by Simon Toyne
‘No, it’s Reis. I’ve got some news for you.’
Arkadian blew out his frustration at the windscreen in a long stream of air. ‘Is it good news?’
‘It’s. . intriguing. I just sneaked into the lab and had a peek at the DNA fingerprint to see how things were shaping up. I’ve lined up the girl’s buccal sample with one from the monk. It’s about halfway through the electrophoresis, but I fluorized it anyway to see how the strands were separating.’
‘I don’t know what any of that means. Just tell me: do they match?’
‘They’ve still got a way to go before they’re fully extruded, but the way it’s looking now I’d say they’re more than just a match, they’re identical. Which is odd.’
‘Why? It backs up her story.’
‘Yeah, it does. But I was kind of expecting the results to prove the girl wasn’t the monk’s sister.’
‘How come?’
‘Because in the entire recorded history of conjoined twins there has never been a single case where they were different sexes. Genetically they have to be the same gender because they’re effectively one person.’
‘So it’s not possible?’
Reis paused. ‘Medically speaking, it’s extremely unlikely.’
‘But not impossible?’
‘No. There’re plenty of recorded cases of dual sex characteristics in individuals — hermaphrodites and such; and considering the religious slant on this whole case, I guess if you believe in a virgin birth it leaves the door wide open for the possibility of all sorts of. .’
‘Miracle?’
‘I was going to say “unexplained phenomena”.’
‘Isn’t that the same thing?’
Reis said nothing.
‘So, based on the evidence, you think the girl’s telling the truth?’
Reis paused again, weighed down with the natural scepticism of the scientist. ‘Yes,’ he said finally, ‘I think she is. I didn’t until I saw the results of the DNA match, but you can’t fake that.’
Arkadian smiled, pleased that the trust he’d put in the girl had not been misplaced. He was now convinced more than ever that she was the key to the whole thing. ‘Do me a favour, would you?’ he asked. ‘Could you add all this to the case file and I’ll go through it when I get back to the office.’
‘Sure. No sweat. Where are you now?’
Arkadian glanced up at the static traffic jammed into the narrow streets leading to the Garden District. ‘Still looking for the dead monk,’ he said. ‘Though a dead man could move faster than me at the moment. How’re things back there? The press got bored yet?’
‘Are you kidding, there’s hundreds of them out there now. Bet you can’t wait for the six o’clock news.’
‘Oh, sure,’ Arkadian replied, thinking of the inevitable MONK’S BODY SNATCHED FROM UNDER COPS’ NOSES headlines. ‘Goodbye, Reis,’ he said, and hung up before he could say anything more. He turned to the plain-clothes officer sitting silently next to him. ‘Think I might take a stroll,’ he said, slipping off his safety belt. ‘You’ve got the address, I’ll meet you there.’
He twisted out of the passenger seat before the driver had time to answer and started walking up the street, weaving between slow-moving cars, earning himself an extended lean on some-one’s horn and the finger from a van driver. Walking felt good. It shook loose some of his frustration. But Sulley’s continued silence bothered him. He scrolled through his calls received menu until he found Liv’s number, hit the call button and looked up. In the distance he could see Exegesis Street written on a street sign that wavered through the heat haze and rising fumes.
He walked towards it, listening to a robotic voice telling him the person he was trying to reach was unavailable. He frowned. The last time he’d called it had been Liv’s own voice telling him to leave a message. He redialled. Got the same robot operator. It was definitely her number — it just wasn’t her. He disconnected without leaving a message.
Exegesis Street was much wider than the street he had come from and was lined with once-grand houses that were now just a shabby collection of office buildings turned black by traffic and time. He walked down the shady side, counting down the houses until he found the number 38 carved deep into a stone pillar by a wide door. Beneath it a square of brass shone against the stone, spelling out the word Ortus above a logo of a four-petalled flower with the earth at its centre. He slipped the phone into his pocket and hopped up the three steps leading to the heavy glass doors, incongruously modern in the carved stone entrance. He pushed against them and went inside.
