by Mark Carver
His eyes indicated Patric’s pentagram necklace. Patric clutched the medallion tightly.
“Why did you bring me here?”
“We had to find out what you knew,” Claude answered. “You were the only one who knew what really happened down there.”
And I will never tell you, Patric thought to himself.
Claude smirked knowingly, as if he had heard Patric’s thoughts. “You were a free radical, a variable that had be removed from the scene as quickly as possible.”
“Why?”
“So that everyone would think that Tourec had acted alone. That’s why we left him there. While some of us brought you here, the rest of my team secured the crime scene and sacrificed Tourec as the perpetrator. We wanted it to be very clear that a Christian had killed the Voice, but that Christian was dead, killed by us, the police, as he was trying to escape. One gunman, acting alone.”
Patric snorted arrogantly. “Oh, so you think that’s it? That everyone is going to declare ‘Justice has been served’ and go on with their lives? This is going to bring the fires of hell down on every church, every Christian in the world. You think it was bad before? This will be the end of your religion.”
Claude’s stony expression cracked momentarily. “We shall see, my friend.”
Patric looked around, suddenly feeling very small. “So what happens now? Are you going to kill me, now that I know your big secret?”
“You knew it already, no matter what we or anyone tried to do. You were there, remember?”
Claude’s words sounded like an accusation. Patric shied away from his gaze.
Claude stood up straight and looked at the scorching light. “We’re not going to kill you, Mr. Bourdon. We’re not those kinds of people.”
Patric felt relief, but just for a moment. “So what are you going to do with me?”
“That is up to you,” Claude answered simply. Before Patric could say anything in reply, Claude marched through an unseen door and disappeared.
“Hey!”
Patric dashed towards the darkness that had swallowed Claude like a sea of oil, and his fingers clasped around a battered doorknob that smelled of copper. He pulled on it with all of his strength but it refused to budge.
A hot wave of rage burst out of Patric’s soul and he screamed every vicious curse he could think of. He lashed out at the lamp standing like a silent sentry and it crashed to the floor. The light went out, and the room went black.
Patric’s fury instantly dissipated, and he stood frozen in the midst of the darkness. His panting breaths spurted from his lips and his heart thundered in his ears, but he could hear nothing else.
“Hey!” he called again, his eyes darting across the blackness. “Let me out! Let me out!”
He heard the sound of a door being opened, but it did not come from the part of the room where Claude had disappeared. The sound came from behind him. Patric whirled around. A thin ribbon of light stretched across the floor, leading him to the open door like a glowing path. He leaned forward, waiting. He did not see or hear anyone.
He crept forward cautiously, and he was surprised to find himself remembering his fear as he had stalked his brother through the sewers beneath the temple plaza, though he had been unaware that it was his brother he had been hunting. A shudder passed through his body as horrible memories surged through his mind, and he quickly pushed those thoughts away.
He stepped through the open door and found himself in a narrow corridor. The walls were made of stone, and there were no other doors. He glanced around, his muscles tense. He heard nothing, and he took a fearful step forward, as if afraid that his step would activate a spring-loaded trap. Nothing happened, and he began walking down the corridor with silent, cat-like footsteps. The corridor turned to the right, and Patric peeked around the bend.
His eyes narrowed. Was that...?
He stalked into the small room, and in the dim light, he could make out the shape of a cross. The room was a chapel of some sort. He stepped inside, his eyes darting warily over the icons and tapestries that adorned the room. The air smelled musty and heavy, and Patric suspected that this building was very old. He couldn’t hear anything within the chapel or outside, and the only light came in through extremely slender cross-shaped windows.
Patric approached the altar and gazed up at the surprisingly ornate brass cross. Dozens of golden light rays radiated from the center of the cross, and despite his fear, Patric couldn’t help but be struck by the icon’s beauty and craftsmanship.
He heard something behind him and he whirled around. Claude stood in the doorway, still wearing that unsettling smile.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
He nodded towards the cross behind Patric, who glanced over his shoulder.
“Sure, I guess,” Patric answered, scanning the room like a cornered animal looking for a way out.
“It once sat in the chapel of Pope Clement V at Avignon, when the papacy temporarily relocated to France in the 14th century. I saved it from a museum in Paris just after the Manifestation, when thugs and hooligans were running rampant, destroying anything that reminded them of the light.”
Patric wasn’t interested in a history lesson.
“What do you want?” he demanded impatiently.
Claude’s eyebrows rose at Patric’s tone, but his smile betrayed his empathy for his frustration. “I serve a God of mercy, young man. I won’t pretend to know who you are or what you have done, but I do know that you do not belong to our Father’s kingdom. So I will give you a chance to see your error. The choice is yours. I am asking you to leave your darkness behind and surrender your heart to the light. You will find the rest that your soul hungers for, and you will find a place in our Father’s holy family, in heaven and here on earth.”
Patric could hear the earnestness in Claude’s words, and he turned around to look at the gilded cross. It truly was beautiful, and even though it was barely a meter tall, it seemed like a towering pillar, pointing the way to heaven.
