Of Saints and Shadows (1994)

by Christopher Golden

  He served the pontiff first, then himself, watching as His Holiness began to sip at the steaming cup. Garbarino began to smile and sip his own tea. With John Paul it had been important that he not be discovered. This time, however, nothing mattered. If they knew the pope had been murdered, if they knew he was the killer, such knowledge would be useless, for he’d be long gone, never to return.

  Ah, but such a service he was performing for the glory of the true God, whose nature Roman Catholicism had only begun to grasp. It was control that mattered, mastery of all things, all creatures, natural and unnatural. This was what God had intended for man, and for His church.

  He chided himself, as the pope sipped, not to become overwrought. After all, he was a soldier in God’s army, a pious man, not a self-righteous, self-serving lunatic like Liam Mulkerrin. No, of the many things that caused Giancarlo Garbarino to commit the sin of pride, the foremost was this—he considered himself completely sane, something he couldn’t say about many others.

  “You know, Giancarlo,” the pope said, putting down his cup after only a couple of sips, enough to make him ill surely, but probably not enough to kill him. “I’ve been wondering for some time about Cardinal Guiscard.”

  Now Garbarino perked up. Where was this coming from?

  “Henri Guiscard was quite a scholar—is quite a scholar still, I should think. I never understood why you didn’t want him on your Vatican Historical Council, unless it was simply that you didn’t want to compete with another cardinal. Regardless, his disappearance concerns me, as does the disappearance of that hellish book.”

  “The book, Your Holiness?” Ah, all propriety now, aren’t we, he thought.

  “Well, I never got through the whole thing, only bits and pieces here and there, and of course the reports you wrote about it. But, well, we agreed that it was yet another example of misguided zeal along the lines of the Inquisition. I mean, vampires? Weren’t witches and exorcists bad enough?”

  “Quite true,” Garbarino agreed, though in actuality the only portions of the book the pope had ever read were those Garbarino included in his reports on the subject.

  “While many suffered and died for those false impressions, the church doesn’t need any more bad press. We still haven’t gotten out from under that Father Porter fiasco,” the cardinal said.

  The pope visibly shivered, whether from the poison or disgust, Garbarino couldn’t tell.

  “But why Guiscard?” the pontiff continued. “Not that I knew him well, but he seemed genuine enough. And more intelligent than most of us, for certain. Why take that book? If he had wanted to hurt us with it, which doesn’t make sense in the first place, why hasn’t he done something with it?”

  “I can’t honestly say, Your Holiness,” but it seems you might have become a liability even if you weren’t needed as a diversion.

  The pope sighed then. “Well, I can’t help but hold you partially to blame,” he said.

  “Me?”

  “Well, if it weren’t for your recommendations, I would have had the thing destroyed and we wouldn’t have this problem, would we? I can’t even brief the PR people unless the thing comes out, because if it doesn’t, I’ll have told them about it for nothing, and then it probably will get out. It’s so frustrating.”

  “I’m certain it must be,” Garbarino said, “and I’m sorry for whatever role I played in these events.”

  “Ah well,” the pope said, “nothing to be done about it now.”

  He paused, his head bobbing for a moment. “And suddenly I’m feeling even worse. It appears the flu has caught up with me, after all.”

  “Drink your tea,” Garbarino said. “You’ll feel much better.”

  “No, thank you, though, Giancarlo, but I didn’t really want it in the first place. That herbal flavor is simply awful, but I dare not tell that to Paulo, who has somehow been told it’s my favorite. I’ll just ring him now, to pick up the tray. If you’re done with yours, that is.”

  The Pope reached for his intercom, but Giancarlo’s hand stopped his before he could reach the button.

  “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.”

  In two and threes they left, from all exits, and singly as well. Fathers and brothers and sisters, drifting out of the Vatican with no hint of shared purpose, no recognition of one another. Vatican police surely noticed a larger volume of clergy on their way to museums, to the airport, to shop, visit hospitals and churches, or merely to walk. The clergy who were not leaving, who were not aware of the sinister purpose behind this exodus, also noticed a larger volume of departures than usual in those morning hours.

