The Devil's Labyrinth

CHAPTER 27

CARDINAL GUILLERMO MORISCO’S stomach grumbled loudly as he made the final entry in his personal log for the day, closed the leather-bound volume, and slipped it into its slot next to the marble bookend. The thin slats of daylight that crossed his desk toward the end of day had vanished hours ago, leaving only the glow of the evening lights of Rome beyond the window. The Vatican had emptied of visitors and most of its employees; all that remained were those who worked too late too often — among whom Cardinal Morisco had been preeminent for decades — and the custodial staff, whose hours might be late but weren’t nearly as long as the Cardinal’s. Still, Morisco enjoyed being in the office after hours, when the quiet allowed him to accomplish far more than did the hum of the day.

But enough was enough, as his stomach had been reminding him for the last hour. Indeed, he could almost taste his favorite wine, Sangrantino di Montefalco, from near his boyhood home in Umbria. This evening he would order a light caprese salad and a grilled bruschetta with a spicy olive tapenade, and go to bed early. It had been a long day.

He was just locking the desk drawer when the fax machine in his assistant’s office whirred to life.

If he ignored it, he could be at Gianni’s within moments.

If he responded to it, he may well be here for another hour.

He heard four pages drop before the machine paused and told himself to leave it until morning even as he found himself drawn to the pages like a moth to a flame.

After all, one quick glance couldn’t hurt, could it? If it were urgent, his phone would have rung. He tried to ignore the image that popped into his mind of a moth burning in the flame that had drawn it, but it was too late.

Then, as he picked the four sheets of paper from the fax machine, the computer on his desk pinged, announcing the arrival of an e-mail.

Certain the messages the two machines had brought were related, Morisco sighed heavily and tried to forget about the Sangrantino. This was how he ended up at the office so late, night after night, and as he carried the pages back to his office he vowed — again — to learn to leave at a reasonable time.

Tomorrow.

The cover page of the fax indicated it was from Archbishop Rand in Boston.

Cardinal Morisco sank onto his chair and began to read a report from someone named Father Ernest Laughlin, apparently having something to do with a successful exorcism at a private school. This Father Laughlin certainly had a turgid way with his prose, he thought as he ploughed his way through the report.

“Never before have I seen the face of evil incarnate,” the priest wrote. “Not only did I see its beastly, demonic face emerge from the features of this girl, who is little more than a child, but I witnessed Father Sebastian Sloane bring it to submission and banish it from the girl’s body, leaving her soul in peace.”

Cardinal Morisco pensively tapped his fingers on the desk as he quickly reread the report. It wasn’t much different from all of the similar ones he’d seen over the years, each sent by some minor priest hoping to further his career. Only as he read the last sentence did he realize that this report had two differences.

The first, of course, was that Sebastian Sloane was a party to it, and Sloane was a man the Vatican had been watching for several years already, each year bringing the young priest respect from ever-higher levels.

The second was the witness’s assurance that he had seen the actual face of the demon.

That was important.

Cardinal Morisco laid the pages on his desk and leaned back in his chair. It would mean a great deal if Sloane had achieved such an accomplishment, especially in Boston, from whence good news had been a scarce commodity for years.

He would advise His Holiness of this event in the morning.

For now, though, a glass of wine awaited him at Gianni’s.

Except that now the e-mail in-box on his computer had turned into the hypnotic flame, and he was no more able to resist its lure than he had the fax machine’s a few minutes earlier.

He clicked open the file. Nothing in the subject line; nothing in the from box.

Just a video file.

Cardinal Morisco clicked on the icon, the media player opened, and the video began.

Morisco watched in fascinated silence as the ritual that had taken place in the chamber beneath St. Isaac’s School played out before his eyes. Struggling to understand the words Father Sebastian Sloane was speaking over the girl bound to the stone slab, the Cardinal fiddled with the volume control, but it didn’t really help.

Then the girl suddenly sat straight up, breaking the bonds that held her. One of the priests and the nun shrank back in fear, but Sloane faced the fury of the girl straight on.

Then the girl turned and looked directly into the camera.

Directly into Cardinal Morisco’s eyes.

It was as if evil itself were hurtling out of the screen at him. Cold terror flooded through the Cardinal’s body, and he shrank away from his computer exactly as the priest and nun had turned away from the girl herself.

Morisco gripped the arms of his chair, telling himself that nothing was happening.

Nothing at all.

It was only a video clip.

As the Cardinal watched, Sloane took the girl’s face in his hands, shouted unintelligibly, and a moment later the girl sank into what appeared to be unconsciousness.

The file ended.

His heart racing, the Cardinal reached for the mouse to replay the video clip, but as the arrow hovered over the icon, he hesitated, part of him wanting to watch the video again, to try to understand what he’d seen. The other part — the stronger part — was still held in the grip of the terror that had reached right out of the computer screen to seize him.

He couldn’t watch it again, at least not right now.

And not alone.

But neither could he simply turn off the computer, close his office, and go to Gianni’s to enjoy a glass of wine and a light supper.

Cardinal Morisco looked up at the clock on the wall.

His Holiness would still be awake — he had always kept even longer hours than himself.

Making up his mind before he could change it, the Cardinal gathered the fax into a file folder, picked up his laptop, and headed for the Papal apartment, all thoughts of dinner extinguished.

He hoped — he prayed — that His Holiness would be able to tell him that what he had seen was merely an illusion.

But even as he silently formed the words of his prayers, he was all but certain that they would go unanswered.

Like Father Laughlin, Cardinal Morisco was certain that he had just looked into the face of evil, that it would haunt him every day of his life.