The Vatican Children (World of Shadows Book 2)

by Lincoln Cole

  Epilogue

  Arthur still tended to the man he had shot when a gunshot came from the direction of the office building. Hopefully, it wasn’t Niccolo hit. He needed to get back there and find out what had happened.

  Movement came from behind him. He spun, raising his tranquilizer gun. The teenager stood maybe forty meters away.

  However, the kid didn’t stand looking at him. He stared back the way he had come, at the office trailers. Then, slowly, he turned to face Arthur.

  His young face held a terrified expression, but with hatred mixed in. A look that Arthur had never experienced before. Neither of them moved for what felt like minutes.

  Arthur prepared himself for whatever the kid might throw at him. He still had two darts in the tranquilizer gun to use on him and figured if he could get a single shot at a closer range, he could take down the boy. After all, the teenager remained only human, so the darts would work on him for definite.

  Just about to move forward, Arthur stopped dead. All of a sudden, the boy had gone. Disappeared. One second, he stood there in front of him, and the next, Arthur just gaped down an empty corridor at nothing.

  It had a disjointing effect on him like his eyes had played tricks on him, but he knew it was real. Arthur stood, walked over to where the kid had stood and stared at him, but found nothing.

  “What the hell?”

  He hurried back to the office. It felt as if he’d lost time, and that maybe a few minutes had passed without his knowledge. When he got inside, he found Niccolo sitting in the center of the trailer with a blank expression on his face.

  On the floor in front of him lay what was left of the bishop.

  Shot in the left eye, a gaping hole ran clear through his head. The man lay utterly dead. The other two men that Arthur had wounded had also died, shot in the head from close range, but he didn’t believe that Niccolo had done that.

  He hoped, at least.

  Niccolo just sat there, staring at the body in disbelief. He still held the weapon he’d used to kill the bishop, and blood had splattered his face and clothes. As he looked up at Arthur, the priest’s hands trembled.

  “I warned him ...”

  Arthur couldn’t think of anything useful to say. Sirens wailed in the distance, heading their way. They only had a couple of minutes to get out of there before the place would swarm with police.

  “We need to go.”

  Niccolo looked up at him blankly. “What?”

  “We need to get out of here. Cops are on their way.”

  “Oh,” Niccolo said. “All right.”

  He rose mechanically, walked past Arthur, and out of the front doorway of the office. He barely seemed to have a grasp of what happened and looked like a thoroughly confused man.

  Everything had gone wrong.

  Arthur took one more look at the dead bishop and then followed Niccolo out to the car. Arthur hated to leave the wounded men like this, but he had to trust that the paramedics would save at least the one man’s life.

  They saw no sign of the kid on the docks, and everything seemed quiet. They climbed into the car and sped away from the shipyard.

  ARTHUR SPOKE WITH FRIEDA as they drove away from the docks, explaining everything that had gone down in the last couple of days and that the bishop had died. She’d spoken to Garfield already—who felt pissed at him—and she didn’t sound too happy with the way things had gone. Especially with the murder of the bishop, and it shocked her when he said that Niccolo had pulled the trigger.

  She did manage to find a nearby hotel where they could lay low, and Arthur got Niccolo inside as fast as he could so that they could get cleaned up. Niccolo didn’t speak and had withdrawn into himself, but he did respond to what Arthur said. The Hunter managed to get them both cleaned up and hid their bloody clothes.

  Then, with no other recourse except to wait it out and hear back from Frieda, Arthur went to sleep. Exhausted and running on fumes, he saw no sense in worrying about things he couldn’t change.

  WHEN HE AWOKE THE NEXT morning, he found Niccolo in the chair in the corner of their hotel room—the same place he’d sat when Arthur had fallen asleep. He doubted he’d moved the entire night, and he still had that vacant expression on his face.

  Arthur let him be, and instead, called Frieda to get an update. She informed him that police had swarmed the shipyard during the night and had located six children on the boat, in one of the crew’s quarters.

  They had also identified the dead bishop and a number of other deceased men. One wounded man remained in critical condition and might or might not pull through.

  The Hunter asked Frieda to pass on the information about the attacks throughout the country, and then he hung up. He doubted he would hear from her again for a while until she had more news to report.

  The next two days, he spent in the hotel room or out getting food while they waited for updates. Niccolo barely spoke the entire time, accepting offered food, using the facilities, and just sitting in the chair.

  Finally, Frieda called them to fill them in on events. The Church had collected the children and needed to process, and it also wanted a full reporting from Niccolo about what had happened and why he had gone so far outside his jurisdiction without their permission.

  “What about the bishop?” Arthur asked.

  “It didn’t please them that you killed him,” she said, “but they’ve covered it up. It turns out that a lot of evidence on the boat backed up your story and solidified what happened in Everett. They realize that things had to move quickly and don’t feel mad at you. All in all, things turned out a lot better than they might have.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Not really. It’s started already. A child in Idaho killed five people this morning, and folks claim that something suspicious happened. It won’t take long until the Church can’t contain this. They’ve asked me to pull every Hunter onto this case.”

  “It isn’t over,” Arthur said. “I need to get to Ohio. That’s where one of the strongest went. Something will happen there.”

