Read Soldiers of God

There was a chill in the winter air, but fires still burned south of the city and smoke drifted over the spires of the Vatican as Martin Klein walked by the River Tiber in the dawn. Italian public services were so under-funded that municipalities allowed the burning of rubbish, perhaps hoping that the noxious fumes drifting over government buildings in Rome would spur action. But all it did was cast the city in an eerie haze.

Crimson and burnt orange from the fires bled into the clouds, so the holy city seemed aflame. Some read it as an omen heralding divine judgment, others a reflection of the pyres of hell. All Martin saw was the sublime accomplishment of man’s architectural genius, threatened by humanity’s equally accomplished methods of destruction.

He was alert to the sound of the city waking as he headed west along a street of graded cobblestones. The putt-putt of scooters, the blaring horn of a taxi as it navigated the claustrophobic streets, the barking of local dogs protecting their territory.

Most of the shops were still shuttered with shaded windows overlooking the street, but as Martin passed a panetteria, the sound of clanging echoed from inside. As the baker pulled out the loaves for the day, the scent of fresh bread and the sweet notes of vanilla cannoli wafted out into the street. Martin couldn’t resist. He slowed and searched his pockets for spare euros. Finding a note, he ducked into the bakery and bought a warm cornetto, fresh from the oven. He munched the flakey pastry as he walked on toward the Vatican, enjoying the sweetness in his mouth. It would be ample fuel for his morning’s search.

Martin was on loan to the Vatican from ARKANE, the Arcane Religious Knowledge And Numinous Experience Institute, which specialized in solving religious and supernatural mysteries around the world. He was the Head Librarian and Archivist, but this impressive title did not encompass his ability to find patterns in digital chaos or help ARKANE agents find clues during their global missions.

A senior cardinal had requested Martin’s help to create an AI-enhanced search engine that would use natural language processing to automatically tag and catalogue the ever-growing Vatican archive. It had been scanned over the last decade — millions of crumbling pages turned into bits and bytes to make it easier to find hidden scraps of knowledge lost for centuries.

But it turned out that scanning made it even harder to find anything.

While the aged librarians had known where to physically locate long-forgotten tomes, and obscure academics had deciphered faded labels in the miles of stacks, now a rule-based search algorithm directed the curious to their answer — but only those skilled enough at asking the right questions could find what they were looking for. Martin’s job was to figure out a way to make it easier for human minds to work with the computers, to turn the priests of Vatican City into AI-assisted researchers, to bridge the gap between machine and man. He would create threads of crimson light through a labyrinth of words and enable new understanding from old knowledge.

Martin reached the entrance and passed through the extensive security at the door of the Vatican Apostolic Archive, formerly known as the Secret Archive. The previous title proved to be catnip for conspiracy theorists and the new, more mundane epithet kept them at bay — although its secrets remained just as potent.

Martin wound his way through the twisting corridors lined with stacks of shelving, piled high with books and manuscripts and rolls of vellum. Others might have stopped to examine some obscure text to see where serendipity might lead in this storehouse of buried wisdom, but Martin was blessed with extreme focus. It went along with his brilliance at mathematics and coding, his difficulty in fathoming people’s behavior, and his dislike of being touched. Some labelled and medicalized such personality traits, but Martin chose to believe that everyone was on some spectrum or another. As long as he proved useful to ARKANE, he was happy.

His temporary desk was at the back of a tiny storeroom where he could work uninterrupted, his fingers flashing over the keyboard as he roamed the vast digital landscape. The Vatican scanning project had initially set him up in their open plan area, but Martin couldn’t work with all those people, all that noise, all those interruptions. It was better here in the quiet, with only his three enormous screens to focus on.

He sat down, flexed his fingers, rolled his shoulders, and dived back into the emerging algorithm.

There was an alchemy in the dance between human and machine. Martin thought of it as a dance because it was ever-moving, ever-changing, ever-responsive to the new stimuli he provided. The powerful artificial intelligence engine would be nothing without Martin directing it. It had no purpose of its own, no will to discover, no need to work. But once he instigated the dance, it would follow, then leap ahead into something unexpected, before Martin took it in another direction. Working together, they would discover something new. The process was addictive in its creativity.

A half smile flashed across his face as the machine found a commonality between a medieval treatise and a postmodernist essay on liberation theology, a link no human mind would have discovered since the documents originated half a world apart and in two different languages. Martin was training the algorithm to find such relationships across time and space, language and format, and even encouraged the machine to examine heresies long repressed.

