The Second Coming

by John Heubusch

  Bondurant stared up at the ceiling for a moment and tried not to squirm. This was a reference to Bondurant’s ousting in disgrace years before as a professor at Princeton; he’d slept with one of his undergrads, who, as bad luck would have it, also happened to be the daughter of one of the university’s deans.

  “I jest, Jon,” Harrington said. He slapped Bondurant’s knee to lighten the mood. “And I digress. These Watchers began to lust for earthly women. They married. They intermingled their blood.”

  “Blood?” Bondurant asked.

  “That’s right. Their angel juice. Their heavenly hemoglobin. Their blood. Why the look?” Harrington asked.

  “No reason,” Bondurant said.

  “So, as I was saying, they created new races with this blood. And against God’s instructions, they became teachers and revealed the secrets of the universe—science, the arts, technologies—all things that humans were meant to learn, but gradually, over time, on their own.”

  “I feel a fall coming on,” Bondurant said.

  “A big one. Genesis six. Once the Watchers started to procreate, creating giant half-beast, half-men called Nephilim, God had seen enough. Time for a flood.”

  “The flood?” Bondurant asked. “You mean the Great Flood?”

  “That would be the one. Noah, build me an ark! A big ark! Fifty cubits long, thirty cubits wide! Fast as you can!” Harrington shouted as he spread his arms wide to portray the size of a giant ship. “It was the Nephilim that God wanted destroyed in the Great Flood, not mankind.”

  “So what happened to the Watchers? Swept away at sea?”

  “We could only wish, Jon. The Nephilim, they’re gone forever. But the Watchers, they were bound to what the book of Daniel calls ‘the valleys of the earth’ until Judgment Day. They were unable to be drowned or killed.”

  “You’re saying they still exist?”

  “They are said to still roam the earth, and they’re what’s left of Satan’s power here. It’s why there is evil in the world. Sometimes appearing in human form—what we call angelophanies—and sometimes in spirit form. They’re wicked smart. Truly world-class deceivers.”

  “So, the opposite of guardian angels?”

  “There you have it, Jon. Most people today believe in the concept of guardian angels that look out for them in times of trouble. These Watchers are their counterparts, guardian angels for Satan’s use, as it were. When we see great acts of evil by mankind in this world today, it’s Satan’s work. And some, myself included, believe that behind man’s greatest tragedies is the work of a Watcher who seeks to destroy God’s creation. They’re the proverbial devil on your shoulder, whether tempting you to cheat on your wife or to push the button to start a nuclear war.”

  “The devil made me do it,” Bondurant said.

  “Yes. They seek to control and ruin, but it’s not that simple. There has been a great deal of speculation, from the interpretation of several biblical passages, that they incarnate. They can take on human bodies and possess powers that go beyond evil persuasion. They can wreak havoc in many ways—through the creation of illusion, the stirring of confusion, acts that lead to horrific, truly tragic events.”

  “Exactly what do you mean, Tom?” Bondurant stirred uncomfortably in his seat.

  Harrington looked up toward the ceiling and thought for a moment. “This is the part where you’re going to tell me I’m simply high.”

  “Try me.”

  “It’s the unexplainable, Jon. They’re not acts of God. They’re the opposite. An airliner full of people goes down over the ocean in the dead of night for no good reason. No call for help. A perfectly healthy child of loving parents goes to bed one evening and doesn’t wake in the morning. Reason unknown. A killer virus without a cause or cure mysteriously explodes from no apparent source, inexplicably vanishing when it’s had its fill of human loss. Do you remember the Spanish flu?”

  “Not personally. It struck a long time ago,” Bondurant said.

  “In 1918, to be exact. It came right out of nowhere and lasted for several years. Nearly one hundred million people died, about six percent of the world’s population at the time. It spread all the way from the tropics to the Arctic. A hundred years later, scientists are still baffled by its origin. There are some credible immunologists who are starting to make comparisons to this mystery virus that’s indiscriminately killing its way across the Indian subcontinent. A half million dead so far is what I’ve heard. There are similarities.”

  Bondurant leaned in, highly interested. It was what he’d come for. “In what respect?”

