‘Like what?’ Harker asked.
‘Like the fact that his body has visibly gone through the early stages of decomposition but it refuses to begin any form of healing itself, and yet it doesn’t degrade any further.’ Wheatley rubbed the palm of one hand across his lips in frustration. ‘It’s as if his body is suspended in a kind of biological limbo…or it was at least up until last night.’
It was now Wheatley who was looking shaken, and at this exact same moment the noisy thumping coming from along the corridor ceased.
‘So what happened last night?’ Harker demanded, ignoring the sudden silence.
His question was met with a blank stare from Wheatley, and Harker glanced over at Baptista, who offered a nod of approval.
‘Last night Bishop Esposito began to…change.’
‘Change!’ Harker sputtered, and he leant in closer, as beside him Boyle began nervously playing with his fingers.
‘Yes, his red and white blood-cell count almost doubled within an hour, along with increased brain activity so far as we can tell.’ Wheatley motioned to the sparse-looking corridor behind him. ‘We don’t have all the necessary equipment for a comprehensive test but that’s what appears to be happening and, given his shift in muscle mass and the increasing facial distortions—’
‘Muscle mass?’ Harker interrupted, not quite sure what the man was alluding to.
‘Take a look for yourself.’
With a wave of his hand, Wheatley did an about-turn and made his way down the corridor. Harker was already following when he noticed that both Boyle and Baptista were not moving a centimetre. Warily, he stopped in his tracks.
‘You’re not coming?’ he asked, surprised by their sudden unwillingness to continue.
‘We’ve already seen him,’ Boyle replied nervously. ‘There’s no need to do so again.’
Baptista said nothing and, seeing that the two cardinals clearly had no wish to discuss it further, Harker turned and hurried to catch up with Wheatley.
‘Dr Wheatley?’ Harker called out, and although the physician momentarily glanced back over his shoulder, he continued to walk at a brisk pace. ‘Has anyone thought of getting some extra staff in here to deal with this? I mean you look pretty undermanned down here.’
His comment on the vacant corridor drew a wry smile from the doctor.
‘Understaffed? The word you’re looking for is non-existent,’ Wheatley said disparagingly. ‘I’m the only one here and, given what’s been going on, it has to stay that way. The cardinals are only right to keep this business under the radar. I mean, can you imagine what would happen if word got out that a dead Catholic bishop suddenly decided to just jump out of his grave and start walking around again? Especially looking as he does: dead but yet alive.’ Wheatley’s shoulders shuddered at the idea. ‘The media circus would be one thing but there’s no telling how all the other cardinals would react.’
‘Just a minute,’ Harker said, grabbing the man by the arm and bringing him to a stop. ‘Are you telling me that no one else knows about this? Not even the Pope?’
Wheatley appeared twitchy at the question and his jaw muscles tensed firmly. ‘Apart from you, me, both cardinals and those two guards who were brought in privately, no one knows a thing.’
Harker was dumbfounded by this response and he was already opening his mouth to voice concerns when Wheatley raised his hand between them.
‘The cardinals believe, as do I, that until we know what is happening here, this must all stay hidden. Look around you, Professor.’ The doctor gestured towards the empty corridor. ‘This part of the building was constructed for storage, not medical purposes. The whole thing happened so fast, we’re only just managing to keep on top of it.’
Wheatley resumed his brisk pace, clearly agitated at the position he found himself in.
‘I’m not saying you have to tell the Pope this very minute,’ Harker continued, while keeping up with him, ‘but didn’t you even consider getting some other doctors involved? There must be others you can trust over this, if only for a short time?’
‘Up until last night I might have agreed with you, but not now given the current state of Esposito.’
Wheatley’s tone was final, and Harker now accepted it as such. It was clear that man was under tremendous pressure from Boyle and Baptista to remain shtum, and their stance was understandable, although in Harker’s opinion slightly misguided.
The rest of their short walk was made in silence and, after passing several empty storage rooms with their doors all wide open, they finally reached the only one which was firmly shut.
