Chapter 9
The van in front of us pulled to a stop near a rear entrance to the towering Basílica de la Mare de Déu dels Desemparats. It was four in the morning and we had driven straight through from where we had spent the previous day near Narbonne, France. It was dark and quiet. We had decided we had enough time before dawn to complete the mission in search of the angelic device now rather than waiting for the next night.
"Hey, corrupter of nuns, are you ready to do this?" whispered Lilith in my direction in what I hoped was a jesting tone, like her other borderline ribald comments over the preceding hours.
During the previous day, instead of the few minutes Beatrice had told Mary we would be gone, it had been more like two hours. And when we had returned, I couldn't stop a broad, almost giddy grin and even Beatrice had been showing an atypical small smile. Mary was no fool and had to have realized, more or less, what had happened, but she let it go with just a small shake of her head.
Camila and Lilith must have guessed, too, as I had had to tolerate more than a little ribbing during the night's drive. Hopefully, it was out of their system now so we could focus on the mission, but based on this newest comment, probably not.
Not that it was out of my system either. I think the Halo had been faintly glowing ever since. It had definitely been the best two hours of my life – by a wide, wide margin. And that was even with the angel's comment hanging over me, over us, the entire time. What was going to happen? Was Beatrice going to die before we managed to chase the fallen angel Dumah back to hell? Was I going to die? Were we both going to die? Or were we interpreting Michaela's message completely wrong? I hoped it was the latter, as after a mere two hours of extreme pleasure with Beatrice; I wanted a lot more – at least a lifetime's worth. Or two.
Camila, Lilith, and I had donned our armor at the last pit stop before reaching the city. We had cleaned them and our leather gear back before we had hit the road, but mine had still been damp and clammy. It was nowhere near as comfortable as the white nun's habit I'd been wearing.
Therefore, now, after sending an annoyed glare in Lilith's direction, we just had to gather our assorted weapons and we were ready to exit the van.
We had decided that both Beatrice and Mary should remain in their white habits so either of them could carry the Seer Stone and this new angelic weapon, assuming we found it. And even at four in the morning, a pair of nuns in a cathedral would raise fewer questions than the rest of us.
Beatrice was keeping Father O'Mallory close to her to be near the Stone, in case that was what was keeping him on his feet. We also decided to leave Father Antonio with their group. The armor we had given him back when we were entering the hell dimension might give him some protection if we ran into trouble. But he was probably going to be useless if we got into another fight with Dumah's minions, so it seemed simplest to leave him divinium-free and let him serve as an extra set of hands that could carry an angelic device if everything went sideways.
"Comms check," whispered Camila. She had handed out the earbuds at our last pit stop.
After everyone checked in, Beatrice told those of us in the second van to hang back while she and Mary saw to opening the basilica's side door. After Camila locked our van, which still held almost fifty pounds of the precious divinium, we stayed between the van and the side of the building to be as inconspicuous as possible while Beatrice and Mary knelt by the door as the two priests stood nearby.
It couldn't have been more than thirty seconds before they had the door open and were disappearing in side. Doubtlessly, Beatrice included master lock pick among her seemingly endless list of skills. It only made me love her a little more.
"We are clear of the entrance," whispered Beatrice's voice into my ear through the earpiece.
Keeping low to stay in the shadows as much as possible, the three of us followed the others. Once we were inside, Camila eased the door back closed before we gazed around.
Unfortunately, we weren't in the cathedral that was our ultimate goal. The cathedral was surrounded by pedestrian-only streets. The closest we had been able to get the vans was the far side of the Basilica of Our Lady of the Forsaken located one block over from the actual Cathedral of Valencia. According to Google Maps, which we had studied during the previous day after Camila hacked into the wifi at the Frontroide Abbey B&B, the two adjacent churches were connected by a medieval version of the modern skyway. So once we were in the Basilica, we should be able to make it all the way to the Holy Chalice Chapel in the cathedral without having to go back outside.
Camila's visit to the cathedral nearly eight years earlier hadn't included a visit to the nearby basilica. And her visit certainly had not included a detailed tour of all the backroom spaces not normally open to the general public in the basilica or the cathedral. So, we were basically flying blind. Of course, wasn't that usually the case for us on most missions?
"Look for stairs heading up," whispered Camila through her headset. "We need to find our way to the second level passageway between the two buildings."
I didn't think we needed the reminder, as we had all studied what there had been to see in Google Maps, but I guess her comment didn't hurt.
"I've found stairs," said Mary a few seconds later. We followed in the direction of her flashlight while being careful to stay well back from Beatrice and the Seer Stone she was carrying in a shoulder bag.
And these stairs led nowhere useful. We wasted five minutes before giving up and backtracking back down to the main level.
