The Betrayed Series: Ultimate Omnibus Collection Part 51

Rome, Italy Rebecca blew to cool her cappuccino as Brandt sat down with a huge mug of black coffee. Davidson and Lopez each had a caramel chocolate whipped cream drink, getting the benefit of both a caffeine and a sugar buzz.

Once settled, all eyes turned to her.

Back at the hotel room, Rebecca had quickly convinced the sergeant that she wasn't trying to use some kind of "not tonight honey, I have to find Christ's body" excuse to interrupt their first encounter, but she didn't have enough time to elaborate.

So here they sat at the I Dolce di Checco, the Italian equivalent of Starbucks, waiting for her to explain.

Indicating her cup, Rebecca started, "You see, it relates to this drink."

"You deflated Brandt over a cup of Joe?" Lopez snorted, finding far more amus.e.m.e.nt in the idea then he had any right to. "Not that I didn't want to keep kicking Davidson's a.s.s at Grand Theft Auto all night."

"Hey!" the private exclaimed. "Just because I'm a gentleman and won't kill prost.i.tutes for bonus points-"

"Makes you a loser!"

Clearly the caffeine was already having its effect.

Rebecca jumped into the argument before they could really get going. "Actually each of you lent a clue, it just took seeing these..." She leaned over to the sergeant, so close that their lips nearly touched, but instead slowly pulled his dog tags out from under his s.h.i.+rt. "That the tumblers clicked into place..."

Untangling the St. Francis of a.s.sisi medal from the rest, she displayed it to the men.

The sergeant's eyes narrowed. "You're thinking of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin."

Rebecca smiled. His Catholicism came in handy sometimes.

"Besides lending the color of their famous robes to the drink before us, they've also been a very controversial order that requires their members to take vows of poverty and chast.i.ty, teach to the poor and dejected, and never touch money. Sound like anyone we know?"

"Christ?" Davidson offered.

Brandt nodded. "Hey, but I think Rebecca's also thinking of Padro Pio. The recently sainted Capuchin monk who displayed stigmata, correct?"

"To some degree, but I was thinking more local than even that." She turned to Lopez. "This is where you contributed," Rebecca said as she laid out the brochure, 'Rome the Beautiful, the Wonderful, and the Truly Weird.'"

"That's my favorite!" Lopez added, not surprising anyone.

Rebecca unfolded the pamphlet and pointed to the entry describing the Crypt of Santa Maria della Concezione.

"The church of the Virgin Mary," Brandt translated. "You think Jesus is there?"

"Wait a minute. Aren't there like a thousand and one Virgin Mary churches? I've seen more Santa Marias here than I have in my entire life," Davidson pointed out quite accurately.

Rebecca nodded. "Yes, but how many others have a crypt filled with over four thousand monks' bones?" Once the men were duly impressed, she continued, "When asked why they wished their remains mummified and interred in the chapel, they said that they wished to be close to their Lord. What if they weren't talking figuratively, but literally?"

Brandt took a hit off his coffee before he asked, "How do you think they're related to the Knot?"

Rebecca brought out a sc.r.a.p of paper with the list of thirty. "These are the original conspirators. They united in purpose to hide Christ, but each member had their own private agenda and followers that down through history had protected that one set of bones."

"Kind of like terrorist cells? They have a common dominator, but don't cross a.s.sociate?" Davidson asked.

"Right again. On all the other bones there has been a mention of a man only described as "the one without contempt." The man who stole the bones out from under Mary and the Knot's noses, and I believe went so far as to bald-face lie to them where he hid Jesus' remains."

"So Pinocchio had his own sect?" Lopez asked after licking whipped cream from his finger.

Rebecca nodded vigorously. "Yes, and I believe they were entrusted with the true resting place of Christ."

The sergeant seemed unconvinced as he leaned back in his chair. "And you these monks are members of this cult?"

"No, but I believe St. Francis of a.s.sisi was."

Brandt bolted upright in his seat. Rebecca had withheld this little detail back at the hotel room, probably because she knew he never would've taken a step out the door after an accusation like that. St. Francis was one of the most revered saints. Entire Orders of the Catholic Church were founded by a man esteemed by peasants and popes alike.