‘He’s in here,’ Wheatley said softly, resting his hand on the door. ‘This room was designed to keep any valuables that the Vatican was storing temporarily, works of art and the like, so there’s an inner barred door as well as this one.’
‘That’s handy,’ Harker replied, and if the remark sounded sarcastic, the doctor didn’t notice.
‘It’s why we chose it.’ Wheatley exhaled deeply. ‘He now reacts very badly to the light, as it sends him into a rage like you heard when you arrived, so after I open the door, we’ll wait for him to acclimatise to the corridor lights, dim though they are.’
‘And then?’ Harker pressed, beginning to feel a tightening in the pit of his stomach.
‘And then I’ll turn on a few of the smaller side lights, as they don’t seem to bother him so much.’
Harker gave a nod and then took a step back as Wheatley pulled a Yale key from his trouser pocket and tentatively inserted it into the lock.
‘No loud noises,’ he warned ominously, ‘and no matter how irate he gets, stay calm.’
The doctor’s last few words sent an unpleasant shiver down Harker’s spine just as the lock released with a click, and Wheatley slowly swung open the door.
Harker’s apprehensive stare was met by what seemed a wall of pitch black, as the corridor’s strip lighting cast a single thin path of light beyond the interior barred door, creating a pattern of squares along the green linoleum-tiled flooring and up onto the concrete wall at the rear. From what he could see – which wasn’t much – the room looked empty. But, as Harker ventured closer to the bars, something shuffled off to his left. What it was he couldn’t tell but, as his vision began to adjust, he started to make out a hunched shape – over close to the floor in the far corner of the room.
‘He’s over there,’ Wheatley whispered softly, pointing to the dark shadowy mass. ‘He goes through these periods of violent rages followed by lengthy moments of unresponsiveness.’
Now knowing roughly where Dr Wheatley’s patient was, Harker felt emboldened to move closer to the bars until just within centimetres of them. He called out in the most compassionate tone he could muster, ‘Bishop Esposito.’
The sound of Harker’s voice caused the shape to twitch slightly and then the momentary glint from an eye could be seen glancing over in his direction before becoming shrouded once again in the gloom of the cell. The shuffling started up again and began to get louder as the huddled shadow shifted slowly from one side to another, moving quicker with each repetition, and the now audible sound of heavy breathing quickly turned into a forced panting. The swaying continued with increasing speed, faster and faster as the panting morphed into a low-level growl, and then in an instant the movement stopped. The shadowy mass gradually began to stand up until its back was straight and taut, revealing bulky shoulders that jutted out on either side.
‘Careful,’ Wheatley warned. ‘He’s very unpredictable.’
Harker glanced over at the doctor and acknowledged him with a nod before turning back towards the cell just as something massive exploded from the darkness into the light and slammed hard against the metal bars with such a force that the whole frame shuddered. It was as Harker recoiled in alarm that he got his first proper look at the thing that was Bishop Esposito.
Both the man’s shoulders protruded outwards like bony shoulder pads, while the arms bulged in places with lumpy fat deposi
ts that almost enveloped the thick leather restraints strapped around each wrist. Every one of his fingers was missing its nail, and the denuded tips had become hardened and withered, resembling a claw more than a human digit. Worst of all though was the head, which looked painfully swollen around the forehead, and the orbital bones surrounding the eye sockets had increased in size to give a goggle-type appearance but without the lenses, and in just one of them, nestled deep, a single red eye whose capillaries had burst. The jaw itself was clearly missing but the tongue seemed more ridged than in the photo, and it flapped up and down with each foul-smelling breath expelled as the creature began to howl incessantly.
‘What the fuck is that?’ Harker gasped as he was steadied by Dr Wheatley, who was vastly more relaxed, having undoubtedly become used to the grotesque sight.
‘That is Bishop Esposito…or what’s left of him.’
Harker suddenly felt weak and held on to Wheatley’s shoulder in a bid to remain upright. Even the disgusting sight of the two decomposing men back at the cemetery paled in comparison with this horrendously deformed creature now rattling violently against the bars of its prison.
