Father O'Carroll was a portly man, the kind of man of the cloth that was made far from the epicenter of the Church. But as the head of the Armagh Templar branch, he was, by technicality, the highest ranking Templar left alive after the carnage in Rome.
Judith, Filia, and Luca sat in the large command tent that had been set up on the outskirts of the Rome city limits. They'd told two church confessors what had happened - omitting certain things such as all the sex and Judith becoming a demigod - and had been briefed by an aide on what had happened on the outside while they were stuck on the inside. As the massive wall of eldritch magic went up, militaries around the world mobilized. The world of magic and monsters that the Church had worked for centuries to keep under wraps had been unveiled in spectacular fashion, with people around the world having no idea what was going on or how to deal with it. The world's superpowers had sent large military detachments to the edge of the vortex, probing ways to get through the barrier. When artillery and drones had vaporized on contact, any plans for humans to go through had been scrapped. All they could do was sit still, wait, and hope that the wall didn't expand. That went on for three days, until all of sudden, the barrier went down, leaving only the wreckage of Rome in its wake.
The three of them had been given blankets and food. Filia ate like she'd lived through a famine, packing away rations like nothing Judith had ever seen. Even now as they waited on O'Carroll, the succubus was still eating, scarfing down chili from an MRE. "Satan, what do they put in this stuff?" she mumbled through a mouthful of food.
"Salt," Judith answered. "Lots and lots of salt."
"Delicious."
Luca was working through his third apple, eating much slower than the succubus. "I keep expecting something to happen," he said.
"What do you mean?" Judith asked. Her fingers reflexively tightened around the Lance, propped up by her side against the folding chair she sat on.
"You know..." Luca waved his arms around. "Some new monstrosity to appear from the floor, or for the tent to sprout eyes or something."
"Hey, don't speak that evil," Filia said, tossing the empty MRE over her shoulder. "I'm still hungry, and you never get between a hungry succubus and her food."
"Shh!" Judith looked around hurriedly to make sure they were still alone in the tent. "Don't just blurt it out!"
"Oops." Filia put her hand over her mouth and giggled. The human form she'd taken was just as striking as her normal visage, with bronze Mediterranean skin and dark, braided hair. She looked like a maiden from mythology.
Footsteps sounded from outside the tent, and O'Carroll brushed through the flap, flanked by his aides. It appeared that they'd forgotten sunscreen, as they all were sporting red skin from the brilliant Italian sun. The effect was made all the more visible by the fact that the young aides had red hair, and Judith heard Filia struggling not to laugh.
"Good afternoon," O'Carroll said.
"Father," Judith nodded.
"I heard the testimony that you gave about what transpired on the inside." O'Carroll moved around the large table in front of them and sat down. He withdrew a handkerchief from the breast pocket of his dress shirt to dab the sweat off his forehead, and Judith couldn't keep a small scowl off her face. The Irish Templar branch lacked resiliance to minor discomforts it seemed. "But I wished to speak to you myself."
Filia drew her legs up on the chair, carefully tucking the robe around her hips to avoid flashing the priest. The moment was so out of character for her that Judith legitimately wondered for a moment if she'd gone insane. "What do you wish to know?" Filia asked, her voice a little higher pitched than normal.
"As I said, everything." O'Carroll paused for a moment. "I don't believe I caught your name, Miss?"
"Kass," Filia answered, reaching up to caress her cheek. The motion caused her robe to fall open a little to expose some cleavage, and when the succubus didn't move to correct it, Judith knew that things were, in fact, still normal. "I was just passing through Rome when it all happened."
O'Carroll nodded, apparently satisfied with the answer. "Much happened. Far too much that I ever could have expected. A demonic incursion like this hasn't happened in centuries."
Judith and Filia shared a flat look. Luca sounded confused as he said, "It...wasn't demons, Father. We said as much in our testimonies. It was eldritch creatures heeding the will of their master."
"Yes, yes, this 'Before God.'" O'Carroll fixed them with a skeptical look. "You know who Yog-Sothoth really is, correct? He's fictitious, a creation of H.P. Lovecraft."