  Those taking their leave set off in many different directions, at different times, and purportedly for different reasons . . . while many may have thought the volume peculiar, none thought to remark upon it.

  As they made their way toward the appointed meeting place, two and one half miles from the train station in Rome—some taking far more circuitous routes than others—they were joined by several dozen additional clergy members from the Roman community. Sister Mary and the Montesis had organized this exodus so well that it indeed appeared to be nothing more than coincidence.

  Unless, of course, you happened to be standing near the train yard as Roman clergy filtered in, in threes and fours, and boarded the train. If you watched while some emerged in a new uniform of all black, male and female alike, without collar or habit, you would most certainly have been curious. If you had seen many of these people take gleaming silver daggers from the assorted bags and totes and briefcases that they carried and hide them in the folds of these new uniforms, or in the boots they wore, unlike anything you could have seen clergy wearing before, well, then you certainly would have remarked upon it to the first person who would listen.

  And Vincenzo Pustizzi had every intention of doing just that, of stumbling from the train yard where he often slept and telling the first policeman he came into contact with. He would have done exactly that if Robert Montesi hadn’t seen him first. If the youngest Montesi brother hadn’t called upon something invisible, something awful, to crawl inside him and cat his heart, he would have blown the whistle for sure. Nobody in Rome would have believed Vincenzo Pustizzi, but he would have told them all right.

  By noon, when Giancarlo Garbarino and Liam Mulkerrin left together, Sister Mary Magdalene and Robert Montesi were just getting the last stragglers aboard the train. Isaac and Thomas, meanwhile, were making final arrangements with their Venetian unit by cellular phone. They were aware, of course, that these phone lines were never secure, but it was taken for granted that their enemies were far too arrogant to believe they were in any danger. Certainly espionage was not within their range of skills.

  When Garbarino and Mulkerrin arrived, just as the train was preparing to depart, both were smiling.

  Brother Paulo had served the pope faithfully for several years, and the pope before him for the duration of his life as pontiff. Paulo considered himself a simple man, like his father before him, a man who asked very little of life and of God. A roof over his head, food to eat, warm clothes, and to serve God. He was well pleased and suffered himself the merest glimmer of pride with his work. His job, after all, was to care for him who was closest to God Himself, a man who had far more on his mind than what to wear and what to eat. Paulo considered himself far more important to the daily life of the pontiff than the pope’s handlers, the men who made his travel arrangements and planned his public appearances. This man was responsible for the well-being of millions of faithful churchgoers, and the religious health of the rest of the world as well. Paulo had been made, through appointment as well as by default, the caretaker of this man’s well-being.

  Nothing else mattered. It did not matter that the pope could be an old curmudgeon like so many men of his age. It did not matter that there were certain things about which Paulo had become disillusioned since taking his post. It did not matter that the pope spent more time than Paulo felt was appropriate in baby-sitting the inter
nal and external political factions attempting to exert their influence upon Catholicism. It was not Paulo’s place to disapprove. The Lord moves in mysterious ways, and always had.

  It was with these things in mind that Paulo entered the office/library that had always been the pontiff’s favorite room. It was common for the pope to fall asleep in his leather chair, reading a book or simply thinking, especially after tea. And he hadn’t been feeling well, which made him much more likely to need a nap. After all, when all was said and done, he was still a mortal man, and, well . . .

  “Non è che lui sifaceva più giovane,” he said under his breath.

  He wasn’t getting any younger.

  Paulo knocked lightly, to be certain His Holiness was still asleep. Sure enough, there was no answer. He turned the knob and pushed, a blanket over his arm. He always covered up the old man when he was sleeping. One good draft could make his cold that much worse, and he refused to wear his slippers at night. It was frustrating.

  Paulo was surprised by the darkness in the room. The shades were drawn and the lights were off. It seemed that His Holiness had made no pretense about falling asleep this time. He would rather sleep in his office than his bed.

