The amount of blood spattered throughout the diminutive library of the Church of St Paul of the Cross was accentuated by the bright fluorescent glow of the lighting. A broadening pool expanded beneath the body of the deceased custodian, but in the attacks before he’d fallen he’d scattered the smears of Father Alberto’s blood that clung to his tool and his hand in arcs around the room. The room looked like something out of a slasher film, chairs broken, books scattered on the floor.
The only person who had remained unscathed was Thomás. He continued to kneel at the priest’s side, tears welling in his eyes and streaming down his face. He held one of the older man’s hands in his own, his lips silently muttering prayers.
Once it was clear that Laurence was dead, Ben sprang over to join Thomás at Alvarez’s side.
‘Is he dead?’ he asked. His own eyes began to go glassy.
‘He’s . . . barely breathing,’ Thomás answered. Ben fell on to his knees and grasped the priest’s other hand.
Angelina had kept her gaze on the fallen form of the janitor, still catching her breath. His resolve, his power, had been simply awesome.
In the sudden calm that followed the attack, her own leg had begun to throb.
‘Bring . . . bring her . . . here.’ The words unexpectedly rasped out of Father Alberto’s throat. Ben and Thomás stared at his face, shocked to hear the priest speak.
‘Her?’
Father Alberto wrenched his right hand out of Ben’s grasp. With what little strength he had left, he pointed at Angelina.
She saw the gesture, and her pain seemed to vanish. Religious or not, cleric or not, this is a man at the gateway of death. His brownish robe bore the rosette of his wound at his stomach, the skin of his face a starkly contrasting white. Her heart filled with the compassion she would have for any human being in such a state.
She stepped around Laurence’s corpse and walked to the small huddle of men. She stood in front of the priest, unsure why in his final moments he should beckon her.
‘You . . . are wounded,’ he managed.
Fear gripped her. Had he spotted an injury she hadn’t realised? Angelina urgently scanned over her body for wounds, but there were none, just the swathes of blood that had come from contact with Laurence’s body.
‘No,’ she answered, ‘I’m okay,’ and then, despite herself, ‘Father.’
‘No,’ he gasped, ‘there.’ He motioned towards Angelina’s left calf.
She looked down. The wound she’d suffered yesterday throbbed beneath her trousers, but nothing was visible beneath the bandages that Ben had carefully helped her apply.
‘How do you—’
Father Alberto didn’t give her time to finish the question. ‘You need to . . . take care of that.’ A slow breath. ‘Don’t let it get . . . infected. Still . . . work for you to do.’
Angelina was at a loss for words. Poor man, so frail.
Suddenly, Father Alberto clasped both hands together, a strength that hadn’t been there a moment ago coursing through his body.
‘The rest is coming,’ he said, his eyes wide. He managed to turn his head from Angelina to Ben, then back again. ‘The fire, and then the blotting out of the sun, and then the . . .’
His strength drained away as fast as it had come.
‘Myths, Father,’ Angelina said, shaking her head. Delusion was delusion, even in the throes of death. ‘Deception.’
Father Alberto managed a soft smile.
‘Maybe so, maybe so, professor.’ His breath seeped slowly away.
‘But God has worked in more mysterious ways than this before. Never . . . underestimate . . . his hand.’
With that, the light left Father Alberto’s eyes, and the old priest’s earthly words came to their end.
The next four and a half hours were spent in the environs of the church, as an ambulance phoned by Thomás finally arrived, and then the police, and the ritualised procedure of interviews, questions, witness statements and all the other accoutrements of a crime-scene investigation were gone through. The scene was so bloody that the initial responders had handcuffed Ben, Angelina and Thomás as the medics huddled around Father Alberto’s body, unsure who, or what, to believe about the gruesome scene around them. But Thomás had swiftly pointed out to the officers the presence of small security cameras everywhere in the church’s property, including in an upper corner of the library. The scene recorded on digital tape matched the story each of the three told, and after extended additional questioning, the police eventually informed them they were free to go – though they were not to leave Rome.
‘Our priest,’ Ben asked, finally escaping the clutch of law enforcement and making his way to the medics. ‘Is he . . .?’
‘He’s still alive,’ an ambulance technician answered, slamming closed the vehicle’s door behind him, ‘but he’s not conscious. It doesn’t look good.’
He said no more, his professionalism apparently not extending to attempts at a gentle bedside manner.
The ambulance drove away in a whir of sirens and lights. Their beams seemed to dance in the remnants of the fog that still clung to the ground.
‘What happened to the mist?’ Angelina asked one of the officers, motioning towards the grey haze. It was noticeably less than when they’d entered the church an hour ago.
‘Who the fuck knows?’ a gruff, fat investigator answered. ‘Stuff covered the whole city for about forty-five minutes. Came outta everywhere. Never seen anything like it. Scared the shit outta folk.’
‘One of them signs of the, you know, apocalypse,’ another officer answered, clucking in disapproval. ‘That’s what my wife says. Said she heard about it on the Internet, too, so you know it’s got to be true.’
Dark laughter, and the officers went back to their chores.
Angelina and Ben did not laugh.
‘What do we do from here?’ Ben finally asked when they were left alone. He was coping with his shock better than Angelina had anticipated he would, especially given what had just befallen a priest he clearly loved.
But Angelina’s mind couldn’t stop replaying the scenes, and words, of the final moments of their struggles. She said nothing, leaning against the side of one of the patrol cars, pondering.
Suddenly, she stood bolt upright.
‘He said “them”.’
Ben looked at her quizzically.
‘Laurence,’ she continued, her words suddenly coming quickly, ‘your janitor. As he was dying.’
‘I don’t see the meaning,’ Ben said.
‘His last words were, “You’ll never be able to stop them.” Them, Ben!’
He shook his head, still not grasping her point, and Angelina leaned forward to place a hand on his arm.
‘He didn’t say, “Stop what I’ve done,” or even “what we’ve done”. He said “them”. Others. Someone outside your church.’
Ben’s features started to pale.
‘You think Laurence was tied up with someone else?’
Angelina nodded furiously, but she was already looking around them.
‘Can we get out of here, Ben? Go somewhere else? Anywhere else?’
‘You have a plan?’
‘Of sorts. I want to get somewhere where we can sort out our next steps.’
Thomás, who had stood a few metres away during their discussion, stepped forward.
‘I don’t live far from here,’ he said. ‘If you want, you can come with me.’
For the first time since she’d met the young man whose face she’d seen on video, whose voice she’d heard proclaiming prophecy, Angelina smiled at him.
‘That will do just fine.’
Thomás motioned in the direction of home, and a moment later the three marched away from the church into the remnants of the fog that dissipated around them.