the Source (2008)

by Cordy, Michael

  'He doesn't believe.'

  'Give it to him. He may still find salvation in it.'

  She focused on Ross again. 'Father Orlando is here. I can see him. I'm released from my vow. I can be with him again.' She reached for her crucifix and handed it to Ross. He tried to refuse but she insisted. 'Take the crucifix, Ross. Father Orlando gave it to me when I became the Keeper. One day, even you might find comfort in it.'

  Ross frowned. 'I'm not the new Keeper and I've no use for a crucifix.'

  She held out the cross. 'Take it. Release me.'

  He hesitated a moment longer, then nodded reluctantly. 'I'll take it out of respect for you and because I know it symbolizes your burden,' he said. He took the cross from her and placed it round his neck.

  Sister Chantal sighed and relaxed. She looked up at Zeb and Hackett and said goodbye. She saw sadness in their eyes but she felt none. She turned to Bazin. 'I forgive you, my son. You only did what the Superior General told you was right. Your mistake was to trust him and put the Church above your faith. Remember, the Church should always be your servant and guide, never your master.' She smiled at him. 'Like you, Marco, I believe this garden comes from God. If you truly want redemption, put your gun down and help Ross protect it. From everyone. Including the Church.'

  She saw Father Orlando beckon and joy coursed through her. Finally she could rejoin him. She squeezed Ross's hand. 'I must leave you now,' she said. 'Father Orlando is calling me.' She smiled one last time then closed her eyes, welcoming the peace that greeted her.

  Ross felt the life leave Sister Chantal and, for a moment, no one spoke. His sadness was tempered because she appeared so peaceful, as if enjoying well-deserved sleep. As he laid her down beside Father Orlando's grave he was acutely aware of the cross dangling from his neck. Fashioned from dull metal, it felt surprisingly heavy.

  When he looked up he found himself staring into the barrel of Bazin's gun. 'So, what are you going to do?' he said. 'Help us protect this so-called Garden of God? Or help the Superior General destroy it?'

  The gun trembled in Bazin's hand. He rarely gave a second thought to all the men he had killed. Killing Ross, however, had been different - not least because Ross had once saved his life. That fleeting guilt, however, was nothing compared to the confusion he felt now. Looking into Ross's eyes, knowing he had already killed him once, was more unnerving than anything he had ever experienced. He felt as if he was looking into the eyes of every man he had murdered. But what did it mean? Was he being offered a secondchance to redeem himself, or was this a test of his resolve?

  'I'm only doing what's right,' he said. 'I serve the Holy Mother Church, the true guardian of the Garden of God.'

  Ross indicated the forbidden caves and the collapsed entrance.

  'Do you know what happened in there? I told the Superior General I was prepared to leave this place with nothing and never speak of it again if he did the same. He refused.'

  'Of course he refused. It's his duty to claim it for God and the Church.'

  'He didn't just refuse. He took a hammer to the Source.' Ross paused. 'Tell me something, Marco. If the Source is intended only for your church, then why did it resist so violently when the Superior General tried to remove a sample? And if I'm such a threat why did it bring me back from the dead?'

  Bazin glared at him, determined to keep indecision out of his eyes.

  'The truth is, Marco, whatever you think of what I do or don't believe, I was prepared to sacrifice my wife to save the Garden of God. Torino, however, doesn't give a damn about it. He finds it embarrassing. He only wants the Source. He intends to destroy everything else - I saw the detonator control in his backpack. How can you let him destroy this magical garden, with all its creatures, just because it challenges Rome's doctrine? Why would any god approve of that?'

  'The incendiaries are just a contingency.' He pushed the gun closer to Ross's face. 'The Superior General doesn't want to use them. Where is he, anyway?'

  'I don't know. Perhaps he's dead.'

  The two-way radio crackled in Bazin's hand. He put it to his ear and breathed a sigh of relief. It was the Superior General and he was very much alive.

  Chapter 78.

  Moments earlier

  Torino was breathing hard when he emerged from the tunnel of blood. The antechamber was darker than he had expected. So much crystal had fallen that the glow it threw into the chamber had significantly dimmed. It took him some seconds, however, to grasp the main reason for the low light: the entrance into the garden had been blocked with fallen rocks. The collapse had dammed the stream, raising the water level of the pools in the antechamber.

