Chosen Ch. 07 (Conclusion)

Not passionate...

I don't know if I've ever heard anything that stung so much.

My employer approached, smiling. He really liked Adriana. I suddenly felt like I was in the way.

+++

A pattern emerged. Chains on my torso woke Adriana and then there was no difficulty getting my employer the kind of scenes he wanted. Ramon figured out quickly that more than acting was going on, and he took savage delight in playing with the rules and limits of my contract, to see what kind of responses he could provoke. My contract was absolutely clear about penetration, but I'd failed to clearly specify other limits, and he could do things with the palm of his hand that had Adriana begging. (Her, not me. I'm not that kind of a slut.) In the end he got a very reluctant but undeniably intense orgasm out of me. I cried a little afterwards (me, not Adriana) because I'd been so certain that wasn't going to happen. The cameras got it all.

"Cut!"

Suzanne instantly appeared and escorted me out of the room, and plied me with tissues, a washcloth, a fresh robe and sips of wine.

"Are you ok?"

"Yes. I think. I've never, um... done that with anyone else watching. I, um... I'm dying here. Thanks for getting me out."

"I have to be my employer's woman for a moment, Adrienne. Is this going to become a contract litigation?"

"I... no. I know what's in that video. I'd never be able to claim I was unwilling." Had I been? It was Adriana's fault, but Adriana was a memory, not a person. Could I really blame anything on her?

And honestly, even as shook up as I was... was there a part of me that had liked playing the reluctant wanton, a part of me that wasn't Adriana? The helplessness in those chains, and the movement of hands and lips... Adriana had started, but it was me that finished it.

You've never had a real man, Adriana whispered. Wait until you find Lucio. You are in for something you can't even imagine.

I was in Lucio's lands. I resolved to try to learn about him. Maybe the libraries...

+++

"We're out of clues." I said.

"Perhaps," Jose replied, putting up his feet on his desk. "But I don't know that's true. We've come a long way. I don't think the trail ends here. Somewhere ahead, it crosses with a book... Alan, have faith. Maybe we only need to wait."

"I hate waiting."

I stared pacing, but his office was much too small to make that a pleasant activity.

"I'm bored, and it's miserably warm."

"Try this town in August," Jose chuckled. "The heat is only beginning..."

I kicked a wastebasket out of my way, the better to pace. "Think of something, Jose. Be clever."

He nodded and closed his eyes. Five minutes later, he was gently snoring. I kept pacing.

Finally I bent and said into his ear, "The world is in flames of injustice and immorality, and the Catholic church is powerless."

He started awake. "What? Burning? Alan... that is not nice. And I like to think it's not true."

"About the world?"

"No, the world is definitely burning. But the church is not as inactive as you think. Though... wait."

"What?"

"Something caught at my thoughts... church, burning... candle! Alan, we missed the obvious. People at that church in Llerena knew that the candle is unusual. A tradition to explain it must exist, and they must know it."

"I missed nothing. I tried to talk to them. They don't return calls."

"They don't return your calls. I am Doctor Jose Estrella, noted catholic historian. People in this part of the world talk to me. I already have permission from an archbishop to pry..."

He fussed with phone listings, and dialed.

"Good evening. My name is Doctor Jose Estrella, and I have been granted permission from his reverence the archbishop of Seville to conduct an interview in regards to- excuse me? No I will not call back, this is a matter of some importance... yes, I'll hold.... Thank you, Father. I'm calling in regard to a recent theft... No, not the gem... please, let's not play games, Father. I have permission from the archbishop to investigate the candle and the circum- what do you mean the wrong archbishop? Do you think that because you are in a different archbishopric that you are going to stonewall an offici-"

He stared at the phone, and then hung up. He looked angry, and I smiled.

"Didn't go well, it seems."

"Thirty years and more in my role within the church and this is the first time anyone has hung up on me. He dares?"

"Why, Father. You seem angry."

He glared at me. I waited. He glared more, and then stood. "You broke into that church, Alan. Was it difficult?"

"It was trivial. I was ashamed to accept payment. Well, not very ashamed, but still."

"Will you do it again?"

"Yes, and this time for free."

