The telegraph machine clattered in the corner of my office. Click-clack-click.
The operator's face went pale as he decoded the strip of paper.
"Sir," he whispered. "It's from General Masséna in Lyon."
"Read it," I said, not looking up from my ledger.
"We engaged the rebels at dawn. We were routed."
My pen stopped.
"Routed?" I stood up. "Masséna has ten thousand veterans. The rebels are peasants with pitchforks."
"The report continues, Sir." The operator swallowed hard. "They didn't have pitchforks. They didn't reload."
I walked over and snatched the paper from his hand.
Enemy fire continuous. No pauses for ramrods. They fired ten rounds in ten seconds. It was a wall of lead. My men broke. Request immediate reinforcements.
"Continuous fire," I whispered.
A musket takes twenty seconds to reload. Shoot, wipe, pour, ram, prime.
Ten shots in ten seconds? That was impossible. Not in 1793.
The door burst open.
Fouché strode in. He wasn't alone. Two grim-faced policemen carried a long wooden crate between them.
"We intercepted a courier near the border," Fouché said without preamble. "He was carrying this to the rebels."
They set the crate down. Fouché pried the lid open.
Inside lay a rifle.
It was beautiful. Walnut stock. Blued steel barrel. And under the trigger guard, a lever.
I picked it up. It was heavy. Oiled.
I worked the lever. Clack-clack. The action was smooth as silk.
"Winchester," I breathed. "Model 1873."
"What?" Fouché asked.
"The Gun that Won the West," I said. "Eighty years from now."
I looked at the engraving on the receiver. It wasn't the Winchester logo. It was a cross. And below it, the Latin phrase: Vade Retro Satana (Get Behind Me, Satan).
"He's arming them," I said, feeling a cold knot in my stomach. "Cagliostro. He's giving 19th-century weapons to 18th-century zealots."
I looked at Fouché.
"Do you know what this does to a line of musketeers? It's a massacre. It's not war. It's murder."
"Where is he getting them?" Fouché asked. "You can't build these in a blacksmith shop. You need precision tooling."
"He's printing them," I realized. "Or importing them from the future. It doesn't matter how. It matters where they are coming from."
I looked at the map.
"The rebels are in the south. The supply line has to be the Mediterranean."
"Naples," Fouché said. "Cardinal Ruffo controls the port."
"Then we have a problem," I said. "Because Naples isn't just a port. It's a nest of vipers."
The Catacombs of the Pantheon
"The signal is coming from here," Fouché said, holding a strange device. It was a compass, but the needle was spinning wildly.
We were deep underground. The air was stale, smelling of ancient dust.
"Cagliostro's hologram," I said. "It needs a power source. A projector."
We turned a corner into a large burial chamber.
In the center stood a machine.
It looked like a metallic tree. A coil of copper wire wound around a central pillar, topped with a brass sphere.
It was humming. A low, throbbing vibration that I felt in my teeth.
"Tesla Coil," I whispered.
"Don't touch it," Fouché warned, drawing his pistol.
"Bullets won't help, Joseph."
I stepped closer. The air crackled with static electricity. My hair stood on end.
"Welcome, Administrator."
The voice came from the arc of blue electricity jumping between the coils.
"You audit money, Alex. Can you audit faith?"
"Cagliostro," I shouted at the machine. "Stop giving them guns! You're breaking the timeline!"
"I'm spicing it up!" the voice laughed. "Muskets are so boring. Pop... wait... pop. I prefer a rhythm. Bang-bang-bang!"
The humming grew louder. The blue light intensified, blindingly bright.
"The Pope loves the new toys," Cagliostro crooned. "He calls them the Rods of God. Fitting, don't you think?"
The copper coils began to glow red.
"Run!" I yelled.
I grabbed Fouché and shoved him toward the tunnel exit.
We scrambled back the way we came. The humming rose to a scream.
BOOM.
The shockwave knocked us off our feet. Dust and stones rained down from the ceiling.
We coughed, choking on the smoke.
I looked back. The chamber had collapsed. The machine was buried.
"He wired it to self-destruct," Fouché coughed.
"He's playing games," I said, wiping blood from a cut on my cheek. "He's treating history like a sandbox."
I stood up. My legs were shaky. My heart gave a painful thump-thump-pause.
I reached into my pocket and took a pill. Digitalis. Foxglove. It tasted bitter.
"We can't fight him with technology," I said. "He's too far ahead. He has Tesla coils and repeating rifles. We have steam engines and muskets."
"Then how do we fight him?" Fouché asked.
"We fight him with the one thing that never changes," I said. "Criminals."
The Conciergerie Prison
The cell was damp and dark.
The man sitting on the straw mattress didn't look like a prisoner. He looked like a king holding court in a dungeon.
He was eating a roasted chicken. He wore a silk shirt, stained but expensive.
"Don Michele," I said.
The man looked up. He wiped grease from his chin. He had a scar running through his eyebrow.
"The Administrator," Michele smiled. "To what do I owe the honor? Are you here to execute me?"
"I'm here to offer you a job."
Michele laughed. "I am a businessman, Citizen. I don't work for the government. The pay is too low."
"I offer you a monopoly," I said. "On the tobacco trade in Marseille."
Michele stopped chewing. His eyes narrowed.
"That is worth millions."
"It is."
"And the price?"
"I need you to go home. To Naples."
Michele's face darkened. "I am exiled from Naples. The King there... he does not like my organization."
"The King of Naples is busy," I said. "The port is currently being run by Cardinal Ruffo."
"Ruffo," Michele spat. "The priest who thinks he is a soldier."
"He is importing weapons," I said. "Crates marked with the Vatican seal. They contain rifles that shoot ten times without reloading."
Michele's eyes widened. "Ten times?"
"I need those crates to disappear," I said. "I can't send the army. It would be an act of war. I need... independent contractors."
"You want me to steal from the Pope?" Michele asked. He crossed himself. "That is a sin."
"I'll give you a plenary indulgence," I lied. "Signed by the Bishop of Autun."
Michele looked at me. He saw the desperation in my eyes. But he also saw the opportunity.
"The Camorra does not steal," Michele said, standing up. "We redistribute."
"Call it what you want," I said. "Just get the guns."
"And Cagliostro?" Michele asked. "The man who brings the magic?"
"If you see him," I said, "don't talk to him. Just kill him."
Michele extended his hand. He wore a heavy gold ring.
"We have a deal, Administrator."
I took his hand. It was rough, calloused.
I felt dirty. I was the head of state, the architect of the new France. And I was shaking hands with a murderer to save my country.
"Go," I said. "Fouché will arrange your passage."
Michele walked to the cell door.
"One thing," he said, turning back. "These rifles... do I get to keep a few?"
"If you survive," I said. "You can keep them all."
Michele smiled. A predator's smile.
"Naples will burn tonight," he promised.
I walked out of the prison. The night air felt cold.
I had armed the mob. I had unleashed the mafia.
"Forgive me," I whispered to the sky.
But the sky didn't answer. Only the ticking of my heart replied.
Thump-thump-pause.
Time was running out. And I was running out of soul to sell.