"I'd suggest you start explaining."

Rebecca must have sensed the change in his mood as she hurried on. "Remember, I'm not talking about him being a member of the Knot. He would be a descendant of someone protecting the carrier of the bones. Protecting Christ."

His mood was not improved by her intellectual caveat. "You still need to make your point."

"How much do you know about St. Francis?" she asked, c.o.c.king her head, almost challenging him. "Do you know his mother's maiden name?"

"Lady Pica Bourlemont."

In reply, Rebecca pointed to her list of the Knot and their sects. Under the list of the man without contempt was a member named Perl the Menter. "Do you know what that translates to in fifteenth-century Russian?"

"Bourlemont," Davidson whispered.

"And if you know about his life, Francis was a spoiled brat, running with the hip crowd until something happened to bring him to his knees."

Brandt shook his head. He knew the saint's life inside and out. "His calling came after two consecutive illnesses."

"Or his mother imparting her secret to him."

Red in the cheek and not the way he was earlier in the evening, Brandt pushed the roster back at her. "It's still a stretch."

"Is it? Is it really?" she asked. "Over the centuries, the Franciscans drifted away from their founder's values until the Capuchins rededicated themselves to a.s.sisi's vision, building this church, then their crypt."

"Why would anyone call attention to themselves like that?"

But Rebecca looked to Davidson. "This is where you helped."

"I did?" the private asked, seeming proudly confused.

"When you dressed us up as a Goth band. You taught me how you can hide something in plain sight."

The table descended into silence as Brandt appraised Rebecca. She sat unflinching as his gaze searched her features. She was sure. More sure than she had been about the Vatican.

She listed off her points on her fingers. "The man without contempt found contempt and lied to the Knot, but he wasn't stupid and for the same reasons Mary wanted to use Rome, he did as well. A member of his sect, Perl the Menter was an ancestor of St. Francis who embraced a much more orthodox view of Christianity. Later devote members of his order had themselves mummified and displayed so they might be closer to their Lord."

Rebecca held Brandt's eyes. "I'm right. I know I am."

There was a moment when she thought the sergeant didn't believe her, then he took the last swig of his black coffee and rose. "All right, then. Where's this crypt?"

Smiling, Rebecca pointed through the cafe's window to across the street. "Underneath that church."

After cursing, Brandt whispered an apology to G.o.d as he picked the lock on the crypt's gate. At least he had found something worse than wearing a priest's collar. Breaking into a church's crypt with the intent of digging through monks' bones had to be a whole category of sin unto itself.

"You sure you don't want to take Lopez up on his offer?" Rebecca asked from behind him.

"I've got it," he whispered harshly. The corporal was an alley away in an Alfa Romeo, ga.s.sed and ready to go. Davidson had taken off, perching himself somewhere nearby with a direct view of the front door and the corporal's get away car. The men had their back.

"I think Lopez would have been faster," Rebecca added.

With a click of the old iron lock releasing, Brandt didn't bother refuting her words. Checking his weapons one last time, he made sure he was ready if the Knot showed up. Tok would not escape his sights again.

But before they went in, he turned to her. "The same goes here as for the Vatican. These monks are innocent."

"I wouldn't be so sure, Brandt. We had no idea how many of them know what they hold. The Knot's pretty militarized. Nothing says the individual sects aren't as well."

He escorted her inside the stairwell. "Tell you what? A crazed monk comes at me with a machete, and I'll think about shooting him."

"What about if it's just a small knife or switchblade?"

Brandt chuckled, then realized she was serious. "I'll wing him."

Distracted, Rebecca looked down the dark pa.s.sageway. Brandt had seen that look in her eye before. The first time back in the jungles of South America. The next time when she left him in Paris. The third in the Hagia Sophia when she realized the tomb was beneath the Blue Mosque. And now.

Brandt turned sideways to avoid his shoulders sc.r.a.ping against the white stucco walls of the staircase. The streetlight was waning, but he dared not turn on his flashlight yet. They needed to be indoors before he risked giving away their position.