"Good. Because this Father Brandon has made the mistake of blocking an investigation while sitting inside a church that's registered as a historical site by the Vatican. I have the right to enter historical sites at whim, on any official church business. Bring your lockpicks in case he thinks he's going to cockblock me with an archbishopric jurisdiction and a locked door."

"Excuse me, did you just say-"

"Biblical precepts state that it is not a sin to be angry," he gritted. "But add that it is unwise to let the sun go down on your anger. Sunset is at least thirty minutes away. I'm going to enjoy this thirty minutes. Get the car, Alan, we're setting out now."

+++

We arrived in less than three hours. The church was not large, part modern and part old, and dark except for one small lit window on the second floor. I smiled to see it, as I often do at the sites of old jobs.

Jose contemplated the lit window. "We go in quietly, I think."

We approached a side door, almost lost in the dim light of a faded sunset and half-moon, mixed with the town's own glow. I grabbed Jose by the collar suddenly, and pointed at a spot on the wall. "Camera," I said quietly. "Let me check the front door."

I moved off. It didn't take long to discover cameras on all the doors; they'd learned something from my last visit. I returned to Jose.

"I like my odds better on this door. Not visible from the road; and the stone façade looks climbable."

I spent fifteen minutes climbing and disconnecting the camera. Five minutes later the door was unlocked, and I called Jose in.

"They might know we're here." I said, softly. "Depends on whether they get a signal when the camera is taken offline. At least the door isn't wired."

Jose flipped on the lights. I blinked.

"Doesn't matter if they know I'm here," he said. "I have a right to be."

"I don't."

"You're my bodyguard. So you do."

"I'm the bodyguard? Then why do you have the gun?"

"You're not a great bodyguard. Just the best I can afford on my low salary."

"You're unusually flexible in your definitions, for a Catholic."

"The times demand it." He gestured. "Up those stairs. I want a word with whoever's in here."

"You won't get one," said a voice at the top of the stairs, in Spanish. "I'm armed. The police have already been called."

"Call them off," Jose said. "I have a right to be here."

"You're in the new part of the building. The historical site privilege you're going to claim only covers the old section. You choose the wrong door, Father Estrella."

"Call me Doctor. And this seems like an unusually fine degree of hairsplitting," Jose said, mildly.

We were both staying away from the bottom of the stairs and our unfriendly host's field of view (and fire.) I cast around at the office we'd entered, looking for the next move.

"You were told not to come," the voice said.

I spotted my move. A lighbulb in a sconce. Unscrew the light bulb, wrap it in foil...

"You knew I'd be coming anyway. The artifacts are continuing to kill people. Whatever is happening, has to be settled."

...screw it back in, find the light switch...

"You won't be settling it, Doctor Estralla. This is not a matter for academics and their idle curiosity."

...flip the light switch, blow the fuse...

Darkness filled the office we were in. The upstairs was still dimly lit, and that changed everything. Jose stepped into the stairwell and fired a shot. There was a frightened burst of profanity from the top of the stairs.

"I take my rights as an academic researcher very seriously," Jose replied. "And I didn't have to miss. You aren't going to get a shot off before I do, not while rubbing that plaster dust out of your eyes, so just slide the gun down the stairs, and then follow it down slowly."

There was a pause; and then the gun clattered down. "When the police get here-"

"You'll be unconscious and I'll tell them I chased an intruder off. I'm a priest and I'll have paperwork they don't understand saying I have a right to be here. They'll leave. So come down here and call them off. Come slowly."

He did.

I opened a flashlight and quietly collected his gun. "So... about armed priests. Is this like a Vatican Two thing? Because my grandfather never told me about priests that were packing- Wait... Jose. This is a three fifty seven magnum. If he'd hit you, you wouldn't have gotten up again."

Jose gestured with his gun. The priest picked up a phone and dialed. While he talked, I amused myself by taking the bullets out of the Magnum. The situation didn't call for two guns, and if the priest recovered this one it wasn't going to do him any good.

The priest finished the call, and Jose waved him into a chair, and then sat on the desk. "You're Brandon?"

"Yes."

"You understand about the candle. Who else here does?"

"One other priest. The number who understand is kept to two. That was how the order was designed."

"Who created it?"

"Cardinal Juan de Cervantes. 1453 if you are curious."

