The Jesus Germ

by Brett Williams

  She turned on the chapel light. Everything was in order. Finding nothing inside the hollow base of the cup she could only guess at its purpose, never able to ask Cardinal Venti, to conceal her knowledge of his secret, a sharpened barb to clasp to her soul and bear until the last.

  Happy with the state of the ciborium she restocked it with hosts, locked it in the tabernacle and returned the key to the sacristy.

  Sister Dorothea checked for the spider. She turned to find it suspended in front of her face as if sensing her horrid phobia. She made to scream, clamping her hand over her mouth to cut off the shriek, the spider unmoved by her terror.

  Sister Dorothea backed into the sacristy, found the vacuum, plugged it into a power socket and drew the cord from its insides. It trailed behind her on its plastic wheels. With a foot, she pushed a button on its back and it hummed to life. She raised its long proboscis signalling her intent. The spider grasped the thread of web running to the ceiling and climbed.

  The machine inhaled with irresistible force and in the blink of an eye the spider shot down its long steel throat. With a fleshy thump, it hit a metal flap, dropping limply into a dusty paper bowel.

  The vacuum resumed its monotonous drone, primed to find more food until Sister Dorothea switched it off and returned it to the cupboard.

  The decision to clean the chapel had led to a warning; God’s hint to direct her spiritual energies elsewhere. Later in her room she would drown in a self-imposed tirade of unmitigated prayer, kneeling on hard boards, suffering gladly, staring into the eyes of a statue of the Lord, maintaining her adoring gaze. Only when the sun sank below the hills of Rome would she stop the bombardment of heaven in reparation for her sins.

  For now, she checked everything was in place, genuflected, crossed herself, turned off all the lights and inched open the door, checking the corridor. She slipped outside, locked the door and walked calmly away. A lap of the square in the warm sun would do her no end of good.

  Father Stephen watched her go. He was not imagining after all.

  78

  Cardinal Venti was bored but careful not to show it. At every round of voting he cast a different name into the ballot. Some of the cardinals had voted for him, however there were nine others with similar numbers. At the end of the second day, voting was adjourned for a day of prayer and reflection in this most urgent of ecclesiastical decisions. Purple pills were all Venti dared sneak into the conclave, the powdered ice too risky and inconvenient. As a result, he experienced withdrawals the pills alone could not suppress. He lay in bed at night, thinking deeply of the world outside and the evil transpiring on his account.

  Paris Vanderock sat in the front row beneath the catwalk. The hotel’s ballroom was filled with spectators eagerly awaiting the launch of the spring fashion parade. The lights dimmed; the buzz of conversation drowned by loud techno beats under a blaze of coloured strobes. A tall blonde model burst through the curtain at the back of the stage, prancing down the runway, silver leggings and black stilettos accentuating her long limbs. She spun a floral dress to yells of delight and strutted back along the catwalk as another model entered the spotlight to wild applause.

  Zachary seized his opportunity amidst the excitement. When the confetti machines whirred into action, showering the stage and the front rows with a storm of glittering paper, he flipped a card over Paris Vanderock’s shoulder, landing it in her lap. As the machines ceased spewing their coloured snow she dusted off her jacket and skirt, saw the card and picked it up. Printed on white stock, was a logo and a cafe address. When she turned it over her blood ran cold. Memories came striking back at her. Scrawled in pen was a single word and underneath a simple directive. She twisted in her seat to scan the faces around her but none met her gaze. Yet the card was undoubtedly meant for her. Brushing the remaining confetti off her clothes, she excused herself to the aisle. Zachary relaxed back in his seat to enjoy the frenzied finale to the glitziest parade of the year.

  From a booth at the front of the cafe, Rachel watched Paris Vanderock enter and sit at a window table, looking nervous, clutching her hands together and leaning on her elbows.

  ‘Excuse me, Paris, you will find it more comfortable in the corner booth,’ Rachel said with calming authority.

  Obediently, Paris Vanderock shifted off her chair, moving to a padded leather bench near the back of the cafe. Rachel slid onto the seat opposite.

