Free A Deafening Silence In Heaven by Thomas E. Sniegoski

Heaven, laid low by one of these very things—and realized that his luck had likely run its course.
    The creature flowed to one side, easily evading his shot, the bullet burying itself in the plaster wall behind it, as it aimed its own grotesque weapon and prepared to fire.
    Marlowe lunged with a guttural growl, hitting the killer like a runaway freight train, throwing the weight of his eighty-pound body into the assassin’s side, causing the skeletal weapon to spit its shot into the ceiling.
    The creature screamed something in a foul-sounding tongue as it recovered its footing, lashing out at the attacking dog. Marlowe did not let up, showing a ferocity that Mulvehill would never have imagined. The Labrador sank his teeth into the assassin’s wrist, holding on and shaking the limb violently as the creature flailed. Mulvehill brought his weapon up, wanting to take another shot but afraid he might hit the attacking Marlowe.
    There was a flash, the glint of light off something metal, and Mulvehill saw that a knife had suddenly appeared in the creature’s hand. He screamed the dog’s name in warning, still trying desperately to aim his gun, but the shot was not there, and he watched in horror as the assassin prepared to use the knife on its attacker—
    But instead the hooked blade fell from his grasp.
    Mulvehill was stunned, even more so when the assassin pitched forward and fell face-first to the floor, an axe buried in its back.
    From behind, a short, squat figure climbed out of a patch of shadow as if climbing up and out of a hole.
    “Sorry I’m late,” the grotesque little man said as he stomped over to the body of the assassin and pulled the axe from its back with a horrible squelching sound. “But I always have a bitch of a time pulling myself away from
Law & Order
marathons.”
    The odd stranger wiped the blood-covered blade on the sleeve of his jacket as Marlowe again began to growl.
    “So, got anything to eat? I’m fucking starving.”

CHAPTER SIX
    The Vatican
    N ormally Patriarch Adolfi would have had one of his Keeper assistants drive him from his apartment across Vatican City to the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana—the Vatican Apostolic Library. But today the seventy-eight-year-old leader of the Keepers decided that it was a beautiful day for a walk.
    For the first time in many months the holy man had slept well. Instead of the nightmare of an approaching apocalypse that had plagued his sleeping hours of late, last night, he had dreamed of a single word, spoken in the languages of the world. A single, special word repeated over and over again in every language spoken, or ever spoken, upon the earth.
    Unification.
    And he’d awakened refreshed and rejuvenated, with a sense that something wonderful was going to happen.
    “Good morning, Patriarch,” the guard at the door of the library said in Italian as he bowed and pulled open the door.
    “Yes, yes it is,” Adolfi agreed, feeling the muscles around his mouth stretch as he smiled for the first time in a very long time.
    It was a good morning.
    Adolfi passed through the doorway into one of the oldest libraries in the world, the smell of ancient texts—
of knowledge
—permeating the air of the beautiful building. He mourned the day that the priceless information contained in one of the most significant collections of historical texts would be stored within a computer. He doubted very much that a computer could produce an aroma so enticing and filled with promise.
    Not wanting to taint his mood, he pushed aside the concerns of the future library and strode across the meticulously maintained marble floor, beneath high, curved ceilings adorned with Renaissance art. He spied people at heavy oaken tables here and there, perusing texts and making notes in their pursuit of wisdom.
    The Patriarch walked from one building to the next and through a security checkpoint into an area of the library where the Holy See’s most sacred and secret writings were stored.