The priest was ready to continue. “Then I heard a scream,” he rushed on. “Luigi’s voice. I raced down the stairs. Through the kitchen. By the time I got to the front room . . .” He gasped, a moment. “It was horrible. Luigi was being held by—something. I couldn’t see it clearly. He must have dropped the candle, so there was no light in the shop. Only what little light came through the open door from outside. Not much, because sunrise was—only still coming. Everything was dark, dark. Horrible.”
“Was it a man?”
“I don’t think so, Lord Dorma. If it was, it was a huge and misshapen one. But—no! It couldn’t have been a man! I saw a tail—I swear! I remember that! And—then, when it must have heard me entering—I was probably shouting myself, I don’t remember clearly—but I know I was holding up my cross and calling on the Virgin—”
The priest’s voice was starting to rise hysterically. Dorma calmed him with gentle pressure on the shoulders, kneading the old cleric’s thin bones and flesh with his hands. After a moment, the priest continued, his voice now dull and leaden.
“It flung poor Luigi at me and fled from the shop. I saw—something like suckers on its arm. Like an octopus, except it was more like a man’s arm—huge one—than a tentacle. Then it was gone, racing out the door. I saw the tip of a tail. Like a reptile’s, of some kind. No more.” He shuddered. “Please, Lord Dorma. No more.”
Dorma nodded, gave the priest’s shoulders a last little reassuring squeeze, and straightened up. “Enough, Father. Get some rest.”
On the way out of the church, he had a few words with the Schiopettieri captain. “See to it that a guard is maintained here at night, for the next few weeks. I don’t expect there’ll be any . . . trouble. The fiend doesn’t seem to have returned to any of its other crimes. But—”
Ernesto nodded. “The priest is the only eyewitness. And the only one who interrupted the—whatever it is—before it finished. I’ll see to it, Lord Dorma.”
* * *
Later that day, after hearing Lord Dorma’s report, the Metropolitan of Venice summoned the special envoy from the Grand Metropolitan of Rome to a private audience, in a secluded room in the cathedral.
Metropolitan Michael was becoming more than a little impatient with the envoy, so he did not preface his first words with the usual phrases of polite greeting.
“How much longer?” he demanded. “By the Saints, man, you should at least meet with Petro Dorma. He could be of great assistance to you.”
The envoy shook his head firmly. Metropolitan Michael almost hissed with displeasure. The Grand Metropolitan’s envoy did everything firmly, it seemed. He even managed to limp firmly, somehow.
“And why not?”
The envoy frowned. Firmly, of course. “I still do not know the identity of the evil, Your Eminence. The source of it, yes. It comes from Lithuania, like most of the world’s demonry. But I still haven’t determined the channels, or the conduits—not all of them, at least—nor, most important of all, its ultimate purpose. For all I know, Petro Dorma himself is entwined in these plots.”
The Metropolitan threw up his hands with exasperation. “That’s absurd! You might as well consider me a suspect!”
The Grand Metropolitan’s envoy studied the Metropolitan calmly, saying nothing in response. As if he were examining him. After a moment, realizing the man was immovable, Michael sighed.
Even the man’s eyebrows annoyed him. They, too, were firm. It, rather. Like a solid bar of rusty iron above implacable eyes.
Chapter 29
Eventually, the punishment ceased. The monster lay on its side, its flanks heaving, still trying to beg for mercy. The effort was pointless, since Chernobog had crushed its throat. But the monster knew from experience that so long as it was in the strange, gray-mist casket-world, its wounds would heal quickly. Any wounds, even mortal ones—and it wanted to be pleading for forgiveness as soon as any word at all could issue from its throat. Else Chernobog might renew the chastisement.
In the end, the monster’s fears proved groundless. By the time the first croaking words issued from its healing throat—quavering with pain, those words, since healing was almost as painful as punishment—the master’s rage had subsided. Chernobog was deep into cold contemplation. The monster could sense his dark form in the surrounding mist, hunched with thought.