The Devil's Labyrinth (15 page)

Father Sebastian opened the pyx and took a single wafer. “On the night of his arrest, Jesus took bread, and after giving thanks to God, broke it and said, ‘This is my body which is for you; do this remembering me.’”

Tipping her head back, Sofia opened her mouth and the priest placed the wafer on her tongue.

“After supper,” Father Sebastian continued, “Jesus took the cup and said, ‘This cup is the new covenant sealed in my blood; whenever you drink it, do this remembering me.’” He handed Sofia the chalice, and she sipped the wine, then bowed her head once more, waiting for the benediction.

But Father Sebastian didn’t begin the benediction. Instead, he began to speak in Latin, his voice intoning cadences she’d never heard before.

She tried to concentrate, to understand what he was saying, but she recognized none of the words at all.

The ache in her bones and the cold suffusing her body was even worse now, and once again she felt as if time itself was warping, and she would never be released from this penance.

She blinked, then squinted her eyes. The stones on the floor seemed to have fuzzy edges.

Then they began to slide around, their shapes moving in strange patterns her eyes could barely follow.

Suddenly dizzy and feeling totally disoriented, Sofia reached for Father Sebastian’s cassock to steady her, but her arms had become too heavy even to lift. “I’m going to be sick,” she started to whisper, but even before she could make her lips move, dark clouds began to swirl around her mind.

For an instant—just an instant—Sofia tried to fight the darkness that was closing in around her, but a moment later it was too late. She gave herself over to the clouds and the darkness and silently begged to be once more borne aloft, away from the dark chapel with its cold stone floor.

The darkness closed around her….

Father Sebastian heard Sofia’s tiny cry and turned just in time to see her collapse onto the stone floor.

He dropped instantly to his knees, his fingers closing on her limp wrist.

Her pulse was strong and steady.

The chapel door opened, and Father Sebastian looked up to see Father Laughlin and Sister Mary David stepping over the threshold.

“Oh, my goodness,” Father Laughlin gasped as he saw Sofia’s body sprawled on the ground. “Is she all right?”

“Of course she’s not all right,” Father Sebastian snapped. “If she were all right, would she be here at all?” He glanced up at the old priest, whose face had visibly paled even in the flickering yellowish candlelight. “But I believe she may be in far more trouble than I thought. Fainting is often the result of feeding the flesh and blood of Christ to someone who is possessed by evil.”

Both Father Laughlin and Sister Mary David crossed themselves.

Father Sebastian lifted Sofia from the cold floor. “But she
will
be all right,” he said softly, adjusting his arms to cradle Sofia’s head. “If we do our job correctly, our faith will cleanse her.”

Father Laughlin hurried to open the door to the vestry, and Father Sebastian carried the girl through.

Sister Mary David followed, pulling the vestry door closed behind her.

The two candles that provided the only illumination in the chapel flickered, then went out.

The chapel plunged into the same darkness that had swallowed up Sofia Capelli’s soul a few moments earlier.

Ryan McIntyre searched St. Isaac’s cavernous dining room for a familiar face among the churning sea of students, saw no one he recognized, and got in line to fill his tray. As he picked up a napkin rolled around some silverware, he scanned the room once more.

A hand popped up and waved at him.

Melody Hunt.

And she was now signaling that she’d saved him the seat next to her own.

Praying that she wasn’t simply seizing an opportunity to talk about Catholic History, Ryan threaded his way down the narrow gap between the long rows of chairs that flanked the tables, nearly tripping twice, recovering himself, but still managing to slop a quarter of his Coke onto the plate of meatloaf, mashed potatoes and gravy that made up the dinner.

It didn’t really look like the Coke was going to make much difference.

He set his tray in the empty space next to Melody, and squirmed onto the chair. “Hi.” He sighed as he unrolled the napkin from around the silver.

Melody eyed his plate, then grinned at him. “Coke on mashed potatoes? Maybe I should have let you find somewhere else to sit.”

“Wouldn’t have mattered,” Ryan said, sweeping the room with his eyes. “There isn’t any other place. But who knows? Maybe Coke on potatoes is really good.” He looked around and saw that most of the people he knew were already there. Across from Melody sat Clay Matthews, flanked by Stacy Lowell and Darren Bender. José and Tim sat on the other side of Melody, and even though it was only his second day at St. Isaac’s, he seemed to have become a member of the group.

Maybe it wasn’t going to be so bad after all.

“Where’s Sofia?” he heard Clay ask Darren.

Darren rolled his eyes. “Doing penance.”

“For what
you
did?” Stacy asked. “You gotta be kidding.”

“Maybe we don’t know all they did,” Tim Kennedy said, trying—and failing—to leer suggestively.

“Well, they must have done something to get that kind of punishment,” José offered.

“So?” Clay asked, digging his elbow into Darren’s side. “Are you holding out on us? Come on—give!”

“Stop it,” Darren said. “What we did was nothing.”

Ryan started to pick up his fork, but Melody instantly put her hand on his wrist and nodded toward the nun who stood at the head of their table.

The room fell silent.