He had started with a copy of the code he created at ARKANE to synthesize their vast knowledge base, a system he had worked on for years since being recruited from the University of Cambridge with a Doctorate in Computer Science and Archaeology. He had been at the job for years now and while delight was almost a daily occurrence as he drove the AI to new heights, it took a lot to surprise him.

But even Martin was surprised by what he found later that day in the Vatican online archive.

It was a scanned copy of a papal bull, Militia Dei, Soldiers of God, issued in 1145 by Pope Eugene III, allowing the Knights Templar to take tithes and burial fees. It also decreed that the Templars should bury their dead in their own cemeteries. The paper was crumbling, the handwriting faded, the Latin barely readable in spindly letters, although the pope’s signature and seal were clear enough.

This bull, along with certain others, had been the basis of Templar wealth in medieval times — and the bull in itself was not unusual. Popes had issued such edicts since at least the eleventh century. But whoever processed this document had scanned another alongside it in the same batch, and it was the second document that made Martin’s eyes widen as the AI engine translated it from Latin.

This kind of mistake was not unusual in archival projects. Scanning could only be done by hand and much of it was completed by enthusiastic students, lay brothers and sisters, and other temporary staff. Although most began their task with a keen attitude, determined to abide by the correct procedures for handling such documents, the work quickly became repetitive and tedious. It was no intellectually romantic job where the curious could stop and revel in their proximity to history, and there was no time to read every document.

Each page had to be placed carefully on a glass screen and scanned or photographed.

Hour after hour.

Day after day.

While millions more pages lay waiting to be processed in boxes and files and books and stacks and corridors and buildings across the world of the Catholic Church. It was enough to make any archivist lose focus and accidentally scan two pages together. This extra document must have lain near the papal bull in the day’s papers and should have been scanned separately. And yet it was here, and it hinted at something quite unusual.

Martin leaned closer to the screen and read every word of the document, then reread it while checking the Latin against a separate translation engine open on another screen.

It was correct. There was no doubt of its meaning and yet, he could scarce believe what it suggested.

Martin might once have merely reported this anomaly to the Vatican Head Archivist and left it at that, proceeding with his job with no further thought of the mystery.

But in the last few years, he had joined agents Jake Timber and Morgan Sierra on several missions, and Martin found himself tapping into a vein of curiosity that ran deep within those who found their home at ARKANE. There were mysteries in the world buried under lies obscured by history, all designed to hide from humanity the truth that there was more to the world than could be seen on the surface.

Martin frowned and tilted his head to one side as he considered his options. It seemed sensible to confirm the truth before taking any further action. He needed to see the original document.

He pushed back his chair, its legs scraping on the stone floor, and as he mentally re-entered the physical world, Martin realized the day had passed in a blur. The sounds of the main archive room were quieter now, as the team had mostly left already.

Martin walked through and approached Bishop Giovanni Sandri, who headed up the archiving project and often sat at his mahogany desk until late into the night. He was thickset, with a bulbous red nose and broken veins around his cheeks, a priest who looked his age indeed, perhaps sent down here to serve out his final years. His blue eyes brightened as Martin approached.

“Have you found something of interest, my son? You so rarely join us. It must be fascinating indeed.”

Martin bobbed up and down on the balls of his feet, running his fingers through his shock of blonde hair, spikier than usual since he hadn’t cut it in a while. “I need to see the original papal bull, Militia Dei. Where is it?”

Bishop Sandri chuckled, and Martin presumed it was something to do with his abrupt manner, but he had given up trying to understand the niceties of polite human interaction. Better to do his job so well that people forgot anything but his excellence.

The bishop opened a large ring binder on his desk and sifted through the pages, peering down at the handwritten scrawl through reading glasses as he ran a finger down the side of the page.

Martin tapped his foot on the floor as he tried to control his impatience. It was hard to believe that this digital project was still managed on paper.

After a minute, the bishop looked up. “It was scanned two weeks ago. The original will be back in the temperature-controlled vault. Section 27C in the sub-basement under the sculpture gallery.”

Martin tilted his head to one side as he accessed the location in his mental model of the labyrinthine Vatican corridors. “What about anything scanned at the same time? Would that be archived in the same place?”

The bishop nodded. “Yes, I should think so. At this point, we’re racing against time to scan the older material before it crumbles to dust. The impact of climate change on the original archives was never considered.” He shook his head and sighed. “We’re all running out of time, Martin.”

