The Bishop sat beside him and firmly gripped the young man’s hands, praying to the Lord for guidance even as the first spark of furious ire lit inside Cormac.
“God has a plan, my son,” Bishop Ramirez finished. “Always.”
It took two weeks for the bodies of his family to be returned. The mass conducted in Ireland was a closed-casket affair; the whole village witnessed the ceremony and burial of his family. Cormac stood alone, aloof, his childhood home foreign and lost forever. As their coffins were slowly lowered into the peaty soil, the crisp wind of the Isles chilled cheeks to the numbness his heart already carried. He let them go, vowing to keep the pain of their deaths rooted in his being.
For years afterward, Donato mentored Cormac to view the Lord as the way to enact world change—that not all people different from the Church were evil but merely misguided.
After four decades, he remembered that day as if it were yesterday.
As he stood within the cold catacombs, he laid to rest one of his best friends and a second father, a man murdered by extreme hate just as his first had been.
It was hard for Cormac to see the plan God had put into play.
The final communion given, Clement stepped forward and baptized the coffin of the Cardinal Seer once more. He removed the Bible, left the cross in the center of the oak box, and stepped away. Cardinals Villenza and Tucci slowly lowered Donato into the chiseled hole until the coffin came to its final place of rest. For Cormac, it was hard to watch. Despite Donato carrying humility to the end, the Seer deserved a grand majestic Mass in the beautiful nave and halls above rather than a small funeral in the depths of the Basilica. But the role of Seer came with restrictions, and the world had to remain ignorant of Annwn and all of those who kept its existence secret.
“Until we also come to the Lord’s doorstep,” Clement said, forming the cross over his heart. “The Catholic Church and the Vigilo say farewell to you, Cardinal Seer Donato Javier Ramirez.”
The Vigilo also made the sign of the cross.
Cormac helped the others move a plain stone slab featuring a simple rose carved in relief with opened petals, his name, and the dates of his birth, service, and death. As the casket disappeared from view, tears burned. The boom of the stone fitting snuggly into place echoed like the final strike of a clock tower bell that would never ring again.
The Pope looked to Cormac.
The Cardinal Vicar stepped to the head of the tomb. “Lord, grant him eternal rest, and may perpetual light shine upon him within your vaunted love. Amen.”
The Vigilo repeated the final prayer. With a sad nod, Clement left the room, his robes a whisper. The Cardinals also left, some sharing words of solace with Cormac, others stopping to squeeze his hands in faith and sharing of grief.
After they left, the catacomb room returned to cold silence.
Cormac knelt at the foot of the tomb and wept.
It was a long time before he left.
With a bright lantern held high and midnight having come and gone, Cormac entered the depths of the Vatican once more, this time leading Swiss Guard Captain Finn Arne and his team of soldiers.
After the burial of Donato, Cormac and the Vigilo had spent a somber dinner remembering the Cardinal Seer. Eventually discussion changed to Annwn and the evil festering there. The Fionúir Mirror had been covered by its shroud and would remain so without a Seer, the Church blind to Annwn—and Philip Plantagenet. Names of possible candidates for the role went long into the night. They settled on no one. It would be some time before they found a man sharing the convictions and doctrine of the Vigilo to take on the mantle of Cardinal Seer.
Unable to sleep and the murder of Donato galvanizing him, Cormac enacted plans known to be heretical.
“If I may say, your Lordship, you seem quite tired. Is all well?”
“You may not say, Finn,” Cormac warned. “You have more pressing matters to worry about than my feelings.”
Finn Arne shrugged beside Cormac, a dark tool of fortune as they descended into the depths of Italy. Dressed entirely in black lightweight clothing and a number of pistols, knives, and semi-automatic rifles belted to his person, the Captain of the Swiss Guard watched Cormac with