The Vatican Children - Chapter 1: Unexpected Visitors

A second car door slammed shut.

Arthur's hand found the gun on the coffee table before his mind fully processed the sound. He'd expected one visitor—Father Niccolo Paladina, arriving alone. Not two.

Outside, leaves and gravel crunched as footsteps approached his cabin in the forests of Colorado. The sharp scent of pine sap drifted through the cracked window, mixing with woodsmoke from the fireplace. He crossed to the window, careful to stay out of view. Had someone found his hideout?

His newly finished cabin sat deep in the middle of uninhabited forestry, 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 driven up.

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

But the gun in his hand wasn't his revolver—a fact that left him practically naked as he leaned against the wall. His revolver lay under the pillow in his bedroom. He gripped a tranquilizer gun designed to fire darts.

The weapon weighed less than his 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 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.

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 beamed 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.

His chest tightened at the sight of her, pulse quickening. 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 was a normal youngster.

Abigail started toward him, ready to run up for a hug, but the tension between him and Frieda stopped her short. She kept glancing between them, confusion plain on her young face.

"You don't have to call ahead," Arthur said. "I 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?"

Arthur flashed her a look that he hoped conveyed they shouldn't discuss this 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 glanced over Abigail's shoulder at Frieda. She was 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 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."

When 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 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 widened his eyes and spread his hands.

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."

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. "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, the floorboards groaning softly underfoot. It led off to a kitchen on the right—where the faint smell of coffee still lingered—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, throwing flickering orange light across the rough-hewn walls.

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, the woman's 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, the woman stopped struggling and narrowed her eyes. She glanced between the two. The moment she saw they had come in together, her expression shifted from hope to fear, and she cowered lower into her seat.

Frieda stayed silent for a long moment, 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 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 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 relief washed through him. He had stepped out pretty far onto a branch with this case, and he liked having a safety net in case it broke.

He looked back out the window. Afternoon sunlight filtered through the canopy in golden shafts, and somewhere in the distance a woodpecker hammered against bark. Watching Abigail play in the trees, his shoulders loosened, the tension draining from his muscles. She had changed so much since her time under the control of the cult—a bright spot in his normally dark life.

"You should let her go."

Arthur needed a moment to process that Frieda meant the woman in the basement and not Abigail. The words unsettled him. He had tried to adopt Abigail for months, and even though a large part of him worried they would say no, another small part had grown terrified they would say yes.

"I would let Desiree go if I could," he said.

"People will look for her."

"She lives alone," Arthur said. "No family. No friends to speak of. We crossed four state lines, and no one's reported her missing yet."

"Still. You made a rash decision."

"I know," Arthur said. "But I can't unmake it."

"You will tip off the bishop that you've gone after him."

"That's the point. He knows we're after him already. With luck, this will cause him to start panicking and make a mistake."

"What if he doesn't?"

"Then, we'll still find him," Arthur said. Even he didn't sound convinced.

Frieda changed the topic, "Niccolo sounds like he could prove useful. You said he handled himself well in Everett?"

Arthur nodded. "Better than I expected. Whatever went on in that house, he came through the other side of it. Most people wouldn't have."

"No small feat."

"He can be useful." Arthur nodded. "But if he'll get in my way or cause problems, then I need to know that sooner rather than later."

"It's good to see you working with someone else, but we need to stay open and honest with the Church about all of this. I don't like misleading them."

"We will," Arthur said. "We shall tell them everything as soon as we capture Glasser and can turn him over to them."

"You think he has someone working for him inside the Church?"

"He has to. Probably more than a few. The Vatican has known about Glasser for years—the complaints, the transfers, the buried reports. No one climbs as high as he has, doing what he does, without institutional protection. We aren't just chasing a rogue bishop, Frieda. We're pulling at a thread the Church doesn't want pulled."

Emily Glasser’s trial still ground on somewhere in the legal system—the woman whose betrayal had cost Arthur his family, now wrapped in enough Vatican procedural motions to keep her case stalled for years.

Frieda's expression darkened. "That's what worries me. If Glasser has that kind of backing, then reporting to the Vatican might be the same as reporting to him."

"Which is exactly why we can't go through proper channels. Not until we know who's protecting him and why."

Frieda hesitated. "So, here we are: untrusted by the Church, broken and without funding, and now we plan to investigate a conspiracy that might reach into the Vatican itself. Do I have it about right?"

Arthur smiled over at her. "What could possibly go wrong?"

She didn't answer, but worry rolled off her in waves. Any other Hunter in her organization, and she would have flatly refused all of his demands. He didn't like abusing her trust, but he also didn't plan to fail in capturing the bishop. All he needed was a little bit of time.

"The Council plans to vote soon," Frieda said. She didn't explain what she meant, but she didn't have to. The vote would decide whether Arthur could adopt Abigail. After ten months of searching, the Ninth Circle's scrubbing of her identity meant they couldn't find her original family. Arthur had offered to take her in, but few on the Council trusted him after West Virginia.

