Munoz
It was nearly six o'clock when Munoz, freshly dressed and calm, strolled from his quarters in the Diocese House to the garage at the edge of the cobbled drive. "Father Paul?"
A young priest, scrubbing dust from a sleek hood, jerked to attention. "Yes, Eminence."
"I need the car. I left some of my notes at the Cloister and I need them to finish my report to His Holiness."
"Certainly, your Eminence." Father Paul laid aside his cleaning cloth and slipped behind the wheel.
"No, no. You don't have to drive me." Munoz looked at his watch. "They'll be ringing your dinner hour shortly." He smiled with concern. "I won't use your time because I was careless." A sonorous bell sounded across the pavilion. "There. You see. Now go, enjoy your meal. I'll have this monster back and in the garage by the time you're finished with prayers."
"Thank you, your Eminence. That's most kind of you." The Priest slid out of the car and handed the keys to the Cardinal. "You're sure?"
Munoz waved his hands in a shooing motion. "Go, get along with you." He chuckled with good-natured camaraderie.
The booming bell ceased. Munoz watched the priest jog toward the stately buildings of the cathedral conclave. The young fool, he thought. He really should have insisted on driving me. He knows the rules.
No sooner had Father Paul disappeared than Munoz entered the garage, grabbed an LED lamp, and returned to the automobile. He slid into the driver's seat. The charge light glowed full as the drive cells purred to life. Humming to himself, the Cardinal circled the block occupied by the cathedral and headed west on California Street.
He had fallen in love with San Francisco on his first visit and had been determined to make it his resident home even before he saw the bluff property. Like any tourist, he had gasped and puffed his way in awe. In 2036, the city had been rocked for three consecutive days by a series of earthquakes that leapt up the Richter scale. Six months of ravaging aftershocks followed. When it was over, San Franciscans buried their dead—eighteen thousand had lost their lives—and rebuilt their city. An astounding city then, an astounding city now, Munoz thought.
He turned north to Lincoln Boulevard, followed it around to El Camino del Mar. Minutes later, he drove onto the deserted demolition site and parked the limousine. In the waning light and incoming fog, the rubble seemed to circle and creep like wild dogs hunting. Staring into the silent gloom, he jumped as a foghorn moaned, then shook his fist at mist-shrouded rubble.
"Creep all you want," he hissed. "It will change nothing. Those relics belong to me now, whether you like it or not." He laughed nervously at the sound of his voice, not believing that he'd actually threatened chunks of concrete.
He strode to the foreman's shack, shoved open the door, and flipped on the light. Looped around two pegs on the far wall, just as he remembered, a coil of nylon rope glistened in the light. He lugged the rope to the open shaft, tied one end around his waist, attached the lamp securely to the knot, and looped the other end around the base of the broken altar, making sure it would stay put. Switching on the lamp, he lowered himself over the edge and onto the first wooden step.
As if the fates no longer cared, he reached the bottom rung without mishap. He untied the rope and let it drop. His hand trembled as he flashed the light around the room. A thin film of moisture beaded the walls. His gaze focused on a tiny crack in the floor. Water seeping through had formed a puddle that quivered with rhythmic ripples. Even as he watched, the crack widened.
The sea was coming through.
He wouldn't be cheated. Whatever was here belonged to him and he intended to take it, sea or no sea. Beneath his feet, the floor shuddered.
Munoz leaped to the small door and raised his fist. "Now, let's see if you were as clever as I think you were," he muttered, cracking his fist hard against the center of the door. Slowly, it swung open. "I knew it! Who would suspect that a door with no key really had no key?" Thrusting his arms inside the small alcove, he withdrew a wooden chest with carved figures twisted into handles. So light. Was it empty?
Something brushed his ankle; he looked down. The end of the rope snaked back and forth between his feet. Water streamed through the crack in the floor and the pounding rhythm of ocean waves thundered in his ears. He remembered the early morning news and his jaw went slack. The deep-water corkscrew had arrived.
Up, his mind screamed. Up the shaft!
He scrambled for the rope, looped it around the container and through a carved figure. Leaving enough slack to clear his feet, he tied the rope to his waist with fumbling fingers. Only then did he remember the lamp, still on the floor where he'd placed it while tying the box to his waist. He reached for the lamp. It rolled just out of reach, half in and half out of the widening pool of water. He felt the rock beneath his feet twist and arch. Time had run out, he had to climb—fast. As he grabbed the ladder's bottom rung and pulled himself up, he heard the crack, like the sound of a laser beam smashing walls.
