by Simon Toyne
He felt something tug at his right hand and found it had been loosened. He tried to lift it to rub the back of his neck but a solid clunk jarred it to an almost immediate stop. A thick leather manacle encircled his wrist, connecting it to the arm of the chair by a short chain. He dropped it back down with a clinking of metal, listening out for further movement.
‘I’m a police officer,’ he called into the darkness, wielding the words like a talisman.
The sudden closeness of the voice by his left ear made him whimper with surprise.
‘You have the colouring of a betrayer,’ it said. ‘For was not Judas a redhead?’
Sulley swivelled his eyes left. He could see nothing but dark walls and flickering light.
‘You are in a garrotting chair,’ the voice continued, deep and steady, rumbling out of the darkness close by. ‘One of the chief weapons used to stamp out the cancer of heresy during the Inquisition. It has a purity to it I’m sure you’ll appreciate. There is a broad metal screw positioned in the headrest just below your skull. If I twist it one way . . .’ Sulley felt the spike drill back into his neck and gasped in agony ‘ . . . the screw tightens and you will feel pain. If I turn it the other way . . .’ the skewering pressure subsided once more ‘ . . . you will feel relief. So,’ the voice said, moving in closer. ‘Which is it to be?’
‘What do you want?’ Sulley asked the darkness. ‘I can give you money. Is that what you want?’
‘All I want is your loyalty,’ mumbled the reply. ‘And some information. Please know that bringing you here is not a pleasure but a necessity, brought about by your own actions. We asked for your loyalty. You chose not to give it. You betrayed the Church – and that is a sin.’ The voice moved closer until he could feel the air that carried it whisper across his ear. ‘Would you like to confess your sins now?’
Sulley’s mind hummed with a mixture of pain and indecision. Should he admit he had sold information to others or deny it? If he denied it, he might be hurt until he admitted it anyway. He didn’t want the pain to come back.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, quickly. ‘I made a mistake. If that’s a sin . . . then – please, forgive me.’
‘Raise your right hand,’ the voice commanded.
He lifted it as high as he could before the restraint snapped it to a halt.
‘That chain is called the mea culpa,’ the dark voice said. ‘It enabled the heretic to sign his confession at the end of his inquisition. Mea culpa means “my fault”. Admitting fault is the first step toward forgiveness. Do you know what the second step is?’
‘No,’ he squeaked, his voice stretched tight between peaks of fear and pain.
‘Atonement. You must perform a righteous act to make amends for your sin.’
Sulley took a few shallow breaths, trying to calm the panic that threatened to overwhelm him, but he understood a deal when it was being offered.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘What do you want me to do?’
Chapter 98
Arkadian flipped his badge as he reached the reception desk.
‘I’m looking for Gabriel Mann,’ he said with a reassuring smile. ‘Does he work here?’
‘Oh,’ the receptionist gasped, glancing at the badge then back at him with the flustered, guilty reaction of the truly innocent. ‘Yes. Well . . . not usually, no. I mean, he’s usually away somewhere or other, but he does work for the charity. Let me find out for you.’
She tapped an extension number into the desk phone and spoke in a low voice. Behind her an elegant wooden staircase curled upwards and brought down sounds of the upstairs offices. The receptionist punched a key and looked over at him.
‘He’s in the Sudan,’ she said. ‘He’s not expected back for a month at least.’ Arkadian nodded, thinking about the fingerprint that had placed him in the city morgue not two hours previously. ‘I can try and get a number for him, if you like,’ she suggested. ‘There’s probably a line into the base camp, or maybe a satellite phone. I was trying to get hold of his mother to see if she’d spoken to him. She runs the charity,’ she explained.
‘Do you have her number?’ Arkadian asked. ‘Or any idea when she might be back?’
‘Of course,’ the woman said, taking a pen and copying a number on to a notepad from a directory sheet in front of her. ‘Here’s her mobile number. I expected her back from the airport by now. I can get her to call you . . .’