But Martin was already half out the door and down the corridor, the bishop’s words muted by the stone that had witnessed time passing with each generation.

Martin left the archive workrooms and headed up and out across a stone plaza, surrounded by cloisters. Low hedges bordered gardens of herbs and aromatics, used by the Vatican chefs and those who might once have been called apothecaries. It was dusk and the scent of rosemary and sage filled the air. Swifts darted high above, spiraling in the gathering dark as they devoured insects on the wing.

Martin entered another corridor and strode along to the sculpture gallery with its strange combination of classical poses and ecclesiastical art. The Vatican walked a tightrope between venerating the beauty of the human physical form and hiding it away for fear of what dangerous emotions it might arouse. This gallery was one of many places where statues were placed when they fell on the wrong side of the line.

He hurried down the spiral staircase into the vaults beneath, some of which were supposedly temperature controlled. But this warren of rooms was part of an ancient electrical system that took more than its fair share of power, and often the lights flickered on and off. Martin suspected that the temperature was merely controlled by nature of it being underground.

He found his way to Section 27C, pulled on a pair of white cotton gloves, and searched the stacks for the papal bull and its unusual literary companion.

Eventually he found a drawer with the papal bull pressed between glass to keep it flat. It was written on papyrus; the material yellowed with age. Despite its unprepossessing appearance, Martin found it a pleasing piece of history — but not what he was looking for.

He searched in the drawers on either side, carefully lifting out old pages and sifting through manuscript fragments. It was a glimpse of how useless this knowledge had become hundreds of years after monks copied these pages. Only someone physically in the room could learn from them, and only then if they could find specifically what they wanted in the first place. If the digital transformation of the Vatican Archives was successful, its real power would be unlocked by scanning, and its ancient knowledge surfaced by his AI engine. Time was indeed running out, and Martin wondered how much more knowledge was kept impenetrable across the world by the physical prison of books.

He turned to an oversized leather folio and, as he lifted it, dust rose around him with the musty smell of mold. There was a document in the front on the cotton rag paper used by the archive team as it was acid free. It noted the retrieval and scanning date — two weeks ago.

Martin’s heart raced a little faster. The extra document had to be here. He turned the pages carefully — and there it was.

He reached out and gently placed his finger on the page. Even through the glove, Martin could sense the brittle texture underneath. He spent so long viewing the world through a screen, it was a singular experience to be physically engaged with a piece of parchment written so long ago. Despite the clear advantage of the digital format, even he had to acknowledge that nothing beat seeing these archaic documents in their original form.

He read the ancient words, translating the Latin written by the hand of a long-dead cardinal who served a long-dead pope back when it was much easier to keep a secret, even a significant one such as this.

The letter explained why the Knights Templar needed separate graveyards and contained detailed instructions on how particular knights from a particular area of France must be buried.

They should be laid within heavy metal coffins that could withstand pressure from outside — and from within.

The corpses must be bound with strong leather straps, as those used to drive oxen on the plough, and secured by powerful hooks to the coffin sides.

Then the final line, the one that gave Martin pause.

Metal spikes must be driven through the hearts of the militia dei, the soldiers of God.

He blinked and let out a slow breath.

The papal bull had clearly disguised these specific requirements by giving the Templars private burial grounds. They could do what they needed to in secret without others in the church and the wider community knowing. But the instructions led to only one conclusion about the nature of these soldiers, and it seemed impossible to consider what that might mean.

Martin read the rest of the document. The group of Templars referred to had lived in a particular area of Paris. He pulled out his phone and checked the online historical maps. It looked like the graves were buried deep under the cobblestones of what was now the Marais district.

With proof that the document was indeed real, Martin considered reporting it to ARKANE Director Marietti so field agents could investigate further.

But this was a footnote in history, not some emergent risk.

ARKANE agents usually had to race against time to stop some terrible threat of destruction, but there was nothing here except intellectual curiosity. His report would get nothing more than a note in yet another archive — unless he went to check it out himself and determined whether it was worth investigating further.

It was only a short flight to Paris, and Martin had a good excuse at the ready. He could use the trip to clarify some questions about the materials used for the older Vatican documents, the weave of papyrus and whether it could be aged or even traced to a specific geographic area. There just happened to be a biblical scholar in Paris with a specialism in paleo-botany, the evolutionary history of plants and the biological reconstruction of past environments.