At the landing, they found a door, aged with cracked paint and a simple wooden crucifix. A small plaque announced the visiting hours, long since past. He got out his pick, but Rebecca twisted the k.n.o.b.

It opened.

"They've taken a vow of poverty. They're not expecting burglars."

Still the ease of entry gave him pause. Now even he was beginning to believe this was the resting place of Christ. For no other reason than the pit in his stomach began churning again.

CHAPTER 35.

Carpuchin Church Rebecca shut her eyes as Brandt turned on his flashlight. Letting her eyes get accustomed to the increased illumination, she opened her lids. The simple, short entryway emptied into a long hallway. An arch above the hall was adorned with a beautiful scroll pattern that took on a life of its own. It was both delicate in its detail and bold in its scale.

At least it seemed beautiful until she realized the upward stroke was a rib. A human rib, and the dainty rosettes surrounding it were cervical vertebra. Even after everything she had seen, the sight soured her stomach. Who did this? Who took bodies apart, bone by bone, and rearranged them into decorations?

Turning, she could see that Brandt was equally repulsed. The sergeant's nose curled up as he used the point of his rifle to check to see if they really were bones, but sure enough, they were.

Rebecca read the inscription below the gruesome artwork. "What you are now, we once were. What we are now, you will be."

"Oh, h.e.l.l, no," Brandt scowled and urged her forward. "Let's get this over with."

They arrived at the first capella. The small whitewashed chamber was gated off by a low iron fence. They could have climbed over, but Rebecca had no inkling how, since each carved alcove had a napping monk. Only they weren't asleep, they were dead. Mummified.

What this had to do with Christ's love, Rebecca didn't know.

Worse, the far wall was decorated, if you could call it that, by hundreds of skulls surrounding three monks who were mounted on the wall to simulate a pious standing position. Their hoods covered most of their desiccated faces, but in the dim light they exuded a ghoulish air. The ceiling wasn't much better, with strange arrangements of finger, foot, and jawbones that swirled into a seash.e.l.l pattern.

And people thought she was weird drawing blood from villagers and drilling bone cores.

"Do we go in?" Brandt asked, clearly not wanting an affirmative.

Rebecca was happy to oblige. "Let's look at all five first."

Moving on, they came to the second capella. How the place could get more macabre she wasn't sure, but it just had. Besides the napping mummies and hanging monks, the opposite centerpiece was formed out of hundreds of scapula, blending into a cornucopia. What bountiful harvest might come out of such a horn of plenty, Rebecca did not want to know.

Brandt didn't even ask if they should enter the bizarre shrine. He simply moved onto the third chamber. More of the same. Another few feet and they were at the fourth, which held nothing more than the bizarre bone art.

"Holy..." He stopped short as Rebecca stepped up alongside him at the fifth capella.

On the far wall hung a bony recreation of Jesus on the cross. But that wasn't what made him curse. Hanging from the ceiling was a child-sized statue of death. With a scapula as his sickle, there was no more gruesome image. But this was clearly the chamber they needed to explore. They couldn't ignore the crucifixion allusion.

In silent agreement, they climbed over the low gate. Brandt guarded the doorway as Rebecca inspected the body upon the cross, but he already knew that gruesome display wasn't Jesus. Just like he had known that Christ wasn't laid to rest in the Roman prison, reeking of despair, he knew his savior was not hanging on this wall.

"There's no grooves on the ulna or radius. The ankles are intact as well," she said. "In addition, the skeleton has been rea.s.sembled from a variety of donor bodies. This isn't Jesus."

Glad that she had made the same conclusion so quickly, Brandt nodded toward the hallway. "We should take a closer look in the other rooms before heading out."

"Wait," she said with the tone that made his stomach ache and made him wish for the hundredth time he had packed antacids. "What's Death holding?"

"A grotesque sickle made out of shoulder bones."

"No. In his other hand," Rebecca said, tilting her head to get a better look at the object above them. "Give me a leg up."

Lifting her high into the air, Brandt couldn't help but breathe her scent. The musky aroma of frustrated arousal. He didn't want to smell it, but his nostrils were filled with her.

A powerful reminder that his life, and certainly this night, didn't turn out the way he planned.