HIS ASSISTANT, ANTOINE, had sent dozens of texts three hours earlier. Since then, Raphaniè had cross-referenced prophecies, treatises, and documents from different periods, noting with almost obsessive precision everything that seemed relevant to the mission.
The lights of the Business Center flickered over the empty tables when he finally closed the last file. He was the last to leave the floor, shortly before two-thirty in the morning, carrying a stack of notes, his face exhausted and the dark circles of someone who had already exceeded the limits of his body, but not those of his faith. As soon as he entered the hotel suite, he turned on his laptop and wrote a brief, cryptic email to Cardinal DellaMonica.
— The spell has turned against the Bastard — he murmured, with a tired smile, pressing "send" as if the click were a sentence.
He believed that message would be enough to throw Gregory Evans off his trail, the American agent who insisted on sniffing out his every step. His eyes burned, his wrists ached from so much writing. Raphaniè walked to the bathroom, turned on the faucet, and let the scalding water fall over his body until the steam covered the mirror. He entered the bathtub and slowly sank down, his body submerged in aromatic salts and his spirit immersed in doubts.
His mind, however, did not rest. He remembered a small treatise written by the monk Adso at the end of the tenth century—a nearly forbidden text, commissioned by Queen Gerberga, which gathered all the known prophecies about the Antichrist.
Antiquity is an excellent criterion for selection... — he thought, mentally leafing through the manuscript.
Faced with the avalanche of modern articles, some academic, others absurdly sensationalist, he decided on what had endured through the centuries. He picked up the notepad from the stool and opened it to the marked page.
— "The Antichrist will be born of the Jewish people, from the tribe of Dan, according to the words of the prophet: Dan shall be as a serpent in the way, as a viper in the path, that bites the horse's heels and causes the rider to fall backward." — he read in a low voice — "He shall be like a serpent hidden by the roadside, ready to bite those who follow the path of righteousness, poisoning them with his malice and disguise."
The priest closed his eyes, and in his mind appeared the vivid image of the marble sculpture in the church of Il Gesù: the triumphant archangel crushing the head of the infernal serpent beneath his foot.
Religion crushing the poison of heresy... — he thought, and a faint smile appeared on his wet lips.
— The Church always wins... — he whispered, almost in prayer.
He returned to the notepad, unaware that the past was slipping through the cracks of his memory, ready to exact a price from him.
SOMEONE RAN PAST HIM, stumbling over the wet stones. A few yards ahead, the person stopped and turned abruptly. It was a woman with a sunburned face, her disheveled hair stuck to her forehead, her clothes dirty with dust and tears. She looked forty, although she was barely twenty-five.
— Francisco stole my daughter! — she shouted, her voice hoarse, her eyes desperate.
— Why did he do that? — Raphaniè asked, already feeling his heart accelerate.
— Pray for my little girl's soul! — the woman begged, falling to her knees before him and clutching his cassock.
— What does he want with your daughter?
— He's going to summon the demon...
— The demon? — Raphaniè raised an eyebrow, trying to control the irony. — Who is he going to summon this time? The Preto Velho? The Pomba Gira?
The woman raised her face, her expression filled with terror.
— The Devil, Father! The Devil himself! Pray for her, I beg you! — she screamed, shaking him by the shoulders.
— What does he want with your daughter? — he insisted, now overcome by an uneasiness that was beginning to gnaw at his chest.
— He's going to sacrifice her! — the woman replied, her eyes wide, her breathing broken by sobs.
— Why did you give her to him?
— I needed the money... — she stammered, her voice dissolving into tears. — My God, save my daughter's soul!
She stood up, turned around, and disappeared running down the dirt road. Raphaniè remained motionless for a few seconds. The wind blew dust around his sandals.
When I agreed to come to this miserable region, I never imagined I would see a mother sell her own daughter... — he thought, feeling a cold nausea rise in his throat.
Francisco... a local bastard, a roadside healer... he wouldn't be capable of... But if it's true, I need to save the child.
He knew where the man lived, for in the backyard of his house, he performed hybrid ceremonies—half liturgy, half profanation.
Raphaniè crossed the small woods and stopped before a ten-foot wall. From the other side came the sounds of drums, rattles, and voices in trance. The air smelled of wax, sweat, and blood.
He climbed using the gaps between the blocks, supporting himself with his hands, and what he saw made him freeze. In the center of the courtyard was a stone table; on it, a naked girl, tied by her wrists and ankles, was sobbing convulsively. Francisco, bare-chested, held a gleaming dagger. His glazed eyes shone with madness. When he raised the blade above his head, he looked toward the wall. Their eyes met, and a smile froze that instant forever in his memory and in his nightmares.
Then the blade came down. Raphaniè stifled his scream, his heart pounding. The dagger opened the child's abdomen from right to left. Blood flowed like a red river over the stone. The priest staggered, his legs trembling, and vomited among the leaves.
When he looked again, Francisco was cutting off the victim's head with ritualistic precision. Suddenly, a door opened at the back of the house. Another girl, wearing pink pajamas with red flowers, appeared. She looked at her father, then at the body on the table, and her eyes filled with tears.
Raphaniè recognized the child immediately. She was Francisco's daughter, little Jessyca Volpi.
TIME PASSED in the blink of an eye. The priest was lying in wait in the woods, his body covered in sweat and mud. He knew the murderer would pass that way, and then he heard twigs breaking. Footsteps. Breathing. Francisco's silhouette appeared among the trees, with the same demonic calm as always.
Raphaniè's heart beat like a war drum, his hands sweating around the handle of the knife, and when the figure passed, he threw himself at him like a beast, driving the blade into the man's back.
Francisco howled, tried to turn around, but the priest was already striking him again and again, each thrust accompanied by a shout:
— Where is your master now? Die, you bastard! Go back to Hell, where you belong! — he shouted, amid tears and blood.
FRANCISCO'S BODY lay on the grass, his eyes fixed on the void, expressing pure terror. Perhaps it was the shock of the attack, or perhaps the belated discovery that his executioner was a man of faith.
To Raphaniè, those eyes foresaw the eternal horrors that awaited him.
His right hand, stained with blood, still held the knife. The weight of the steel repulsed him. He wanted to throw it far away, run, plunge into holy water, erase the sin.
Sin... no. Crime... not that either. That was justice. Divine justice.
The sky was collapsing over the woods, lightning tearing across the horizon like flaming spears. He dragged the body to the trunk of a tree, then walked a few yards, dug a shallow grave with his own hands, and buried the weapon. He stepped on the damp soil to seal the hiding place, his heart beating out of rhythm.
A bolt of lightning illuminated the woods and, for a second, his face looked like that of a weeping penitent.
Raphaniè collapsed to the ground and cried. He cried like a man who had just killed his own destiny. A short while later, he stood up and ran through the storm. The rain washed away his tears, and Francisco's blood was carried across the earth, mixing with the mud, disappearing beneath the weight of the sky.
RAPHANIÈ OPENED HIS EYES with a start. The bathwater was already cold, his body chilled to the bone.
The steam had dissipated, and the silence of the room seemed like that of a tomb.
He picked up the notepad from the bottom and placed it on the stool. The notes were blurred by the water, almost illegible.
He wrapped himself in the bathrobe, turned on the hair dryer, and went through the pages one by one, trying to save those that remained. Little by little, the warm sound of the air mingled with the distant sound of the rain beating against the glass.
The clock read four in the morning. The priest sat on the edge of the bed, his face covered by his hands, while outside, the city slept. Inside him, the past was still screaming.