God's Lions: The Secret Chapel (2 page)

“I say, Miss ... are you alright?”

Nothing.
Even with the slight breeze, the long robes never moved. The captain and sergeant traded looks once again just as a faint whiff of rotting flesh passed through their nostrils, prompting the two men to stop as the hair on the back of their necks stood straight out.

The captain held his hand over his face. “What’s that smell?”

“It smells like something
dead
, sir!” The sergeant’s pulse was beginning to rise.

The men took a few hesitant steps toward the woman, getting to within a few feet of her, when suddenly they stopped and began to back away, almost stumbling over each other in their haste to retreat.

The thing seemed to flicker for a moment.

“What the hell is that?” the sergeant shouted.

The figure began to change shape. It wavered like a broken hologram, dimming and then becoming brighter. Inside the slit in the black robes, where the men should have seen a pair of human eyes staring back at them, only a dull red glow burned within. The two men turned and began running toward the jeep, frantically waving at the troops to get back into their trucks.

Terror replaced the look of confidence on the face of the captain. “The eyes... it’s just ... there’s just red light coming out of them!”

The two men reached the perceived safety of their jeep just as a strong wind began to blow over the convoy. High overhead, dark tornado-like clouds were forming—blotting out the sun and turning day into night. An unearthly scream, like the garbled howl of a primeval beast from another dimension, shot from within the black-robed creature standing frozen before them.

Behind the figure, an endless swarm of strange and hideous-looking red insects materialized from the base of the dark clouds and headed for the men. The soldiers looked on in horror before diving to the ground clutching their rifles in their hands. They lay there with their faces inches from the dirt, breathing in the dust of the parched soil. They had trained and equipped themselves to do combat with other men, but nothing had prepared them for this.

The tiny winged creatures drew closer and circled the trucks in a solid mass before spreading out and tearing through the troops, shredding their clothing and going for their exposed flesh. The insects seemed particularly interested in the eyes of the men, blinding the soldiers who were now screaming in agony, blood running from hundreds of bites on their bodies.

Firing their weapons aimlessly into the air and out into the desert, the men inadvertently struck many of their own in the ensuing panic, but their weapons were useless. The repulsive insects practically devoured the outer layer of their skin before flying away as suddenly as they had appeared.

The menacing black clouds continued to descend until they reached ground level and blanketed the entire convoy, while a demonic wind began to rage, gaining strength and swirling in a circular motion as it blew sand into the men’s now sightless eyes. The smell of sulfur infused the air before a searing heat blasted from out of nowhere, building in intensity until everything was ablaze, as if the sun had touched the earth at that very spot. Fire roared about the soldiers in the last moments of their earthly lives before their blackened bodies fell to the ground. Then silence.

Order began to replace chaos. The black clouds and swirling wind vanished, along with the black-robed figure that had stood in the path of the approaching convoy. Shining from above, the sun now revealed the newly scorched landscape. The only sound that could be heard, if someone had been alive to hear it, was the crackle of the flames as they slowly burned themselves out within the hulks of the vehicles and the bodies of the men. The acrid smell of sulfur slowly evaporated into the atmosphere, and thick, black smoke from the burning tires rose high above the grisly sight, the only sign to the rest of the world of what had just occurred in the middle of a barren desert far from prying eyes.

On the smoldering ground, the young captain’s body was curled next to the burning jeep. A few feet away, beyond the reach of his outstretched, blackened hand, lay a singed picture of a young mother holding a baby girl. The hot desert wind began to blow ever so slightly again, stirring the landscape and slowly covering the picture in the sand, where it would remain for years to come.

The taxi swerved into a space between two others in front of the international terminal at New York’s JFK Airport. A tall, dark-suited figure emerged and hurried into the building, clutching a small carry-on bag and brown leather briefcase. Embossed in gold on the briefcase were the words “Leopold Amodeo, S.J.” To the casual passerby who noticed the Roman collar, he was just another Catholic priest one sees in all busy international airports. To the initiated who noted the letters S.J. after his name, he was a Jesuit, a member of the Society of Jesus. In times past, they were known as the soldiers of the church, a genus of sanctified commandos.