  “Unknown origin. No scientific explanation. Highly lethal. Symptoms similar to the bubonic plague. Bad angel blood,” Harrington said. “And here’s the tricky part: I’ve heard that the stronger your immune system, the quicker you die. It apparently creates a ‘cytokine storm’ effect, where your body overreacts to the virus. You essentially kill yourself. If that’s not the devil’s work, I don’t know what is.”

  Bondurant sat in still silence for a moment. When he closed his eyes for several seconds, as if to escape the moment, a sinking feeling in his stomach signaled that he couldn’t avoid his responsibility and the journey he knew likely lay ahead.

  “Now, Jon,” Harrington said while he slapped Bondurant’s shoulder as if to snap him from a spell. “Fill me in. Why the sudden interest in Watchers? Why all this blood on your mind?”

  “It’s a long story, Tom.” Bondurant said. He leaned back and sank deeper into the couch as if seeking a place to hide. “I don’t think even you would believe me if I tried.”

  Bondurant watched as Harrington fumbled through the pocket of his sport coat behind him. He appeared delighted to find another joint. He placed his feet up on his desk beside him, lit the joint, and looked at Bondurant with raised eyebrows.

  “Okay, then, Tom,” Bondurant said, staring intently back at him through the haze. “The story begins with blood on the Shroud—the authentic Shroud of Turin.”

  Chapter 12

  The Vatican

  Father De Santis bent over slightly and kissed the massive gold ring of Pope Augustine for what must have been the hundredth time in his life. He noticed that the pontiff’s aged hands trembled more than usual. It was rumored that Augustine, who’d recently attended to a grueling schedule of duties, had been quietly ailing. The pope’s special assistant hadn’t seen the Holy Father in a month.

  De Santis had been summoned to the appartamento nobile, the pontiff’s residence on the top floor of the Apostolic Palace overlooking the splendor of Vatican City. Just a few floors below them sat some of the greatest artistic treasures the world had ever known. A few steps from the Sistine Chapel, the site where Michelangelo had painted his glorious ceiling and The Last Judgment, was the Pietà. Michelangelo’s sculpture was commissioned during the Renaissance and was the only work of art ever signed by the artist. It depicted the body of Jesus Christ in the lap of the Virgin Mary following his crucifixion.

  While De Santis customarily sat during his visits in the small living room adjacent to the pope’s corner bedroom, today he was escorted by the pope down the hallway to Augustine’s private library, a more formal room where they had never sat together before. It was an unusual place for them to meet. The library, comfortably arranged with deep-red velvet furniture on massive marble-slab floors intricately inlaid with stone, contained more than twenty thousand rare books, the pontiff’s private collection. Centered on the wall behind them was an enormous painting in a bright gold frame of the serene, iconic face of the Black Madonna.

  He was invited by the pontiff to take a seat. De Santis paused briefly to take a look out the famous window from which Augustine greeted pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square each Sunday morning. Through this window, many who had traveled great distances got a once-in-a-lifetime glimpse of the man believed by Catholics the world over to be Christ’s messenger on earth. While De Santis had more than a clue to why he, one of the pope’s most trusted advisers, had bee
n summoned on this warm summer afternoon, he knew the change of venue from their usual meeting place meant their conversation would carry special importance.

  After an exchange of pleasantries, the pope stared silently toward the many bookcases across the room. He said nothing for nearly a minute, as if reflecting on a thought he had considered for a long while.

  De Santis, nervous, began to tremble. He could bear the silence no more. “Holy Father. About Barcelona,” De Santis began. “I—”

  “Your ambitions are no secret to me,” the pope said. “And they are not the reason I have asked you to come today.”

  De Santis was surprised and relieved.

  Augustine continued. “You are aware of the Vatican’s participation in the news conference being held in America next week, are you not?” He nervously spun the ring on his left hand around his finger several times as he spoke.

  “I am, Holy Father,” De Santis replied. “It is a day for which we have all prayed for some time. I’m thankful to see it come.”

  “Yes; this American scientist, this Dr. Bondurant, has provided us with his draft statement. We’ve reviewed it, and it appears quite satisfactory to us. Here,” the pope said as he pulled a piece of paper from a leather valise that sat on a small coffee table between them. “Have a look for yourself.”

