The Black ChapelChapter 1: The Archivist
Albany, New York – Diocese Records AnnexOctober 3rd, 2021 – 6:17 PM
The air inside the records room was dry, yellowed by age and silence. It always smelled faintly of mildew, ink, and something bitter — like old paper that had forgotten how to breathe.
Maria Vescari stood in front of a file cabinet that hadn't been opened in years. She wasn't supposed to be here. Not this late. Not alone.
Her keycard shouldn't have worked, either — but it had.
The drawer scraped open with a metallic sigh, revealing a stack of old clergy death reports filed under Clerical D. She scanned the faded tabs: DeLong, Delaney, Desanti, D. Lussaro. That name.
She recognized it.
Father Anthony Lussaro, who'd died earlier that year at St. Irenaeus Chapel — a small, half-forgotten structure tucked in the woods north of town. Heart failure, they said. Peaceful, quiet. The kind of death expected of an aging priest.
But this report…
It didn't match the one she'd catalogued three months ago.
Maria slid the manila folder onto the nearby table. Two documents were missing — the autopsy summary and the funeral clearance slip. In their place, a post-it note:
"Filed under sealed directive — per Archbishop F."
No signature. No seal. Just that cryptic "F."
Maria frowned. This wasn't standard. It wasn't even legal.
She turned to cross-reference the funeral log. But before she could, her phone vibrated. One new voicemail.
Unknown number.
She hesitated — then played it.
"You're not ready for what's buried there, Ms. Vescari. Stay out of it. Confession is one thing… exposure is another."
The message ended with a low static hum that didn't stop. She pulled the phone from her ear — it was still vibrating, even though the call had ended.
She stared at it.
And then, slowly, she turned back to the file.
Taped to the back of Father Lussaro's death certificate was an old, brittle photograph. Black-and-white. Slightly curled. Four men in cassocks standing in front of a chapel with no windows. No name. The wood behind them was black as coal, warped by age or fire.
Maria flipped it over.
Scrawled in faint, shaking pencil:
"The last gate. Silence kept. Blood paid."St. Irenaeus, 1996
She stared at the year.
That wasn't when Lussaro died.
That was twenty-five years earlier.