The Vatican Children (World of Shadows Book 2) Read online

  The Vatican Children

  World of Shadows, Volume 2

  Lincoln Cole

  Published by Lincoln Cole Publishing, 2017.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  The Vatican Children (World of Shadows, #2)

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Epilogue

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  No part of this work may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Lincoln Cole, Columbus, 2017

  [email protected]

  www.LincolnCole.net

  Cover Design by M.N. Arzu

  www.mnarzuauthor.com

  “For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved to judgment;”

  - 2 Peter 2:4

  Chapter 1

  Outside, leaves and gravel crunched when a car pulled up to Arthur’s cabin in the forests of Colorado. He’d expected it, so it didn’t cause him any concern, and he didn’t realize anything had gone amiss, in fact, until a second door slammed shut.

  Alarmed, he jumped up from the couch he’d sat resting on and slid his gun off the coffee table. Then he made his way over to the window, careful to stay out of view. Had his hideout become compromised? He had anticipated that Father Niccolo Paladina would arrive just about now, but he had also expected for the priest to come alone.

  His newly finished cabin sat deep in the middle of uninhabited forestry in Colorado, and it served as his sanctuary away from civilization. It would prove difficult to find even with a map and closely-detailed directions, which meant that either Niccolo had brought a friend with him—which would be bad—or someone else had just driven up.

  Weapon held ready, he flipped the curtain aside and peeked out through the small gap.

  Not his revolver sat in his hand, though, a fact which made him feel practically naked as he leaned against the wall. His revolver lay under the pillow in his bedroom. What he held was a tranquilizer gun designed to fire darts.

  It didn’t feel as heavy as his weapon of choice, the Colt revolver, which made it awkward in his hands. Also, it held only three darts and seemed cumbersome and tricky to load. He shifted it in his hand continually, willing it to become more comforting.

  Arthur had opted to carry it, though, because he wanted to get used to using it. Some comfort lay in knowing his revolver waited nearby, along with a pair of shotguns and an assault rifle, but hopefully, he wouldn’t need any of them.

  When he saw the car sitting in front of his cabin, though, he relaxed and let out a sigh. In hindsight, he should have known: only one person would be brazen enough to bring a friend to his sanctuary uninvited.

  “Frieda,” he mumbled, sliding the tranquilizer gun away into his shoulder holster.

  Frieda had just climbed out of the little blue sedan and now walked toward the cabin. She spoke to someone on the other side of the car, and it took a second for that person to walk around the hood and into his sightline.

  Abigail.

  “Uh oh.” He groaned.

  This was perfectly bad timing.

  Arthur rushed over to the door of his cabin and out onto the front porch. Hastily, he closed the door behind him and used his body to block it.

  “Hey, Frieda. Uh ... what’s up?”

  The woman stopped walking midstride, a suspicious frown blooming on her face.

  “Hi, Arthur.” She put out a hand to stop Abigail, and then turned her attention back to Arthur. “We’ve come here to visit.”

  “You didn’t call ahead.”

  “I didn’t think we had to,” she said, nodding toward Abigail.

  Abigail looked exhausted from the long drive, but she stood beaming at Arthur. The girl was closing in on her eighth birthday—by the best guesses of multiple physicians—and had long black hair and a narrow face.

  He had to admit, just seeing her caused his heart to race and filled him with emotion. She represented his second chance at life, a chance to try again. This time, he would get it right.

  She acted nothing like the little girl he had saved in the manor of West Virginia. Back then, those ten months ago, she had worn torn and tattered clothes and a vacant expression in her eyes, the broken shell of a little girl who had undergone years of torture and abuse.

  Now, she just looked like a normal youngster.

  Abigail seemed about to run up to hug him, but she could sense the tension between him and Frieda. Instead, she kept glancing between them, a look of confusion on her young face.

  “You don’t have to call ahead,” Arthur said. “I just expected someone else to show up, and you two caught me off-guard. What are you doing here?”

  “We came to visit.” Frieda folded her arms across her chest and gave him one of her famous looks of disapproval. “We’ve come out of our way, but it’s been a few weeks since you checked in with us in person, and we wanted to make sure you were doing all right. What are you doing?”

  The real question she asked was: What are you hiding? Arthur flashed her a look that he hoped conveyed they shouldn’t discuss this in front of others. He didn’t want to talk to her about it at all, but especially not in front of Abigail.

  “As I said, I’m waiting for someone else to get here.”

  “Who? That priest you met in Everett? Did the Vatican clear him to work with you?”

  He hesitated. “Yes, but not exactly.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He didn’t ask for clearance from the Vatican. Not yet, at least.”

  Arthur ignored the look of shock on Frieda’s face. He strode down the front steps of his cabin and wrapped Abigail in a hug. Then he lifted her up in the air and swung her around.

  “Abi,” he said. “It’s so great to see you!”