Professor Camara Mbaye worked at the Bibliothèque nationale, when she wasn’t visiting Sir Sebastian Northbrook in London. The two had met in Senegal many years ago and rekindled their old friendship during the mission to find the Tree of Life. Since Sebastian was one of Martin’s closest friends, he had recently spent time with Camara. He respected her deep knowledge — and her patience with his endless questions.

Martin would once have said he was a happy loner, preferring to lose himself in code rather than conversation. But over his years at ARKANE he had found true friendship, forged in the fire and blood of active missions. Jake Timber, Morgan Sierra, and Sir Sebastian Northbrook — all had come to his aid in the past, and all would help him now. But Sebastian was busy curating an exhibition at the John Soane Museum, Jake was occupied on a mission in Vienna, and Morgan was researching something about blood curses in the ARKANE library back in Oxford. She had been in a dark mood since returning from Northumberland, and she was meant to be in Vienna with Jake, anyway. He didn’t want to disturb her.

Camara was no field agent, but she was a scholar with deep intellectual curiosity — and she knew Paris. The Marais district wasn’t far from the Bibliothèque nationale, so perhaps she would at least join him for a coffee.

As Martin walked back out of the Vatican, he texted Camara and asked her to meet him tomorrow morning in the Marais to discuss the history of the Templars in Paris. He hinted at a mystery but didn’t give any details.

Within minutes, Camara replied in the affirmative, and as the rubbish fires lit the Roman night sky with crimson flame, Martin wondered what he might find in Paris tomorrow.

* * *

It was a civilized ten a.m. by the time Martin walked along Rue de Bretagne toward the café where he would meet Camara. There was a touch of drizzle in the air and the pale winter sun hid behind dark clouds. Despite the cold, Parisians sat sipping coffee under café awnings, coats pulled tight around them, some swaddled in blankets left by café owners to encourage custom. One elderly man read the morning paper, his head almost buried in the oversized pages. At a table nearby, a young woman with old eyes smoked a cigarette as she stared out at those hurrying past, her coffee steaming in front of her.

The city of Paris had seen so much and the river of history was ever moving, but even in these modern streets, Martin found evidence of the Templars. He walked past the Hôtel Jacques de Molay, named after the final Grand Master of the Order, burned alive in front of Notre-Dame Cathedral in 1314. He turned around one side of the Square du Temple, a garden built over the ruins of a huge medieval Templar fortress. It had been used in the French Revolution to imprison the royal family before their bloody execution on the guillotine, then destroyed by Napoleon after it became a place of pilgrimage for Royalists. Now it was known for its Metro station near a covered market and courthouse in the third arrondissement, although there were traces of modern tragedy, too.

Martin walked past a memorial to the Jewish children aged between two months and six years who had lived in the area before being deported to Auschwitz and murdered in the gas chambers in the early 1940s. He considered how much blood had soaked into the soil of this garden. The trees were bare now, their limbs reaching in supplication toward heaven, but in the summer they would be lush and green, providing shade for children once more with no thought of past atrocities. History turned another page, and the next generation would no doubt find different ways to torture one another.

It was ever thus.

As Martin turned the corner around the edge of the square, he spotted Camara sitting at a table in front of the Tour du Temple café. She was reading something on her phone, her frown deepening as she concentrated on some vexing problem. She wore a tailored trouser suit in pale forget-me-not blue, which offset her dark skin perfectly, and a neck scarf with a touch of crimson in the weave. Camara was slender in the way that French women seemed to master, and her profile was regal. While she had become Parisienne in the decades since leaving Senegal, Camara would always be a proud African.

She turned and smiled at Martin’s approach, rising to kiss him on both cheeks in the French way of la bise. Despite his usual aversion to touch, Martin had grown used to Camara’s natural greeting, and he didn’t shy away, although he had never learned to return the kiss. Perhaps one day he would master the art, but for now, it was enough to tolerate it.

“Bienvenue à Paris, Martin. It was so lovely to hear from you.”

Camara waved at the waiter to bring them both coffee and they sat facing the street as Martin explained what he had found in the document.

He showed her an image on his phone of the Latin text. Camara leaned closer to examine it, zooming in on the screen as she read, her academic Latin no doubt better than Martin’s own. He took the chance to drink his coffee, served in the French style in a tiny cup. It was only a few mouthfuls, but every sip was perfection.