The peculiar salt-fish tang assailed his nostrils. Water licked his thighs and tugged at his precious cargo. The chest snagged, its carved Cherubim jammed between the lower rung and the side rail. Bending down, Munoz tried to wiggle the container back and forth.
The box held.
Swearing softly, he lowered himself to the offending rung. A clawing suction grabbed his feet then released them with a gurgled sigh as the water abruptly vanished. In the blackness, he heard the roar and he knew. With a muffled cry, he yanked the box free, hugged it tight to his body with his arms and legs, and flung himself free of the ladder. The sea, a juggernaut of fury, slammed into his body and threw him upward as if spewing a lethal poison.
Munoz sat rigid, cold, and wet in the lighted safety of the maintenance shack, the box clutched tightly between his knees. He tried to ignore the agonizing pain in his dangling arm. Eventually, the Bishop would send someone looking for him. On the other hand, that young priest, Paul, might come without telling the Bishop that he had allowed his Eminence the Cardinal to drive himself to a deserted demolition site. He grimaced. Either way, the chest would become Church property. That would not do, not do at all. He owed nothing to the Church of Universals. He had paid his dues.
His mind filled with memories.
A dark December morning, the wet taste of snow in the gusting wind, shoes squeaking on marble floors, the musty smell of soaked raincoats, the sacristy hush: his first day to don the cassock of a Vatican altar boy. On that day, listening to the power whispering down frescoed corridors, his life became purposefully directed. He chose the Church as his profession for the same reason he chose escargot to eat; both brought to the palate a richness of taste impossible to ignore, yet neither appealed to the faint at heart.
His mother was delighted with his choice. Not so, his father. "You are a man of the world, Raphael," he'd said. "The life of a priest is not for you. The cost will be too high."
Yet each time he'd walked the piazza or polished the cups of gold or stared into the awed faces of the congregation, he had seen the power of the Church flowing like a river of fire. He intended to ride that river, to feel every swell. He would pay the price.
Over the years the sacrifices were many. The Church taught him well with lessons sometimes cruel, but entrance to the sacred hierarchy made it all worthwhile. She could keep as tuition earned what She had already taken, but not the box. That, and all it contained, belonged to him.
From below, headlights blinked and disappeared; a car was coming. Frantic, he looked about the shack and spied a clawed hammer some worker had tossed into the corner. As the lights swung into view at the end of the drive, Munoz cracked open the domed lid and extracted a leather-bound volume with a gold filigree hasp and corner protectors. Except for the name Razi-el burned into its cover, so faint it was scarcely legible, this book was just like all the others removed from the cloister. Disbelieving, he ran his hand around the inside of the container. It was empty: no Covenant contract, no Solomon's Seal. All this for a book, he thought, a book no different than those already in my possession. Hysterical laughter built and he struggled to keep it controlled. He could not accept that, would not accept that! The book must have value, else why was it concealed in the manner it was?
"Your Eminence! Are you here?"
The Cardinal swiveled his head in the direction of the voice. The new arrival had parked on the far side of the limousine. Ten seconds and he would be at the shack. Munoz closed the box and slid the hammer across the floor. Shoving the volume inside his shirt, he lodged it between his body and the upper half of his broken arm. With his other hand, he pulled the arm against the book. He cried out as pain seared through his body, but he held the arm tight. Laying his head against the container, he fought the rising nausea. He would give them the chest, an artifact retrieved at great personal risk, but not the book. That belonged to him. A hand touched his shoulder; Father Paul had come by himself.
At the Diocese House, Munoz refused the young priest's help. Awkward and moaning, he scooted himself from the car.
"Get the doctor, bring him to my room."
"But . . . yes, Your Eminence. Right away."
Munoz hurried across the pavilion. He released his injured arm long enough to open the ponderous door and felt the volume fall to his waist. Bishop Northrop rustled down the quiet hallway, his face filled with concern. Munoz brushed him aside. "Not now, Your Excellency. Not now." He slipped into his room, sagged against the door as it closed with a click. The room wavered, began to tilt. The book. He had to hide the book.
He staggered to his closet. There. Behind the robe. His knees began to quiver. He bit his lip and tasted blood. For an instant, his head cleared. Munoz yanked the book from under his shirt, shoved it over the closet rod, and watched it drop behind his sacrament robe. Even as the soft thud sounded in his ears, he fainted.