The Plan

by J. Richard Wright

  Maria relaxed her grip on Clay and he felt Aquila immediately grab him by the arm. He was pulled back further from the limo.

  “Now wait a minute,” Clay began, as Maria advanced to pull open the driver’s door. “Don’t let her–!”

  His protest was cut short as Maria pulled door open and jumped back. The body of the driver pitched out of his seat and hit the tarmac on his side. From the way he landed and rolled limply onto his back, arms flopping out, Clay sensed immediately the man was dead.

  Maria gave a small cry, and turned away.

  Murphy’s light centered on the body. The driver had been a priest, his white collar now splashed with blood. The middle of his chest was an explosion of redness gleaming wetly in the automobile’s flashing emergency lights. His eyes were moist, luminous, black disks, fixed and dilated and still conveying a final sense of impending horror and doom.

  “It’s been here,” Maria whispered, as Clay and the Bishop moved forward and stared at the driver.

  “No kidding,” Murphy said, his tone bitter.

  “Mother of God...!” Bishop Aquila said softly, making the sign of the cross even as he watched Langevin kneel beside the chauffeur and feel for a pulse.

  “I doubt you’ll find one,” Murphy said tightly, looking down at the body. “His heart appears to have been ripped out.”

  Langevin stared at the man’s chest, nodded silently, blessed the body quickly and backed away from the corpse. Together, they all retreated a good fifty feet from the automobile for a council.

  The limo’s front door now yawned open; a dull interior light emitted a warm invitation to enter the shelter and escape the chill of the misting rain. Clay noted that the Bishop now held a small revolver in his hand.

  “I’ll drive,” Langevin volunteered.

  The limo was parked at such an angle that any illumination from the retreating aircraft’s flashing beacon was hitting the rear of the vehicle but being effectively screened by the darkened privacy windows. Even with the added glow of the dashboard lights, it was difficult to make out the interior of the rear seat.

  “Sister, is it still here?” Murphy asked without taking his eyes off the open door.

  “I-I can’t tell...there’s still a-a sense of-of oppression...of blackness,” Maria answered, her voice quivering. “I-I don’t know if it’s residual...or-or....maybe it’s still here.”

  “Yes or no!?”

  “I-I don’t know....” She shuddered, looking sick.

  “Dandy,” Murphy said.

  “We can’t stay out here all night,” Bishop Aquila griped, impatiently.

  “Alright, let’s see what we’ve got!” Murphy said, taking charge. He strode forward pulling a long, black halogen flashlight from his pocket. He circled the vehicle once, spotlighting it and trying to see into the back through the privacy windows. Approaching the open front driver’s door once again, he coughed as he inadvertently inhaled a mouthful of drifting exhaust fumes.

  Langevin moved in a half-circle around Murphy towards the front of the vehicle. He stopped at the hood, his revolver aimed directly at the windshield for a clear shot into the interior. He was making sure that Murphy’s body did not block his line of fire.

  The taxiing A320 now sent out a piercing whistle as the pilot advanced the throttles slightly; it was almost a thousand feet away. Bishop Aquila glanced desperately back at the moving plane as their one line of retreat was withdrawn.

  Like a soldier chucking a grenade into an enemy bunker, Murphy suddenly leaned forward and threw his Crucifix onto the front seat of the automobile. He beat a hasty retreat from the open door and spun to point his weapon.

  They all waited, staring at the limo in silence.

  The engine continued to purr quietly, the tailpipe emitting its exhaust which was beginning to pool around the car in the still night air.

  Nothing happened.

  After about thirty seconds, Murphy nodded to Langevin who straightened, pointed his weapon in the air and carried his own Crucifix towards the back of the vehicle. Murphy joined him and grasped the back door handle of the passenger compartment. Licking dry lips, the priest felt his heart accelerating as Langevin readied his Crucifix. Murphy quietly began to recite the Our Father. He pulled the door open....

  Langevin forcefully threw the silver cross inside. It smacked against the opposite window in back. Murphy slammed the door and recoiled.

  Barely breathing, revolvers fixed on the back door, they waited....

