Vallon-de-Grâce was quiet at eight o'clock. Solemn. Shrouded in auras of mist and nightly scents. The firmament above was without light, gray and moonless. The entire parsonage reeked of pure myrrh and burning spices—but the good kind.
The smoking sage to ward off the unwanted wights. The absinthe to absolve wandering souls. And the incense to host proper an ambience in which the Holy Ones might dwell. In one of the sanctuaries on this Vicar's lot, Israfel and his friends had just materialized out of thin air, before a clergyman.
"Welcome to the Martyr's cathedral," that old voice said. The bearer of it stepped into the light. A greying man in a long black cassock was revealed. It was the Highfather.
"Your Holiness?" Rosamunde was the first to reach forward. Percival was just getting up from the smooth, church floors, helped by Bruna; his belly was on fire. And he had just emptied all of his rushed dinner onto the Florentine tiles of the sanctuary. Cora had manifested more floating lights into the round room and the luminous balls shone from various points high on the painted dome.
Apart from the sconces on the walls, the sanctum was well lit now.
There were no pews here. This was the private hold of only those who stood on the altar. Only clergymen and virgin boy-helpers could access this room, this place. This holy place.
Rafel could not feel much of his mana core within this sanctum. He didn't like it. He frowned at the 20ft sculpture of the cowled God—the Martyr—set in alabaster stone at the helm of the sanctum. An orchestra was wafting in beatifically from some adjoining hall through the greystones, but Rafel wondered what kind of choir sang this late at night.
In the cafeteria many yards away, students were retiring to their various Halls, walking in groups to dormitories. No one really payed much attention to the forlorn longtable which had once held a bunch of First Years, and one sophomore. Erika Burgess, the Student President thought it was one of the friends general antics and forgot the whole matter with a spliff handed to her by Raz Fairfield.
By the time she reached her dorm, Salem Hall, and butted out the cigar, no one was really thinking of Israfel as they swiped room keycards and went out of sight.
Meanwhile, on the church hill acres of Vallon-de-Grâce, the Apollyon stood glaring with his friends at the robed, greying Highfather. Rosamunde was still at the lead; she questioned the Vicar such: "It was you who summoned us here, Your Holiness. Why?"
"Don't call him that." Cora fired behind.
The silver-haired poltergeist had never been a believer of the Martyr, nor faith in any god that was too cowardly—in her mind—to show his face. But what little fancy she had for Eldorian religion went kapische when she and Rafel stumbled upon this very priest emptying his frayed balls into his altar boy's puckering arse. And the lad had being a minor.
Corazón would never forget the pants and heaves of exertion. The Highfather's clenching, cramped, clammy buttocks. That was it for her.
The Highfather seemed to catch the growing fire in her blue eyes and quickly spoke up. He cleared his throat. "I deeply apologize, to you all, but this was the only way I knew to get you here. There is an issue of the utmost importance, beyond our chaffed relations."
Cora scoffed. "Chaffed relations! He even talks funny."
"But I thought the Holy Church doesn't dabble in dark arts? You clearly had use of a Pentagon Rune or Talisman of the occult to get us here." Rosa said, her gray eyes begging it to not be true. She'd already had her fairy put into question as it was. The Highfather gave a humbled nod. "I did. I had to.
The Church has learned over centuries that there are shades of gray between the holy and evil."
Cora rolled her eyes and addressed her friend. "Come on, Rosa. Don't buy into this man's bullshit. Does he look like a holy person to you? He fucks fourteen year-old boys. You can believe in the Martyr, but certain not this...
person as their conduit."
He, and Cora, and Rosa.
They shared one look as the Highfather went on to explain more about the Countess's situation.
"She has been screaming all day, uttering the most heinous blasphemies, spewing vile things, cussing and kicking, commiting her body to grievous sins. Once she bit on her own nipple, I fetched the ropes you now see. Something dwells in her. 'Tis evil and wicked.
'tis the devil. I hear him in her cry. Our holiest demonagogues fail to cast him out. Do not be seduced by her play at innocence. The thing within her is wretched of spirit. It has near purged her soul to damnation.
But I believe she can be saved. She seeks it—which is why I summoned you. Pray, Apollyon, save this one. Her spirit is strong."
While the Highfather was yet speaking, Constance reared up in the air, taken up in a sudden wind that blasted her hair in all directions. She screamed out loudly and the Vicar shivered. Cora slammed both hands to her ears. The Countess hung in the air as her pale lips fell closed, as if electrocuted. Then suddenly, her neck cracked to face Rafel.
"HELLO, NEPHEW!" A man's voice called from her lips.
It was hard and mangled. Twisted and graty. The smile on her face wasn't Constance's own. Blue veins lined her sickly, gray skin.
The Highfather pointed and planted a firm hand to his breast, muttering, "I-I told you, it's the devil."
"Quiet!" Rafel bulleted.
Constance's lips began moving again; she talked in that same growling, male voice. She sounded out of breath, like a monster.
"Did you really think you could run away from us, NEPHEW?" She barked, laughing hysterically. "Your Aunt misses you dearly, but I... I know you'll be back. You can't stay away. Those mortals will bore you, eventually. I'd bet a hundred years or so, after you see them grow old and die.
OH! THEIR WITHERING FACES. THE DECAY! I CAN SEE IT! I CAN SMELL IT ALREADY. Tell me nephew, have you fucked the King's daughter yet?
She's kind of like your sister, ISN'T SHE? TELL ME, NEPHEW? HAVE YOU DRILLED THAT VIRGIN CUNT DEEP? HAHAHAHA!" The demonic voice gave a tumultuous laughter, cackling as Constance's head turned a round 360, but she didn't die. Only kept cackling crazily.
"Uncle Lucifer?" Rafel leaned in.
"YES, NEPHEW!" Constance barked in his face, grinning like an evil imp; her voice slurred than a drunken septuagenarian. It was cracked and drunken. Her cheeks, sunken. Where were those soft dimples he remembered of the Countess? Rafel pondered.
"TIS I, LUCIFER! TIS I, LORD MORNINGSTAR! TIS I, THE FALLEN SUN!" The horrible voice sang. "TIS I! TIS I!
TIS I!" Then as all the friends, and the Highfather stared stricken in place at Constance's ashen body still floating midair above the bed with iron chains rattling in an eerie wind—this far down underground no one knew where it came from—her head abruptly cracked to the side and colorless eyes pinned Rafel in earnest.
"COME HOME, PRODIGAL! THIS IS US BEING NICE. THE NEXT TIME WE ASK, MORTAL LIVES SHALL HANG IN THE BALANCE."
Then with another round of sickly laughter, the devil possessing the Countess of Avila jammed her face forward and sank her foul mouth to Rafel's astonished face. He gasped as her putrid lips melded his in a challenging kiss.