Page 25 of Skotos (Of Shadows & Secrets #6)

Will

T he corridors of the Apostolic Palace whispered with the weight of centuries.

“You’re staring,” Thomas murmured beside me, an amused quirk playing at his infuriatingly perfect lips.

“So would you,” I muttered. “If you hadn’t spent all your time dodging catechism.”

Our guide, a tall, soft-spoken priest with the weathered face of a confessor and the silence of a crypt, turned his head slightly. “You grow used to the beauty of this place,” he said in a tone both wistful and resigned, “but never to its majesty.”

Was that a line taught to every priest who worked in the place?

My mind reeled as I took in the remnants of a glorious past, a church that stood tall and proud through centuries—no millennia—shepherding its flock, guiding nations, sometimes toppling nations.

It would be impossible for anyone to calculate the impact of the Catholic Church on humanity, but walking the halls of the fulcrum on which it balanced, I somehow felt that impact deep within.

No, I couldn’t imagine ever getting used to this.

It felt like walking through the bones of a sleeping god, like one of those fantastic stories in which the hero must delve into the carcass of a long-dead dragon to retrieve a precious relic. The beast’s ribs were the columns, its heart the Seat of Saint Peter.

And we?

We were intruders, a virus, a cancer infesting the body of Christ.

We didn’t belong, and my skin crawled with anticipation and trepidation, a sensation that only grew with each step we took, each clap of the Monsignor’s shoes on the marble, with each painting of long-dead saints glaring down to follow us with a gaze that offered no absolution, only accusation.

Or perhaps my imagination was getting the better of me.

Thomas seemed unfazed, as was the Monsignor.

Maybe, just maybe, I’d been in the field too long and seen too much darkness—mostly in the form of men with guns, readying to shoot in our direction, usually at Thomas.

I was being paranoid.

Yes, my mind was running in circles and stoking childhood fears.

It was silly, really .

Still, I nearly jumped out of my shoes as we rounded a corner and the Monsignor banged on a thick wooden door flanked by two Swiss Guards.

The room we entered was small and windowless, lined with tomes stacked so high I wondered if some hadn’t been touched since Luther posted his theses.

The place reeked of ink and mold—and held an antiseptic aftertaste I couldn’t quite identify.

A flickering gas lamp on the desk did little to lift the gloom.

Behind the desk sat a man who looked as though the sun had long since given up on him.

I briefly wondered if His Holiness hadn’t employed a vampire to guard his vaults.

The priest’s skin had the translucence of old paper, and his eyes were enormous behind round glasses that magnified his eyeballs to almost comedic proportions.

Ink stains traced up his bony fingers like spider veins.

On anyone else, those stains would have been marks to be washed away.

I suspected the man wore them as badges of honor awarded by the Pope himself.

“This is Father Lucien Marini,” said Rinaldi. “His Holiness’s Curia—and the keeper of records best left forgotten. You may trust him as you would His Holiness.”

“Charmed,” Marini rasped, his voice as dry as the air we breathed.

He didn’t rise .

At the Monsignor’s urging, I laid out our case—three leaders dead, a symbol like a spear, and rumors that pointed to either Moscow or something far more ancient and insidious.

When I laid the photograph of the shell casing on the desk, the cleric barely moved, his eyes flicking only briefly to the image before fixing on me again.

Marini didn’t blink. He barely breathed—until I mentioned the Pope’s directive.

Marini looked to the Monsignor. “You’ve brought them to me because . . . ?”

“His Holiness instructed they be given full access,” Rinaldi replied without inflection.

Marini’s eyes widened. “Full?”

“Full.”

The silence that followed had weight.

Marini stood with the stiffness of an old marionette. “Very well,” he said, sounding like he’d rather be anywhere but letting us into his domain. “Follow me.”

We followed him back into the corridors. We rounded several corners before entering another unmarked door.

Stairs led us downward.

Our path shifted.

Light grew dimmer, the murals less grand. Gone were the trumpeting angels and triumphant saints—replaced with grim-faced monks and depictions of martyrdom soaked in red and shadow .

Smooth marble yielded to rough-hewn stone with each set of stairs we descended.

Eventually, all hints of majesty faded as we descended into a pit of blackness, a tomb of stone and dust and memories.

