Lux Domini: Thriller: A Catherine Bell Story

by Alex Thomas

  "Have you made any notes about it?" Ben finally asked calmly.

  "Heaven forbid, no." Catherine nearly added, Do you think I’m crazy? "Why should I ever want to do that? To deliver the Roman Inquisition even more ammunition against me?"

  "Your visions could be extremely important. Have you ever thought of that? You should document everything. Cardinal Benelli was everything but your average clergyman. Not to mention Darius and the others. Tell me about your dream about The Book of Acts."

  "There isn’t much to tell really," said Catherine, trying to regain a modicum of calm. "In effect it is always the same dream. Benelli is standing in the Tower of the Winds in front of a large cabinet, opens it and shows me this red book." She had had this dream, more like a vision, three times now.

  "Do you know its contents?"

  Catherine shook her head. "All I get to see is the title. Nothing else. Shortly thereafter I hear a sound at the door and the dream ends."

  Ben thought for a moment, reached for his bag, pulled out a book and laid it next to Catherine on the pew. Her eyes grew big as saucers. Wasn’t that Darius’ Bible?

  "Do you recognise this?" he asked.

  "Of course," she responded with a trembling voice. "Darius had promised to give it to you when you were still a boy." She took the book in her hand, reverently caressing its surface. "I remember exactly how you used to stare at it."

  Ben reached inside his bag again and placed the identical copy of the Holy Scripture next to it. "This belonged to Sister Silvia," he said breathlessly. He could literally feel Catherine holding her breath. "Wait for it." He opened both Bibles to the Acts of the Apostles. "Take a closer look at both of these pages."

  She knelt down in front of the pew and placed both open books in front of her. She flipped through the Acts. After flipping back and forth, she realised that the highlighted passages were nearly identical. It started to dawn on her. Lost in thought, she said to Ben: "Do you think Father Sylvester and Sister Isabella owned a similar Bible?"

  He nodded. "I’d bet my life on it. — Do you know what the Acts of the Apostles is also sometimes called?"

  Catherine considered the question for a moment, then her eyes widened. "My God, The Book of Acts."

  Ben winked and nodded. "Cardinal Benelli most likely wanted you to take a closer look at this book."

  Catherine was prepared to study the Acts of the Apostles once again until she stopped after a few minutes to reconsider. "It makes no sense."

  Ben looked at her quizzically.

  "Hardly anything that is in the Gospel of Luke," she explained further, "has anything to do with my visions. To be more precise my visions aren’t mentioned there at all."

  "And that means?" Ben pressed further as he witnessed her think further about the solution to the riddle.

  Her answer came like a bolt from the blue.

  "Cardinal Benelli didn’t want us to examine this version of the Acts of the Apostles, but rather the one that is kept in the Tower of the Winds."

  "Do you think the version there is not identical to this one here?"

  "I am most certain that both Bibles prove Silvia and Darius were somehow connected, but it is not only the highlighted passages that will show us the actual reason behind their connection."

  Ben could see how Catherine’s eyes not only lit up, but were illuminated. What he couldn’t see was that his companion now remembered the little package Benelli had gotten sent to her at the hotel directly after the reception in the villa. "This steel cabinet that I’ve seen in my dreams…"

  "In which Benelli kept The Book of Acts?"

  Catherine nodded tellingly. "I think I have the key to it!"

  58

  Monsignor deRossi looked over at the digital clock hanging on the wall in his office. Just a few minutes prior he had fed the final piece of paper from Sister Thea’s files through the shredder.

  In just half an hour he would catch the director of the Vatican’s Internet office on her way to the Grotta di Lourdes as soon as she passed the Radio Vatican building toward the gardens. He hoped that the gentle rain that had since started wouldn’t keep the nun from her regular walk. Habits, rituals…how much of our wellbeing depended on such things and how much easier such dependence made deRossi’s work.