Clay leaned over toward Darren. “Where’s Father Laughlin?” he whispered, his lips barely moving.

“Silence!” the nun commanded.

Every head in the room suddenly bowed, and the boy next to Ryan held out his hand.

Confused, Ryan looked at it, then looked around and realized that everyone in the room was holding hands. He took the boy’s fingers uncertainly, but when Melody slipped her hand into his other one, he decided maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea after all. He’d just have to remember not to squeeze the wrong hand.

If he could work up the nerve to squeeze any hand at all.

Then, as the nun began the blessing, Ryan felt just the tiniest amount of pressure on the fingers Melody was holding.

Ever so slightly, he tilted his head to look at her out of the corner of his eye.

She had her head bowed, and her eyes were closed.

But she was smiling.

Ryan closed his eyes, too, but there was now no way he could concentrate on the blessing. Instead, he returned the little squeeze Melody had given him, and when the chorus of students said “Amen,” he opened his eyes and turned to look at her.

She was blushing.

And he was grinning.

And everybody else was staring at both of them.

Ryan decided he didn’t care.

Things at St. Isaac’s were, indeed, looking better and better.

C
HAPTER
24

F
ALLING!

Sofia Capelli was falling through a darkness so black it was almost palpable. She could see nothing, feel only the sensation of the aching cold, and the dizzying effect of the endless fall.

Cold.

Dizzy.

Then an acrid stench scorched her nostrils and she jerked awake.

She wasn’t falling, but she was still cold.

Her back was freezing; her bones still ached.

She lay silent, searching for the memory of what had happened to her, but all she found was an overwhelming feeling of dread.

Dread, and the awful sensation of falling.

Once again the sharp smell of smoke choked her and now she opened her eyes, looking up to see Father Sebastian, Father Laughlin and Sister Mary David, all gazing down on her.

And looking worried.

She must have fainted.

Sister Mary David swung a censer filled with burning incense over her, and Sofia flinched away from the curling spiral of smoke that drifted toward her nose.

She tried to sit up, but her arms and legs didn’t work. She was too weak.
What was happening?

“She is with us again,” Father Sebastian said so softly that Sofia could barely hear him.

She opened her mouth to speak, formed the words in her mind, but nothing emerged from her lips. Nothing, anyway, but an unintelligible sound that was little more than a faint moan. She wanted to rub her eyes, to rub away the dizziness from her mind, erase the fog from her vision. But something was holding her back.

Something on her wrists.

A rope!

She twisted her head around and caught a glimpse of the thick, black velvet cord that ran through iron rings and held each wrist and each ankle firmly to—

A table! A cold, hard table made of solid stone!

Why?

What had she done that they had to tie her down?

Once again she struggled to speak; once again only a garbled, rasping sound emerged from her lips.

“Do not speak,” Father Sebastian said. “Do not give voice to the demon.”

Demon?

Sofia looked around frantically. What was he talking about? Where was she? What had happened to her?

Again she struggled against her bonds, but they felt more like they were made of steel than of velvet.

She tried once more to speak, focusing her eyes on Father Laughlin’s kind old face and concentrating on forming the first syllable of his name, but when she finally opened her mouth, only a stammering “F-F-F…” sound came out.

And Father Laughlin turned his face away.

Her chest heaving with fear, her eyes blurred with unshed tears, Sofia stopped struggling and lay still on the table. She tried to think, tried to cut through the fog that muddled her mind, tried to remember.

Then she saw it.

A giant cross suspended upside down, just above her.

The top of the cross had been sharpened to a point—a glittering point of gold—and it seemed to be directly above her heart.

What were they going to do to her?

Sofia’s eyes found Sister Mary David, but this time when she tried to speak all that came out of her mouth was a sibilant hiss.

A dream!

It had to be some kind of terrible dream.

It couldn’t be real.

Sister Mary David recoiled from Sofia’s strange hiss, crossed herself, and continued to swing the censer.

“Let us now confront the evil in this child’s soul,” Father Sebastian intoned, “that we may then drive it from her forever.”

As the priest’s right arm came up and he extended his fingers toward her, Sofia felt a terrible nausea rising in her belly. She howled again, terrified that he was about to touch her, and whipped her head back and forth.

What was happening?

Why was she terrified of him?

Why did she feel so sick?

And if it was a dream, why wasn’t she waking up?

“Silence, demon.” Father Sebastian was looming over her now, and suddenly she could see something in his eyes she’d never seen before.

Hatred.

Pure, furious, hatred.

Sofia cringed, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.

Father Sebastian began speaking in Latin, but again they were words Sofia had never heard before, in an unfamiliar rhythm.

Then he was making signs with his hands, and moving around her as the cadence of his chant increased.

The room began to spin as Father Sebastian circled her, and now her nausea threatened to overwhelm her. Her stomach lurched, and she struggled hard not to throw up.

Is this really happening?

“The blood of the goat,” Father Sebastian demanded, and Father Laughlin quickly handed him a small, dark bottle.

Sofia shrank from Father Sebastian as if he held an asp in his grip.

Forcing the fingers of her left hand open, the priest tipped the vial so the blood ran onto her palm, then did the same with the other hand.