Camara put the phone down, her eyes bright with interest. “So you think the tomb might still be buried under this area?”

Martin nodded. “The document indicates that the burial place of these particular knights was below the crypt. It might have been concealed by the destruction of the fortress, so perhaps it is still down there.”

Camara shook her head and smiled. “We have both seen strange things indeed, non, so why should this be any different? In fact, when your text mentioned the Templars, I did some digging and chose this café because of its location.”

She pointed at the church across the road. “That is the Église Sainte-Élisabeth de Hongrie, Saint Elizabeth of Hungary. Its crypt has the deepest foundations of any building in the area of the original Templar fortress.”

Martin looked beyond the parked cars and scooters at the church. In a city dense with imposing architecture and famous landmarks, it was nothing much. Perhaps it might have been notable in a smaller city, but here, pedestrians walked past without a second glance.

The classical facade was of Jesuit design with Doric columns flanking the entranceway. A pietà sculpture of Christ in the arms of his mother was positioned above the door, and statues stood in niches on either side. It was unremarkable — and yet, secrets were best kept in places where curiosity was not easily aroused. The boring and mundane sometimes hid the most extraordinary.

Camara opened her phone and tapped at the screen, turning it so Martin could see a picture of a fossilized leaf. Not really his expertise, but squarely within Camara’s paleo-botanical domain.

She grinned. “Isn’t it beautiful? It’s a Ginkgoites huttonii, Middle Jurassic. I helped identify it for a friend at the Société Botanique de France who is also a bell ringer here at the church. They have a lot of concerts because of the incredible acoustics. I messaged him after you contacted me, and he’s cleared us with the organ master who is in there practicing right now, so we can go have a look around.”

They finished their coffee and crossed the road to the church. Camara led the way inside, and as they walked through the nave, the peal of the organ rang out in the exquisite strains of the Magnificat canticle.

Although Martin did not adhere to any particular religious faith, he found a satisfaction in sacred music. It resonated with his mathematical sense of the world and he appreciated the beauty in its order. As Camara navigated her way up to the organ loft, Martin stopped near the choir stalls to listen and examine the church.

Elaborate frescoes of recognizable biblical scenes including the Beatitudes and the Last Judgement decorated the nave. As the clouds parted outside, weak rays of sun shone through stained glass windows portraying John the Baptist and John the Evangelist, their expressions forever caught between suffering and glory. There were Stations of the Cross around the church for the faithful to worship at on holy days and a chapel on one side dedicated to the Virgin Mary. It smelled of candle wax, incense, and a hint of furniture polish.

So far, so normal for a Catholic church.

Certainly nothing to suggest the presence of hidden Templar tombs.

The organ music stopped and the faint sound of conversation wafted down from on high, before the clacking of Camara’s heels on stone steps and the peal of the organ began once more.

As she emerged back into the nave, Camara held up a ring of keys and beckoned Martin to join her.

They walked out to the side of the altar into a modern corridor, clearly added at a later stage for practical reasons, and could talk again once the sound of the organ was muted by the thick walls of the original church.

“The stairs to the crypt are back here,” Camara explained. “The organ master said we could investigate on our own. He wants to practice, not wander round in the cobwebs below. He said the church once used the crypt for storage, but there was storm damage, so they locked it off a while back. With funds dwindling, and a focus on the needs of the modern church, it rarely gets any attention.”

They walked through the corridor, passing meeting rooms before angling back to the older part of the church. At the very end, there was a small wooden door labeled Entrée interdite. No entry.

Camara tried several of the keys and finally unlocked the door with one of them. She pushed it open.

It was dark inside and the scent on the air changed from the incense of the church to a mustier, damp smell with a hint of wet stone.

Camara reached inside and switched on the light.

Metal stairs wound down through a circular well. While it began with modern bricks, there were enormous stone blocks further down, proving this section was much older than the area above.

Camara turned and raised an eyebrow. “What do you think?”

Martin frowned. Surely it was obvious. “We must go and see what lies down there. But you don’t have to come with me if you don’t want to.”

Martin appreciated that Camara’s last experience with the Catholic Church was as a possible sacrifice for an ultra-religious sect of monks who spent their lives protecting the location of the Garden of Eden. It was understandable if she didn’t fancy the darkness of the crypt below.

“Of course I’m coming,” she said with a grin. “Besides, there are sometimes interesting lichen on these old tombs, and who can resist a Caloplaca flavocitrina in situ?”