  Because he had worked in the archives at one time, he wore the simple, black robe of an archivist. No one would pay him any mind as he slipped along the rain-drenched gardens with a hood over his head. Not even Sister Thea.

  He checked the shredder’s contents one last time to be certain nothing was left of the documents except confetti. He then started on his way, taking the seldom-used stairwell in the papal palace and rushing down to the underground parking garage. He followed one of the secret corridors that ran underneath the Vatican gardens. When he came above ground again near the helicopter pad, an almost surreal peace hung over the scenery. Even the constant noise of the Eternal City seemed to be off in the far distance, swaddled in a thick layer of cotton.

  DeRossi pulled the hood over his head and walked toward the fake replica of the Lourdes cave where a statue of the Madonna took the place of the Marian apparition.

  While he waited nearly invisibly near the Grotto, the encounter with Sister Silvia ran involuntarily through his mind. The image of her sleeping body, surrounded by a sea of candles. And once again he seemed to feel her ghostly touch.

  Her forgiveness.

  His breathing quickened, his heart began to pound like it did that night beneath the tiny, cursed church in Calcutta.

  No. He simply couldn’t allow Silvia to get between him and Sister Thea. She would do no more damage to him. She wouldn’t prevent his mission!

  He stared at the Madonna statue and crossed himself. Thea had forfeited her life and that long before he had entered his master’s service. He would rid the Church of this woman!

  59

  It had been years since Catherine had been allowed to enter the Vatican’s secret archives as a student. Of course back then she hadn’t entered the areas that were truly off limits, but in those days she had forced her way into areas that most people would never have access to. Laws up to twelve hundred years old that were promulgated from the Holy See and the Vatican’s diplomatic correspondence were housed in the secret archives along with files from the Inquisition. The archive encompassed up to eighty-five kilometres of shelf space with treasures such as Michelangelo’s letters, the bull of excommunication from Martin Luther or the trial records during the court proceedings against Galileo Galilei.

  The ancient shelves that Ben and she now passed reached the ceiling. Every now and then they would come across an archive worker, but since they knew Ben Hawlett and his close association with Ciban, they didn’t think twice about him and his companion being there.

  Catherine followed Ben through multiple long dark corridors whose shelves contained a gazillion volumes. As they passed the ceiling-high stacks, automatic lamps switched on and off. A slight musty smell wafting from the centuries old parchments, files and books filled her nose. Catherine recognised the red papal coat of arms on many of the bound books.

  "You know your way around here," she said to Ben.

  He shrugged his shoulders. "Not as well as I’d like to. Father Dominico knows the archives very well. Cardinal Ciban also spends quite a bit of time here. I have learned a great deal from them both, but I’d like to learn more."

  He told her about the Tower of the Winds close to St. Peter’s Basilica. Catherine already knew the five hundred year old story, but she was pleased to hear it again from him. The tower’s history harks back to Pope Gregory XIII who needed a nearby observatory for his sky explorations and calendar reform. Thanks to Pope Gregory’s stargazing and calculations, he introduced the Gregorian calendar that includes leap year and still applies today.

  At the moment the tower housed centuries old political and spiritual secrets, to be exact that part of the Vatican’s secret archives that had hardly been researched or
even catalogued. Only the Pope and a select few cardinals had access to the archive, only reachable via a narrow staircase. Four months ago Ben was added to the chosen few as well because Ciban made certain he had access to help with certain secret investigative work.

  Catherine seemed to remember hearing that the square tower contained information in particular that was only passed down from Pope to Pope. Darius had confided in her that in truth the tower contained mysteries that even many pontiffs had never heard of in the least. Some were only passed down from Grand Inquisitor to Grand Inquisitor.

