The Key Read Online Free PDF

she was still a girl, filling her with its meaning – a loving father telling dark stories to his blue-eyed little girl as later she had done with Gabriel, a mother passing the same stories to her son.
    And when all this comes to pass
– Oscar had always told her,
when the ancient wrong has been righted, then I will show you the next step
.
    She had often wondered what private knowledge his words had hinted at – and now she would never know.
    The Sancti had been unseated, but her own family had been destroyed in the process: first her husband; then her father – who next? Gabriel was in prison at the mercy of organizations she had learned not to trust; and she too had seen the priest, keeping steady watch just beyond her door, another agent of the same church that had already taken so much from her.
    I will show you the next step
– her father had told her. But now he was gone – killed just before his life’s work had finally been realized – and she could see no step that might give her hope, or help save her, or Gabriel or Liv, from the danger they were in.

5
    Vatican City, Rome
    Clementi swept from his office with as much speed as his large frame could manage.
    ‘When did they arrive?’ he asked, his black surplice flaring out behind him like ragged wings.
    ‘About five minutes ago,’ Schneider said, struggling to keep up with his master.
    ‘And where are they now?’
    ‘They were escorted down to the boardroom in the vault. I came to fetch you as soon as I heard they were here.’
    Clementi hurried past the two Swiss guardsmen, hoping His Holiness would not choose this moment to emerge from his apartment and enquire about Clementi’s undue haste. As Cardinal Secretary of State, he had to work closely with the Pope – both literally and figuratively – discussing policy and getting his signature on important documents. The file in his hand did not contain any papal signatures or seals. His Holiness was not even aware of its contents or intent, something Clementi had worked hard to maintain.
    He reached the end of the corridor and quickly barged through the door into the bare emergency stairwell beyond. ‘Do we know which of the Group is present?’
    ‘No,’ Schneider replied. ‘The guard wasn’t sure and I didn’t want to press him. I felt it better he remain vague on the details.’
    Clementi nodded and descended into the gloom, brooding on what might await him at the end of this unscheduled summons.
    The Group was a name he had given to the three as a means of turning them into a single entity, a mind trick designed to strike a balance of power in their arrangement: one of him, one of them. But it had not worked. They were far too powerful and distinctive to subsume into a homogenous whole and, try as he might, they remained as individual and formidable as when he had first approached them and laid out his scheme. The Group met as infrequently as possible, and always in secret, such was the delicate nature of their shared enterprise. With the calibre of people involved, arranging any meeting at all was a minor miracle of scheduling and they had not been due to meet again for another month; yet one or more of them was here right now, unannounced and unexpected – and there was only one viable explanation as to why.
    ‘This has to be about the situation in Ruin,’ Clementi said, arriving at a featureless metal door set into the wall of the first-floor landing.
    He placed his doughy hand on a glass panel beside it, his cardinal’s gold ring clinking against the glass, and a pale strip of light swept across his palm, casting pale, shifting shadows across his face that reflected in the polished metal of the door. Clementi looked away. He had always hated his appearance, his moon face with its fringe of curly hair – once blond, now white – making him appear like an oversized cherub. A dull
thunk
sounded inside the door and he heaved it open, hurrying into the dark and away from the sight of