Chapter 1: Missionary Position
The one nice thing about temporarily moving to the Vatican was that everyone had finally stopped calling me a saint.
Instead, they called me a wonder-worker. Which I suppose is an improvement.
It had only been two months since I had been brutally beaten and broken at the hands of a warlock. I was up and walking faster than anyone had expected, including myself and my doctors. Some people thought this was great since that meant I would be away and out of the line of fire until I was no longer politically inconvenient. My wife, six months pregnant, was less than thrilled.
My miraculously fast healing concerned me for different reasons. I hadn’t spent months praying for God to heal me. I prayed that I may be of most and best use to him. This resulted in my rapid healing and being shipped off to Rome.
This is why, as I sat and waited in a Bishop’s office, I was quite concerned about what might be in store for me.
Across from the desk sat Auxiliary Bishop Xavier O’Brien. He was a tall man with graying black hair, slightly ashen complexion, and a cigarette dangling from his mouth. His solid black cassock looked immaculate, despite the ashes all over the desk. His dark brown eyes studied me for a long moment.
“You’re the wonder-worker, huh?”
I shrugged. “Apparently, your eminence.”
O’Brien waved it away. “Call me XO. Everyone else does. Tell me, what have you done?”
“So far, only the historically verifiable abilities.”
XO arched a brow and just gave me a cynical glance over his cigarette. “God-given abilities have been credited for everything from miracles to the ability to litigate a successful tort. You’ll have to be more specific.”
I sighed. He was being pedantic and picky, but he was right. There were too many people using the words “God-given gifts” a little too casually.
“Thus far, I have been able to manifest several duplicates at once. I have levitated a little. Once, I prayed hard enough that my wife recovered from a slit throat. I have drunk poison without ill effects, aside from a trip to the bathroom. Largely, I can smell evil. And once...” I hesitated at the last one.
XO prompted me with a “come here” gesture.
I sighed. “I once woke up with an angel telling me to smite agents of Satan, right before a SWAT team broke into my house to kill my family and me.”
XO nodded slowly. “For the record, those are referred to as charisms or spiritual gifts. I know it’s not exactly easy to look up ‘what to do if you’re a saint’ on Wikipedia, but you should get the terminology down if you’re going to work here. There’s words of wisdom, knowledge, increased faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, etc. In your case, you have the ability to tell the difference between a demon and an angel. You understand any languages you never took classes for?”
I held back my laugh. “I took Latin in high school. I know most romance languages without a problem.”
XO rolled his eyes. “You’re from New York, all right. Okay, smart ass, do you speak in tongues?”
“Not that I’ve noticed.”
XO nodded, as though he dealt with people like me all the time. “Now, just to be clear, you’re part of the NYPD foreign intelligence division, loaned out to us.”
I nodded. He apparently didn’t want to discuss my abilities in depth. I didn’t blame him. I didn’t want to talk about it all that often, anyway. “I don’t know if it’s officially or unofficially, but yes. That would be the case as I understand it. It was one way to get me out of town.”
XO nodded. “Good. I’m an old-school Jesuit. Back when being a Jesuit meant that we were loyal directly to the Pope, not whatever crackpot liberation theology guru was hot at the time. That not only means that I have two Doctorates, one in the Philosophy of Science and one in canon law. They mean that details are important to me.” XO tapped out the cigarette in an ashtray, reached for another, and continued. “At the end of each mission, we want to send you back home to New York. Whether you go or not is up to you. But I understand you have a daughter on the way.”
I nodded, letting him continue.
“It’ll do good for you to recharge. We’d fly the family out to you, but as I recall, flying pregnant women is a risky proposition.”
I nodded. I wasn’t happy being separated from Mariel and Jeremy, but my wife and son understood. Between scrubbing the internet of the million-dollar bounty on my head, and the people who were miffed that their mayoral candidate had been dragged into Hell, I was not the most popular cop in all of New York. And that was with me being a ... well, saint. Metaphorically.
“What’s the first step?” I asked. “Are there protocols for me to learn? Is there an immediate threat to look into?”
XO smiled slyly as he lit up. “We’ll need you to leave for London tomorrow morning.”
I arched my brows, only slightly surprised. I knew I would be sent out soon, the moment I healed up. I hadn’t quite thought that it would mean immediately after I had healed.
“What are the particulars?” I asked. “What’s there?”
