be. Do not delay.” The Cardinal paused. “And do not fail me.”
Finn Arne rose, bowed, and left, fire in his lone eye.
Cormac watched him go. Finn would see the job done now that his focus was in the right place. It had been years since the Kreche had last been observed in the city of Seattle, just as it had been years since the Heliwr strode the world. If the boy had been given the seed—if the old man had surfaced to gain his new champion—then Cormac and those of the Vigilo had to be prepared to counter the wizard and be ready to take advantage of it.
But why had a fey creature from Annwn gone after the scion of Ardall?
There was some element Cormac missed.
He shook his head. With religious zealotry feverish in the Middle East and throughout the world, Cormac would do what was necessary to destroy it and other evils.
To gain the power of the Heliwr would tip the scales in favor of the Church.
And give Cormac a direct path to the papacy.
Assured Finn Arne was gone, Cormac changed into his official robes and ventured into the bowels of the papal apartments. The light of overhead lamps dimmed with every floor he left. Down he went, each descended staircase a gripe to hips and knees, until he entered tunnels devoid of any light source and had to flip on a flashlight. Chill seeped from the stone, followed by damp and mold, strengthening until he had to breathe through his mouth. The bones of the city’s birth grew around him, decayed from millennia of dripping water and misuse.
Navigating the slick floor, Cormac made his way toward the catacombs of St. Peters Basilica.
Other passages met his approach, disappearing into darkness, but he ignored them. Cormac had used the tunnels for decades and knew where each led—a world forgotten by all but the academic. Now only rats lorded over the kingdom the Cardinal Vicar walked through. He hunkered within his robes for warmth. There was still a part of him that hated the indignity of traveling in such a way. Secrets were necessary, but thieves preying upon tourists above had it better. If the visit were unimportant, he’d have gone back to bed.
Instead, he traveled to discover if all was well with the portal.
The catacombs littered almost the entirety of the Vatican’s underpinnings, a 108-acre foundation of rotten stone, labyrinthine ways, and ancient tombs lost to dust. During the time of Jesus Christ, the Roman emperors built a rounded area surrounded by tiers of seats for equestrian events; it was in this circus where Saint Peter had been martyred, crucified, buried, and where the Basilica now stood. With the foundation of the Catholic Church rooted in Vatican Hill, the city grew and erected walls around the sacred grounds.
But not solely built to keep invaders out, the Cardinal reflected.
Leaving the close tunnel behind, Cormac entered a large cavern, the walls worn stone free of markings or ornamentation. In the middle of the room an ancient well surrounded by waist-high stone circled a fathomless black hole, its bucket and thick rope newer than its wooden crank. Three other passages left the room, disappearing into darkness.
The only sound was Cormac’s breathing and the rustle of his robes.
St. Peter’s Basilica was directly overhead.
A chill passed through his body.
Emanating from the passage on his left was a movement of icy air like the brush of clammy fingers against skin. In the depths of the tunnel a hundred yards away, an underground branch of the Tiber River ran. There in the subterranean depths, he knew a dark veil shimmered on the river’s bank, silver streaks of light flickering like a strobe light through bits of fog.
He probed the darkened tunnel, hoping to hear nothing.
“It is at peace, Cormac,” a voice like aged paper said.
The Cardinal spun, reaching for the knife in the folds of his clothing.
An old man stood at the entrance of another passage, his back crooked and bowed by excessive age beneath a crimson robe, tufts of white hair keeping his ears warm and not much else. There was no expression in his dark-skinned, leathery demeanor; eyes as pale as curdled milk gave no hint to what they no longer saw.
“It is worthwhile to check from time to time, old friend,” Cormac grumbled.
“It is,” Cardinal Seer Donato Javier Ramirez agreed. “And nice to be visited from such an honorable guest, even one who is so ready to wield a knife.” He turned his head