The Seventh Commandment

by Tom Fox

  He motioned towards the desk. A second tray was there, its contents already devoured. Angelina looked up and smiled at him.

  ‘Nice to know I’m not the only one with an appetite.’ The odd – no, inexplicable – tone of their conversation before sleep had not left her, but with the morning came a new energy, a new calm, and Ben’s kindness was sufficient to let her overlook it for the moment.

  He smiled back at her, then sat in silence at the desk, watching her eat. He let her get about halfway through the plate of food before he added, ‘You should get dressed, quickly, once you’ve finished that.’

  A tinge of energy. The emotions of yesterday started to flood back. Angelina peered at him over the rim of her coffee cup. ‘Why the rush?’

  Ben’s eyes fell to his shoes. ‘You don’t want me to tell you.’

  The tingle in her spine became a fire. ‘Ben, what is it?’

  He slowly faced her again. The same distant look she’d beheld multiple times the day before was back.

  ‘The third plague,’ Ben said flatly. ‘It’s already upon us.’

  Somewhere between their interrogation beneath the Apostolic Palace and his revelation of belonging to what Angelina considered roughly the equivalent of a charismatic cult, she had thought she’d lost the ability to be shocked by anything that came out of Ben Verdyx’s mouth. This proved that theory wrong.

  She shoved aside the tray of breakfast and swung her legs over the side of the bed. ‘What am I supposed to make of a comment like that, Ben?’ She tightened the belt of her robe as she stood. ‘“Good morning, have some breakfast, then get dressed quick since a plague is upon us”? Christ, man!’

  He didn’t answer. Instead, he was already tearing the plastic wrappings from Angelina’s laundered clothes and passing them to her, urgency in his eyes.

  Infuriated, yet puzzled by his behaviour, Angelina grabbed the clothes and marched crossly into the bathroom to put them on.

  It was there that she heard the first explosion.

  It was not the explosion of a firing gun she’d unwillingly become only too familiar with yesterday. This was an utterly different sound, and a feeling that went along with it. A rumbling that shook her feet, her core, and the whole room around her, even as a thumping bang followed by a rumble sounded in her ears.

  She spread her feet immediately for balance, reaching forward and bracing her hands on the granite countertop. The boom still echoed in her ears, but gradually the rumbling stopped and the world regained its stability.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ She shot out of the bathroom, buttoning her blouse as she went.

  ‘The third plague,’ Ben said solemnly. His words were measured, if not entirely calm.

  ‘No more about plagues!’ Angelina’s toleration had reached its limit.

  He appeared to sense that no answer he could vocalise was going to convince her, so instead he walked over to one of the tall windows and drew back the layered curtains. He’d not opened them before, but he knew precisely what he would see.

  He motioned Angelina closer.

  She huffed as she approached, more disgruntled than ever at Ben’s behaviour. Halting a step away from him, she glanced outside, then lowered her gaze to the street.

  Another boom sounded, and this time Angelina watched as a manhole cover midway across the Via Veneto lifted up off the tarmac with explosive force and flew at least two metres in the air before clanking to the ground with a terrific, metallic thunk. Out of the black hole it had covered shot a geyser of steam, erupting into the early morning air.

  But no, it wasn’t steam. The gooseflesh on Angelina’s back started to rise as she realised it was too thick, too solid a grey.

  It billowed as the geyser reached nearly to the height of their fourth-storey window.

  ‘You don’t have to believe anything you don’t want to,’ Ben said forebodingly. ‘You can call them chance coincidences, lies or anything else you like. But the prophecy on the tablet predicts plagues, and you know as well as I that the third is—’

  ‘Fog.’ Angelina finished his sentence. She gazed at it a moment longer, temporarily mesmerised by the curling tendrils spreading out across the street.

  Then she turned to Ben.

  ‘It’s time you took me to your church.’

