The basilica cast a long shadow across the grand expanse of St. Peter’s Square as the late afternoon sun dipped behind the enormous dome atop the most recognized symbol of the Mother Church in the entire world. The cloudy western horizon behind the dome fanned the sun’s rays and rendered a postcard ending for the crisp winter day. Shutterbugs all over the Square eagerly captured the image, savoring the moment as if it were a good omen.
The square still thronged with tourists, parishioners, clergy, nuns, and pigeons. The tour buses were parked nose to tail out on the Via del Concilizione. The drivers were chain smoking and swapping jokes, waiting for their passengers to return so they could take them back to their hotels for pasta and wine.
Devlin walked unseen through the crowd, heading directly for the steps. He’d been to St. Peter’s many times before, down through the centuries. Normally, he would take his time and savor the architecture. He had always thought that St. Peter’s would be a fitting headquarters for his impending reign on earth. Particularly since it was engineered and built by apostate Masons, and most particularly since financing the lavish structure is what finally triggered the Protestant Reformation. Which caused centuries of conflict between God-fearing Christians. The whole thing stood as a monument to folly. Even though God accused his angels of hubris, it was man created in His image who had really taken the cake, through their overwrought worshipping of Him. Devlin thought the irony was delicious.
There were a few changes he’d make to the décor, but overall he intended to preserve most of the Christian motifs. They would provide a nice sarcastic touch.
At the moment, however, he wasn’t in much of a touristy mood. To secure his rights to the property, he had to conclude the business at hand, and time was running short.
Two impoverished young girls were kneeling on a blanket they laid out each morning at the base of the steps. The individual roses they sold were arranged before them, and the upturned sunbonnet they used for transactions had a handful of coins and Euros from a slow afternoon.
A breath of cold wind tickled the edge of the blanket, and a dozen loose rose petals tumbled lazily across the ancient paving stones. The girls watched them scatter, idly wondering how far they would get before they were all stepped on. It was a way to pass the time.
But this time, something odd happened that made them sit up and take notice. Three of the petals that were drifting along in a tight bunch suddenly turned to ashes, and simply dissipated into thin air. The girls glanced at each other, utterly astonished, and looked back to watch the other petals.
Devlin’s invisible boot came down on another pair of rose petals, and turned them to ashes as well.
The girls stared at the phenomenon, not daring to breathe. They couldn’t see Devlin’s boot, or him, but his impact on their world was abrupt and chilling. Believing their eyes was the difficult part.
Devlin continued walking unseen through the crowd, and was gratified to see that although the people were completely unaware of his presence, their shadows knelt down in respect as he passed them by.
He was on a collision course with a nun, but he didn’t alter his stride. She passed right through him, and it sent a shiver down her spine. Disturbed by the experience, she crossed herself and clutched at the crucifix dangling from her rosary, even as her shadow knelt down beside her and bowed its head to Devlin.
He trotted up the thirty-nine steps – three sets of thirteen, his favorite number – and momentarily slowed his pace to glance up at the colonnaded façade. The Catholic grandeur of the place towered over him as if it were asserting itself to be some sort of timeless, immutable giant. He spit contemptuously on the paving stones and the granite sizzled, startling a flock of pigeons.
Devlin passed through the Maderno façade and into the portico, approaching the central pair of enormous bronze doors. Bernini’s statue of Constantine was off to his right, at the north end of the front porch. That was one thing Devlin was going to have fixed. While it was nicely done, Bernini had gotten Constantine’s face all wrong.
The Filarete doors had been salvaged from the original basilica. Bernini had done a better job on the bas-relief bronze panels, Devlin thought; he’d keep them as they were. The Borghese family shield was featured in the bas-relief of the portico ceiling above his head. Pope Peter V, Cardinal Scipio Borghese’s uncle, had made sure their family stamp was on the building when the portico was added to the structure in 1612. Devlin found it amusing, particularly since their descendant Nano was such a dunce.
The doors were closed now, it being sunset, and two Swiss Guards stood at attention flanking them. Devlin passed under Bishop Nano’s ancestral family shield and stepped through the bronze doors as if they weren’t even there. The guards didn’t see him, of course, but they felt a sudden cold breeze that made them shudder.
Inside the vaulted nave, Devlin glanced at Michelangelo’s Pieta in passing, in the corner off to his right, protected by a bulletproof panel after a crazy geologist went after it with his hammer. The statue could stay, too, he thought, but the shield has got to go. No one would dare lay a hand on it when he became the landlord.