‘Close the door,’ he begged, and Wheatley obligingly reached over and pushed the door shut, plunging the still screaming Bishop Esposito into complete darkness once again.
Harker collapsed back against the corridor wall and fought the instinct to throw up, but the urge was too strong and he hunched over and vomited. Wheatley placed a steadying hand on his back and then passed him a clean handkerchief.
‘If it makes you feel any better, I’m a physician but I had exactly the same reaction.’
‘No, it doesn’t.’ Harker coughed and wiped the spittle from his lips, then offered the soiled handkerchief back to its owner.
‘You can keep it,’ Wheatley said with a smile, whereupon Harker managed a thankful nod and placed it in his jacket pocket. He then stood up, his composure now returning to him.
‘How long has he been like that?’ Harker asked, aware of the beads of sweat forming on his brow.
‘Like I told you, since last night. So the change from what you saw in the photo to that thing in there has happened in only hours.’
The thought of such a drastic transformation made Harker feel somewhat lightheaded. The concept of the dead returning to life was hard enough to swallow, but this approached the incomprehensible.
‘I know this is a lot to take in,’ Wheatley offered sympathetically as he guided Harker back along the corridor and away from those ear-piercing screams, ‘but there’s something else you should see.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out several scraps of paper with scrawled notes pencilled on them. ‘When the bishop first arrived, I gave him paper and pens in an attempt to communicate, given his’ – Wheatley motioned towards his own lower jaw – ‘inability to talk. Take a look at what he wrote.’
Harker plucked the crumpled notes from Wheatley’s hand and began to examine them carefully. The writing was no better than a child’s but, given the poor fellow’s condition, it was remarkable he had managed to write anything at all. He scanned the pages and saw that they consisted of – the same three words repeated over and over again.
‘Giorno del giudizio,’ Harker uttered and, with a rising sense of dread, he looked over at Wheatley, who was looking decidedly pale and gaunt.
‘Giorno del giudizio,’ the doctor repeated, for the first time looking truly afraid. ‘Judgement day.’
Chapter 16
‘Where the hell have you been?’ Carter thundered. ‘I’ve been waiting here for almost three hours.’
‘Not now, David,’ Harker snapped as he made his way out through the Vatican’s southern entrance and onto the scorching hot pavement. He had left the ex-don with strict instructions to sit on the bench nearby and wait for him but, judging from the somewhat glazed expression on his friend’s face and the smell of whisky on his breath, those orders had been totally ignored. ‘And I thought we agreed to no drinking.’
Carter’s bloodshot eyes widened with incredulity and he shook his head, swaying from side to side with the posture of a drunken driver pleading his innocence to the officer arriving on scene. ‘I have not been drinking,’ he protested fervently. ‘Not real drinking, anyway – only a few scoops from the local watering hole. And, anyway, what would you have me do while you take off and leave me for hours on end?’
It felt like the beginning of the nightly row between an old married couple, and Harker took a deep breath. He knew all too well about his friend’s ‘life choice’, and arguing about it right now wasn’t going to help one bit. ‘Fair enough, David. It’s just been a difficult couple of hours.’
‘Are you all right?’ Carter replied, now taking note of Harker’s dishevelled appearance. ‘You look like you’ve been to hell and back.’
In Harker’s mind that wasn’t too far from the truth, given the demonic appearance of Bishop Esposito, and he slumped onto the same bench that he had ordered Carter to stick to like glue before himself entering Vatican City. ‘I think I just have,’ he admitted in little more than a whisper as Carter sat down alongside.
‘So what happened in there? Can they help?’
‘No, I don’t think so. In fact I’d safely say they have their hands full at the moment.’
Harker wasn’t being deliberately evasive, but his vague response had Carter now insatiably curious.
‘Well go on, then,’ Carter slurred. ‘Spill the beans.’
This distinctly British expression made Harker smile and, for some inexplicable reason, he began to relax. ‘It turns out that those two corpses we saw rising from their graves weren’t the only examples of such a miracle. There was another, too, who at this very moment is being confined in a storeroom underneath the Governorate building.’
