Blindly into the Darkness

Joseph and Thompson appeared again this time in one of the many alleyways of the city. Joseph took a moment to catch his breath... then he realized he didn't have to breath and had a quick laugh before remarking to Thompson "Woops, sometimes its just too natural. Anyways this place should be a good starting point. Do you have any contacts here, maybe a place to start?"

Thompson looked around trying to figure out where they were and came up quite quickly that they were in Vatican city, which had expanded and absorbed all of Rome. "I might have a few contacts in the city and you might actually know him," said Thompson as he took charge and marched out of the alleyway and onto the busy Italian street.

Joseph quickly returned to his normal form, ripped the sleeves off his tac-gear and made a facial wrapping with them to hide his identity. "Alright, Lets get to it! You guys are great you know that." Joseph said as he wrapped his face and followed Thompson from a reasonable distance, but far enough to make it seem like they didn't know each other.

Thompson made his way to a small, slim apartment building and rang the bell to the door, looking around him to make sure they had not been followed. A man came to the door, one quite familiar to Joseph and Thompson, his beard had grown out and he seemed like he had just woken up, but was startled when he saw Thompson and Joseph, classic McNally.

"McNally, its been a while! And why do you always have a beard when we haven't talked in a while? Its a razor you use them whether your employed or not jeez." After he spoke Joseph began laughing for a moment, but when he recovered he said "But onto serious matters... we need your help finding some of your old friends."

Patrick rubbed his eyes and invited the two men into his place with a wave of his hand. Inside were hundreds of bottles, mostly wines and rums, but a few outlying vodkas and whiskeys. The apartment itself wasn't to trashed, but it was obvious that Patrick had not been cleaning, "Welcome to my humble abode," said McNally before he collapsed onto the couch and grabbed a half empty bottle of rum.

"Well I see your maintaining the same lifestyle you had back when you were a priest...." Joseph said as he entered looked the place over briefly. "Anyways, we need to find some of your old Illuminati friends. Know anybody still?"

McNally looked up and said, "I haven't seen anyone from the Illuminati since The Heretic War way back when,". He sat up and drank a bit more of the rum, hoping to get tipsy off of what was left.

Joseph's patience was exhausted, not only was McNally being very short in his response as if he didn't want to cooperate but he was drinking making future attempts of questioning more difficult. Joseph smacked the bottle out of his hand, sending against the wall before he began... " Hey, this is serious! Now look, you can be a drunken fool and waste your life away crying about the times... or you can help me and accomplish something!" after he spoke he took a moment to gather himself so that he was no longer yelling at his friend. " Ok... but seriously you drinking does nothing but hinder us more so please McNally tell us where your friends are whether it was old information or not."

Patrick sighed and lifted something up from under his couch, a small black notebook. He held it up to Joseph and said to him, "It's a list of Illuminati contacts, I don't know if any of them work, but I do know that this place is still open," he pointed to a picture of a small hotel, "It's not too far its here in Italy and it was an old meeting place," said McNally as he stood up grabbing a gun.

Joseph made a quick joke yelling "Hes gotta gun!" as he dove behind the couch. He quickly got up though and chimed "Lets move then, McNally lead way." as he headed for the door so that they wouldn't appear together.

Patrick lead Thompson and Joseph to a small hotel about an hour away from his apartment. The hotel was four stories tall, made of brick and seemed older than many of the other buildings in the area. Patrick switched the safety off of his pistol and led the group inside of the hotel.

It was relatively quaint in that it wasn't sinister looking. Again it looked slightly older, but that was not necessarily a bad thing. Patrick pointed to the lady and looked to Joseph saying,

"Remember the pass? the Latin phrase you said to me all those years ago? everyone needs to say it to her to get through,".

"Yes its Merces Letifer, but McNally do we have to do this quietly? Cause I'm sort of on a strict time limit, and frankly don't give a damn about the well being of these people." Joseph said turning to McNally acknowledging him as someone he knew for the first time since the apartment.

"Okay good, I'll go first, then you and then the agent," said McNally as he made his way to the desk. The girl behind the desk smiled at him and asked, "What do you need, sir?".

"Merces Letifer," said McNally simply, he showed as little emotion in his voice as possible trying not to give away his intentions or make it seem that anything was different.

"Down the hall and to your left, try the door with the number 143 on it," said the girl as she pointed the way for the group. McNally turned slightly surprised and waved Joseph and Thompson to come with him and bypass the desk.

"Ok." Joseph said as he passed the desk augmenting his voice slightly to make him sound more Russian than anything trying still to conceal his identity. Once they passed the vision of the clerk he just waiting for some sort of ambush, being very suspicious of his surroundings.

A small sizzling sound was heard and as Patrick turned, as well as Thompson to look at it, they saw chains coming out of Joseph's arms. The chains feel to the floor and faded out of reality, Joseph more than likely would have felt that something was different probably felt a little less holy.

"What the...." Joseph said as he watch his arms produce chains and the pain in his back finally cease. He look as if he was a strange combination of shocked and pissed. Though he quickly gathered himself and resumed walking as if nothing happened

Patrick knew what had happened and simply said to Joseph, 'Looks like you lost your wings, bud,". He led the group further down the hallway to the door that they had been instructed to go to.

"Don't worry... I can kill him now. he will regret this." Joseph said surprisingly mono toned considering his recent behavior. He continued to follow, but once they reached the door he took the helm and arguably beat on the door when he reached the door.

No one answered the door and Patrick came up from behind Joseph and turned the nob. It was unlocked. He pushed the door and inside was a dossier and a very nicely clean room, as if no one had been in there for ages.

"Well, nobody really? At least they left us a present." Joseph said stunned at the innocence of the area as it stood, though he was still weary. He then headed inside proceeding to open the dossier and examine its contents.

The dossier had a small note and a picture on it. The note simply said "Andrew Anderson" and had a picture of Joseph's son tied to a chair beaten bloody and it was dated two weeks ago.

"What?! They got him! We have to move faster, and catch these people." Joseph said literally throwing the dossier across the room in anger before stomping out of the room with McNally's notebook in hand looking for the next target.

Patrick and Thompson followed Joseph, knowing full well that wherever they were going more than likely they were going to cause some damage. Thompson was the first to ask Joseph, "What was in the file, Joseph?".

"Proof that they have one of my kids. Lets just keep going, and save him already." Joseph said tossing the notebook back to McNally while saying "check for a place where they would of taken him."