James Rollins: The Eye of God: A Sigma Force Novel

She wept for the world.

A world now doomed to burn.

Present Day

November 17, 4:33 P.M. CET

Rome, Italy

It seemed even the stars were aligned against him.

Bundled against the winter’s bite, Monsignor Vigor Verona crossed through the shadows of Piazza della Pilotta. Despite his heavy woolen sweater and coat, he shivered—not from the cold but from a growing sense of dread as he stared across the city.

A blazing comet shone in the twilight sky, hovering above the dome of St. Peter’s, the highest point in all of Rome. The celestial visitor—the brightest in centuries—outshone the newly risen moon, casting a long, scintillating tail across the stars. Such sights were often historically viewed as harbingers of misfortune.

He prayed that wasn’t the case here.

Vigor clutched the package more tightly in his arms. He had rewrapped it clumsily in its original parcel paper, but his destination was not far. The towering façade of the Pontifical Gregorian University rose before him, flanked by wings and outbuildings. Though Vigor was still a member of the Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology, he only taught the occasional class as a guest lecturer. He now served the Holy See as the prefect of the Archivio Segretto Vaticano, the Vatican’s secret archives. But the burden he carried now came to him not in his role as professor or prefect, but as friend.

A gift from a dead colleague.

He reached the main door to the university and marched across the white marble atrium. He still kept an office at the school, as was his right. In fact, he often came here to catalog and cross-reference the university’s vast book depository. Rivaling even the city’s National Library, it held over a million volumes, housed in the adjacent six-story tower, including a large reserve of ancient texts and rare editions.

But nothing here or at the Vatican’s Archives compared to the volume Vigor carried now—nor what had accompanied it in the parcel. It was why he had sought the counsel of the only person he truly trusted in Rome.

As Vigor maneuvered stairs and narrow halls, his knees began to complain. In his midsixties, he was still fit from decades of archaeological fieldwork, but over the past few years, he had been too long buried in the archives, imprisoned behind desks and stacks of books, shackled by papal responsibility.

Am I up for this task, my Lord?

He must be.

At last, Vigor reached the university’s faculty wing and spotted a familiar figure leaning against his office door. His niece had beaten him here. She must have come straight from work. She still wore her Carabinieri uniform of dark navy slacks and jacket, both piped in scarlet, with silver epaulettes on her shoulders. Not yet thirty, she was already a lieutenant for the Comando Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale, the Cultural Heritage Police, who oversaw the trafficking of stolen art and relics.

Pride swelled through him at the sight of her. He had summoned her as much out of love as for her expertise in such matters. He trusted no one more than her.

“Uncle Vigor.” Rachel gave him a quick hug. She then leaned back, finger-combing her dark hair back over one ear and appraising him with those sharp caramel eyes. “What was so urgent?”

He glanced up and down the hall, but at this hour on a Sunday, no one was about, and all of the offices appeared dark. “Come inside and I’ll explain.”

Unlocking the door, he ushered her across the threshold. Despite his esteemed position, his office was little more than a cramped cell, lined by towering cases overflowing with books and stacks of magazines. His small desk rested against the wall under a window as thin as a castle’s arrow slit. The newly risen moon cast a silver shaft into the chaos found here.

Only after they were both inside and the door closed did he risk clicking on a lamp. He let out a small sigh of relief, reassured and comforted by the familiar.

“Help me clear a space on my desk.”

Once that was done, Vigor placed his burden down and folded back the brown parcel wrap, revealing a small wooden crate.

“This arrived for me earlier today. With no return address, only the name of the sender.”

He turned back a corner of the wrapping to show her.

“Father Josip Tarasco,” Rachel read aloud. “Am I supposed to know who that is?”

“No, nor should you.” He stared over at her. “He was declared dead over a decade ago.”

Her brows pinched, and her posture stiffened. “But the package is too pristine to have been lost in the mail for that long.” She turned that discerning gaze back on him. “Could someone have forged his name as some cruel hoax?”

“I don’t see why. In fact, I think that’s why the sender addressed this package by hand. So I could verify it came from Father Tarasco. We were dear friends. I compared the writing on the parcel to a smattering of old letters still in my possession. The handwriting matched.”

“So if he’s still alive, why was he declared dead?”

Vigor sighed. “Father Tarasco vanished during a research trip to Hungary. He was preparing a comprehensive paper on the witch hunts there during the early eighteenth century.”

“Witch hunts?”

Vigor nodded. “Back in the early 1700s, Hungary was beset by a decade-long drought, accompanied by famine and plague. A scapegoat was needed, someone to blame. Over four hundred accused witches were killed in a span of five years.”

“And what about your friend? What became of him?”

“You must understand, when Josip left for Hungary, the country had only recently shaken free of Soviet control. It was still a volatile time there, a dangerous place to be asking too many questions, especially in rural areas. The last I heard from him was a message left on my machine. He said he was on to something disturbing concerning a group of twelve witches—six women and six men—burned in a small town in southern Hungary. He sounded both scared and excited. Then nothing after that. He was never heard from again. Police and Interpol investigated for a full year. After an additional four years of silence, he was finally declared dead.”

“So then he must have gone into hiding. But why do that? And more important, why surface a decade later, why now?”

With his back to his niece, Vigor hid a smile of pride, appreciating Rachel’s ability to get to the heart of the matter so quickly.

“The answer to your last question seems evident from what he sent,” he said. “Come see.”

Vigor took a deep breath and opened the hinged lid of the crate. He carefully removed the first of the package’s two objects and placed it in the shaft of moonlight atop his desk.

Rachel took an involuntary step backward. “Is that a skull? A human skull?”

“It is.”

She moved past her initial surprise to step closer. She quickly noted the hen-scratched inscription across the bone of the cranium, following the spiral of its course with a fingertip without touching.

“And this writing?” she asked.

“Jewish Aramaic. I believe this relic is an example of early Talmudic magic practiced by Babylonian Jews.”

“Magic? Like witchcraft?”

“In a way. Such spells were wards against demons or entreaties for help. Over the years, archaeologists have unearthed thousands of such artifacts—mostly incantation bowls, but also a handful of skulls like this. The Berlin museum holds two such relics. Others are in private hands.”

“And this one? You said Father Tarasco had an interest in witches, which I assume extended to an interest in occult objects.”