The Demon Catchers of Milan #2: The Halcyon Bird Read Online Free PDF

the family resemblance. The three of us shared the same high, square cheekbones, the same pale eyes, the same generous, sad mouth; yet at least twelve generations lay between him and Nonno. Signore Respicio bowed to me, and I saw that his clothes were old-fashioned; he wore a closely fitted, drab jacket, and tight pants that ended just below the knee, and white stockings smeared with dirt. His elegant shoes had buckles on them, and he wore his curly gray hair in a ponytail. I glanced at Nonno, not sure what to do, but he didn’t offer any advice, so I bowed, and said in my mind,
“Cugino, è un piacere di fare la sua conoscenza,”
as formally as I could. He smiled faintly, bowed again, and turned toward Nonno, holding out his hand. Giuliano opened his palm and Respicio put something in it. I blinked. When I opened my eyes, he had departed.
    I knew what I’d seen: a messenger, a suicide, one of the spirits who has to keep to this world even though he or she tried so hard to leave it. These spirits could earn release by doing tasks, however, and some of those who remained trapped in Milan helped our family. I had never seen one before that did not have anything to say; usually the opposite: they were often crabby, or angry, or sad, or didn’t want to do what we asked of them.
    Giuliano opened his hand. In his palm was a signet ring. It faded away as we both looked at it.
    “He never speaks,” said Nonno. “As you see, he’s been with us longer than most; I think he has a great deal to work off. Our family did not record his death as a suicide. We might have been too ashamed, or too determined to have him buried inside the churchyard. He left a widow behind, and more than one child. I can’t tell how he provided for them, and I think he did not. Our family had hit hard times, and I do not think anyone else could take them in. Do you understand what that would have meant? They would have starved, or died of overwork or abuse, or the widow would have had to become a prostitute, and might have died in childbirth or of disease. It was a terrible thing, what he did, you understand.”
    “I can’t imagine it,” I said. “Or maybe I can. It makes my stomach turn.”
    He nodded. We sat in silence for a moment. Then I said, “The way he spoke by handing you an object, that was interesting. What does it mean, that ring? I didn’t get a good look at it.”
    Giuliano laughed. “I didn’t, either. That’s the trouble with Respicio. Every time he brings me an object in order to give me a message, he knows precisely what he means, and I usually have no idea! And then it’s too late.”
    I laughed, too. Then I said, “Maybe … maybe that’s why it’s taking him so long to do his service to the world?”
    He frowned. “Even with rings, and old wine corks, and abook of calculations for the stresses on bridges and arches, and once, a dead rat … a messenger can get a lot done in half a century, and he has been here more than two.”
    He looked out the window. “A signet ring,” he mused. He turned to his open notebook and began to sketch what he could remember of it, asking me to look over his shoulder. He thought he had seen a compass on the face; I couldn’t recall anything like that, but I might not have been close enough.
    “Could be a Masonic symbol,” he said.
    I thought of all the puzzles I was trying to solve, about my own demon, and about the family and my grandfather. I thought about how each exorcism so far had seemed like a puzzle, where we had to figure out what made the demon do what it did. If we were successful, we could save lives.
    I looked around the room, at the flickering candles on the shelves, and I smiled. I had fallen in love with history and the riddles of demons. What had begun as a desperate road to survival had started to bring me joy, too.
    I tried not to think too much about how my demon would almost certainly kill me when (not if) he succeeded in possessing me again. Even so, I’d