Our luck didn't get any better. In the end it took us almost thirty minutes to find our way out of the basilica, through the second floor walkway to the cathedral, and then on to the chapel with the chalice, which was, of course, at the far other end of the cathedral. It was 4:37 AM when Beatrice and Mary led our party into our destination. And dawn was coming at 6:12 AM and we had to make our way back through the cathedral and the basilica before then. Perhaps we should have waited for the next evening when we could have made an earlier start.
The special chapel created to house the Chalice turned out to be a square room about ten meters by ten meters. It was just large enough so we could move around without Lilith, Camila, and I needing to get too close to the Seer Stone, if we were careful. The chapel only had three large exterior windows set very high in the walls, at least eight meters above our heads, so we didn't have to be too careful of our flashlights being seen from outside.
Directly opposite the entrance was the chapel's altar. In the light of Beatrice's and Mary's flashlights, I could see the chalice mounted in a glass enclosure in the back wall high above the altar. Three chairs were lined up directly below it for those officiating any services in this chapel. It looked like if you stood on the center chair, you should just be able to reach the enclosure holding the chalice.
"Beatrice, can you move over to the far side of the chapel so I can get by?" requested Camila. "I want to take a closer look at the enclosure to see what it has in the way of security systems."
"Okay," replied Beatrice. She quickly moved out of the way.
Once the way was clear, Camila moved closer. She got as far as the front side of the altar before stopping and then taking a quick step back.
"Well, that answers one question," she said.
"What?" exclaimed about five voices at once.
"I get the same overwhelming sense of dread as I get close to the chalice as I get when I get close to the Seer Stone. The chalice is definitely the real deal."
That was great to know, but it didn't solve the question about what security systems were protecting the chalice. If we just broke the glass and grabbed the chalice, doubtlessly the place would be swarming with security and police before we could make our way back through two sprawling churches to reach the vans.
This might turn into a big problem if Camila, the electronics expert on our team, couldn't get within four meters of the chalice.
"Mary, climb up on the center seat and shine your flashlight on it," said Camila as she unslung her backpack and retrieved a small pair of binoculars. "You are going to have to be my eyes and hands."
"Ah, guys," interjected Lilith. "I don't think I'm going to be of much use in here. I'm going to take a tour around the cathedral and see if I get any sense of a second angelic device hidden somewhere else, just in case the chalice isn't the device Michaela mentioned."
"Agreed," said Beatrice with a nod.
"Perhaps I should go, too," I said. My Halo would be just as good of a detector for an angelic device as Lilith's demonic nature.
Beatrice just nodded, her attention fixed on Mary and the enclosure holding the chalice.
I joined Lilith and together we walked out of the chapel, down the short corridor, and then stepped back into the main body of the cathedral.
"I'll check the upper reaches of the cathedral," said Lilith. "Why don't you start on the perimeter chapels and if we don't find anything, we can move on to the altar area." Without waiting for a reply from me, Lilith extended her wings and started climbing towards the ceiling. At the moment, being able to fly under your own power seemed almost cooler than my ability to phase through solid rock.
We had reached the chapel by walking down the right aisle nearest the side chapels along that side. Neither Lilith, Camila, nor I had felt anything indicating we were near an angelic device at the time, so I decided to start my search with the chapels along the left aisle.
I walked over to the first chapel on that side, the one nearest the big main doors of the cathedral. I pressed myself up against the bars barricading the chapel from the main part of the cathedral. If the device we were searching for was like the Seer Stone, the Halo would start to respond when it was within about four meters. Unfortunately, the chapel stretched at least six meters back from the bars. If the device was hidden at the back of the chapel, I wouldn't be able to sense it without going into the chapel and I didn't have Beatrice's mad ninja lock-picking skills.
I started to remove my cloaking vest to phase through the bars, when I forced myself to stop and think. If I removed the vest for the next hour, some wraith or Tarask might notice and that might bring our presence here to the attention of Dumah. I certainly didn't want to do that if I could possibly avoid it.
Then I remembered what Beatrice had said when she had first tried to enter the secret vault below Sainte-Chapelle. In addition to shocking her, her divinium armor had seemed to heat up in close proximity to the Seer Stone. I was carrying a bunch of divinium at the moment. If I could get a piece of it close to the far side of the chapel, it should heat up to indicate if an angelic relic was present.
I drew one of the small divinium knives I was carrying; it glowed a faint blue. I just needed to get it a few meters into the chapel for a few seconds and then retrieve it to see if it was warm. Unfortunately, the Halo didn't give me any force powers like in Star Wars to move objects with just the power of my mind. Well, not without a blast of power from the Halo so intense it would be worse than just phasing through the bars.
