The corridors and waiting rooms outside the offices were as richly appointed as the offices themselves, the churches wealth on show everywhere in the shape of luxury rooms, classic and famous paintings hung on the walls while statues and carvings stood waiting to be admired. All around him the Vatican’s staff went about their business, Priests, Cardinals and Swiss Guard walking purposefully this way and that to whatever meetings were waiting for them. Outside the windows Vito could see more people wandering around the grounds, some in quiet contemplation, others striding and clearly concentrating on reaching their destination.
Another corner and Vito had reached his own destination, the clerk motioned Vito into the waiting room and walked off. Vito stood at ease in the room where a man behind a desk worked as Mary’s secretary. He glanced up and motioned to a chair indicating that Vito should sit and wait for Mary to be free. The room was quiet apart from the Secretaries occasional rustling of paper and scratching of his pen as he wrote. Sitting down to wait, he found he could hear the muffled and distant sounds of Mary on the phone, it was incredibly faint and Vito certainly couldn’t make out any words, but at least he knew why after such an urgent summons he was now made to wait.
The offices the Grand Inquisitors used were large and spacious and some of the best in the whole of the Vatican. After all, they may be a secret branch of the church, but they were also the founding branch. This meant that the Disciples of the Cross had every luxury and no expense was spared for them. They were fighting for the world and its salvation, they were on the front lines and putting their lives at risk daily so that the rest of the world could live in peace.
Mary’s office was perhaps the biggest and most spacious of all the Grand Inquisitors, with her large desk at the far end leaving a large open space between the door and the desk that you had to cross to speak to her.
It made you feel small and was no doubt done on purpose to intimidate those who went in to see her.
The secretary’s voice cut through Vito’s musings as he heard the man press the intercom button and speak into it. Vito had never bothered to learn the names of the secretaries Mary used, there where at least three that seemed to be on some sort of rotation, and Vito had more important things on his mind.
‘Vito is here to see you ma’am,’ the man said.
‘Send him in please.’ Mary’s voice sounded from the intercom in the slightly distorted way they do when sent through such devices.
The Secretary clicked off the button and walked to the door, Vito rose and walked over as the Secretary opened the door to let him through closing it behind him. Vito felt quite insignificant as he stood at the far side of the office with Mary at the other end sat behind her desk jotting down notes, she wasn’t taking much notice of Vito for the moment.
The room was large with a high ceiling, rectangular in shape with the longer sides on either side of Vito as he stood at the door. Along the wall to Vito’s right were three tall arched windows that opened up onto the Vatican Grounds and lit the room with shafts of natural light. Long drapes framed these windows and stood tied back with golden ropes that pleated the drapes where they hung. Decorative rugs covered the floor, illuminated by the light from the windows as the high sun filtered through. On the left wall there were a number of paintings in thick gilded frames that hung over artistically carved tables and pedestals with small statues and busts perched upon them. He knew that these busts were of previous Grand Inquisitors who had used this office before Mary and who all were now dead. They watched over the proceedings of the office with detached benevolence and served as a reminder of the grand history of the Disciples of the Cross.
Directly to Vito’s left against the wall to his rear there was a table with glasses and decanters of water, while behind the desk along the far wall, there was a huge wall-to-wall book case that had been filled with a wide array of books from the glossy modern volumes to ancient and hoary codex’s, all of them related to Christianity, Catholicism and Witch Hunting in some way. The knowledge in these books was wide ranging, some of it could even be said to be blasphemous, but all of it was useful to the modern Inquisitor.
The desk Mary sat behind was set off to the right side of the far wall, closer to the windows, so that Mary got lots of light upon her oaken, wide desk. On its surface there were stacks of papers and folders, pens in pen holders, and other things that looked in keeping with the room around them, unlike the light grey, modern flat screen monitor and keyboard that sat on the right hand side of the desk.