Hearing the last call for his flight to Rome, he jogged up a curved ramp that led to the departure gates. Darkness enveloped the windows outside the empty waiting area as he noticed the solo gate agent glance up at him from behind a small counter at the entrance to the Jetway. “You’d better hurry, Father. They’re getting ready to close the cabin door.”

The priest quickened his pace. “Thank you. I’ve got to make this flight.”

The agent grabbed the boarding pass and watched as the priest ran down the worn blue carpet of the Jetway. “Have a nice trip. It’s beautiful this time of year in Rome.”

The priest waved over his head without looking back before stepping into the plane and brushing past a young flight attendant who was already swinging the heavy aircraft door shut. “You just made it, Father.” She glanced at his ticket and motioned him toward the front of the big jet.

The Alitalia 747 smelled strongly of coffee and jet fuel as a senior member of the flight crew caught his attention and ushered the breathless priest forward. He surveyed the plush surroundings. “Are you sure this is where I’m supposed to sit?”

“Yes, Father. You have a first-class ticket. Can I help you with your bags?”

“No ... thank you. I can manage.” He sighed as he double-checked the seat number on the ticket and hefted the small carry-on bag into the overhead compartment. Clasping his worn leather briefcase tightly in one hand, he slid across the empty aisle seat into the one next to the window.

The plane appeared half empty as he looked around the cabin at all the well-dressed people seated nearby, engrossed in their books and cell phone conversations. It seemed to him that fewer people were flying to Europe now since the global economy had taken a nosedive.

Through his window, he watched the baggage handlers below in the glare of the terminal lights, wiping the sweat from their brows while tossing an endless parade of bags onto a moving conveyer belt. He felt self-conscious sitting in this section of the aircraft and was mystified at why the Vatican had paid for the extravagant luxury of a first-class ticket.

“Can I get you anything?” the flight attendant asked in fluent Italian, testing his knowledge of the language.

“Yes, a small glass of wine. Red please,” he replied, also in fluent Italian.

She smiled back at him. “I’ll bring it to you as soon as we’re in the air.” She turned and walked back down the aisle, stirring memories within the priest of a time before he had become one.

Settling into the cushioned leather, he fastened his seatbelt and listened to the engines begin to whine, one after another, until the quiet pulse of power had transformed the aircraft into a living thing.

For the past twenty years, Father Leopold, or Father Leo as he was affectionately known to his friends and students, had been a professor of history at Boston College. He had arrived in New York the week before to give a series of lectures at Columbia University on ancient Christian doctrine and its effect on modern life. Seven hours earlier, the priest had returned to his hotel to find a bored-looking courier standing outside his room holding a sealed folder along with an airline ticket and a letter from the Vatican ordering him to Rome.

The sudden urgent request for him to leave New York on the midnight flight had caught the priest by surprise. Along with the letter, the courier had also handed Father Leo a puzzling note telling him not to open the folder until he was on the plane. Exhausted from a long day at the university, Leo had been left with little time to collect his thoughts or wonder about the contents of the folder before catching a few hours sleep and rushing to the airport.

The takeoff was quick and uneventful, and soon he had his glass of wine before him. He adjusted his reading glasses and opened the well-worn briefcase, removing a burgundy-colored folder with a dark red ribbon tied around it. His eyes scarcely blinked as he untied the ribbon and began to read the document inside.

Although this was obviously an official Vatican document dispatched from the office of the pope, Leo recognized the name of the author. His name was Anthony Morelli, a fellow theologian and long-time friend. Leo had known this priest since they first met in Jesuit seminary thirty years earlier. In addition to being a Jesuit priest, Father Morelli was also a well-known and respected church archaeologist who lived and worked in Vatican City. He was one of those veridical scholars who were always researching something, haunting the Vatican archives in an effort to uncover some small and seemingly insignificant piece of information that would lead him to his next archaeological discovery.