  The nymphs were chanting loudly in the dark recesses behind him, but he ignored them. He felt safe with Petersen's pistol. He rushed to the entrance and pulled at the rocks but only managed to create a narrow, horizontal gap with a letterbox-shaped view of the garden. He angled his head, peered to the right and saw the lake. Then he peered to the left and smiled. Some distance away, gun in hand, Bazin stood over Kelly. Sister Chantal lay motionless between them. Two other figures were partially visible: Zeb Quinn and Hackett.

  He called out but couldn't make himself heard above the nymphs' din. He put the Source fragment and the pistol into his backpack next to the detonator box and pulled out his two-way radio. He pressed the transmit button and saw Bazin reach for his radio and put it to his ear.

  'Marco, I'm trapped in the antechamber. The others are dead. Who's with you? I can only see you and Kelly fully.'

  'I've got him, Zeb Quinn and Hackett here.'

  'What about Sister Chantal?'

  'She's dead.'

  'Good. Shoot the others, then come and get me out.'

  'Why kill them? They intend no harm to the garden.'

  'Don't question me. If they leave here they'll tell everyone what they've seen. To do the most good, the Holy Mother Church must keep this place and its miracles secret.'

  'And the garden? If I kill them we don't need to harm it.'

  Torino clenched his jaw and bit back his impatience. 'This garden belongs to the Church, Marco. Rome will decide how it serves God best.' Of course the garden had to be destroyed. The pope had made it explicit that nothing here could be allowed to contradict his infallible doctrine. He had expressly stated that whatever Torino found could only bring glory to Rome, and that the Holy Father could have no personal knowledge of anything he might later have to deny. Therefore, before Torino presented this place to Rome, everything questionable had to be purged from it. There was no guarantee that his half-brother would understand this, though, and Torino needed his help to get out. He looked down at the detonator control. 'But, as I told you, the incendiaries were only ever a contingency. If you do as I say there shouldn't be any need to use them.'

  'I understand.'

  'Then do your duty. Earn your redemption.'

  'I will.'

  The radio went dead and Torino peered through the gap. Bazin was partially visible but the others were now out of view. He held his gun in his right hand while gesticulating angrily with the left. He appeared to be shouting.

  Then Torino heard three shots in quick succession. He craned his neck but Bazin had walked out of sight. The next three shots were more spaced out, deliberate. Torino imagined him walking from body to body delivering the coup de grace. Bazin reappeared, held the radio to his mouth and walked towards him.

  Torino's set crackled.

  'It's done,' said Bazin.

  Chapter 79.

  Torino heard but couldn't see Bazin pulling the rocks away from the far end of the collapsed entrance where the cliff face still provided support. He tried to help but most of the internal rocks seemed to support those on the outside. Alone, with his bare hands, Bazin worked with impressive speed. Within minutes he had cleared a narrow passage, and wriggled through. When his face appeared it was streaked with sweat and dirt. He stood up and dusted himself down.

  'You okay, Father General?'

  'Fin
e. But I need to get out of here.'

  As Torino headed for the gap, Bazin placed a hand on his shoulder. 'Give me your pack. You won't squeeze out with that on your back.'

  'I'll push it in front of me.'

  Bazin looked pained. 'I want the detonator control.'

  'Why?'

  'You promised me that if I killed them you wouldn't need to destroy the garden.'

  'I promised you nothing. I said it was a contingency.'

  Bazin held out his hand. 'I've done everything you demanded of me since I came to you seeking absolution. Do this one thing for me, Leo.'

  'Why, Marco? I owe you nothing. When you came to me you were a killer, a base assassin, the left hand of the Devil. I gave you purpose and showed you the path to redemption. I turned you into a crusader for God and the Holy Mother Church. I did you a favour.'

  'I'm still a killer. I've killed for you.'

  'Not for me. Everything I've asked you to do has been for the Church, for God, and for your own salvation.'

  Bazin released a long, sad sigh. 'Ever since we were at the orphanage I've looked up to you, Leo. I didn't care that the Jesuits dismissed me as a thug. I took pride in how they nurtured you, my brother. I idolized you and wanted your approval. That was why I trusted you to help me and that was why I've done everything you asked of me. Now do this one thing for me. Give me the detonator box. Not as the Superior General, but as Leo, my brother.'

