Giulia blinked in the bright sunlight filling the room from the windows high above. She looked to the left and right before slowly sitting up, trying to determine where she was. She was in a bed she did not recognize and Mateo was sleeping in a bed beside her. The multiple beds set up throughout the room indicated that this was some sort of living quarters. She just didn’t know where. The memories from the day before came flooding back to her. She remembered walking out of the library and being attacked by the man who severed her hand.
My hand.
She realized then that she did not feel any pain. She looked down at her wrist expecting to see a bloody stump and saw her hand. Nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary. She held it up in front of her and wiggled her fingers. She rotated her wrist and turned her hand so her palm was facing her. She did the same for her other hand. She was even more unsure now than she was before. She reached over and shook Mateo gently,
“Mateo, wake up” she said. He woke up and looked at her, wide-eyed.
“Mama!” he exclaimed and he jumped from the bed and nearly tackled her in a hug.
“Mateo, what is this all about?” Giulia asked, hugging her son back. He wrapped himself tightly around her as if she was going to disappear if he let go. She could hear him sniffling against her shoulder,
“Are you crying?” she asked, holding him out at arm’s length. He wiped tears from his cheek and tilted his head, his expression changing to one of perplexion.
“You don’t remember?” he asked.
“It wasn’t a dream?”
“No mama, it wasn’t a dream.” Mateo answered solemnly.
“But how?” she asked, releasing her son and holding up her hand.
“I don’t know how I did, but I did. I healed you,” Mateo said.
“That’s not possible, Mateo.”
“It shouldn’t be, but it is.”
“Indeed,” said a voice from the doorway. Giulia and her son immediately looked towards the voice. Father Alessio was standing there smiling at them as they sat on the bed. Giulia felt a sense of unease. She noticed how her son tensed when he noticed it was the priest.
“Good morning, I have brought you breakfast. Surely you’re hungry,” Father Alessio said and Father Lorenzo walked in with two plates piled high with eggs, bacon and sausage. Steam wafted off the hot food and Giulia felt her mouth begin to water. It had been a long time since she had a hot meal.
“We’re fine,” Mateo replied. His voice carried an edge to it and Giulia looked at her son quizzically.
“Oh?” Father Alessio remarked, but Mateo’s stomach betrayed him as it released a rumbling growl that was clearly audible to all in the room.
“Eat, my son.” Father Lorenzo commanded, setting the plates down on a wooden end table between the beds. He pulled two forks from the pockets of his robes and set one on each plate. “You’ll need to keep your strength up.” He said, looking squarely at Mateo.
Mateo was silent and Giulia watched her son, waiting to see what he was going to do. She was starving but she felt as though Mateo knew something that he didn’t. After a few minutes, he relented and grabbed a plate, passing it to Giulia before taking the other for himself.
“Thank you,” he mumbled. Father Alessio beamed brightly,
“You are quite welcome, my son. Come meet me in the library when you are finished.” he said. Father Alessio then turned and left the room and Father Lorenzo followed behind.
“What was that about?” Giulia asked once the priests were out of earshot.
“They aren’t priests, mama. They’re not even human,” Mateo replied darkly. Giulia paused to reflect on what her son had just told her.
“What are they?” she asked even though she already knew the answer.
“Demons,” Mateo replied.
“Should we even eat this?” Giulia asked.
“They wouldn’t kill us by poisoning us, they could do it much faster,” Mateo replied, taking a bite of the food.
His answer sent chills down Giulia’s spine, what had he seen that she hadn’t? She found herself feeling helpless in this new reality where she had to rely on her son more than he could rely on her. She tried to resist eating but the food smelled heavenly. She took a bite of the eggs and sighed in contentment. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was.
The two ate in silence and Giulia noted the gloominess of her son’s mood. Some of his childlike quality was gone. Whatever happened in the moments that Giulia couldn’t remember was forcing him to grow up. She felt a pang of guilt as she considered how different things might have been if they had never left the cathedral. They finished eating and Mateo stacked the dirty plates on the end table.
