Father John Davies gazed at Harker with a serenely welcoming look on his face and then slowly nodded in satisfaction. ‘Hello, Alex, I can’t tell you how long I’ve been waiting for this moment.’
He stood dazed before this man whose murdering of a mother and child, prior to his own death, had sparked Harker’s involvement in this whole bizarre affair some days earlier. He stared back with a stunned expression at the ex-priest.
‘It seems you’ve been on quite a journey, my friend, and I must say you’ve exceeded all my expectations.’
Harker remained silent, still utterly perplexed, as behind him the oversized man-child pushed the remaining bricks away from his body and staggered to his feet before clutching at the wounds inflicted on him by the short hunter’s knife.
‘Don’t be afraid of him,’ Davies urged, indicating the hulking giant. ‘He’s totally harmless under the right supervision.’
Harker glanced back at the giant, who appeared to be cowering in abject terror under Davies’s gaze. ‘He took a step back and placed a hand reassuringly on the suffering youth’s arm.
‘Don’t touch him!’ Davies ordered sharply, and the giant immediately recoiled then limped away like a scared child, heading back into the gloom beyond. ‘I know this must be confusing for you, Alex, but allow me to explain and everything will become clear.’
Harker turned away from the dusty, foul smelling cesspit and back to face Father Davies, whose black robe cut a forbidding silhouette against the bright light emanating from behind him. ‘What is all this?’ he demanded.
Davies beckoned him over with a thin smile. ‘Come… let me show you.’
With little alternative except to head back into that underground maze of bricks and filth, Harker stretched his aching shoulders and proceeded through the exit, as Father Davies simultaneously moved backwards as though not wanting to appear threatening in any way.
The room beyond was in such contrast to where he had just been that, sucking in a breath of clean air, Harker paused to take in the sight of the opulent furnishings surrounding him. The black sheep’s wool carpet contrasted with the four large, white pillars which rose at the centre of the room to create an inner seating area with fancy red and black velvet sofas placed around a large marble coffee table. On the opposite wall was a large open grate containing a burning log fire, which crackled away merrily as golden flames licked the inside of the chimney overhead it. Above this hung an engraved relief of the now familiar Mithras image with the god wearing a flowing cape while plunging a knife into a captured bull. Images of a scorpion, a raven, a dog and a snake were contained in alcoves set into the walls surrounding this seating area, and red and gold drapes hung from shiny brass curtain rings connected to long poles of walnut timber running the width of the ceiling.
One could be forgiven for thinking they had strayed into the lavish residence of some member of the Roman elite back in the days when their empire was at its height. The most eye-catching aspect of the room, though, was the ceiling adorned with a series of paintings, and Harker quickly recognised a similarity to the Sistine Chapel ceiling painted by Michelangelo. But as he surveyed it more closely, he soon saw that this was where the similarity ended. The separate images had the same general feel, with minor but very significant differences. The outer ones, inspired by the Old Testament, concurred in depicting David slaying Goliath or Jonah and the whale, but some of the inner ones were radically different. Any that might have depicted God as a wizened old man had been replaced with ones that were unmistakably Mithras himself. For instance the famous image where Adam at the creation almost touches fingers with his maker contained instead an image of Mithras with a golden crown and flowing cape, as he towered over crowds of naked, cowering people.
As Father Davies halted and took up his position in front of the fireplace, Harker slowly moved towards the coffee table, and there he felt a shiver of trepidation on catching sight of the symbol etched in its centre. The overlapping circles surrounded by fifteen swastikas.
‘The two kingdoms,’ A voice intervened, and Harker looked over into a corner of the room to see Stefani Mitchell. Wearing a black and red coloured robe, she smiled at him warmly. ‘You were right in your theory about that symbol, Alex,’ she continued. ‘The kingdom of Mithras, the kingdom of hell – and the world of humanity caught between them both.’
Harker felt a bitter-sweet sense of relief on seeing her. But his relief that Stefani was safe was tempered with sheer anger at her obvious betrayal of him. And even though the reasons for her deception were unclear to him, he remained calm and concentrated on what he did know. ‘So the death of your father…’ Harker began before dismissively pointing in Father Davies’s direction… ‘and his supposed possession was all fake?’