  “I know,” Frieda said. “You need to get on the road and stop them.”

  “What about Niccolo?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “The Church plans on having a long conversation with him, but for now, they just want all of this to get dealt with.”

  “All right. I’ll call you when I get on the road. I should reach Ohio in a couple of days.”

  “Arthur,” Frieda said before he could hang up. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but ... when you get to Ohio, you should go home.”

  He fell silent for a long moment. Finally, he sighed. “You’re right,” he said. “I don’t want to hear that.”

  Then he hung up. He sat there for a long while, just letting the silence hang over the hotel room, before he finally walked over to where Niccolo sat.

  “We need to keep moving,” he said. “This hasn’t finished. At least two kids remain missing. We need to stop them before they can enact whatever plan the bishop left for them.”

  “I should turn myself over to the Church,” Niccolo said in a flat voice. “So they can excommunicate me.”

  “Yes,” Arthur said. “You should. Just not yet.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I need your help.”

  Niccolo laughed sardonically. “Help? Help with what? I’ve only managed to make things worse and slow you down.”

  “What you did back there—”

  “What I did was murder,” Niccolo said with vehemence. “Plain and simple. No two ways about it. I killed a man in cold-blood.”

  “You didn’t have a choice.”

  “We always have a choice.”

  “Nevertheless,” Arthur said. “I need your help to stop the things happening. People have died already. If you feel you deserve punishment, then accept your chastisement, but right now, we need to halt this threat before more people get hurt.”

  Niccolo hesitated before turning to look at Arthur.
“Fine,” he said with a look of immense pain in his eyes. “I’ll help. And then I’ll turn myself in.”

  Arthur nodded. “Good.”

  “What about Haatim?”

  Arthur froze. “What about him?”

  “He’s one of the children. He’s on the list Naomi gave you, isn’t he?”

  Arthur didn’t want to voice his concern aloud about that list because he felt afraid of the information making it back to the Vatican. He didn’t know if the Church knew about Haatim or not, but if they didn’t, then he had no intention to bring it up. Especially not after what the bishop had said.

  He decided, though, to trust Niccolo. “Haatim is a child of one of the Council members. I rescued him back in Everett, but I didn’t know any of this at that point in time.”

  “We should warn the Church.”

  “We shouldn’t,” Arthur said. “The bishop has died. Naomi has gone on the run. The threat to Haatim and the other children on the list is over with.”

  “He remains one of the Vatican Children. The Church should know about them.”

  “Let me ask you honestly,” Arthur said. “Should a list exist at all?”

  Niccolo stayed silent.

  “If you want my honest opinion about this, then we should just forget about the list. I’ll destroy it and have it done with. With the bishop dead, I reckon these children have suffered through enough.”

  “You ask me to forget about what the bishop said?”

  “I ask you not to tell the Church about it,” Arthur said. “Haatim is just a kid, and he doesn’t deserve to go through something like what these children had to experience. No one does. The Church tracking special children and trusting Bishop Glasser caused this entire situation, and maybe it is better if we just forget about it.”

  Niccolo thought about it. “Okay,” he said. “I won’t tell the Church.”

  “Thank you.”

  “What now?”

  “Now,” Arthur said, turning back to pack his bags. “We head to Ohio.”

  About the Author

  LINCOLN COLE IS A COLUMBUS-based author who enjoys traveling and has visited many different parts of the world, including Australia and Cambodia, but always returns home to his pugamonster, Luther, and wife. His love for writing was kindled at an early age through the works of Isaac Asimov and Stephen King, and he enjoys telling stories to anyone who will listen.

  Book III - The Bishop’s Legacy

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  The World on Fire Series

  Raven’s Peak

  “REVEREND, YOU HAVE a visitor.”

  He couldn’t remember when he fell in love with the pain. When agony first turned to pleasure, and then to joy. Of course, it hadn’t always been like this. He remembered screaming all those years ago when first they put him in this cell; those memories were vague, though, like reflections in a dusty mirror.

  “Open D4.”

  A buzz as the door slid open, inconsequential. The aching need was what drove him in this moment, and nothing else mattered. It was a primal desire: a longing for the tingly rush of adrenaline each time the lash licked his flesh. The blood dripping down his parched skin fulfilled him like biting into a juicy strawberry on a warm summer’s day.

  “Some woman. Says she needs to speak with you immediately. She says her name is Frieda.”

  A pause, the lash hovering in the air like a poised snake. The Reverend remembered that name, found it dancing in the recesses of his mind. He tried to pull himself back from the ritual, back to reality, but it was an uphill slog through knee-deep mud to reclaim those memories.

  It was always difficult to focus when he was in the midst of his cleansing. All he managed to cling to was the name. Frieda. It was the name of an angel, he knew. . . or perhaps a devil.

  One and the same when all was said and done.

  She belonged to a past life, only the whispers of which he could recall. The ritual reclaimed him, embraced him with its fiery need. His memories were nothing compared to the whip in his hand, its nine tails gracing his flesh.

