The Goliath Chamber - Vatican Knights 24 (2021) Rick Jones (best classic books of all time .TXT) 📖

is the only noteworthy ridge in the Tiber Valley. And because of its isolated setting so close to Rome, Mussolini had a series of bunkers built from 1937 to 1943 to house the Fascist government, should Rome come under siege. But in 1943 when Mussolini was deposed, construction was halted on the bunkers and were soon forgotten, until the rise of the Cold War in the 1960s. Today, they served as tourist sites for visitors.

In a room constructed entirely of stone blocks, Shari Cohen started to come to.

The stone ceiling.

The odd shapes that danced along the walls within the flickers of candlelight.

The hollow cadence of her own moan.

The dimness of the room.

The feel of being bound by flexcuffs.

And the strange creature that sat across the room from her, watching.

Sitting up, though restricted in movement, Shari could sense the heated knot on her forehead throbbing from the rifle’s impact.

Narrowing her eyes, she could see the creature sitting at the edge of the light. Its face was skeletal with bony ridges for cheeks and an angular mandible. But its most unsettling features were its eyes, which glowed a gaseous hue of bright green, the swirls smoky and fluorescent. Located at its mouth was a circular screen about the size of a silver dollar, a speaker.

Sitting as still as a Bernini statue, it continued to watch her.

She tried her bonds which strangled her wrists to the point of nearly cutting off her blood flow. Then, of course, she asked the most basic questions: “Where am I? Why are you doing this?”

Silence.

Her head continued to throb.

“Hello,” she stated sarcastically.

The figure remained unmoving, just staring.

When she tried to get to her feet, that was when the creature sitting at the fringe of light began to move. It had crossed the floor in six strides with its advancement having purpose. And with a gentle hand, it aided her back into a seating position. “Don’t move,” it told her with a metallic sounding voice.

Shari continued to stare at the skull mask that was poised above her. In its hand was an assault weapon, a suppressed MP7. It also wore the dragon-skin body armor of a seasoned soldier along with composite shield guards that covered the shins, thighs and forearms.

Slowly, this soldier leveled the point of the barrel to assure that Shari Cohen could view the open mouth of the gun’s barrel, as well as to take in the light scent of its gunpowder. “Remain seated,” the soldier said. The sound was warped and metallic like the machine-driven voice of a cheap robot, a toy, yet articulate.

“What do you want with me?”

From the shadows came a second voice that was natural in tenor, though gruff and gravelly. A woman, small and intense looking, emerged from the shadowy veils. In her hand was a cigarette. She moved with a swagger and with an upraised chin as though she had been bred with dignity. When she stood next to her soldier counterpart, the two were a complete antithesis of the other: She was short and powerful, and he was tall and submissive.

“Since you have chosen to turn a blind eye against the sins of the one you appreciate,” the short woman began, “that makes you equally culpable. His sins are your sins. And because of this, you must pay for betraying the values of God.”

Shari contorted her features into a puzzled look, as though the woman standing before her was raving nonsensically like the prophet of Doom.

When the woman intuited this, she asked, “Do you deny that you care for the sinner that is Kimball Hayden? The killer of innocent woman and children.”

The bulb of enlightenment suddenly went off in Shari’s head with her startled features transmitting this to the woman.

“Yes,” said the woman with the hoarse voice. “I thought so.”

“It’s not me that you want,” Shari stated. “It’s Kimball, isn’t it?”

“And you,” answered the woman. “You are party to sin as well since you know about his past. And yet you choose to see his committed offenses as something acceptable, simply because it was a part of a past for which he is trying to absolve himself from.” The woman leaned in. “Some sins are unpardonable, no matter how much he seeks the Light of Salvation.” She eased back into a standing position. “He is an abomination to the church and a demon who wears the clothing of a priest, which is unacceptable.”

“You’re out of your mind,” Shari told her. “Are you even capable of listening to what you’re saying?”

The woman dismissed the insult. “And for choosing to walk in league with the devil’s minion,” the woman went on, “you have also chosen your fate. Since you have decided to shun the Lord’s Light, you may join Kimball Hayden’s side come Judgment.”

“You’re going to kill us.” This was a statement, not a question.

“Let’s say that I’m releasing you from sin. Perhaps the Lord will see enough inside you to grant you passage. Hayden, however, has no heavenly future.”

“And you think you’re doing God’s work?”

“What I do, I do at the command of another—someone who is closer to God than I am.”

Shari shook her head disbelievingly. This woman was a gibbering fanatic, she thought, an extremist. “Who?” she asked.

The woman, Antle, waved a dismissive hand at her. “It matters not,” she told her.

“And I’m the bait, is that it?”

The woman remained unmoving with a face that was stone cold.

Shari continued to lead her on, however. “You took me to a place that was secluded—a place that was out of sight and mind, right? You think Kimball’s going to walk right through the front door and buckle when he sees me bound and surrounded by your goons?” Shari barked a laugh at this. “You have no idea what you’ve resurrected,” she told the woman. “You’re right about him having a dark side that’s as savage and as primal as any man who allows himself to be commanded by uncontrollable anger. But there’s a greater Light within him, a Light so bright