‘No, it’s OK,’ he said, taking the piece of paper and looking at the name and number written on it. ‘I’ll give her a call. Which airport will she be coming in from?’
‘City. It’s where all our air freight comes in.’
Arkadian nodded and smiled. ‘Thanks for your help,’ he said. Then he turned and headed out through the heavy glass doors and into the street where the police car was parked and waiting for him.
Chapter 99
The Abbot watched the Informer’s trembling hand drift across the laptop, the short chain clinking as he typed in a sequence of remote access codes. The Internet connection through the phone was slow and it took a long few minutes before he finally managed to open the monk’s case file.
‘I’m in,’ he announced to the darkness, sweat dripping from the end of his nose despite the stony chill of the cave.
‘Has anything been added?’ the Abbot replied, leaning closer to the screen.
The chain stretched and coiled again as the freckled hand tapped in a few more codes to open up an email account, then scrolled through an in-box and opened a message sent by GARGOYLE that comprised of just one word: ‘Red’.
‘Look out for anything highlighted in red,’ the Informer explained in a wavering voice. ‘That’s the new stuff.’
He deleted the mail message, opened the monk’s case file and started scrolling through it. The Abbot watched pages flash across the screen, each filled with details of things no one outside the Citadel should ever have seen. It made him sick to think of all the eager eyes that had crawled over these pages, greedily picking at the morsels they contained like ants on a bone. A band of red splashed across the page throwing a crimson light over the faces turned toward it. The freckled hand went still. The Abbot started to read. It was a brief transcription of Liv’s conversation with Arkadian relating the strange account of her birth and why she had a different name and birth date to her brother. The Abbot read through it, nodding to himself. It solved the mystery of why no sister had been discovered in the background checks when Samuel had first entered the Citadel.
‘Continue,’ he said.
The red text rolled away and for long minutes only white pages flitted across the screen as the Informer scrolled through the entire file. It was only at the very end, in the pathology section, that the red text returned and cast its bloody glow back into the cave.
The new section was in two parts. The first was a note recording how a sample of the monk’s liver cells had been flagged as contaminated on the grounds that the cells appeared to be regenerating. The Abbot wondered if this was evidence that Brother Samuel was re-animating, as the prophesy had predicted, or just the latent effects of his close exposure to the Sacrament. As he read the second red section, however, he was seized with a new interpretation and his blood quickened. It was a brief note from a Dr Reis detailing the results of comparative DNA samples taken from the fallen monk and the girl.
The Abbot stared at the red screen, his mind singing with the pathologist’s findings and deductions. They were the same. Not only did Brother Samuel have a sister, she was his identical twin.
This one piece of information made sense of everything. The prophecy was right. Samuel had indeed been the cross. But he had fallen, and now the girl had risen in his place: flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone. The same.
She was the cross now.
She was the instrument that would kill the Sacrament and rid the world of its heresy. She was the key to everything.
‘Destroy the file,’ he said. ‘Copy it to the laptop then wipe it from the police databa
se.’
The Informer paused, clearly reluctant to perform such an obvious act of vandalism. The Abbot laid a hand lightly on the tightening screw sending a tremor through the spike and into his spine. It was enough to send the chain ratcheting back across the arm of the chair as he frantically obeyed, attaching a virus to the original file in the police database that would destroy the contents, the directory, then itself.
The Abbot glanced at the mobile phone connected to the laptop, his mind shining with the light of the new information. He needed to alert Cornelius to ensure the girl was brought back quickly and unharmed; then he could use her to fulfil the prophecy and deliver on a millennia-old promise to God. This was his destiny, he realized that now; it was what he’d been born to do. He thought of the Prelate, lying in the darkness, worrying about God’s opinion of his own life’s work, and pitied him. He would not end his days fretting over missed opportunities. While the Prelate had advised he do nothing he’d had the courage to listen to his heart, and take the action necessary. And now here they were.
