Cardinal Espinosa let his fingers sit on the disconnect button of his phone for a moment before he dropped the receiver. His office walls were lined with twelve-foot-high bookcases. Every shelf was filled with religious reference books and books about every code and doctrine of the Holy Church. Some of the books dated back centuries, and most were in the original Latin. He’d read all of them, and all in the original language. He glanced around the room, heavy with history, then slowly stood.
“God,” he prayed, his arms outstretched, his head tilted sky-ward, “I want only to serve You. To protect You. To protect the faith.
“I am Your servant. With Your help and guidance I will act. I will act swiftly on Your behalf and erase the source of the poison that might infect the faithful. On my vigilance You can rely.”
He sat again and with a trembling hand pulled back the sleeve of his white robe. He opened his top desk drawer, removed a small black case and set it carefully on the blotter. He lifted the lid and revealed an ornate knife with a three-inch blade. He picked up the knife.
The cardinal turned his left arm up and rested it on the desk. The underside was scarred from bicep to wrist. He touched the skin with the knife and carefully drew a straight line. The exquisitely sharp blade slit the skin, and the slit quickly filled with blood. Without hesitation, Espinosa drew a line perpendicular to the first, completing the cross. He struggled to keep his breathing regular as he watched the blood fill the cross.
“For You, God,” he whispered.
He set the knife down. “I will call on the forsaken one more time, Lord,” he whispered. “I know they are repulsive to You but they will serve this just cause.”
He reached for the phone and dialed a number. After three rings someone answered sleepily.
“Do you know who this is?” the cardinal asked curtly.
The sleepy voice snapped to attention.
“Yes —”
“Do not say my name,” Cardinal Espinosa interrupted. “You and your brother must travel to New Haven and await my instructions.”
“New Haven? Is it the Voynich?”
“Travel, and wait for my instructions. You have my number. Call me when you’ve arrived.”
“Will this be our last mission?” the voice asked. “Will you release my brother and me after we have served one more time?”
“Call me when you arrive in New Haven. Take no action without my authorization.”
The cardinal hung up the phone. He was confident in his decision but regretted its necessity.
He picked up a satin cloth and held it against his arm then sat back in his leather desk chair. His mind wandered to when he’d first laid eyes on the two brothers. Maury and Jeremy, he thought. Such unlikely servants of the church.
Eighteen years ago, as the Cardinal Prefect, Espinosa had eyes and ears around the world. An army of faithful servants who kept watch and reported to the Vatican. Some reported on miracles, religious fraud, or priestly improprieties. Others watched for certain abnormal medical conditions. The cardinal did not provide reasons for his requests. He simply ordered them.
Thus his discovery of Maury and Jeremy began with a phone call.
One of Espinosa’s secular agents called to make a report. The agent, a devout Catholic who worked as a hospital orderly in a small town, reported the specific medical abnormality, a skin condition where the body seems to reject its own tissue. The cardinal traveled to North America on the next available flight.
Remembering it now, Espinosa smiled. Hindsight made his actions seem reckless but he had had no other choice. He could hardly imagine taking on the role of an investigator any longer. There were other, more able-bodied people to do such things.
When he arrived in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, he was amazed that the town existed. Pigeon Forge billed itself as the home of something called Dollywood, a theme park built for a celebrity he’d never heard of.
He got off the plane and went straight to the town’s medical center. The orderly had told the cardinal about two recently orphaned children, Jeremy and Maury. Their parents had been killed in a car accident; the boys were showing signs of a serious and possibly infectious condition no one in Pigeon Forge had ever seen. The medical center wanted to transfer the boys to the hospital in Knoxville.
The orderly met the cardinal at the door and escorted him to the director of the medical center.
“Well, it shore is strange to see a man of the cloth all the way from Rome down here in our little neck of the woods. How can I hep you?”
“The church has an interest in the two children. The orphans.”
“Yessir, that’s a mighty sad case,” the director said. “Them boys just got back from Angola or some damn place with their globe-trotting missionary parents when they was in a horrible car accident. The parents are gone but the boys were unhurt — at least by the accident.”
“I understand that the children have no living relatives.”
“That’s right.”
“I also understand that this facility suspects the boys have a serious communicable disease.”
“Yeah, we got ’em in quarantine until we arrange to get them to Knoxville. We can’t handle them here.”
“I might be able to help. We have a comprehensive program to deal with boys like these.”
The director frowned. “You got what?”
“May I see them?” the cardinal pushed.
“I said they was in quarantine. It wouldn’t be much of an idear to go see ’em.”
“I understand the risks.”
Thinking about it now, Espinosa shook his head. The backward facility was quite lax in its medical precautions. He wondered if it would be the same today. He remembered being allowed to go right down to see the boys, Maury and Jeremy. The facility had only insisted he wear a surgical mask.
Espinosa later told the boys he had known as soon as he saw them that they were Nephilim. Six-year-old Maury and his five-year-old brother were direct descendents of the forsaken line of half-angel, half-human bastard children. He knew because God had given him the power to discern it. It was that simple.
The wheels were immediately set in motion. With his vast political connections and considerable influence, the cardinal arranged for the boys to be made wards of the Vatican. He assured the small-town physicians that he would have the boys’ medical condition treated.
Arrangements were made quickly and the boys were ready. By that same evening, Maury and Jeremy were in Rome.