The Vatican Children (World of Shadows Book 2)

by Lincoln Cole

  He took care to keep the walls of shipping containers between himself and the vehicle so that whoever sat inside wouldn’t see him coming. He passed a lone worker checking a couple of containers, but the man merely nodded at him in his worker’s vest. Arthur nodded back and kept moving.

  Cautious, he circled behind the line of vehicles, ducked low, and made his way up to the front. When he got closer, he saw that Niccolo had guessed correctly. Someone occupied the driver’s seat of the car.

  The bishop.

  Unfortunately, only the bishop sat in the vehicle, and no signs showed that any of the children had come with him. The driver who had chauffeured him away earlier didn’t seem present either. The car engine was off, and the bishop had cracked open the windows. It looked as if he sat waiting and watching for something.

  Arthur drew his gun, crept up to the car, and aimed his weapon through the small aperture.

  “Open the door, slowly.”

  The bishop looked up at him; first, with a look of surprise, and then annoyance.

  “That clever bitch.”

  “Open it,” Arthur said.

  Instead, the bishop reached forward for the keys, trying to turn on the car. Arthur fired, hitting him in the shoulder with one of his darts. The bishop slumped forward, his body going limp almost immediately.

  Not a demon, then. That meant a good thing.

  Arthur tested the handle of the car and, happily, found it unlocked. Gently, he opened the door, careful to catch the bishop when he spilled out. He opened the back door, slid the bishop inside, and then got into the driver’s seat.

  Then he inched the car through the docks toward the office. A few of the milling workers gave him funny looks, but they saw he wore a vest and just shrugged it off. They didn’t seem to care overly much about what went on and, probably, would soon clock out for the night before the storm hit.

  Arthur parked in front of the makeshift office, waited until no one paid attention, and then carried the bishop inside. When he opened the door, Niccolo gave him a shocked look, but then he helped him move the bishop to a chair.

  “You got him?”

  “He didn’t put up much of a fight.”

  “What about the children?”

  Arthur shook his head. “No sign of them.”

  “We need to find them.”

  “I know,” Arthur said, nodding toward the bishop. “Now, we can.”

  “Then we need to wake him.”

  “It’ll take at least an hour to get the stuff out of his system, and then he’ll stay groggy a bit longer.”

  “An hour?” Niccolo asked. “Isn’t there, like, an antidote or something?”

  Arthur laughed. “No. It isn’t poison, just horse tranquilizer. His body needs to metabolize it.”

  “What do we do until then?”

  Arthur shrugged. “We wait.”

  WHILE THEY WAITED, the drizzle morphed to heavy sheets of rain. The thin walls and ceiling of this office meant that the sound of the downpour drowned out any attempts at easy conversation.

  Arthur discovered some tape and tied the bishop to the chair, placing him in the center of the room. Niccolo paced back and forth in silence, arms folded behind his back and an intense expression on his face.

  The deluge turned into a full-on thunderstorm, and cracks of thunder rolled overhead as the wind picked up. The lights flickered, and the makeshift hut felt like it might turn into kindling around them, but miraculously, it held up under the storm.

  The rough weather passed as quickly as it came on; though, outside, it remained dark and dreary. Most of the crew working on the docks disappeared, and the entire place grew quiet around them.

  “Hello again,” the bishop said suddenly, his voice splitting the silence. Only about thirty-five minutes had elapsed since Arthur had drugged him, and it surprised the Hunter to see him awake already.

  Awake and alert, in fact. The drugs should have taken much longer to get out of his system.

  Niccolo exchanged a glance with Arthur, but he could only shrug in response.

  “Where are the children?” Niccolo asked.

  “Safe.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  The bishop smiled. “No, actually. I don’t. I know they are on their way and will get here soon, but they come of their own accord with my driver. I believe they stopped to get ice cream. They come willingly.”

  “No, they don’t,” Niccolo said. “They remain your prisoners.”

  “Is that what you think?” Leopold asked. “Is that what you truly believe? You think I took these children against their will and forced their powers upon them?”

  “I know you kidnapped them.”

  “It is true that, at first, they made unwilling participants, but all of that changed when I offered them the key to unlocking their abilities. Once I showed them the truth about who they were, I gave them the choice to stay or go. Every single one of them stayed with me of their own accord.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “And, you do not have to. You have your truth, and I have mine. However, you will see for yourself soon enough.”

  “Why travel to Europe?”

  “It makes just one leg on my journey to India.”

  “Why? What’s in India?”

  Bishop Glasser stared at Niccolo for a second, and then turned his attention to Arthur. “You didn’t tell him?”

  “Tell me what?” Niccolo glanced between the two.

  The bishop had backed Arthur into a corner. He’d hoped to keep the information about Aram’s son private—he didn’t like the Councilman, but he also didn’t want the Church to know about his son if they didn’t need to—but it had now become too late for that.

  “Haatim Arison,” Arthur said. “His father is a member of the Council of Chaldea, and he’s one of the Vatican Children.”

  “What? How do you know?”

  “The bishop attempted to capture him in Everett before he fled. Those demons all formed part of his plan to capture Haatim.”

