When the light faded and the pain finally receded, he looked up.
Gabriel was gone.
Kyriel felt his restored powers surging through him with a comforting warmth he’d long forgotten. With each passing moment, his powers grew stronger and stronger.
He threw his head back and laughed with all the joy of the angels. It might not be the redemption he’d been hoping for, but having his powers back was as close to Heaven as he was going to get.
Rome, Italy
Present Day
A sober, quiet man, Father Antonelli spent his Friday nights with a relaxing bath, a double espresso, and the weekly edition of L'Osservatore Romano. He read the Vatican newspaper more for entertainment than information. It was full of gossip. Though he still lived in his apartment near the Vatican, he had stopped believing in the politics and practices of the Catholic Church long ago.
Man had great evils to fear in this world, and the very Church that should be protecting and preparing its followers preferred to keep the truth from them. There were many secrets hidden in the Vatican.
By rights he should have left the Holy City, but Father Antonelli was a man of habit and after spending more than fifty years living in these apartments he would not be comfortable away from the Church that was so familiar, yet so foreign to him.
There was great power surrounding the Vatican. Something even more powerful than the stench of corruption. It came from the prayers of the faithful, the vows of the devoted, those who came to pray with only love in their hearts. The Holy Spirit brought him comfort in difficult times, and it just so happened that now was one of those difficult times.
At seventy-six years of age, he never expected to find himself staring down the barrel of a pistol. Cold, black, metal. As cold as the dark eyes of the man standing over him, wearing black gloves and holding the gun. He had Father Antonelli tied to his desk chair, his arms secured behind his back.
The clock on his desk chimed, announcing the midnight hour.
“I want the names,” the man said.
His voice held no emotion. No humanity whatsoever.
Father Antonelli said nothing.
“All you have to do is give me the names of the Keepers, and tell me where to find them,” the man lightened his tone, as if to sound hopeful. “And I will let you live.”
Father Antonelli knew he wasn’t getting out of this alive. The man’s eyes were those of a practiced killer.
“I told you, I don’t know what names you’re talking—”
The man struck him over the eye with the butt of the gun. Blinding pain cracked through his skull. A trickle of blood raced down over his eye, flooding his vision red.
“Don’t lie to me,” the man warned. “I know who you are, Priest.”
Father Antonelli had sworn a magical oath to protect the Keepers from dark forces. If he gave their names to this man, an Angel of Mercy would hunt him down and kill him for betraying that oath. If he kept his oath and didn’t give away their names, this evil man would kill him. Since it was evident he was going to die either way, he intended to keep his secret.
Father Antonelli swallowed his fear before he defiantly said, “If you know who I am, then you know you won’t get the names.”
The man’s stare turned harsh and chilling. “I think you’ll change your mind.”
He reached one of his gloved hands into his jacket and brought out a leather roll that he unfurled on top of the desk. A variety of sharp metallic instruments gleamed under the light of the desk lamp. They were carefully arranged on the black leather and held in place with elastic ties. The pointed tips, curved hooks and shiny spikes of the grotesque torture devices had Father Antonelli swallowing another dose of fear.
The man freed a short, silver spike and twirled it between his gloved fingers. “Who are the Keepers?”
Father Antonelli focused on the sharp spike, wondering how the man intended to use it.
“What are their names?” The man held the spike firmly between his fingers.
Father Antonelli remained mute, but only until the man spun the desk chair around, grabbed one of his hands still tied behind his back, and rammed the sharp tip of the spike under the nail of his middle finger. He released a scream of agony, unable to believe such a form of clear, precise pain existed.
“Must we play games?” The man rammed the spike under his next fingernail, and then under the nail of the little finger, eliciting an even greater amount of pain.
He paced the floor while the old priest dropped his head and whimpered with the aftershocks of his torture. Father Antonelli realized he hadn’t sufficiently prepared for this day because he never expected it would come.
What a fool.
He couldn’t fail the Keepers. Their safety depended on his silence. He whispered a prayer for God to grant him strength.
“You think praying will save you?” The man drove the spike under the thumbnail of his other hand, causing him to scream with renewed pain. “Only I can save you, old man. Now give me the names and all the pain will stop. I can make it worse, or I can make it all go away.”
Father Antonelli smiled through his agony. “Go to Hell.”
The rest of his fingers exploded into bright points of fire as the man mutilated his hand with the sharp tip of the spike. Still, he kept his secret.
The man began rifling through the books and papers on his desk. “Do you keep the names in your head? Or have you written them down through the years?”
Father Antonelli simply watched him through a haze of pained tears. The man went to work on the rest of his apartment, tossing books from shelves and emptying the contents of drawers. The old priest watched as all the pieces of his life settled on the floor around him in chaotic disarray.
“I want the names!” The man flew into a rage, tossing the furniture and toppling over lamps and chairs, completely tearing the room apart.
Then he came back to the desk and, after regaining his composure, took a shiny, hooked instrument from the case.
Pain consumed every inch of the old priest’s body, until he became the pain. Father Antonelli held onto his secret for as long as he was able, but the torture won out in the end, and he heard himself giving the man the names he wanted before that final shroud of darkness fell and he was no more.
New York City
Four Months Later
“Would you take a look at that?”
Jillian Whitmore casually ignored Denise’s reference to the latest male victim walking through the museum café where they were finishing up their lunch break.
Was that all she could think about? Men?
Maybe that’s why Denise always had a boyfriend who looked like he’d walked straight out of a hunk-of-the-year calendar. Since the time they first met in college, Jillian had watched Denise date every breed of man from professional athletes to foreign dignitaries. Jillian wished she shared the same remarkable portfolio of past lovers, but it was her curse to remain perpetually single. An affliction her extravagant, outgoing friend seldom suffered.
Currently, Jillian had more important things on her mind than checking out guys or guessing whether they were the