  After they had gone down several other long dark corridors along thousands of thick volumes resting on metal shelves, they entered a room that seemed more like a scholar’s room than the office of prefect’s deputy in the archives. The old priest who arose from his desk must be Dominico. He looked like the consummate archival mouse that Catherine knew from various Internet cartoons. She bet Domino’s appearance served as the basis for such sketches. Many of the circulating Vatican cartoons were from Sister Thea’s hand during her free time as Catherine had recently learned. She wondered if Ciban knew about it. If he did, he didn’t let on that he did and took it in stride. Sister Thea had said at least that his good relationship with her had not suffered because of it. Whatever that meant.

  Ben pulled out a letter from the prefect from his robe. It was a proxy that was based on a type of general papal proxy. Dominico glanced at it briefly as he was already familiar with the document and with Ben from his various visits. The old librarian returned to his desk with his index volume and two flashlights. At the sight of it, Catherine was reminded that there was no electric lighting in the Tower of the Winds.

  "Thank you, Father," said Ben, opening the guest book and signing in both Catherine and himself as visitors with the old archivist as witness.

  Dominico handed them both flashlights and went before them. After walking through one of the dark corridors, passing once again countless shelves with files and index volumes, they entered the ground floor of the Tower of the Winds. A steep, narrow spiral staircase led them to the top regions of the most secret of all archives. Once again, Catherine could smell the musty, dusty damp smell of old parchment and files. Papal directives, trial records, prophecies, unofficially approved or recognised holy writings, centuries old ecclesiastic history lay sealed here since time immemorial.

  Catherine, Ben and the priest came to a heavy old oak door. The most secret of all secrets were warehoused behind it on the top floor. The archivist unlocked the oak door and both visitors entered the room while the old librarian waited before it.

  Two walls were decorated with frescoes. The winds were designed as godly figures in long flowing robes. A mosaic on the floor showed all signs of the zodiac from Pisces to Aquarius. A wind gauge hung from the centre of the ceiling, showing the air streams. The device was connected to a weathervane installed on the rooftop.

  Ben walked along several shelf walls, then headed in the direction of two steel cabinets whose surfaces were so well-polished and reflected the room’s atmosphere so precisely that they appeared to be nearly invisible. Full of hope, he turned around to Catherine. "Which one is it?"

  The young woman shrugged her shoulders. "I have no idea. I only ever saw one steel cabinet. We’ll just have to try it out." She reached into her nun’s habit and pulled out Benelli’s key. She went to the first cabinet, placed the key in the hole and tried to open it. "Well, it’s not this one. Next." After trying the second cabinet, they discovered with much surprise that it was neither of the two.

  "Odd," said Catherine, scrunching her forehead. "Benelli’s instructions have never been wrong up to now."

  "They were visions. And visions are everything but precise documentations. Perhaps you wrongly interpreted the location? There are a lot of steel cabinets down here in the archives. Perhaps the cardinal had meant the archives in the Castel Sant’Angelo?"

  Catherine shook her head. "No, Ben. It was here. In the Tower of the Winds. Of that I am most certain. Give me a minute." She closed her eyes, recalled the vision and reflected for a long while in silence. Ben didn’t make a sound. "There’s only one explanation," she finally said.

  "And that would be?"

  "There is another steel cabinet down here somewhere."

  "Okay," said Ben, thinking it was a hopeless case. "Let’s go take a look."

  They walked along the shelf walls, illuminating each aisle as they went. Catherine felt as if she were in the Grimm fairy tale Hansel and Gretel minus the breadcrumbs. Where could Benelli’s steel cabinet be? And why didn’t the Tower of the Winds have electric lighting? She asked Ben who told her it was with good reason that there was no lighting because a single ray of light would reveal if any unauthorised visitors were in the tower or if a fire broke out.

  "There isn’t another steel cabinet here," said Ben finally. "But maybe a floor lower."

  They returned to the exit and knocked on the heavy oak door. Dominico opened it for them, accompanying them to the room beneath the Meridian room where he once again waited patiently for them. Catherine couldn’t say exactly why, but the moment she entered the dim square-shaped room, she immediately knew they were in the right place.

