23

Standing on the cobblestones as the echo of his knock died away, it was all Thomas Kelly could do not to turn and run. He swallowed, bile burning his throat. The idea that he’d soon once again be in the presence of those . . . those creatures, made his stomach curdle and his skin crawl.

He still wasn’t sure he believed any of it: what he’d seen, what Lorenzo had told him. He’d given up hope that this was a simple nightmare but he was clinging to a new idea, that it was some sort of drug-induced hallucination. There’d been an accident. One of these terrible Rome drivers—some young kid on a motorino had almost run him down just moments ago, it was something like that, he was in a hospital all drugged up and his own subconscious had created this insane fantasy out of the depths of who-knows-where. The theory comforted him, but the problem with it was that while he waited for consciousness to return and the world to become right again, he had to take some sort of action. Although in this delusion Lorenzo Cossa had been deceiving and betraying Thomas for fifteen years, the fate threatening the Cardinal now was so horrifying that, though if any of this were true Lorenzo certainly wouldn’t deserve his help, Thomas found himself unable to just abandon him. After all, Thomas thought, if you don’t act heroically in your own hallucination, what can you hope from yourself in real life? Somewhere, somehow, Thomas was sure this all had to do with faith. The need to save someone whose treachery cut so deeply must be a test of faith. Thomas didn’t know why his subconscious demanded this of him, but he wasn’t about to let himself down.

And in a dark, far corner of his mind was a tiny stabbing pain he was trying desperately to ignore. But like a sliver of glass in his shoe, though minute it was agonizing and unremitting: the unspeakable possibility that he was wide awake and it was all true. In which case Lorenzo deserved his help even less, and needed it much more.

The door opened. Thomas stepped back involuntarily at the sight of Livia Pietro. “Don’t touch me!”

“No, Father,” she said quietly. “Of course not.” After a moment she moved back into the foyer, holding the door wide. “Will you come in?”

Thomas found he couldn’t cross the threshold, could not enter that house. They stood in silence, regarding each other. Pietro’s green eyes seemed kind, even concerned, but Thomas was not going to be taken in again. “You’re a monster,” he rasped.

She shook her head. “I’m a person. Like you, but different from you.”

A person? This creature was claiming to exist in the image of the Lord? He felt the calm that his new theory had brought him begin to slip away. “No!” he barked. “A creature with no soul.” Pietro just gazed at him sadly; for some reason that pitying look enraged him more. “You sold your soul for a promise of eternal life. But what you’ve bought isn’t that. It’s never-ending corruption. Everlasting decay!” He could feel the heat in his skin, could hear his voice rising, he knew he sounded wild but he couldn’t stop himself. “Your bargain is worthless. Worthless! Your false prophet will abandon you. The End of Days will come, even for you, and—”

Pietro held up her hand. Thomas’s cheeks burned; he trembled with rage. But looking at her pale face, her long dark hair—staring into her ocean-green eyes—he felt his flood of accusatory words abate. What was the point? The choice Livia Pietro and the others like her had made couldn’t be undone. The sin they’d committed couldn’t be confessed, expiated, forgiven. His knotted shoulders fell. Helplessness and sorrow flooded through him where, moments before, righteous anger had blazed.

“Father,” Pietro said. “You left here, and I understand. What you’re saying is wrong, but many think as you do. But you’ve come back. Why?”

No, he couldn’t do this. Without the heat of his fury he felt cold and clammy, and his breathing caught just standing here in front of her. He couldn’t go into that house. Blood in the vase.

“Father Kelly? Are you all right?”

“No! How could I be all right? Your . . . your ‘people’ . . .”

“Father.” Now she spoke decisively, commandingly. “Come inside. Or leave.”

Lord, Thomas prayed. Father, help me. He stood on the threshold another moment, a few more seconds in the cobblestoned, scooter-buzzed, sunny morning, and then he went in.