He pictured the Prelate turning from him the last time they’d spoken, his skeletal hand waving away his request to act. He was weak, but he was stubborn, and that stubbornness had almost cost them this chance of deliverance.
But he was still in charge.
The Abbot considered this point. The Prelate’s weakness and unwillingness to act could still prevent him from fulfilling his destiny. Going against the Prelate’s word outside the mountain was one thing, but inside his influence was much stronger: people had allegiances to the office if not the man. The Prelate could stop him. Worse still, he could take over. He could rise from his bed and carry out the prophetic sequence, the last act of a man desperate to crown his long, empty life with true meaning. And with the prophecy fulfilled, what then? Would they assume the Sacrament’s power, as many theologians believed? Would they achieve permanent immortality rather than the hint of it? If so, then the Prelate would never die and the Abbot would forever be his lieutenant.
The Abbot looked up, suddenly aware of the silence. On the laptop a progress bar edged its way to one hundred percent then vanished. ‘Has it all been wiped away?’
‘Yes,’ the Informer said. ‘It’s gone.’
‘Good,’ the Abbot said, laying both hands on the tightening screw. The Prelate was an issue. He could still ruin everything. ‘Tabula Rasa,’ he whispered. Then he started to turn.
Chapter 100
An early spring dusk was already starting to bruise the fringes of the afternoon sky when the bike pulled away from the guardhouse and headed past the row of silent warehouses towards the squat-looking cargo plane by hangar 12.
Gabriel raised his hand and waved back at the guard who’d just let them through. Liv couldn’t believe he’d let her in without any ID. Airport security was no way that relaxed back home – at least, she hoped it wasn’t. Gabriel had told the guard he needed to drop something off at the hangar and introduced her as his girlfriend. She hadn’t contradicted him. In fact she’d kind of liked it.
They coasted under the wing of the plane and in through the open door of the hangar, the sound of the bike’s engine suddenly deafening in the enclosed space. It was stacked high with silver packing cases, the tunnels between them just wide enough for the bike to pass through. They headed down one, towards the back of the building where warm lights burned behind the windows of an office. Gabriel swung the bike to a stop in front of them and killed the engine. ‘End of the line,’ he said.
Liv let go of his waist and slid from the seat. She was just smoothing her wind-whipped hair when the door of the office opened and a beautifully elegant woman stepped out, followed by a sprightly old man in flight overalls. The woman hardly looked at her. Instead she moved to where Gabriel was pulling the bike back on its kickstand. She embraced him, her eyes closed, her silky dark hair bunched against his chest by the tightness of her grip. Liv experienced a sudden tug of confusion and surprising jealousy. She looked away and found herself staring into the attentive face of the old man.
‘My name is Oscar de la Cruz,’ he said, stepping back through the open door of the office, his caramel voice welcoming her. ‘Please, come inside.’
She glanced over once more at the extended hug still binding Gabriel to the elegant woman, then followed him inside. The office was warm after the chilled bike journey and the smell of coffee and comforting low murmur of a TV set made the place feel almost homely.
‘Would you like coffee?’ Oscar asked, his dark eyes twinkling within his deeply tanned face. ‘Or . . . maybe something a little stronger.’ He shot a look towards the door. ‘Between you and me, I’ve got a flask of whisky in my jacket.’
‘Coffee’s fine,’ Liv said, sitting on a chair next to a desk containing a stack of paperwork and a computer.
She turned slightly as Gabriel came in. He had his arm round the beautiful woman and his head dipped low. He spoke softly but rapidly, a look of earnest concentration on his face. The woman closed the door as Gabriel finished speaking, then looked up at Liv and moved round the desk to sit down opposite her, a smile softening her face. ‘I’m glad you’re safe here with us,’ she said. ‘I’m Kathryn. I left you the warnings. My son’s just been filling me in on what’s happened.’
Liv’s eyes flicked between her and Gabriel.
Her son?!