He couldn't be sure if he trusted himself, either.

"When?"

"Could take two weeks or two months. Jun still feels sore about everything."

"I won't apologize for what I did."

"I wouldn't ask you to. But there was probably a better way to handle it."

Arthur conceded, "Maybe."

"Will you take her home?" Frieda asked.

The question caught him off-guard. He knew which home she meant, and it wasn't this one.

"No," he said. "I won't return there."

He hadn't gone to his farmhouse in Ohio since the cult murdered his family. Another life.

"You need to go back," Frieda said. "If only for closure."

"Not yet."

She glanced at her watch. "We need to get going. Long drive ahead."

Arthur nodded. He would have asked for them to stay, at least for a day or two, but he expected Father Paladina to arrive at any moment and needed to get back to work.

"Let me say my goodbyes."

"Of course. It will give me a chance to finish drinking my terrible juice."

He chuckled and headed outside. The mountain air hit him—cool and clean, carrying the earthy sweetness of fallen pine needles beneath his boots. He found Abigail dancing in the trees about two-hundred feet away from the cabin, sunlight catching in her dark hair as she moved through the dappled shade. She had a bright smile on her face and barely noticed him striding toward her.

"Hey, kiddo," he said, stopping a few feet from her. She glanced up at him. "It's time for you and Frieda to get back on the road."

Abigail frowned. "Already? Can't we stay a bit longer? We can leave tomorrow."

"Sorry, but no can do," he said. "Don't worry, though; we'll get to spend a lot of time together in the near future."

"You promise?"

"I promise."

"Okay."

She didn't sound like she believed him fully, but she didn't argue. She walked over, took his hand, and they headed back toward the cabin. Boots crunching over pine needles and dry leaves. Abigail's small hand tightened around his.

"Arthur?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you get bad dreams?"

He looked down at her. Her expression had shifted—not frightened, exactly, but searching, as though his answer carried a weight she hadn't assigned to anyone else.

"Sometimes," he said.

"Me too." She kicked a pinecone and watched it bounce across the forest floor. "Frieda says they'll go away eventually, but she says it like she read it in a book. You know?"

He did know. Frieda offered comfort the way she offered everything else: competently, efficiently, and from a clinical distance.

"They do get better," Arthur said. "Not all at once. More like the volume turns down, little by little, until one morning you realize you slept the whole night through."

Abigail looked up at him. "Is that what happened to you?"

"Getting there."

"What do you do when they come?"

He thought about it—genuinely considered the question, because she deserved better than a platitude. "I get up. Make some coffee, even though it's two in the morning. Sometimes I walk outside and listen to the woods. The real world—the wind, the creek, the owls—it reminds me the dream isn't where I live anymore."

She didn't respond right away. She seemed to be filing the information somewhere careful, the way a child memorizes the location of a light switch in an unfamiliar room.

"Can I do that?" she asked. "When I stay with you. Get up and go outside."

"Anytime," he said. "I'll go with you."

Something in her face settled—a tension he hadn't realized she'd been carrying released from her jaw and shoulders. She squeezed his hand once, hard, and then let go to run ahead a few steps before circling back.

They made it back to the cabin. Frieda stood waiting out front, resting against her car and watching them. A cool breeze rustled through the aspens, carrying the faint gurgle of the creek that ran below the ridge. She had a pair of sunglasses on now, even though it stayed relatively shady in the forest.

"Ready to go, Abi?" she called as they walked up. "We still have a long way to go to get to our hotel for the night."

"Why can't we stay here?"

"You can later," Arthur said. "Right now, it's too busy, though."

Abigail frowned. "Okay."

Then she hugged Arthur and raced over to the car, sliding into the passenger seat with a frown. Frieda gave Arthur one last look—full of sadness and disapproval—before climbing into the driver's seat and turning on the car.

After a few moments, they headed back down the dirt road and away from the cabin. Arthur watched them go and thought about what Frieda had told him about the vote. He might become Abigail's lawful guardian soon.

On the one hand, that thrilled him. On the other, though …

Terror gripped him.

Already, he had lost one family. So had she. The thought of building another one with her and then losing her, too, stopped him cold.

Maybe he should tell Frieda to drop the issue with the Council. They could put her into foster care or up for adoption in any number of states or countries. Perhaps he could find another family to keep her safe and let her grow up as a normal little girl.

After all, would she ever find safety or peace with him?

Seeing Abigail lifted his spirits, like a weight had rolled from his shoulders. And seeing her smiling and happy made him think that maybe, maybe, good did exist in the world. Perhaps it wasn't all evil.

Evil, Arthur thought, like Bishop Glasser. Like whatever lay behind him, entrenched deep within the Vatican's own walls.

He reminded himself that he had work to do and pushed the errant thought from his mind. Then he turned back to the cabin where he had the woman locked in his basement. She provided his only good lead to find out where the bishop hid—and perhaps, to uncover who in the Vatican had been shielding him all along. He would need to get through to her if he were to unravel this conspiracy and bring any of them to justice.