Lux Domini: Thriller: A Catherine Bell Story

by Alex Thomas

  She brushed away a strand of hair from her face and had to smile when she thought of Darius. She couldn’t have had a better mentor. Ever since she had met the priest, she no longer felt abandoned. From the very first time they had met, they had gotten along in the most wondrous way. The patient, wise and fatherly scholar who never forced anything and yet taught her so much. And she, the fearful, defiant child who first had to learn how to manage her gift in an appropriate manner.

  Mentor and student. Father figure and daughter figure. Two soulmates. And yet…

  Catherine took out the photo with which Monti had tried to bring her over to his side and looked at it. At first glance, Darius looked so young in the photograph. But upon further examination, she could see the tiny wrinkles around his eyes and forehead as well as the greying around his temples. His eyes shimmered like mercury. Catherine had noticed this type of shimmer before during the hearings in the Palace of the Inquisition and recently in the Vatican’s secret archives when Ciban had confronted Ben and her with the Gospel of Judas in their hands. Finally, in the Sistine when Ciban slapped down deRossi. The cardinal had discovered the photograph that had fallen from her hands on the marble floor, wiped off Ben’s blood from it and had returned it to her with the words: "I believe this photograph belongs to you, Sister."

  As if in a trance, Catherine had once again stared at the image. Then she had asked the prefect: "Did you know, Eminence?"

  "No," Ciban had said, shaking his head.

  "My mother…the image I had created about my father…" She had then faltered. "I don’t know who I am anymore."

  "Oh yes, you do, Catherine. Darius showed you. And now you are beginning to understand why Cardinal Benelli’s plan could work no other way."

  Catherine emerged from her retrospective thoughts, looked through the car window at the trees that rushed passed and put the photo away with a quiet sigh. She would never know who her real parents were. And Darius was dead. Irrevocably. Yet she had had so many unanswered questions that she would have loved to ask her mentor. Knowing that she would never find the answers pained her. Why did one only realise such things after the people one loves are dead?

  "We’re almost there," said Rinaldo, guiding the car around an extensive curve.

  Catherine’s thoughts returned to last night. Directly after Ben was transported to the hospital and Monti and deRossi had been brought away, a troupe of Vigilanza policemen had shown up to remove any trace of the incident in the Sistine. After Catherine had halfway recovered from the shock, Ciban had taken her back to her room in the Apostolic Palace. When they arrived, he kindly took her hand and said: "I know it sounds hollow and meaningless, Sister. You need time to digest everything…and yet…try to get some sleep."

  "What about you?"

  "I have some work to do." Ciban had shrugged his shoulders and had given her a brief smile. "Would you believe I have a comfortable cot in my office in case of emergency. I can’t quite manage no sleep at all." He paused for a moment as if to say something personal about what had happened, but then he let go of her hand and said instead: "Good night, Sister. Sleep well and sweet dreams."

  Ten minutes later Catherine had fallen into a deep sleep and had dreamed about God knows what. When she awoke from her deep sleep, she had felt miraculously recovered. Even now, hours later in the limousine on the way to Benelli’s villa, she felt as good as new despite all the stress she had experienced.

  Her gaze followed the edge of the woods. This time as the estate emerged among the high trees, it emanated something enigmatic and mysterious like an old castle from whose towers and battlements grotesque hallucinations emerged, but also a kind of hope and strength, aligning with a strange sense of melancholy. Catherine spontaneously thought of Shakespeare’s undying words: "We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep." This phrase described the villa’s aura to a tee and it was exactly this phrase that Darius had once used when they had visited one of the ghostly monastery ruins in Ireland.

  85

  On the large parking lot in front of the open staircase multiple black limousines were waiting, most likely the cars for the Holy Father, Ciban and the Vatican police. The cars’ number plates, however, were neutral. Catherine remembered that the Villa must have gone back to the Ciban clan after Benelli’s death. Benelli had told her that the family had avoided the villa since the death of their family member, Cardinal Ciban’s sister Sarah. She wondered why their meeting had to take here of all places instead of in the Vatican, at Castel Sant’Angelo or at Castel Gandolfo.