Morelli had spent most of his career exploring archaeological sites around the world, especially the ancient tunnels and Christian ruins under the Vatican. The emotion Father Morelli experienced while down in the consecrated world beneath the Basilica was mystical. He had once told Leo that he sensed he was in the presence of a divine being when he was digging in the sacred earth beneath the church.

The two priests had spent many a late night together in the small cafes of Rome, locked in a wine-induced debate about the value of their individual research and the historical relevance it had in today’s world. Leo remembered that the last time the two had talked, Morelli had just returned from Jerusalem where he had been collaborating with a multi-disciplinary team of researchers on a project he felt would offer the world proof that the Old Testament was divinely inspired.

Father Leo was something of a scholar himself. A renowned and much sought-after church historian, he relished studying the past but disliked archaeological field work. “I don’t share your enthusiasm for digging up old pottery shards,” he had once told Father Morelli, indicating his preference for researching ancient manuscripts in an effort to bring church history into the light of the twenty-first century. He loved presenting his students with tangible written evidence of the times he so dearly wanted to demystify. Three decades earlier, before he had become a history professor, he had spent nearly five years at the Vatican, working on his doctoral thesis about early Christian sects, specifically, how they came together to form the Catholic Church.

Father Leo continued to read as the airliner reached its assigned cruising altitude and adopted the distant muted roar that would envelop the cabin for the duration of the trip across the Atlantic. The flight attendants had barely begun to pass out snacks when the jet entered a line of dark clouds, blotting out the bright stars shining from above. Within seconds, everyone felt the first in a series of bumps as the aircraft began to shake in the sudden turbulence.

In the darkened interior of the plane, Leo reached up and focused the beam from his overhead light onto the folder. His eyes narrowed at the papers in his hands as the turbulence outside increased and the “fasten seatbelt” signs blinked on throughout the cabin. As the shaking became more violent, the flight attendants groped for their seats and tried to reassure the passengers who were caught up in the wave of fear that grew with each new shudder and thump created by the push of dark air rising outside their windows.

Under the glare of the tiny light above his head, the priest’s eyes grew wide and he let the burgundy file drop into his lap. He stared straight ahead while the color drained from his face and a bead of sweat trickled from his hairline.

Anyone watching would have interpreted his reaction to be in tune with the fear those around him were experiencing, but in truth, Father Leo had barely noticed the turbulence enveloping the aircraft. He was reacting to what he had just read on the last page of the file.

As quickly as it had appeared the turbulence vanished, and soon the flight attendants were up, passing through the cabin and offering drinks to their shaken passengers.

Gazing out through the window at the darkness covering the ocean below, the priest’s thoughts were interrupted by the voice of the flight attendant standing in the aisle. “Can I get you another glass of wine, Father?”

“I’m sorry. Did you say something, Miss?”

“I asked if you would like another glass of wine.”

“Yes, please ... make it a large glass.”

A quizzical expression crossed her face as she looked down at the official-looking burgundy folder and the papers lying in his lap. “That paperwork looks serious. What are you reading about?”

Removing his glasses, the priest looked up at her with kind eyes and managed a weak smile. “Oh, just the usual end-of-the-world kind of thing.”

She laughed and turned to fetch his wine.
If only she knew he wasn’t joking.

Father Morelli was late. He knew that his good friend, if his flight had arrived on time, had already been on the ground for twenty minutes, but even Moses could not part the sea of Italian traffic in Rome at this hour. For the past seven months, Morelli had been absorbed in a new project, and time had become abstract, as it sometimes does to scholars who think of little else but their research. The priest’s latest obsession was not something to be stored in a warehouse, waiting to be cataloged and placed in a museum.