ives and leave your antiquated rituals behind? Religions evolve! The mind finds
answers, the heart grapples with new truths. My father was on your quest! A parallel path! Why couldn't
you see that? God is not some omnipotent authority looking down from above, threatening to throw us
into a pit of fire if we disobey. God is the energy that flows through the synapses of our nervous system
and the chambers of our hearts! God is in all things!"
"Except science," the camerlegno fired back, his eyes showing only pity. "Science, by definition, is
soulless. Divorced from the heart. Intellectual miracles like antimatter arrive in this world with no ethical
instructions attached. This in itself is perilous! But when science heralds its Godless pursuits as the
enlightened path? Promising answers to questions whose beauty is that they have no answers?" He shook
his head. "No."
There was a moment of silence. The camerlegno felt suddenly tired as he returned Vittoria's unbending
stare. This was not how it was supposed to be. Is this God's final test?
It was Mortati who broke the spell. "The preferiti," he said in a horrified whisper. "Baggia and the others.
Please tell me you did not . . ."
The camerlegno turned to him, surprised by the pain in his voice. Certainly Mortati could understand.
Headlines carried science's miracles every day. How long had it been for religion? Centuries? Religion
needed a miracle! Something to awaken a sleeping world. Bring them back to the path of righteousness.
Restore faith. The preferiti were not leaders anyway, they were transformers-liberals prepared to
embrace the new world and abandon the old ways! This was the only way. A new leader. Young.
Powerful. Vibrant. Miraculous. The preferiti served the church far more effectively in death than they
ever could alive. Horror and Hope. Offer four souls to save millions. The world would remember them
forever as martyrs. The church would raise glorious tribute to their names. How many thousands have
died for the glory of God? They are only four.
"The preferiti," Mortati repeated.
"I shared their pain," the camerlegno defended, motioning to his chest. "And I too would die for God, but
my work is only just begun. They are singing in St. Peter's Square!"
The camerlegno saw the horror in Mortati's eyes and again felt confused. Was it the morphine? Mortati
was looking at him as if the camerlegno himself had killed these men with his bare hands. I would do even
that for God, the camerlegno thought, and yet he had not. The deeds had been carried out by the
Hassassin-a heathen soul tricked into thinking he was doing the work of the Illuminati. I am Janus, the
camerlegno had told him. I will prove my power. And he had. The Hassassin's hatred had made him
God's pawn.
"Listen to the singing," the camerlegno said, smiling, his own heart rejoicing. "Nothing unites hearts like
the presence of evil. Burn a church and the community rises up, holding hands, singing hymns of defiance
as they rebuild. Look how they flock tonight. Fear has brought them home. Forge modern demons for
modern man. Apathy is dead. Show them the face of evil-Satanists lurking among us-running our
governments, our banks, our schools, threatening to obliterate the very House of God with their
misguided science. Depravity runs deep. Man must be vigilant. Seek the goodness. Become the
goodness!"
In the silence, the camerlegno hoped they now understood. The Illuminati had not resurfaced. The
Illuminati were long deceased. Only their myth was alive. The camerlegno had resurrected the Illuminati
as a reminder. Those who knew the Illuminati history relived their evil. Those who did not, had learned of
it and were amazed how blind they had been. The ancient demons had been resurrected to awaken an
indifferent world.
"But . . . the brands?" Mortati's voice was stiff with outrage.
The camerlegno did not answer. Mortati had no way of knowing, but the brands had been confiscated by
the Vatican over a century ago. They had been locked away, forgotten and dust covered, in the Papal
Vault-the Pope's private reliquary, deep within his Borgia apartments. The Papal Vault contained those
items the church deemed too dangerous for anyone's eyes except the Pope's.
Why did they hide that which inspired fear? Fear brought people to God!
The vault's key was passed down from Pope to Pope. Camerlegno Carlo Ventresca had purloined the key
and ventured inside; the myth of what the vault contained was bewitching-the original manuscript for
the fourteen unpublished books of the Bible known as the Apocrypha, the third prophecy of Fatima, the
first two having come true and the third so terrifying the church would never reveal it. In addition to
these, the camerlegno had found the Illuminati Collection-all the secrets the church had uncovered after
banishing the group from Rome . . . their contemptible Path of Illumination . . . the cunning deceit of the
Vatican's head artist, Bernini . . . Europe's top scientists mocking religion as they secretly assembled in
the Vatican's own Castle St. Angelo. The collection included a pentagon box containing iron brands, one
of them the mythical Illuminati Diamond. This was a part of Vatican history the ancients thought best
forgotten. The camerlegno, however, had disagreed.