  As Catherine ran up the open staircase – Rinaldo attempted to keep most of the rain away with a large umbrella – she had two déjà-vus. In the first she saw herself as she entered the building for the first time with Ben; in the second she watched as two paramedics carried Benelli’s dead body on a stretcher down the steps to an ambulance. Both experiences seemed to be light years away, but in fact it had only happened a few days ago.

  Rinaldo left the umbrella in the entrance hall and led Catherine beyond a large ballroom as they passed through several most magnificent hallways and rooms. As they walked by, Rinaldo explained, among other things, the stucco gallery with scenes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses and select myths from antiquity. Various paintings graced the arch. In one of the representations Catherine believed to recognise Narcissus, who looked at his own reflection with the utmost of love. As she further saw, a divine spiral staircase furnished with double pillars and connecting the first and second floors topped off the villa’s centre. In the depths of the villa there was also a type of dungeon.

  Finally, Rinaldo opened a tall, heavy, ornate door and signalled to Catherine to walk through it. As the young nun entered the room behind it, she held her breath. She was standing in one of the most impressive private libraries she had ever seen. The shelved walls with countless old and new books reached nearly to the colourful ceiling fresco with an abundant gallery interspersed amongst the stacks. Multiple lecterns stood in the middle of the room. Three gigantic globes adorned the corners while elegant spiral stairs led to the gallery in the fourth corner. On the one side ceiling-high window facades could be seen in regular intervals between the shelves that ensured sufficient light. The ceiling fresco showed an allegorical representation of science and faith in addition to the four cardinal virtues in the form of angels: wisdom, justice, strength and temperance.

  As Catherine drew closer, she discovered a sumptuously and abundantly set table with festive burning candles. The Pope and his secretary, Monsignor Massini, who had both been standing by the window looking out of it, approached her with a warm greeting. Leo appeared completely at ease and relaxed as if the strain of the past few days never happened. One could sense the exhaustion in Massini, on the other hand. He quickly said his goodbyes so he could, as he put it, catch up on his beauty sleep. Catherine thought that it was more that the secretary was being driven by an inner demon.

  "Holiness."

  The Pope looked her in the eye. "It is so thoughtful of you to have come, Catherine. Marc…I beg your pardon…Cardinal Ciban will be slightly delayed. He is still meeting with Cardinal Gasperetti." He pointed to the walls of books surrounding them. "Impressive, don’t you agree?"

  Catherine nodded. "To be honest, I’m rather speechless."

  Leo smiled. "You are most likely asking yourself why we have called you here of all places. To get straight to it there is a special reason for it. Come with me. I should like to show you something."

  She followed him up the spiral stairs to the gallery. Once at the top they passed various shelves whose treasures were hidden behind glass until the Pope finally stood still and pointed to the marble floor beneath them.

  "I realise this presentation may seem a tad theatrical, but you can only see it from up here and it is best from this position."

  Catherine followed the Pope’s gaze and her eyes widened. Her dreams! Her visions! The apostolic history was integrated into the marble
floor as a mosaic. The entire mysterious secret in twelve wonderful images.

  "This villa is a special place," explained the Holy Father. "Darius, Benelli and Thea spent quite some time here. Cardinal Monti didn’t know about the significance of this place inside the villa. And His Eminence Cardinal Ciban only first understood the deeper meaning behind this place after his consecration in the Vatican’s secret archives where the original Gospel of Judas Iscariot is kept." The Pope paused for a moment, hesitating before he said: "Sarah, Cardinal Ciban’s sister was a psychic."

  "Sarah was an apostle?"

  "Not directly. But her case was a bit similar to yours, Catherine."

  "Cardinal Benelli told me about her tragic death, a cold case."

  "True. But I know His Eminence is following a trace."

  "After all these years?"