"I know about Lovecraft," Luca said, speaking slow and insistant. "I'm also beginning to think the man may have had much more insight than he let on. We've spent the past three days doing battle with him and his minions. He called himself that by name!"
"More likely a demon with too high an opinion of itself," O'Carroll said, waving a hand.
Luca's jaw dropped, and he looked to Judith for some kind of guidance. She shook her head the tiniest bit, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Father, believe me when I say this. I have battled many different forms of demonkind. I am...intimately familiar with their ways." A small snicker came from Filia. "This was like nothing I've ever seen from a creature of Hell. This
was
, however, something that I saw before during the incursion on Saint Bethany's last year."
"Yes, that report crossed my desk," O'Carroll said. "You painted quite a picture. But I was surprised to hear that Archbishop Caldwell took your word as such fact."
Judith blinked, then realized who he was talking about. After twenty-plus years she was just now learning her mentor's real name. "The Archbishop mentored me himself," she said. "I was his most astute pupil. He trusted my word over most others."
"Yet you admitted to coming into close contact with demons during the Saint Bethany's incident, and
still
kept his trust? I find that difficult to believe. Maybe the Rome they do things a little differently."
Filia tensed up next to Judith, until she put a hand on the succubi's thigh. Even though internally she was incensed at the remark, Judith wasn't in the mood for any more battles, verbal or otherwise. "Or he simply trusted me," she said. "And that may be all that it is."
Father O'Carroll made a face, his lips pursing, but didn't press any further down that line. "I'm curious about one thing in particular." His beady eyes shifted to Filia. "How is it that in an incident that took the lives of a large number of the faithful, including most of the best-trained anti-demon warriors in the world, a mortal resident of the city managed to survive the carnage?"
Filia shifted in her seat, like a student being disciplined by a headmaster. "I found Judith early," she said, staring intently at the wall behind O'Carroll's head. "She protected me through the whole thing. Luca joining us only made it easier."
"Yes, regarding you, Luca. You're a student of the defensive faith magics, correct?"
Luca nodded slowly, and Judith could see the gears turning in his eyes as he tried to figure out where O'Carroll was headed with all this. "Yes."
O'Carroll leaned forward and rested his head on the back of his hands. "Then forgive me, but I am inclined to believe the version of events you gave to the confessors earlier doesn't add up. A demon as powerful enough to uproot an entire city and corrupt it's population couldn't possibly be beaten by a lone Templar, powerful enough as Magdalena is."
"Hey, it's totally possible!" Filia said, glaring indignantly at the priest. "It literally happened right in front of me!"
O'Carroll's hand shot up. "Please, be silent. I want to hear it from Judith."
The hair on the back of Judith's neck stood up. "You're accusing me of something."
"Not in the slightest."
"Bullshit." The curse made the aides behind O'Carroll flinch, and the man's eyebrows shoot together. "You think I couldn't have survived without giving into darker powers? If you're like most others who read the Saint Bethany's report, you think my soul is corrupted, don't you?"
O'Carroll was silent for a time. "Your words, not mine," he said quietly.
Contempt rose in Judith's throat, and she had to fight to keep her lip from curling. "I survived through my own power," she insisted. "The power and will that lies within my own soul. I am free of guilt."
"Yet you are Nephilim, are you not? Beget of angel and demon, your soul already half-damned from the beginning. A soul that, may I remind you, came into close contact with demonkind during the Saint Bethany's incident, as well as heavily over the last few days."
Judith's fingers curled around the Lance. "You wish the truth?"
O'Carroll leaned forward, his eyes glittering. "Of course."
She took a breath. "I omitted my death from what I told the confessor, Father. Yog-Sothoth took my life." She put a hand on her chest, fingers splaying over her heart. "But I was visited by God himself, who showed me how to harness the fragment of Him that lives in us all. Through divine power, I was able to defeat Yog-Sothoth and bring the nightmare to an end."
O'Carroll's eyes narrowed. It was clearly not the answer he'd been expecting. "You dare speak such blasphemy in my presence?"
"It is not!" Judith insisted, shooting to her feet. "I saved all of Creation from that thing using the powers that we all strive towards. Faith in myself steadied my hand, faith in God gave me the strength to soldier on through pain that you couldn't even
begin
to fathom."
