Page 49 of Skotos
Thomas seemed unfazed, as was the Monsignor.
Maybe, just maybe, I’d been in the field too long and seen too much darkness—mostly in the form of men with guns, readying to shoot in our direction, usually at Thomas.
I was being paranoid.
Yes, my mind was running in circles and stoking childhood fears.
It was silly, really.
Still, I nearly jumped out of my shoes as we rounded a corner and the Monsignor banged on a thick wooden door flanked by two Swiss Guards.
The room we entered was small and windowless, lined with tomes stacked so high I wondered if some hadn’t been touched since Luther posted his theses. The place reeked of ink and mold—and held an antiseptic aftertaste I couldn’t quite identify. A flickering gas lamp on the desk did little to lift the gloom.
Behind the desk sat a man who looked as though the sun had long since given up on him. I briefly wondered if His Holiness hadn’t employed a vampire to guard his vaults. The priest’s skin had the translucence of old paper, and his eyes were enormous behind round glasses that magnified his eyeballs to almost comedic proportions. Ink stains traced up his bony fingers like spider veins. On anyone else, those stains would have been marks to be washed away. I suspected the man wore them as badges of honor awarded by the Pope himself.
“This is Father Lucien Marini,” said Rinaldi. “His Holiness’s Curia—and the keeper of records best left forgotten. You may trust him as you would His Holiness.”
“Charmed,” Marini rasped, his voice as dry as the air we breathed.
He didn’t rise.
At the Monsignor’s urging, I laid out our case—three leaders dead, a symbol like a spear, and rumors that pointed to either Moscow or something far more ancient and insidious. When I laid the photograph of the shell casing on the desk, the cleric barely moved, his eyes flicking only briefly to the image before fixing on me again.
Marini didn’t blink. He barely breathed—until I mentioned the Pope’s directive.
Marini looked to the Monsignor. “You’ve brought them to me because . . . ?”
“His Holiness instructed they be given full access,” Rinaldi replied without inflection.
Marini’s eyes widened. “Full?”
“Full.”
The silence that followed had weight.
Marini stood with the stiffness of an old marionette. “Very well,” he said, sounding like he’d rather be anywhere but letting us into his domain. “Follow me.”
We followed him back into the corridors. We rounded several corners before entering another unmarked door.
Stairs led us downward.
Our path shifted.
Light grew dimmer, the murals less grand. Gone were the trumpeting angels and triumphant saints—replaced with grim-faced monks and depictions of martyrdom soaked in red and shadow.
Smooth marble yielded to rough-hewn stone with each set of stairs we descended.
Eventually, all hints of majesty faded as we descended into a pit of blackness, a tomb of stone and dust and memories.
We stopped at a heavy iron gate. Unlike every other piece of metalwork in the palace, this gate was plain, unadorned by curls or engravings—or decorations of any kind. Marini produced a ring of keys that looked like they belonged in a dungeon, and said nothing as he unlocked the gate and pulled it open.
Beyond, another stair spiraled down into deeper darkness.
The air grew colder.
Sconces were replaced by lights more appropriate for an archaeological dig site. Shadows fought with their dim glow, battling for supremacy in the gloom. The smells changed, too. Incense lingered—it was the Vatican, after all—but layered beneath was something older.
Earth.