  "He won’t rest until his sister’s murderer is caught, even if he has to go through hell for it. And I mean that literally." The Pope gave the apostolic images on the marble floor another look, then turned to Catherine. "You have gone through hell in the past few days for me, and I don’t know how I can thank you enough for it."

  "Thank Cardinal Benelli, Holiness. Not me. It wasn’t until the confrontation in the Sistine that I grasped his plan at all."

  That was true. It wasn’t until the early morning hours that Catherine became aware of the true importance of the chapel in this fight. The Sistine was not only her favourite place in the Vatican, but also the place of such psychic energy that even non-psychic people could feel. The Popes were chosen in the Sistine in the face of Michelangelo’s fresco of The Last Judgement. It could only be there that the Holy Father could renew the two thousand year old vow to the apostles in a spiritual manner. But that same unbelievable energy that constantly electrified the atmosphere amongst all the colourful art works could also be used against one. With Catherine’s help Benelli made sure of it in the case of Cardinal Monti. In the end, the Sistine’s magic literally burned Monti out within seconds. He was still alive, but he was nothing more than a pile of human wreckage.

  "Your modesty honours you, Sister, but without your support, we would have been utterly powerless."

  "Do you remember Benelli’s letter, Holiness?" She was referring to the letter that the cardinal had left for her, along with the Gospel of Judas, in the Tower of the Winds.

  "Yes, I remember each and every word of it."

  "Cardinal Benelli most likely would not have written it to me if Father Darius hadn’t told him about my gift."

  Leo nodded thoughtfully. "Benelli recognised your potential during the crisis."

  Catherine reached into the interior pocket of her nun’s habit and handed him the old photograph that Monti had left her.

  The Pope looked at the picture, greatly moved. Then he said: "Darius loved you like his own daughter. But neither he nor Benelli can expect you to inherit the position as apostle due to your extraordinary gift. Not even they have the right to do that. Monti has been put out of business, there won’t be any more apostle murders and you have been freed of any further duties regarding my own person."

  "I thank you, Holiness. But what if it isn’t a duty, but rather a gift?"

  "A gift?"

  "You know that all I stand for is modernising the Church. I know you can’t affect that level of change within the Church. That is why you need all the support you can get."

  Six of the Pope’s spiritual advisers were dead. Whether Leo admitted it or not, he needed Catherine’s gift, her mental energy, if he wanted to reach his goal. At least until the murdered spirituals could be replaced. Well then, Catherine could write her books just as easily in Rome.

  The Pope stared at her as if seeing her for the first time. He finally said with a voice filled with emotion: "Cardinal Benelli’s plan extends beyond what I thought possible. But yes, Sister. I accept your offer."

  The library door swung open and Cardinal Ciban entered. When he didn’t see anyone on the ground floor, he looked up toward the gallery. The Pope signalled to him that Catherine and he would come down.

  "I see, Sister, that His Holiness has introduced you to the villa’s secret." Ciban pulled out a chair for Catherine and then took a seat himself at the festively set table. It seemed he must have had a few hours of sleep on his office cot last night. "You know that Cardinal Benelli lived here in the past few years. I think toward the end he knew the villa better than I."

  They ate from the delicious dishes, drank from the selected wine and spoke about heaven and Earth until Leo finally returned to the events of the past few days with a single question.

  "What I still don’t quite understand is this: How did Cardinal Monti get all those names?"

  "Sister Catherine is right, Holiness," explained Ciban. "None of the apostles was a traitor. His Eminence Cardinal Monti exploited his friendship with Pope Innocence to get to the list."

  "Innocence told him the names?"

  The cardinal nodded. "Most likely, he learned of the names on Innocence’s deathbed. At the time they both assumed Monti would be the next Pope…"

  "Something that both Benelli and yourself knew to prevent, much to Monti’s disappointment." The Pope gave Ciban a look.

  The prefect let out a pretend sigh before looking at Catherine. "Bringing us to the next secret you now know, Sister. When Monti lost the papal election, he saw his final chance to gain power through his knowledge about the apostolic myth and their names because he would have been too old by the next election." Ciban lifted his glass in her direction. "Then you showed up, ruining Monti’s plans with your gift. All of those assassinations were for naught."