  De Santis scanned the document quickly and looked at the pontiff. “A sufficient admission, even an apology, I would say,” De Santis said. He turned away from the pope and shook his head.

  “What is the matter, Giancarlo?” the pope asked.

  “I still can’t believe that my Domenika, my star student at the Gregorian University, could fall in with this man. You no doubt remember the Jozef Memo, the document Domenika wrote that summarized his abuse as a child by one of our own?” De Santis said.

  “I do.” Augustine nodded his head in sympathy.

  “If Domenika’s analysis is to be believed, this Bondurant is a hollow man. I can understand his lashing out at the Church for what happened to him. I can’t understand his lack of candor as to why.”

  “Domenika has since disavowed that dossier, the one she wrote,” the pope said.

  “Yes, well, she did the inexcusable: She fell in love with her subject. I suppose stranger things have happened. At least now something’s been salvaged.”

  The pope slowly rubbed his temples with his forefingers as if he were in unusual pain. “Well, we have lit upon the subject for which I’ve summoned you,” he said. “There is much to discuss, but when I conclude, I am going to seek your help.”

  “Of course, Your Holiness. You will have it, as always.”

  De Santis was anxious to hear of his charge. Any assignment successfully achieved for the pontiff would only further redound to his credit and the possibility of bishophood someday.

  The pope nodded silently. Over the next twenty minutes, he relayed a story to De Santis that the priest was stunned he’d never heard before. The Vatican could be a compartmentalized palace, where secrets hidden within secrets passed down by only a few were kept for centuries. De Santis thought his long-standing friendship with the pope and his chair at the Gregorian University, created for him by Augustine himself, had made him privy to even the most confidential of subjects.

  He learned of the discovery of the “Revelation of the Sindon,” an ancient codex buried deep within the Vatican’s archives for centuries. The information it contained proved beyond all doubt the authenticity of the Church’s most revered relic, the Shroud of Turin. Notwithstanding the Church’s knowledge of such an important piece of history, it had been the pontiff’s personal decision to agree with the counsel of his Commission of Bishops, who had recommended withholding the information revealed in the codex—a veritable ancient autopsy report on Christ himself—from the Church’s flock and the world. Instead, a plan had been hatched to allow for an unprecedented scientific examination of the Shroud, the burial cloth of Jesus Christ. The Vatican aimed not only to prove the validity of the artifact to a skeptical public but also to embarrass its longtime critics, Dr. Bondurant chief among them. His bestselling books criticizing Christian doctrine had been a sore spot with the Vatican for years. The pope explained to De Santis that his bishops’ advice and his own decision to embarrass Bondurant through such a plan had turned out to be a grave mistake, one he had come to regret.

  “You remember Father Parenti, don’t you?” the pope asked De Santis. “One of our more obscure librarians for several years?”

  “I do, Your Holiness,” De Santis said. “The little one with the terrible affliction in his spine.”

  Just as De Santis spoke, a tall but crooked figure slowly crossed the library entrance. He had a pronounced limp in his walk and balanced a delicate white china tea set on a tray in both hands that looked to be in peril of tilting over with every step. With his neck bent and his head seemingly fixed permanently toward the floor, the sullen figure arrived at the coffee table between them, unable to look up. De Santis noticed a slow stream of drool at the corner of the mouth of the disfigured servant-priest with unnaturally bulging eyes. He watched with pity as the tea service clanked noisily and nearly crashed onto the table before them. As hot tea splashed and cookies tumbled, De Santis looked away out of deference to the decrepit waiter.

  “That will be all, Father Barsanti,” the pope said. He slowly shook his head in pity. When the twisted priest had shuffled silently away and was clear of the room, the pontiff spoke again.

  “It’s a long story about Father Barsanti, Giancarlo,” Augustine said. “And an even more interesting one involving little Father Parenti and the miracle of his healing. It’s as if they’ve traded places, he and Barsanti. There is difficult history between them, but that is for some other time. For now, let me continue.”

  “Of course, Your Holiness,” De Santis said.

