IV

IV

 

"Hurry, hurry! Extinguish the fire!" Alfonso shouted, inhaling smoke and coughing violently into his handkerchief. Flames were flaring up in various spots around the underground hall like mischievous imps. "You damned Vatican!" Alfonso moaned, kicking the palm-sized disc rolling at his feet.

These tiny plastic discs were the source of the flames that were spreading throughout the underground hall, and they numbered more than one hundred. They had flowed in from the underground aqueduct, and when they'd simultaneously exploded on the water's surface, they'd scattered burning oil all around their surroundings.

Undoubtedly, a person as crafty as the devil had used these. There was thin copper plating on the inside of the plastic container with special acid applied to the top of the plating. The bombs thrown in the water immediately sank to the bottom, but as time passed, the acid reacted with the plating and produced a large amount of hydrogen. The bombs floated up using the hydrogen produced as flotation, flowed into the castle along the stream, exploded, and went up in flames. The disc Barbarigo had possessed earlier had been a failure, because for whatever reason, it hadn't floated up.

"Your Holiness!" Barbarigo called, raising his voice at the raging Pope. Barbarigo had been up front, leading the soldiers as they tried to put out the fire. One eyebrow was completely singed off his blackened, sooty face. "It's impossible to put out the fire using human strength alone! All we can do for now is block the underground and wait for it to burn itself out from lack of oxygen!"

Alfonso ground his teeth at his subordinate's advice. He couldn't fathom that the Pope was allowing himself to be bothered by this kind of trick on the important eve of his coronation. "But the castle won't be harmed by this degree of fire," Alfonso said. Remembering something crucial, he suddenly clapped his hands and ordered the priests next to him. "Oh yes! That is stashed in the block ahead of here, right? Move it at once to a safe place just in case. It would be terrible if it happened to catch fire."

"Very good, sir!" the priests and monks replied, bowing reverently and scattering to carry out the Pope's orders.

One of the last two monks remaining timidly opened his mouth from beneath his drooping hood: "Most humbly, I must speak," said a monk. "If you move the missile, hadn't you better move the hostage, as well? There is a danger that the enemy will take advantage of the confusion and infiltrate."

"Hmm? Yes, that's true," said Alfonso. The fire continued to rage, and no one knew when it would stop. While fretfully keeping an eye on it, Alfonso nodded absentmindedly. "Move him someplace suitable, but keep guarding him carefully."

"Yes, at once!" the monk replied. Understanding the Pope's direct orders, the monks bowed and turned on their heels. They started to briskly exit the hall, but a thin shadow wavered before their eyes, blocking their way.

"Agents often use the tactic of avoiding direct confrontation. That's because their duty is illegal, and there are many situations in which they can't expect support," echoed Havel's voice, ringed with inviolability. Bright green eyes stared directly at the two monks from his thin face, which was reminiscent of a martyred saint. Father Vaclav Havel slowly shook his head at the two monks. "His Holiness Alessandro is unharmed and will stay that way—as long as you two don't go near him. Abel—Tres?" "Ugh!" exclaimed Abel, the taller monk. Meanwhile, Tres—the short monk—shed his brown robe, revealing two large handguns he'd been gripping. "Change in plans: Father Nightroad, you take Alfonso d'Este hostage." Catching his former comrade in the red light of his laser sights, Gunslinger shouted, "I'll deal with Know Faith!"

"Th-these are Caterina's underlings?" Alfonso shouted, darting through the mass of soldiers, who still didn't have a handle on the situation and were noisy with consternation. As he flinched back, his jaw trembled in shock.

"Please come quietly, Archbishop d'Este!" Abel said. Because his cover was blown, all he could do was take Alfonso hostage and free Alessandro. Abel fiercely closed in on the former archbishop, who used a nearby nun for a shield.

"You're the one who's going to be quiet, Abel," Havel said sharply to the silver-haired priest. Havel's tall body kicked the floor with inhuman strength, and after he somersaulted into the air, he landed like a cat in front of Abel.

"Please step aside, Vaclav!" Abel demanded. "Out of the way, Father Nightroad!" shouted Tres. As Abel's and Tres' voices overlapped, Havel stripped off his cassock and was turning invisible.

"Please wait, Tres! Vaclav, I'm begging you!" pleaded Abel. "I'm telling you to move, Nightroad!" shouted Tres. By the time Tres had pushed Abel away and raised his gun, Havel already had disappeared, but Gunslinger proceeded to mercilessly squeeze the trigger.

Mixed with the sound of flames popping and soldiers shouting, a calm, deep voice echoed: "It's no use, Tres. You can't see me—but I can see you," said Havel.

Tres suddenly kicked the floor hard, launching into a diagonal jump. The next instant, the stone floor he'd jumped from the second before exploded as if it had been shelled.