  Catherine wrinkled her brow. "But couldn’t he have simply had the rest of the apostles killed?"

  Ciban shook his head and put down his wine glass. "Once you arrived on the scene, Monti’s plans rose and fell with your presence. We found a list of names in his apartment. He had in fact only had six of the twelve names. Therefore it is my guess that he pulled it out of Pope Innocence on his deathbed. Innocence must have died before he could mention all of them. Thank God Benelli’s name wasn’t on the list."

  "He would have ruined the Church with his thirst for power," said the Pope simply.

  "At any rate he wanted to sway the balance of powers in his favour, Holiness," explained Ciban. "For one, to continue Pope Innocence’s political direction and for another to thwart your plans for the future. I am sorry, Holiness, but your path to bring the Church into the twenty-first century will be even harder to manage."

  "May I ask what these plans look like in the near future?" asked Catherine gently.

  The Pope gave her a meaningful look and a wink. "Just you wait, Catherine. I can tell you this much: Your engagement within the Church will play a significant role in its evolution."

  Catherine couldn’t help but give Ciban a questioning look. What did the prefect think about all this? Could the Pope speak so openly in his presence? "I always thought you were a conservative, or even a traditionalist, Eminence."

  "Compared to you, Sister, I am. But compared to Cardinal Monti or Cardinal Gasperetti, I am a progressive member of the clergy."

  "Then you sympathise with Lux?" she dared to ask.

  "Don’t think in such black and white categories of good and evil. Lux is an important antithesis to Opus. Slowly but surely the order has overshot the mark in terms of the balance between both orders, even with a conservative man such as Gasperetti at the helm. Simply put: power is seductive."

  Leo nodded. "I’m afraid you are right."

  "By the way, Cardinal Gasperetti…" Ciban pulled out a note from the inside pocket of his cassock and handed it to Catherine. Did she see a gleam in those steel grey eyes of his? "Memorise both of these passwords. Then burn this paper." He pointed to the candle, pushing a decorative ashtray toward her.

  "What are they for?"

  "These codes are the key to Father Darius’ biography and the monograph in the Lux database, LUKE. Of course these files a
ren’t the last of the secrets, but they will help you better understand your own past and the legacy you may possibly inherit."

  Catherine raised an eyebrow. "Cardinal Gasperetti simply handed you these codes?"

  Ciban answered her question with a mysterious smile. "Tell me, Sister, what do you think of this wine?"

  Epilogue

  Catherine didn’t like the atmosphere, but less the smell of hospitals, but when Cardinal Ciban called her to let her know Ben had awoken from his coma, she dropped everything and went immediately to the Gemelli clinic. When she entered Ben’s hospital room, she was happy to see he was no longer attached to an IV or any other cable for that matter. She hugged him hard, not wanting to ever let him go again until he protested with a crooked smile and a gentle indication that he might otherwise suffocate should she chose not to release him immediately.

  "I had the strangest dream," he said. "In the Sistine…I saw you, Darius, Benelli, Thea, Monti and all the others. I now know it wasn’t just a dream. His Eminence told me everything. I still can’t believe Cardinal Monti was the mastermind behind it all."

  "None of us did. Yes, Monti was a schemer, but a murderer?"

  Ben sat up and looked at her. "I saw the photograph."

  Catherine blinked in disbelief. On the other hand, what did it matter? Ben was and would always be like a brother to her. "I am going to need your help," she said with a sigh.

  "You’ve got it. Unconditionally."

  He asked her to open the nightstand’s drawer, in which she found a book: Darius’ Bible. She pulled out the Bible to give it to Ben, but he refused. "You take it. Please."

  "But it belongs to you." Darius had bequeathed it to Ben.

  The archivist shook his head. "I now know it was always meant for you. Its true power can only unfold in your hands." He looked at her in silence for a few seconds, then explained: "You have made quite an impression on Cardinal Ciban."