  53

  Hotel Majestic

  Even if Angelina hadn’t seen the explosion of fog from the sewer through their window, it would have been clear enough that something was seriously wrong as she and Ben made their way down the interweaving flights of feathered staircases to the hotel’s lobby. Other guests milled around the corridors and landings, themselves aware something new was out of the ordinary, the next in a series of frightening events; and the further towards ground level they approached, the thicker the interior air of the hotel became. By the time they passed the bar level and reached reception, the air was a misty grey, and the few people that were there were clearly terrified.

  The fog. The fog. The words repeated themselves in Angelina’s consciousness as she moved with increasing speed. Another couple stood before them at the wooden reception desk, apparently prompted to check out early by fear of the events outside.

  Events outside. She realised the mental phrase wasn’t accurate. Across the lobby, one of the ancient pipes that had been covered with decades of matt paint to conceal its ascent up the wall had burst a connecting seam. Though the stream that hissed out of it was tiny, Angelina could already see that it was the same colour as the fog outside.

  Outside, and in.

  She turned to reception, ready to toss the room key on to the counter and walk away if their turn wasn’t up, but the anxious couple in front of them had finished their strained dialogue with the receptionist and marched swiftly towards the door.

  ‘Room 402, checking out,’ she said briskly. She plopped the heavy brass key on to the counter, its tassel bouncing at its end.

  ‘Calla, Angelina,’ she added, hoping to shorten the conversation before it began.

  The woman behind the desk tapped efficiently at her computer. ‘Would the signora like to keep the room on the same card provided at check-in?’ The clerk tried to remain all business, though there was worry in her eyes as well. The strange fog swirled around them in thick arms.

  ‘Yes, fine. The room and the incidentals. We had some laundry, and some room service.’

  Two nods confirmed the charges, and a moment later a whir accompanied a laser printer spitting out a receipt.

  ‘We hope you enjoyed your stay, and—’

  Her forced farewell continued, but Angelina had already turned away. Ben kept close to her side as they stepped out through the glass doors and into the fading darkness of morning.

  All along the street, and indeed along every street on to which they turned, the scene mirrored what Angelina had witnessed from their window. Manhole covers were blown off, geysers of fog-like smoke shooting upwards; sewer drains had become exhaust vents for the rising mist; and buildings already flooded from interior plumbing bursts poured fog out of open doors and windows. The fog fell as it was released into the air, sinking down to street level and piling up in an ever thickening, dense layer.

  It hovered at Angelina’s knees as she and Ben turned off the Via Veneto on to the Piazza Barberini. By the time they’d walked to the end of Via delle Quattro Fontane it was near her waist. The bodies of other pedestrians, whose faces were marked by alarm, and some by outright fear, seemed as disembodied torsos hovering across the sea of mist.

  It was only as they rounded a corner on to Via Marsala that they encountered the first cloud of fog that reached up to her face. She tried to alter their course to avoid it, but there was nowhere that the fog wasn’t. It lined the street from edge to edge, mounting in height by the second.

  She couldn’t avoid breathing it in, and a new terror gripped her as she pulled the first draw of the thick substance through her nostrils. She could hear Ben gasp at her side as he was forced to do the same. Muf
fled screams came from further down the street, as others were confronted with the same terrifying need.

  A second later, Angelina began to cough. The urge towards panic increased. Was this terrorism? An attack? Was this how her life was to end – not with a bullet piercing her flesh but some chemical agent choking the life out of her from within?

  She coughed again, and her eyes began to water. The noises of others around them continued to grow. Coughs, wheezes. Cries.

  She rubbed the back of a hand across her eyes to wipe away the moisture. Next to her, a muffled sputter escaped Ben’s lips.

  But then, Angelina realised, it didn’t grow worse. The fog tickled the back of her throat annoyingly, but it didn’t scald or burn. It caused her eyes to itch, but didn’t render her blind – didn’t appear to affect her vision at all, save for the physical interruption to sight the grey mist itself represented.

  ‘What is this?’ she asked Ben.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he answered tensely, honestly, ‘apart from what we were already told.’ He kept them moving, attempting to maintain a brisk pace despite the decreased visibility.

