Authors: Gilliam Ness
By the time the Bishop had led them
to the church’s sacristy, Nasrallah’s men were already making their move. With great stealth they gained entry into the monastery and fanned out in every direction, their dark forms moving without a sound. Their orders were simple. Retrieve the Cube and kill everyone in the building. There could be no survivors; nobody to relate what they had seen. For this reason, every square inch of the monastery would have to be searched.
* * * * * *
In the shadows of the chapel’s sacristy, the Bishop used an old iron key to open the gate that stood before them, revealing a narrow flight of steps leading down into the darkness.
“We will be taking a secret underground passage that leads to what was once a convent, a very long time ago,” said the Bishop, his voice barely audible. “The tunnel travels for approximately one kilometer. I cannot be sure if the way is still passable. I have never personally explored it, but it is our only chance of escaping this place undetected. If nothing else, it will offer us a place to hide.”
Natasha looked perplexed. A tunnel connecting a monastery to a nunnery defeated the purpose of each institution entirely. She looked at Gabriel. He was in the act of digging through his duffel bag.
“We’ll be needing these,” he whispered, handing both Natasha and the Bishop a flashlight.
He continued to dig around, quickly producing a compass and yet another flashlight which he kept for himself. Suddenly Fra Bartolomeo approached, gathering the group together with his arms.
“They are inside the building,” he whispered urgently.
All heads scanned the surrounding shadows. Even Shackleton was looking.
“Follow me,” mouthed the old Bishop. “Now!”
He led them down into a chamber that was located directly beneath the sacristy. Gabriel locked the gate behind them, working the key as silently as possible. He was the last to arrive below, and saw them standing in the middle of a round room. Its shallow domed ceiling was so low that he was forced to bend over as he descended into it. Gabriel knew that this was a burial place; a grotto containing the tombs of Christian martyrs from the second century.
The old Bishop approached a round marble altar in the middle of the chamber. Around them, within evenly spaced niches, lay seven sarcophagi. The Bishop embraced the dais and strained against it.
“We must slide this aside,” he whispered. “The entrance to the tunnel lies beneath it.”
Gabriel and Natasha jumped to his aid, and within moments the stone altar began to move. Fra Bartolomeo crossed himself, thanking God that the ancient hinges had somehow remained silent. Only a damp gust of wind had escaped from the tunnel mouth, the thick air smelling of musty earth. It seemed terribly cold. Suddenly from above, filtering down the marble steps, came the soft patter of dozens of feet. All looked up. Nasrallah’s men were just outside.
“We have no time to lose,” whispered the Bishop. “I will go first.”
The Bishop descended a short ladder into the tunnel. Its walls were of raw earth, with the only support coming from crude timbers erected at odd intervals. The others followed immediately, including Shackleton, who surprised everyone by descending the ladder as adeptly as a circus animal. Gabriel came last in order to struggle with the closing of the altar above. Much to his surprise, it swung into its closed position almost effortlessly.
Somebody went to great lengths constructing this hinge mechanism. It was built for stealth.
* * * * * *
The giant Bahadur stood dizzily beside the marble sacristy. In the dim light his countenance was almost horrific; the fleshy scar that bisected his face accentuated by the blood and bruises that covered his entire head. Clinging to his battered throat, the tattooed moth seemed almost alive, changing in shape as he continuously swallowed the blood that was still oozing from his broken sinuses.
Bahadur had been given little rest before being dispatched on his assignment, and his huge body still trembled from its wounds, his head reeling from the painkillers he had been given. Around him he could see his men searching the small church. They had spread out into four lines and were combing the space, methodically checking every pew, every niche.
“My family will soon be safe at home,” he muttered deeply, his elocution at odds with his brutish appearance. “We shall do this quickly. There is no other way.”
Bahadur jerked his massive head to the left. He seemed to have heard or felt something coming from below. It resembled a soft rumbling sound, but he could not be sure. Moving with all the stealth he could muster, he made his way around the sacristy, his pistol at the ready. It was not long before he found the gate and saw the narrow passage leading down into the darkness. Finding it to be locked, he hissed at one of his men, motioning him to come.
“Open this gate,” he mouthed, and within moments the soldier had picked the lock with an expert hand.
The chamber was empty, and Bahadur, weary with fatigue, approached the central dais and leaned on it heavily. He had heard something. He was sure of it. Taking one final look around, he pushed himself off the altar.
“There is nothing here,” he said to his men. “Help the others. Search the rectory.”
* * * * * *
Gabriel stood frozen at the top of the ladder, his left hand outstretched to the others in a plea for absolute silence. Above him he could hear the guards speaking amongst themselves. They seemed to be moving off.
“They’ve gone,” he whispered back, wedging a spare battery into the hinge mechanism to prevent it from being opened from above. “We’re safe for now. Let’s get moving.”
They proceeded into the tunnel, walking silently for some time. It was Natasha who at last broke the silence.
“Why was this tunnel made, Uncle Marcus,” she asked. “I thought that monasteries and nunneries were built to
separate
men from women.”
“Right you are, my child,” said the Bishop, smiling. “But even under the most severe barriers, Mother Nature has a way of bringing together what was meant to be together.”
“A secret tunnel,” said Natasha, amazed.
“A tunnel of love,” added Gabriel from behind.
The Bishop’s smile vanished suddenly as he shone his flashlight on the earthen walls.
“Yes, a tunnel of love,” he said, “but also one of tragedy.”
Under the roaming beam of light, all were able to see that the walls of the tunnel were lined with burial niches, or
loculi
, as they were called, and within each were the skeletal remains of infants.