Chapter 97
Sulley came round slowly.
He felt as if he was rising gently from the depths of a dark, oily pool. He knew something was wrong even before he opened his eyes. Wherever he was smelt of damp and smoke and — darkness. He tried to open his eyes but they just rolled behind heavy lids that refused to budge. His head throbbed as if he’d been on a weekend bender, but he knew he hadn’t — not for a while. He took a deep breath, flooding his nose with more of the dank, dark smell then, grunting like a weight lifter, he put all his concentrated energy into opening his left eye. In the brief glimpse he got before his eyelid banged shut again he saw where he was. He was in some sort of cave.
He rested for a moment, exhausted from the effort, trying to clear his head and make sense of what he’d seen. He listened out for any sounds that might give him a clue. All he heard was the hiss of blood in his ears. It sounded like heavy waves breaking on a shingly beach. Its steady rhythm soothed him until his breathing deepened and he sank back down into the deep, drugged pool of his unconsciousness, his fogged mind still trying to work out how the hell he had ended up in a cave by the sea.
There was nothing gentle about the next time he rose from the black depths of sleep. This time it felt as though he was being yanked up by a spike hooked into the base of his skull. He tried to cry out but all that emerged was a strangled mew. He tried shifting his head away from the pain but it wouldn’t move. His heavy eyes struggled open, rolling sluggishly in their sockets as he sought the source of his agony. He caught glimpses of uneven stone walls illuminated by dancing firelight. Saw the outline of sinister-looking contraptions sketched against the darkness. He could not see the cause of his pain, and this, more than anything, lit up a fear inside him that brought him round quicker than iced water.
At last the pain began to subside, and a memory rose up from the fog. He remembered getting into the van, turning to grab his seat belt and feeling a sharp pain in his right leg. He recalled the shocking sight of the syringe, and how he’d reached for it with arms that would not respond. There was nothing else.
He looked down now at the spot where the needle had been, tried to touch it with his hand but his arms wouldn’t move. He tried to look down but his head wouldn’t move either. Instead his eyes rolled down as far as the sockets would allow. He could see his forearms strapped tightly to the arms of some kind of chair. He also saw something else, something utterly surprising and incongruous in the dank setting of the cave. By his right hand was a small table and sitting on it was a laptop with a mobile phone attached by a short cable. He thought for a moment he must be having a surreal dream, but the pain in his head and the trickle of something warm and wet down the back of his neck made it real enough. He tried to move his feet, but they too were bound tight to the chair he sat on. He struggled against his restraints, testing their strength until the sharp point of pain reappeared suddenly in the back of his neck, pressing forward with a terrible insinuation. He tried to arch away from it but the straps across his forehead and throat held him fast. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe. It pressed on until the torture was so exquisite he thought his spine would snap. He was held there for a few moments, at the pinnacle of his pain, before it gently eased back bringing a tiny but welcome relief.
He heard the scuff of a foot on the floor behind him through the hiss of blood rushing in his head. ‘Who’s there?’ he croaked, failin
g to keep the crack of fear from his voice.
He felt something tug at his right hand and found it had been loosened. He tried to lift it to rub the back of his neck but a solid clunk jarred it to an almost immediate stop. A thick leather manacle encircled his wrist, connecting it to the arm of the chair by a short chain. He dropped it back down with a clinking of metal, listening out for further movement.
‘I’m a police officer,’ he called into the darkness, wielding the words like a talisman.
The sudden closeness of the voice by his left ear made him whimper with surprise.
‘You have the colouring of a betrayer,’ it said. ‘For was not Judas a redhead?’
Sulley swivelled his eyes left. He could see nothing but dark walls and flickering light.
