Shadows in the House With Twelve Rooms

by J. Price Higgins

  Bianca quivered with anticipation as the thrill of a chase rippled up her spine. She knew she was obsessed with the Dakotans, but she didn't care. She had to know what caused Ellery Jensen's dismay. Her breathing deepened. Whatever it was, she would not be content until she'd tucked it into her file.

  The monotonous hum of the motor dropped to near silence and the forward thrust of the cruiser abruptly stopped, replaced by a gentle tip and roll motion. A crewman's head poked through the cabin door. "You may disembark now, Doctor Raborman."

  She gathered up the Dakotan clippings, closed the dossier, and placed it back into her attaché case. "How long do I have before you leave?"

  "However long it takes, Doctor Raborman. The second boat should be docking back at the island within a few minutes, now." He chuckled at her confusion. "I radioed we were coming across. Pelican's captain headed for the island five minutes after we started for the city."

  "Oh. Of course. The director did explain there were two of you." Bianca slipped into her coat. "Efficient system."

  "Doctor Jensen set it up years ago." His teeth flashed. "I guess she got tired of waiting for the back and forth of one boat. Have a pleasant day, Doctor Raborman." He disappeared.

  Bianca slung her bag over her shoulder and strolled up the ramp. One block down the street was a taxi post. As she waited, she pressed her hands tight to her abdomen. The gnawing desire that had started on the launch was growing more urgent, more demanding. Her mouth twisted. Always there, aren't you? she thought. Five years of therapy and you're still there. Will you never give me peace? She looked at her watch. I have time if a damn taxi ever gets here—the right taxi. As if sensing the nearness of satisfaction, the need flamed and Bianca felt a sudden spurt of moisture. Hands clenched inside coat pockets, she paced back and forth along the curb like an addict in withdrawal.

  A spotless white vehicle with neat signage slowed, blinked its intention to change lanes. Bianca turned her back and the vehicle continued without stopping, blinkers off. A second, bright yellow with white letters, slowed. She shook her head. The cab sped away. Down the block, she saw the one she would take. She yanked her hands out of the coat pockets and waved her arms frantically.

  A grimy green and white vehicle with purple fenders swung into the stall. On the car door a magnetic sign blazed: Ace Taxi, Proprietorship. Bianca hurried to the cab and climbed into the back seat, surprised at the strong scent of lavender. A valiant attempt to hide other, undeniable odors that permeated the interior, she thought, one that fails miserably. On the floorboard, an old newspaper and an empty beer can crunched beneath her feet. She shoved them under the front seat with the toe of her shoe.

  "Where to?" The driver watched her from the rearview mirror.

  "Twenty-first and Bartlett," she said.

  "Twenty First and . . . " The driver twisted round, his look appraising. "You must be new around here. That's a pretty rough neighborhood."

  "Are you afraid?"

  "Ha! Not hardly. This cab travels darker streets than those, lady." He chuckled, hard and mirthless. "A lot darker."

  "Oh?" She looked at his small eyes and slicked back hair. Her gaze traveled to the rough hands with their slender brown fingers, traveled back up, lingered on the thin-lipped mouth. She licked her lips. Her gaze met his.

  "Maybe the park would be better," she whispered.

  His eyes widened, then narrowed.

  "The park." He nodded. "The park can have dark streets, too. Are you sure that's where you want to go?"

  She looked back to his mouth. "Yes," she said, her voice thick with hunger.

  His tongue flicked. Twisting back, he put the car in gear.

  Bianca leaned against the back seat and closed her eyes. She listened to a zipper being carefully lowered and smiled. Hurry, hurry, hurry her body cried.

  The cab accelerated, the driver whistled off key.

  Chapter 5

  Raphael Munoz

  Raphael Cardinal Munoz kept his gaze fixed on the blurred image reflecting off the stone wall. The foreman adjusted the lens of his instrument and the image jumped into a sharp circle of light. Munoz raised his arm, extending four fingers in a warning signal.

  Lifeless silence swept across the Cloister grounds abruptly.

