Pope Victor himself must have realized the precarious position he was in within the church after his announcement. Bishop Thomas himself surmised that Pope Victor could not have known what the cardinals’ opinion would be about the re-creation before he condoned it—that would have taken individual calls to each cardinal to gauge their opinion, and if he had done that the information would have leaked way before his announcement. It had to have been a rather impulsive decision coerced by a man seduced by the glamour and promises of the Gloamings. The real question would be how they got so close to him to make their offers.
Years later, an investigation by a New York Times reporter, Jon Caramanica, would name one of the papal butlers as the person who made the first attempts to get Cardinal Naro to meet some Gloaming representatives without the knowledge of the Vatican staff. It took a lot of luck, persistence, and coordination, but that was how determined they were to legitimize themselves within society.
Bishop Thomas would attempt to contact every single one of the cardinals—many of whom he had met or knew personally—to understand where they stood on the issue. Thomas felt that the Gloamings would eventually intend to kill the Pope and install one of their own as his replacement. As of that day, there were 222 members of the College of Cardinals, although only 120 of them were eligible to participate in the conclave that was to choose a new pope.
The bishop brought up another wrinkle and obstacle to this plan: a pope is authorized to name new cardinals and also cardinals in pectore—secret cardinals that are not known to the public, or anyone else, for that matter. A new pope may begin to name new cardinals and secret cardinals loyal to him only as a way of stacking the college in his favor. We agreed that going public with our grievances was essential in order to gain momentum and stall any of the new pope’s efforts to possibly name new cardinals.
After a few months, the lines began to draw themselves as a distinct majority of the College of Cardinals expressed their disapproval of Naro’s re-creation. In fact, it was probably more cardinals than we’d expected, as many declined to comment, which we now can assume was in itself disapproval. News organizations attempted to contact every cardinal to document his disapproval or approval of Naro’s re-creation. Pope Victor himself gave a surprisingly muted response to the disapproval from the cardinals. He delivered a message to the church that such divisions would not weaken the church, and that prayer and God’s will shall change all minds.
Of course, I didn’t believe that. I knew that Naro was using the Pope to bide his time to either coerce the cardinals into supporting him or get rid of them and name new ones that would support him unconditionally. Several of our sources relayed to us that Cardinal Naro was preparing a new canonical judgment entitled “Doctrinal Assessment of the Universality of the Gloaming People Donum Vitae.” It appeared to be a document to prepare the congregation for the full participation and acceptance of the Gloaming species. There were rumors that the Pope was livid that certain cardinals would conspire against him and Naro. Therefore, the order felt that we needed to intensify our efforts to have Naro resign his position.
Luckily for us there were many Catholics who shared our opinion, and the donations given to the order were more than enough to grow our organization. We soon hired a staff to coordinate our efforts. We were extremely strict in our hiring practices to keep out any spies from the Vatican looking to infiltrate the order. More importantly, we began to have many laypersons and priests come to Phoenix to volunteer for our organization. However, there were some people and groups who, although they supported our goals, did not think we were the proper organization to correct the wrongs of the current Vatican administration and move forward to keep our church free from Gloamings.
I still felt somewhat separate from the organization. It was like I had married into a family that didn’t really trust me. And being a woman still left me on the outside of many of the strategic planning sessions.
I suppose at this point you would like me to address how the Order of Bruder Klaus came to be considered a terrorist organization by the United Nations.
The call to arms to protect our church came with an announcement from the Pope that he had named twenty-five new cardinals. This was a month after Naro re-created. We all knew that this meant he, with Naro’s influence, was well on his way to stacking the College of Cardinals in his favor so that he, or more plausibly Naro, could be crowned as a new re-created pope for a couple of hundred years with no opposition. This was simply the point of no return for the order.
During this period of time, the Gloamings were still at the height of their persuasive efforts, assuring everyone that they only wanted what was best for the world and engaging in various charitable endeavors. People chose to ignore the fact that most of their membership was increasingly restricted to the top 1 percent—wealth, looks, and talent seemed to be the main criteria. But they were successful in convincing people that they wanted to pursue only positive change as their goal.
Hard to believe when their presence in any given area left a string of dead bodies devoid of blood. Of course, they claimed to have no knowledge of these incidents, dismissing them as local and isolated criminal activity with no connection to themselves. Yet this was exactly how they fed. The Gloamings claimed to feed off what they bought from blood banks and from animal blood, but it was scientifically proven that they needed fresh blood from a human to sustain their lives. They needed to feel the fresh blood pumping into their mouth from a human heart. We suspected for quite a while that their plan was to take over the entire population and use us as feeding farms for their colonizing race. This was proven. In spite of their claims, they never truly prepared to assimilate into proper society.
We began to institute a secret department of the order aimed at finding ways to terminally eradicate the Gloamings. The program started initially as just one of many contingency plans. Only as a last resort. The order began a study of all that was known concerning Gloaming physiology. Given their unique regeneration ability and enhanced strength, it would take various uncommon weapons to terminally eradicate the Gloamings.