"Always. How did the candle get here?"

"It was brought by a priest, years earlier. I don't know details. There's a safe in the basement that holds the details. I don't know the full combination. The other priest isn't here and I will not call him. So you can't get in."

I smiled.

+++

"You're telling me," Father Brandon said, "that one of the most dangerous secrets of the church, has been kept in a safe that any safecracker could open in thirty minutes, since 1920."

"No," I said. "A real safecracker could probably have done it much faster. I'm barely a talented amateur. The problem is, you're using a safe built in 1920. Try to keep up with the times."

Jose was leafing through the typewritten sheets we found. "A priest named Oro Cruz brought it here," he said. "An unlikely name."

"It means Gold Cross?"

"Yes, no one names a child like that. It has to be a pseudonym. So. 1394. He brought it here and here it stayed. There were some misadventures -- a priest was found to act very strangely when in possession of the candle, and I think I know what strangely means. Somehow this Father Cruz convinced people here the candle should not be destroyed in spite of its properties. There were debates about it over the next sixty years -- and each time he showed up to argue the candle be left alone to burn harmlessly, untouched."

"So this was his church?"

"No. If these notes are correct, no one here knew him."

"Then-"

"As a priest he would have been at least twenty five when he started his involvement in these events. He showed up here during a period of sixty years, until Cardinal De Cervantes created an order to watch over the candle. Do the math. I believe in angels, Alan. You probably do not, so leave that question where you found it."

"By now I'll believe anything."

"What do angels have to do with that accursed candle?" Father Brendon asked.

"Hard to say," Jose said. "But despite the deaths and the sexual entanglements, I feel less and less like these are accursed items. A grave injustice occurred to a man and woman -- and surely that happens every day -- but this time heaven itself seems to have intervened. No idea why or to what end -- but it was heaven, not hell. We are dealing in the miraculous, not the diabolical. So we must be very careful."

I arched an eyebrow. "Heaven scares you more than hell?"

"Opposing the will of heaven is the worst thing I could do. Ruining hell's plans -- I do that every day before breakfast, on my knees."

"Speaking of your knees," Father Brandon said, dryly. "Confession is in order for shooting at a priest."

"If I'd been shooting at a priest, you wouldn't be here to hear my confession. I shot at a plaster wall. Not even the worst sin of my day. Absolve me, Father."

"Fine, whatever. Absolved. But your diocese is going to pay to fix the wall. We're broke."

"Broke? This office is nicer than what I get to work in. You get an air conditioner. I perch a fan in a casement window."

I cleared my throat. "If you two can stop playing Who's More Humble Of Station, I'd like to know what the next move is?"

"The next move isn't ours, Alan. We've dug as far as we can. Now we wait for the book to come to us."

Father Brandon cleared his throat. "Have you already researched at Córdoba?"

"No, why?"

"That's where the notes of the priest who brought the candle are. Your Oro Cruz. That secret has been passed by oral tradition since the start. The library in the basement of the cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption. You ask the librarian for the gold documents, from 1453."

"Why are you helping us now?" I asked.

"The candle is stolen and now the notes have been taken," he said. "The Secret Order of the Candle of Llerena ends today, with me. Whatever purpose it served is finished. Just as well, it never amounted to anything but not returning phone calls and sitting here most nights with a gun... Good luck, good riddance, and don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out."

+++

We were quiet on the drive to Córdoba, the next day. All we had was a rumor of some information supposedly left by the semi-mythical Oro Cruz, hundreds of years ago. I should have been elated, but it sounded like such bullshit. A secret message left by an angel, or whatever, from the middle ages. Right. Even after all I'd seen, I wasn't buying it.

The library staff was helpful and friendly and they knew Jose's name, so we were led with some ceremony straight to the antiquities desk. A cheerful woman with red hair and green eyes and the cutest case of freckles I'd ever seen, smiled at us from behind the desk, and introduced herself as Hilda.

"Good afternoon," Jose said. "I'm looking for a particular document or object. Search terms are Oro, Cruz and the year 1453."

"Yes," she said, typing. "Yes, we have a match."

"Wait, what?" I said.

"It's in the vault... it's literally from that year, according to this summary. It's been photographed, would you like to see those?"