  “I had the chance to sit with our Father Parenti for hours some time ago,” the pope said. “You’ll recall he was assigned to the Vatican’s council when it looked over Dr. Bondurant’s shoulder during his examination of the Shroud.”

  “Yes,” De Santis said. “I know he was with Domenika in Turin when the investigation took place.”

  “He sat in the same chair as you do now,” Augustine said. “And he came to reveal a great many things, none of which have gone further than this room.”

  De Santis’s eyes grew wide.

  The pope continued. “Apparently, Dr. Bondurant’s study team, a renowned group of scientists, had been infiltrated.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” De Santis said.

  “Infiltrated by someone in league with a cult. I’ve no doubt you know their name. They are the Demanians.”

  “The cloning sect?” De Santis asked.

  “One and the same,” the pope said. “They pretend to be concerned with mankind’s resurrection, but the deplorable science they practice is free of any human value whatsoever.”

  “Indeed.”

  “This scientist in question,” Augustine said, “the one in league with the cult, a Dr. Sehgal, came to betray Bondurant. According to Father Parenti, he not only provided the basis of false evidence to discredit our most holy Shroud but he engaged in another, graver act of treachery that is cause for even greater concern.”

  The pope looked about him. He pulled his chair close enough to De Santis to ensure that his words held the import of a secret. De Santis leaned to within inches of the pontiff’s lips, so close he could smell his breath.

  “What is it, Holy Father?”

  “This scientist, the famous Dr. Ravi Sehgal, a biologist and geneticist, was on a quest, as it were,” the pope said. “His intent was to steal specks of blood from the Shroud in order to retrieve DNA.”

  De Santis closed his eyes. “You mean to—”

  The pontiff would not let him finish. “Yes, an attempt to clone from this blood our savior Jesus Christ himself,” Augustine said. He shook his head.

  De Santis tapped his foot on the marble floo
r. “Your Holiness, I know this crazed sect. I have studied them. Jesus Christ is but a prophet to them, not the risen Lord.”

  “Yes.”

  “They hold the view that Christ Jesus was sent by the Severin—extraterrestrial gods, as it were—along with Moses, Buddha, and others, to instruct mankind, to guide us toward an everlasting life through—”

  “Cloning,” the pontiff whispered.

  “Surely you’re not telling me this scientist was successful,” De Santis said as he stared directly into the pope’s eyes.

  “Yes and no,” Augustine said as he looked away and stared toward the floor.

  “I don’t understand,” De Santis said.

  “It’s impossible for the spiritual soul to be cloned. This we know,” the pope said. “But these Demanians, they have apparently succeeded in cloning a physical specimen from remains taken from the Shroud. But according to Parenti, the blood they used is not that of Christ our savior. There are apparently two different sources of blood to be found on the sacred Shroud. They have secretly given birth to a child from a second source with no relation to the savior at all.”

  De Santis was incredulous. “And these Demanians, they know this? They know they have cloned the wrong being?”

  “Not to our knowledge. You have heard of Hans Meyer?” the pope asked.

  “The head of the sect?”

  “Yes. Bondurant’s discovery of two different sources of DNA has remained a secret from him. As far as we know, Mr. Meyer, the sworn enemy of our Christian faith, believes he is the ward of the clone of Jesus himself.”

  De Santis shook his head again.

  “There is more, I’m afraid,” Augustine said. “Your Domenika—our Domenika—has been caught up in all of this. She was of the mind that she had conceived a child by Bondurant. She had not. This sect found a way to trick her, to drug her, to inseminate her and fool her into carrying to term a child she thought to be Bondurant’s.”

  De Santis checked himself. He’d let out a groan so loud he thought he might have been heard across St. Peter’s Square. He could read in the pope’s aged eyes how concerned he was for Domenika, someone De Santis had mentored as his favorite student for years. “Domenika was right from the start,” the pope said as he cupped his hands to his face in sorrow. “I assigned her to watch over Dr. Bondurant and his investigation. She warned us away from the path we chose, our effort to embarrass those like Bondurant whom we called our enemies. All of this has led to real trouble for her and, perhaps, the world.” Augustine paused again. He pressed his palms hard against his temples as though to relieve pressure.