  ‘Don’t be afraid, Paris. My name is Rachel. My colleagues and I are well aware of Jupiter’s abhorrent crimes.’

  Paris Vanderock shivered uncontrollably.

  ‘Prove it. Why haven’t you been to the police?’

  ‘Because you are being blackmailed, and if Jensen or any of his counterparts are arrested on your account, your life may be in serious danger. However, Jensen could be bluffing.’

  ‘I’m damned if he’s not.’

  ‘A simple electronic scan can determine it either way.’

  ‘How can I trust you?’

  ‘I can’t decide for you, Paris, but I assure you we have a common goal in preserving the tabernacle.’

  ‘It’s in Hobsgood Castle,’ Paris said.

  ‘It’s now with Cardinal Venti. The Jupiters believe the so-called tabernacle will be safe inside the Vatican. One ornament was dumped in a deep lake near Firelight Estate, on Venti’s advice, after he discovered it was harbouring a hidden transmitter. We have the third ornament. Could you readily identify the tabernacle?’

  ‘It held an opaque frog and was chipped on one corner. How many Jupiters know you have infiltrated their project?’

  ‘None, if you discount Venti. But he will say nothing to them. He will not admit to any compromise and is unaware of our meeting since he is currently indisposed inside the conclave.’

  ‘When can you do the scan?’

  ‘Come with me. I have a car outside and there is more to explain.’

  A café patron spotted Paris Vanderock and Rachel in conversation. The word quickly spread, so by the time the two women walked out onto the pavement the place was abuzz. Paris baulked as a camera flashed in her face.

  Zachary’s cell phone vibrated through the thumping music.

  The parade finished but the applause continued around the ballroom. The models linked arms in a line, bowing in unison along the T at the end of the runway. Smiles broke across their previously austere faces. He would enquire about one of the classic evening creations, for Rachel.

  He rang Father Stephen. ‘Hi, Steve, sorry I missed your call.’

  ‘Zach, hurry! I think I have the scrolls from the cube. Meet me in the square.’

  Father Stephen hung up and wedged the stainless-steel canister in his trouser pocket.

  With the conclave in progress, security was tight within the holy city. Father Stephen met Zachary and ushered him through a number of checkpoints.

  In a small library devoted to canon law, Father Stephen closed the door behind them, unscrewed the canister and tipped the scrolls onto a desk.

  ‘Tell me it’s them, Zach.’

  The rolls of papyrus were tightly sprung and in excellent condition.

  ‘Grab a book, Steve.’

  Zachary slipped one end of each scroll under a heavy dictionary and carefully unfurled them across the desk with his index finger. Each scroll was covered in Aramaic script, exquisitely written in sharp black ink. Zachary read and reread it all as Father Stephen waited for the proclamation.

  ‘One thing is certain, Steve. If these are genuine we don’t have the tabernacle. Venti lied to the Jupiter’s about the opaque frog holding the dangerous molecule. It doesn’t fit the description given here. You were right about Venti. It was an audacious gamble to lob the ornament off the balcony. I guess he believed both God and the Devil will serve him equally well in times of need. The rest of the document aligns with Venti’s ramblings at Firelight with one important addition. There is an antidote.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Spider venom.’

  ‘How
bizarre.’

  ‘Where did you find the scrolls?’

  ‘Venti is in the conclave; his private chapel should’ve been empty. I heard a noise from inside and investigated. I spotted them on the floor beneath the altar. Strange they were just sitting there. One can only imagine Venti’s reaction when he finds them gone. He might be persuaded to give up the tabernacle, knowing we could render it useless.’

  Father Stephen warmed a laptop computer.

  ‘We’ll ask Rachel to examine these in minutiae. There might be more to them than meets the eye,’ Zachary said, continuing to study the scrolls. ‘Google purple tarantulas.’

  Father Stephen’s fingers ran across the keyboard, and a raft of thumbnail photographs filled the screen - images of vivid purple spiders, hairy, thickset and big as a man’s hand with three white dots running diagonally right to left across the tops of their abdomens. They matched their description in the scrolls.

  The first web-link was an enlarged photograph above a page of text.

