Читать книгу Sanctus and The Key: 2 Bestselling Thrillers - Simon Toyne, Simon Toyne - Страница 49

As soon as Liv hung up, the Abbot ordered Athanasius to fetch Brother Samuel’s personal file from the library. He’d also asked him to bring the files of each current member of the Carmina as a plan formed in his mind.

Bad news, she had told him. Some really bad news … And Arkadian had taken the trouble to call her …

It wasn’t possible. No one could enter the Citadel if they had any living relatives. The absence of family ties meant there would be no emotional pull away from their work inside the holy mountain and no desire to communicate with the outside world. The security of the Citadel and the preservation of its secrets were absolutely reliant on this rule never being broken, and the background checks for any new applicant were exacting, rigorously carried out and always erred on the side of caution. If someone’s family records had been destroyed in a fire, they were rejected. If they had one distant cousin, whom they’d never met and believed to be dead but couldn’t trace, they were rejected.

The files arrived within five minutes. Athanasius placed them wordlessly on the Abbot’s desk then vanished from the room.

Like all inhabitants of the Citadel, Brother Samuel’s file was thorough and detailed and comprised copies, and even some originals, of every significant document tracing the story of his life: school reports, work history from his social security number, even police arrest sheets – everything.

The Abbot scanned the documents for all references to family. He found death certificates; his mother had died when he was just a few days old, and his father perished in a car accident when Samuel was eighteen. Both sets of grandparents had long since passed on. His father had been an only child, and his mother’s only brother had died of leukaemia aged eleven. There were no uncles, no aunts, no cousins, no brothers, no sisters. All was as it should be.

A gentle tap dragged his attention from the file. He looked up as the door opened far enough to allow Athanasius to slip back into the room.

‘Forgive the intrusion, Brother Abbot,’ he said, ‘but the Prelate has just sent word that he is feeling well enough to see you. You are to go to his quarters half an hour before Vespers.’

The Abbot glanced at the clock. Vespers was two hours hence. The delay was probably to give the vampires who kept the Prelate alive enough time to pump some fresh blood into him. He had hoped to have more comforting news to impart by the time he had his audience. He glanced across at the large stack of red files containing the personal details of the Carmina. Maybe he would.

‘Very well,’ he said, closing Brother Samuel’s file and placing it to one side. ‘But I need you to do something for me beforehand. I want you to contact the source that provided us with the police file. I believe the inspector on the case has since spoken with a woman. I want to know who she is, I want to know what was said, and most of all – I want to know where she is.’

‘Of course,’ Athanasius said. ‘I will find out all I can and brief you before your meeting.’

The Abbot nodded and watched him bow and back out of the room before returning his attention to the tower of files before him.

There were sixty-two in total, each containing the detailed history of a Carmina, the red cloaks, the guild of guards who protected the passageways to the forbidden sections of the mountain; men who had proved themselves fit for these martial tasks both in their previous lives and in their subsequent devotion to the Citadel. As members of the Carmina they were also possible future Sancti, though as yet they knew nothing of the true nature of the Sacrament, so could, if necessary, be sent back into the world without compromising its security.

He slid the first folder from the top of the pile and opened it, shuffling aside the usual collection of medical records and school admission reports in search of other documents – military service histories, arrest reports, prison records – that would tell him if this man was the one he was looking for.