  They walked along an extremely narrow aisle between the stacks stuffed with thick tomes. The aisle ended in a sharp right. Suddenly they were standing in front of the steel cabinet that Catherine had seen in her vision.

  She stepped forward, placed Benelli’s key in the lock, and turned it. It clicked open.

  Ben pulled open the heavy door. Various files were lying in it, but no red book. Instead they found a steel box on the otherwise empty middle shelf. "I’m afraid we need a second key," he said.

  Staring at the steel box herself, Catherine was torn between fascination and disappointment. Benelli hadn’t shown her this. What should they do? Ask Father Dominico for a crowbar? How ridiculous! They now stood before the open steel cabinet and they couldn’t get at the book!

  She started to pace back and forth along the tiny, narrow aisle without noticing. In the darkness penetrated only by their flashlights, she could barely see what was stored on the shelves around them. But at the moment she could care less. Had the cardinal forgotten to mention the steel box in her vision? If only Benelli had been clearer.

  Ben leaned patiently against one of the shelves and let her be. Somewhere deep down despite this setback he seemed to have a godly trust in their mission.

  Catherine stopped in front of the steel cabinet. If Benelli had only given her this one key, it was most likely with good reason. But which? Was the book not even in the box? She began to scrutinise every single file and tome in the cabinet. She also looked to see if the red book was perhaps lying on one of the back shelves. Not a trace. Nothing. Clueless, she looked at the box. The book must be in there!

  Ben said: "It isn’t customary, but perhaps the thing isn’t even locked." He took the box out of the cabinet, place it on the ground and tried to open it. No dice. It was locked.

  Wait – Catherine’s eyes widened. What if they only needed one key? The key had belonged to Benelli. What if there were two keys in one?

  She knelt before the box and stuck the key in the tiny lock. The lid jumped open with a dull click. Catherine gasped for air.

  A letter! And beneath it…

  Benelli’s red book!

  60

  The master stood in the Sistine Chapel, the largest chapel of the Apostolic Palace, absorbing the spirituality that the walls, ceiling and floor exuded. In its dimensions the rectangular room with twenty metre high ceilings was inspired by the legendary historical temple of Solomon. The master’s gaze rested for a while on Michelangelo’s fresco The Last Judgement. It had taken the brilliant artist six years to finish. The fresco showed Christ and the Blessed Mother Maria surrounded by saints and angels. Just as God the Father had separated light from darkness, Christ separated good from evil. The work depicts the end of human history.

  The master
worshiped this place. He visited it in particular when he needed answers to nearly unanswerable questions. The Sistine had never once left him in a lurch in the matter. He walked peacefully along the northern wall of the Chapel until he reached the entrance wall with the scene of the resurrection. The resurrection…

  It was almost as if Leo had arisen from the dead. During their shared meal the Pope showed no signs of physical or mental weakness. Quite the contrary. The master had carefully observed every one of the people present during the meal. None of the other cardinals he suspected seemed to have anything to do with Leo’s recovery. Not even Ciban.

  Where was the Pope receiving his newly acquired power?

  The master thought once again about a premature, extraordinary revitalisation of the covenant of twelve. But it was impossible that after just a few weeks and months it could happen again so quickly. He couldn’t recall a single instance in the covenant’s two-thousand-year-old history that such an incident had ever been mentioned. For many years even Clemens VII had to make do with just seven spirituals after five of his advisors died during the plundering of Rome.

  Alright then. If there had been no revitalisation of the covenant, what was the cause of the Holy Father’s inexplicable recovery then?

  The master changed sides, walking along the south wall of the Sistine with scenes from Moses’ life while lost in thought.

  Leo himself possessed no psychic powers. That much he knew to be true. Innocence had been just as clueless in that regard. The superhuman powers he needed for his difficult office as Pope came thanks to the covenant of twelve. Their spiritual energy expanded his consciousness. It was the basis for his strength of steel.