The pair of them said nothing but, judging by their encouraging smiles, they wanted him to reveal what he had learned for himself.
‘And those “blessed candles” you encouraged me to hunt down, and the Prophecy too, they were just… what, some kind of ruse?’
‘I’m afraid they weren’t nearly as important as perhaps you were led to believe, and nor was the Prophecy.’ Father Davies replied, while Stefani now looked almost guilty at this admission.
This reply was about as enlightening as a kick in the teeth, and Harker struggled to maintain his cool. ‘I know about the little Mithras cult you have going on here, and I also know that Templars – and my father – helped put you bunch of sick puppies to bed a long time ago. So what’s this whole thing about? A punishment for the son of the man who put you out of business?’
Harker was clutching at straws here because the only possible reason he could fathom was revenge but, given the convoluted wild-goose chase he had been taken on as well as the trail of blood left in its wake, it made just as much sense as one of Carter’s conspiracy theories. ‘If you’d wanted to kill me for my father’s actions then you could have snatched me off the streets of Cambridge at any time without killing so many other people in the process. Or are you just a bunch of inbred raving lunatics? You probably all have six toes, don’t you? Or perhaps you consider yourselves an extended family, which is most likely just an excuse for some twisted sexual free-for-all!’
Harker knew that he was starting to ramble foolishly, but at this point he didn’t care. None of this made any sense to him and, as he let out a frustrated yell, Father Davies took a step closer to the table between them.
‘I understand that you’re angry, but this is not a punishment for your father’s past crimes.’
‘So, then, what is it? Some sick endurance test?’
No, you’ve got it all wrong, Alex.’ Stefani had real sincerity in her voice. ‘This was never a test for you… it was an invitation.’
The explanation had Harker dumbfounded, not because he was shocked by it but because he had no idea what she was talking about. As he stood there with a blank expression, a door opened on the far side of the room and a procession of people began making their way in. All were hooded and they wore the same black and red robes as Stefani and, as if rehearsed, they spread out and assumed separate positions around the room. Some sat down on the sofas whilst others stood against the walls, until in the end there must have been close to fifteen of them, who all now stared at him with only their mouths visible under the hoods.
‘Why don’t you say hello to some friends of yours, Alex?’ Father Davies suggested and in unison all pulled back those heavy hoods. As Harker’s stare travelled amongst them, noting their smiling faces, he felt his knees begin to go weak and he reached out to the nearest pillar to steady himself.
‘Hello, Alex,’ Dr Gérald Marceau spoke first. ‘It’s good to see you again.
Harker remained silent as he gazed blankly at the others.
‘Same goes for me, Professor,’ Adonis Anastas spoke next, that same museum curator Harker had witnessed being shot back in Athens.
As Harker stared around, he became increasingly flabbergasted with the recognition of each face. On the far sofa sat Detective Andrea Russo who had chaperoned him back in Italy, and next to him sat Signora Busetto from the Venetian restaurant. Behind them stood the same bald man, resembling Ming the Merciless, who had hosted that crazy marriage ceremony back amid the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla. Beside him all three members of the Order of Tharmis also offered a smile.
‘Tharmis,’ Harker muttered, only now recognising the significance of that name ‘It’s an anagram of Mithras.’
‘I honestly thought you’d work that out sooner,’ Davies declared to a chuckle all around.
Even though all those people now staring at him appeared friendly, even welcoming, this was one of the most unnerving situations Harker had ever experienced. As he racked his head for any rational explanation, it was Father Davies who approached him, with Stefani at his side.
‘They call me “Father”,’ he began with great gravity in his tone, ‘and soon all will become clear.’
Harker managed a nod and, at a flick of Davies’s hands, the others dutifully lined up and without another word all made their way back out the door they had come in by.
‘I’ll see you later,’ Stefani said, rubbing his arm affectionately before herself exiting the room, thus leaving only Harker and her father alone amid the crackling sounds of the log fire.
‘What I am about to tell you I have rehearsed in my head a thousand times over the years, but it always starts the same way,’ Davies began, clasping his hands behind his back. ‘At the beginning…’
‘That would be good.’ Harker interrupted, feeling as if he was smack bang in the middle of an Agatha Christie novel.