The Vatican had taken a little longer than the rest of the world to speed up to the digital revolution, but young modern priests had forced it upon the church and by now the Vatican was fully wired up with broadband and all the other high tech gadgets you could ever need. But even now there were pockets of resistance, older priests who refused to work on these god forsaken contraptions. It was a nuisance as everything they wrote or typed had to be scanned in or copied into the Vatican’s Network, but people didn’t tend to argue with the Cardinals.
Mary finished what she was doing, closed the folder and popped it to one side, she motioned for Vito to come and join her at the desk, and to sit in one of the chairs that stood before it.
Mary Damask was slim but athletic, her pale features were severe and angular, enhanced by the bob of black hair that framed her face, its length and fringe cut to a harsh straight edge. She wore her robes of office which were a deep crimson colour and fell about her shoulders.
‘Welcome back Vito, does it feel good to be home again?’
‘Indeed it does Inquisitor, although the jet lag has been a little rough.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that Vito, but hopefully this shouldn’t take long. I’ve been a little busy today and have only found time to glance at your report. I’ll have a good look at it later when I get time, but I wanted to hear from you how it went first while it’s still fresh in your head. So, in your own time,’ she said, sitting back and indicating that he should start speaking.
Vito felt a little annoyed that she hadn’t read his report yet, it had everything in there that she needed to know, but he knew he would end up repeating it all anyway, so this was just getting it over and done with he supposed. ‘Well okay. There’s lots of detail in the report though so I will give you the gist of what happened and my conclusions.
‘After arriving in Manhattan and sleeping a night there, I went straight to the alleyway where the attack happened, which was in a very seedy part of town and right in the middle of a red light district, the street it led off from was swarming with whores. So I headed into the alleyway and using the Divine Gift I tried to see if I could find out what happened during the attack for myself. I did get the impression of a hurt and terrified girl, but there’d been a presence there that seemed to be blocking my attempts see what happened. The presence I felt, I believe was the after image of the Demon which had been there. I actually returned to the alleyway a few times, and each time I tried, I got the same thing. This dark presence would fill my vision and I would see a desert, and an Egyptian tomb, or at least I believe it to be Egyptian, and the aftermath of some kind of massacre. Dead bodies were everywhere in this tomb, which I presume must have been committed by this creature, but that is conjecture at this time.’ Vito waved his hand, dismissing his conclusion.
‘Within the tomb, I noticed two sets of graffiti, one of which I believe was written by the Demon. There was, she will pay, which had been written in blood, by the Demon I think. Carved into the same wall, Do not lift the Slab. Horlack Lies within. Had been written, I think Horlack is the Demon in question.’
‘So the creature’s presence, this Horlack’s presence, stopped you from looking back in time to see the girl?’
‘Indeed,’ Vito commented, raising his eyebrow at the same time.
‘That’s interesting,’ Mary Mused, looking off into space, before returning her gaze to Vito and gesturing towards him as she said, ‘This would mean it’s a very powerful Demon, as few wou
ld be strong enough to stop you from looking back and seeing things for yourself.’
‘Again I agree, but I also think that it could be bypassed by someone who was powerful enough to do so. That’s the feeling I got from it anyway.’
‘Interesting, if need be I can find someone who might be strong enough to counter this presence in the alleyway for us. But I take it this wasn’t the end of your investigation Vito?’
‘That’s correct, I figured I would be able to find out more from the girls on the street, so I used a fake I.D. to pose as a Private Investigator and see if some questioning would work better.’
Mary smiled at Vito’s dedication and inventiveness. ‘So how did that go?’
‘Well, I began by introducing myself around and doing my best to gain their trust, Getting them to believe I wasn’t out to arrest them or hand them over to the police.’ Vito remembered the fairly hostile first encounters with the girls, although he had expected nothing less going into this line of inquiry. ‘They were really not happy to speak to me at first and I found myself having to deal with a few pimps in the process,’ Vito rubbed at his knuckles as he said it, remembering the scuffles he had been in, ‘but after a while I found myself able to narrow it down and soon found the group of ladies who had been friends with the girl that was attacked.’
