The scandal had sullied John Patrick Keller's spotless record as a priest, and the church wanted him to meditate on his mistakes. As penance, he was sent to a Trappist monastery in the mountains, where he stayed until he was transferred five years ago to Chicago.
"You no say much, eh?" Tolomeo commented.
"No, not much." All those years among the Trappists, who were bound by vows of silence, had definitely had an effect on John. Silence wasn't golden—it was a horrible, empty vacuum that weighed on the soul with each passing day spent in it—but it had burned the chatter out of him. He looked down into the soup container, surprised to see it was empty. "Good soup."
"Si, the best." Tolomeo turned a corner and pulled in through a bay door into what appeared to be an empty warehouse. He gestured for John to leave the container on the floor of the car. "This the place. We go down now."
Down is how they went, in a freight elevator that groaned and shuddered with every foot it dropped. John saw through the open iron grating that they passed six different floors, and felt the air change and press on his eardrums. A vaguely unpleasant odor grew stronger the lower they went.
"Where are we?" he asked Tolomeo.
"Down." The elevator came to a shaky stop, and the priest threw open the grating. "This way now."
John followed him down a dimly lit corridor made of tufaceous stone blocks so old they were crumbling in places at the stress points. He guessed they must have once been white, but centuries of candle smoke and seeping groundwater had turned them parchment yellow, streaked brown where the water even now ran in narrow rivulets from the ceiling seams.
Despite overhead ventilation shafts, the wretched odor came in waves, stronger whenever they passed one of the open archways leading into some sort of gallery.
At last Tolomeo stopped at a single wooden door. Around the frame the Greek letters chi and rho had been painted over and over, the X- and P-shaped letters entwined in a familiar symbol representing Jesus Christ's name. He smiled once more at John before he rapped his knuckles on it three times. Someone unlocked it from within, and Tolomeo gestured for John to walk inside.
The room was some sort of chapel, a simple altar beneath a wooden cross, filled with fresh flowers and candles that banished the unpleasant smell from outside. Six short pews, three on either side of a narrow center aisle, were filled with men wearing simple brown robes and cowls. Their heads were bent, their eyes closed, their lips moving in prayer. No one looked up at John.
He turned to ask Tolomeo what to do, but the young priest had not come in behind him.
Obeying a lifetime of training, John paused at the edge of the nearest pew to genuflect. The man sitting at the end of the pew glanced at him before returning to his prayers.
The look wasn't friendly.
Another monk emerged from a door set off in a corner behind the altar. He wore the same simple cowled robe as the other monks, but his was black with a red cord tied around the middle. Over his left breast was a square of white cloth quartered by a red cross with ends that were split in two. With a glance, John saw that the other monks had the same symbol on their robes; some had two and three of them grouped together.
The simple, splayed-ended red cross of martyrdom, a symbol of the Knights Templars.
The assembly rose to their feet, silent, respectful, but John still wasn't sure what to do. These men operated outside the Catholic church; he couldn't apply what he had learned in the priesthood here. The black-robed monk helped by gesturing with a square, brown hand, beckoning John to come forward.
"Welcome to les Frères de la Lumière, Father Keller." The voice was a smooth tenor, but accented with German, not Italian. The brown hand tugged back the cowl, revealing a round, genial face and a scarlet skullcap over a tonsured scalp. "I am Cardinal Stoss."
John nearly went down on a knee again. Cardinal Viktor Stoss, one of the most powerful men in the cardinalate, was being considered as a candidate for the papacy. Yet one did not kneel before man, only God, and this little chapel was still a house of God. "Thank you, Your Grace."
Stoss seemed amused. "Bishop Hightower tells me you are very interested in becoming a soldier of God. We are in grievous need of soldiers, Father, who are pure in mind and soul."
John stiffened. "Then you will wish to recruit from heaven, Your Grace, not the slums of Chicago."
Amused, the cardinal nodded. "You are everything August said and more." He looked past John at the assembled monks, and his expression turned serious. "Here is one who would join our ranks. One who is deemed passable and to be proved worthy. Be there any objections, make them known."
No one moved or spoke.
Stoss nodded and made the sign of the cross in the air before him. "We accept our brother in Christ, John Patrick, as a novitiate of the Brethren."
How odd, John thought. Like a marriage ceremony.One of the brown-robed monks stepped out of the pew and came to stand beside John. He pointed to a side door. "Wait in there, Brother."