Gabriel pulled two chairs over from the far desk and sat on one of them, slipping the black canvas bag to the floor as he settled and opening it up. Seeing them side by side Liv could now see a strong physical similarity between them – though the woman hardly looked old enough to be his mother. Gabriel pulled something from inside the bag and handed it to her. It was her holdall. She smiled, feeling such gratitude for his simple yet thoughtful act. It was like being reunited with a piece of normality. She found the paper envelope in the outside pocket, lifted the flap and looked at the top photo of her and Samuel.
‘I’m very sorry for your loss,’ Kathryn continued. ‘And for the trials you’ve endured since you learnt of your brother’s death. I would not have chosen for you to be caught up in our ancient struggle, but fate had other plans.’
Oscar appeared by her side and placed a mug of black coffee on the desk by Liv before sitting in the last remaining chair. As his face lined up with theirs Liv noticed he too resembled them.
‘Your brother was a member of an ancient brotherhood of monks,’ he said, leaning forward in his chair. ‘Their sole purpose, to guard and protect the Sacrament. We think his death was an act of supreme self-sacrifice to send a message revealing its identity.’ He fixed Liv with his bright eyes, the deep wrinkles surrounding them suggesting a lifetime of laughter. ‘We think he sent that message to you.’
Liv stared at him for a moment then slowly lifted up her notebook and laid it on the desk between them. She looked down and turned to the second page where she had copied the symbols from the seeds.
‘This is what he sent to me,’ she said, sliding the notebook across the desk towards them. ‘I’ve re-arranged them every which way to try and make sense of it. Then I met Dr Anata, and found this on the spot where my brother fell.’ She slipped the card from between the pages and showed them the cryptic message:
T
MALA
MARTYR
‘From that I managed to re-arrange the letters into this –’ She pointed at the last thing she had written:
T + ?
Ask Mala
‘That’s when you arrived,’ she said, glancing up at Gabriel and discovering he was already looking at her. He smiled a small smile that travelled all the way to his eyes. She looked away, feeling the heat of a blush rising beneath her skin. ‘So,’ she said, looking instead at the old man. ‘You’re the Mala. I guess I’m asking you – what is the “T”?’
Oscar looked at her, his eyes suddenly tired and sad. ‘It was ours once,’ he said, ‘and is sometimes referred to as the Mala T. But as to what it is – I’m afraid we don’t know.’
>
Liv stared at him for a beat, not trusting what she’d heard. ‘But you must,’ she said, ‘my brother staked his life on it. Why would he send me to find you if he didn’t think you’d be able to help?’
Oscar shook his head. ‘Maybe this isn’t the message.’
Liv stared down at the phrase at the bottom of the page. She’d pulled every combination of words she could from the letters. This was the only thing that had made any sense. She reached out for her notebook and flicked to the first page. ‘Look,’ she said, pointing at the rough drawing of her brother’s body where the T was burnt on to his arm. ‘He had the same thing branded on to his body as well as these other scars. Maybe the message is in them!’
A sudden ripping sound made her look up. ‘The scars are not the message,’ Oscar said, pulling open another Velcro fastening on his flight suit, ‘they are merely a badge of office. They are part of the ritual associated with the Sacrament, but they do not reveal what it is.’
He shrugged his arms out of the green one-piece and rolled it down over the white turtleneck sweater he wore underneath, then pulled his shirt up over his head. Liv stared at his body beneath. It was the colour of mahogany and covered with the dark, puckered lines of old scar tissue. Her eyes traced the familiar shapes they made. All of them precise. All deliberate. All of them identical to the scars she had seen on the body of her dead brother.
Chapter 101
The Angelus bell was still echoing softly through the dark corridors of the Citadel as Father Thomas passed through the airlock into the great library. The bell marked the end of Vespers and the start of supper. Most of the mountain’s inhabitants would be heading to the refectories now for their evening meal. He didn’t expect to find many in the library.