‘Excellent,’ Mary said.
‘Thank you. After speaking to all four of them I started to get a feel for the group, and who would talk and who would know the most. It was the youngest who gave up the most without much questioning, however the oldest of the group seemed to know more than the others, but she was very cagy and protective of her friends.
‘So I made sure I approached the youngest, Renée, when Jade, the eldest was with a client. After a while I was able to find out some of what I wanted to know. The girl knew the victim as AJ and I did get an impression of the girls appearance, the red hair and so on, which matched the description from the Witness. Otherwise, Renée’s information had run dry, and I believed Jade was the one with the answers I needed.’
‘Jade was clever though, and seemed to hide her thoughts from me somewhat, not reminiscing about her friends whatever I did. So I thought it was about time to try another tactic. I followed her home and we had a little time alone. She took a little convincing, but she soon gave me what I needed.’
Vito remembered these few hours quite vividly as he spoke to Mary, he felt quite dispassionate about them. Years ago he had done very well in his interrogation training and seemed to have the dedication and temperament to use whatever methods were necessary to find out the truth from the heretics and heathens of the world that the Inquisition would run into time and again. Vito only needed to get Jade to think about the things he needed to know as he could read thoughts through his Divine Power. He wasn’t able to reach into some one’s mind and find them himself yet, but he could read any surface thoughts that someone was thinking about as if he was watching the television set of their mind, getting mainly flashes of things they had seen and hearing the words they were thinking, as they were thinking them.
Jade had been a tough nut to crack and forcing her to think the thoughts he wanted to know was the only way he could see to get what he wanted quickly, and after pulling out a few toe and finger nails, it’s amazing how quickly people come round. Soon enough Jade told Vito whatever he wanted to know and Vito listened while picking out extra details from her thoughts at the same time.
‘So, what did you find out then?’ Mary asked.
‘Firstly, the name of the girl that was supposedly attacked in the alleyway was Amanda-Jane Page, although they all called her AJ as I mentioned.’
‘Amanda,’ Mary said, dragging the word out slightly and letting it simmer in her mind for a moment. ‘I’ve not heard of her before. Please, continue.’
‘Well, Amanda had been a part of their group since before Renée had joined, and hung out with a girl called Georgina who was older then all of them. Both Georgina and Amanda were protected by a Pimp called Stuart who protected all six of them. Georgina and Amanda knew these four girls I spoke with, but they didn’t hang out with them much, they just knew them because of the link through their Pimp.
‘Renee had mentioned that Georgina had left for some reason and Amanda was due to follow her until Amanda disappeared the night Stuart had been killed in the alleyway, a few days before her flight. It was only upon interrogating Jade that I found out why the pair left New York. It seems that Georgina had left because she had contracted AIDS and it was only discovered in its late stages.’
‘Whores! Serves her right. She deserves everything she gets,’ Mary Spat.
‘My thoughts exactly.’
‘So where did she go to?’
‘Well, Jade wasn’t so sure, it seems that Georgina was quite secretive about it, but Jade thought it was in Europe somewhere. Amanda was Irish, an illegal immigrant apparently, which is why she worked the streets, she couldn’t find legitimate work. I guessed the pair might have gone back to Ireland, but having no proof of this, I wondered if any of the other girls might know. So I headed back onto the street, keeping Jade bound and tied for the moment so she couldn’t interfere, and found the girls again to speak to them. I spun them a line about following up some other leads and finding out that Georgina had headed to Europe somewhere and asked if they knew where. I picked up Ireland, England and France as possible places from their mixed thoughts, that and the fact that Renée didn’t seem to know where Europe was, but that was all’
‘Heh, Americans, typical,’ Mary scoffed.
‘I know,’ Vito Replied. ‘But it narrows things down a little, just not far enough.’