"Yes please," said Jose, meekly.

She walked us to a computer. Less than a minute later we had high resolution images of a single page document, holding a few paragraphs of old Spanish, and some wavy lines. Jose copied them to a thumb drive.

"No," I said. "Not possible. You don't just leave a message for someone to find over six hundred years later. Tombs and major monuments get lost, razed, items require weeks of research to track down -- and this is just sitting here? Even if it was an angel or whatever-"

"I'm trying to translate this," Jose said, mildly.

I stared at the screen. Ancient Spanish is close enough to modern that I could get some words, but not enough. Jose started writing out a longhand translation for me.

To those who follow, you are close to your goal. You need the book, which will be in possession of the pale-haired woman, and the map.

It is not safe to draw the map here, but I have left part here and part with the abandoned.

The woman will come here, hoping to learn of these days. Follow her, and speak to her the day after, where she is staying.

The rest of the page was a series of crooked lines, with a wide gap in the middle, a vertical strip, missing.

I sighed. "A map with everything important missing. The rest of it is with the abandoned? What does that even mean?"

"I don't know. That word is a bit of a guess. But I don't see what else it can be."

"Cruz is supposed to be an angel, you say. Is this really the best he's got? Vague words and an incomplete map? How about a damn revelation?"

"Alan, if you don't mind. This is a library in a church and we have a document from an angel, or so I guess. If there was a moment for quiet, respectful gratitude, this is it."

"The hell it is. What's on the back of the document? We need the rest of the map."

"There's no photo of the back."

I stormed off to Hilda, at the desk. Two minutes later I stormed back, with her.

"I've tried to explain to your friend," she said to Jose. "The original is a very old document. We have it in a special storage unit with other items from that time. It's under glass in an argon environment. Taking it out is a job for the archivist. And there's a note in the files demanding that the document is not to be disturbed without permission from an archbishop."

Jose silently produced a letter from a pocket inside his vestment. She skimmed it.

"I have to make a phone call," she said.

"Here's his private number," Jose said, producing a card from the same pocket. "He's hard to reach sometimes, but he'll answer that."

She was back in ten minutes, with a tall, thin man who would have looked more at home in a horror movie. The staring eyes, long, thin, grey hair and sudden, precise moments of his fingers made him uncomfortable to be near.

"This is Miguel," she said. "The archivist."

"I want you to understand," Miguel said in a cracking, dry voice, "That every time those documents are exposed to oxygen, they degrade. We don't have a fancy budget like some dioceses. We have the one argon case and everything in it is exposed when we open it. I need a compelling reason, not just some historian's whim-"

Jose heaved himself to his feet and stared up into the eyes of the archivist. "I am Doctor Jose Estrella, and you are a technician hired by the church to provide access to documents. It is your job to maintain them so I can look at them. I will look at them now."

Miguel glowered, but turned and said "This way."

"The meek shall inherit the earth," I said to Jose.

"Eh."

+++

Ten minutes later, the insectoid fingers of the archivist removed a tarp from the metal case, washed up, and slipped a mask over his mouth. We peered through the glass top.

"I see the document," Jose said. "What's that one filed with it?"

"That's the reason you need an Archbishop's permission to open this," Miguel said. "It's stored with the letter but not referenced in the files upstairs."

"We'll take that," I said.

"You'll take nothing," Miguel said. "The letter gives Father Jose Estrella permission to look around. Not you. Now if you will step back, I'm going to break the seal, and I'd rather not have your overly moist breath getting into the case. Put on those masks and gloves in the meantime."

When we came back, he had gloves on and was extracting the documents, sandwitched between two layers of glass. "Keep them horizontal. If for some reason you must remove the glass covering, I will do it. Never touch the document directly. The acids in your sweat do permanent damage."

I took out my camera.

"No," Miguel said. "The flash will degrade the ink. And that second document may not be copied."

Jose flipped the Cruz note over. The back was blank. Then he turned to the pages of the other document, and began writing the translation.

As he wrote, he started visibly shivering.

"I said it may not be copied," Miguel said.

"I won't ask you to notarize this as an official copy. But my friend here doesn't read medieval Castellan, so a translation is necessary."