The Omega Factor(105)

Apparently, his secrets were back on the table.

Good to know.





Nick hiked up the trail, past the cemetery. Wind moaned through the trees, the air cool with the scent of pine and earth. He noticed how the grounds were carefully tended, punctuated at regular intervals by clumps of flowers and trimmed shrubs. The gravel path wound higher, his soles crunching on the dry rocky soil, the terrain gaunt and bony. Off to the left was a magnificent view of the imperious cliffs that sliced down to the turquoise waters of a raging river. Ahead stood a huge plane tree, its trunk about six feet thick, the limbs spread out over a wide swath. Past there the trail turned right, then inclined farther up to what appeared to be a grotto.

And the rock church.





Fuentes watched as Sister Claire stepped past a marble altar, plain with no adornments, like the surrounding limestone walls that towered up twenty meters. He found it all a contradiction. Warmth without color. Character without definition. Statuary filled niches of varying shapes and sizes. Saints and Christ. Nothing of the Virgin Mary. Votive candles sat dusty and cold in wrought-iron racks.

“This can’t be the Chapel of the Maiden,” he said.

“It’s not,” she answered. “This was first a church in the eleventh century and has been in public use ever since. It serves as a diversion. What you want is there.”

And she pointed toward a small devotional, carved into the rear rock wall, behind the altar, a three-dimensional projection with a pedimented top, a cross, and an image of Christ. Beneath the altar shelf a large fleur-de-lys filled the gray stone panel. Sister Claire knelt down and waved a small black rectangle she produced from her smock around the outer perimeter of the front panel, circumnavigating the flowery symbol. She then pushed on the panel, which swung inward, as if on hinges, revealing a hatchlike opening big enough to crawl through.

She motioned.

“Beyond is the Chapel of the Maiden.”





Vilamur remained trapped near the cliff edge, Labelle still blocking the way. He was hesitant to press the man too far. He’d dealt with disturbed people countless times, both as a priest and as a bishop. They had to be handled with great care. One mistake could set them off.

“Have you been a Cathar your whole life?” he tried.

“I’m a Perfectus.”

“As I understand it, that’s important. Like a priest. Right?”

The eyes went hot. “Nothing like a priest. We are not chosen ones. We are not special. We are simply believers, finally ready to leave this evil world and never return.”

“And evil it is,” he said, playing to the man’s convictions.

“De Foix is dead, isn’t he?”

He debated how to answer that question. Lying would probably do little good. I don’t know, even worse. So he opted for the truth. “I think he is.”

He could see that realization had not settled well. This man had tracked him all the way from Toulouse. Definitely on a mission. But what that was? Hard to say. So he stood still, the steady wind battering the back of his neck, and tried to figure a way out.

“Everything I’ve been taught,” Labelle said, “has proven true. The realm of the good God is filled with light. The realm of the bad god, this lousy material world, is nothing but a prison. The bad god fills this place with so much temptation. So much wrong. I fight those temptations every day. I am fighting them right now.”

“I can help with that.”

Labelle’s faced screwed tight in puzzlement. “How could you possibly help? You. Are. The. Evil. You were de Foix’s father. You defiled his mother, while a priest. You are every bit as much a sinner as Tallard was.”

“I never touched a child.”

“No. You just touched their mothers.”

And he instantly regretted his words.





Chapter 70



Fuentes emerged through the narrow entrance portal and rose from his hands and knees. He and Sister Claire stood in a cave, the ceiling about three meters high, much tighter than the chapel on the other side of the rock wall. None of the other maidens had joined them. Instead they waited in the outer church, with Rice and his gun keeping a watchful eye on them. A total cloaking darkness, as if he’d been struck blind, enveloped him, the only light leaking in from the entrance. He heard a metallic grind then a loud click before lights dissolved the darkness.

“That’s some entryway,” he said. “How long has it existed?”

“There was once a larger opening, the original cave entrance, but it was sealed up centuries ago, when the rock church outside was first conceived. Eventually, the devotional was carved into the wall and the panel was opened and closed manually. Twenty years ago, when we electrified the church with lights, we went high-tech and added a magnetic lock.”

They walked a few meters farther in until wrought-iron bars blocked the way, each one thick as a finger and fitted directly into the stone. In the center of the grate was a barred door fitted with hinges and a lock, the bars coated with a crusted layer of rust, the lock and hinges all of shiny brass. Sister Claire stepped forward and produced a key that opened the brass lock. With a sweep of her hand she gestured for him to step inside the lit chamber beyond. The light changed from a hard glare to a pearly glow, the stale air smelling of musk and incense.