“How can you be so sure? They will avenge the girl as they avenged the sister”.
Ali deduced that when Mikah mentioned that they had had to kill a vampire to rescue her they referred to Annabeth, since she was her captor.
“What have you just said?" Jared suddenly lost his temper and shook Ali by the shoulders. "What sisters are you talking about? How are they like?”
“A redhead and another girl with bluish hair...” Ali answered, fearful.
“Annabeth? Who did it?” Asked the boy.
“I don’t know. I don’t know!” she shouted when she felt the pain that Jared's hands provoked when he pressed her so violently.
Then he simply released her and shot out into the hall. The heavy door closed behind him with metallic bangs. Ali yelled for him to come back and then asked for help, screaming until she was tired but her voice was trapped between the stone walls. Finally, she collapsed on a bed and wept bitterly without being able to remove the last image of Chase from his head.
She woke up hours later and, already much calmer, conceived a plan to escape. She was looking out the window when, far from discouraging her, the fact of knowing that she was two floors high gave her a trite but effective idea. She took all the sheets she could find and knotted them firmly to create a rope long enough to leave her at a height from which she could jump without breaking a leg. Then she tied her to the bed and slowly collapsed next to the cloth. She knew it was only a matter of time before someone saw her, so as soon as her feet touched the ground, she ran away as if Lucifer were pursuing her.
This was a particularly cold night, a sensation that grew stronger when she came to the dark and damp repair of nearby trees. Her numb feet slid awkwardly in the mud as she ran in a hurry without direction. Her goal was to get as far away as possible from the cathedral: then she would stop to think. The darkness was becoming more and more impenetrable, the moonlight seeping in from time to time among the squeezed leaves and reflected in the snowy skin of his hands, which went from here to there clinging to the trunks as a blind one would feel the way. She thought she heard distant noises behind her and an intense fear invaded her, a kind of instinct for survival that prompted her to continue even in the thickest darkness. Suddenly, something happened like a blast by her side but, to her surprise, it didn’t stop her. That was even more terrifying: not knowing who she was with. Then she ran desperately and after several trips, a final fall precipitated her until the end of the lawn where a street was opened vaguely illuminated and bordered by houses.
Ali sat up and watched the muddy scrapes on her hands and knees stung by an incessant burn. But it did not matter. Barely able to regain her balance, she ran to her house, turning occasionally to see if she was being pursued. Deceptive shadows crossed the darkness but did not try to reach her. Maybe it was only her imagination.
She was close. She focused on saving the last block in a hurry and finally turned the corner of her house. An intense glow filled her with terror and made her stop short. She wanted to scream for her father but her body did not respond, her mouth did not move, her feet seemed nailed to the ground and her hands, totally disconnected from her body. She couldn’t do anything other than watch her house burn out, engulfed in flames licking the sky and climbing to the top of the tree next to her bedroom window. Suddenly, a glass exploded inside and fired her senses again.
“Dad!”
The neighbors gathered in front of the house, but nobody did anything.
“Girl, don’t go!” Mrs. Margery yelled when she saw her flash by in the front yard. “The firemen are on their way! Alanis!”
But it was in vain. There was no time to wait. Ali broke one of the side windows by throwing a heavy flower pot and went into the house. The heat was overwhelming and the smoke barely let her breathe. She shouted at her father and ran across the room in her search. At each step the house creaked. The roof beams began to crack and fall to pieces in flames. Finally, she reached the door of the office and found it locked from the inside: her father was still there.
“Dad! Can you hear me? It's me, Ali! Are you there?”
There was no answer. Using the weight of her body, Ali rammed the door painfully several times until it finally gave way. The impulse threw her down the small stairs. Her father's office, engulfed in flames, was a complete mess. All his books and papers lay on the floor half open, with the pages torn out. It was not as if they had fallen, rather it seemed that someone had thrown them furiously into the walls. She didn’t find her father in plain sight, so he began to run the books and furniture scattered in pieces, hoping that he was buried under the chaos. The air became more and more vicious with the smoke and Ali felt like she couldn’t breathe anymore. She couldn’t stop coughing and putting her shirt over her mouth was useless.
“Your father is not here”, said a voice. “I've checked the whole house”.
Then, the owner of the voice took her from behind and helped her up. Just before leaving, Ali saw that letter by the table and took it, she didn’t know why. Suddenly she thought that her father's sudden precautions, his insistence on moving out, and the burning of the house had to do with whatever was written there. After all, Johnny had always been a weird, reserved, self-absorbed and somewhat mysterious guy, but reading that letter had upset him more. She grabbed the letter next to her chest just as the world seemed to turn around. She heard a rumble of things falling, and the lights dazzled her. Something grabbed her from behind and catapulted her up. It was that feeling again, the fresh air hitting her in the face and the black feathers fluttering over her head.