“I should go meet,” he hesitated for a moment, “Father Alessio in the library.”
“I’ll come with you,” Giulia stated. She knew that Mateo would recognize the tone of her voice and understand that she wasn’t giving him an option. He nodded in agreement.
Giulia stood up from the bed for the first time and her legs wobbled. She balanced herself and gingerly took a few steps forward. Once that was successful, she followed behind Mateo towards the library. The route they took was completely unfamiliar to her. She deduced that they must have gone further into the Apostolic Palace and stayed where the priests used to.
“Father Alessio?” Mateo called into the library as they entered. The priest poked his head out from around the corner of one of the shelves. He saw Giulia standing behind Mateo and his smile slid from his face. He walked over to the pair.
Giulia noticed the imposing height of the priest as he stood directly in front of her. He looked down at her,
“Your presence is not needed, Ms. Giordano,” he said. His tone was polite but Giulia sensed the vaguely threatening undertones. She looked to Mateo who nodded rapidly,
“Very well, I need to go gather some of our belongings from the chapel if that’s alright?” Giulia requested. Father Alessio straightened up and smiled,
“But of course, sister. Take your time and feel free to explore the other areas of the Apostolic Palace. Father Lorenzo can give you a tour if you’d like?” he offered.
“I will think on it and let you know when I return,” Giulia replied and Father Alessio smiled but his eyes narrowed,
“Wonderful.” He said flatly.
Giulia exchanged one last look with her son and began walking out of the library. She could feel Father Alessio’s eyes boring into the back of head as she exited. She walked down the hall and through the entrance, blinking in the bright sunlight as she exited the dim interior of the building. She nearly vomited when she saw the decomposing body at the foot of the steps to the Apostolic Palace. Flies swarmed the body that was crumpled on the ground over a dried pool of black blood. As she made her way past it, the flies dispersed and she saw the oozing flesh and festering wound in the chest of the man. He was barely recognizable but she knew it was the man who had attacked her. She held her breath as she quickly passed by the corpse, avoiding inhaling the scent of the rotting flesh.
She hurriedly made her way down the street towards the chapel, giving the basilica a wide berth as she passed it. She pushed open the door of the chapel and entered quickly, shutting the door behind her. In her rush, she broke the line of salt at the threshold of the door.
Giulia walked over to the pile of books that she and Mateo had taken from the library the last time. Next to them was the canister of salt and a crucifix. The vials of holy water were gone. She grabbed the crucifix and shoved it in her blouse. She took the canister of salt and scanned through the pile of books, looking for the one on demonology.
“Giulia Giordano, I know that you’re smarter than that,” a voice said from behind her. She whirled around and looked toward the entrance of the chapel. A woman in long purple robes with a hood that covered all but the bottom half of her face stood in the doorway. Across the breast of her robes was the white outline of a flower that Giulia recognized as a lily.
“Who are you?” Giulia asked, pulling back out the crucifix and holding it in front of her. The woman laughed,
“Understand that you are here at my pleasure and that I do not need you for my plans,” she said. The room darkened and the woman in front of Giulia seemed to grow in height. “Your son is all I need. Disposing of you won’t change a single aspect of the plan.”
Giulia clutched the crucifix tightly and slowly stepped back to the altar. The woman pulled down her hood, exposing her face. Long silvery hair fell down across her shoulders and her back. She had piercing blue eyes that accentuated her blood red lips. Her pupils did not reflect the light and it gave her eyes a soulless and dead look.
“What do you want with my son?” Giulia asked. The woman rolled her eyes,
“This isn’t some fantasy where I give you the big reveal and you and your child foil my plans with some Hail Mary plan, Giulia. My plans will remain my own and you can remain alive if you stop trying to interfere,” she replied. The woman began to walk away and Giulia called after her,
“He’s one of the Virtuous Seven, isn’t he?”
The woman stopped and turned on her heel, facing Giulia. Her face was unreadable. The shadows seemed to stretch from the corners of the room and reach for Giulia.