If Carter was shocked, he certainly wasn’t showing it but, considering how soused he was, there was probably no surprise there.
‘If that wasn’t crazy enough, as of last night the third dead man has transformed into a snarling creature the likes of which I could never even have dreamt of. And, to top it all, the three words he seems obsessed with are “Giorno del giudizio”, which means Judgement Day in Italian. Oh, and did I mention that all three men were priests who died in the same car accident earlier this week?’
Carter finally appeared to be grasping the gravity of what he was hearing as it sank into his inebriated mind. Nevertheless he remained obligingly quiet as Harker despondently finished his tale.
‘As of this moment I have absolutely no idea what the hell is going on. And therefore I’m no closer to finding Chloe, whose life, I don’t need to remind you, is on the line.’
‘Bloody hell, Alex,’ Carter finally exclaimed, appearing to have sobered a bit. ‘Do you really think there could be some truth in…you know, Judgement Day being at hand?’
Harker had already been mulling over that possibility on his way out of the Governorate. He had ultimately been unable to offer Boyle and Baptista anything that might help, but he had promised to say nothing to others beyond Carter.
The two cardinals had been unwilling to say what they themselves thought it all meant, but Harker could tell that the idea that Judgement Day could already be set in motion as of that moment was genuinely having an impact on them too. Christ, the newly transformed Esposito could even be described as looking like a traditional demon. Of course, reality had then kicked in and although, yes, what he had seen had undoubtedly appeared to defy the laws of nature, it was a far cry from thinking that Judgement Day was imminent. Just considering the whole concept gave him a headache.
‘All I know is that during the past few days I’ve witnessed one suicide, one murder, two corpses risen from the dead – make it three if you count the strangled guy – also a creature resembling something out of a Stephen King novel. And, to top it off, my girlfriend’s been taken hostage by a man I know nothing about, calling himself “God”, who has had me running around all over Europe.’ Harker rubbed his e
yes and slumped even lower on the bench. ‘I doubt things could get any worse now, do you?’
A bleary-eyed Carter was still attempting to find something positive to say when a black Mercedes limo pulled up alongside the pavement next to them. A blond-haired man wearing a snazzy silver-grey suit and aviator steel-rimmed sunglasses got out from the driver’s side and, with the door still open, he rested both elbows on the car’s rooftop.
‘Professor Alex Harker?’ the man began in a deep voice, pointing a gloved finger in Harker’s direction. ‘We’ve been looking for you.’
The timing could not have been more perfect and Harker rubbed his eyes once more, then turned to Carter. ‘Great, now even the Mafia’s after us!’
The driver slammed the door shut and walked around the vehicle until he stood within a metre of them. With a courteous bow he removed his sunglasses to reveal a pair of light-grey irises, and in that instant Harker felt heartened. This man was unquestionably a Templar.
‘You have an invitation to meet with Tristan Brulet,’ the Templar announced before he opened the Mercedes’s passenger door. ‘If it’s convenient, that is?’
Harker was already on his feet, and pulling Carter to his, when the man raised an open palm towards them.
‘The invitation is only for you, Professor.’
Harker looked over at Carter, who, perhaps influenced by the drink, was now gazing up at him with puppy-dog eyes that said ‘Don’t leave me, please.’ So, with a woeful sigh he turned back to face the Templar. ‘I am afraid it’s both of us or neither of us.’
The Templar thought about that for a second, then gave a polite nod. ‘Two it is, then.’
Without another thought, Harker bundled Carter into the back seat and slid in next to him before the Templar slammed the door shut and made his way over to the driver’s side.
‘Who’s Trixy Brulet? She sounds like a go-go dancer,’ Carter muttered groggily, clearly excited at the prospect. ‘Are we going to a strip club?’
Harker shook his head in despair. His friend wasn’t just tipsy; he was completely trashed. ‘She is a he, and he’s certainly not a go-go dancer.’
The Last Judgement Page 12