The Goliath Chamber - Vatican Knights 24 (2021)

by Rick Jones

  The Bangladeshi knew that he needed to act immediately in order to set things right.

  Hurrying down the boulevard with a sense of dealing with something of great importance, the Bangladeshi moved to save his future.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  The Vatican, Vatican City

  After Kimball had been informed that Shari’s condition needed to be observed overnight at Gemelli Hospital in Rome, he immediately made his way to Vatican City. What he discovered to be unusual were the quiet streets and avenues. He could hear the soft whistling of the wind as it caromed off the buildings and skipped off the boulevards. But when he reached the expanse of St. Peter’s Square and saw that he was its only occupant, the open vastness made him realize how truly alone he was.

  After making his way to the Apostolic Palace, he was ushered to the pontiff’s chamber by a trio of Swiss Guards. As soon as he stood before the pope’s quarters, one of the guard’s knocked on the door and opened it without waiting for a response. From his position on the threshold, Kimball could see the burning lamp on the pontiff’s desk, but no Pope Clement XV.

  Stepping inside, the door closed softly behind him with Kimball’s clothes appearing dust laden and his collar removed, the Vatican Knight appearing as though he did not belong. At first, Kimball thought he was alone, but then he noticed a darkened mass standing on the balcony that overlooked the Square.

  “I saw you coming,” the pope said from the shadows. “So, I told the guards to let you in.” Stepping off the balcony and into the room’s bathing light, the pontiff looked at Kimball with an emotionless stare.

  Then from Kimball: “I assume that the threat has been neutralized.”

  “No thanks to you,” said the pontiff. Pope Clement XV crossed the room and offered his hand and the Fisherman’s Ring for Kimball to kiss in homage. But Kimball boldly declined and took a seat before the pontiff’s desk.

  The pope, lowering his hand, took his papal seat. “In a time when the church needed you most,” the pontiff began evenly, “when the situation appeared dangerously critical, you absconded from service. That action is cause for dismissal. And believe me, Kimball, when I say that I’ll bring this matter up with the Society of Seven and ask for your full removal.”

  Kimball gave a half smile. “Now you’re going to involve the Society of Seven in your decision making, when you refused their input for months regarding missions? What are you trying to do, dot your Is and cross your Ts?” Kimball leaned forward. “My team understands my position. It’s not like I walked away from this by choice. I walked away because I was forced to.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Really. And don’t sit there and act like you don’t know.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “I think you do,” Kimball returned.

  “It matters not,” stated the pontiff. “The fact remains: you left Vatican City when the church needed you most. And for that, Kimball, consequences must be dealt. The rules apply to all Vatican Knights who abscond from service. And you’re no different, since I believe you would agree with me on that if another had absconded from duty . . . or am I wrong?”

  “I see,” said Kimball. “If you can’t get rid of me one way, then you’ll get rid of me another. This time, your ruling will come by way of the handbook and its governing laws, right?”

  “You committed an egregious act under the tenets. Even the Vatican Knights will have no other choice but to see the just nature in the act of discharging you from duty. The law is clear on this.”

  Kimball’s one-sided smile remained, a rather snarky look.

  “Do you see humor in this?” the pontiff asked him. “I certainly don’t.”

  “You set me up.”

  “I did no such thing.”

  “If the Nocturnal Saints didn’t come through for you, then you’d use the law of the church against me for breaking a rule of conduct. You had me no matter what.”

  The pontiff appeared perplexed, “The Nocturnal Saints?”

  “Oh, come on,” Kimball said. “Give it up already.”

  “I’ll say this again: I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  Kimball appraised the Fisherman’s Ring on the pope’s finger. And then: “Since you like rings so much—” After letting his words hang, Kimball reached into his shirt pocket and withdrew what sounded like trinkets, that of metal clinking against metal, then tossed the jeweled items across the pontiff’s desk. They rolled like dice across the surface and came to a halt with the ruby-faced ring facing the pope. Four other rings, all gold with one having dried blood on it, glimmered beneath the ray of his desk lamp. Here were the rings belonging to the Nocturnal Saints. “How do you like those rings?” Kimball added as a dig.

  The pontiff did not appear startled as Kimball believed he would. In fact, he remained stoically disinterested. “And what are these?” he simply asked the Vatican Knight while pointing at the rings.

  “Let’s call them the spoils of war,” Kimball answered.

  The pontiff looked at Kimball. “This . . . changes . . . nothing,” he finally told him. “The rule of law still stands. I will call into council members of the Cardinal Court, the Society of Seven, and push for your dismissal.”

  Kimball got to his feet. “Yeah, well, good luck with that.”

  Pope Clement XV raised his hand for Kimball to kiss the Fisherman’s Ring in homage of the pope’s position.

  After snickering, Kimball pointed to the pontiff’s ring and said, “Not unless you want me to add that ring to the rings already sitting on your desk.”

  Slowly, the pope retracted his hand.

  As Kimball was closing the door to leave the chamber, the pontiff called after him.

  “So that you know, Kimball, in your cowardly absence, Isaiah and Nehemiah stepped up and performed valiantly as Vatican Knights should have. Unfortunately . . . they were lost while saving the city.”