  Nothing happened....

  Up till now, Clay had been mesmerized by the ominous warning from Maria, the discovery of the body and the subsequent actions of the priests. But heaving Crucifixes into the automobile like grenades, and expecting something to happen strained credulity. Why the hell didn’t they just call the police? After all, a murder had been committed and they were tampering with a crime scene.

  “This has to be reported...,” Clay began, but a quick look from Murphy silenced him.

  They continued to wait, the priests and nun staring towards the back door as if expecting someone or something to emerge from the limo. Did they really think the killer would calmly await their arrival?

  A few more seconds passed.

  Clay sighed and looked over towards the main terminal. Airport workers continued about their business. If he yelled for help, they’d never hear him over the aircraft sounds. He glanced at his companions who continued to wait for something to happen. His mind was finally beginning to clear and the incongruity of the situation was becoming more evident with every passing second.

  When nothing happened, Murphy advanced and pulled open the vehicle’s back door and carefully looked inside. Satisfied, he turned towards the others as though to invite them forward. Suddenly, sensing something, he spun desperately and fired his weapon into the limo.

  At almost that exact instant, a huge, black form exploded out of the back seat. A mushroom of fire and wind hit Murphy and drove him backwards down onto the concrete. He hit hard, his head bounced off the ground.

  Maria screamed and grabbed Clay by the arm.

  Though the events of the next few seconds took place with blinding speed, they also seemed to happen in a maddening, slow-motion sequence that sucked away split-second reactions and mired them all in a fluid-like world where words and movements were lengthened and stretched into bizarre contortions of time lapsing into itself.

  Though there was no time to actually see anything, Clay knew instinctively that a massive, deadly force of some kind was rushing towards them.

  For a fraction of a second he was sure the limo had exploded and they were about to be engulfed in a fire cloud. A pressure ball of air fleeing before a specter of fire roared directly towards Clay, Aquila and Maria. It was only Clay’s lightning reflexes, gained through his military and police training that saved them.

  His left arm smashed into Bishop Aquila’s chest knocking him flat as he grabbed Maria with his right hand and dragged her to the ground. He rolled in mid-air and flung himself face down on top of the girl as Aquila landed nearby on his back.

  An obscene stench of ozone and sulfur washed over them as Clay heard a wild flapping, felt a rough leather-like object scraping his back, and momentarily swung his head to glimpse two red-filmed eyes burning in a sea of shadows blacker then the night sky.

  The crack of gunfire sounded as though from a great distance...

  A savage shriek split the air over them....

  ...followed by a blinding, crimson flash turning night into day.

  Clay instinctively turned his head and buried it in Maria’s shoulder to escape the light as he covered Maria’s eyes with his hands.

  The crimson light incandesced into a pure white fire as heat singed the back of Clay’s head and he pressed his hands harder over Maria’s face.

  Beside them, Bishop Aquila moaned as he stared directly upward into the fire-pink light...

  ...and in an instant...

  ...it was gone!

 
; Whatever had uttered the blood-curdling scream, and forced them to the ground, had vanished in a split second leaving behind only a shrill of wind as a cold bequest.

  SILENCE...

  ...then the sound of the jet engines of the retreating A320 grew from a faint whisper to a decreasing roar as their hearing gradually returned.

  Clay rolled off Maria. The three of them sat up, sickened, dazed and confused. At first Clay could see nothing. After a few seconds, his sight returned.

  Bishop Aquila and Sister Maria were sitting nearby holding their heads as they recovered.

  “Heathen bastard...!” It was Murphy scrambling to his feet near the limo, crimson flowing freely from a scalp laceration over the back of his white collar.

  Clay managed to get up as Maria also scrambled to her feet. Beside her, Aquila sat quietly, drawn and pale. The lens of his glasses had fused into cracked, opaque circles, the wire frames askew on his nose. He didn’t remove them.

  Langevin, colorless and shaking badly, stood near the side of the limo with his smoking revolver in hand. He stared into the night sky directly over the tail of their aircraft moving on the taxiway. “Holy Mother of God! It-it...went straight up...over there,” he stammered, motioning with the barrel of his revolver up upward at clumps of low grayish clouds illuminated by airport lights.