‘How much do you know about your own father, Alex?’
‘Not as much as I would like to,’ Harker replied honestly. ‘But I know he was a Templar.’
‘That is true, and a remarkably effective one at that,’ his host agreed. ‘But do you know anything about his early life, before he became involved with the Order?’
Doubtlessly Father Davies already knew the answer to this but, given that Harker felt like a rabbit caught in the headlights, he considered it best to play along. ‘Up until a few months ago I always thought he worked in a chicken factory so, as you can imagine, his Templar connection came as total surprise to me.’
‘Understandable,’ Davies agreed, ‘since the lies we tell our children can have the direst effects on their upbringing. But do you know the truth about his death?’
The question was delivered flatly and Harker gave a shake of his head. ‘I always believed he was killed by an IRA bomb – wrong place wrong time – but given what I’ve since learnt about his dual identity, I can honestly say I’m not sure any more.’
‘Very wise of you, Alex,’ Davies pursed his lips together firmly. ‘But what if I told you he was in fact murdered by the same people you now hold so dear?’
‘The Templars?’ Harker exclaimed, with evident disdain for such an accusation.
‘One and the same,’ Davies replied, ignoring the look of mistrust now on Harker’s face as he continued with his explanation. ‘And what would you say if I told you I knew it to be a fact.’
‘I’d say you would need some really hard evidence to back it up… and, anyway, why would they?’
This defiant response drew a thin smile from Davies. ‘Because what you might not yet know is that, before he joined the ranks of the Templars, he was once a member of Mithras.’
This hit Harker like a sledgehammer and he found himself gulping nervously. ‘That’s ridiculous. I don’t believe you.’
His obvious disbelief garnered another dry smile from Davies, who reached into his pocket and pulled out a small square Kodak polaroid photograph. ‘But would you believe your own eyes?’
Harker stared down at the picture and suddenly a deep gnawing sensation began to claw at his stomach. The image showed three people standing all together and smiling for the camera. They were maybe in their late teens and, although young, they were still easy to recognise. Liam Harker grinned at the camera, his arm around Avi Legrundy in the middle, with Father Davies on the other side of her. It looked like a typical photograph of close friends having fun and for a few seconds Harker couldn’t take his eyes off it, but the more he stared the more he realised this man was definitely his own father. ‘That can’t be,’ He muttered as Davies took it out of his hand and then dropped it into Harker’s jacket pocket.
‘You can keep it,’ he said before giving him a stern look. ‘And if you’re prepared to listen, then I would like to tell you everything.’
As Harker gazed over at him, feeling nothing less than shell-shocked, he managed a confirming nod and so the ex-priest continued with his explanation.
‘The Mithras have been around far longer than you can imagine. In one form or another we were here well before the Romans, before the Persians and earlier even than the Sumerians. We were a religion guiding humans before recorded time itself, and directed empires and civilisations that no one in the modern world even knows existed. The first true faith, born during homo sapiens’ fast rise to dominance across the planet and amongst those first few who practised burying their dead.
Davies stepped over to a section of the wall next to the fireplace and pressed it in with his open palm, whereupon a small door slowly swung open to reveal a drinks cabinet and a decanter. ‘Our beliefs have survived for thousands upon thousands of years,’ he continued, pouring drinks into a couple of crystal tumblers, ‘but it was not until the rise of early Christendom that we truly met our match.’
He gathered up the two glasses and returned to Harker and placed one in his hand. ‘Russian Standard vodka.’
The fact that this man knew Harker’s drink of choice was nothing in itself, but it meant that he had done his homework. Harker took a swig and let the liquid burn his throat before swallowing it greedily in the hope it might combat the numbness he was feeling.
‘The early Church realised the power of our religion and it did the only thing it could do to compete… It stole every aspect of it and then repackaged it for its own purposes.’
Harker knew what Davies was alluding to but he remained quiet and allowed him to continue.