“This is your last warning.” the woman said,
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“Do” The crucifix began to heat up in Giulia’s hands but she held onto it,
“Not” The heat increased and Giulia could smell the flesh of her palms beginning to burn, she yelped and dropped it.
“Interfere.” The crucifix melted into a silvery puddle which reformed into a white serpent with red beady eyes. It coiled up and hissed at Giulia before striking at her, stopping with its fangs just centimeters away from her leg. The snake slithered away and the woman bent down and extended her arm, allowing the snake to wind around it. The shadows receded once more as the woman pulled her hood back over her head.
“Pray we do not meet again, Giulia.” she said before walking out of the chapel. Giulia noticed that she walked directly between the space in the salt line.
In the library, Mateo was reading through the field journal that Father Alessio had given him, Revealing Revelations. The journal documented the knowledge of the Church regarding the apocalypse and what they believed would follow.
“Do you remember the account that you first read when you visited the library?” Father Alessio asked, interrupting Mateo’s reading.
“About the exorcism?” Mateo asked and Father Alessio nodded,
“Yes, that one.”
“I remember it, yea. What about it?”
“Do you recall how that demon was banished?” Father Alessio pressed. Mateo thought for a moment, trying to jog his memory.
“The priest learned its name, I think. Mast-something.” Mateo replied. Father Alessio looked pleased,
“Exactly! To banish a demon, you must first know its true name.” he explained cheerfully.
“So?” Mateo asked. He was uncertain why the demon disguised as a priest was explaining to him the process of exorcism. Father Alessio huffed,
“Princes of Hell are still demons,” he said. Mateo could hear the annoyance in his voice.
“Oh, because you want me to banish the Prince of…”
“Greed.”
“Right, the Prince of Greed,” Mateo finished. Father Alessio pinched the bridge of his nose and looked up at the ceiling for a moment before looking back at Mateo.
“While I am painfully aware of the fact that you are a child, I am not going to be able to walk you through this entire process. My master wants this task completed within a set amount of time so I need you to process things just a little bit faster.” Father Alessio said through gritted teeth.
The image of the priest consuming the heart of the man who tried to kill his mother kept Mateo from laughing. There was a level of amusement in the demon’s irritation with him, but fear kept it in check.
“Father Lorenzo, would you like to assist?” Father Alessio asked,
“Not at all,” Father Lorenzo replied.
“Your help would be greatly appreciated,” Father Alessio insisted.
“No.”
Father Lorenzo walked away from Father Alessio and Mateo, slipping away between the bookshelves.
“You’re saying I’ll need to learn the true name of the Prince of Greed and use it to banish him.” Mateo piped up and Father Alessio looked back to him,
“Yes, exactly that. There’s a little bit more to it than just learning his name but that’s most of it. Names hold power. Once you speak the true name of a demon, they become susceptible to you. Normally, a demon and especially a Prince of Hell, will kill you before you can speak their name. However, you cannot be harmed by Greed as the counter Virtue to the Prince,” Father Alessio explained. Mateo slowly absorbed the information,
“So what’s the Prince of Greed’s true name?” he asked. Father Alessio’s eye twitched and he turned away from the boy, once again pinching the bridge of his nose.
“He’s just a child, he’s just a child” Father Alessio mumbled to himself. He turned back to Mateo with a forced smile on his face,
“If it were that simple, you and your mother would not be alive. The other Princes would be banished and my master would claim this domain as their own. There are rules in the dominions of Hell, though you may not believe it. The Princes’ true names are carefully guarded and only they may reveal them. Divine intervention in the mortal realm made it possible for your kind to access them but even then it is a difficult task. Neither myself nor Lorenzo nor even our master would be able to confirm that you have found the right name. We cannot guide you to the name nor give any hints about it. I cannot even speak of the true name of Lorenzo though the Princes can. Considering that the Princes have only appeared in isolation across history, it is entirely possible that there remains no record of their name. But if a record still remains, the Holy City would be the likeliest to contain it.”