  They read in silence then Father Stephen quipped, ‘Domino Cardinal is an uncannily appropriate name.’

  ‘Note its range, Steve. Endemic to the Galapagos Archipelago, and first described by Darwin during his voyage aboard the Beagle. How could anyone know about them eighteen hundred years earlier, in a part of the world not yet discovered?’

  ‘It means the scrolls are either fakes, not as old as we think they are, or written by someone with prescience, lending credibility to Jesus Christ being the author.’

  ‘Read the last paragraph, Steve.’

  Victim of a parasitic mite that severely depleted the incumbent population during the 1950’s, the last confirmed sighting in April 1984 was of a large male deceased inside a crate of dried fish on the docks at Manta in Ecuador. Probably extinct although isolated nests may survive on the treacherous and more remote rocky outcrops throughout the chain. Its diet is predominantly small fish, caught at the water’s edge. The longest lived and most robust of all spiders, a captive specimen, passed down through three generations of collectors, reputedly attained the age of one hundred years.

  ‘It might be harder to locate a Domino Cardinal than wrest the tabernacle from Venti.’

  Zachary’s cell phone buzzed.

  ‘It’s Rachel. Paris is with me and I have some interesting news.’

  ‘Are you at the lab?’

  ‘Just arrived.’

  ‘Steve and I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. We have some news of our own.’

  79

  Monique Zambeel drove across the border, climbing toward the chateaux with the tabernacle resting on the passenger seat. Her Bentley was well known to the checkpoint guards. She crossed between Italy and France at least four times a month in preference to flying. She toured the mountain slopes for hours, mindlessly absorbing the spectacular scenery, delving deep inside her own thoughts.

  Venti had told her to wait until after the conclave but Monique Zambeel was tired of the Cardinal’s manipulations, and disdain for her fellow Jupiters had intensified.

  The chateaux came into view from the top of the mountain. The spring ice was melting and the rivers and streams feeding the valley were sheeting off the high bluffs. Monique Zambeel carefully negotiated the descent then launched the Bentley into an effortless climb until the landscape on both sides of the road was dotted with patches of snow. At the peak, a tiny spur ran into a car park where she pulled in and turned off the motor. She retrieved a thick blue pullover off the back seat to put on.

  The temperature gauge in the dashboard showed the outside temperature below zero. When she opened the car door, the cold flooded in, gripping her ankles. She tucked her jeans into her socks, pulled a beanie tightly over her ears and donned ski gloves.

  The roar of the waterfall accompanied tourists filing off a coach as they headed to the lookout and the spectacular view. Monique Zambeel held the tabernacle close like a warm thermos. She stood behind the row of people leaning against the railing, waiting to slip into the first vacated spot. The view had mesmerised her a thousand times before, but today it held little interest.

  The click of cameras subsided but no one gave up their place to abandon the stunning scenery until the coach driver punched the horn to leave. Monique Zambeel stepped forward, turning the tabernacle in her gloved hands, admiring the frogs and their technicolour coats.

  Her breathing quickened. She raised the tabernacle behind her in an outstretched hand and levered it into the sky. It spun in the sun, a kaleidoscope of colour, then headed for the rocks far below. Monique Zambeel leant over the railing to trace its fall but the overhang and mist from the waterfall made it impossible to see. The tons of water pouring into the void blunted every other sound.

  The tabernacle shattered on a boulder at the bottom of the falls and the frogs were torn apart, swept along until they settled in a deep pool far below the swirling currents and confused eddies. A minnow darted from under a rock, tugging at a morsel of fluorescent blue flesh imbedded in a fragment of resin. Tiny bubbles leaked from the decimated frogs, rising to the surface and popping into the air.

  Glass littered the riverbed like diamonds, ushering in the irreversible descent of man.

  Monique Zambeel felt no remorse but wondered if the power within the glass was a concoction of Cardinal Venti’s imagination. He had, however, warned her repeatedly of the psychological damage to come.

  She stepped away from the railing and returned to her car. Inside, she turned up the heater and the radio. Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb soared to its dizzying crescendo as Monique Zambeel rode the brakes all the way to the bottom of the valley.