  Clay looked upward but saw nothing except the pale light of a crescent moon now peeking from behind the darkening clouds. He looked across the field towards the air terminal somehow expecting a reaction. Instead, oblivious to everything except their personal responsibilities, the workers continued to swarm around their giant aircraft and octopus-like boarding tunnels.

  The sounds of the machinery and aircraft engines must have drowned out the shots, Clay reasoned staring at the others. “What in the hell is going on?” he asked anyone who would listen.

  The priests ignored him, Maria cast him a look that seemed to be half pity and half fear, and Aquila continued to sit in stunned silence on the ground.

  Clay tried again. “What just happened?”

  Suddenly Aquila began to weep, whether from relief, sorrow or anger, Clay wasn’t sure. Langevin quickly moved to where he sat on the tarmac. “It was here – it was truly here!” the bishop said repeatedly between sobs. “This is no longer an abstraction, no longer an idea...and not something we have to take on faith any longer. Oh my...oh my...!”

  “It’s gone, Your Excellency!” Langevin said, soothingly using the more formal address for the bishop. He put a comforting hand on the old man’s shoulder. “Here, let me help you up.”

  Aquila allowed himself to be hoisted to his feet. He pulled his ruined glasses from his face and wiped his hand across his eyes, took a deep breath and gave vent to a new emotion. “It knew!” he said tensely, anger and frustration evident in his tone. “It knew we were coming. It knows everything! How in the name of God are we supposed to defeat something like that?”

  The two priests and Maria glanced at each other in embarrassed silence.

  After a moment Father Murphy squared his shoulders and said: “We must get to the Holy City.”

  No-one moved.

  “Now!” he added, forcefully.

  They sprung into action. Murphy moved to the back of the limo, hesitated and then looked through the open door. Steeling himself, he ducked inside and, a moment later, emerged with a tight smile and Langevin’s Crucifix in hand. He moved to the front, pulled a lever inside the automobile and the trunk popped open.

  “Father?” he said, politely to Langevin. He reached down and grabbed the dead man under the arms.

  Langevin nodded, tucked away his pistol, took the corpse’s feet and together they deposited the dead man in the trunk and slammed it shut.

  “I’ll drive,” Murphy said, spreading his coat across the front seat to soak up the mess of blood. He wiped the steering wheel with a white handkerchief which rapidly turned red. “Father Langevin will ride shotgun up beside me and the rest of you in the back.” He hesitated and then added, “If that’s okay with you, Your Grace.”

  “That’s fine,” the Bishop answered, slowly holding out his hand, “but you’ll have to help me please. I’m afraid...I’m blind.”

  ~ 3 ~

  “Where are they!?” Cardinal Malachi demanded, as he anxiously paced the length of the Chamber. He looked towards some thick woolen, wine-colored drapes along one wall covering a hidden passageway through which he expected Bishop Flavious Aquila and his group to enter at any moment. The curtain failed to move.

  Five other clerics sat at the heavy oak table in the center of the room, exchanging worried looks but saying little. Other than the table and seven chairs, a threadbare area carpet that had once portrayed a colorful scene from Paul’s first missionary journey to Rome, four corner standup lamps bouncing indirect light off the ceiling and a scarred wooden cross on one wall, the room was bare of furniture. A thick, iron chandelier hung by a long and rusted chain directly over the middle of the room. Receptacles on it were filled with half-melted lumps of hardened, black candles which had not been lit for hundreds of years. Coffee cups, a brass ashtray in the shape of a splayed monkey stuffed with butts, a few wine bottles and partially filled glasses littered the surface of the wooden table.

  The walls themselves were of rough-hewn stone, into which the remains of rusted, iron ringbolts were set, evidence of its historical function as an interrogation chamber. During the Roman Inquisition in 1252, the room had been well used when Pope Innocent IV authorized judicious torture as a means to secure evidence of a heretic’s wrongdoing. The thick walls would have effectively muffled the screams of the victims as they were forced to fabricate transgressions to stay the molten iron from their quivering flesh, or avoid having their feet slowly roasted over open fires. The reward for admitting heresy was a quick and merciful death, versus one that could drag on for many days.

