James Rollins: Map of Bones

As Jason continued his study, the service wound slowly toward the end of the Mass, marked by bells and prayers. At last, it came time for Communion, the breaking of the Eucharistic bread. Parishioners slowly filed from their pews, traveling up the aisles to accept the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

When her time came, Mandy rose along with the others in her pew, slipping her hand from his. “I’ll be right back,” she whispered.

Jason watched his pew empty and the slow procession continue toward the altar. Anxious for Mandy’s return, he rose to stretch his legs. He used the moment to study the statuary that flanked a confessional booth. Now standing, he also regretted that third can of Coke he had consumed. He glanced back toward the cathedral’s vestibule. There was a public restroom outside the nave.

Glancing longingly back there, Jason was the first to spot a group of monks entering the rear of the cathedral, filing through all the back doors. Though in full-length black robes, hooded and belted at the waist, something immediately struck Jason as odd. They moved too quickly, with an assured military precision, slipping into shadows.

Was this some final bit of pageantry?

A glance around the cathedral revealed more cloaked figures at other doors, even beyond the roped transept beside the altar. While keeping their heads bowed piously down, they also seemed to be standing guard.

What was going on?

He spotted Mandy near the altar. She was just accepting her Communion. There were only a handful of parishioners behind her. Body and blood of Christ, Jason could almost lip-read.

Amen , he answered himself.

The Communion finished. The last parishioners returned to their seats, including Mandy. Jason waved her into the pew, then sat next to her.

“What’s with all the monks?” he asked, leaning forward.

She had knelt down with her head bowed. Her only answer was a shushing sound. He sat back. Most of the parishioners were also kneeling, heads bowed. Only a few like Jason, those who had not taken Communion, remained seated. Ahead, the priest finished tidying up, while the elderly archbishop sat atop his raised dais, chin to chest, half dozing.

The mystery and pageantry had died to embers in Jason’s heart. Maybe it was just the pressure of his bladder, but all he wanted to do was get out of here. He even reached to Mandy’s elbow, ready to urge her to leave.

Motion ahead stopped him. The monks on either side of the altar pulled weapons from beneath folds of cloth. Gunmetal shone with oil in the candlelight, snub-nosed Uzis, mounted with long black silencers.

A chatter of gunfire, no louder than a chain-smoker’s staccato cough, spat across the altar. Heads rose along the pews. Behind the altar, the priest, garbed in white, danced with the impacts. It appeared as if he were being pelted with paintballs — crimson paintballs. He fell atop the altar, spilling the chalice of wine along with his own blood.

After a stunned silence, cries rose from the parishioners. People sprang up. The elderly archbishop stumbled from his dais, drawing to his feet in horror. The sudden motion knocked his miter hat to the floor.

Monks swept up the aisles…from the rear and the sides. Orders were shouted and barked in German, French, and English.

Bleiben Sie in Ihren Sitzen…Ne bouge pas…

The voices were muffled, the faces beneath the hoods obscured by half-masks of black silk. But the raised weapons punctuated their orders.

Stay seated or die!

Mandy sat back with Jason. Her hand reached for his. He clutched her fingers and glanced around, unable to blink. All the doors were closed, guarded.

What was going on?

From the pack of armed monks near the main entrance, a figure appeared, dressed like the others, only taller, seeming to rise as if called forth. His cloak was more like a cape. Clearly some leader, he carried no weapon as he strode boldly down the central aisle of the nave.

He met the archbishop at the altar. A heated argument ensued. It took Jason a moment to realize they were speaking in Latin. The archbishop suddenly fell back in horror.

The leader stepped aside. Two men came forward. Guns blazed. The aim was not murder. They fired upon the faceplate that sealed the golden reliquary. Glass etched and pocked, but held. Bulletproof.

“Thieves…” Jason mumbled. This was all an elaborate robbery.

The archbishop seemed to draw strength from the stubbornness of the glass, standing taller. The leader of the monks held out his hand, speaking still in Latin. The archbishop shook his head.

“Lassen Sie dann das Blut Ihrer Schafe Ihre Hände beflecke,” the man said, speaking German now.

Let your sheep’s blood be upon your hands.

The leader waved another two monks to the front. They flanked the sealed vault and lifted large metal disks to either side of the casement. The effect was instantaneous.

The weakened bulletproof glass exploded outward as if shoved by some unseen wind. In the flickering candlelight, the sarcophagus shimmered. Jason felt a sudden pressure, an internal popping of his ears, as if the walls of the cathedral had suddenly pushed inward, squashing all. The pressure deafened his ears; his vision squeezed.

He turned to Mandy.

Her hand was still clasped tightly to his, but her neck was arched back, her mouth stretched open.

“Mandy…”

From the corner of his eye, he saw other parishioners fixed in the same wracked poses. Mandy’s hand began to tremble in his, vibrating like a speaker’s tweeter. Tears ran down her face, turning bloody as he watched. She did not breathe. Her body then jerked and stiffened, knocking his hand free, but not before he felt the bite of an electrical shock arc from her fingertips to his.

He stood up, too horrified to sit.

A thin trail of smoke rose from Mandy’s open mouth.

Her eyes were rolled back to white, but already they were smoldering black at the corners.

Dead.

Jason, muted by terror, searched the cathedral. The same was happening everywhere. Only a few were unscathed: a pair of young children, pinned between their parents, cried and wailed. Jason recognized the unaffected. Those who had not partaken of the Communion bread.

Like him.

He fell back into the shadows by the wall. His motion had gone momentarily unnoticed. His back found a door, one unguarded by the monks. Not a true door.

Jason pulled it open enough to slip inside the confessional booth.

He fell to his knees, crouching down, hugging himself.

Prayers came to his lips.

Then, just as suddenly, it ended. He felt it in his head. A pop. A release of pressure. The walls of the cathedral sighing back.

He was crying. Tears ran cold over his cheeks.

He risked peeking out a hole in the confessional door.

Jason stared, finding a clear view of the nave and the altar. The air reeked of burnt hair. Cries and wails still echoed, but now the chorus came from only a handful of throats. Those still living. One figure, from his ragged garb apparently a homeless man, stumbled out of the pew and ran down a side aisle. Before taking ten steps, he was shot in the back of the head. One shot. His body sprawled.

Oh God…oh God…

Biting back sobs, Jason kept his eyes focused toward the altar.

Four monks lifted the golden sarcophagus from its shattered case. The slain priest’s body was kicked from the altar and replaced by the reliquary. The leader slipped a large cloth sack from beneath his cloak. The monks opened the reliquary’s lid and upended the contents into the bag. Once empty, the priceless sarcophagus was toppled to the floor and abandoned with a crash.

The leader shouldered his burden and headed back down the central aisle with the stolen relics.