She woke up like it was from a dream and could see, protected in the shadows, as immense jets of water extinguished the flames of her house in the distance. Blinking red lights finally took shape and she saw the firemen in front of the property and the commotion of people. Then, she noticed that her feet were suspended in the air and that something was grabbing her legs and back. She looked up and found that angelic and serious face, framed by golden hair. His face seemed sculpted in carrara marble barely rosy. His nose, with straight and soft lines, could not be the work of any sculptor of this world. It was perfect. Kaliel was still looking toward the house, expressionless. Then his eyes went down to meet Ali's, more patronizing than the last time.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
Ali nodded with a slight nod and felt that her head was like spinning. He placed her gently on the ground, helping her to stand up.
"I arrived late," sobbed Ali.
“Your father was not in the house when the fire started” assured the boy. “Come on, it's not safe to be here. It is better that nobody sees you”.
Ali looked at her house one last time-or what was left of it-and then Kaliel led her in the opposite direction.
"What are you doing?" Ali protested as she tried to wrench her arm away from him firmly. “I don’t want to go there again. Don’t take me to the cathedral!”
“ I won’t”.
“So? Where we go?”
The boy didn’t answer.
"Who are you?" Ali asked brusquely.
He stopped for a moment and looked at her over his shoulder, not letting her go.
“You already know it” he said.
Ali noticed a certain suspicion in his eyes. It looked more like he was trying to prove it.
“I have no idea who you are or what you want... Nor why you were following me”.
Recovering his usual impassiveness, he watched her in silence for a moment, thoughtful. However, his response was as short and dry:
“My name is Kaliel. You do not need to know the rest”.
Then he released her and continued walking in an afterlife silence.
Kaliel was very fast. The muddy ground presented no obstacle to his clever feet, but Ali found it very difficult to keep up. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of walking through the night darkness, they reached their destination.
"You said you would not bring me here!" She protested an
grily, before the back walls of the cathedral.
“I will not lock you in that room” he said with excessive calmness.
Ali sighed resignedly. Anyway, she had no choice but to follow him.
"I hate this way," Kaliel commented as they climbed the infinite stone steps of a spiral staircase. “It’s too long”.
“I don’t see another...” Ali said bewildered and he sketched a malicious smile without looking at her.
Kaliel walked patiently with his hands in his pockets and without stirring in the least, until he reached a quadrangular room, surrounded by tall windows: the top of the tower.
“Unfortunately, there is no other safer place than this” he said as a false apology while searching through a trunk.
In the room there was only a red suede chair and a small table, both next to one of the windows, and then trunks and shelves full of books and papers. That reminded Ali of her father's office.
Kaliel turned holding two heavy blankets and threw them at Ali. Then she pulled the trunk next to the chair against the window and invited her to sit more comfortably, while he stayed on the trunk. From some obscure place he extracted a teapot with hot tea and two cups that he served on the small table.
“The bad thing is that it is very cold at night” he warned.
Ali was thoughtful for a few moments.
“I never believed in vampires, but as I understood, I thought they did not feel cold...”
Kaliel stopped her cup dry just before reaching her lips and pushed it away a few inches.
“I'm not a disgusting son of Lilith, if that's what you mean”.
Then what was he? Were the wings she had seen real?
“Are you human?”
But Ali soon regretted asking. It was as if the boy contained a murderous impulse, a long-suppressed anger that he tried to avoid because she was not guilty of the agony that now appeared in his eyes.
"No," he said at last, and she ended the subject. After a few moments and a long sip of tea, he continued: “And I have the feeling that the vampires didn’t have to do with that fire”.
“How? It is completely clear to me: I incinerated their friend and they burned down my house ...” Then she realized: “but they didn’t kill my father... They took him away! That's! They didn’t want to kill him: they want me and for that they took him away. They want me to go after my father!”
“There was no vampire smell in the place or in many blocks around”.
“Can you feel their smell?” muttered Ali doubly surprised.
“They smell like blood, a lot of blood. Like an open wound that bleeds continually... There was a human smell but also sulfur and a dark presence that had not left the place yet”.
“Sulfur? Demons... My father had all kinds of amulets and protections against them”.
“Anyway, a demon couldn’t have done it alone”.
“What do you mean?”
“According to the covenant angels and demons cannot intervene in terrestrial affairs, only offer veiled influences to men and they are the ones who decide which path to take”.
“Maybe a demon used people to go in search of my father, but why?”
“He was a priest, right?”
“How is it that everyone knows that?”
"Maybe they were not looking for your father..." insinuated Kaliel, ignoring Ali's question. “In any case, I'll be back in the morning when the people have left and I'll check for clues. They have to be there”.
“I will go with you”.
“No. It's better that whoever wanted to kill you believes that he already did it”. Kaliel thought for a moment and said, "It's better if everyone thinks you died tonight”.
The next morning, escape would not be so easy. Kaliel left the cathedral but Ali, who was determined to follow him, was intercepted by Jared and the carrot-haired girl, to be dragged to Mikah's presence in the library.
“What were you doing outside your room?” he snapped.
“From my cell, you mean...” Ali answered mordantly.
“We imagine that was the only way to keep you here, safe-remarked Mikah-since it is clear that you have guts but little discernment. We know that you fled to your father's house and that Kaliel brought you back. For your fortune! Well, Zhaira had gone for you and she wouldn’t have been so gentle.