  Laborers cast furtive glances over their shoulders at tangled shadows, then swiveled their gaze back to the Cardinal's raised hand. He lowered one finger and they scuttled away from the walls in the warmth of the midday sun.

  Behind these walls, the Sisters of the Covenant Ark had tended the matchless beauty of their Cloister grounds for a hundred years, and minded more than that if the files he'd found tucked away in a remote corner of the Petrine storage vaults were correct. He swiped at moisture trickling down the left side of his face. Soon, he would know if his hypothesis had substance. His hand tensed with anticipation. The second and third fingers folded down.

  Memories came, sharp edged, pungent with the odor of old papers and dank corridors.

  The Sisters of the Covenant Ark: an obscure order of unknown origin with membership limited to the apostolic twelve. Just one of the dozens of small independent orders swept up by the Church of Universals during Pope Paul David's daring maneuvers of the twenty-first century, it was absorbed then promptly forgotten until that cold, winter morning when a financial anomaly caught the Cardinal’s eye. Although the total cost of Cloister upkeep was consistent with most of the large Orders, the cost for food and clothing was so low as to be ludicrous. That fact plus a lack of inductee activity had sent him deep into the vaults in search of answers.

  The records were sparse and many of the details of absorption were missing, but one thing was clear: this Sisterhood that no one remembered had existed in various locations for at least eight hundred years. Several musty journals dating back to the early thirteen hundreds provided irrefutable validation. Importantly, two of those old volumes were written in an ancient hieratic script, his forte. Once he'd completed the translation, he was almost certain that the Sisterhood had in their possession relics of immense value. There could be no other explanation for the cryptic references to a Covenant and Solomon's Seal, especially when each reference carried the admonition to "guard it well."

  Munoz inhaled deeply. A sense of pride filled him. Keeping the inner war between papal duty and acquisitive silence under control had been difficult to say the least, but in the end he relayed the information to Pope Ignacio along with a preliminary report on the financial drain twelve elderly women and their Cloister were creating for the Church.

  Ignacio had laughed, laughed so hard tears coursed down his illness-ravaged face. "You, the intelligent one, have fallen for a myth as old as the Church itself!" he’d said between spasms of hilarity. "The covenant and seal are allegories, symbols of divine wisdom and guidance. You may rest assured there are no relics. However, there are financial problems to be addressed. I expect to see your final report at this afternoon’s advisory meeting." With that, he’d swept off down the hall. The fool.

  Munoz’s lip curled. Ignacio was weak and totally without vision. He would do well to emulate one who was not afraid to throw caution to the wind: Pope Paul David, the great reformer; a man of passionate, sometimes ruthless, intensity, a man who dared to bring his church back from the brink of disintegration with his global proclamations. Such a man would never have settled for ‘myth’. That Pope would not have laughed at his Cardinal. He would have listened, would have charged his advisor to find the truth, be it fact or fantasy.

  "Is there a problem, Your Eminence?"

  He startled from his reverie. "No. Nothing's wrong. I just want to be certain the wall area is clear." The bluff property belonged to him now and he intended to find those relics, even if it meant razing every building.

  His fourth finger dropped.

  The foreman flicked a green button on the side of the instrument. A bright sliver of light darted forward.

  Munoz fancied that it hesitated an infinitesimal moment before
it slammed into the wall. The words of Marcus Aurelius slipped into his thoughts: Cunctando regitur mundus. Hesitation rules the world. Or, in the parlance of Church hierarchy, if you can outwait all, you can rule all -- even a world as small as this one.

  Mortar dust billowed into the air as stone collapsed and the walls came tumbling down. The dust cloud thinned and Munoz choked on his sudden intake of breath. He stared at the vast sweep of white-capped water now revealed. To see nothing but slabs of stone when such beauty is there for the taking is a sin, he thought. These grounds and that view will henceforth be on display. They are meant to be seen.