He looked back at Claude. “No thanks.”
Claude did not move for a moment, then his shoulders heaved with a silent sigh. With his head lowered, he turned to leave, absently waving his hand as he did so. Patric frowned at this curious action, then gasped as a wet cloth was clamped over his mouth by unseen hands. His eyes bulged with fear, then the fumes overpowered him.
CHAPTER 2
Patric awoke face down in a soft patch of grass. Even though he hadn’t opened his eyes yet, he knew his head was swimming. The feeling was identical to the countless hangovers he had endured throughout the years. Digging his fingers into the soft earth, he hoisted himself onto his hands and knees and opened his eyes.
He smelled smoke. The pungent odor stung his nose and quickened his sobriety. He arched his neck to look up, but something lurched in his stomach, and before he could stop himself, he vomited violently. It was all over in a few seconds, but his stomach felt as if it had been hit with a wrecking ball.
He spat out the bile that clung to his tongue, then leaped to his feet. A dizzying wave of vertigo and nausea assaulted his equilibrium but he managed to stay upright. He was surprised at how quickly the disorientation vanished. After only about ten seconds, he felt completely fine.
Now he had to figure out where he was.
He lifted his eyes from the ground and gasped. He was standing beneath a tree across the street from Saint-Gervais-Saint-Protais Church, the last remaining Christian church in Paris.
The gorgeous church was completely engulfed in flames. Yellow blades of fire stabbed through the pulverized windows, and flames licked the wooden support beams and rafters that crisscrossed beneath and behind the stones.
The street was filled with people rushing to and fro, but no one was attempting to save the church. Patric stepped out of the cluster of bushes where he had been unceremoniously dumped and walked across street to step under a low-hanging awning.
He knew he should have scanned the street f
or any signs of Claude or his stealthy henchmen. He knew he should have rushed home immediately, or perhaps somewhere obscure where no one would think to look for him. He knew he should have been in fear for his life.
But he wasn’t. His eyes were riveted to the inferno. It was terrifying and beautiful at the same time. Behind the church, the darkening Parisian skyline was bleeding smoke like gray blood gushing from punctured arteries. All was chaos. People whooped and shouted as they raced through the streets like rabid animals, while others sought to escape from the madness, their faces white with terror as they herded their children to safety.
A great cracking sound rumbled from the bowels of the fiery church and a burst of sparks blew into the twilight sky. As the majestic building died, Patric surveyed the pandemonium erupting around him. It seemed as if it were happening on another planet. He felt removed from society, from humanity, even though he was probably more closely connected to the chaos than anyone else alive.
He suddenly noticed that his neck felt lighter. Something was missing.
His hands flew to his chest, and he squeezed his eyes shut.
His pentagram medallion was gone.
Don’t be an idiot, he chastised himself. It’s just a necklace. You can buy one anywhere.
Patric opened his eyes and stared the church.
That’s not the point. They took it. They tried to change me. Control me.
He watched the insatiable flames consume the crumbling church, and a smile spread across his dry lips.
That’s right. Burn, you bastard. Burn!
Cold fear clutched his chest, and he jabbed his hands into his pockets. Relieved, he found that he still had his identification booklet and enough money to get home.
Home…
The dingy, dilapidated apartment that he and Natasha had shared. The rundown cluster of rooms where they had planned their future, where they had conceived a child...
Or where Patric thought they had conceived a child.
Scorching anger blazed through his mind.
How could she? he thought. How could she lie like that?
A small voice in Patric’s conscience spoke up, reminding him of his own deceptions and trysts, but he ignored the accusations. This was different, he told himself. She hadn’t just carried on a meaningless affair. She had conceived a child with another man, and then refused to tell Patric who he was.
Patric’s fist tightened, crumpling the bank notes that he held in his hand. Whoever the bastard was, he had better pray to whichever god was listening that Patric didn’t find him.
The church’s bell tower collapsed with a deafening roar, and the ground quaked beneath Patric’s feet. It was time to leave.
And go where?
He glanced around, watching people scurry about in panic. Was this how it was going to be from now on? If so, he might as well leap into the flames right now and end the nightmare.
He glanced at the blazing church and frowned. Major cities across the country were likely to be boiling cauldrons of rage and violence. Perhaps even the tranquil riverside town of Limoges, where he lived, had been swallowed by the tempest.
A cloud of weariness pressed heavily on his brow. He desperately needed to rest. The last twenty-four hours had been utter hell, and he was in no shape to travel. His stomach growled with hunger, and his limbs ached.
He gazed up again at the burning church. He had visited Paris several times in the past, and using this church as a landmark, he was able to figure out approximately where he was.
He fingered the money in his pocket.
Suddenly, he knew what he wanted, and he had a pretty good idea where to find it.
****
In times past, it was called “Conclave,” the secretive election system used by the cardinals to choose the successor to the papal throne after the reigning pope had died. It was a tedious process that lasted for days, while the faithful would gather in St. Peter’s Square and anxiously watch the sky for a trickle of white smoke from the chimney above the Sistine Chapel. White smoke meant that the church had chosen a new Holy Father.
