The Omega Factor(5)

She shook her head. “I have to stop the fire.”

“Help is on the way. They’ll do it. Let’s go.”

She would not budge. “Nick, go after her—”

Her?

Two policemen burst into the room.

“I’m okay,” Kelsey said. “Get my—laptop back.”

One of the uniforms came close to help, and the other wielded a fire extinguisher that he began to use on the flames.

“Please,” she said. “Go.”

Part of him said to stay and make sure she was okay.

But another part knew what Kelsey wanted.

And it wasn’t comfort or protection.

So he hustled off into the smoke.





Chapter 2

Carcassonne, France

9:00 p.m.



Bernat de Foix dropped his napkin on the plate and turned his attention to the young man sitting across from him. They’d just broken a three-day fast. A last tribulation, all part of what they’d both been working toward for over a year. Fitting that it would finally occur here, within this ancient fortified city.

Humans had lived on this mount adjacent to the slow-moving river Aude since the Neolithic Age. It had been the Visigoths who founded the grand walled Cité de Carcassonne as an oppidum on the historic trade routes that once linked the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea. All that former glory, though, was gone. Now it all existed as a mere paraphrase of what had once been. Its hotels, souvenir shops, and cafés were busy year-round accommodating tourists wanting to experience the past. The Hôtel de la Cité was the only five-star establishment within the olden walls. A mix of the neo-Gothic and art deco styles, it stood in a quiet corner beside Saint-Nazaire Basilica. Tonight, he’d specifically avoided all of the popular restaurants scattered across the cité and dined in his suite, requesting that Andre Labelle join him.

“I must tell the hotel chef how much I enjoyed the meal,” he said to the younger man.

And he meant every word.

The stuffed courgette blossom in tomato velouté had been the perfect starter. The local trout, baked with mushrooms and sweetbread, the ideal second course, augmented with some roasted cauliflower in brown butter. Dessert had been particularly exquisite. Crème brûlée with hazelnuts, topped with chocolate sauce and a scoop of caramel ice cream.

A feast fitting for this grand occasion.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

Andre nodded. “I have been for a long time.”

“And you wish to fully accept?”

“I do.”

“You know what that entails?”

“In every way.”

“Your past sins? Have you atoned for them? Are you remorseful? Prepared to lead an exemplary life from this day forward?”

“I am.”

He was pleased. “Then proceed.”

Andre rose from the chair and dutifully knelt on the carpet. “Thou just God of all good souls, thou who art never deceived, who dost never lie or doubt, grant me to know what thou knowest, to love what thou dost love, for I am not of this world, and this world is not of me, and I fear lest I meet death in this realm of an alien evil god.”

The declaration had been delivered in perfect Occitan, the language in which the prayer had first been uttered more than eight hundred years ago. Precious words that drew a stark contrast between the just God of all good souls and the alien evil god of the physical world.

“If God wills it,” Bernat said, “good souls, like yourself, can have knowledge of the world of the Father. Whether we can have knowledge of the other world, in this life, or only in the next, remains to be seen.”

Andre’s head remained bowed, eyes to the floor. Reverent. Respectful.

“Do you wish the consolamentum?” he asked.

“With all that I am,” Andre said.

“Have you properly prepared?”

The head nodded. “I am ready.”

“For every duty that might be required?”

“Every one.”

Andre had begun his journey three years ago as a credente, a mere believer. He had shown both promise and desire, so when he’d requested further training—to test his sense of faith with rigorous examinations—the Elders had been pleased. He’d been allowed to participate in seminary, the maison des hérétiques, where his devotion had been honed and tested. Now, after lengthy fasts, vigils, and prayer, he was ready for the final step.

Only a Perfectus could administer the consolamentum, the laying on of hands, which meant that every new Perfectus stood at the end of a chain linking them all the way back to the apostles and Christ himself. The ceremony marked the transition from credente to one of the elect. Not a cleric or a priest or anything special, merely believers who’d chosen to become teachers, their task to aid other believers in becoming part of the Perfecti, too. Each one lived a solitary life, at the last phase of their worldly existence, practicing self-denial, finally assured that they would never again return to the physical world. Long ago their name had been born as an insult, reflecting how the Holy Roman Church saw them as “perfect heretics.” But they’d kept the label as a badge of honor, out of defiance, signifying an element of completeness in their spiritual lives.

“Shall we keep going?” he asked.