  Kimball appeared stunned. “What?”

  “How much clearer can I be? They were lost while saving the city. Both men, it appears, had perished while attempting to rid the territory of the weapon.”

  “They’re dead?”

  “While in the service as Vatican Knights. Bold and brave. Unlike the man who stands before me.” When the pontiff spoke, it sounded as though he was purposely trying to be malicious and spiteful, the tone apparent. The man wanted to hurt Kimball at his core.

  Casting his eyes to the floor, Kimball Hayden quietly closed the door behind him to leave the pontiff alone.

  Then, while appraising the rings, Pope Clement XV swept his arm across the desktop, knocking off the lamp and the rings. As soon as the lamp struck the floor the lightbulb popped, the room now entirely dark.

  The pontiff rose from his seat and went to the balcony that overlooked St. Peter’s Square. Though he had Kimball Hayden on the ropes, it wasn’t enough. He wanted the man dead and the thorn that the Vatican Knight was forever removed from his side. And as mounting anger and rage consumed him wholly, Pope Clement XV started to bang on the railing with the heel of his hand again and again and again. He denied the pain as he continued to strike the stone banister, his rage refusing to abate.

  Then something strange and odd began to eclipse him, something that finally caused him to stop his actions. Pope Clement XV could feel a severe headache coming on with pain so intense that it blurred his vision to the point that he became whirlwind dizzy. Then as his body started to grow numb, he also became incredibly weak and lost his balance, the man falling to the balcony floor. The stars above him swirled crazily as confusion began to set in. Nothing made sense to him with the simplest things appearing difficult and nonsensical. And as he lay there looking skyward, he tried to speak. But his utterances came out as garble and throat clicks. And as the passing seconds seemed eternal in
this pain, Pope Clement XV finally slipped into a coma from a hemorrhagic stroke when a high number of blood vessels inside the brain ruptured in perfect unison.

  Finally, Pope Clement XV received that divine interference he had prayed for . . .

  . . . But not in the way that he had expected.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  Kimball’s Quarters

  Vatican City

  When Kimball Hayden returned to his quarters, he felt numb all over. Not in a physical sense, but in mind and spirit. He had left Isaiah and Nehemiah to be the sentries of Vatican City during his absence. And as Vatican Knights, they had performed their duties as required with the price of admission into Heaven fully paid. Nevertheless, Kimball felt the pang of survivor’s remorse. He left the jurisdiction of the Vatican with the noble intention to save Shari, but it would never be enough to counterbalance the loss of two lives that it took in order to save hers with the cost heavy.

  Sitting on the edge of his cot with his eyes cast to the floor, Kimball lifted his head until they locked and fixed on the stained-glass image of the Virgin Mother. With his hands clasped and his fingers already interlocked in an attitude of prayer, he whispered, “I have never asked you for anything in regard to myself. Not a thing. And should miracles exist, no matter how small or insignificant they may seem, I need one now. I need to know that He’s listening to me. I need to know that He hears me and that He’ll give me this one gift, even though I may not deserve it. I need something to go on because I’m at the end of my rope. I’ve been here before and I’ve clawed my way back. But I’m not sure if I have the strength anymore.”

  The room remained silent.

  Then: “Others should not have to pay for my weaknesses. Isaiah and Nehemiah, they were good people who deserved better. Why them and not me when I’m the who carries the burden of past sins? Is this my Hell? To continue this way in Darkness with feelings that weigh me down. This depression?”

  The welcoming arms of the Virgin Mother remained locked within the chips of stained glass. Her encompassing smile was frozen and forever locked, something that always made Kimball feel comfortable while he sat within the shadows of his personal darkness.

  Now, there was a blanketing numbness as comfort escaped not only him but his quarters, leaving him feeling alone and abandoned. In observance, he considered that the Virgin Mother was nothing more than an image of colored glass when she appeared to have been so much more. And this was what he wanted to believe more than anything—that she was so much more than fragments of glass pieced together.

  Leaning forward to place his head within his hands, he cried out so that his screams echoed off his chamber walls. Then as he laid down on the cot, he broke and sobbed because at the end of the day he was still human with human emotions.

  While he was caught up in a midst of cathartic purging, the Vatican Knight, with the Virgin Mother watching over him, eventually fell asleep.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  The Tyrrhenian Sea

  Six Hours Later

  The Corps of the Port Captaincies is the equivalent of America’s Coast Guard. At the moment of the registered blast, which was picked up by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, three maritime vessels were launched to investigate the area where flotsam was discovered by a drone three miles east of the blast’s epicenter.

  As soon as the ships reached the debris field and the morning sun was burning bright, a helicopter was quickly dispatched from the deck. After making several passes over the area, they discovered a life form waving a hand. But as the chopper drew closer, they discovered that it was actually two life forms who were wading with one corralling another, a person who was obviously injured.

  After a rescue basket had been lowered, the injured man was loaded and hoisted aboard the aircraft. When a harness was lowered a second time, the man secured himself and gave a thumbs-up, the lever thereafter pulling him up and into the bay.