"But the antimatter . . ." Vittoria demanded. "You risked destroying the Vatican!"
"There is no risk when God is at your side," the camerlegno said. "This cause was His."
"You're insane!" she seethed.
"Millions were saved."
"People were killed!"
"Souls were saved."
"Tell that to my father and Max Kohler!"
"CERN's arrogance needed to be revealed. A droplet of liquid that can vaporize a half mile? And you call
me mad?" The camerlegno felt a rage rising in him. Did they think his was a simple charge? "Those who
believe undergo great tests for God! God asked Abraham to sacrifice his child! God commanded Jesus to
endure crucifixion! And so we hang the symbol of the crucifix before our eyes-bloody, painful,
agonizing-to remind us of evil's power! To keep our hearts vigilant! The scars on Jesus' body are a
living reminder of the powers of darkness! My scars are a living reminder! Evil lives, but the power of
God will overcome!"
His shouts echoed off the back wall of the Sistine Chapel and then a profound silence fell. Time seemed
to stop. Michelangelo's Last Judgment rose ominously behind him . . . Jesus casting sinners into hell.
Tears brimmed in Mortati's eyes.
"What have you done, Carlo?" Mortati asked in a whisper. He closed his eyes, and a tear rolled. "His
Holiness?"
A collective sigh of pain went up, as if everyone in the room had forgotten until that very moment. The
Pope. Poisoned.
"A vile liar," the camerlegno said.
Mortati looked shattered. "What do you mean? He was honest! He . . . loved you."
"And I him." Oh, how I loved him! But the deceit! The broken vows to God!
The camerlegno knew they did not understand right now, but they would. When he told them, they would
see! His Holiness was the most nefarious deceiver the church had ever seen. The camerlegno still
remembered that terrible night. He had returned from his trip to CERN with news of Vetra's Genesis and
of antimatter's horrific power. The camerlegno was certain the Pope would see the perils, but the Holy
Father saw only hope in Vetra's breakthrough. He even suggested the Vatican fund Vetra's work as a
gesture of goodwill toward spiritually based scientific research.
Madness! The church investing in research that threatened to make the church obsolete? Work that
spawned weapons of mass destruction? The bomb that had killed his mother . . .
"But . . . you can't!" the camerlegno had exclaimed.
"I owe a deep debt to science," the Pope had replied. "Something I have hidden my entire life. Science
gave me a gift when I was a young man. A gift I have never forgotten."
"I don't understand. What does science have to offer a man of God?"
"It is complicated," the Pope had said. "I will need time to make you understand. But first, there is a
simple fact about me that you must know. I have kept it hidden all these years. I believe it is time I told
you."
Then the Pope had told him the astonishing truth.
132
T he camerlegno lay curled in a ball on the dirt floor in front of St. Peter's tomb. The Necropolis was
cold, but it helped clot the blood flowing from the wounds he had torn at his own flesh. His Holiness
would not find him here. Nobody would find him here . . .
"It is complicated," the Pope's voice echoed in his mind. "I will need time to make you understand . . ."
But the camerlegno knew no amount of time could make him understand.
Liar! I believed in you! GOD believed in you!
With a single sentence, the Pope had brought the camerlegno's world crashing down around him.
Everything the camerlegno had ever believed about his mentor was shattered before his eyes. The truth
drilled into the camerlegno's heart with such force that he staggered backward out of the Pope's office
and vomited in the hallway.
"Wait!" the Pope had cried, chasing after him. "Please let me explain!"
But the camerlegno ran off. How could His Holiness expect him to endure any more? Oh, the wretched
depravity of it! What if someone else found out? Imagine the desecration to the church! Did the Pope's
holy vows mean nothing?
The madness came quickly, screaming in his ears, until he awoke before St. Peter's tomb. It was then that
God came to him with an awesome fierceness.
YOURS IS A VENGEFUL GOD!
Together, they made their plans. Together they would protect the church. Together they would restore
faith to this faithless world. Evil was everywhere. And yet the world had become immune! Together they
would unveil the darkness for the world to see . . . and God would overcome! Horror and Hope. Then the
world would believe!
God's first test had been less horrible than the camerleg