‘And it worked, too. By stealing our beliefs and manipulating them for their own ends, they contrived to make the religion of Mithras obsolete. And so its surviving believers did the only thing they could do… they went underground and waited, biding their time generation after generation, until the moment to rise up again,’ By now Davies was grinning with zeal. ‘And that time has now come, Alex Harker, and I wish for nothing more than for than you should be a part of it. In fact I want you to serve alongside me.’
These words had Harker coughing on the last sip he had taken, and he wiped his lips whilst busily shaking his head. ‘Let’s pretend I believe any of this history lesson you’re telling me, for what reason would I possibly want to help you?’
‘Because it is your birthright.’
‘What!’ Harker spat out incredulously, but Davies looked unfazed by his reaction.
‘There are seven ranks in our church, which is the one true church,’ Father Davies began to explain, hardly containing his excitement. ‘The first is the Corax, the second the Nympus, third is the Miles, fourth is Leo, fifth is Perses, sixth is Heliodromus… and lastly, the position of supreme patriarch, that of Pater – or Father.’
Davies now stood back and raised his hands in self reverence. ‘And your own father was destined to become Pater but, after his defection to the Templars, it fell to me to assume the position and I have done so all these years, working to make us strong once again. And I want you to take your rightful place by my side, as my second, and to succeed me when I retire from my duties.’
Harker barely batted an eyelid but internally he was going ballistic. He couldn’t know for sure if his father had had anything to do with this bunch of wackos, because photographs could be doctored. There was also the fact that they only appeared to include a dozen or so members and, given how most religions had been suffering attendance loss over the last sixty years, how on earth this man expected them to usurp the Catholic Church simply made no sense at all. One thing for certain, though, Davies believed it to the core. Not unlike the assuredness displayed by many other mentally ill people Harker had encountered over the years.
‘What, so this whole business has been nothing more than a recruitment drive?’
‘I wouldn’t put it so crudely, Alex, there is far more to it than that.’ Davies now placed his hands together and raised them up to his lips. ‘What you couldn’t possibly know, and even the Templars are unaware of, is that their arch enemies, the Magi, were far from the dangerous entity they were considered to be. They were but unknowing pawns in a deception that we orchestrated long ago. Most of their assets and plundered wealth were given to them by us. All we ever wanted was for them to fight the Templars and in doing so destroy each other through an act of attrition and pave the way for us.
Davies now smiled as Harker’s mouth literally dropped open and the man now crossed his arms and looked towards him deviously. ‘The only true way to own the game is get in at the ground floor and we were around long before the Templars or Magi even existed. We watched them both grow in strength before deciding to pick a side and the Magi were always the more pliable; with their total lack of morals and zest for power they proved far easier to manipulate than the Templars ever could have been.’
Harker now only managed a disbelieving shake of his head as the full weight of what he was being told sunk in. ‘You controlled the Magi?’
‘Controlled is not the right word,’ Davies replied, letting out a chuckle and shrugging his shoulders, ‘they played in a game that we had created and designed to produce a single outcome… the destruction of both the Templars and the Magi, who were the only true opponents standing in the way of our return.
Even though Harker was still reeling from the titanic revelation he could see the reality of it. Two organisations, completely opposed, and coerced unsuspectingly into centuries of slowly whittling each other down as the Mithras watched from the shadows, waiting until the moment was right, when they had decimated one another and were ripe to receive the final death blow. ‘You’re telling me the whole war between the Templars and the Magi has been nothing more than a chess game of your creation?’
‘They were always destined to fight amongst themselves Alex,’ Davies continued smugly, ‘but at every step we have aided in their hatred of one another, for time and patience has always been our weapon; it has also proved our greatest strength and always will be.’
Harker could barely believe it, and as he stood there motionless and perplexed, unable to truly absorb what he was hearing, Davies continued as if the bombshell meant nothing.
‘Your father never knew of our true role in all this, and thankfully so given his treacherous behaviour but now, with the true knowledge of what we are and our place in all this, you are ready to take your rightful place amongst us. And you have already progressed further than you realise, and only a single step is left now before you take the position that is your right by blood.’
‘A single step!’ Harker growled in disbelief, his head swimming in confusion because this whole thing was nuts. ‘I haven’t even taken a first step.’