Overall, Devlin liked the various depictions of Christ’s suffering and death. They comforted him, but not for the usual reasons. It was a long walk up the nave to the right transept, on the north side of the altar and St. Peter’s tomb. Votive candles in the side chapels snuffed out as Devlin passed up the center aisle. The parishioners in the chapels were suddenly in darkness, and fumbled for matches. Puzzled nuns scurried to help them.
The angels in the frescos and the oversized statuary shed tears of blood as Devlin passed below them, and the air seemed to move away from him as he walked. He turned into the transept and approached the confessional booths. On the crucifix behind him, the enormous figurine of Jesus shed tears of blood as well. Devlin blew Him a kiss.
Mahogany confessional booths bracketed the three altars of the north transept. The altars had been built to commemorate Saint Wenceslas, Saint Erasmus, and Saints Processus and Martinian, the two men who were Saint Peter’s jailers before he helped them see the light. The booths themselves were stand-alone affairs, with separate doors for the priest and the penitent to enter, and engage in the holy sacrament with a reasonable expectation of privacy. To the uninformed, the booths could have easily been mistaken for extravagantly appointed duplex outhouses. Devlin passed through the penitent’s door of the last booth on the left and the varnish crinkled in response.
He sat down on the hardwood stool and a moment later, he heard the confessor’s door open. Someone entered the other compartment and quietly closed the door behind them.
Devlin took the parchment invitation out of the pocket of his black greatcoat and slipped it under the screen. A moment passed, then the panel in the priest’s compartment that covered the screen was slid to one side.
Cardinal Jacob Molinari was in his seventies now. The long years and the ongoing stress had conspired to take their toll on him, but the light in his eyes was still strong. And yet, for all the praying that he did and all the sacraments he performed, he no longer considered himself a man of faith. It was a sentiment he abandoned many years ago.
Instead, he was among the lucky few in the history of Christendom – or Judaism, for that matter – who had ever had a direct and ongoing long-term confrontation with the work of the Devil himself. Molinari’s strength came from his knowledge of the circumstances in which he and his adopted Church were mired. His life’s work in the service of God had made him intimately aware of the awesome forces engaged in the struggle between heaven and hell, and the fragile nature of every life that hung in the balance. Watching over the Child had become central to that struggle. The vestments and the rituals, the form and the practice of doctrine, were all a distant second to that one paramount concern.
For Molinari, faith had nothing to do with how he conducted his life, and neither did scripture, particularly the arcane arguments over the Old versus the New Testament. It was all, ultimately, about God. The details were simply that, and no more. What motivated him was certainty. He knew precisely what he was up against; it wasn’t a matter of belief or mystical speculation. It was entirely real to him, a matter of objective fact, and now it had come to pay him a visit, sitting a mere three feet away on the other side of a thin wicker screen in the most sacred house of God.
He made the sign of the cross before he spoke. “I’m sorry I’m late,” he said to Devlin with unfailing courtesy. “I had to find a way to slip in here unnoticed.”
Devlin had no interest engaging in small talk, and got right to the point. “I’ve grown tired of your games, you devious bastard! Once a Jew, always a Jew.”
Molinari drew a patient, silent breath and crossed himself again.
“All these years,” Devlin scowled, “and you still haven’t been able to get a straight answer out of them?”
Molinari chose his words carefully. He knew he was walking a tightrope; he had been doing it for over thirty years. “I can only tell you the truth that is revealed to me –”
“Don’t lecture me about truth!” Devlin growled, cutting him off. The battle that was perpetually raging in Devlin’s soul erupted, and as he struggled to regain control his transformation into a calm and coolly smirking Lucifer was clearly visible through the privacy screen.
Molinari mumbled a silent prayer, moving his lips out of habit as the Latin tripped off his tongue. When he felt strong enough to continue, he took a deferential tone to feed the Devil’s pride.
“The Rosicrucians are a close-knit group, my Lord. I’ve done all I could.”
The change came again and Devlin returned, bristling with anger and impatient with yet another excuse. Molinari shivered as he watched, and icy stabs of fear shot into him from all directions. His heart started pounding in his chest, and he had to strain to hear over the thumping in his eardrums.
“You live right down the street from where they eat and shit!” Devlin hissed at him. He frowned at Molinari’s outline, a diffuse shadow on the other side of the privacy screen. “They are still in Rome, aren’t they?”