  80

  ‘There is no trace of TNT in your body, Paris,’ Rachel said.

  Paris Vanderock rested on a stool, both exhausted and relieved at the news.

  ‘Paris, now you have a great responsibility to expose the Jupiters. We have recorded evidence of Lord Jensen’s and Cardinal Venti’s involvement,’ Zachary said.

  ‘I’m afraid,’ she said.

  ‘Jensen must explain his liaison with Toby Bell, who was a fugitive long before the recorded conversations at Firelight. And what can you tell us about Norman and Joan?’ Zachary said.

  ‘Computer billionaires, silent partners in a giant software conglomerate. Their identities were never fully explained, and frankly I did not care to ask,’ Paris said.

  ‘Do you know where Toby Bell is?’ Father Stephen said.

  ‘He could be anywhere.’ Paris said.

  ‘What’s your news, Zachary?’ Rachel said.

  ‘Steve found the original scrolls from the cube, in Venti’s private chapel. You must have seen them, Paris.’

  ‘Only photographs.’

  ‘All that Venti described has come to pass, according to the text, though he never mentioned the antidote for the tabernacle’s evil is the venom of an extinct spider,’ Zachary said.

  ‘You can’t extract venom from a spider that doesn’t exist,’ Rachel said.

  ‘There is a chance the Domino Cardinal Tarantula may survive on some of the remote islands in the Galapagos Archipelago off Ecuador’s coast.’

  Paris Vanderock shuddered at the thought.

  ‘If the threat of the tabernacle is real, and Venti is the only person outside this room aware of a cure, then while he is locked in the conclave we must search for the spider.’

  ‘Venti could already have the spider and its venom,’ Rachel said.

  ‘Possible, but knowing Venti, he’d have no intention of curing the ill effects of the tabernacle.’

  ‘If we caught even one spider, how could a few drops of venom save seven billion people?’

  ‘The scrolls give a clear answer. Just one molecule mixed with the blood of Christ in the Eucharist is enough to restore the afflicted. Call it the loaves and fishes phenomenon.’

  ‘This chance of a cure might be God’s plan to bring people back to the Church,’ Father Stephen said.

  ‘Only Catholics can receive t
he blood of Christ in Communion. However, in a state of mortal sin, without availing of the sacrament of reconciliation, participants will incur devastating disease and misfortune. The message is unequivocal,’ Zachary said.

  ‘Where in the Vatican is the tabernacle being held?’ Paris said.

  ‘We don’t know, but Venti won’t give it up easily. We should concentrate on finding the antidote in case Venti’s worst intentions are realised,’ Zachary said.

  ‘The scroll’s authenticity is questionable and I’m not convinced all this will come to fruition.’ Rachel suddenly had everyone’s attention.

  ‘We must keep searching,’ Zachary said.

  ‘Zachary, you’re totally addicted. Forget the fanciful religious hocus pocus. The world is on the brink of war.’

  ‘Rachel, I won’t rest until all the elements of the puzzle are in my safekeeping. With the tabernacle and the venom removed from the equation the prophecies can never be fulfilled.’

  ‘As long as both elements exist, you have no fool-proof way to protect them,’ Rachel said.

  ‘Regardless, I’m heading for the Galapagos to find a Domino Cardinal,’ Zachary said.

  ‘I’d like to help,’ Paris said.

  At that moment, Rachel realised she’d been too forthright. To now acquiesce to Zachary’s decision to search for the spider would cause her an intolerable degree of embarrassment. She eyed Paris. She couldn’t bear the thought of the diamond heiress accompanying Zachary to the exotic climes of the Galapagos alone. Zachary offered her a lifeline. ‘Sure you won’t come, Rachel?’

  Rachel was sheepish. Her emotions had got the better of her. She believed in Zachary and Father Stephen, her desire to help them as fervent as ever. Her anger cloaked itself in jealousy. The mere presence of Paris Vanderock in the same room elicited a womanly defence she felt powerless to contain. She exhibited all the characteristics of Darwinian behaviour. To adapt, survive and win Zachary’s heart, she must fight for him.