‘You are in a garrotting chair,’ the voice continued, deep and steady, rumbling out of the darkness close by. ‘One of the chief weapons used to stamp out the cancer of heresy during the Inquisition. It has a purity to it I’m sure you’ll appreciate. There is a broad metal screw positioned in the headrest just below your skull. If I twist it one way. .’ Sulley felt the spike drill back into his neck and gasped in agony ‘. . the screw tightens and you will feel pain. If I turn it the other way. .’ the skewering pressure subsided once more ‘. . you will feel relief. So,’ the voice said, moving in closer. ‘Which is it to be?’
‘What do you want?’ Sulley asked the darkness. ‘I can give you money. Is that what you want?’
‘All I want is your loyalty,’ mumbled the reply. ‘And some information. Please know that bringing you here is not a pleasure but a necessity, brought about by your own actions. We asked for your loyalty. You chose not to give it. You betrayed the Church — and that is a sin.’ The voice moved closer until he could feel the air that carried it whisper across his ear. ‘Would you like to confess your sins now?’
Sulley’s mind hummed with a mixture of pain and indecision. Should he admit he had sold information to others or deny it? If he denied it, he might be hurt until he admitted it anyway. He didn’t want the pain to come back.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, quickly. ‘I made a mistake. If that’s a sin. . then — please, forgive me.’
‘Raise your right hand,’ the voice commanded.
He lifted it as high as he could before the restraint snapped it to a halt.
‘That chain is called the mea culpa,’ the dark voice said. ‘It enabled the heretic to sign his confession at the end of his inquisition. Mea culpa means “my fault”. Admitting fault is the first step toward forgiveness. Do you know what the second step is?’
‘No,’ he squeaked, his voice stretched tight between peaks of fear and pain.
‘Atonement. You must perform a righteous act to make amends for your sin.’
Sulley took a few shallow breaths, trying to calm the panic that threatened to overwhelm him, but he understood a deal when it was being offered.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘What do you want me to do?’
Chapter 98
Arkadian flipped his badge as he reached the reception desk.
‘I’m looking for Gabriel Mann,’ he said with a reassuring smile. ‘Does he work here?’
‘Oh,’ the receptionist gasped, glancing at the badge then back at him with the flustered, guilty reaction of the truly innocent. ‘Yes. Well. . not usually, no. I mean, he’s usually away somewhere or other, but he does work for the charity. Let me find out for you.’
She tapped an extension number into the desk phone and spoke in a low voice. Behind her an elegant wooden staircase curled upwards and brought down sounds of the upstairs offices. The receptionist punched a key and looked over at him.
‘He’s in the Sudan,’ she said. ‘He’s not expected back for a month at least.’ Arkadian nodded, thinking about the fingerprint that had placed him in the city morgue not two hours previously. ‘I can try and get a number for him, if you like,’ she suggested. ‘There’s probably a line into the base camp, or maybe a satellite phone. I was trying to get hold of his mother to see if she’d spoken to him. She runs the charity,’ she explained.
‘Do you have her number?’ Arkadian asked. ‘Or any idea when she might be back?’
‘Of course,’ the woman said, taking a pen and copying a number on to a notepad from a directory sheet in front of her. ‘Here’s her mobile number. I expected her back from the airport by now. I can get her to call you. .’
‘No, it’s OK,’ he said, taking the piece of paper and looking at the name and number written on it. ‘I’ll give her a call. Which airport will she be coming in from?’
‘City. It’s where all our air freight comes in.’
Arkadian nodded and smiled. ‘Thanks for your help,’ he said. Then he turned and headed out through the heavy glass doors and into the street where the police car was parked and waiting for him.
Chapter 99
The Abbot watched the Informer’s trembling hand drift across the laptop, the short chain clinking as he typed in a sequence of remote access codes. The Internet connection through the phone was slow and it took a long few minutes before he finally managed to open the monk’s case file.
‘I’m in,’ he announced to the darkness, sweat dripping from the end of his nose despite the stony chill of the cave.
‘Has anything been added?’ the Abbot replied, leaning closer to the screen.