Molinari nodded, although he knew that Devlin might not be able to see the gesture in the confessional’s gloom.
“Yes. They’ve always been here.”
But Devlin was suspicious. “And you still haven’t cozied up to them, after all this time?”
“They don’t cozy, my Lord. We have philosophical differences.”
“As do we, Cardinal Molinari.”
Devlin took one of his cigarettes out of his greatcoat pocket and blew on the tip to light it. He took a deep drag and exhaled. The smoke drifted through the wicker screen.
Molinari coughed and closed his eyes to try blocking it out, but it was no use. The smoke instantly stung his eyes and irritated his lungs, and imparted no advantage to him the way that it did to Devlin. Devlin had absorbed whatever benefit the smoke could deliver before he exhaled.
When it entered Molinari’s nostrils, the smoke from the Tree of Knowledge had a much different effect on him. He suddenly became troubled by the sobering realization that he could never unsee what he had seen, and could never unlearn what he had learned. Rather than being buoyed by the insight, the smoke brought it to light as the awful truth. It was as if a harsh search beam had flooded into him, and chased away whatever soft shadows remained in his mental landscape. There was no longer any place to hide, even when his eyes were closed. Whatever knowledge he gained from it was a cold comfort to him.
“I want the last name,” Devlin demanded. “That much you’re certain of? There’s just one more?”
Molinari opened his eyes and nodded, exhausted by the ordeal. “Yes, that much I’ve learned,” he told Devlin. “And forgive me, but it took decades to even learn that much.”
Devlin took another drag and exhaled through his nostrils, filling both sides of the confessional booth with smoke. “I’m not the forgiving type,” he reminded Molinari.
As the smoke billowed through the screen, Molinari had a stark vision of looking into the Abyss. He lived the last three decades of his life knowing it was there, but now the smoke deprived him of the ability to block it out. It was crystal-clear in his mind now, yawning open before him, and he could no longer look away.
“The time draws close,” he whispered, more to himself than to Devlin.
“Don’t remind me,” Devlin told him.
There was something that had been puzzling Molinari for a long time now. It came unbidden to the front of his mind, and found its way to the tip of his tongue before he could stop himself. Perhaps it was the smoke that was speaking.
“Tell me, why did you kill the others?” he blurted out.
Devlin sneered at the cardinal’s shadow behind the screen. The man had become bold in his old age. Perhaps it was because he knew the game was over, and that there was nothing left for him to lose.
“I didn’t kill them, I murdered them. There’s a difference.” Devlin explained, and Lucifer surfaced to contribute a salient point. “‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’ needs a re-write,” he told Molinari. “It’s the thought that counts. Make a note.”
Molinari watched breathlessly as Devlin returned and sighed in annoyance. “The rules of the game are, I can’t murder The One,” Devlin reminded him. “I can’t harm Him or stop Him. I can’t even make Him harm Himself. I can only lead Him astray. But first, I have to find Him. So murder was a simple process of elimination – if they die, they’re not The One. Sort of like dunking a witch, only more fun.”
He sat up on the penitent’s stool and withdrew the crucifix dagger from his waistband. “And even if I lose, I can still kill Him with this!”
He held it against the screen for Molinari to see. He knew that Molinari would recognize it; the cardinal had dispatched Simone to New Orleans to give it to Nano only a week before.
Molinari indeed recognized the weapon. He bowed his head to avert his eyes, and crossed himself. Devlin could see enough through the privacy screen to realize what he was doing, and sneered at him.
“Stop doing that! It’s pathetic.”
Molinari kept his head bowed, and placed his hands in his lap, folding them in prayer. But before he could stop himself, he challenged Devlin with another question.
“Why are you so confident you will win this bet, my Lord?”
Molinari was surprised by his own effrontery, but there was no turning back now. He knew that the smoke was having an effect on him, and yet he knew that he wasn’t hallucinating. He also knew that he had no way of predicting exactly where it would lead. All the sense that he could make out of it was that he could no longer ignore his own thoughts. They were coming to the fore and he couldn’t leave them be.
Perversely, Devlin actually felt like answering the man’s questions, despite the aggravation. It roused his sense of superiority to be challenged by a mere mortal. He tucked the crucifix dagger back in his waistband and grinned.
“Because what human have you ever encountered who would willingly sacrifice his own life for a complete stranger, without any guarantee of an eternal reward?”
Molinari didn’t expect that he would gain anything by arguing with the Devil, but he couldn’t let that go unchallenged. “I think you underestimate the nature of –”
“I underestimate nothing!” Devlin hissed at him.