The only true surefire weapon was a gun armed with 70 percent uranium bullets. Nine-millimeter uranium bullets, to be exact. No one has yet scientifically determined why uranium bullets to the heart will incinerate a bloodsucker, but the fact that uranium bullets are self-sharpening and flammable may have a lot to do with it. On impact, the subsequent release of heat energy causes the bullet to ignite—at least that’s what Wikipedia reported—and they did an amazing job against the Gloamings.
Needless to say, this would be the weapon of choice for our order. The manufacture of the bullets would be another point of contention because of the continued sabotage of the factories that constructed them.
We decided to create the bullets at an underground complex—in secret, of course. It was the only way to ensure the continued manufacture of our only protection. I always thought it was a bad idea—I mean, anything underground helps the Gloamings—but my suggestions went nowhere. They did thank me, though—what a benchmark in gender equality that was.
It wasn’t easy, or entirely “legal,” to find the depleted uranium necessary for the bullets, but there were many Eastern European Catholic countries that were sympathetic to our cause and more than willing to fulfill our orders for the uranium, although our process was much smaller and therefore the yield was constrained.
We were actually quite proud of our manufacturing process. Many of our monks perfected the casing and molds we used to create the bullet, and the actual design was a closely held secret. The method was not automated, however; it took a significant amount of time to create each bullet. In the facility, there were a series of lathes and monks who worked them twenty-four hours a day on shifts. Another area housed the monks who made the molten metal to create the nine-millimeter bullets. We were ever mindful of the dangers of the uranium and so the finishing mold and metal die were placed in a radiation-protected facility and the workers wore the
latest in radiation-protection gear. There was graded-Z shielding on all facilities—a shield that effectively scattered protons and electrons and absorbed gamma rays. It was the safest shielding available. Exits on all facilities had installed radiation monitors to detect any leaks or sudden surges in radiation.
The order began the stockpile of weapons and ammunition for defense purposes originally. I’m not going to pretend that we didn’t envision a time when it might be used for offensive purposes, but truly that wasn’t the first intention.
Our first mission began with intelligence we gathered at the Vatican. You have to understand that the Vatican bureaucracy is unwieldy—impossible to navigate, let alone scale. The order, from our inception, cultivated many employees of the Vatican—not just priests but support staff as well—to be our sources. Even the janitorial staff were an important avenue of information.
The rumors came first from our priests in the Vatican: the Pope had secretly named three new cardinals ten days before and would be announcing them in three days. Prior to this, the Pope had not been seen in public in about two weeks, which was highly unusual. His nightly speeches had been canceled with no reason given, so the order was already on edge, preparing for any rumor or announcement given this odd silence and behavior, which indicated a major announcement was due.
I myself sat in front of a bank of television and computer screens, all monitoring the news, while taking calls from our various informants at the Vatican and compiling the information into a database so that the senior staff could disseminate the latest reports to everyone.
When we heard the rumor and confirmed that it was true, the order convened a meeting of the executive council. The council discussed various steps that might be taken as a response to this measure—anything from declining to recognize the new cardinals to staging protests at the Vatican and the home countries of the new cardinals.
The department head said that he had some urgent information for all of us: one of our sources had definitively reported that the three new cardinals were to be re-created when they met with the Pope in three days. This, of course, was the final straw. I could see the plan unfolding for the Pope and Naro. Unable to garner the support of the clergy and even the laypeople, the Pope was going to undertake more drastic measures: stacking the College of Cardinals with Gloamings.
I couldn’t imagine such a scenario borne to its completion. In practice, this would transform the church as we knew it and not simply from a theological perspective. A Gloaming pope and his acolytes would rule the church and subsequent generations for hundreds of years. I don’t remember who brought it up first—probably myself—but terminal measures were raised to the group.
Surprisingly, it took only about half an hour for the council to agree to assassinate the three cardinals before they could be formally named. We probably should have considered all of the legal and moral ramifications of such an act but there simply wasn’t the time. The order knew that all members could be held responsible and could face significant prison time—or execution—if our efforts were to be uncovered.
The next surprise was being called into the meeting and told that I would be leading the group on the mission. They thought, and I agreed, that a woman dressed as a nun might be more inconspicuous on a mission that demanded stealth. Maybe I was expendable or maybe they wanted to push for gender equality. Sure…Hey, the order didn’t have a monopoly on hypocrisy.
Of course, coming to an agreement proved to be the easiest part. I had three days to prepare a plan—more specifically, a plan that could be implemented successfully.
I contacted our sources at the Vatican to find the private itinerary—where the cardinals would be every hour of their visit. And most importantly, where they would be sleeping. This proved to be quite easy. We knew that there were plots to build Gloaming-safe underground housing at the Vatican, but only the architectural plans had been approved—no construction had begun.
From there we were sent the plans of the house where they would be staying at the Vatican. The security and staff details at the residence were the only questions regarding the plan. Those details were kept highly classified by the Vatican, and our sources could not find out any information about them. Therefore, we did not know what we would encounter upon entering the residence. The preparations had to include a worst-case scenario of overwhelming security.