“Once I learn the Prince’s name and the ritual to banish him, what happens next?” Mateo asked. Father Alessio suddenly had a devious grin on his face,
“That is to be left up to Father Lorenzo and I. You do your part and we’ll do ours,” he replied devilishly.
Giulia finished packing up the few belongings from the chapel and she tied the ends of a piece of fabric from the piles of cloth that had served as beds, creating a homemade sack. She carried it over her shoulder as she walked out of the chapel. She paused and looked around the building that had served as her and Mateo’s sanctuary for the past year. With a sigh, she walked out of the door and began her journey back to the Apostolic Palace.
As she began to pass the basilica, she saw the woman in purple standing at the entrance. Goosebumps formed on her arms as she paused to face the woman. The hood hid the woman’s face except for the bottom half. Giulia could see the blood red lips turned up in a smile. The woman raised her hand and began to move her fingers as if she was operating a puppet. Giulia watched her curiously.
A hand wrapped around her throat and Giulia’s eyes went wide. She strained to see behind her and then the overwhelming scent of rotting flesh filled her nostrils. Her stomach twisted at the stench and she started to cough. She fell forward, dropping the makeshift bag, as she was released by her assailant and whirled around to face the corpse of the same man who had nearly killed her before. He moved like a marionette with the leg joints bending the wrong way and his feet twisting inward as they buckled underneath his weight. The body lurched and jerked towards her clumsily. Giulia looked at the woman in purple at the basilica doors and watched how her fingers directed the motion of the body.
As if it sensed Giulia’s realization, the body jerked its head up and the glassy eyes stared straight at her. Giulia froze in place,
“This is only a fraction of my power, Giuliaaaaaaaaah,” the man hissed, his jaw falling slack as he said her name, drawing out its syllables.
Giulia looked back at the woman again as the woman flicked her hand. The body flew through the air and landed on top of Giulia, pinning her to the ground. Giulia screamed and pushed the body off of her, rolling out from underneath it and grabbing the cloth sack. She tucked it under her arm as she ran towards the Apostolic Palace. In the distance, she could hear the woman laughing.
Giulia entered the Apostolic Palace and stopped to catch her breath. She checked behind her to make sure that neither the corpse nor the woman in purple had followed her. The streets were quiet and empty. She walked down the hallway and snuck past the library, briefly pausing to see if she could spot her son. She saw him seated near the middle of the library at one of the tables, facing away from her. Neither of the priests were with him. She breathed a sigh of relief and continued down the hall towards the living quarters, constantly checking over her shoulder.
She made it into the living quarters and once again checked behind her. The halls were empty and so she quietly slid into the room and shut the door. She threw the cloth sack onto the bed and unraveled it. It fell open to reveal the items she had brought from the chapel. Clothes for her and Mateo, the books they had taken from the library before, but Giulia noticed the other things she had packed were missing. Her heart began to race and she pushed through the pile of clothes and books, searching.
“Where is it?” she muttered under her breath.
“Really, Giulia?” a voice said from beside her. Giulia jumped, startled by the voice and looked to see where it came from. Sitting in a chair at the end of the bed was Father Alessio. A silver chain with a cross on it dangled from the priest’s gloved hand. In his other hand was the canister of salt. Giulia swallowed hard and stood up,
“F..father Alessio…” she stammered and the priest raised an eyebrow, boredly swinging the necklace with the cross pendant back and forth. He slowly stood up and closed his hand around the necklace,
“We offer hospitality,” he said, taking a step towards Giulia. She stepped back from him. “We offer sanctuary,” another step. Giulia was beginning to feel cornered,
“We save the lives of you and your little brat.”
The priest now loomed over Giulia and the light had dimmed in the room as if a cloud passed in front of the sun. Father Alessio glared down at Giulia and she noticed that his eyes were now entirely black. There was no discernible pupil. She could not even see her own reflection with the abyssal eyes staring back at her.
“And you repay us by disturbing our master and plotting against us,” the priest now spoke with two voices. One human and one otherworldly. His voice echoed off the walls. Giulia’s back was against the wall. She maintained eye contact with the demon.