She led the way down the spiral staircase, dainty in her heels and seemingly unaware of the dust motes that floated in the air and settled on her stylish suit. Camara was just as at home in the rarefied atmosphere of the Bibliothèque nationale as she was investigating ancient plants in the field, so perhaps this place was nothing out of the ordinary. Martin considered that she might make an excellent ARKANE agent if she ever decided to change careers.

As they descended the stairs, it grew colder and the smell of wet stone intensified. They finally reached the bottom to find a crypt with a low ceiling lit by a single, bare bulb activated by the switch above. The weak light did not reach the edges of the space, but it was enough to illuminate the detritus within.

The crypt had clearly been used as a dumping ground, and the stale air reeked of rot and decay. Remnants of broken chairs and wooden pews were piled high next to bulging boxes of dusty paperwork. An old lawnmower surrounded by frayed bell-ringing ropes leaned against a pile of kneeling cushions with faded biblical scenes. There were even broken pieces of ancient tombstones brought down from the garden above. All of it lay in an inch of water that covered the flagstones beneath.

As he looked around at the discarded junk and debris, Martin began to have serious doubts this trip was worth the time.

Camara pulled out her phone and turned on its flashlight, holding it up to illuminate the shadows.

“Look, back there. Is that the edge of another door?”

Without waiting for Martin’s response, she strode across the wet floor. Water splashed up her heels and stained the hem of her trouser suit but she walked on, oblivious. Martin followed, the chill of the dank water seeping into his shoes as he squelched behind.

Camara navigated around the reeking piles of rubbish and stopped in front of what was indeed another door above a raised threshold that kept it away from the flood.

Together, they shifted the boxes of old hymn books and discarded candle ends to one side and cleared a path to it.

Camara lifted her phone higher to bathe the door in the powerful light. “Merveilleux. It is magnificent.”

The door was clearly ancient, constructed from a single tree trunk with knots and whorls weathered with age, and covered with a dark patina. There were indistinct letters carved into it and marks that might have been runes or protective talismans, but they were scuffed and scarred over, as if someone had tried to erase their meaning.

There were heavy metal hinges on one side of the door and, on the other, seven huge padlocks linked with an enormous chain covered in sharp spikes. The metal was rust-covered and oxidized, splintered and sharp, pitted by time.

Martin tilted his head to one side as he assessed the configuration of the chain and the angles of the padlocks, calculating the possible rust damage and how brittle the metal might be. He leaned forward and pressed a particularly rusty link of the chain with one delicate finger, testing its strength.

He frowned as he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped off the metallic residue. “There is a chance — a slim one — that we can break this chain and enter whatever lies beyond.”

Camara nodded. “Then you and I will try it, mon ami. Since we are here and it’s clear no one cares for this place. Paris is littered with secrets. Perhaps we will discover a new one together.”

Martin looked around the crypt for something he could use as a lever to pry the chain from the door. Everything came down to numbers in the end and a skilled mathematician with a lever could move the world, as Archimedes himself knew.

After examining the rubbish pile, Martin picked out a wedge-shaped block of broken tombstone along with a heavy chunk of stone that fit in his hand and carried them over to the door.

Camara stood back as he placed the wedge in a particular spot behind the chain, adjusting it until it was just right.

Martin lifted the stone and smashed it down.

A dull metallic clang echoed in the crypt, and the chain inched away from the door.

As the noise faded into silence, Martin and Camara stood listening for footsteps, expecting someone to rush down and stop them.

But the faint strains of the organ could still be heard from high above, the organ master concentrating on notes rising to heaven, not those from the depths beneath.

Martin raised his makeshift hammer once more and pounded it down.

This time, the chain splintered and split. The rust fractured into red flakes that dropped down to stain the stagnant water beneath.

Martin used his elbow to break the rest of the links away, then pushed the door gently.

It didn’t budge, so he leaned his weight against it.

The door creaked open to reveal more stone steps leading down into darkness — but this darkness had a different feel than that of the crypt.

The air was still, as if it hadn’t been disturbed for generations, and it had the metallic tang of rust — or blood. Martin couldn’t help but think of the torture chambers where Templar Knights had suffered their ultimate fate so long ago.

“En avant, Martin,” Camara said, her voice almost a whisper, as if she did not want to disturb whatever lay below.

There was no light switch, no sign of anything modern, so they used their phone flashlights to illuminate the way.