The simple, box-like room seemed unassuming from the outside, but its interior boasted one of mankind’s greatest painted masterpieces. Or at least it did. After Vatican City was seized by the followers of Satan, Michelangelo’s divine frescoes had been quickly covered with terrifying, though impressive, depictions of the horrors and anguish that lay in the hands of their Great Lord, the Almighty Dragon. Perhaps in a conciliatory gesture to the predecessors who built the mighty Vatican city, the Sistine Chapel had been allowed to keep its name, though none of its glory.
It had also become the throne room of the Voice of Satan, who chose to be surrounded by efficient architecture and stunning imagery, rather than remain shuttered up in the traditional papal chambers that overlooked the square. He once said that he found the chapel to be more “meditative.”
The Circle of Elders was now gathered in the Sistine Chapel, though their mood was anything but meditative. Nine figures crowded around a small table draped in a white cloth in the center of the room. They were quite old, all of them. Six men and three women. None came from the same country; every inhabited continent on earth was represented at that small table.
Their ancient lips uttered low, haunting chants. The language was not of this world, and every syllable seemed to sting the air with menace. The demons and goblins that slashed and snarled from the chapel walls were almost completely hidden in shadow; only a large candelabra standing on the table provided any light.
The chanting stopped. Everyone’s eyes snapped open, as if they all awoke together. The mood in the room changed immediately.
“We need to choose a new Voice now!” a dark-skinned elder hissed.
“I think we should wait,” a woman from East Asia answered, her voice slow and deep like magma. “The world is in chaos now, and a new Voice might re-stabilize the foundering train. You know what our Great Lord wants...he does not want order and peace. He delights in destruction and pandemonium.”
“But that pandemonium could very well be the end of us!” another objected. “I think Master Kwambala is right...we need a new Voice – not to stifle our Great Lord’s plans, but to rally support for this church and its interests.”
“That’s the attitude that brought down the Voice in the first place,” a tiny woman from Eastern Europe said with a surprisingly strong voice. “People are weak, and we crave order and plans and schedules, but what we really need to do is trust in our Great Lord. The Voice trusted himself, and you see where that got him. He disregarded our council time and again, and while I will not be so proud as to say that we are more pious than he was, I declare without hesitation that we care more for our Great Lord’s will than he ever did. His arrogance was his ruin, and we should not make the same mistake.”
“So what should we do?” Master Kwambala asked. “Just wait inside our little city while the world around us tears itself to pieces?”
“If it is what our Master wants...”
Master Kwambala glanced around at the faces of the elders wreathed in shadow. “We are obligated to preserve the members of our Order. Those people out there in the streets are under the protection of the Church of Satan, and we can’t just shut our eyes and mouths to them. They look to us for leadership!”
“Which is their folly!”
Everyone turned towards the elder who had leaped to his feet like a young man. His eyes blazed in the candlelight, and the countless creases in his olive-colored skin twitched and flickered like a shifting mosaic.
“You all know his will,” the old man said. “You heard the message from our Mistress herself. Our Great Lord does not want a leader here on earth. He doesn’t need a sheep to help him lead the other sheep. We, all of this, our Order, is not some kind of compass for our Master’s children to follow. We are simply the beacon for his children to rally around, to channel their energy. We do not lead anyone. I think that point has been made especially clear n
ow.”
“So what are we going to do?” the small Asian woman asked. “We aren’t spirits...we live here, on this planet. We all need food and shelter, and if this world falls into anarchy, our very existence could be threatened. We have been teetering on the brink of world war for years, and this could push us over the edge.”
The standing elder’s eyes darkened. “You should have thought of that before you pledged your soul to hell. What you or I want is immaterial. He is the master, and we are the subjects. Utterly, totally under his rule. There is one thing that I must give the Delusionals credit for: they have faith in their God to care for and protect them. We could do well to learn from their example, and we must accept what comes.”
The elders gathered around the table exchanged uneasy glances, and the old man’s wrinkled face cracked into a mischievous smile.
“After all,” he said, “what’s so great about this world, anyway?”
The elders closed their eyes and inhaled deeply. They knew their colleague spoke the truth, but their hearts quivered with fear. Years of living in the shadows and keeping company with demonic spirits couldn’t quell the distant terror of the eternal flames of hell.
“What about the Delusionals?” someone asked. “What if they become bolder as we scramble around in the darkness?”
The old man was seated across from the elder who had ventured the question, and he rose to his feet. For the slightest moment, a shadow seemed to move behind him, as if the darkness had twitched.
“You speak the truth, Master Winston. The Delusionals will become bolder now that they suppose the ‘head’ of their enemies has been cut off. We know this to be absurd. The Voice was no more head of our Order than my little finger controls my body. However, this delusion can work to our advantage.”
The old man began to pace around the table. “We have nothing to fear, my friends. Our Great Lord will protect us as long as we obey his will without question. And we must not forget our own insignificance. This circle has existed for centuries but it is merely a tool in our Great Lord’s hands, and should he cast it aside, we have no right to object. Humility, my friends, is a universal virtue.”