A knowing smile crossed across Davies’s face and he let out a chuckle. ‘Alex, your initiation began days ago.’
During the course of the last few days, Harker had been preoccupied with notions of prophecy, murder, visions, relics, and everything else in between. And also, having only so recently discovered that Mithraism even existed he had not really given much thought to the idea that the sinister group behind everything had been the Mithras cult. An ancient cult, whose only reality and relevance lay buried in the history books! But, as he stood there staring at Father Davies, he began to realise the full significance of almost everything that had happened to him lately, and the stages of Mithras initiation that Davies had explained and that he himself had knowledge of as a professor of archaeology.
‘The Corax means the first step in initiation: a baptism.’ he muttered as Davies’s eyes lit up at his realisation. ‘Back in Rome, at your apartment, I was almost drowned. And I remember that boy muttering something I couldn’t make out… He was baptising me?’
Davies nodded enthusiastically as Harker continued.
‘The second step, called Nympus, involves marrying the god of Mithras like in that strange ceremony back at the Baths of Caracalla.’
‘Yes,’ Davies concurred with glee. ‘You were directly above an ancient Mithras temple which is even now open to the public.’
Suddenly thinking himself back to the museum in Athens, he recalled the crown that Adonis Anastas had so unexpectedly placed upon his head. ‘The third step, that of Miles, is being anointed with the crown of Mithras, which symbolises liberation from the bonds of the material world.’
Harker now fell silent as the weight of what he was discovering pressed deeply on his soul. At this point Davies now took over, appearing more thrilled with every utterance.
‘The fourth step called, Leo, is the initiation through fire as guided by a representative of Jupiter – Miss Avi Legrundy herself.’
The bizarre chanting Harker had heard Legrundy spouting as he awoke tied up in Dr Marceau’s apartment, just before she set it ablaze, now made a twisted sense. Even as Davies continued, he felt sick to his stomach at the deception inflicted on him.
‘The fifth step of Perses was an act of faith in vanquishing a gorgon or a true monster, and your defeating of the horned man-child is proof in itself that you are worthy of your new position.’
Harker’s revulsion was tinged by the empathy he felt for that lumbering, tortured, disabled boy he had fought against. ‘Who was that exactly?’
Davies looked like he could not have cared less. ‘That genetic monstrosity was born for one reason and one only, and that was to offer you penance and admission for you when the time came. It is a brute representing all that the Mithras reviles and it has been kept in bondage in those testing grounds for but one purpose – and its reason for existence is now over.’
Up until this point there had been at least a semblance of a normal personality underneath all the psychotic behaviour this ex-priest was displaying, but this cold and heartless statement had Harker not only despising the man but also feeling completely repulsed by him. ‘Are you telling me you kept that poor disabled boy in that dungeon all his life just so he could test me!’
Davies’s truly deviant nature was displayed further as he looked aghast at Harker’s sympathy for what he himself saw as nothing more than a useless entity. ‘There have been others tested by that deformed creature, yes, but you were always its main reason for existing. That thing has no place in a superior world, a world of the strong and the pure. It was lucky to have found any purpose at all for otherwise I would have slit its throat as a child, without a second thought.’
The chilling reply now started Harker thinking of the other murders that had taken place on this structured journey of ‘enlightenment’ the Mithras cult had so fanatically set him upon. ‘And that woman and child you mutilated before your own apparent death at the hands of the police? I saw the video of it.’
‘Sacrifices must always be made for a higher purpose and, although I will admit they were innocents in all this and, unaware of the miserable fates that awaited them, it was a necessary evil in convincing the Church that the “three days of Darkness” prophecy was imminently upon them.’
‘So you murdered a little boy and his mother,’ Harker growled in disgust, ‘and for what?’
Davies looked shocked at Harker’s expression of compassion. ‘We’ll get to that shortly, but don’t forget the boy himself was a verified schizophrenic and so tainted, as for the mother… well, she was too gullible and easily pliable and my standing as an ex-priest offered her a reason to believe in his satanic possession. With a little help from me, of course.’
‘So you really once were a priest – at least. Archbishop Federar certainly believed it.’ Harker said, still astonished at the level of insignificance which human life represented to this man.