‘Did you try to track her on the airlines etcetera using Amanda’s name?’
‘Yes, I called up the team here and asked for a trace, but her name didn’t come up which leads me to suspect she either used a fake passport, which wouldn’t surprise me seeing as she was in the country illegally, or she travelled some other way, Magically perhaps.’
‘Either way I think it’s a dead end,’ Mary said, ‘she could be anywhere by now, and she just isn’t a high enough priority to justify committing the resources to in order to find her. It’s one more Magi who got away, but if she is a Magi, then she may well show up in the future anyway, and we can bring her in then’
‘I agree, is there anything else?’
‘Well, in the end I let Jade go a day or so later just before I left the country, but I doubt she’ll go to the police about any of this. I had one more line of inquiry to follow up so I did some quick research about Egypt and the massacre in the tomb I had seen there. It took some time in some Internet Café’s but I did find out that there was a report of just such an event a few months ago now. The explanation was an attack by a militant group of some sort, but after seeing the vision from the presence in the alleyway, I think that was a cover up.’
‘Any more information on that dig?’
‘I little bit. From the report I was able to find an online Blog written by one of the Archaeologists on the dig, it contained some interesting information. Apparently it was an investigation into a tomb in the deep desert, which was dogged by superstition from the start with the local guide and his team having left early on, they were scared apparently.’
‘Interesting,’ said Mary.
‘The Archaeologists had been privately contracted to do the job with a representative of the investor on site with them. It seems from the Blog that the Archaeologists we’re unhappy with their investor as they were in secretive discussions with the Egyptian Museum in Cairo to provide them with whatever finds they got from the dig. Documentation of the finds were only just starting to come through when the massacre happened. Whoever did it looks to have stolen some of the finds from the camp, including one which the Egyptian Museum of Cairo had expressed an interest in. There was a photo of that artefact on the web which I printed out and is in my report. The photo was found at the dig site and has the Archaeologists at
the Museum in Cairo excited as it’s like nothing they have seen before.’
Mary pulled out the photo from the report and looked at the picture of the intricately carved slab of sand stone that was on it. It was badly pixelated from being of such a small size on the internet, but it was clear from its markings that it would be of some significance to the Witches and Warlocks of the world.
‘But that’s not the most interesting part of this.’ Vito said, waiting for Mary to bite.
‘Oh no?’
‘Nope, you see, the Blog mentioned a name, Amy Bergman, who was the representative of the private investor.’ Mary looked blank, waiting for Vito to fill in the information she was missing. Apparently she didn’t know the name by heart. ‘Amy is a Magi,’ Vito said.
‘But of course, and what do we know about her?’
‘Well, she’s only been a Magi for a couple of years, but the reason we know of her is because her Mentor is Yasmin the Dark. Whom I’m guessing is the investor of the dig.’
Mary Smiled. ‘Really. Well this is interesting.’
‘I thought so,’ Vito said satisfactorily.
‘OK, Vito, so what’s your conclusion to all this then?’
‘Well Inquisitor, the way I see the New York side of things, is that this friend of Amanda’s, Georgina contracted AIDS, and left the country, although we don’t know where, I think its clear she wanted to get away from life as a whore and thought that going abroad was a good idea. Amanda was hurt by this turn of events and figured the only way to stop her friend from dying was to ask Satan for help, maybe asking for the power to cure her friend. The Demon appeared and gave her this power. Then Amanda killed her Pimp with her new Magical Powers for making Georgina work the streets. I don’t think Amanda killed the Demon, although this could be possible, the power perhaps going to her head, and we have seen Warlocks killing Demons before despite serving them. However, I think it’s more likely that the witness was confused, it was late and dark after all and it’s not every day you see a Demon on the other side of the street. Whatever the case, Amanda then left the scene of the dead Pimp Stuart and left for Europe, if that’s where they went.’
Magi Saga 1: Epic Calling Page 16