  Paulo smiled to himself and shook out the blanket. Quietly, he stepped across the room and pulled the curtains apart only an inch or so, enough to see by. He turned toward the desk where the pope had his head down, and at first saw nothing out of the ordinary.

  Then he stopped. He tilted his head in an attempt to figure out just what was out of place about the sleeping form. Then he realized what it was. Rather than resting his head on his folded arms, as he usually did, the pontiff had let his arms dangle at his sides, his head at an awkward angle on the desk.

  And there was blood.

  “Madre di Dio!” he shouted.

  He rushed to the chair, nearly slipping in the blood of the Pope of Rome, and could clearly see the terrible gash that had been sliced into the man’s throat. A mortal man, indeed. The blood was everywhere, and Paulo couldn’t stop the tears that came, harbinger of a scream that was building in him, that would escape in moments. He turned to run from the room, to call for police, but tripped and fell on the carpet. He reached in the semidark for what had tripped him, and his hand came back wrapped around a terrible instrument of death, a dagger in the form of a crucifix, the form of Christ, the life-giver, forged into a life-taking weapon.

  He stood, dagger in hand, too confused and distraught to notice that others had come into the room. Too horrified to hear the words that they said, to realize what it was that they were seeing. The lights came on.

  Only then did he see the note, pinned to the pope’s robes, one word, an indictment of all that Paulo’s simple life had led him to believe, scrawled in blood.

  22

  THE BASEMENT ROOM WHERE ALEX AND Sheng slept had become a bit more crowded. Before morning, they’d been joined by Jasmine Decard, Rolf Sechs, and Ellen Quatermain. As the dirty Venetian canal water lapped against the stone by their heads, the couple made a valiant attempt to sleep while Jazz and Ellie made quiet love to the mute German. It had been quite some time since they’d seen one another, and they’d found it hard to sleep the day away. Grief over their bloodfather’s death had soon led to physical comforts. Still, they were quiet. Though Karl Von Reinman had owned this building, and surely one of them now owned it, the shopkeeper who rented the upstairs might actually overcome his fear, break his oath, and come down into the basement if he were to hear the sounds of passion coming from beneath his feet.

  It was still daylight, just after noon the last time Sheng had lifted his head to check the clock. No, it wouldn’t do to be disturbed.

  “Where are you going?” The voice of the shopkeeper drifted down to Sheng. Alex was still asleep and the three lovers were distracted, but he heard the man’s alarm quite clearly. “You can’t go down there!”

  “I’ll tell you what,” whispered a woman’s voice Sheng was not familiar with. “Why don’t you close up and get some lunch? Come back in a couple of hours.”

  “I’ll call the police!” the shopkeeper yelled at them; obviously there were no customers.

  “No, I don’t reckon you will,” a man’s voice said, and this time Sheng recognized it immediately.

  “Up!” he hissed as he heard three sets of steps coming down the stairs. “Alex, wake up! You three, put your pants on! We’ve got company.”

  “What is it, cher?” Jasmine said dreamily in her sweet Cajun tones, though Alex was already up and alert. “It’s still daylight, what harm can come to us?”

  “It’s Cody,” he said, and they all looked at him.

  “I don’t know how, but it’s Cody.”

  As Jasmine pulled on a pair of sweats and Ellie dismounted from the mute German’s penis, a knock came at the cellar door.

  “Knock, knock,” the voice came again.

  “Who’s there?” Ellen asked with her clipped British accent. She was annoyed at having to be dressing so fast, and wasn’t even sure whose clothes she was putting on. She didn’t know Cody that well and wasn’t sure how Sheng could be certain it was him. It was light out, after all.

  “Oh, I think you know who it is.”

  “Damn right we do,” Sheng said as he stalked to the door, threw back the bolt, and whipped it open.

  “Sheng, wait!” Alex said, but too late, as weak sunlight came through the open door and singed his hair. He jumped back in a flash and Alex went to make certain he was all right. He’d forgotten there was a window on the landing halfway down the steps.