We stopped at a heavy iron gate. Unlike every other piece of metalwork in the palace, this gate was plain, unadorned by curls or engravings—or decorations of any kind.

Marini produced a ring of keys that looked like they belonged in a dungeon, and said nothing as he unlocked the gate and pulled it open.

Beyond, another stair spiraled down into deeper darkness.

The air grew colder.

Sconces were replaced by lights more appropriate for an archaeological dig site. Shadows fought with their dim glow, battling for supremacy in the gloom. The smells changed, too. Incense lingered—it was the Vatican, after all—but layered beneath was something older.

Earth.

Dust.

Something that hadn’t breathed fresh air in a thousand years, probably more.

“These are the original Grottos,” Marini said, voice flat. “They are not shown to pilgrims . . . or even to most within the Church. Only the Pope himself may allow entry into these vaults. ”

Original Grottos indeed.

We were surrounded by raw stone, chiseled by hand and worn by time. Tombs yawned open on either side, some with Latin inscriptions barely legible. A few had no names at all—just symbols, carved in haste or secrecy or both.

A hushed wind passed through the halls.

Or was it a chill breath?

I wasn’t sure.

We passed a door sealed with iron bands coated in wax.

“What’s in there?” I asked, fascinated by the Church’s method of ensuring a room went undisturbed.

Marini didn’t answer.

We turned into another corridor.

Passed another heavy door.

Marini fiddled with more keys and another heavy door.

When we stepped into the final chamber, my breath caught.

As the door opened, the familiar whoosh of a vacuum seal being broken shattered the silence, reminding me of the latest SCIF 1 technology employed by the CIA back in Washington to ensure private conversations.

Thomas glanced toward me but said nothing.

When the Monsignor pulled the door closed behind us, the familiar whoosh echoed throughout the chamber, confirming the use of a technology I thought only common in the most advanced intelligence services.

Sure, the Library of Congress and British Museum had dabbled with the preserving arts, but none had used it on an industrial scale.

Clearly, the Vatican took its prized possessions more seriously than even the most illustrious civic institutions—and had done so for more years than we knew.

A massive stone table dominated the room, its surface inlaid with a map of the world.

The countries depicted on the table weren’t modern, as borders appeared fluid, drawn and redrawn many times.

Rome sat in the center, while rays, like those of the sun, jutted out in every direction, the Holy City serving as the world’s beacon of light.

Past the table, shelves towered to the ceiling and tunneled far into the darkness of a room that somehow never seemed to end.

Books and scrolls were stacked in countless alcoves, their leather cracked, some blackened by age.

Lit by a single flickering bulb that hung limp above the slab, the place felt suspended outside of time.

It felt as though we’d entered a wound in the world that had yet to heal—and likely never would.

Father Marini reached into his pocket and donned a pair of white gloves, then walked to the shelves, his fingers drifting over one then another like a blind man reading the Braille of the texts, then stilled, tapping one shelf before pulling down a tome thicker than my arm.

He struggled beneath its weight as he shuffled back toward us and set it gently onto the table, a father setting his infant child to rest in a cradle surrounded by strangers.

Thomas let out a low breath. “How many centuries of secrets—”

“ Millennia , not centuries,” the Monsignor corrected gently.

“What is that book?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of my patience.

“This,” Marini said, tapping the binding with his gloved hand, “is the Lexicon Haeretica et Obscura: Catalogus Sigillorum et Ordinum Eclipsorum .”

His words were reverent, almost more so than when he spoke of the living Pope.

“Forgive me, Father, my Latin is a bit rusty,” Thomas said.

“Ah, yes, right.” Marini finally looked up, his fingers stilling on the leather binding.

“ Benedictus Heironymi was a twelfth-century Cistercian monk and ecclesiastical archivist, one of many scribes to Pope Celestine III. He was known for his obsessive need to document not only legitimate ecclesiastical orders but also royal crests, national symbols, secret iconography used by nations to deceive one another, rogue factions, shadow sects, and iconographic deviations deemed too dangerous for public record.”

Thomas’s brows rose. “A monumental effort.”

“Indeed,” Marini said, clearly pleased by Thomas’s note of surprise. “After his death in 1199, the work was continued—reluctantly—by successive generations of monastic scholars under papal directive, often in secrecy.”

“Why secrecy?” I asked. “These are just symbols, most of the countries or people long dead.”