After a lifetime of killing with impunity, it seemed odd to Bazin that his last act – sparing the lives of Ross, Zeb Quinn and Hackett – should be the one for which he was punished. He was glad, though. As Ross was fond of saying, deeds were everything, and this one had been a rare act of selfless good in a life of selfish evil. As Bazin glanced at Ross's motionless body, however, he realized that this last attempt to save him, the others and the garden appeared to have been in vain.
As his lifeblood leaked on to the rock, he called to his half-brother, 'I know I sinned, Leo, but I came to you for absolution. I wanted to do the right thing. God may still forgive my sins but He'll never forgive yours. You've turned Eden into a wasteland in His name. Look around you, Leo. This isn't Heaven. This is Hell, and it's of your making.' Bazin knew he was close to death now, but he felt no fear. Not as he had in the clinic when he was ill.
Torino shook his head sorrowfully. 'You're dying, Marco. I tried to help you, I really did. But you turned against God and now you'll be damned for ever.'
Watching Torino bend to retrieve the gun, Bazin blinked at the shapes moving in the shadows behind him. As death closed in he turned again to Ross and something he saw made him smile. He called again to his brother. 'You should fear Hell more than I do, Leo.'
Torino laughed. 'I'm not going to Hell.'
Bazin summoned his final breath. 'No, Leo. Hell is coming for you.' Marco's last breath sounded like a sigh of relief. Torino felt sad at his half-brother's passing – but only because he had thrown away his last chance of redemption. If he had kept the courage of his convictions and helped secure the Source for the Church, he would have saved millions of souls instead of sacrificing his own.
It was time to finish this. Torino retrieved the gun from the rock floor and turned to Kelly. He peered into the gloom. Kelly was no longer there. Neither was Torino's discarded backpack, which contained the Source fragment. Panic surged through him. He whirled round and saw something moving in the half-light. He fired a shot into the dark.
'Kelly,' he shouted, 'there's nowhere to run. Give back the fragment.' Even as he spoke the words, Torino understood that the other man was trying to do exactly that: give it back. He was heading for the tunnel of blood. He had to keep to the shadows, though, to avoid being seen. Torino didn't. He ran directly for the tunnel. Ross kept to the dark recesses until the last minute, but as soon as he broke cover and ran into the tunnel entrance he saw that he was too late. The tunnel was darker than it had been. Much of the luminous crystal had fallen from the walls and ceiling and lay in the stream or under fallen rock. But Torino was still visible. He stood five feet inside the entrance, smiling, his gun pointing directly at him.
'I have my brother's blood on my hands because of you, Dr Kelly. Now you see why I can't let scientists like you misinterpret this place with your poisonous theories. If you could use the garden to turn my brother against me, think of how your fellow scientists could have used it to turn the faithful against the Holy Mother Church.' He stepped closer and Ross clutched the backpack to him, feeling the warmth of the fragment within it. 'Give me the backpack, Dr Kelly.'
Ross looked up and froze.
'Have you nothing to say, Dr Kelly? No more arrogant attacks on the Church and my faith?' Torino seemed to want Ross to argue with him again, as if it might make shooting him easier, sweeter. He looked disappointed when Ross said nothing. 'Give me the backpack. I want the Source.'
'I know you do, but there's a problem,' Ross said. 'A big problem.'
'What's that?'
'I think they want it, too.'
Torino smiled. 'You mean those creatures behind you?' he said, pointing past Ross. 'I have a gun. Your friends don't frighten me.' Ross glanced over his shoulder. The ranks of silent nymphs blocking the tunnel behind him no longer seemed friendly. They were angry. 'Stop wasting time,' said Torino. 'Give me the backpack.'
Ross shook his head as calmly as he could. 'Actually, I wasn't talking about the ones behind me.' He pointed past Torino. 'I'm more worried about the ones behind you.'
'Do I look stupid?'
Ross didn't answer.
Torino glanced over his shoulder. And froze. The tunnel behind him was a seething mass of serpentine shapes. Some were tuberous, plant-like growths that ended in pods – like those depicted in the Voynich. Others were flailing rock worms that ended in grotesque, bullet-shaped heads, complete with red eyes and razor teeth. Torino raised his gun towards the creatures – or creature, as Ross now understood the hydra to be. 'I wouldn't fire at it if I were you, Father General,' he whispered. 'That's Father Orlando's Tree of Life and Death. That creature draws life from the monolith and delivers death to protect it. I'm guessing it's pretty pissed at what you did to the monolith and the garden. I suggest we give back the fragment.'
'The monolith is a gift from God,' Torino hissed. 'It belongs to the Holy Mother Church.'
'As I've been trying to tell you, I don't think God or the Church has much to do with this.'
Torino pushed the gun into Ross's face. 'Shut up and give me the fragment. It belongs to Rome, to the Church. Not these demons.'
Ross paused, then crouched, reached into the backpack and pulled out the fragment.
'Give it me!' demanded Torino.
Ross held out the fragment to him, then threw it past him so that it landed further up the path, in front of the swirling hydra.
For a second nothing moved.
Then Torino leapt on the fragment – as the branches of the hydra stretched out towards it.
Then the nymphs poured into the entrance, pushing Ross up the tunnel, towards the hydra's waiting arms.
81
Torino was so focused on the fragment that when he grasped it and pulled its luminous warmth to his chest, he felt a rush of almost orgasmic joy. Though God might have been testing him, he knew he would overcome whatever demons or evil stood in his way and secure the Source for the Holy Mother Church. Even as two serpentine tentacles wrapped themselves round his leg and neck, he didn't despair. That this demon was attacking him only reinforced the righteousness of his cause. As he struggled, other tentacles wrapped him in their embrace, dragging him up the tunnel.
He watched Kelly, surrounded by angry nymphs. For a second their eyes met and the horror in the scientist's eyes amused him. He almost felt sorry for him. Kelly still didn't understand that Torino had nothing to fear. He gripped the fragment tighter, confident that God would deliver him from this evil. He thought of the Jesuit motto: ad majorem dei gloriam, for the greater glory of God. As Superior General of the Society of Jesus he was only doing his duty: claiming the Source for the greater glory of God.
As the sinewy tentacles tightened their grip and dragged him away from Kelly, Torino scrabbled on the floor, trying to find anything that would give him purchase. But the tentacles were too strong. The worms hovered around him but didn't strike, which reinforced his belief that God was protecting him. Even demons, whose purpose was to test the righteous, served and obeyed God.
After passing the scant remains of Petersen's corpse and numerous nymphs' bodies, Torino was delivered to the crystal cavern that housed the Source. Despite the devastation, the monolith and the hydra were seemingly untouched. A crowd of white nymphs stood motionless, watching, humming a two-note refrain like a perverse choir of angels.
Suddenly the tentacles released him. The hydra and the nymphs fell silent and still, as though waiting. Clutching the fragment to his chest, he scrabbled to his feet before the monolith and clasped his hands in prayer. 'In the name of the Holy Mother Church I claim this gift from God. I vow to deliver it from the demons that surround it and use its power to spread God's will throughout the world.'
One of the nymphs approached him and extended its hands, as if expecting something from him. He shook his head. 'This belongs to the Holy Mother Church.' He pointed to the monolith. 'This all belongs to Rome.'