  A fast moving cabin cruiser caught his attention. A skilled helmsman, he thought, watching the boat cut gracefully through the whitecaps. He concentrated on the colors flapping in the wind. Ahhh, the Tartarus Foundation—playpen of the illustrious Dakotan, Doctor Ellery Jensen. That organization seemed to attract the best no matter what the métier.

  Reluctantly, he turned away from the panorama and focused his attention on a small, ivy-covered building with triple-arched windows and a miniature bell tower. Several yards beyond the bell tower stood a magnificent limestone palace with neoclassical arched facades and ionic columns. Wide walkways of rounded stones crisscrossed manicured gardens of riotous color. Munoz studied the ivy-covered building.

  Earlier, he had arrived at the cloister with Bishop Northrop's staff to escort the twelve sisters to their new homes. The Guardian Mother had watched with steely eyes as leather volumes glossed smooth by countless hands were tossed into storage boxes alongside eighty years of receipts and market lists. She had muttered something about needing Solomon's guidance and asked that she and her companions be permitted one last visit to the chapel for ten minutes of prayer. Munoz could still see the sunken eyes glaring at him with unexpected fury when he explained there was no time. The old woman's gaze had flicked toward the building, a low whimper of sorrow escaping her tightly compressed lips.

  Remembering that moment of fury, that sound of grief, hardened his almost certain into an unshakable conviction: somewhere on these grounds, relics were hidden. Though an initial inspection of every nook and cranny of the chapel had revealed nothing more than the usual paraphernalia of worship, that small building remained the most logical place to hunt for revered objects, especially given the Guardian Mother’s reactions. However, treasure or no, the bell tower obstructed the view of the gardens—it was coming down. Impervious to the comments around him, he waved his arm to the waiting foreman.

  "It's yours," he called out.

  The foreman nodded and reached for the green button.

  Turning from the destruction, Munoz strolled to the edge of the bluff, closed his eyes, and sucked in the peculiar salt-fish tang of the ocean breeze. The slap of waves curling against the base of the bluff seemed to him the most sublime of sounds. The crack of the demolition beam rang through the cool air. Munoz smiled. Before long, the walls and the bell tower building would be cleared away. His new residence would shine like a Tiffany diamond carved out of sunlight.

  Heady pleasure swept through his body; the same kind of pleasure he had experienced when Ignacio demanded he take the bluff—and all it contained—as his private residence. He gently rocked heel-to-toe.

  It seemed a lifetime ago and yet not thirty days had passed since he had presented his financial analysis on the forgotten Sisterhood to the five assembled Cardinals who governed Vatican affairs. After questioning the cost effectiveness of maintaining a sizable piece of property just to house twelve aged Sisters, he quietly removed himself from the heated discussion—and waited. Face livid, Pope Ignacio had turned to Edouard Cardinal Peterson, overseer of all religious orders. "What do you have to say about this, Cardinal?"

  "An oversight, Holiness."

  "An oversight? Nearly a quarter million dollars a year to house twelve nuns and you call it an oversight?"

  "I meant to say . . . I was not aware there were only twelve, Holiness. I assumed, that is, the maintenance cost is in line with our large—"

  "The only thing large about this Cloister is the expense. And who are these Sisters of the Covenant Ark? Certainly not one of Our Orders!"

  "According to this report, we inherited them during the reformation, Holiness," Cardinal Tehard interjected.

  "We can read! That doesn’t tell Us who they are, where they came from. Oh, never mind. It’s a moot point, now." Pope Ignacio groaned. "Millions of dollars. That’s what this oversight has cost the Church. Millions." He turned back to Cardinal Peterson. "You will rectify this travesty immediately. That sisterhood will be disbanded and those ladies will be dispersed among Our various Orders. Now. Do We make Ourselves clear?"

  "Yes, Holiness. And the property?"

  Ignacio turned toward Munoz. "You brought this problem to Our attention. What do you suggest We do with this white elephant?"

  "You might consider—" Munoz paused but a heartbeat then said, "Sell it, recoup some of our losses, Your Holiness." His gaze was direct, conciliatory.

  "Hmmm. And what might We consider?"

  "Holiness?"

  "You said We might consider. Might consider what?"

