How It All Goes Down
- Silas's arrived at the Church of Saint-Sulpice. He's equal parts miffed that the brotherhood has hidden the keystone in a house of God, and excited to steal what's rightfully theirs back for the Opus Dei, granting them seemingly unlimited power.
- But Silas is also busy wrestling with his demons from the past…
- Silas had a horrific childhood. His alcoholic father used to beat him and his mother, enraged at the fact that she'd spawned an albino, until one day his father beat his mommy to death.
- Silas then killed his father (who was laying prone in a drunken stupor) by stabbing him over and over again.
- Silas went on to live on the streets of Marseilles, alone at the age of seven, shunned even by the other young runaways.
- At the age of twelve he beat a girl for mocking his appearance. The authorities gave him a choice: leave Marseilles or go to juvenile prison. So he left.
- By the time he was eighteen he inspired fear in everyone who saw him. He was huge, ghostly, and incredibly violent.
- After breaking the neck of a sailor with his bare hands, he was arrested and sent to prison in Andorra.
- He'd been in prison for twelve years when a huge earthquake destroyed his cell, and he escaped.
- He spent a few days wandering, exhausted and near death by starvation, until he collapsed by the side of the road.
- Next thing he knows, he's in a bed, and someone is bringing him food, and he's convinced Jesus is watching over him and saying that he's been saved.
- After a few days of being in what he assumes must be Heaven, he's awoken by a cry. He sees a huge dude beating a smaller dude, and he puts a stop to that right quick.
- The smaller dude is a priest with a badly broken nose, who was being robbed.
- Aha. The small priest is Manuel Aringarosa, a young Opus Dei numerary. He's the one who's been caring for Silas.
- The next day, Silas sees a newspaper clipping next to his bed detailing the earthquake that had freed him from prison.
- He's terrified that Aringarosa is going to turn him in now that he knows he's most likely a convict, but nope.
- Aringarosa found a passage in the Bible about a dude named Silas who escaped from prison after a holy earthquake freed him—hence his name.
- Fast forward to present day, and Bishop Aringarosa is anxiously contemplating what Silas must be doing in France, but the Teacher has explicitly forbid direct communication in order to prevent someone discovering their collusion.
- Aringarosa doesn't mind following orders from someone as smart as the Teacher.
- All the Teacher wants for his part in the whole thing is twenty million euro—which Aringarosa thinks is chump change for something so powerful.