  Angelina coughed again, and noticed that Ben didn’t seem nearly as affected by the fog as she was.

  ‘Why isn’t it bothering you?’ she asked. ‘Don’t tell me faithful believers are immune to your “plagues”.’

  ‘Not sure why,’ he answered, not entirely managing to keep annoyance at the sarcasm out of his voice. ‘But I’ve been vaping lately, maybe it’s not so different.’

  ‘Vaping?’

  ‘It’s like smoking, but with these electronic things, and—’ He cut himself short. ‘You know, it doesn’t really matter. This way.’

  He motioned to their right, a gesture barely discernible in the mist, then gave a tug on her arm and led her forward.

  Angelina continued with the small talk in spurts as they moved. It helped to break up the increasingly awkward silence that had come upon people in the street. The screams of fright had muted as it became clear the fog wasn’t going to kill them, and had settled into coughs and mild wheezing, with whimpers of confusion and fright occasionally piercing through.

  It was becoming harder to make light of Ben’s beliefs, or sarcastically converse about the ‘coincidences’ of their circumstances. The fog was real. It was everywhere. And however incomprehensible Ben’s faith was to her, Angelina could not deny that the group he belonged to knew something about what was going on.

  The question was, what?

  54

  Torre Maura district

  Eastern Rome

  The third plague had settled in. The chaos it was meant to engender – practical as well as psychological – had already blossomed to life, and Emil felt an increasing confidence with every report that came through to him.

  The chemical agents Yiannis had concocted for introduction into the sewer system were noxious but not harmful, and Bartolomeo’s helpers had magnificently managed the over-pressurisation of the whole piping network, to ensure the bursting of only non-gas pipelines throughout the city. Maximum destruction, minimal casualties. There might be a few, here and there, but that risk could never be entirely alleviated. The time had come to cease being concerned over such things.

  As for his other risk – that of exposure by Angelina Calla and Ben Verdyx – the time had also come to modify his response to that. His fear that they might have decoded his intent and shared it was obviously unwarranted. If they were able, they’d have moved to stop him by now.

  By now. The last push had already begun. Verdyx and Calla were beyond the time frame of exposure. Emil had every intention of revealing himself, at the right moment. All these two could do now was discover his end game and try to stop it, and that Emil would not allow. It was time to fall back on his original desire. Get rid of them both.

  He swivelled his chair towards Vico. ‘You’re sure they’ve left the hotel?’

  Vico stood before him, tall and spindly. ‘The hotel computer confirms their checkout a few minutes ago.’

  ‘And you’re sure where they’re going?’

  ‘Sure as I can be.’ Vico started to shrug, then forced the motion down as he remembered how little his boss liked ambiguity. ‘The woman watched the video during her web searching. Not the whole of it, but enough. And the Verdyx fellow, he’s one of their members.’

  One of Emil’s artistically curated eyebrows spiked. ‘He’s a member? Of St Paul of the Cross?’ He hadn’t been aware of this. Quite frankly, the news rather surprised him. He didn’t take Ben Verdyx as the type to go for such a community-centric and people-based faith. He’d always considered the man something of a recluse.

  ‘We double-checked,’ Vico affirmed. ‘He’s been a member for several years. Contributes a monthly tithe of forty-five euros by standing order.’

  Emil nodded. He’d happily take this kind of surprise.

  ‘This is good work, Vico,’ he said, smiling at the man.

  ‘Sir?’ Vico was not accustomed to praise, nor to the look of fiendish pleasure that now possessed Emil’s face.

  ‘Now we have a way to get them both. One that doesn’t involve the chance of running away, or of bullets not hitting their mark.’

  ‘You’re going to send men in there?’ Vico questioned. ‘Into the church?’

  ‘No need.’ Emil smiled back. He drew out his phone as he spoke, his smile beaming back at Vico.

  ‘We already have a man inside. They’re going to come straight to us.’

