Prologue
Volterra, Italy
1723
The madness came for him at night.
Eager. Grasping. Hungry. Always wanting more and more, devouring him piece by piece.
There was a reason the D’Angelo men were calledi Conti dei Maledetti—the Damned Earls. Hereditary insanity was their curse.
But unlike his forebears—his father and his father’s father and so on—this particular D’Angelo loved his madness. He luxuriated in it, losing himself in the addictive wanderings of his mind.
The Earl— orConte, as he insisted on being called—didn’t care that the madness would consume him. That one day, he would simply never wake.
For him, the madness with its powerful visions was a craving. An obsession. A cherished lover never to be forsaken.
Because of this, theConteconsidered it his duty to record what the madness whispered. No one should forget what it said.
“Did you get all that?” he asked his scribe seated at a desk before the window.
TheConteemployed a clerk to write down the words the voices in his head murmured. It was critical that not one thing be lost.
The madness had told him so.
Candlelight flickered around the room, highlighting theConte’s white powdered wig, glinting on the pink brocaded silk of his frock coat and bouncing off the gilded walls.
“Yes, my lord.” The man cleared his throat, shifting uncomfortably. “You said, ‘I know all the secrets. The universe tells them all to me.’”
TheContelaughed. The scribe nervously flinched.
But the words were true. TheContedid know all the secrets. He knew the madness. He knew its power.
He giggled again.
He had heard the story from birth. Generations before, Giovanni D’Angelo had made a dark, sinful pact with the gypsies. Giovanni paid the demanded price and a sacrifice had been made. In return, the gypsies had given the D’Angelo family a gift of Second Sight—the ability to see, hear and feel the past and future.
But the power of the gift grew, year after year, until it was too much for a human mind to bear. Eventually, the mind cracked from the pressure, and the gift began anew with the next generation, the next heir.
TheConte’s mind, of course, had descended into insanity years ago, well before the madness generated by his gift had manifested itself. The power of the gift simply joined the lunacy already in his veins.
Would there ever be another like him? A D’Angelo who interacted with the Sight in different ways?
TheConteposed his questions to the madness.
It replied, flooding him with a vision.
He saw a line of D’Angelo men, stretching into the distance. His future heirs.
TheContefloated along the line, passing man after man, each one tainted with the madness. It clung to them like plague, a mass of shadowy sludge turning their skin sallow and their edges murky. The madness spread through the line, morphing and moving, a slimy, viscous darkness. The men sickened and died, the blackness consuming them entirely.
Until . . . the line abruptly faded into a smoky mist. Not one butthreemen stood before the dark cloud. Shoulder to shoulder. Expressions stoic. Two of the men were identical. Twins. The third man was a few inches shorter and leaner but still obviously related.
Brothers. Triplets.
TheContecouldn’t see beyond them. The mist obscured the way. Were the brothers the end of the D’Angelo line?
The madness churned and roiled around the men, trying to grab on. But the brothers held it back. Every time the madness tried to claim one of them, the other two raised their hands and scraped it off.