  'I can't do that. I serve the Church, not you.'

  'So you did lie to me. The incendiaries aren't just a contingency.'

  'I didn't lie. I just didn't think you'd understand the truth. Enemies of the Church will twist what they find here. They'll talk about evolution and creation and undermine the scriptures, sowing doubt in the minds of the faithful. Only by destroying the garden and all its mutant life, then building a new Vatican over the ashes, will we harness the power of the Source and save the souls of mankind.'

  'But this is the Garden of God. How can we destroy it?'

  Torino groaned impatiently. 'I knew you'd be too stupid to understand, Marco.'

  'Too stupid to understand? Or stupid enough to trust you?' He pulled a gun from his belt. 'Give me the detonator box, Leo.'

  Torino glared at his brother. He had feared this might happen. He took the pack off his shoulders and reached in with both hands. 'As you wish.' While his left hand pulled out the detonator box, the right felt for Petersen's pistol, aimed it through the canvas and pulled the trigger three times.

  Bazin's face showed more shock than pain when the bullets punched into him, knocking him to the floor. As he fell, he dropped his gun, which clattered across the hard rock into the shadows. Torino walked over to him and shook his head contemptuously. 'I offered you redemption, Marco, and you threw it away. For what? To save a worthless garden.' He held out the detonator and raised the safety catch, exposing the button and turning the light green. 'You haven't saved it. You've saved nothing.'

  'You're wrong, Leo,' said Bazin. 'I have saved something.' A movement in the passage to the garden made Torino turn. Kelly was crawling into the antechamber. Now Torino saw why Bazin had been able to burrow so quickly through the fallen rocks. He hadn't been working alone. He had only pretended to shoot Kelly. The others were probably outside, too. Torino grabbed the gun from his pack, aimed it and pulled the trigger.

  Click. No more bullets.

  Kelly was almost inside now, rising to his feet. Torino threw the gun down with his backpack and clutched the detonator. His first priority must be to protect the Church. He glanced through the gap into the garden.

  Then he pressed the detonator button.

  The resultant firestorm sounded more like a hurricane than a bomb blast. It raced round the eye-shaped crater, gathering momentum, sucking up all the oxygen and incinerating everything in its path. When the fire reached the soldiers' stored ammunition, there were more explosions. From inside the cave it sounded as if a war had broken out. A plume of flame shot through the narrow passage Bazin had made in the fallen rocks, knocking Kelly to the floor. Torino's chest felt tight as oxygen was sucked out of the antechamber into the garden. There was a loud whoosh of displaced air, and black dust and smoke swirled through the opening.

  Suddenly, it was over. What evolution had taken billions of years to create had been destroyed in minutes.

  'What have you done?' groaned Bazin from the floor.

  Peering through the acrid, smoke-filled air, Torino saw that the garden was no more. In its place was a charcoal wasteland, surrounded by the bare granite walls of the crater. The stream had mostly evaporated and the lake was black with ash. Small fires still raged where there was anything left to burn but the destruction was total. Despite Torino's satisfaction, the desolation saddened him. Doing one's duty was never easy.

  Kelly lay on his back on the rock floor, blood pouring from a gash on his forehead. One side of his clothes had been blackened where the plume of flame had scorched him. He appeared unconscious or dead.

  Torino saw Bazin's pistol glinting in the shadows beyond his body and moved to claim it. He would return with more incendiaries and purge these caves of any remaining abominations: the hydra, the nymphs and the worms. Only the Source, which brought glory to Rome, would remain. The Holy Mother Church would build a new Vatican here. Leaving his backpack on the floor by the entrance, he stepped into the shadows to retrieve the gun.

  Chapter 80.

  Bazin groaned as Torino passed him. It was now painfully clear to him that his half-brother had not led him to salvation but to damnation. When he had been the Left Hand of the Devil, Bazin had sinned against man, but when he had killed for Leo, in the name of the Church, he had sinned directly against God. This pained him more than the bullets embedded in his gut.

  After a lifetime of killing with impunity, it seemed odd to Bazin that his last act - sparing the lives of Ross, Zeb Quinn and Hackett - should be the one for which he was punished. He was glad, though. As Ross was fond of saying, deeds were everything, and this one had been a rare act of selfless good in a life of selfish evil. As Bazin glanced at Ross's motionless body, however, he realized that this last attempt to save him, the others and the garden appeared to have been in vain.

