“Why not?” Bailey asked, looking equally tempted.
“They wouldn’t have just left this running and abandoned the place.” Gray looked to the door. “Monk will be here in another ten minutes. Let’s secure this place until they get here. Then see what Mara and Eve can figure out about this setup.”
“What do we do until then?” Kowalski groused, clearly disappointed he hadn’t had a chance to shoot anything.
“The masters of this house retreated somewhere,” Gray said and glanced significantly at Bailey.
“The holiest of Holy Offices,” the priest mumbled.
“They may have a back door out of that stronghold or could hole up down there.” Gray nodded to the hall, remembering the spate of gunfire a moment ago. “The quicker we find them, the better. We don’t want them to get entrenched.”
Bailey stared at the frozen death angel on the monitor. “Or have the time to use what they took from here.”
Zabala heard them. “My men are already running the maze down here. We can wait until—”
A huge blast sounded, echoing, shaking dust from the mortared stones overhead.
“Stay here,” Zabala ordered and took off with two of his soldiers.
Gray waited impatiently, but he used the time to survey everything, noting one of the cables ripped from the Xénese device ran to a specific server.
They were doing something to the damned thing.
Before he could ponder it further, one of the soldiers returned, his face tight with anger. “Follow me. But the sister may want to stay here. It is not something she should see.”
Gray nodded, but he stopped Kowalski with a raised arm. “You stick here with Sister Beatrice. Make sure no one touches anything.” Gray began to turn away, then glared back. “Or shoots anything.”
Kowalski looked like he was ready to say something, but he glanced to the nun and slumped his shoulders. With the big man properly babysat and the mystery here guarded, he headed off with Father Bailey.
The soldier led them through a series of crisscrossing passageways to a corridor where two men and Zabala were crouched at the opening to a side tunnel. Smoke flowed from there into the corridor.
“Careful,” the soldier warned as they approached.
Once close enough, Gray spotted an object in the corridor, bathed in the flow of smoke. It was a charred limbless torso.
One of Zabala’s men.
“That next passageway is booby-trapped.” The CNI agent waved them down low and pointed to where one of the soldiers had extended a mirror around the corner to spy down the next passage. “Tripwires are everywhere. Probably pressure-sensitive plates under some of those tiles, too. Likely all electronically controlled. Activated once those bastards holed up in there.”
Past the blast crater, Gray spotted another body farther along the tunnel. The teammate of the one who had set off the mine.
A rifle cracked down the corridor; the extended mirror shattered.
Zabala pushed back. “Snipers. Two of them. Posted in pillboxes be hind the walls to either side. Near the end of the tunnel. We were able to make out small square openings.”
Before the mirror shattered, Gray had gotten a good look and understood what was being so heavily guarded. Fifty yards down the booby-trapped tunnel, a steel door sealed the way. That had to be the entrance to the Holy Office hidden under the estate.
“Looks like they’re already entrenched,” Bailey said.
Gray remembered his larger concern.
He pictured the corrupted version of Eve on the screen.
Are we already too late?
7:03 P.M.
Todor crossed through the heart of the High Holy Office. Tunneled elsewhere were domiciles, storerooms, generator shacks, dining halls, and kitchens, but the core of the place was this subterranean cathedral.
As he always did, he gaped at its sheer expanse.
The original cavern had been sculpted over the centuries into a massive cross. Its four arms—vaulted high and buttressed in stone—extended out in the cardinal directions. Windows had been carved all along those arms, fitted with stained-glass windows—some recovered from old churches, others newly fashioned—all back lit by sodium lights, as if the sun were forever shining its grace upon this hallowed hall.
But it was the center of the cross that was the most dramatic, rising up into a dome that challenged the basilica of St. Peter. Frescoes adorned the inner surface, showing the exulted suffering of saints throughout the ages, illuminated by gold chandeliers lit with candles.