  Though the light was weak, it was sunlight, and none of them had even seen it by choice in quite some time. It took several moments for their eyes to adjust.

  It was Cody, after all, standing there in the sunlight, and he wasn’t alone. Behind him stood Peter Octavian! The two creatures they hated most in the world had turned up on their doorstep, a strange enough event, but their presence defied more than logic. It defied all laws of supernature.

  It was Alex who said it first. “How?”

  “He learned by example,” Peter said, speaking finally, “as you will all have to, my old friends.”

  “Traitor!” Sheng yelled at him. “You’re worse than this foolish rebel,” he said, pointing to Cody.

  “No wonder you stay back, protected by the sun and whatever magic allows you to survive it,” Ellen said, words dripping from her like venom. “I would take precautions as well if I had left my father to die!”

  Peter moved, too fast for any of them to stop him, his right arm reaching almost inhumanly far in front of him to lift Ellen from the ground and slamming her into the stone wall so hard that plaster showered to the floor and stones moved backward to make room for her head. His eyes were locked with hers, his fury evident in his stance, in the savage change his face had undergone. For a moment he was far from handsome.

  “Once,” he growled, “nearly a century ago, I told all of you never to question my relationship with our father. Clearly, you’ve forgotten much!”

  “And you’ve become as careless as the cowboy,” Sheng said just as he, Rolf, and Alex pulled Peter away and threw him to the ground. “What’s to stop us from killing you now?”

  “How ’bout the cowboy?” Cody said, and waded into the darkened room.

  “Five to two,” Ellen said. “I like those odds.”

  The fight began in earnest. Peter and Alexandra were the strongest, yet she and Jasmine appeared to be holding back. Rolf worshiped Sheng and loved Ellie; the three of them fought hard. Claws lashed out and furrows appeared in dead flesh, then healed. Rolf was still naked and Cody launched a boot at his huge dangling penis and testicles. Peter threw Sheng the length of the room and the wall shook, plaster showering them again. Several of them began to change, to undergo a dark metamorphosis into other things, other creatures.

  “STOP!”

  They stopped, frozen for a moment in the midst of battle. Sheng suddenly remembered the woman’s
voice he had heard upstairs before Cody had spoken. They all turned to stare at Meaghan Gallagher, silhouetted in the dusty sunlight in the old stairwell.

  “My blood,” Jasmine breathed, “they’ve brought a human.”

  “Kill her!” Ellen said, rushing for the door.

  “Wait,” Sheng said, and Ellie was smart enough to stop.

  “You’re protected by the sun,” Ellen said to her, “but the sun goes down eventually.”

  “No,” Meaghan said, brows knitting, “I’m protected by your own ignorance.”

  “Cody,” Sheng yelled, “this is your doing!”

  “Afraid not,” Will answered. “Just met her last night myself. Though I think I’m starting to understand what Peter sees in her.”

  Now Alexandra was shocked. She’d held back in the fighting because she and Sheng had once loved Peter, though Sheng’s ego made him all the more hateful. She’d been hurt by Peter and had thought she wanted to hurt him back; now she was unsure. But this, this was . . .

  “Unbelievable.”

  “What, Alex?” Peter asked, not unkindly.

  “You’re in love with a human?”

  Peter looked up and Meaghan smiled at him, sharing the joke.

  “That’s not so unusual for us, is it?” he asked Alexandra.

  “Yes, but it’s never real for us. You wouldn’t do it unless it were real!”

  “True enough,” Peter said. “But I think you’re all going to have to rethink a lot of things. For starters, I don’t think we’re all as terrible as you seem to think we are . . . or at least, we don’t have to be.”

  They all started talking at once, which made Cody nuts.

  “Shut up! All of you just be quiet for half a minute. What the hell do you think we’re doing here? Do you think we came for the company?”

  “A good question,” Jasmine said, truly interested. “What exactly are you doing here?”

  “First things first,” Peter said, a little hot under the stares of Ellen and Sheng. “Rolf, put some pants on.”