“We believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father by whom all things were made.
“Who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man, and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried, and the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of the Father. And he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end.
“And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets. And we believe one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins. And we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.
“Amen.”
His men had repeated every word. He nodded and stood, the lust inside him breaking free of the decorum he’d always felt obliged to show.
He bent down and regripped the Glock.
Then fired twice.
One bullet pierced the forehead of each of the brothers, collapsing them instantly in death.
The trail had to be painted cold.
True, the cathedral curator remained, but the new Kastor Cardinal Gallo would deal with him, nothing there to arouse any suspicion. Eventually, a letter would come, in his hand, writing as Pollux, explaining his resignation from the knights and his retreat from the world. He doubted anyone would miss either his men or Pollux Gallo.
Sad.
But true.
He laid the Glock down and dragged both bodies to the pit.
He crouched down and cleaned out their pockets, finding the key for the chapel’s front door and the car outside.
Then he rolled each over the edge.
They would need to be buried, eliminating any trace of foul play. This place itself might prove problematic but, to his knowledge, only a handful of people within the knights knew of the secret panel, and the inner chapel was almost never visited. Kastor was buried deep in the ground, gone for the ages. These two corpses required a similar fate.
Which was why he’d had a shovel left behind.
He stepped over, grabbed it, then tossed it into the pit.
He had to return to Rome.
Thank goodness there was one final knight still around to clean up the mess.
* * *
Cotton heard Gallo’s voice as he gave thanks, then said the Nicaean Creed. Two sharp barks signaled gunfire, followed by what sounded like dragging across parched ground. He’d already determined that the pit was bell-shaped, its walls flaring out the farther down they went, with the lower circumference much wider than the top. He’d also noticed that the pit’s floor was not hard, like the ground above. Instead, it had the consistency of freshly turned earth.
He looked up.
An arm hung over the top edge.
He eased himself to one side using the pit’s flanged shape to his advantage. A body fell down from above and smacked the ground.
Followed by another.
He recalled that the bottom had not been visible from above. Too much darkness. So he ventured a glance upward and saw not Pollux, but Kastor Gallo staring down, a gun in his right hand.
Revealing himself seemed like suicide. He’d just wait for the man to leave then use the rope and climb out.
Gallo vanished above.
He stared at the two corpses. Too much darkness existed to see their faces.
Something fell from above and embedded in the soft floor.
A shovel.
The rope began to head upward.
And disappeared.
The lights extinguished.
He stood in total blackness.
CHAPTER SIXTY
Luke drove down the coastal highway, speeding north toward a place called the Church of St. Magyar’s. Once he was out of jail, he’d contacted Stephanie, who told him where Malone had gone. She’d contacted the cathedral curator, who’d provided directions. He’d declined Hahn’s offer of assistance, deciding to keep the locals out of the loop. Better to hold everything close from this point forward, as there were too many unknowns in this free-for-all.
How many times had he sped down a black highway in the middle of the night? After dates. High school football games. Nights out with the guys. The terrain around him was nothing like the mountains of east Tennessee. Not much in the world compared to that sacred ground. He’d spent the first eighteen years of his life there and tried to go back whenever he could. Which wasn’t all that often. Those hills were rampant with high tales. Lots of myths, legends, and ghosts. His father had loved to tell the stories.
Like Old Skinned Tom.
A charming, handsome man who won over nearly every girl he came across, one day he set his sights on a beautiful married gal named Eleanor. They began seeing each other in secret, frequenting the local lovers’ lane. Of course, Eleanor’s husband found out and skinned Tom alive. Everyone believed that Tom’s bloody skeleton still roamed lovers’ lane, clutching a hunting knife, waiting to catch a cheating couple so he could teach them a lesson. Which seemed incredibly unfair of him, given the circumstances of his own death.
The apparition even had a song.
Have you see the ghost of Skinned Tom?
Bloody red bones with the skin all gone.
Wouldn’t it be chilly with no skin on.
That it would. He felt a little bare-skinned and exposed at the moment, too. Running on empty, but at full throttle.
He turned off the coastal highway and headed inland, following the directions Stephanie had provided into a darkened valley. Ridges rose in the distance on both sides with few lights. He kept going on the straight stretch of blacktop. Ahead, off the shoulder, among a scattered stand of short trees, he spotted a parked car.
One he recognized.
He brought his vehicle to a stop and saw that he was right. Same car he’d used earlier. The same one Malone had apparently taken from the cathedral. He doused the headlights, shut off the engine, and stepped out into the night.
Malone was here and seemed to have decided on a stealth approach. He decided to take the same option. He started off on foot down the road, keeping a watch out for vehicles in both directions. Cicadas chirped their earsplitting trill into the darkness. He was tired and could use some sleep, but he’d learned how to run on autopilot. He was actually good in that mode. Being barely thirty, a bit anxious, ambitious, and well trained certainly helped, too.
A couple of hundred yards away he saw the outline of a building up on a ridge and another car parked out front.
Had to be the chapel.
Its main door suddenly opened, revealing a splash of light and a person. The dark form walked to the car toting a bag and what looked like a folding chair, which was deposited inside. The form returned to the building’s door and the lights extinguished, as if a switch had been thrown. The car then drove off and did not head his way. Instead it turned in the opposite direction and disappeared down the highway, deeper into the valley, to the west.
His instincts smelled trouble.
He trotted to the building and approached the door. He tested the latch and discovered it was locked.