Chapter Text
Cardinal Lawrence stormed down the hall. Each candle on the wall wavered from the force of air, and the garlic gloves hanging under their holders swayed. Hastily, the holy dean checked over each one, glancing to make sure there wasn’t a door ajar or a handle broken. But none seemed to be disturbed—the dorms were proofed with a near perfect symmetry. Nearly.
In each room should sleep a single cardinal. Just the week prior, Lawrence and his fellow colleagues had decided prayer shall not be done alone while in the pews or in the courtyard. As for boarding time, no one shall enter another’s dorm other than their own, not for any reason. Not even upon the sound harrowing screams or loud thumps.
Everything had been protected, save for the final dormitory to the Cardinal’s left. The door was securely shut, but the garlic cloves mandated to be stationed under each candle stoop were nowhere to be seen. Cardinal Lawrence sucked in a deep breath and choked. He clasped a hand over his mouth–even had the cloves been inconspicuously replenished or replaced, the sheer smell of iron would’ve told anyone what laid beyond the door of that room.
Lawrence, now breathing more carefully, swallowed. His head spun from the sickening aroma, but he nonetheless kept himself steady. This wasn’t new. Just the month prior, Cardinal Tremblay had found a corpse in the scullery—a young maiden, not even 20, dead with snake-like bites on the pulse of her neck. A week after, some noblemen complained of scratching sounds at night, and bloodletted animals falling dead in their plantations. This wasn’t new. It was just Cardinal Lawrence’s turn.
God, give me courage, he pleaded to the Heavens, doing a humble cross over his chest. Lord knows he didn’t want to do this; Lord knows he didn’t want to be here. As the Dean, it was his responsibility to oversee things like this—the acts of Satan occurring in the house of God. Perhaps a part of himself did believe that as he placed his trembling hand on the cold door handle. Undeniably, a much louder part screamed at him to stop.
He could feel the blood rushing away from his hands as he twisted the handle. His brain came to a sharp halt. Accompanied with the handle’s click had been a shuffle.
Something heard him.
It could be the fear, but it also could not be. Tremblay, the nuns, and some scullery women had all found their slaughtered companions in the arms of Christ—that is to say, alone and untouched by anyone other than their killer. So why was it that, at that moment, Lawrence could hear the disturbed shuffling of someone inside the room he was made to enter? Why was it that that someone now noticed him and didn’t have half the sense to leave?
He’s not scared of you, his mind supplied, which only made the feeling worse.
Just then, the stranger inside the room let out a low, guttural growl, accompanied by the soft snapping of their jaw, as if Lawrence had interrupted some king’s nourishing and private meal. A shiver ran down his spine.
Lawrence stumbled, suddenly. He stretched his arm to its furthest, trying to reach the garlic on the stoop next to that of the bloodied room. The handle clicked again and he flinched. He strained to not let go. Beyond the door, the wood creaked in a slow, rhythmless pattern; circular, just about. Lawrence swallowed back a pitiful groan.
Tears pooled in his eyes as he considered abandoning the dorm, and maybe, by extension, the church. Maybe he could run somewhere far away from here, where no one knew of God or Satan or faith at all. Somewhere, out there, he was not the prey of the Leviathan. At that point, Lawrence had gone to grab the candle nearest to him instead. He brought the flame to the door, ready to ignite the devil himself if he had to. There was no other way.
“Be not afraid.”
What?
“My child, be not afraid,” the words were so softly spoken the scent of bloodshed in the air almost seemed to disappear, if not for just a second. “I am of no danger to you.”
The candles in the hallway surely dimmed, and it was so silent one could perhaps hear the dripping of melted wax. Cardinal Lawrence sobbed, disbelieving of what he heard. The voice behind the door sounded more like a God than an animalistic killer.
“I know,” the voice murmured. “You do not understand.”
“I don’t.” Cardinal Lawrence choked out, immediately repenting his decision to speak to what could very well be the antichrist. The killer of the church and all its sympathizers—including the Dean. Still, without his noticing, his hand had already twisted the handle, meeting the voice halfway.
“But in due time you can—” the person cut themself off, seeming to be occupied by a brief thought. “In due time you must.”
Cardinal Lawrence gripped the rosary hanging low from his neck and demanded: “Who are you? Who are you, you creature of sin?”
More shuffling—slow and heavy, like the person carried the burden of robes.
“He who Prevails, my good child.” They answered, slow and as certain as the sky is blue. “Vincentius, some call me.”
The cardinal’s hand grew stiff on that handle, and something holy seemed to overcome him. Vincentius, Vincentius, Vincentius, a name almost as freeing as his mater, Maria. And why? Why was it that, beyond the oak-thick door, a creature of such mystery sat, speaking not as an imp, but as an agent of God?
“Alright, then,” Cardinal Lawrence straightened his back and gripped the lock with a new found strength. “Tell me, Vincentius, are you a believer and obeyer of Christ?”
Lawrence’s words echoed meaninglessly down the corridor til the person replied with a sudden bout of laughter. His stomach curdled with unease.
“I am not a demon,” the being finally replied. “Nor am I an angel. But I can assure you, in the darkest pits of purgatory, I will arise to defend God’s gate with every vein in my heart.”
“...” Lawrence’s thumb lingered on the Ave Maria beaded next to his cross.
“Now, what did I say, my friend?” Vincentius asked. Lawrence could hear the sound of his hand pressing against the wood. How horrible, that, in this moment of moral absolution, Lawrence’s soul seemed to move without doubt or hesitation.
“Come in, for the night is not long, and I’m sure neither of us satisfied.”