At that moment, the double-leaf doors behind Ali opened with a thunderous thud and Kaliel entered, imposing some kind of authority on the rest of the Redentto that opened up in his path.
“And who better than me to bring her?” He faced Mikah with a fierce look and pulled Ali out of the iron grip hands of her captors “Or will you dare Mikah to rewrite the designs of your God?”
Mikah turned to Kaliel with his eyes flaming with fury:
“Some things have changed since then, fallen”.
“But he did not give new orders that I know or make you his right hand... So do not crave more than you were assigned, Mikah”.
A tense silence invaded the room while Ali followed Kaliel into confusion. Had he called him fallen?
“What was all that?” Ali asked puzzled.
But Kaliel didn’t flinch.
“Can you walk faster? We must get there before the police”.
It was barely dawn when they reached what was left of Ali's house. Nobody was there yet. Still with his hands in his pockets, Kaliel walked over the rubble, scrutinizing every speck of dust and ash. Ali, on the other hand, was bending down and stirring everything she saw with a lump in her throat and a shrunken heart. She recognized several of the objects in her house now burned but she could not save almost anything. Finally, she went to where his father's office had been to meet with Kaliel who kept looking in that area. She found the leather covers of old books completely destroyed, boxes and remains of beams on the old desk. Then she found that old chest that she had seen in her childhood and remembered how her father kept it jealously and hid the key that opened it, hanging from a chain around his neck. The exterior was mistreated and dirty but it was kept intact. Ali picked it up.
“My father's chest...”
“What's in it?” Kaliel asked without taking his eyes off the ground.
“I never knew: he carried the key with him all the time”.
Suddenly that became interesting for Kaliel. He took the chest and, checking that it was closed, took a large key from his pocket and put it on the small lock.
“For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, nor hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have spoken in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have spoken in the ear in inner rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops” Kaliel recited as if it were some kind of spell, and then the key was bent and shrunk to fit perfectly into the lock of the chest.
“The Gospel of Luke...” muttered Ali, stunned.
Kaliel nodded absentmindedly as he gave up the lid of the chest. Ali came to see the contents. Inside there was nothing but a small silver pin in the shape of a sword that went through a D. A whole chest for a pin.
“I've seen this before...” Ali commented, raising the badge.
Kaliel's expression froze in a grimace of profound horror.
“It's ... Gladius Dei's”.
7
A pact between Heaven and Hell
"I don’t understand!" Ali muttered as Kaliel stole piles and stacks of dusty books from his library and placed them on the table. They had returned to their solitary room at the top of the tower. The frenzy of his search disturbed her more every second that passed without an explanation.
"Come, sit down," he finally pointed out and began to search through the old books he had selected. He opened a heavy tome of red leather almost at random and dust motes rose lightly like ash. Next, he showed it to Ali.
On the left, she saw the drawing of the badge and, on the right page, the article read:
«Gladius Dei: the soldiers of light
The members of this secret order, also known as Lucis Bellatore
s or Soldiers of Light, have as their mission to hunt, expel and destroy the satanic hosts on Earth and their offspring and allies. The order arose in medieval France, in 1220, as an initiative of the Dominican monk Bernard Le Brun, who conceived it as an extension of the Holy Inquisition responsible for eradicating spiritual forces and non-human demonic creatures. The Catholic Church totally denies its existence or the support for its creation. »
Then, Kaliel handed her another book with a less academic air. It looked more like the esoteric books on the shelf in the back of the wizard Sirus's house.
"The Gladius Dei is an order derived from the Holy Inquisition of the Catholic Church, secret and clandestine whose roots go back to 1220. It was created by the exorcist priest Bernard Le Brun after the demon Asmodeus caused the perdition and death of his young sister. The first five members defined themselves as demon hunters, but then, faced with the remarkable growth of the order, they adopted the name of Gladius Dei, or Sword of God, and they named themselves Soldiers of God or Soldiers of Light. Among its objectives were the realization of exorcisms on people and places but soon discovered that the possession of a human body was not the only possible manifestation of a demon on Earth.
“Thus, they dedicated themselves to the investigation of the so-called "Children of the Night" and the ways to exterminate them. In 1504, with the union of Jurgen Schmidt, a renowned German demonologist, gave final form to his work on the head of hunting of demons: the Maleficat. Referring to the well-known Malleus Maleficarum-or Hammer of the Witches-of 1487, the Maleficat is a much more complete guide to identify and defeat not only witches but vampires, hybrids and a huge range of demonic beings. There are only two missing copies of this book.
The order continues to operate at present in absolute secrecy and without any type of guarantee. "
“The Gladius Dei is absolutely against the divine will insofar as it doesn’t grant any kind of opportunity for repentance and redemption” clarified Kaliel. “That’s why the Redentto exist. Many of the beings that you will see turned into vampires or dhampiros, or even sorcerers, have ended up there against their will or through deception. There are angels all over the world watching over them and offering them the opportunity to earn their Salvation.
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