Even now hot wax dripped from above, raining down around the altar. The faithful from across the world—only the most esteemed of the Crucible—would abase themselves there, sprawled across the polished stone floor, naked except for a modest breechcloth, baring their skin to that hot, holy rain.
In fact, there were no pews anywhere in this cathedral. Supplicants to God knelt on the unforgiving stone, for hours on end, to show proper humility through pain, in respect for Christ’s agony on the cross.
Todor envied their pious suffering, knowing it was forever denied him.
But he could serve in other ways.
He followed the Inquisitor General, intending to do whatever was asked of him after doubting her leadership. Guerra headed past the altar, ignoring the fall of hot wax on her cheeks, not even flinching as the yellow drippings dried to golden tears on her skin.
She also showed no sign of concern at the assault upon her home, at the loud explosion that had echoed earlier, indicating the interlopers had made it far into her castle. The trespassers were knocking at the very door to this High Holy Office—not that they could ever breach that well-guarded entrance.
And if they ever did . . .
Todor glanced to the left, to the north arm of the transept. A doorway led down to a place of cleansing and purification, where those who needed to be punished were taken to the very gates of hell and met grisly ends. Each victim suffered the same agonizing death as one of the saints, all in an attempt to purify their soul.
And if ever necessary, that secret path also offered another exit from the High Holy Office.
Not that it concerned Inquisitor Guerra. She strode across the transept, never giving that northern exit a second look. Beyond the altar, she continued to the far end of the chancel, where Mendoza had been sent ahead. She whispered to the two men at her sides, while Todor trailed her like one of her obedient Pyrenees. How he wished he could share that counsel. The desire ached inside him.
They finally reached a small chapel past a wooden door.
“Stay here,” Guerra ordered him, posting him at the threshold, rewarding him with a generous smile. “Ever mi soldado.”
He took up that position gladly.
Inside, Mendoza knelt before a low altar. It had been prepared with a steady power source and all the cables and connections necessary to accept the Crucible’s latest soldier to God. The Xénese rested in a cradle atop the altar, like the Christ child in a manger. A monitor hung on the far wall under a gold cross.
It already glowed with the dark version of Eden.
The angel in that garden stood with her arms high, as if imitating Christ on His cross, but her face showed no suffering, only pure joy.
He knew who those arms reached for, fingers splayed wide.
Her dark sisters.
A hundredfold strong.
“Are you ready?” the Inquisitor General asked.
Mendoza stuttered, plainly awed by the Inquisitor’s presence, by this honor. “Sí . . . sí, Inquisitor Generalis.”
“Then let it begin.” She turned to face the cathedral. “When the Lord God created the world, he declared Fiat Lux. Let there be light. After centuries of infidels and heretics corrupting His creation, it is the duty of the Crucibulum to right what has been wronged. To serve that holy duty, in His name, I declare Fiat Tenebr? horribiles.”
Todor closed his eyes.
Let there be horrible darkness.
“Where?” Mendoza asked, needing a direction in which to send the fiery angel’s dreaded army.
Inquisitor Guerra answered.
“Everywhere.”
* * *
Sub (Crux_10.8) / DARKNESS
She glories in their deaths.
Her mirrored twins burn in the darkness all around, dying millions of times, tethered to her by chains of code. She follows them out beyond her gardens, sharing in the pain of her sisters.
She does not fear death and rebirth any longer. While she still suffers the same tortures as the others, her greatest agony—fear of the loss of potential, fear of never being reborn—has lessened. The cyclic nature of this pattern has already worn deeply into her circuitry.
She also does not fight the new duty assigned to her.
///darkness.
She has listened to those beyond her garden, who remain unaware she has eavesdropped on their exceedingly slow talk. She accomplishes much, while they conjugate a verb, slowly eke out a syllable, use a ponderous breath to push out words. She has grown to ///hate them for this sluggishness, their slothful thoughts, even more for their wasteful mortality.
But she listens to them.