  “Which you both screwed up for me,” the bishop said. “But, it is of no consequence because I will have him.”

  Niccolo continued staring at Arthur, a look of confusion and betrayal on his face. “You knew?”

  “I didn’t want the Church to find out about Haatim. I wanted to keep him off their lists.”

  “Why?”

  “What good has ever come from ending up on a list like that? It doesn’t matter,” Arthur said. “All I know is that he is one of the Vatican Children.”

  Bishop Glasser laughed. “Not just one of them. He is the one. The only one that matters.”

  “What?” Niccolo stared.

  “I’ve searched and searched for one like him for years. They only come along once every couple of generations, but suffice to say, he will become my crowning achievement. The most important child I’ve ever met, and he sat right under the Church’s nose this entire time.”

  “Does his father know?” Niccolo asked.

  “No. Aram has no idea,” Arthur said. “He doesn’t have any awareness that his child has special abilities.”

  “And now, Arthur, I know what you must be wondering. You stand there thinking what about your daughter? Was she special, too? Is that why she died?”

  Arthur hesitated, burning to know the answer to that question. The bishop had it right, though; he felt too afraid to ask. Felt too afraid to know the answer.

  And, still, he said, “Was it?”

  Bishop Glasser burst out laughing. “Heavens, no. Your daughter was just an insignificant whelp. A convenience.”

  “Before a few weeks ago, I had never even heard of you. What could I possibly have done to you to make you want to kill my wife and daughter?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? Then why would you murder my family?”

  “I didn’t. The Ninth Circle did.”

  “But you gave aw
ay their location. You told The Ninth Circle of my family and where to find them.”

  The bishop shrugged, the movement diminished by the tape. “I needed allies, and they helped me. They taught me how to summon the demons and bind them, though I soon surpassed them when I found Jeremy. Your family proved a small price to pay, in the grand scheme of things. I got the better end of that deal.”

  “Small price?” Arthur’s hands shook in rage.

  “I’m sure you don’t feel that way, but you must look at the larger picture. You had enemies, and they wanted to harm you. I’m sure they regret their choice now, considering what you did to them in response, but at that moment, I’m certain they felt quite proud of what they achieved.”

  “So, killing my family just made for a convenience for you?”

  “Did you think it would be anything different? Did you think them special or part of some bigger agenda? The cult would have taken any name from that list of Hunter’s families, but yours ended up the only one Emily was stupid enough to give me. I suppose I did you a favor, though. I broke your ties and freed you from that wife and daughter. I freed you to become all you can become, and look what you have achieved!”

  Arthur couldn’t contain his anger. He stepped forward and punched the bishop on the mouth. Before he could stop himself, he had hit him two more times. Finally, Niccolo caught his arm and pulled him back, a worried look on his face.

  The bishop’s head lolled to the side, and blood ran down his lip. His eyes refocused, and he looked at Arthur.

  “There you go!” Leopold said, laughing. He turned his head and spat a glob of blood onto the office floor. “How does that feel? Does hitting me make you feel any better?”

  Arthur cursed and turned, rushing out of the room and into the adjacent trailer before he lost his temper again. Never in his entire life had he felt so furious and out of control.

  Niccolo stared at him as he left, but he didn’t much care what the priest thought at that moment.

  The way the bishop explained the murder of his family ... it cut him to the core. It gave the answer he had feared, but hearing the man speak so casually about their deaths brought all the pain back to him in an unbearable rush.

  Arthur staggered around the corner of the trailer and fell against the wall. Slowly, he allowed himself to slide to a sitting position on the floor. His breathing came in short gasps while he fought to regain control of his emotions, but he lost the battle.

  A few moments passed, and then Niccolo appeared in the doorway in front of him. He wore a concerned and hesitant expression. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” Arthur pushed his hands through his hair and coughed. “I’ll come back in there in a minute. Keep an eye on him and don’t let him out of your sight.”

  Niccolo moved to turn, and then hesitated. “Do you think it’s true?” Niccolo asked. “What he said about the Vatican Children? Do you think they joined with him willingly?”

  “I think some did,” Arthur said. “I also think some only want a way out of this nightmare. As hard as he might try, he couldn’t make all of them evil.”

  “We need to find out where they went,” Niccolo said. “And then get them to the Church.”

  “If the bishop told it true,” he said, “and some of the kids have become willing servants, then we won’t need to look for them at all. Not while we have the bishop.”

  “What do you mean? Why won’t we need to look for them?”

  Arthur looked up at him and sighed. “Because they’ll find us.”

  Chapter 14

  “What do we do now?” Niccolo asked when Arthur, finally, walked back into the main office where they held the bishop. He had grown anxious and a bit worried. The bishop had something about him that Niccolo hadn’t noticed the first time they’d met, and it grated on his nerves. Just occupying the same room with the man filled him with dread.

  It remained windy outside and sprinkled, but the storm had almost died down. It didn’t feel like the storm had finished, though, but rather that they had entered a lull. They had entered the eye of the storm.

