Page 45 of Be Still My Unbeating Heart

“You were a teenager in the 1970s?”

Bastian smiled. “Trying to figure out my age, Inspector? How utterly scandalous of you.”

The other man’s mouth pressed into a line, and Bastian couldn’t tell if De Luca was irritated by Bastian’s teasing or attempting to suppress a smile.

“I was turned in eighty-five,” Bastian said. “Nineteeneighty-five. I was twenty-three. I’ve been a vampire now longer than I ever was a human. Funny, the way time works.”

They looked at each other for a moment, and Bastian swore he saw a little of that conflicted light in De Luca’s eyes again, the same look he had observed after the incident with the scooter.

“So, you’re a young vampire,” De Luca said.

Bastian chuckled. “Practically a baby compared to some. Barely out of nappies. Careful with these questions, dear, we’re in danger of having an actual conversation.”

De Luca’s mouth twitched, and Bastian wondered what it would look like if the inspector let go. Just allowed himself to have fun. Something as little as a smile could make a world of difference to a person.

De Luca cleared his throat. “How are you feeling now? Is it dark enough in here?”

“I’m feeling much better now, thank you, Inspector.”

De Luca nodded. He looked around them, his brow furrowed, and Bastian saw that the church was empty. Whitby sat by the pulpit, cleaning herself. Bath number three of the day, at least. Bastian could almost imagine they weren’t hunting a killer and were simply enjoying a little sightseeing.

“Come,” De Luca said. “I want to show you something.”

Bastian looked at him in surprise. He followed De Luca farther into the church and stopped by a marble statue on a plinth. The black stone formed the shape of a woman with a proud countenance, her head tipped back so that she stared up at the ceiling with a look of rebelliousness. One hand was raised, elbow crooked, as she held aloft two snakes that coiled together, their fangs bared at her in a silent hiss.

“She is fabulous,” Bastian said, admiring the piece. “Who is she?”

“Sofia di Vernazza. Everybody in town knows the legend. She was a nurse in the fifteen hundreds when a terrible plague cut through the population. Sofia had a vision from God that if she permitted a snake to bite her, its venom would cause her tears to be imbued with divine power. Her tears could be used as an ointment to heal the people of Vernazza and save the town. Sofia loved the townspeople, and so she allowed herself to be bitten once, thentwice, then three times. Just as her vision had promised, her tears ended the plague and helped cure the people, but Sofia had been bitten so many times that the venom killed her. She died saving the people of Vernazza.”

Bastian peered at the statue with renewed interest, intrigued by the story and moved by De Luca’s clear reverence for the woman. It was the longest he had spoken to Bastian, by far.

“People still believe Sofia can heal them,” De Luca said. “They come to Vernazza just to touch this statue. If you look closely at her right arm, you can see a patch that has been worn smooth from people running their fingers over it. As a kid, if you grazed your knee or cut yourself, you asked Sofia to make you better. As weird as it may sound, she inspired me, growing up.”

“She’s certainly giving big-time queer icon energy,” Bastian said.

De Luca snorted. He blinked and cleared his throat, and his voice dipped as he said, “My parents insisted we come to church every Sunday, but I didn’t mind, so long as we sat near Sofia. I loved her strength and defiance. I loved the look on her face as she overpowered the snakes, and she made me feel strong, like I could stand up for myself, even if people didn’t believe in me—even if I didn’t believe inmyself. I missed her, when I stopped coming to church.”

“Why did you stop?” Bastian asked.

De Luca gripped the cap tighter in his hands. “What you said about feeling unwelcome after a while…I felt the same way.”

“Is that so?”

De Luca nodded, giving Bastian a fleeting glance.

“We were born in different decades, but that feeling hasn’t changed—of difference, of not belonging. Being gay is more accepted nowadays, but it’s still far from accepted without question.”

Bastian tried not to stare at the inspector, but it was difficult,given what he had just revealed about himself. Ispettore Nicolas De Luca had come out to him, here in the Church of St. Margaret of Antioch, under the watchful eye of Sofia di Vernazza. Bastian decided not to make it a big deal.

“Did your family know?” he asked.

A head shake. “My father never did; he died before I came out. And Mum, well…she wasn’t all there after Dad.”

“That must have been hard for you.”

De Luca shrugged lightly. “I found ways to cope. Music. Work. The occasional hookup with a horny tourist.”

“Inspector, surely not,” Bastian said, faux shocked.