David Morrell - The Covenant Of The Flame

'You already mentioned it. What we're here to discuss… Hell.'

Tess blinked. A sharp pain attacked her forehead. 'I don't understand.'

' Hell ,' the stranger emphasized. 'Where the vermin belong. Where we've devoted ourselves to send them.'

'I still don't…' Abruptly Tess dreaded what the stranger was going to tell her. She braced herself for another assault on her sanity. 'Why do you keep calling them vermin?'

'No other word applies. They breed like rats. They infest like lice. They're vile, contemptible, destructive, loathesome, morally filthy, worse than plague-ridden fleas, spreading their evil, vicious, repugnant heresy.'

The litany of hate jolted Tess's mind. She lurched back in her chair, as if she'd been pushed. 'It's time. You promised to explain. Keep your word. Who are you? In the van, I said I thought you were priests, but…'

'Yes. Priests. But more than priests. Our mandate makes us unique. We're enforcers.'

'What?'

The stranger nodded, his eyes gleaming.

Tess struggled to ask him, ' For …?'

'The Inquisition.'

Tess had trouble making her throat work. Her consciousness swirled.' What are you talking about ? That's crazy! The Inquisition ended in the Middle Ages!'

'No,' the stranger said. That's not correct. The Inquisition began in the Middle Ages. But it persisted for several hundred years. In fact, it wasn't officially dissolved until eighteen thirty-four.'

Tess winced. She couldn't adjust to the realization that so cruel an institution – the relentless, widespread persecution of anyone who didn't follow strict doctrine – had survived until so recently. Its victims had been tortured, urged to recant their heresy, and if they refused, burned at the stake.

Flames! she thought.

Everything led back to flames!

The stake of the Inquisition! The torch of Mithras!

But there was more. Tess wasn't prepared as the neutral-faced stranger, his eyes gleaming brighter, continued.

'You'll note I used the word "officially",' he said. 'In truth, the Inquisition did not end. Un officially, amid the greatest secrecy, it remained in action. Because its necessary work had not yet been completed. Because the vermin had not yet been eradicated.'

'You're telling us' – Craig sounded appalled – 'that a core of Inquisitors followed secret instructions from the Church and persisted in hunting down anyone who strayed from orthodox Catholicism?'

'No, Lieutenant, that's not what I'm telling you.'

'Then…?'

'The Church was firm in its order to disband the Inquisition. No secret instructions were given. But secrecy was followed nonetheless, on the part of Inquisitors who felt that their crucial mission could not in conscience be interrupted. Before they died, they trained others to take up the mission, and they in turn trained others. An unbroken chain, until we now train others but more important fight the enemy.'

Tess slumped. 'Too much.' She fought to retain her sanity. Too damned much. Just because your victims don't go to mass on Sunday?'

'Don't trivialize! It makes no difference to me who goes to mass on Sunday. Anyone who worships God, the one God, in his or her own way, is not my concern. But those who believe in an evil god in combat with the true good Lord are by definition as evil as the god they hate. Mithraism.' The stranger almost spat. 'Albigensians. Dualists. The survivors of Montsegur. They are my enemy. They managed to escape. They took their statue with them. They hid. They festered. They spread. And now they're out of control, or to be exact, about to assume control. They killed your friend. They killed your mother! They want to kill you! I won't rest until I destroy them!'

'Okay, just a minute. Calm down,' Craig said. 'Back up. What do you mean they're about to assume control?'

'After they escaped from Montsegur, the small group of heretics fled from southwestern France, trying to put as much distance as possible between them and their hunters. They headed farther south into Spain, where they sought refuge in an isolated mountain valley, the range that we now call the Picos de Europa. There, they determined to replenish their cult, to learn Spain's language and customs, to try to blend, which they did successfully, practising their contemptible rites in secret. For more than two hundred years, they flourished, eventually sending contingents to other sections of Spain. After all, in case their central nest was discovered, the other nests would still have a chance to preserve their repulsive beliefs.'

'Pamplona and Merida,' Tess said.

The stranger's gaze intensified. 'Why do you mention those areas?'

'Priscilla. The woman your men took to the clinic. She told me,' Tess said. 'In fact, almost everything I know about Mithraism comes from her. She used to be a professor. She's an expert in - '

'Answer my question. What do you know about those areas?'

'On a research trip, Priscilla saw Mithraic statues in caves near those cities.'

'Truly, I never expected… You've told me something I didn't know. We've been trying to find the central nest. Now you've pointed me toward possible other nests.'

'Answer my question,' Craig said. 'What do you mean they're about to assume control?'

'After two hundred years, the heretics felt secure. But then in fourteen seventy-eight, the Spanish Inquisition began. Earlier there'd been purges throughout various other countries in Europe, but the Spanish Inquisition was by far the most extreme. Enforcers hunted heretics everywhere. No village was too small to avoid a purifier's attention. But the vermin – resourceful, resilient – fled again. To northern Africa, specifically Morocco. Taking utmost precautions, they came together for a critical secret meeting in which they decided that in order to protect their religion, they needed to counterattack , to rely on every devious means possible to guarantee their survival. The final decision was to train representatives to leave the nest, conceal their true identity, and seek power, to imbed themselves within society and gain sufficient political influence to stop the persecution. To infest! As you might expect, their initial efforts were minor. But since the fourteen hundreds, the heretics have spread, multiplied, and infiltrated every important institution in Europe and America. They've risen to the highest levels of government. It was due to their influence that the Inquisition was finally dissolved. And now the crisis is universal. They're about to assume complete control, to impose their vicious errors upon the world.'

'Obviously you're exaggerating,' Craig said.

'Hardly. It's impossible to exaggerate the extremes to which they've gone. The vermin are convinced that the evil god is destroying the planet. They feel an urgency as the year two thousand looms. The millennium and all it implies. Crisis. Apocalypse. Not satisfied with manipulating governments, they've organized their own Inquisition. They've sent assassins to eliminate anyone they feel is dominated by the evil god. You must have noticed the pattern. The killings. Everywhere. In Australia. Hong Kong. Brazil. Germany. Kenya. The North Atlantic. America. Industrialists. Developers. Corporate managers. Drift-net fisherman. Ivory hunters. The captain of the oil tanker that polluted and nearly destroyed the Great Barrier Reef. The vermin are executing anyone they blame for the greed, negligence, and poisons that threaten the planet.'

'My God,' Tess said, 'you're talking about the article I've been working on! Radical environmentalists attacking…!'