There was a sound of surprise in the echo that resounded through the air. "Dodged?" said Havel.

As Havel's question still lingered on the breeze, Tres landed, and his gun muzzle was turning, drawing a complex track. "Point twenty-two seconds late," Tres declared.

The thunderous roar of both battle handguns rattled the area, but there also was a faint indication that something was ricocheting in space that shouldn't be.

"What's this? I'm visible?" asked Havel with a slight hint of struggle in his voice. It wasn't a direct hit, but the bullets had caught Know Faith somewhere. "It's Doppler radar? The work of William . . ."

"Point thirty-five seconds late," Tres announced against the sound of explosions coming from his firearms. He accurately fired at his invisible foe without a shred of mercy, causing huge bullet holes to gouge the stone wall Abel and Alfonso were focused on as they watched the strange battle. After firing several shots that he was certain would take out Havel, the expression that washed over the mechanical soldier's face began to reflect his anxiety. "Both bullets missed—target lost."

Know Faith's movements had registered on the Doppler radar until Tres started firing, but they had suddenly disappeared. "The Doppler radar is operating normally. Unable to conjecture. Why can't it grasp Know Faith?" asked Tres.

"I'm due God's blessings. If God leads me, nobody can harm me," said Havel in a low voice that could be heard from inside the flames burning on the ground beside Tres. "It's very difficult to find something that has integrated with its environment. Doppler radar senses the motion of objects, so if I enter the flames and align with their faint wavering, you can't catch me."

"Tres, on your right!" shouted Abel. All of a sudden, an arm wrapped in flames appeared in the air like the hand of God written about in the Bible. It grabbed Tres' arm as he struggled to raise his gun muzzle, hurling the short priest's body into the wall. "Damn, Tres!" Abel cried.

Perhaps because his balance had been damaged, the mechanical soldier remained down facing upward, showing no signs that he was going to get up. Abel instinctively tried to run over to him, but human-shaped flames blocked his path.

"Be quiet, if possible, Abel. I don't want to hurt you," said Havel.

"Vaclav... Why?" Abel groaned at the sight of Havel's pitiful body wrapped in flames. "Why are you going this far?"

An exultant voice interrupted their conversation. "Well done, Havel!" said Alfonso, pushing the nun he'd been using as a shield to the side and peering into Abel's eyes. "Isn't this the insolent individual who turned a gun on me in Rome? Perfect. I'll send you to hell right here and now!" An evil gleam radiated from the small gun the former archbishop snagged from one of the soldiers standing beside him. Pointing it at Abel's face, Alfonso yelled, "Come on, you damned dog of Caterina's! You can be cleansed by my—the Pope's—hand. You should be grateful!"

Gunfire shook the underground hall, but it wasn't Abel who was in agony the next moment.

"Havel . . ." Alfonso groaned, still leaning backward after having been shoved a second before the gunfire began. As he opened his eyes, he saw that smoke was still trailing from the thin priest's hand. "No, it's impossible. Havel, you've . . . betrayed me?" The priest didn't respond to his master's accusatory cry. Maintaining his silence, Havel thrust out a sharp dagger.

"Eek!" shrieked Alfonso, swiftly ducking his head away from the thrusting hand, saving his own life within centimeters. The sharp flash that plunged behind him passed through the space where his head had been a second prior, cutting off some white hairs. Havel's dagger proceeded to attack the face of the nun behind Alfonso, who was trying to ram the tip of a pointed metal pole.

A clear metallic ring reverberated, and the nun's body fell backward as though she were weightless. The pole, which should've been driven through Alfonso's head, instead stuck into Havel's shoulder.

"I'd heard there was a genius assassin in the Bureau of Inquisition," said Havel, pulling a ring needle—a metal pole with holes in it so fingers could pass through the center, which was used as an assassin's weapon in the ancient Far East—from his shoulder. "You're the Lady of Death who's used all kinds of dark weapons to kill hundreds of people, aren't you?"

"I'm Sister Paula, Assistant Chief of the Bureau of Inquisition. Today, I've come to deliver the judgment concerning charges of heresy against former Archbishop Alfonso d'Este and to enforce the sentence," the woman replied in a calm voice.

There was a solemn expression on Sister Paula's meek-looking face. Her voluptuous body, which was sheathed in a dull silver bodysuit worn under the nun's habit she'd cast aside, was quite out of balance with her plain exterior. The bodysuit wasn't her underwear; however, nor was it merely an armored battle suit—it was a fortified soldier's battle assistance system.

"Judgment," The Lady of Death announced to the group who, with the exception of Havel, remained silent in astonishment, "Former Archbishop of Cologne Alfonso d'Este is a heretic and cannot be converted. Accordingly, we will deal with this by immediate death sentence. That's all. Now, I will carry out the sentence."