  The lash struck down on his left shoulder blade, scattering droplets of blood against the wall behind him. Those droplets would stain the granite for months, he knew, before finally fading away. He clenched his teeth in a feral grin as the whip landed with a sickening, wet slapping sound.

  “Jesus,” a new voice whispered from the doorway. “Does he always do that?”

  “Every morning.”

  “You’ll cuff him?”

  “Why? Are you scared?”

  The Reverend raised the lash into the air, poised for another strike.

  “Just...man, you said he was crazy...but this...”

  The lash came down, lapping at his back and the tender muscles hidden there. He let out a groan of mixed agony and pleasure.

  These men were meaningless, their voices only echoes amid the rest, an endless drone. He wanted them to leave him alone with his ritual. They weren’t worth his time.

  “I think we can spare the handcuffs this time; the last guy who tried spent a month in the hospital.”

  “Regulation says we have to.”

  “Then you do it.”

  The guards fell silent. The cat-o’-nine-tails, his friend, his love, became the only sound in the roughhewn cell, echoing off the granite walls. He took a rasping breath, blew it out, and cracked the lash again. More blood. More agony. More pleasure.

  “I don’t think we need to cuff him,” the second guard decided.

  “Good idea. Besides, the Reverend isn’t going to cause us any trouble. He only hurts himself. Right, Reverend?”

  The air tasted of copper, sickly sweet. He wished he could see his back and the scars, but there were no mirrors in his cell. They removed the only one he had when he broke shards off to slice into his arms and legs. They were afraid he would kill himself.

  How ironic was that?

  “Right, Reverend?”

  Mirrors were dangerous things, he remembered from that past life. They called the other side, the darker side. An imperfect reflection stared back, threatening to steal pieces of the soul away forever.

  “Reverend? Can you hear me?”

  The guard reached out to tap the Reverend on the shoulder. Just a tap, no danger at all, but his hand never even came close. Honed reflexes reacted before anyone could possibly understand what was happening.

  Suddenly the Reverend was standing. He hovered above the guard who was down on his knees. The man let out a sharp cry, his left shoulder twisted up at an uncomfortable angle by the Reverend’s iron grip.

  The lash hung in the air, ready to strike at its new prey.

  The Reverend looked curiously at the man, seeing him for the first time. He recognized him as one of the first guardsmen he’d ever spoken with when placed in this cell. A nice European chap with a wife and two young children. A little overweight and balding, but well-intentioned.

  Most of him didn’t want to hurt this man, but there was a part—a hungry, needful part—that did. That part wanted to hurt this man in ways neither of them could even imagine. One twist would snap his arm. Two would shatter the bone; the sound as it snapped would be . . .

  A symphony rivaling Tchaikovsky.

  The second guard—the younger one that smelled of fear—stumbled back, struggling to draw his gun.

  “No! No, don’t!”

  That from the first, on his knees as if praying. The Reverend wondered if he prayed at night with his family before heading to bed. Doubtless, he prayed that he would make it home safely from work and that one of the inmates wouldn’t rip his throat out or gouge out his eyes. Right now, he was waving his free hand at his partner to get his attention, to stop him.

  The younger guard finally worked the gun free and pointed it at the Reverend. His hands were shaking as he said, “Let him go!”

  “Don’t shoot, Ed!”

  “Let him go!”

  The older guard, pleadi
ng this time: “Don’t piss him off!”

  The look that crossed his young partner’s face in that moment was precious: primal fear. It was an expression the Reverend had seen many times in his life, and he understood the thoughts going through the man’s mind: he couldn’t imagine how he might die in this cell, but he believed he could. That belief stemmed from something deeper than what his eyes could see. A terror so profound it beggared reality.

  An immutable silence hung in the air. Both guards twitched and shifted, one in pain and the other in terror. The Reverend was immovable, a statue in his sanctuary, eyes boring into the man’s soul.

  “Don’t shoot,” the guard on his knees murmured. “You’ll miss, and we’ll be dead.”

  “I have a clear shot. I can’t miss.”

  This time, the response was weaker. “We’ll still be dead.”

  A hesitation. The guard lowered his gun in confused fear, pointing it at the floor. The Reverend curled his lips and released, freeing the kneeling guard.

  The man rubbed his shoulder and climbed shakily to his feet. He backed away from the Reverend and stood beside the other, red-faced and panting.

  “I heard you,” the Reverend said. The words were hard to come by; he’d rarely spoken these last five years.

  “I’m sorry, Reverend,” the guard replied meekly. “My mistake.”

  “Bring me to Frieda,” he whispered.

  “You don’t—” the younger guard began. A sharp look from his companion silenced him.

  “Right away, sir.”

  “Steve, we should cuff...”

  Steve ignored him, turning and stepping outside the cell. The Reverend looked longingly at the lash in his hand before dropping it onto his hard bed. His cultivated pain had faded to a dull ache. He would need to begin anew when he returned, restart the cleansing.

  There was always more to cleanse.

  They traveled through the black-site prison deep below the earth’s surface, past neglected cells and through rough cut stone. A few of the rusty cages held prisoners, but most stood empty and silent. These prisoners were relics of a forgotten time, most of whom couldn’t even remember the misdeed that had brought them here.