The Necrology Report

THE NECROLOGY REPORT by Rick Jones © 2023 Rick Jones. All rights reserved. This is a property of EmpirePRESS & EmpireENTERTAINMENT, LLC The Vatican Knights is a TRADEMARK property. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and should not be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For more information e-mail all inquiries to: [email protected] Visit Rick Jones on the World Wide Web at: http://www.rickjonz.com/rickjonz.com Table of Contents Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six Chapter Twenty-Seven Chapter Twenty-Eight Chapter Twenty-Nine Chapter Thirty Chapter Thirty-One Chapter Thirty-Two Chapter Thirty-Three Chapter Thirty-Four Chapter Thirty-Five Chapter Thirty-Six Chapter Thirty-Seven Chapter Thirty-Eight Chapter Thirty-Nine Chapter Forty Chapter Forty-One Chapter Forty-Two Chapter Forty-Three Chapter Forty-Four Chapter Forty-Five Chapter Forty-Six Chapter Forty-Seven Chapter Forty-Eight Chapter Forty-Nine Chapter Fifty Chapter Fifty-One Epilogue ALSO BY RICK JONES: Vatican Knights Series The Vatican Knights Shepherd One The Iscariot Agenda Pandora's Ark The Bridge of Bones Crosses to Bear The Lost Cathedral Dark Advent Cabal The Golgotha Pursuit Targeted Killing Sinners and Saints The Barbed Crown (a prequel) The Devil’s Magician The Nocturnal Saints The Brimstone Diaries Juggernaut Original Sins (a prequel) In Between God and Devil The Sinai Directive The Barabbas Connection The Eye of Moses The Crimson Dagger The Goliath Chamber The Vladorian Keep The Baal Manifesto Archangel The Venetian Code The Necrology Report Stand Alone Novels The Man Who Cast Two Shadows Jurassic Run Mausoleum 2069 The Menagerie with RICK CHESLER First Strike The Eden Series The Crypts of Eden (A John Savage/Alyssa Moore Adventure) The Thrones of Eden (A John Savage/Alyssa Moore Adventure) City Beneath the Sea (A John Savage/Alyssa Moore Adventure) The Sacred Vault (A John Savage/Alyssa Moore Adventure) City Within the Clouds (A John Savage/Alyssa Moore Adventure) City Beneath the Ice (A John Savage/Alyssa Moore Adventure) City at Ocean’s Edge (Pending) The Hunter Series Night of the Hunter The Black Key Theater of Operation PROLOGUE The Sainte-Anne Hospital Center Paris, France One Week Ago Though his name was Amal Purakayastha, those within his orbit knew him as the Bangladeshi. Here at the Sainte-Anne Hospital Center, he was a John Doe, a man who was discovered wandering the streets of Paris sermonizing the words of dark prophets, that of lunatic voices in his mind. After a battery of psychological exams, it was determined that the man was suffering tremendously from the nonstop auditory hallucinations of schizophrenia. Within a month of his custody, an unknown contributor paid the institute monthly tithings in large sums to see that the Bangladeshi received the best possible care—clean garments, clean sheets, and the finest doctors. Week after week and month after month, despite the upgraded amenities in care, the voices inside the Bangladeshi’s head drove and compelled him to respond to the commands of their vices. They would tell him to hurt, maim, or injure those who had conspired against him, usually against the innocent who wore similar institutional dress. Eventually, his violent clashes against others earned him a permanent stay in solitary confinement, which was a darkened cell that was spartanly furnished with a cot and a small table. As the days and nights wove together, they became one and the same to him, the voices inside the Bangladeshi’s head remained relentless. Sometimes they were soft-spoken, nothing but nonsensical whispers he could barely understand. Other times they were deep, robust, and full of anger, the voices teaming up to compel the Bangladeshi to renounce passivity because violence was the only means to achieving absolute power. On this day, as he sat on his cot with his hands cupped tightly over his ears, the voices were unremitting. They sounded as though they were forming from all points of his mind and from an eternity of inner space, all pushing him to react to their constant insistencies. “Get . . . out . . . of . . . my head!” Because the Bangladeshi’s cries mingled with the tormented shouts of others, the interns could not distinguish one cry from another. “I said . . . Get . . . OUT!” The whispers and the shouting—voice on top of voice on top of other voices—all driving him deeper into insanity. “Please.” Then the Bangladeshi’s eyes started to well with tears. “I beg you. No more.” The voices continued to sound off, all without mercy. And then the Bangladeshi surrendered himself with his face falling with the looseness of a rubber mask. It was the unmistakable look of a man who was finally defeated. “Yes,” he stated flatly. “I understand.” Sitting up and tossing his legs over the edge of the cot, the Bangladeshi sat as still as a sculptured statue. And he would sit idle for hours waiting for the door to his cell to open. The voices, now silent, allowed the Bangladeshi his moments of peace before the storm. * * * It was noon when the Bangladeshi finally heard the intern slide the bolt back to unlock the door to his cell. As the steel door opened, dim light filtered into the Bangladeshi’s room. Narrowing his eyes slightly from the light’s sting, he noted three interns—there were always three interns—as he was getting to his feet. He was tall and rail-thin, which gave him a gaunt and haunting appearance in the faded light. “All right,” stated the intern in French, “one hour of yard exercise. Let’s go.” Then he beckoned to the Bangladeshi to exit the cell.