It was high time the wool was pulled from Molinari’s eyes. Devlin loathed the entire hodgepodge of irrational, self-aggrandizing fairy tales that these humans, particularly the Christians, had blinded themselves with. The worst fairy tale of all was their arrogant presumption that God had created them in His own image, when the truth of the matter was precisely the reverse. Man had created God in his own image, and Devlin saw that as an insult to God. As a former Jew, Molinari should have known better, and that angered Devlin even more.
“Your world, this world, is based on a lie!” Devlin growled. “Think it through! A husk of a man, walking around saving people. He’s made out to be a hero, and for what? For taking a beating for a couple of days, knowing he’s got the grand prize waiting for him. Your precious Jesus was no hero.”
Molinari was shaken by the blasphemy uttered within the very bowels of the Mother Church, within sight of the Papal altar and the tomb of St. Peter himself. His strength was failing, but he knew that the fate of the world depended on him, just as it had for over thirty years. He had to make it to the end of this unholy rendezvous in one piece; he could collapse after that. He closed his eyes in prayer.
“Our Father who art in heaven – ”
“Your father, not mine!” Devlin snapped. “He didn’t raise me, he just turned me loose.”
Molinari finished the prayer in silence and crossed himself. He found that it gave him the strength he needed. He had come this far and had done all that he could. He had long ago resigned himself to the path he had chosen. From this moment forward, as it was with every moment gone by, it was in God’s hands.
He looked through the ventilation slats of his door, out to the great basilica. It was dusk and the lights had been turned on, augmented by a vast array of candles. As it always did, the sheer beauty of the house of God took his breath away.
“How can you say that this is all based on a lie?”
Devlin cracked a humorless smile. “Because it is. You hypocrites praise His divinity, but isn’t it true that divinity is only achieved through completely unselfish means?”
“Yes it is, but –”
“Your Savior just won the big lottery, that’s all. And all he had to do was get nailed to the cross to claim his prize.”
He took a final drag from his cigarette and put it out on his tongue. It sizzled, giving off a tiny blossom of crimson flame. He liked the taste, and swallowed it whole.
“But this time around,” he continued, “it’s a level playing field. Not only is your Chosen One a mere mortal, with no knowledge of His own divinity, but deep down He’s also an unbeliever, no matter what He pretends to be.”
Molinari looked down at his rosary. The crucifix glinted in the dim light of the confessional. He touched it with his thumb and took measured breaths, listening to the Devil himself whispering in his ear in the house of God.
“This time around, He’s just a man. And a man isn’t going to sacrifice himself without the promise of an eternal reward. Even a terrorist isn’t that stupid.”
Molinari was utterly dismayed to find himself agreeing with Devlin’s argument. He searched his soul in vain, looking for the means to rebut the logic, but the harsh light of knowledge brought on by the smoke from Devlin’s cigarette revealed the truth to him, and as much as he wanted to he couldn’t turn away.
Devlin was right.
“Then the crucifixion will have been in vain...” Molinari mumbled, coming to the obvious conclusion.
Devlin sat up, sensing the change in Molinari’s voice, and he nodded. The old man finally understood.
“When I win, there is no crucifixion,” Devlin told him. “There is no blood sacrifice to end all blood sacrifices. There is no ‘Blessed One.’ There’s only me.”
Molinari hung his head and gazed at his wrinkled hands folded in prayer on his lap, his rosary laced between arthritic fingers. One hand had been hanging on to the other, but in his despair even his strength to do that was leaving him. He watched his fingers unravel and the rosary slip to the floor. His empty hands folded in upon themselves, grasping thin air.
“So be it,” he whispered.
Devlin smiled. He had finally filled the cardinal with the proper dose of despair. The man would be a compliant minion from now on.
“I have a name for you, my Lord,” Molinari said in a thick voice.
“The last one?” Devlin asked.
“I believe so,” Molinari sighed. “We finally have the weapon that pierced Christ.”
Devlin nodded, a smile playing on his lips. He was fondling the weapon, his fingers tingling in anticipation.
“Tell me the name, Cardinal.”
Molinari rested his elbow on the little shelf below the wicker screen, and held his forehead in his hand. Devlin laced his fingers together as if he were praying, and leaned close. They looked exactly like a penitent and his confessor.
Molinari whispered something. Devlin’s feral eyes glowed, and he nodded his head.