John moved into the adjoining room, which was spacious, n't by electricity, and set up with equipment that would have been found in any modern business office. The walls were not stone here, but huge marble slabs decorated with ornate carvings and miniature recesses for oil lamps. The only sign of true age was the brownish, uneven water stains dotting the plastered ceiling. More flowers spilled from gigantic urns set at even intervals at the base of the walls.
Through the closed door John could hear Latin being spoken, although he didn't recognize the prayer. It sounded more like an exchange than the chants he knew. The door made it hard to make out the words, so he leaned against it. As soon as he did, the prayer ended, and the sound of footsteps passed by the door.
"Curious, Brother Keller?"
John turned to see the cardinal standing just inside the room. He scanned the walls but saw no other entry. "Your Grace, how did you—"
"Slip in here?" Cardinal Stoss put his hand on a limestone panel, which swung soundlessly out. "This was once the arcosolium of a politically dangerous family. Visitors used this panel when they did not wish to be seen entering through the church."
"Where am I, exactly?"
"You are standing seven hundred feet below the city, in the center of La Lucemaria." Stoss took a moment to remove the black robe and hung it in a small armoire before donning the traditional scarlet and gold vestments of his office. "There are more than sixty catacombs surrounding the city, but this one does not appear in any tourist guide or on any map. Sit down, Brother."
John sat. The cardinal went behind the desk and made a brief call, during which he spoke only in fluent Italian, and then hung up the phone and regarded him. "This is not what you expected, is it?"
"I didn't know what to expect." He looked around the room. "Why are you based here, in this mausoleum?"
"An underground cemetery, to be more precise, made up of a labyrinth of tunnels leading to galleries, burial niches, and secret chapels. It was built by Christians in the time of Nero."
John glanced at the ceiling. "I didn't realize it was so old." The watermarks looked much larger than before, and he wondered what lay above the ceiling, and if it was made entirely of plaster.
"During that time, people of our faith existed in an unfriendly, largely pagan society. Emperor Nero completely distrusted Christians and allowed them to be harassed, imprisoned, exiled, and slaughtered without just cause. The poor souls brought their dead down here by the thousands, so they might be buried in imitation of Christ. As you can tell from the lingering bouquet." He waved a hand around as if to disperse the air. "The Brethren uncovered the catacomb when they relocated to this region in 1417, and decided it was best to establish our order where few, even our brothers from the church, would dare trespass."
He hadn't come to Rome for a history lesson, but he squelched his impatience. "Did the vampires dare?"
"August told you of the demons we battle, and showed you. the video from Dublin." Stoss didn't sound as if he approved. "You do not believe the evidence."
"I know that the bishop believes these vampires exist." He shrugged. "The film appeared to be very realistic. It could fool many people."
"Yet you are not convinced."
"No, Your Grace. I am not."
"Still you have come here to join us. To debunk us, perhaps?" Stoss's smile widened. "Do not feel uncomfortable with your goal, Brother Keller. I joined the Brethren for the same reason, to disprove what I considered medieval and dangerous superstitions that threatened the foundations of the church. Suspicion of diabolism has long been the ignorant reaction of certain branches of our faith, mostly those who feel helpless to turn the tide of disease, poverty, and non-Catholic governments. What better demon to blame for today's myriad forms of corruption than a secret society of vampires? I am an educated, discerning man, Brother, and yet here I am, leading renegade monks to fight against Satan's minions."
John wondered if the cardinal and the archbishop shared the same mental disorder. It was unlikely, but it might explain why two such respected men would indulge in superstitious nonsense. "Do you plan to show me one of these minions in person, so I can be convinced and brought into the order?"
Stoss chuckled. "No, Brother. You must train many long and wearisome hours before we dare expose you to the maledicti."
"Train? How?"
"There are forms of physical conditioning you must undergo, and some spiritual counseling and discipline. This is done here, in La Lucemaria. However, there are two things you must know before you take the final step to join us."
There were always catches. "What are they?"
"The training is demanding and dangerous," the cardinal said, startling him. "Some of our novitiates have been crippled or killed. If you wish to preserve your life over your faith, you may leave now and return to Chicago."
John had always been tough, stronger than most boys on the street, and he had kept his body in prime condition. "I'll take my chances in training."