  Church of St Paul of the Cross

  Morning Mass

  The charismatic mass began not entirely like any other. The faithful of St Paul’s gathered in their pews as an electric organ synthesised the pipes of a not overly energetic processional. Father Alberto, robed in a simple white alb with a plain green stole around his neck, walked slowly up the central aisle, his years affecting his gait. When he’d reached the plain altar he turned and blessed his flock, then walked to a small chair reserved for him off to the side.

  Music followed, not from the organ but from a small ensemble that included a woman on acoustic guitar, a dishevelled and heavily tattooed teenage boy on drums, and a man in a T-shirt who could easily have been his grandfather on an electric bass. They played with energy, their selections upbeat and rhythmic, lyrics beamed on to one of the sanctuary’s white walls by a projector mounted to the ceiling. The music stirred up the congregation, who joined in the singing with more and more energy as the verses rolled along.

  Eventually singing gave way to prayer – though the participants would say that they were one and the same thing – and the eucharistic canon began, culminating in the lifting up of the wafer-thin bread and plain ceramic cup of rosé wine and the repetition of the Lord’s Words of Institution. Everyone spoke along with the priest. Most communed. Then, more singing, even more energetic. A tambourine was added to the band, and people started to stand as the voices became more fervent. Utterances like eastern ululations mixed in with the devotional words, jubilant arms raised in swaying praise.

  Finally, the time came for the sermon. Father Alberto returned to the centre of the altar, now bare after the conclusion of the Eucharist, a lapel microphone clipped to his stole.

  ‘The latest of the prophecies delivered from the Lord has come to pass!’ he exclaimed, a strength to his voice that belied his fragile age.

  The congregation cheered, hands stretched to heaven.

  ‘We saw in a haze!’ the priest exclaimed, ‘through a mirror dimly, through a fog not unlike that now covering this ancient city.’ Cries of joy, shouts of agreement. ‘But now, now we see clearly. The world sees clearly!’

  Voices wafted over his as full, joyous roars.

  ‘All thus far has come to pass, just as was foretold!’ Father Alberto Alvarez took a deep breath, his own eyes raised up to the clear windows at the height of their church. ‘And so will all the rest!’

  At the edge of the room, the janitor Laurence watched the jubilant scene with s
atisfaction. Outwardly, his eyes brimmed with the glossy, near-teary expression of devotion he’d cultivated for years and refined over the past months. He puffed out his chest as the priest spoke, filled with evident inspiration. He allowed one arm to rise in Pentecostal glory, then the other, stretching his fingers into open flowers as he lifted his head upwards and visibly basked in the grace of God that poured down upon them like rain.

  Inwardly, he merely laughed.

  Idiots. His repulsion was almost overwhelming. Blind sheep. All this over a few lines of nonsense.

  Nonsense from a text he’d helped to fake. Not that he’d produced the tablet himself, of course. He didn’t know rune one of the Akkadian language. But he knew religious-speak, and he knew the kind of utterances prone to inspire faith and zeal in the right kinds of faithful. He knew it well and could craft it easily. Then it had just been a matter of using Emil’s connections to find the right helpers abroad to turn his words into something ‘ancient’. Something that would prove their ‘authenticity’. Then craft a tablet, ensuring the clay used was from the right region, dug from a quarry of the right type and mixed with the far older stolen clay samples, and the end result weathered appropriately. Then its burial, its discovery, and then . . . this.

  And these people bought it. Wholesale.

  It was an affirmation of all Laurence’s doubt, all his agnosticism. Moreover, it was an absolute affirmation of the gullibility of religious believers as a whole. Creatures so thick they could be led like this fully deserved their stupidity being taken advantage of.

  They deserved what they would get.

  So Laurence was content to help Emil. Rob the bastards of everything, for all he cared. Take their heart and their soul from them. Let them learn where faith really leads, in the end. And in the midst of it, Laurence’s life would change. He would have all he could ever want. The ability to live without care, without worry and without restraint. More than he ever could have hoped for.