The chain stretched and coiled again as the freckled hand tapped in a few more codes to open up an email account, then scrolled through an in-box and opened a message sent by GARGOYLE that comprised of just one word: ‘Red’.
‘Look out for anything highlighted in red,’ the Informer explained in a wavering voice. ‘That’s the new stuff.’
He deleted the mail message, opened the monk’s case file and started scrolling through it. The Abbot watched pages flash across the screen, each filled with details of things no one outside the Citadel should ever have seen. It made him sick to think of all the eager eyes that had crawled over these pages, greedily picking at the morsels they contained like ants on a bone. A band of red splashed across the page throwing a crimson light over the faces turned toward it. The freckled hand went still. The Abbot started to read. It was a brief transcription of Liv’s conversation with Arkadian relating the strange account of her birth and why she had a different name and birth date to her brother. The Abbot read through it, nodding to himself. It solved the mystery of why no sister had been discovered in the background checks when Samuel had first entered the Citadel.
‘Continue,’ he said.
The red text rolled away and for long minutes only white pages flitted across the screen as the Informer scrolled through the entire file. It was only at the very end, in the pathology section, that the red text returned and cast its bloody glow back into the cave.
The new section was in two parts. The first was a note recording how a sample of the monk’s liver cells had been flagged as contaminated on the grounds that the cells appeared to be regenerating. The Abbot wondered if this was evidence that Brother Samuel was re-animating, as the prophesy had predicted, or just the latent effects of his close exposure to the Sacrament. As he read the second red section, however, he was seized with a new interpretation and his blood quickened. It was a brief note from a Dr Reis detailing the results of comparative DNA samples taken from the fallen monk and the girl.
The Abbot stared at the red screen, his mind singing with the pathologist’s findings and deductions. They were the same. Not only did Brother Samuel have a sister, she was his identical twin.
This one piece of information made sense of everything. The prophecy was right. Samuel had indeed been the cross. But he had fallen, and now the girl had risen in his place: flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone. The same.
She was the cross now.
She was the instrument that would kill the Sacrament and rid the world of its heresy. She was the key to everything.
‘Destroy the file,’ he said. ‘Copy it to the laptop then wipe it
from the police database.’
The Informer paused, clearly reluctant to perform such an obvious act of vandalism. The Abbot laid a hand lightly on the tightening screw sending a tremor through the spike and into his spine. It was enough to send the chain ratcheting back across the arm of the chair as he frantically obeyed, attaching a virus to the original file in the police database that would destroy the contents, the directory, then itself.
The Abbot glanced at the mobile phone connected to the laptop, his mind shining with the light of the new information. He needed to alert Cornelius to ensure the girl was brought back quickly and unharmed; then he could use her to fulfil the prophecy and deliver on a millennia-old promise to God. This was his destiny, he realized that now; it was what he’d been born to do. He thought of the Prelate, lying in the darkness, worrying about God’s opinion of his own life’s work, and pitied him. He would not end his days fretting over missed opportunities. While the Prelate had advised he do nothing he’d had the courage to listen to his heart, and take the action necessary. And now here they were.
He pictured the Prelate turning from him the last time they’d spoken, his skeletal hand waving away his request to act. He was weak, but he was stubborn, and that stubbornness had almost cost them this chance of deliverance.
But he was still in charge.
The Abbot considered this point. The Prelate’s weakness and unwillingness to act could still prevent him from fulfilling his destiny. Going against the Prelate’s word outside the mountain was one thing, but inside his influence was much stronger: people had allegiances to the office if not the man. The Prelate could stop him. Worse still, he could take over. He could rise from his bed and carry out the prophetic sequence, the last act of a man desperate to crown his long, empty life with true meaning. And with the prophecy fulfilled, what then? Would they assume the Sacrament’s power, as many theologians believed? Would they achieve permanent immortality rather than the hint of it? If so, then the Prelate would never die and the Abbot would forever be his lieutenant.