Martin entered first, stepping carefully down onto the wet stone steps as he descended. As he looked back to make sure Camara was okay, he noticed that the thick walls on either side of the door were raked with deep gouges, as if something ancient had tried to claw its way out.

The stairwell spiraled down much further than Martin expected. The only sounds were their footsteps and the occasional drip of water onto stone.

He brushed away cobwebs, allowing the scuttling spiders to escape to the shadows. Some were bulbous and fat, gorging on whatever creatures writhed out of the spaces between the stones. Other arachnids were tiny and swift, freezing in the light as he passed. Some might have turned back and left this place to its denizens of the dark, but whenever Martin checked with Camara, she urged him on, her eyes bright with curiosity in the glare of the flashlight.

After what seemed like an age, the stairs leveled out in front of a Gothic archway with Latin text carved on either side of its highest point.

Requiescant donec opus sit.

“Let them rest until needed,” Camara translated, her tone a little puzzled. “That’s unusual. I would have expected something more religious.”

They walked under the arch and into the vault beyond.

It was sparse and plain, with none of the trappings that might be expected in a tomb. No carvings on the walls, no altar. In fact, it didn’t feel like a tomb at all, and Martin had been in enough of them to know. The air felt expectant, as if the vault had been suspended in time for nearly a thousand years.

There were six sarcophagi placed equidistant on the flagstones around the vault.

Martin approached the nearest one and examined the lid. It was carved with a knight laid to rest, his sword held against his chest where the huge cross of his Templar tunic could be seen beneath.

Camara looked up at Martin. “The lid doesn’t look heavy. We could perhaps move it together.”

Martin felt a spark of curiosity within, along with an atavistic dread that chilled his spine. His years with ARKANE had proved that there were things in this world better left undisturbed — but the mystery sparked by the mistakenly scanned document could only be solved by looking inside one of the sarcophagi.

He reached for the edge of the lid and tested its weight.

It shifted a little.

Martin walked to the end of the sarcophagus, and Camara joined him by the head of the knight.

Together, they lifted the lid and pushed it a few inches, opening a gap into the darkness within.

The scent of sandalwood and spices rose from the tomb, reminiscent of the winding streets of the souk in Jerusalem where pilgrims walked back when these knights had ridden to glory on crusade.

It was not the smell of the long dead.

Camara held up her phone with a shaking hand, and as the light skittered over what lay within, she gasped.

As the sound echoed around the vault, Martin’s mind teemed with questions. For a moment, he wished he were back in front of his screens in a tiny closet in the Vatican and not facing what he suspected lay in front of them.

He looked down into the knight’s face.

The man was maybe mid-forties, the skin around his eyes wrinkled from laughter and toil in the sun. A puckered scar curled out of a close-cropped beard around his strong jawline, evidence of past battles. The knight wore a chain mail hood, and the pommel of his sword was just visible in the shadows beneath the lid.

The knight’s eyes were — thankfully — closed.

“How can this be?” Camara whispered.

“We have to see more.” Martin placed his hands against the lid and pushed, alone now, as Camara stood frozen, holding her flashlight on the face of the knight.

The lid eased back further to reveal the knight’s shoulders.

A thick leather strap bound him, secured with hooks to either side of a metal frame affixed to the stone with heavy rivets.

Martin’s heart beat faster still.

He pushed again and the stone lid scraped across the edge of the sarcophagus to reveal the knight’s torso.

There were more straps holding the knight, and he held his long sword against his chest.

But the red cross of the Templar tunic was marred by a spike through its center. A heavy metal stake driven through the knight’s heart.

There was only one explanation for such a creature. Martin did not want to speak the word out loud, but was it so strange to think that the Church hid such a secret?

The sacrament of transubstantiation taught that wine truly turned into blood, and the faithful drank it during Communion. Catholic cathedrals and chapels across the world contained body parts in holy vessels from saints whose martyred blood and flesh empowered the prayers of the faithful. Were these undead knights so unusual in such a religion?

Martin wondered what might happen if he pulled the stake out. Would this Soldier of God rise to defend the realm once more? And who might he consider the enemy in these modern times?

Camara raised her phone a little higher, and the light touched a book lying next to the knight. “Perhaps that will tell us more?”

Her voice trembled a little.

Martin reached in and grasped the book, careful not to touch the knight, just in case.