What I needed was some string or rope to tie around the handle of the knife. Then I could toss the knife forward and use the string to pull it back. I felt around my pockets, but didn't find anything. Then I remembered my boots – they laced up to mid-shin. I sat on the floor and unlaced my right boot. The lace was well over a meter long. Quickly, I unlaced my left boot and knotted the two laces together leaving me with one long piece almost three meters in length. I tied one end around the hilt of the knife. I almost tossed the knife into the chapel before realizing there was still a risk of losing the knife – and the string. So I tied the other end of the lace around my right wrist.
Kneeling up against the bars, I tossed the knife forward. It took two tries before the knife slid all the way to the full length of the lace. Then I counted off fifteen seconds before pulling the knife back. If it took longer than fifteen seconds to noticeably heat up, I was probably screwed with almost twenty chapels to investigate.
Once the knife was within reach, I touched it. It didn't feel noticeably warm. I moved on to the next chapel. This approach wasn't one hundred percent foolproof, but it was the best I could think of with the clock ticking.
It quickly turned into monotonous work. And the most annoying part was that I was now mostly beyond communications range with the people back in the chapel holding the chalice. Occasionally, I would get a burst of static, but nothing intelligible. Lilith was choosing to stay mostly incommunicado as well. I was left with nothing but my thoughts.
And my thoughts always circled back to Beatrice. More than ever since getting saddled with the Halo, I wished there was some way to get rid of it without dying in the process. I wanted nothing more than to leave the world of demon-hunting behind and disappear to some tropical island with Beatrice - somewhere we could spend our lives naked and making love twenty-four hours a day. Hey, it is my fantasy, okay?
I was at my eleventh chapel when I got a response. I was so focused on my fantasy, which had morphed into Beatrice cosplaying Black Widow because of her insane fighting skills while I was cosplaying Supergirl because she was another blonde with superpowers, that I grabbed the divinium blade without my normal caution and it was so scorching hot it burned my fingers before I could drop it. That was enough to startle my thoughts back to the here and now.
Sweeping my flashlight around, it took a moment to orient myself. I was standing in front of one of the chapels that wrapped around behind the altar at the far opposite end of the cathedral from the main entrance. Next I turned my flashlight back towards the chapel. It looked just like all the others – lots and lots of gold leaf, a small altar, and a painting of the Virgin Mary above it. I didn't see anything to give away that this chapel held an angelic relic, but then that was probably the point. The relic could have been in here for hundreds of years without ever being noticed. Scanning the space again, I spotted about fifteen wooden folding chairs stacked against one side wall, which would help me identify this particular chapel again.
"Lilith, this is Ava. Can you hear me?"
No response. Just like back in the secret vault under Sainte-Chapelle, the comms had a very limited range if they were blocked by stone. And the cathedral had a lot of thick walls.
I grabbed my boots, which I had been carrying since they wouldn't stay on without the laces, and started to run back towards the other end of the cathedral. Time was still rapidly ticking by. If the others hadn't been able to penetrate the security of the Chalice, perhaps we should just abandon it and focus on this new angelic device. My gut told me this was the weapon that could force Dumah back to Hell. And if it had been hidden here for centuries, it might not have a fancy electronic security system.
When I was halfway to the far end of the cathedral, I tried Lilith again.
"Lilith, this is Ava. Can you hear me?"
"Yes, Ava."
"I've found it. Meet me back at the chapel where the others are."
"Okay. And good work . . . corrupter."
Wasn't she ever going to let that go? Perhaps I needed to nudge her towards Mary. It's been over a year since Sister Shannon was lost. Maybe it was time for Mary to move on. And I had seen the way Lilith looked at her sometimes. They had almost been at war when I had first acquired the Halo, but their rivalry may have been hiding something more.
I shook my head and forced my thoughts back to the current situation. If we got out of here with the weapon, there would be time later to think about those kinds of machinations.
Just as I turned into the short aisle leading into the chapel, Lilith dropped to the ground right behind me. And that's when I heard a burst of sound from my earpiece and it wasn't just meaningless static.
"What the fuck!" I immediately recognized Father Antonio's voice and I had never heard him use that kind of language in the roughly fifty-six hours I had known him.
Lilith and I redoubled our speed.
We raced into the chapel and then abruptly crashed to a halt and both took a hurried step back. We both could feel the effects of being too close to an angelic object.
Once we were back in the doorway, I tried to take in the scene. Camila was standing in front of the backmost row of pews, well away from the others. The glass enclosure over the altar was standing open and empty. Father Antonio was standing to one side of the altar looking down towards the floor. Kneeling in front of him was Mary holding a golden cup. Beatrice was standing beside Father Antonio. She had the Seer Stone in one hand while reaching the other down to a man lying on the floor, who could only be Father O'Mallory, as he was the only other member of our small party.
The man took her hand and then rose smoothly and effortlessly to his feet. By the light from Father Antonio's flashlight, I could see this man was young, about twenty-five and most definitely alive. It couldn't be Father O'Mallory, but the man was wearing the priest's clothes.
What the fuck?