A terrible stench began to rise from Sofia’s hands and the blood oozed across her palms and began to drizzle between her fingers.

Father Sebastian circled around her, his deep voice chanting, his hands etching patterns in the air above her.

Sofia’s palms began to burn.

She craned her neck to look at her hands, which now had smoke curling up from what looked like charred flesh. “Burning!” she screamed, finding her voice at last.

“Silence the demon!” Father Sebastian commanded.

Sister Mary David instantly forced a washcloth into Sofia’s mouth, binding it in place by wrapping some kind of scarf tightly around her head, completely covering her mouth and barely leaving any room for her to suck air in through her nostrils.

Panic began to rise in Sofia—she couldn’t get enough air through her nose, and her hands were on fire!

She squeezed her eyes shut as if blinding herself might make it stop happening.

What kind of nightmare is this?

Then she felt fingers beginning to unbutton her blouse.

Her eyes flicked open and she found herself gazing into Father Sebastian’s eyes.

She wanted to fight him, but her hands were burning and all her energy was being drained by the struggle merely to keep breathing.

Father Sebastian spread her blouse wide, then unhooked her bra, exposing her naked breasts.

As her terror rose, Sofia’s breath threatened to fail completely. Father Sebastian turned his back to her, and she felt a brief instant of hope, but then he turned back, holding a bloody mass of pulp in his hands. Gently—reverently—he laid the thing on her chest, and a terrible chill ran through her body as if the bloody thing itself were sucking the warmth out of her.

Father Sebastian began chanting again, and Father Laughlin lowered the crucifix hanging above her until its glittering point touched the thing on her chest.

The mass of pulp suddenly began to throb, and Sofia instantly knew what it was: the bleeding heart of whatever creature it was whose blood had burned the palms of her hands.

Now she felt something growing inside her, as if some terrible presence was awakening, crowding her out, pushing her aside with every beat of the evil heart that lay over her own.

Sister Mary David helped Father Sebastian off with his stole, then his surplice, and finally he pulled his cassock over his head.

He stood above Sofia, clad only in a gray hair shirt, which hung to his knees.

Sister Mary David untied the string that held it closed at the back of his neck and opened it wide.

Father Laughlin handed Father Sebastian a short whip that ended in a profusion of metal-barbed leather thongs. As Sofia watched in horror, Father Sebastian held the whip to his lips, murmured some unintelligible words, then raised the lash high.

Sofia shrank against the stone, trying to steel herself against the agony to come, and watched helplessly as the whip began its arc.

But instead of slashing down on her, it whipped across Father Sebastian’s head and shoulders, cutting not into Sofia’s flesh, but that of his own back.

Yet even as Sofia watched each stroke of the flagellum as it slashed into the priest’s flesh, she felt exactly as if each lash were biting into her own body.

Felt it as surely as if he were whipping her rather than himself.

She thrashed against her bonds now, trying to scream, feeling the flesh stripping off her back every time Father Sebastian took the whip to his own skin.

And the presence that had awakened within her began to grow angry. She felt it, hot and vibrant inside her chest.

Inside her mind.

She felt it trampling her own thoughts and emotions, shoving them aside to make more room for its own fury.

Blood spattered her face as Father Sebastian slashed his back over and over again. Sofia’s tongue tried to work its way past the wad of cloth that filled her mouth to taste the priest’s blood.

At last Father Sebastian stopped his flagellation, reached back, and gathered a handful of ruined flesh and skin from his back. He looked down on Sofia, so close she could feel the heat of his heaving breath on her face.

He drew something on her forehead with a bloody forefinger. The heart on her chest gave one more mighty heave, then exploded in a fountain of gore as the cross above her burst into flames.

The beast within her roared, erupting with rage.

Sofia sat up, breaking the velvet ropes as if they were nothing but threads, and hurled the flaming cross aside.

Father Laughlin and Sister Mary David backed away, their eyes wide with terror, but Father Sebastian stood his ground and met Sofia’s furious gaze with no sign of any fear at all.

He raised his right hand, and suddenly his voice filled the chamber. “It is through my blood that you exist and you are bound to my bidding,” he declared. “I command you to submit!”

Sofia felt the presence inside her gathering to lash out at the priest, but suddenly Father Sebastian placed his broad right hand over her face.

He squeezed.

“Submit!”

As the single word echoed off the chamber’s stone walls, all the strength drained out of Sofia, and she sagged back on the pallet.

Father Laughlin doused the burning cross with holy water, then righted it and replaced it on the wall as Sister Mary David removed Sofia’s gag, refastened her bloody bra and buttoned her ruined blouse.

Sofia lay limp while she was being ministered to. She had no energy, but no more fear either.

It was over.

Yet the presence inside her still remained. It had been calmed, but not banished.

Sofia curled up on the cold stone, wrapping her arms around her knees as Sister Mary David cleansed Father Sebastian’s wounds, then helped him on with his vestments.

When he was once again fully dressed, Father Sebastian leaned against the table, his chest still heaving from his exertions. “Give me a few moments,” he said softly. “Then we shall finish it.”