“For your first mission, we thought we’d keep it simple. Armed robbery.” XO said, his smile mischievous.
I cocked my head, confused. “Really? From where? A church?” I tried to think of any major Catholic churches in London, but I could only think of places that were stolen by King Henry VIII and his contemporaries.
“There’s been a break-in at the British Museum.”
I nodded calmly, but my mind tried to figure out what it might have been. “And?”
“The stolen object has writing older than anything that anyone has ever seen before. People on the ground are worried. For all they know, it could be something for summoning Cthulhu.”
I frowned. Now I was deeply confused. “I thought Cthulhu was supposed to be an Elder god made up by HP Lovecraft.”
XO scoffed. “Please. It’s a demon without the human meat shield that protects us from seeing their horrible visage. Trust me, if you thought an angel of the Lord was terrifying, you should see an angel from Hell. Those who gaze upon them often go mad.”
I nodded slowly. There was a moment of silence between the two of us. I waited for him to say something, but he didn’t. “Anything else?”
“You’ll end up with more data from our people on the ground.”
I cocked my head at him. “You have an advance team there already?”
XO smiled. He left his cigarette in his mouth as he spread his arms wide. “We’re the Catholic church. We’re everywhere you don’t want us to be.”
I laughed. “I’ve made that joke myself. So at the end of the day, I’m being sent over there to be a Vatican Ninja?”
XO’s gleeful expression faded and his hands lowered. His eyes narrowed and wouldn’t meet my gaze. They went ... shifty is the only way I could describe it. “Why no .... of course not... we don’t have ninjas here. Who do you think we are, anyway?”
I rolled my eyes. “Let’s not even have that conversation. I read that book.”
XO sighed. “I know. So did a lot of other people. With a book called A Pius Man, you’d think it would have been more about our current Pope Pius than everything else.”
I couldn’t disagree with him. But I was perturbed by going into a situation where I would be acting as a spy in a foreign country ... with so little information to start with. I technically didn’t care that I was going there as a spy, since the NYPD is the only police department I knew of who had their own foreign intelligence. Though “Vatican Spy” had a nice ring to him.
“That’s it?” I asked. “Is that all I need to know?”
XO paused a moment. He took the cigarette out of his mouth, lowered it, and leaned forward. “Let me be clear. You’re going to go into a situation where we don’t know what the problem is, or why it concerns us. I’m not sure if it’s going to tell you anything for your own good to learn that sensitives on the ground are having nightmares so terrifying, they’re reporting them to the Bishops.”
I latched onto one word from all that. “Sensitives? You mean psychics?”
XO shrugged. “After a fashion. Mysticism is a thing, and it’s coming back into fashion, Detective Nolan. You’re not the only one who’s been gifted with charisms. But so far, you’re one of the few who can double as an operative.”
I scratched the back of my head. I was getting used to the stranger stuff, honestly, but this was a little much. “So I’m going to investigate the theft of a rock because people are having bad dreams?”
XO jabbed the cigarette at me. “Listen, buddy. These are people who have healed many with good intentions and predicted the end of the Soviet Union, and, after that, predicted the oncoming Jihadi threat. They are trying to have a good night’s sleep, only to wake up screaming about how the shadows are coming alive to drag the entire city into Hell. There are little old ladies who practically eat, drink, and sleep adoration who are afraid to go to sleep unless they’re inside a church, because of the Incubi in their dreams and the scent of brimstone upon waking. There are exorcists who have dispelled demons terrified about towering beasts of black flame that try to devour their souls—while they’re still awake. So don’t even think we’re sending you there because you’re a simple morale boost. Something. Is. Wrong.”
I held my hands up in surrender. “Okay. Thanks. I usually prefer a little bit more to go on. I’ll make do.”
XO nodded. “Yes. You will. Your contact on the ground will fill you in on everything we have. Besides, you’re not going to want nightmares before you get there. Anything else?”
I stood, figuring that this was the end of the discussion. “Yes, I need to know when the next mass is.”
XO scoffed. “This is the Vatican. We have hot and cold running masses. You want this evening or tomorrow morning?”
“Both would be preferred.”
XO blinked, taken aback. “Really?”
I refrained from rolling my eyes. “I attend daily mass now. I have since my last battle.” I shrugged. It was no big deal. “It’s an hour a day I don’t spend on paperwork.”