  "Oh, that." Munoz gave a dismissing wave. "A fleeting thought, Holiness. Not one worth discussing in view of the dollars already invested by the Church. To repeat, my advice is to sell the property."

  "Our advice to you, Cardinal, is to answer Our question."

  Munoz shifted in his chair, glanced around the table as if begging supportive agreement for his suggestion. From the corner of his eye, he watched Vittorio Cardinal Morandi mentally calculate figures, watched him peruse photos.

  "You are refusing to answer?" Ignacio’s voice came dangerously soft.

  "I . . . no, Holiness. You might think about assigning the bluff property to Cardinal Peterson as his private residence."

  Peterson’s jaw dropped.

  "Hummm. Your reasoning?"

  "As I recall, he has not yet chosen his place of residence and in light of his duties, what better place than San Francisco? That would also give you a Vatican representative in the Americas, a need you expressed at our last business meeting. But, as I said before, it was just a fleeting thought."

  Expectant silence filled the room as Ignacio tapped a finger against his lower lip.

  At last, the Pope spoke. "You are correct. We do need a representative in the Americas and if We remember rightly, Eminence, you also have not chosen a private residence, despite repeated requests to do so."

  Vittorio’s head jerked up. He stared at Munoz, glanced toward Ignacio and back to Munoz. His eyes filled with gleeful respect.

  "Since you do not seem to have the time to do so," Ignacio continued. "We will choose one for you. In San Francisco. On a bluff."

  "Oh, no, your Holiness. I couldn’t possibly accept. I think maybe a small villa on the outskirts of Rome. Something more suited to my station. Besides, my responsibilities—"

  "As of this moment, your services are needed in San Francisco. Cardinal Peterson will put together a disbanding plan for the Sisters, but We will hold you personally responsible for closing the Cloister. So, you see, acceptance is not your prerogative, it is Ours. That property is the only residence you’ll get."

  "You are far too generous, my Pope."

  "A reward for recognizing the heavy financial burden the Cloister placed upon the Church as well as for bringing the problem to the attention of the finance committee in a timely fashion. It is the least the Church can do."

  "As you command, Holiness," Munoz said with gaze downcast.

  "Your Eminence?" The tentative voice broke through the memory, jerked him from the past into the present. "We have uncovered a ladder, Eminence. Below the altar. Should I send one of the workers down? I have made them wait for your answer."

  Munoz felt his mouth go dry. He was right. What he searched for was in the chapel. Without a word, he strode toward the dust and rubble of the bell tower where laborers hovered around a broken altar w
hose base had twisted off center, revealing a gaping hole. Munoz stared at the polished groove etched into the stone floor, stared at scrape marks radiating from the groove, marks he had seen yet not seen during the initial inspection. His jaw tightened. He had overlooked the obvious in his zeal to find the hidden! It would not happen again. He turned his attention to the shaft. Bolted to the rough walls, a wooden ladder disappeared into the blackness. One of the cleanup crew flashed a light into the darkness.

  "Looks like a long way down to me. Can't see no bottom."

  "We'll never know just standing here, will we?" Grabbing the flashlight from the man's hand, Munoz gingerly lowered himself onto the first narrow step.

  As he moved ever deeper into the earth, a faint sound like that of a beating heart matched the rhythmic pulse vibrating against his hands as he clutched the side rails. He paused to press the palm of his left hand against the rock wall; it was cold but dry. He listened. Hadn't the sound grown louder?

  A sudden chill swept down his back and lodged in the crease of his buttocks. He wiped a film of sweat from his top lip as he squinted into the darkness below him. His scalp began to prickle and his breathing quickened. He pulled himself up a rung. There was something down there. He could feel it. It was watching—waiting for him to slip. His pulse hammered. Again he paused, breathing deeply. Listening. This is ridiculous, he thought. Not since he was seven years old had he let his imagination run away with him like this. He wasn't about to start now. Another rung upward; the step mushed inward then separated as if he had cleaved a mound of mashed potatoes. The lamp flew from his hand and disappeared.