“My son is not a tool for you to use,” she spat. A sinister smile split Father Alessio’s face. His teeth looked larger and more pointed than they had before.
“Except he is, Giulia. And if he isn’t then he’s just a toy,” the demon leaned down close to Giulia’s face, “and toys are meant to be played with.”
Giulia took her chance and smacked the canister of salt from the demon’s hand. She pushed past him and grabbed it from the floor, pouring some in her palm. As Father Alessio whirled around to face her, she threw the salt into his eyes. A piercing shriek burst from the demon’s throat and Giulia threw open the door, running out into the hallway and directly into Father Lorenzo.
The second priest grabbed her hand and effortlessly pulled the container of salt from it. He maintained his grip on her wrist and Giulia felt a growing sense of fear. She didn’t want to lose her hand again. She looked up at Father Lorenzo who shook his head and then pressed his other palm against her forehead. She saw a flash of light and then there was darkness.
Mateo ran down the hall after hearing someone scream. He turned the corner and saw his mother go limp as Father Lorenzo held her wrist.
“NO!” he bellowed, running at the priest. Father Lorenzo dropped Giulia’s arm and she fell to the ground. He held up his hand and Mateo found himself frozen in place. His muscles strained against the unseen force but he was unable to continue moving forward.
“She’s not dead,” Father Lorenzo said, “just taking a rest.”
“What did you do to her?” Mateo asked through clenched teeth. Each word took tremendous effort as his jaw was locked up by whatever power held him place.
“Again, child, she’s resting. She needed it. She was becoming hysterical,” Father Lorenzo replied, walking around Mateo. He pushed his hand between the boy’s shoulder blades and Mateo fell to the ground, once again able to move.
“Think carefully before you make your next move,” Father Lorenzo warned. Mateo knew his mother’s life depended on him cooperating with the demons. Mateo slowly stood and turned around to face Father Lorenzo.
“Good. Now tell me boy, what have your hours of study resulted in?”
“In the times of tribulation, the seven Vices will descend upon the Earth and take up residence in areas where they exerted influence before the final days,” Mateo began, reciting a passage from the Revealing Revelations journal, “These vices will be countered only by their corresponding virtues, often referred to as the Virtuous Seven. These Virtues; Selflessness, Generosity, Moderation, Purity, Determination, Humility, and Patience, may manifest in singular instances or collective ones and will be impervious to the effects of their corresponding vice.”
“Correct, but I don’t need you to recite the book for me. How does the banishment of a Vice work?” Father Lorenzo pressed.
“Demons may be exorcized by learning their true names. The Vices are demons at their core, but they hold more power. Learning the true name of a Vice is not enough. The Vice must be bound to an object that reflects their corrupting influence and that object must then be destroyed with fire. This binding ceremony requires blood from the corresponding Virtue to be effective.” Mateo replied and Father Lorenzo looked impressed,
“Good. Very good, Mateo. For that, I’ll let your mother live. But she’s going to be asleep for a long time,” he said.
“But I’m doing what you’ve asked,” Mateo pleaded with the demon, his eyes burning as tears welled up in them. Father Lorenzo shook his head,
“Stop that. You will continue to do as we ask and we might let both of you live. That is not a guarantee. Your mother has a propensity to stick her nose where it doesn’t belong. Our patience is not endless. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Mateo responded meekly.
“Good, now do what you need to do to determine the name of the Prince of Greed and prepare yourself to do the ritual to banish it. Father Alessio, once he recovers, and I will provide support as we are able.” Father Lorenzo instructed. He picked up Giulia and carried her back into the room, laying her on the bed. He turned and looked at Mateo, “Back to the library.”
Mateo nodded and sullenly walked towards the library. He held back his tears as a feeling of helplessness overwhelmed him. The realization that he couldn’t always save his mother was crushing. He returned to the library and Father Lorenzo set a lit oil lamp on the table. Mateo picked up Revealing Revelations and began to quietly read through his tears.