“Behold the products of their love,” said the Bishop sadly. “The pregnancy of a nun could well be hidden under her habit, but once born, the child would be brought here and left to die.”
Natasha cringed in horror. In the distance she could see the tunnel looming in the darkness, rows upon rows of loculi open, and in full view.
“But why not just cover them?” she asked.
“Penitence loves guilt,” said Gabriel. “The corpses must have been a great way to remind them of their sins.”
“Come,” said the Bishop. “Let us not linger here.”
The group moved forward into the gloom, with Shackleton leading the way. Apart from the many burial niches and twisted wooden support structures, the tunnel offered very little to see. It worked its way forward, crudely veering around or beneath boulders, but always keeping to its general heading. Gabriel followed with his compass, imagining what it must have been like for those who had dug the passage, and the decades of repressed sexual urges that had driven them to do it.
Ten minutes into their journey they approached their first major obstacle and both the Bishop and Suora Angelica took the opportunity to rest. They sat down on some large rocks that had caved in from above, and Fra Bartolomeo was soon to follow. Their flight had been exhausting, and in the limited light offered by their flashlights, the obstacle looked impassable.
Gabriel lit a flare and the tunnel burst to life. Within their shadowy loculi, the sepia coloured remains of the infants glowed ominously, the flickering shadows bringing them to life. Whereas the addition of light would have normally made any place seem less oppressive, it was having the opposite effect here. Behind them, at the fringe of the flare’s reach, a curtain of impenetrable blackness loomed oppressively. Natasha concentrated on the obstacle in front of her, trying to forget the fact that they were in an enormous tomb, filled with the remains of hundreds of dead babies.
“We might be able to dig a way through up there,” she said, pointing to an area just below a collapsed wooden support.
Gabriel shook his head.
“It’s no good,” he said. “The dirt’s too loose. It would only cave in on us.”
“So what do we do?”
Gabriel looked into Natasha’s eyes, lost in thought. She held his gaze for a moment and then looked away.
I do not trust this man.
It was only then that she saw motion at the bottom of the caved in section. In all the time that they had been looking for a way over the obstacle, Shackleton had found a way under it. Natasha’s face lit up with delight.
“You are really pulling your weight this morning, Shackleton!”
The dog came out of the shadows and nudged Natasha’s leg, turning around with a wagging tail only to disappear back where he had come from. Natasha followed, shining her flashlight into the gap.
“It seems to go right through,” she said, looking back at the others.
“Now who would have thought that at my age I would be having such an adventure!” said Suora, shaking her head in disbelief.
The old nun was on her hands and knees, halfway through the passage and laughing merrily. Gabriel watched Natasha as she helped Suora along with lighthearted words of encouragement. He scratched the back of his head pensively. Maybe he had been a little hard on the girl. There was a sweetness about her that seemed so sincere, and she was a lot like Suora too; able to laugh when anyone else would be scowling.
Gabriel felt a sudden twinge of sadness run through him. He pushed it away instinctively. He would never have admitted it, but the reason for his sadness was really quite simple. Natasha seemed unattainable to him, just like all the women he truly desired.
In so many ways Gabriel was self-assured and confident, but when it came to women, he was inherently crippled, despite his apparent charm. There was a voice in him that simply said no to ever being fulfilled in a relationship; a voice whose legitimacy he had never thought to question. Gabriel was not one for introspection. Instead he clung to the same rationalizations as always.
She’s not for you, buddy. Nice girls only want assholes.
Gabriel had fallen for beautiful women like Natasha before, and he had been burned every time. The way he saw it, they were either game-playing flakes, wanting nothing more than to be desired by men, or hopeless martyrs, self-ordained to fix abusive degenerates. In either case, he was convinced that only heartless jerks knew how to deal with women like Natasha. She was not for him. The truth of the matter was that Gabriel had long ago given up on ever finding true love. He had taken a more pragmatic road to sexual fulfillment, and it was too late to go back now. All this being said, he felt more empty than ever. He struggled to reassure himself.
A call girl will never screw you around if you pay her well.
Natasha was on all fours before the opening now, helping the old nun through the last stretch. She turned suddenly and caught Gabriel staring at her, mistaking his serious expression for something sexual.
He is so typical. Why are all men the same?
The truth was that Gabriel was not so mistaken about Natasha. Through her troubled history with men she had only managed to pair up with the selfish and abusive type, and yes, she had always tried to fix them. The reason for this was quite obvious to her. She could not abide ‘nice guys’. They seemed to her like whimpering puppies ready to follow her anywhere.
Natasha was attracted to confident men with a backbone; men who could make their own decisions, and not be in need of her constant approval. Unfortunately these kind of men always turned out to be selfish boys in the end; their manly airs nothing more than manifestations of egoism and insecurity. Just like Gabriel, Natasha too was jaded, or at least beginning to become so. She could feel her childhood hopes of finding true love ebbing away a little more each day. As sad and empty as it made her feel, she was realizing that real men did not really exist. They were simply a childhood fantasy; make believe Princes from fairy tale fictions.
Natasha turned back to Suora and tried to push Gabriel from her thoughts. It happened immediately when she saw the absurd predicament the old nun was in.
“You are doing great, Suora!” she said, laughing. “Be careful with your head!”
It took the better part of twenty minutes for the party to traverse the obstacle; more than enough time for Gabriel and Natasha to forget about their ruminations and get back to the task at hand. Being the last one through, Bishop Marcus decided that they should take a short rest now, reasoning that they had all made quite an effort that morning, and that a break was well deserved.