Of Saints and Shadows (1994) by Christopher Golden Read Free Book Online

door and soundlessly it opened wider. Over the threshold into the darkness, and he was standing still, heart pumping, pushing him forward, brain stalling, tugging him back.
    The wall on his right continued on about twenty feet into the dark, while the wall on his left disappeared into the abyss of this mystery three feet from where he stood. In this little alcove, he made a conscious decision that would change his life, and many others as well. It was not impulse or accident, but choice.
    He stepped forward.
    The room was about twenty by fifteen with no windows. What little light there was emanated from a small lamp—almost a night-light like the one in his bathroom—that was plugged into an outlet next to the only piece of furniture in the room, a short glass case whose top now stood open. Tools beside him on the floor, the intruder reached into the case with both gloved hands.
    Conjecture became conviction became fear became regret and Guiscard struggled to force himself to withdraw from the room. Wanting only to be gone, he turned too quickly, his shoe scraped the floor, his pants rustled softly.
    The intruder’s head snapped around as if twisted by an unseen force, and the cardinal stared at him, frozen by his terror and yet fascinated by it. Expecting attack, he tried to brace himself for flight, but Just then the burglar began to sway. Slowly swaying back and forth, he clutched at his chest and then, without a sound, fell on his face, hitting the marble floor with a loud smack.
    Minutes passed before the cardinal had the courage to approach the body of the stranger lying before him, and when he did, it was carefully. No pulse. He turned over the corpse, far from the first he’d seen. The body was heavy and the man was old; he knew he ought to call someone, but here was a mystery, right before his eyes. A number of mysteries in fact. Knowledge and information were old friends to him by now, but in his most private of thoughts, he had always wished for a real mystery. An almost perverse pleasure swept through him and he tried to fight it down—disrespectful of the dead, you know.
    And what was our thief stealing? Guiscard wanted to know. He went to the case and removed its contents; a single, leather-bound book. Though it was in good condition, he knew instinctively that it was even more ancient than the library’s oldest volumes. Opening the book, he read the Latin title page, which identified the book as The Gospel of Shadows , though the title itself seemed to have been written far more recently than the other text, and the Latin was more modern. He began to read and was at once seized by a feeling unfamiliar to him, an uncontrollable and incredibly powerful emotion it would take weeks for him to identify.
    Dread.
    The feeling grew in proportion to his awe and anger and the minutes passed and he delved ever deeper into the volurne of forbidden knowledge before him. How could the pope keep such insane things on sacred ground? Did he actually believe them? Didn’t the mere fact that the book was hidden mean that the holy father of Rome believed them to be true? And didn’t he know, in the pit of his stomach, didn’t he himself believe it to be true?
    God in heaven, if it were true, what should he do?
    But no heavenly reply broke the predawn silence in that city of ancient secrets. Enough. The cardinal chose his own course. He had perhaps ninety minutes before the sun rose, and he would need every one of them. Book held tightly in his arms, he closed the door gingerly behind him. He arranged his discovery among his other things, went upstairs and across the courtyard, up to his room without notice. He packed a few pieces of clothing, identification, all the money he had, and the book.
    No one questioned him on his way out. When the theft was finally discovered, Cardinal Henri Guiscard was already on a plane bound for New York. His world no longer existed, and he was running headlong into the void.
    A week later he