The Judas Strain - James Rollins [121]
He began to set off, but Vigor touched the boy’s shoulder. “Does the castle have a chapel?” he asked.
The boy frowned for a moment, then brightened again with his perpetual smile. “Chapple! You are thirsty.”
Vigor smiled. “No. A church.”
The boy’s brow pinched, but his smile refused to fade. “Ah, you are Christian. That’s okay. All good. Muslims like the Bible. It’s a holy book, too. We have saints, too. Muslim saints. But the Prophet Mohammed is best.” He shrugged sheepishly.
Vigor squeezed his shoulder, recognizing the boy was struggling between being a good tourist guide and being a good Muslim.
“The church?” he asked again.
The boy nodded vigorously. “The room of the crosses.” He led them toward the dark opening, still babbling in a furious stream.
Kowalski shook his head at the boy’s antics and set off after them. “He needs to cut caffeine out of his life.”
Gray smiled, a rarity, sunshine through thunderclouds. “Let’s go,” he whispered to Seichan as he passed. He brushed close. His hand grazed hers.
She almost reflexively grabbed it. Instead, angry at herself, she clenched her fingers. But her reaction wasn’t all fury or frustration.
There was guilt, too.
She hated lying to this man.
5:18 P.M.
“OH, THIS IS going to be a pain in the ass,” Kowalski said.
Gray did not argue.
The chapel rested on the first floor of the castle, all the way to the rear. After passing through the entrance hall, they had needed flashlights to traverse the low, back passages. It grew quieter the deeper they traveled. The air went still. The only movement was from a few nesting rats, scurrying from the beams of their lights.
The hall had ended at a low door, requiring not just ducking one’s head, but also bowing at the waist. Vigor had been the first to enter the room with their guide. A small gasp escaped him as he straightened inside. Gray had followed next.
He stood now, splashing his beam around the dark chapel.
Cut high into the far wall, a cross-shaped window allowed in some sunlight, but not much. The window was no more than a pair of crossed slits, certainly too narrow to squeeze through, but maybe another place from which to defend the castle.
The window cast a cross of sunlight across a waist-high slab of stone.
The chapel’s altar.
The room was otherwise empty.
But not unadorned.
Across every surface—walls, floor, roof, even the altar—crosses had been carved into the stone. Hundreds, if not thousands of them. They varied from ones no larger than a thumbprint to ornate, life-size giants.
“No wonder they call it the room of crosses,” Vigor said.
“Yeah, real serial-killer chic,” Kowalski commented sourly. “Must be all that island inbreeding.”
Gray studied the expanse of crosses, remembering the faint cross inscribed into the marble tile in Hagia Sophia. He pulled out the silver cross, Friar Agreer’s crucifix. “Now all we have to do is find the one that matches this.”
Vigor stepped over and asked Fee’az to leave them alone here.
He seemed confused until the monsignor pointed to the cross in Gray’s fingers.
“We must pray,” the monsignor explained. “We will come out when we are done.”
The boy quickly stepped away, nodding. He could not dart out quick enough, plainly fearful of being caught while a Christian ceremony was performed. From his speed, he must suspect they’d be sacrificing babies.
Once they were alone, Gray scratched his head, momentarily daunted, too conscious of the press of time. “One of these crosses must be an exact match to Friar Agreer’s crucifix. We must find which one.”
He split the party up.
Four of them, four walls.
And that still left floor and ceiling.
Gray placed the cross on the altar, readily available for each person to grab and compare. He also ripped four pages out of his notebook and traced the cross’s shape, crib sheets for each.
As they all searched, Gray noted the shift of the sunlight across the altar, creeping steadily as the sun set, as time escaped him. He finished his wall. Nothing. Sweat poured; his clothes clung to his skin. He started on the floor. The others,