He drew it out and laid it on the lid of the sarcophagus. Its cover was thick brown leather marked by scars, like the hide of a creature well used to battle. Martin wasn’t sure what kind of creature it came from, but he filed that question away for future consideration, along with the many others rising in his mind.

As Camara leaned closer, he carefully opened the book.

The pages within were handwritten in a barely legible scrawl, a legend in Latin with drawings of battles fought and plans of the medieval city of Paris. On its final pages there was a portrayal of this very vault, with the exhortation carved above a Gothic arch. The names of six knights were inscribed above the tombs. The one they had uncovered was Raymond de Payens.

Martin wondered what had led Raymond to his fate. His features were those of a man sleeping in peace, not those of one forced into the grave against his will. Had he chosen to become this undead creature?

A folded page was tucked into the book near the end, but Martin didn’t want to open it down here. It could crumble with age and they would lose whatever knowledge lay within. But he also didn’t want to take the book back to the Vatican or even reveal this location. The world had changed since medieval times and the Church was not so accepting of the truly supernatural.

Martin could use the temperature-controlled specialist labs at the ARKANE headquarters in London to research further — but perhaps he and Camara should just seal the book back up with its guardian and try to forget this place existed.

Camara looked around at the six tombs. “They are indeed resting until needed, but are they needed now? Should we wake them?”

Martin thought of the world above with its increasing environmental disasters, wars that took their toll while still more conflict threatened, the pandemic that kept people imprisoned by fear even years after it rose to kill millions. Perhaps these knights were needed more than ever, but Martin couldn’t see how their ancient skills, whatever they might be, could help in a world of modern threats. They would be curiosities, or more likely imprisoned, interrogated, and tortured as their fellow Templars had been centuries ago.

He shook his head. “We may need them someday, but for now, let them continue to rest.” He tapped the cover of the book. “I’ll take this back to London. Perhaps there are answers within.”

Camara nodded. “Oui, bien sur. It is better this way, at least for now.”

As Martin pulled the lid closed, Camara’s flashlight flickered over the knight’s face. It gave an illusion of movement, a semblance of life, before the tomb shut him away once more, sealed back into darkness, ready to rise when needed.

Together, Martin and Camara slowly climbed back up the staircase to the crypt. They shifted the rotten piles of rubbish to more effectively hide the ancient door from view before ascending the last flight of stairs. Camara locked the crypt door once more, and Martin could only hope that others might heed its warning not to enter.

Back in the church, Camara walked up to the organ loft to hand over the keys. Martin heard her chatting with the organist in light tones, explaining away the cobwebs and dust on her clothes as nothing more than the detritus of the flooded crypt.

Martin stood in the nave and held the book close to his chest, eager to investigate its precious contents. A ray of sun arced through the stained glass window and touched the leather cover. It blistered and charred under the light, and the smell of smoke rose from its burning surface. Martin turned quickly, moving out of the sun into the shadows to examine the patch of scorched material. It was clearly made from the skin of a creature that burned in sunlight, and Martin shivered as he considered the nature of the knights left below. What else might he find in these medieval pages?

He took off his jacket and wrapped it around the book, turning it into a nondescript bundle of fabric, protecting the contents until he could get it back to the ARKANE labs to investigate.

Camara walked back down into the nave. Martin joined her and together they emerged from the church onto Rue du Temple. Just another day in the city of lights.

Commuters still hurried past, coffee drinkers still sat at the café tables. Paris continued along the winding river of history, but Martin sensed something had shifted far beneath the streets.

They walked together along Rue du Temple, comfortable in their silence as they reached the banks of the River Seine and crossed the bridge to Île de la Cité. They navigated their way to the square in front of the cathedral of Notre-Dame, a symbol of the continued power of the Catholic Church and near to where the last Grandmaster of the Templars was burned to death by those he served.

Camara turned to Martin. “What will you do with the document in the scanned archives?”

“I’ll decouple it from the papal bull and change the metadata, so it looks like some boring tax document. It will be lost amongst the millions of digital files. No one will find it.”

Camara sighed. “And the book?”

“I’ll take it back to the ARKANE vault in London for further study, and I’ll tell Director Marietti what we found. He’ll know what to do, and the knights can sleep on — at least for now.”

Camara looked out across the Seine. “Do you think there are more soldiers of God out there, hidden in buried vaults across the ancient Empire?”

Martin gave a half smile as the bells of Notre-Dame tolled another hour and the river of history flowed past. “Possibly. But let’s hope they will rest until needed.”