  What had drawn quizzical looks from the rescuers was the fact that both men were wearing the Roman Catholic collars of priests, yet they appeared to be more militant than men of pious nature.

  One of the two, Nehemiah, had his broken arm mended and stabilized with a medical splint. Whereas Isaiah, whose breathing was labored due to three busted ribs, had them bound by a tight wrapping of gauze.

  While the ships returned to port the commander asked pointed questions. But the Vatican Knights referred them to the principals of the Vatican, who summarily informed the superior officer that no questions would be answered because these men operated under the parameters of Vatican Intelligence, which was fully recognized by Roman authority.

  Once the ships had docked, Isaiah and Nehemiah were summarily transported to Gemelli Hospital where they would fully recover.

  * * *

  When Kimball Hayden awoke, he did so inside a strange atmosphere. The room appeared lighter and less dense. And the light of the Virgin Mother was strong and warm and welcoming. As he sat up, he received a sense that something wonderful had happened. What it was he could neither determine nor understand the cause of this reaction, only that it was.

  And when he stood, he did so within the light that was cast through the stained-glass window of the Virgin Mary, whose arms extended towards him in invitation. The biblical beam of light had alit on his chest and over his heart, the feeling one of long-awaited comfort.

  Then as he ventured from his chamber to see people milling through St. Peter’s Square as though the world had finally come to a sense of normalcy, Kimball was informed by a roaming bishop that Isaiah and Nehemiah had been lifted from the sea, and both were recovering at Gemelli Hospital.

  On a side note, he had also been informed that the pontiff was taken by ambulance to Gemelli as well, his situation dire. It appeared that His Holiness had suffered a hemorrhagic stroke and was lying in a coma.

  Though Kimball did not wish harm upon most, there were some whom he believed deserved what they received from what they put out in life. Pope Clement XV was a cruel individual who used his station as pope to administer dark policies that were manifested by even darker ambitions. He even went as far as to kill a man while trying to reach the greatest height of the papacy, only to justify his action in the end.

  But the Light had truly come when Kimball learned that Isaiah and Nehemiah would live to serve God for times to come. And hopefully, together as a team.

  Looking skyward to feel the morning sun upon his face, Kimball smiled. Hours ago, he asked the Virgin Mother for a miracle—anything to show him that God was listening, even if it was on an infinitesimal level.

  He was.

  A miracle had been granted with the continuing lives of Isaiah and Nehemiah to show for his efforts by simply thinking: Ask—and perhaps—you shall receive.

  In the sunlight, Kimball’s smile broadened.

  His life, at the moment, was good.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  Gemelli Hospital

  Rome, Italy

  On the following day as Shari Cohen was being treated for her concussion, and as Isaiah and Nehemiah were being tended to at Gemelli Hospital, Pope Clement XV found himself caught within a struggle of his own.

  The acoustic-tiled ceiling.

  The saline bag.

  The lines that connected him to machines that kept him alive.

  The pontiff awoke from his coma and found himself within a lucid period of time. From the corner of his eye, he saw something wicked making its way to his bedside. It weaved and undulated through space, a dark and swirling cloud that morphed into shapes of strange and menacing beasts that were both terrifying and demon-like. And then this dark mass broke into comma-like wisps of black vapor, only to materialize into something else that was hideously demonic in nature.

  The pontiff’s eyes popped with alarm as the shape took on a form over his bed and over his impotent body. And in his mind’s eye, Pope Clement XV imagined the evil of golden-yellow eyes with
black vertical slits for pupils, looking down on him with judgment.

  With his body almost entirely paralyzed, the pontiff was able to raise a palsied hand in an attempt to ward off the mass that only he could see, something that was horrible and dark, with his hand passing through the constantly reshaping shadow.

  Pope Clement’s eyes ignited with absolute terror as he tried to scream, but the tubes obstructed his pleas somewhere at the back of his throat. His hand continued to fight off something only his mind could visualize, the Grim Reaper coming to call. And then there was the stench of body-rot and feces and fire and brimstone all comingling into a raw and unsavory smell that squeezed his stomach. The black mass above him continued to reform and redesign itself into bizarre and revolting shapes. Yet the judgmental eyes remained riveted within this constantly shifting mist.

  Pope Clement continued his pointless efforts to fight what cannot be fought against, the pooling mass coming to claim his soul. Then within the pontiff’s field of vision, two tendrils extended from the black mass. They were long and thin and as pliable as the arms of a squid and jellylike in movement. And then they reached out for the pontiff and embraced him. Pope Clement XV could feel his chest being constricted and his lungs unable to draw oxygen through the tubes. His face turned crimson, and then purple, though his palsied hand still continued to fight the good fight, only for it to fall limp by his side.

  Beside him, the alarm to his heart monitor sounded off as a keen wail.

  * * *

  From behind a pane of glass that divided her station from the pope’s room, a nurse had seen the pontiff waving his hand frantically through the air. To her, he appeared to be fighting off something that lingered above him, only there was nothing there. She could see his terrified eyes, all blood-stitched and raw with that thick and rheumy look to them. And that hand, that clawed hand, swiping the open air as though he was in a fight for his life and for his soul, only for his hand to fall in defeat.