  As his lifeblood leaked on to the rock, he called to his half-brother, 'I know I sinned, Leo, but I came to you for absolution. I wanted to do the right thing. God may still forgive my sins but He'll never forgive yours. You've turned Eden into a wasteland in His name. Look around you, Leo. This isn't Heaven. This is Hell, and it's of your making.' Bazin knew he was close to death now, but he felt no fear. Not as he had in the clinic when he was ill.

  Torino shook his head sorrowfully. 'You're dying, Marco. I tried to help you, I really did. But you turned against God and now you'll be damned for ever.'

  Watching Torino bend to retrieve the gun, Bazin blinked at the shapes moving in the shadows behind him. As death closed in he turned again to Ross and something he saw made him smile. He called again to his brother. 'You should fear Hell more than I do, Leo.'

  Torino laughed. 'I'm not going to Hell.'

  Bazin summoned his final breath. 'No, Leo. Hell is coming for you.'

  Marco's last breath sounded like a sigh of relief. Torino felt sad at his half-brother's passing - but only because he had thrown away his last chance of redemption. If he had kept the courage of his convictions and helped secure the Source for the Church, he would have saved millions of souls instead of sacrificing his own.

  It was time to finish this. Torino retrieved the gun from the rock floor and turned to Kelly. He peered into the gloom. Kelly was no longer there. Neither was Torino's discarded backpack, which contained the Source fragment. Panic surged through him. He whirled round and saw something moving in the half-light. He fired a shot into the dark.

  'Kelly,' he shouted, 'there's nowhere to run. Give back the fragment.' Even as he spoke the words, Torino understood that the other man was trying to do exactly that: give it back. He was heading
for the tunnel of blood. He had to keep to the shadows, though, to avoid being seen. Torino didn't. He ran directly for the tunnel.

  Ross kept to the dark recesses until the last minute, but as soon as he broke cover and ran into the tunnel entrance he saw that he was too late. The tunnel was darker than it had been. Much of the luminous crystal had fallen from the walls and ceiling and lay in the stream or under fallen rock. But Torino was still visible. He stood five feet inside the entrance, smiling, his gun pointing directly at him.

  'I have my brother's blood on my hands because of you, Dr Kelly. Now you see why I can't let scientists like you misinterpret this place with your poisonous theories. If you could use the garden to turn my brother against me, think of how your fellow scientists could have used it to turn the faithful against the Holy Mother Church.' He stepped closer and Ross clutched the backpack to him, feeling the warmth of the fragment within it. 'Give me the backpack, Dr Kelly.'

  Ross looked up and froze.

  'Have you nothing to say, Dr Kelly? No more arrogant attacks on the Church and my faith?' Torino seemed to want Ross to argue with him again, as if it might make shooting him easier, sweeter. He looked disappointed when Ross said nothing. 'Give me the backpack. I want the Source.'

  'I know you do, but there's a problem,' Ross said. 'A big problem.'

  'What's that?'

  'I think they want it, too.'

  Torino smiled. 'You mean those creatures behind you?' he said, pointing past Ross. 'I have a gun. Your friends don't frighten me.' Ross glanced over his shoulder. The ranks of silent nymphs blocking the tunnel behind him no longer seemed friendly. They were angry. 'Stop wasting time,' said Torino. 'Give me the backpack.'

  Ross shook his head as calmly as he could. 'Actually, I wasn't talking about the ones behind me.' He pointed past Torino. 'I'm more worried about the ones behind you.'

  'Do I look stupid?'

  Ross didn't answer.

  Torino glanced over his shoulder. And froze. The tunnel behind him was a seething mass of serpentine shapes. Some were tuberous, plant-like growths that ended in pods - like those depicted in the Voynich. Others were flailing rock worms that ended in grotesque, bullet-shaped heads, complete with red eyes and razor teeth. Torino raised his gun towards the creatures - or creature, as Ross now understood the hydra to be. 'I wouldn't fire at it if I were you, Father General,' he whispered. 'That's Father Orlando's Tree of Life and Death. That creature draws life from the monolith and delivers death to protect it. I'm guessing it's pretty pissed at what you did to the monolith and the garden. I suggest we give back the fragment.'