‘The road of the Mithras is a long one, Alex, and I had infiltrated the Church long before the Templars even became aware of us. My credentials were genuine, although that corpse with its head blown off, which both the Church and the newspapers believed to be me, was just another lost and useless soul we used for our purpose. A few changes to his dental and blood records, with a little help from Detective Russo, and no one was the wiser as you’ve seen for yourself.’
Davies now grasped Harker by both shoulders and regarded him as one would do a son. ‘We have gone to great lengths in bringing you back to us, after your father decided to deny you your birthright and here you are duly restored to us; to me and your family. For you see, we are the same, Alex Harker… because, you see, your father was my brother.’
Harker pulled away from the man’s grip, and stared at him in abject disbelief at the disclosure as Davies nodded excitedly.
‘Your father believed his siding with the Templars would bring the Mithras to its knees and they even thought that we had been totally destroyed from the inside out. But as you now know it was nothing more than a game within a game and he should have realised that you cannot easily stamp out a belief that has stood the test of time for thousands of years with one single blow of deception. The Templar’s arrogance is its greatest weakness; we are still as strong as ever and for the past twenty-five years I knew I would eventually find you. Your father hid you well from us, but once you became embroiled with Sebastian Brulet and those other devilish zealots, I realised it would just be a matter of time until we reached out to you. And now, my nephew, here you are.’
Being identified as kin made Harker feel light-headed and he stared blankly as his ‘uncle’ continued with the warped sense of logic he had displayed thus far.
‘There is so much you have yet to learn about your personal history and importance in all of this, and when I discovered you had resigned your own place within that steaming pile of dung that is the Catholic Church, I knew it was in your blood – your DNA – to resist that same false and deceitful ideology. Catholicism is nothing more than a stolen reflection of the one true faith. Of Mithraism and the millennia of history and devotion that have always behoved us to stay pure and to praise the one true god.’ Davies raised his hand towards the painted ceiling and the image at its centre, ‘I refer to Mithras, the true lord of humanity and yes, Alex… I am your uncle, and you have now come home.’
Harker now felt in a state of information overload, but that surreal feeling took a back seat to contemplating the complete fantasy that he would ever join a heartless, cold and just plain wicked group as this, regardless of whether he was genuinely related. As he looked up at the man who would be his uncle, now smiling like a Cheshire cat, he realised the fellow was not only a psychopath but clearly insane to boot.
‘So, Uncle,’ Harker began deciding his best bet for the time being was to play to the man’s delusions, ‘will you now explain why you had me chasing the ‘Darkness’ prophecy, the blessed candles, and breaking into the Vatican’s archives?’
The use of the word ‘uncle’ had Davies wagging a finger at him. ‘Now, now, Alex. Let’s not insult each other’s intelligence, since I know how you must feel about all this. You’ve been kept away from us for too long but, given time, I know you’ll come to believe in the truth of what we’re trying to accomplish.’
‘Ok, Davies, so why the goose chase?’ Harker replied tersely, realising this man might be crazy but he wasn’t stupid.
‘Many of us have felt unsure about the wisdom of bringing you into the fold. Some think you will have become too polluted by your experiences.’ Davies pointed his finger upwards, deliberately ignoring the question. ‘You found one such upstairs, sharing his bed with a nest of emperor scorpions.’
The remembered image of the swollen blue face of Michael Donitz caused Harker to grimace. ‘So that’s how you repay those who dare to disagree with you?’
‘Yes, but for your sake, Alex,’ Davies said sternly, as if Harker had asked for all this. ‘All debts must be repaid, and the debt of loyalty is amongst the highest. I doubt he will die, since we administer anti-venom regularly and other medical requirements as necessary. If he survives until tonight, he will have a chance to return to us with a restored sense of loyalty.’
‘Or with sheer bloody murder on his mind,’ Harker muttered quietly. ‘If he has a mind at the end of it all.’
‘If we’re to fight those that would oppose us, then we must remain strong and united, and absolute loyalty is the lifeblood by which we will achieve that.’
‘And what the hell is that, exactly?’