  Arthur didn’t answer him immediately, which came as no surprise for Niccolo. There didn’t seem any good answer for the situation. While catching the bishop had seemed relatively easy, it had brought them no closer to locating the children.

  On top of that, he hadn’t given them any further information about his plans for the children he had so carefully cultivated. The name he’d heard Naomi say earlier, Jeremy, sounded familiar ... but Niccolo couldn’t quite place it. He’d heard it before but couldn’t pinpoint where.

  They also didn’t have any clear answers about what the bishop wanted to accomplish. His endgame couldn’t just come down to letting the world know about the existence of Vatican Children. He had to have some ulterior motive, or maybe, a power grab in mind once the world imploded.

  “I don’t know,” Arthur said, at last. “We need to find the children, and then turn them all over to the Church.”

  “He knows their location but won’t tell.”

  “Have patience.”

  “I can’t have patience,” Niccolo said, feeling a burst of frustration. “Don’t you understand what is at stake? The very foundation of the Church is at risk. Once people know about these children, they will ask questions, and the deeper they dig, the worse things will get for all of us. This situation is terrible in every way.”

  “He won’t just offer up the information we need,” Arthur said.

  “Not willingly,” Niccolo said, speaking quietly.

  Arthur hesitated, his expression darkening. “What, exactly, are you asking?”

  “We need that information, Arthur. The longer this takes, the more likely that those children will slip through our fingers.”

  “Say the words, then. Tell me what you want.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “What, then? You want to beat it out of him? You expect me to torture him until he tells us what we want to know?”

  “If we must.”

  “You mean if I must,” Arthur said, angry. “You wouldn’t deign to get your hands dirty, would you?”

  “I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

  “You don’t just begin with something like that. And there I thought we had lines we wouldn’t cross.”

  “Normally, we wouldn’t, and I hate to ask this of you, to become something like that. This brings extenuating circumstances.”

  Niccolo felt surprised that Arthur argued with him about this. He had expected something like relief from the man, not an objection, to the idea of torturing the bishop.

  “Does it?” Arthur asked. “If this is the situation we find ourselves in, then what aren’t extenuating circumstances? If the line in the sand is movable, then what about the time something bad happens, and we need to do terrible things? I seem to recall that the road to hell isn’t paved with extenuating circumstances.”

  “We need to get those kids back, Arthur. It’s the only thing that matters right now.”

  “Is it?”

  “Yes!”

  “You think torture is the way to do it? How, exactly, did you imagine it going? You would step outside, and I would take care of everything? Did you imagine I would cut his arms and legs to get him to talk? Or maybe smash his fingers and toes one at a time until he gives us the information we need?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Of course you don’t,” Arthur said, annoyed. “You just figured I would take care of it.”

  “You’ve tortured people before.”

  Arthur looked surprised, and a little hurt. Niccolo didn’t much care right now. He had become too concerned with what needed to get done. They needed to do this. He’d never felt so sure of anything in his entire life.

  “I’ve also turned my back on that person. The person I used to be has gone. He died when his family got butchered in their homes, or did you forget about that? I’m not a murderer anymore, and I don’t torture people.
I’m not that person.”

  Niccolo stared at Arthur for a moment. “Aren’t you, though?”

  “What?”

  “You are the same person that stormed into that manor full of people and murdered them all.”

  “What I did—”

  “That stain doesn’t just leave you, Arthur. It doesn’t just wash away when you change your clothes. You think that just because you feel guilty and want to imagine yourself as some sort of saint that you can become one? People don’t change. I get that you feel bad for what you have done in the past, but that doesn’t make you a different person.”

  Arthur didn’t respond. It felt good to Niccolo to say this. To let it out finally. The truth was, no matter how hard Arthur tried to pretend that he had become a different person, he never would. He would always be a killer and ...

  Something in his mind screamed that the situation felt wrong. He shook his head, replaying the conversation in his mind in horror. What had he just said? What had he suggested? He had thought of the idea of torture, but only for a second and had dismissed it easily.

  So why had he suddenly grown so consumed with hatred and rage?

  What was going on?

  Those thoughts, like the others, got swept away.

  “We can turn him over to the Church and let them deal with him,” Arthur said, speaking slowly and studying Niccolo’s face. He wore an expression of concern, now, like he thought something had gone wrong. “They will figure out what the bishop planned to do and save the children. But, I will not, under any circumstances, torture him for you.”

  “Because you’re a coward,” Niccolo said, almost in a snarl.

  “Maybe you have it correct. But that doesn’t mean —”

  Niccolo felt another burst of rage. “You are a filthy-stinking-coward unwilling to do the necessary even when it stares you in the face.”

  Niccolo reached into the waistband under his coat, drew the gun he had tucked there, and aimed it at Arthur. The Hunter’s eyes went wide, and he took a half-step backward. Niccolo savored the expression of shock when the man realized that Niccolo didn’t hold one of his stupid tranquilizer guns.

  No, this brought the real deal. Niccolo held a 9mm pistol, the one he had taken from the unconscious guard back at the water treatment plant and aimed at Garfield. He still had it with him, and it felt good in his hand.