  She hugged him back and giggled as he spun her. “I missed you!” she said.

  “Me too.”

  He looked over Abigail’s shoulder at Frieda. She seemed about to say something else, so he mouthed, Not a good time.

  Frieda held up her hands in question and raised her eyebrows, but she didn’t say anything. Gently, Arthur set Abigail back onto the leaves and dirt. He knelt in front of her so that they came eye-to-eye.

  “Been stuck in the car for a long time, huh?”

  “Yep,” she said. “It was so boring.”

  With a grin, he glanced at Frieda, and then leaned closer to Abigail to whisper conspiratorially, “I know what you mean. Did she just listen to her classical music?”

  Abigail giggled and whispered, “The whole way.”

  He laughed. “Do you want to go play?”

  She nodded. “Uh huh.”

  “I think I have a soccer ball out behind the cabin. Not a lot of room to run around in the woods, but it’s better than nothing. If you want to go find it, I’ll come right out, and we can kick it around some.”

  “Okay.”

  W
hen she headed for the front door of the cabin, he caught her arm and pointed to the west. “Not that way. Head around the side.”

  Abigail nodded and then took off running in the direction he had pointed. He didn’t have a soccer ball out there just now—it sat in one of the closets inside the cabin—but he figured searching for it would keep Abigail busy for at least a few minutes.

  Once she went out of earshot, he turned to face Frieda and her withering expression of annoyance. She still had her arms folded across her chest, and if looks could kill ...

  “What did you do?”

  “Why would you assume that I did something?” he said as innocently as he could.

  Her silence spoke volumes. Awkward, he stared at her, and finally, she let out an exaggerated sigh and rubbed her forehead.

  “Arthur. How long have we known each other?”

  “A long time. Too long, you might say.”

  “Exactly. Now, will you tell me what you have hidden from me in your cabin, or do I have to tear the place down and find out for myself?”

  “It isn’t a big deal.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that. You went behind my back already and invited that priest to work with you.”

  “He invited himself.”

  “Mmhmm.”

  “Like I said, it isn’t that big a deal. Promise you won’t overreact?”

  “Arthur, if you don’t get out of my way and let me inside, I’ll shoot you.”

  She meant it as a joke, of course.

  At least, he felt pretty sure she did.

  Still, he stepped aside and gestured for her to pass. “After you.”

  Frieda walked up the steps to the cabin door, but not without a slight hesitation in her gait. Her right hand rested against her hip, close to her concealed pistol.

  She reached out and grabbed the door handle, but didn’t turn it.

  “I’m not about to find a dead body in there, am I?”

  “‘Dead’ is such a strong word ...”

  She turned and glowered at him.

  “Kidding,” he said, padding his hands in the air to calm her. “Just joking. She’s still alive.”

  “She?”

  Arthur didn’t reply. Frieda stared at him a moment longer before turning back toward the entryway. Gently, she turned the handle and pushed open the front door.

  Inside lay a small foyer with coat racks and hooks on the opposite wall. It led off to a kitchen on the right and living room on the left. Inside the living room sat a maroon love seat and armchair combo, a cumbersome hardwood coffee table that Arthur had built himself, and a fireplace that roared with a pile of burning logs.

  Next to the fireplace sat a blonde woman in her mid-to-late forties with greenish eyes. He had tied her to a chair with duct tape around her wrists and ankles and another strip across her mouth to keep her from shouting. Her hair had matted, and she had raccoon eyes from wearing her makeup for too long.

  When Frieda walked into the cabin, her eyes went wide, and she thrashed the chair around frantically. She made moaning noises into the tape, hoping to get her attention.

  However, when Arthur followed Frieda into the room, she stopped struggling and narrowed her eyes. The woman glanced between the two. Upon realizing that they had come in here together, her expression shifted from hope to fear, and she attempted to cower lower into her seat.

  Frieda stayed silent for a long moment, just staring at the woman, before she wheeled around to face Arthur. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “It looks worse than it is.”

  “It looks like you kidnapped this woman.”

  Arthur hesitated. “Okay, so maybe it is exactly what it looks like. But, the thing is, this setup was more for effect than anything else. I’ve kept her in the basement for the last day or so, but I only brought her up here a short while ago.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve waited for Father Paladina, and I wanted to get his reaction to seeing her like this. Not yours, and certainly not Abigail’s.”

  “I thought you’d done hurting people?” she said, with just a hint of mockery in her voice.

  “I’m done killing people,” he said. “But that isn’t what this is about. What I do ... what we do is dangerous and ugly, and if I’m to work with Niccolo—a freaking priest—then I need him to understand that things won’t be easy or good.”

  Frieda corrected, “What we do is what we are told to do. How the hell can you work with this priest without the Vatican’s consent? Or, did you forget that we’re in hot water right now?”