‘The Catholic Church has become far too powerful to get rid of just like that, but Mithraism has witnessed many other false religions come and go, and yet we are still here. Time is our saviour as it always has been, and in a few thousand years from now who knows how things will have evolved. We have started already to hurt the Church… in fact I had Legrundy remove the entire congregations of two churches only a few days ago, as you might have heard, and that is just another part of our plan to instil fear into the hearts of the masses. We are custodians of the true faith until the time becomes right, and until then we will do exactly what you yourself have been doing over the past few days – by chipping away at the Church piece by piece.’
‘And how exactly have I been doing that?’ Harker replied, confused by his apparent part in all this.
Davies made his way over to the nearby pillar and with the flat palm of his hand pressed its surface. With a clicking sound a portion of the stone slid away to reveal the two ‘blessed candles’ sitting in shiny metal holders. ‘I’m afraid these little trinkets are barely worth the quartz we had them made from, although I will say they were expertly crafted to make the right impression and the light electrical discharge was a rather ingenious design.’ He picked up the two items and held them out in front of him, one in each hand, and then dropped them to the floor where they shattered into a hundred sharp pieces. As Harker stared down at a chunk which landed at his feet, he could make out a thin wire strip, containing tiny light diodes, running along its length.
‘So they’re fake! Then what about my vision? You can’t fake something like that,’ Harker gasped, trying to make sense of an experience that been haunting him ever since it happened.
Davies pulled a tiny vial from his other pocket and gave it a shake. ‘Its medical term is scopolamine, better known as the Devil’s Breath, and the South Americans have been using it for centuries. It’s a highly potent mind-altering drug and I’ll admit we’ve been tinkering with its effects for some time now – well before you even came on my radar. It makes the subject highly susceptible to suggestion and, with added hallucinogenic properties, it allows one to literally lead someone through a “trip”, suggesting situations and events which the recipient experiences as being very real. The CIA have been using it for years but we, with some additional manipulation, have turned it into a far more useful compound.’
In truth this explanation made a lot more sense than the vision Harker had been grappling with, and it would certainly account for his cloudy thought processes ever since. Yet it had all seemed so real at the time. ‘You’re saying it was purely drug-induced!’
‘Clever, isn’t it?’ Davies replied, clearly enjoying Harker’s confusion. ‘Henri injected you with some of it back at our little temple underneath the Eiffel Tower, which you should know is one of our modern Mithras Temples but with a change of décor. He then led you through the trance step by step, and in the end you never remembered a thing except the trip itself, did you? You never realised how much time had passed either.’
‘What time?’ Harker demanded, feeling furious at having been tricked so easily.
‘You were out for over an hour until the effects wore off, but you never even questioned the time discrepancy afterwards because you were instructed not to and like anyone else under this drug’s spell you did exactly as you were told. I’ve got footage of it all if you want to see. It’s quite amusing seeing you laid out on the floor, stoned out of your mind.’
Harker had the urge to punch the living hell out of him right there and then, but Davies was already wagging his finger. ‘Don’t get silly now or that creature will be back in here to tear you to shreds before you know it. Besides, we used a similar drug on poor Federar, which Stefani injected him with much like you were. But don’t worry, the archbishop will have woken up with no recollection at all of what happened.’
He then let out a deep laugh. ‘It’s all only smoke and mirrors, I’m afraid, just as were the murder of that mother and boy, along with the cryptic message written in blood.’
‘They’re alive? I thought you said they were dead?’
‘No, they did die horribly but,’ Davies flicked of his hand uncaringly, ‘I certainly wasn’t possessed.’
‘Why?’ Harker rubbed his forehead, thinking back to the grisly image of the mutilated son and mother. ‘What was the point any of this? The prophecy, the candles, why?’
Davies now looked distinctly haughty. ‘To create a narrative that that would ultimately get you into the Vatican’s secret archives and get hold of what I knew was there but never could have stolen myself without getting caught.’
Harker felt a sudden nausea in his throat as he thought back to when he had been fighting for his life against Archbishop Federar and it suddenly occurred to him how long it had taken for Stefani to come to his aid. Clearly she’d had other things to attend to. There they were in a room containing some of the most toxic items that the Church wished didn’t exist, and he had managed to get Stefani in there with him. ‘What did she take?’