  Set deep in the bowels of the earth of Vatican Hill, beneath the Borgia Tower area, scarcely a few hundred yards away from the venerated basilica, the Chamber and the passage to the room was known only to a handful of Vatican personnel. Here, The Seven carried out their mandate under a strict oath of secrecy. As a covert organization they were thus able to support each other in daily political maneuverings within their defined responsibilities without any open acknowledgement of their hidden connection.

  When Malachi was confirmed as leader of The Seven, he learned he was chancellor of a group that had been in existence for eight centuries. Before taking the oath of secrecy, however, Malachi made one thing clear to all: if he was going to be held accountable for the success or failure of the hunt, things would be done his way.

  In addition to Malachi, The Seven were composed of: Father Benito Gallo who had first discovered evidence of a new Awakening and who was also a replacement recruit; Bishop Flavius Aquila, head of the Watchmen group, now en route to the Vatican with the detective; Monsignor Heinz Rautenberg who oversaw the Crusaders; Father Fredrick Gant who was the Keeper of the Relic and doubled as their finance officer; Bishop Jean Castilloux, who was in charge of Public Relations, or, as he’d like to say, assuring the absence of any press or public relation; and, Father Peter Austin, a no-nonsense former Canadian arctic missionary who came late in life to the priesthood and became their Provost Marshal of sorts.

  With the exception of Father Gallo, to all others, the Hellspawn was still an unseen bogeyman; none had personally witnessed the reality of the Beast. Still, faith was their business and like good soldiers in the army of God’s service, the group accepted the premise as proven.

  Malachi watched Father Gallo, his old friend from his seminary days, and he worried. During the last few months the old man had been drinking heavily and become increasingly distant. Of course, though he consumed inordinate amounts of spirits, Malachi had never seen the priest exhibit signs of drunkenness; he seemed to be immune to the effects of the alcohol. And, though he insisted on attending meetings, he was generally silent; he seldom volunteered
opinions on any actions.

  When Malachi had assumed leadership, he’d been given a number of documents. One was an ancient diary which chronicled the known church-sponsored hunts for the creature beginning in the 12th century.

  From 1140, the Catholic Church had taken a greater role in defining Satan and his ability to influence human behavior. And, with reports of sightings and then the discovery of a supernatural beast that defied logic and had powers beyond those of mortals, a spawn of Satan had been recognized. Entitled the Hellspawn, it was tracked down in 1145 and put to death with a blessed stake driven through its heart. But, according to the diary, it eventually arose again after some years.

  Each time, the Church – acknowledging the demon’s resilience – had formed new organizations to hunt it down and kill it.

  Through the ages it continued to be cornered and killed; sometimes by local parishes. The manner of execution varied: most involved blessed stakes or pikes driven through its heart; or the occasional beheading with a sword christened with holy water. Neither kept it down sufficiently long. As time progressed, Bishops were asked not to scorn too much if informed of any unnatural or even supernatural phenomena within their jurisdictions and to act with blessed weapons against any manifestations of evil. They were also to report the events to Rome. That way they collected and centralized files on the demon.

  But specific directions as to how to best it, were still wisely left to the individuals responsible. After all, the clerics of old knew that the tools of death available to a 12th Century monk or priest would be far different from those common to a 21st Century hunter. The only advice that Malachi’s late predecessor had left, was a note for his successor that simply read: Pray to Almighty God it remains still during your reign.

  “They should have been here an hour ago,” Malachi said, the tension obvious in his voice. His words were quickly absorbed by the walls and rounded ceiling of the Chamber.

  “Perhaps there was a delay in landing,” Gallo ventured, running a hand through his thick white hair. Gallo found he needed to talk, to say something. Lately his mind wandered so much, it was often hard to determine where he was and why he was there. Convinced he was beginning to suffer from dementia, he concentrated extra hard on the tasks at hand. If only they knew of the suffering he had endured, they would have been only too glad to excuse him his lapses.