The order enlisted Father Mark Rogers in the plan. Father Mark eagerly accepted the challenge, and the results if successful. He was still employed at the Vatican but this time assigned to the small Vatican infirmary. Rogers immediately began to establish reconnaissance and cultivate a few more sources among the staff at the villa where the cardinals would be staying.
I was picked up by an Escalade with blacked-out windows in front of a bus stop near a Home Depot. The driver didn’t say a word to me as he took me to a private gate located at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, about twenty miles away. Things began to proceed quickly as I boarded a private jet owned, I would later learn, by a wealthy stockholder of a fashion design company and a member of our legion of supporters. The plane seemed eerily quiet so I walked to the cockpit and opened the door to see why everything was so silent. The lone pilot glanced back at me and then returned to his equipment. Another professional focusing only on the task at hand. I could relax now.
The coordinator of the plan knew of a small airstrip owned by a farmer and his wife where I could land and have my equipment unloaded without any disruption from the Italian police. As another fail-safe procedure, the farmer had a brother in the Mafia who would be willing to provide the services of corrupt members of the Italian federal police force if they were needed.
The plane arrived without a hitch, seven hours after our initial meeting, in the cover of darkness. The weapons and other materials were housed in large black bags and carried by grim-faced farmhands who placed them in a small VW van; an old barrel-chested man wearing a tweed hat and overalls was in the driver’s seat. The old man drove me in silence to the outskirts of the Vatican and stopped at an old stone-and-beam four-story residential building with a pizzeria on the ground floor.
I saw who I assumed to be Father Mark at the street corner downing the last of a slice of pizza, a beer in his other hand, and I could not have been less surprised at the sight. He nodded and walked over to help me take the two bags from the back of the car. After I closed the trunk, the car took off into the night.
“By God—they really sent a woman,” Father Mark said with a grin.
“By God—they sent me a drunk,” I replied.
Father Mark nodded again. “Well, let’s get you inside and see if we can turn you into a nun.”
He led me inside the old nineteenth-century building and to the second floor and a sparsely furnished apartment with no occupants. It was filled with a simple bed and couch, with no table. A musty smell pervaded the entire space.
“Who lives here?” I asked.
“Some scumbag monsignor,” Father Mark said. “It’s where he keeps his young ladies of ill repute.” He noticed my disgusted reaction. “Ah, but it’s hard for me to summon much outrage when all I can think is that I’m happy he’s not trying to suck the blood out of them.”
“Very funny,” I remarked. “Should be good karma for my mission.”
“Since when did you start believing in karma?”
“Today.”
Father Mark grinned. “Gallows humor, my future nun. Keep it up. Let’s see if you’re still laughing when they’re pointing guns at us or trying to suck all the blood from our bodies.”
I didn’t say anything out loud, but he had a point.
We spent the next two hours fitting me into a habit, scapular, and coif. It was more body constricting than any clothing I had ever worn. I didn’t know how I was going to have a full range of motion in this ridiculous outfit but it would have to do.
It was at that point that we took the guns and placed them in our holsters beneath our tunics. They would not be
easy to pull out but we weren’t expecting any surprises before the mission started.
As the sun rose, we took off on foot for the Vatican. I would spend the morning at the Vatican museum, taking in the sights until the late afternoon, when Father Mark would leave work and take me to a vacant office in the communications building. We took a chance doing the operation at night, when the Gloamings were active, but we needed the cardinals to be up and in the residence and not underground sleeping in some pit. In addition, there would be less traffic and light—less chance for us to be seen conducting our plan.
The dark night breeze whipped cold against my face as we walked to the residence next to the villa. Father Mark unlocked a one-room first-floor office that he knew would be unoccupied. He kept the light off and we took seats next to the window. From here we would have a clear view of the villa.
The plan called for us to wait until later that night to make our move. I opened one of the sandwiches from the food bag Father Mark had packed for us to get us through most of the night. I took a sip of the coffee and it was cold but it would serve its purpose for now. Father Mark moved his chair to the corner and prayed. I found it impossible to keep my mind on anything, least of all prayer. I kept running the song “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” by the Beach Boys in my head and it was making my heart beat faster, and my nerves seemed to be fraying at the edges.
Of course, drinking cup after cup of strong Italian coffee didn’t help either. I glanced at the clock on the desk and it read eleven thirty in the evening. Time to move. I harbored some doubts about the plan but any concern was a luxury at this point. Conducting it at night, when we had strong evidence that the cardinals were now Gloamings, meant they would certainly be awake at this time and on guard. But a daytime attack would mean that the entire Vatican apparatus would be awake and at work. It was a bigger risk to take.
I took out a pair of binoculars and scanned the third floor of the villa. Obviously, the shades were drawn and no light could be seen from any of the windows. In fact, it seemed that the windows were covered in some kind of black paint. I could not make it out.
A People's History of the Vampire Uprising Page 33