doctor’s coat and scribbles.

This moment could be key to unlocking the mysterious traumas that have messed with Anna’s mind.

‘Almost is not enough!’ The words are shouted out. ‘You have failed me. Failed all of us. Now I ask only that you show me the loyalty your sisters have.’

‘Mater!’ Anna is close to tears.

‘Stop sniffling!’ Her face wrinkles with contempt. ‘Your weakness disgusts me. Weakness leads to treachery. Have I not taught you to be stronger?’

Anna is too upset to speak.

Louisa finds herself torn between note-taking and intervention. If she ends it now, the Mater personality may submerge beneath the others and she could lose valuable insight into how to treat Anna.

‘Answer me!’ shouts Mater, viciously. ‘Have I not taught you to be stronger?’

Anna answers with a whimper. ‘Yes.’

‘Then you must know what I have come to do.’

There’s panic now in Anna’s voice. ‘Forgive me, I beg you. I had to run away.’ She struggles for breath. ‘I could not hurt my own sister.’

‘Your sister was treacherous. I had to make sure she would not betray us. As I have to make sure you will not.’

Anna thrashes against the bed restraints. ‘No! No! You’re hurting me, Mater!’ Her body thumps against the mattress, creating a sound like thunder. ‘Stop! Stop! You’re hurting me!’

Louisa has seen enough.

She rushes from the monitors to the room.

‘Please let me go!’

One of the wrist restraints breaks loose.

‘I cast you from the sanctity of the womb, I damn your soul to eternal exile beyond the boundary of the sisterhood.’

‘No, please, Mater! Please don’t.’

‘The jagged stone teeth of the Tarpeian Rock are too good for you. Strangulation on the Gemonian Stairs too honourable. I cast you down from a place above the clouds so that your organs and your bones will be obliterated like an ant crushed beneath a giant’s heel.’

Louisa opens the door of the electronically locked room just as the other wrist restraint breaks.

Anna falls from the bed. She is left dangling by her tethered feet, screaming in wild panic.

‘Anna, Anna, it’s okay!’

Louisa tries to lift her back on to the bed, but can’t.

‘Let me help you. You’re okay.’

She quickly releases the ankle restraints and lowers her to the ground.

Face down on the cold floor, Anna mouths three words: ‘The Tenth Book.’

Louisa kneels alongside her.

‘Shush. Be quiet now. Everything’s okay.’ She puts two fingers to the pulse point in the patient’s neck.

Anna’s body spasms.

Her eyes widen and she grabs Louisa’s arm. ‘Find… the… Tenth… Book.’

She spasms again. Then lies lifeless.

Louisa can’t detect a pulse.

Anna isn’t moving.

Her heart has stopped.

Federico Assante’s wife Mia has gone out for the day with their young daughter.

He has no idea what they’re doing or when they’ll be back.

Right now he has no idea about anything.

Mia left straight after breakfast, and he’s sure she knows something is wrong.

She always knows.

Federico can’t bring himself to tell her that he’s been suspended and sent home.

He’s too ashamed.

To Mia and her family, his job is everything. She’s always talking about how proud she is that he’s a policeman. A photograph of him in full ceremonial uniform stands on a cabinet in every one of her relatives’ homes.

He’ll never be able to tell her.

For the moment he’s told her he’s off sick. An injured back. Backs are always a safe bet. Not even doctors can prove you don’t have some form of back pain.

But he knows he can’t bluff for ever.

The curtains of their apartment are closed. He sits in the white vest he’s worn for two days, chain-smoking over a low coffee table filled with magazines that he’s not reading.

From somewhere in the pocket of his badly creased black trousers his cell phone sends out a tinny imitation of the iconic 24 ring tone.

Not even Jack Bauer could save this day.

‘ Pronto.’

‘Hey, Federico!’

It’s Enrico Ferrari. Unbearably upbeat and almost the last person he wants to talk to.

Federico pictures him, doughnut in hand, sugar on lips, his diary spread open in front of him as he calls around to find drinking chums.

Well, Federico doesn’t want to go out.

Not now. Not ever again.

‘Enrico, I’m sorry, this is a bad time, I-’

‘No it’s not!’ he insists cheerily. ‘This is actually a good time – a very good time.’

‘Enrico, I’m not really in the mood for-’

‘But Skywalker, your waiting is over.’

‘Enrico!’

His friend isn’t deterred. ‘No, no, listen, this really is a good-news call. I just read the full mitochondrial DNA test results on both Anna Fratelli and the severed hand recovered from the Bocca in Cosmedin.’

‘You lost me, Enrico.’

‘They’re sisters.’

‘Sisters?’

‘See, the news is so good you have to repeat it. Your handless victim is Anna Fratelli’s sister.’

Federico can’t get his head around it.

Anna never mentioned she had a sister.

One of the alters was referred to as Little Suzie, but from what he can remember, she wasn’t a sister to any of the others.

Come to think of it, the medical records they’d pulled didn’t mention any sister either.

‘Hello, are you still there?’

‘I’m just trying to work things out. You’re saying that Anna’s sister had her hand cut off?’

‘Oh boy! How did you ever make detective? Yes, that’s pretty much what I said. Though if you want to quote me verbatim, I actually said that your handless victim is Anna’s sister.’

‘How are you so sure?’

‘You really want to know?’

‘I do, but keep it simple. Cop simple.’

‘Okay. Look, we have forty-six chromosomes; twenty-three we get from our mother and twenty-three from our father. We also get some mitochondrial DNA from our mother only. Using the mitochondrial DNA for sibling identification is quite accurate, because all children born of a certain female should share this DNA.’

‘And the father?’

‘Different. Totally different fathers. Sorry, I shouldn’t say “totally different” because of course they can’t be slightly different fathers. I mean, they’re either different or the same, aren’t they? You see what I mean? It’s like being a little bit pregnant; you can’t be – you’re either pregnant or you’re not.’

‘Enrico, you made that as clear as mud. Just swear to me that you’re sure of this.’

‘Of course I’m sure. It’s my job to be sure. I can categorically tell you that Anna has a different father to her sister.’