Papal Conclave: Shadows of the Vatican

Papal Conclave Cardinals

Title: The Scarlet Conclave

Prologue: The Locked Doors

The Sistine Chapel had been sealed for three days. Outside, the world waited with bated breath for white smoke to rise from the chimney, signaling the election of a new pope. But inside, behind the frescoed walls where Michelangelo’s Last Judgment loomed ominously, the cardinals of the Holy Roman Church were not just debating—they were dying.

One by one, the princes of the Church fell. Not to age, nor to natural causes, but to something far more sinister.

Day One: The Poisoned Chalice

The conclave began as all conclaves do—with prayer, solemnity, and the swearing of oaths of secrecy. Seventy-two cardinals entered, but by midnight, one would not leave alive.

Cardinal Lucien Villette, the austere French traditionalist, collapsed during Vespers. His face turned ashen, his lips blue. As he gasped for breath, his trembling hand clutched at his throat before he slumped forward onto the marble floor. The other cardinals murmured in shock, but the Master of Papal Liturgical Celebrations declared it a tragic heart attack.

Yet Cardinal Eduardo Marquez, the sharp-eyed Argentinian, noticed something peculiar—Villette’s wine cup smelled faintly of bitter almonds.

Cyanide.

Day Two: The Judas Kiss

The second death came with a whisper.

Cardinal Giancarlo Rossi, the Vatican’s longtime financial overseer, was found in his cell, a rosary wrapped tightly around his neck. His face was frozen in terror, his fingers still clawing at the beads. The doors had been locked from the inside.

Cardinal Marquez, now suspicious, examined the body. A faint smear of lipstick—deep red, almost black—marked Rossi’s cheek. A Judas kiss before the kill. But who among them would dare?

Then came the whispers: Rossi had been investigating something before the conclave. Something about money laundering, secret accounts, and a cabal within the Church itself.

Day Three: The Confession

The third victim did not go quietly.

Cardinal Patrik Hegarty, the Irish reformist, burst into the chapel during the scrutiny, his cassock drenched in sweat.

'They’re killing us!' he screamed. 'The Sodalitium Pianum—they never disbanded! They’re here, among us!'

Before he could say more, a crossbow bolt—archaic, brutal—slammed into his chest from the shadows of the upper balcony. The cardinals scattered in panic.

Now, the truth was undeniable. Someone was hunting them. And the killer had to be one of their own.

The Final Scrutiny

With the conclave in chaos, Cardinal Marquez and a small group of survivors barricaded themselves in the Sacristy. They pored over the ballots from the previous votes, looking for a pattern.

Then they saw it.

Three votes, each time, for the same man—a cardinal who had not been seen since the first night. A man long thought to be a ghost of Vatican past.

Cardinal Enrico Domani.

The problem?

Domani had died five years ago.

Epilogue: The Unholy Trinity

When the Swiss Guard finally broke down the doors, they found only three cardinals alive.

Marquez stood over two bodies—the real killers, Cardinals Voss and Lefebvre, members of the ancient and secretive Sodalitium Pianum, a sect within the Church that had operated in the shadows for centuries. Their goal? To ensure the election of a pope who would restore the Church to its most ruthless, unchecked power.

But the third survivor, a quiet, unassuming cardinal from Poland, merely smiled as the white smoke finally billowed into the Roman sky.

'Habemus Papam.'

And somewhere in the Vatican archives, a single name was crossed off a very old list.

TO BE CONTINUED?

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Papal Conclave: Shadows of the Vatican

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