With a smile Davies reached into a pocket of his robe and produced a small leather-backed book which he dangled in front of him. ‘A written diary from the first pope ever elected outlaying everything pilfered from Mithraism and incorporated into the early Catholic Church. We’ve been aware of that secret little vault of theirs for decades and the rumours surrounding it, so when the powers that be saw fit to upgrade its security, I made sure it was one of my associates who undertook the job. I will admit my operative only managed to steal a glance at this diary,’ Davies announced, waving the journal at Harker teasingly, ‘but, more importantly, he did catch a good look of the three days of Darkness Prophecy. Of course it was only the side facing upwards, but the line ‘You are I and I am you. When he is myth and we are reality. This grand deception will be repaid in blood.’ proved crucial in convincing Archbishop Federar that my holy vision was genuine. And gullibly he allowed me to inspect it and thus, as a result, I managed to get a good look at this.’
Davies brought his hand down onto the diary with a firm slap and then slowly shook his head from side to side. ‘I have always found using people’s own faith against them particularly delicious, and in a sentence, this is proof of all that was stolen from us, and by the time I’m finished the whole world is going to know it.’
‘I don’t believe you.’ Harker shook his head. ‘Maybe there were certain similarities in the early religions, and that’s always been a matter of speculation, but it still wouldn’t have any bearing on the truth and on the story of Jesus Christ.’
Davies was now looking extremely devious and he popped the book back into his pocket. ‘There is no smoke without fire and even the smallest doubt can be magnified tenfold in people’s minds. By the time I’ve divulged what lies within these pages, then believe me it will be another nail in the coffin of a religion that’s been haemorrhaging followers year on year for decades. Like I said, Alex, time is now our greatest ally and if you destroy enough bricks from the foundations of a house, eventually it will crumble and fall.’
Harker felt all the energy evaporate from his body as he realised how, unknowingly, he had been instrumental in helping the Mithras cult attain their goal. And he felt sickened by it. He had not only been played from the beginning, but he couldn’t have done a better job of it himself if he’d tried.
‘I can’t let you do this,’ he protested.
Davies looked unfazed. ‘My dear nephew, I know this stings right now, but I promise you that, in the fullness of time, you will realise that what you have done – and what we will do together – is not only the right thing to do, but the decent thing.’
‘And if I don’t?’
‘If you don’t, then I’m afraid all this effort and my faith in you will have been for nothing. And I will consider it nothing short of a betrayal of your own family, and the greatest disloyalty you could be guilty of.’
That same image of Michael Donitz’s swollen features flashed through Harker’s mind and, as he stood there deflated and at a total loss for words, Davies slipped past him towards a large pair of double doors over to his right and with both hands flung them open.
Harker looked over to see a large dining room in stark contrast to the Romanesque style of the room he was in. Thick tapestries hung on all the walls and at a long, mahogany table stretching most of the room’s length, the now familiar faces of the Mithras group were seated around it. On the table itself had been placed an outsized silver platter with a cover over five feet in length and equipped with multiple handles, and Davies now gestured Harker to enter as Stefani and three of the Mithras followers stood up and reached for the handles.
‘Now come, Alex, and take the last step of initiation. Join our ranks and fulfil your destiny along with your brothers and sisters.’
Harker’s instinct was to run but he knew not where, so he slowly took a few steps into the dining hall before coming to a stop behind a large wooden chair at the head of the table, as Davies meanwhile closed the doors behind them and made his way halfway along the room.
‘Welcome, Alex, for with this banquet we shall let you join our brotherhood. And just as Christian followers of Christ eat his body at every communion… so we eat that of our enemies.’
The huge silver cover was now lifted up, and instantly Harker’s eyes began to glaze and his stomach started to tighten – as he looked in horror at the course about to be served.
The dull-grey cooked eyes of Marco Lombardi gazed up towards the ceiling, as he lay there outstretched and his skin brown after hours of cooking. His head had been shaved and his hands and feet removed, his limbs now tied at its ends with thick brown string.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Davies began with a pleased smile, ‘welcome here your brother, for he who was lost us has now been found.’