  “We can’t wait for all of this to go through the proper channels. It will take too long, and whatever the bishop has planned is happening now. Leopold Glasser needs to be stopped.”

  “You aren’t even officially assigned to this case, yet.”

  “A formality,” Arthur said. “Since you will assign me.”

  “I will?”

  “You run the Hunters. Just tell the Council I’ll be busy solving this crisis for a while.”

  “That’s all well and good, but what about Niccolo? I can’t assign him to this case.”

  “The assignment won’t matter. Niccolo works as an exorcist. He has the Church’s backing and a lot of slack in what cases he decides to pursue.”

  “Enough slack to hang himself, you mean. Are you sure you want to get strung up next to him? The Vatican continues to investigate everything, and our funding has depleted. If this goes sideways ... well, then I can’t help you.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to anyway. All I know is that this needs to get taken care of, and if we wait for a few weeks for the Church to catch up, then it’ll be too late.”

  “You hope the ends will justify the means.”

  “I know they will,” Arthur said. Then he shrugged. “Seventy percent. What I do know is that this needs to get investigated, and I also know that Niccolo can’t do this alone. Neither can I.”

  A look of surprise flashed across her face. “I never expected those words to come out of your mouth.”

  “I told you, I’m turning over a new leaf. This is the new and improved Arthur.”

  “Sounds more like you dug up the entire tree,” she said. She studied him for a second, tapping her chin. “Fine, I’ll back your play and do my best to get the Vatican on board with this, but you need to take more care about things like this. No more kidnapping.”

  “I told you, it’s just for effect to get a rise out of the priest.”

  “What if Abigail had seen this?”

  “I didn’t know you planned on coming. You could have called.”

  “I didn’t think you would have a prisoner in your living room.”

  “How long have we known each other?” he asked.

  She smiled, brushing a spot of dust off the sleeve of her impeccably clean white shirt. “Touché.”

  The tension passed, and Frieda relaxed. They had known each other for many years, ever since Arthur had begun his training as a Hunter. She wouldn’t stay mad at him for long, and it came as a relief to know that she had his back. He had stepped out pretty far onto a branch with this case, and he liked having a safety net in case it broke.

  “Do you want something to drink?” he asked. “I have a few things in the fridge. Maybe even a bottle of champagne.”

  “Champagne?”

  “I think you gave it to me when I started building this place. I didn’t want to drink it until I finished.”

  “That was, like, ten years ago.”

  He shrugged. “Just means it’s well aged.”

  “Water is fine. I’ll bring something out to Abigail, too,” Frieda said. “I’m sure she’s thirsty after the drive.”

  “I have some juice.”

  “Is that well-aged, too?”

  “No. Just bought it yesterday. Apple juice.”

  Frieda half-smiled at him. “You and your apple juice. Do you drink anything else?”

  “It’s cheap.”

  Frieda glanced over at
the woman tied to the chair. “Who is she?”

  “Desiree Portman,” Arthur said. “She sent that correspondence to the bishop I told you about a couple of days ago. The letters went back years.”

  “A friend?”

  “I thought so, at first. Now, I’m not so sure.”

  Frieda glanced at him. “What do you mean?”

  Arthur turned and walked into the kitchen, making sure they stood out of Desiree’s earshot, and Frieda followed. “The correspondence is friendly, in general, but what she writes holds an undercurrent of fear. I don’t have his letters, only hers, but she seems to exaggerate her compliments and never has an ill word about anything.”

  “So, you think he coerced her?”

  “I believe she’s one of his victims,” Arthur said. “Too afraid to come forward and speak out against him, so she goes along with whatever he wants. I think the bishop abused her.”

  “Physically?”

  “Don’t know, but definitely mentally. I’ve dug into her past, but so far, haven’t come up with much beyond broad details.”

  “How did they know each other?”

  “She went to a Catholic School as a young woman, and he was the resident priest.”

  “You think he leveraged his power over her?”

  “I’m sure he did.”

  “Then why would you kidnap her? You think she knows something?”

  “I reckon they talked a lot, and whether or not she knows something is inconsequential. He kept close tabs on her, judging by the letters. And he’s bound to have messed up and said something we can use to track him down or find out what he’s after.”

  “That’s a big leap. You called her a victim. Why would he tell her anything?”

  “A slip,” Arthur said. “She might have kept his letters. Besides, I didn’t have a lot of other options. My best guess is that he still keeps an eye on her. Her going missing like this is bound to bring him out of hiding if he thinks we can use her against him.”

  “Maybe,” Frieda said, though she didn’t sound too convinced.

  The truth was, Arthur didn’t feel that convinced himself. Kidnapping Desiree came down to a spur-of-the-moment decision based on the fact that he had almost nothing else to go by. The bishop had disappeared without a trace when he left Everett, and none of Arthur’s contacts had any idea where he might have gone.