Satanas – Chapter 2.2 – Bloody Christmas

Author: nicotine

“Of course, Father. It’s because of you!”

The corners of her mouth, turned up in a grin, spoke with excitement.

Tadeo looked on with his mouth shut. The habit Rosa wore was a crystallization of pure white. The wimple covering her chin and neck, the pleated veil, the one-piece dress that fell to her feet. With the attire of asceticism and sanctuary that tightly wrapped her from head to toe, even the face she barely showed was pure.

However, madness lurked in her eyes, and splattered blood was smeared on her left cheek and neck like lilac blossoms.

“Why did you ignore my words, Father.”

The smile vanished from her questioning face. Keeek, keek. The small light bulb illuminating the space above their heads was still swaying. The hand he had put inside his cassock pocket fiddled with the rosary as if counting eggs. Tadeo was enraged. In that brief moment, he was so lost in anguish that he forgot his own mission. He wanted to set aside the existence of the lurking demon and make anyone, whoever it may be, pay the real price for their sins. Even if it was the innocent Rosa herself.

But that would be exactly what they want. Tadeo let out a faint sigh and began to speak.

“In my memory, what you said, Rosa, was not particularly…”

“The day before seven thousand eight hundred and sixty-one days ago.”

The hand that was taking out the rosary stopped. As he raised his eyebrows, the light, making a pendulum motion from the ceiling, brushed against his dark irises.

“Our jar that flowed across the great ocean has arrived at that distant place.”

“…Narantasa.”

Keeek, keek. The swaying light bulb flickered as if to answer. Her glaring eyes bent grotesquely, and her mouth, torn open so wide that her cheekbones were completely pulled up, began to let out a laugh mixed with a metallic sound. Her shoulders shook so much that she even started hiccuping, heek, heek, gasping for breath. In the moments filled with darkness between the flickering light, Rosa’s eyes glinted with a phosphorescent glow.

The fist, clenching the rosary, trembled. It was no longer worth listening to. As Tadeo shot up, the sound of the chair scraping the floor sharply pierced his eardrums. At that sound, Rosa’s cackling laughter also stopped.

“When the diocese’s permission is granted, I will see you again then, Rosa.”

Tadeo took angry steps. It was impossible to know if the demon clinging to her was the ‘Narantasa’ that had been inside Manila’s body. But if it was another demon, not ‘Narantasa’….

“Sit down, you filthy orphan bastard!”

It was when he had his hand on the cold doorknob. Rosa, still tied to the chair, began to thrash about wildly. Deolkeong, deolkeodeong. The force of her kicking the ground and jumping up and down seemed ready to break the chair. From her mouth, which was screaming at the top of her lungs, a shout like a swarm of bees erupted. As it echoed, bouncing off every surface in the empty interrogation room that amplified even a small voice, it sounded like the roar of dozens of people.

“Your body still reeks of your mother’s milk!”

Pajijeek, sparks flew from the continuously flickering light bulb. Tadeo snapped his head up and looked at the ceiling. Unlike before, when the cord holding the light bulb to the ceiling was swaying slowly, it was now making a violent pendulum motion. Not long after, with a ‘pak’ bursting sound, the glass of the light bulb shattered.

In an instant, the surroundings sank into deep darkness. Rosa, who had been causing a commotion, also quieted down and caught her breath. The low, growling breath was the sound of a beast, and the eyes that glared menacingly in the darkness were clearly the eyes of a beast.

“I will listen only to the word of the Lord.”

Chareureuk, Tadeo said as he wrapped the rosary around his hand. He kissed the silvery-white cross, and met the beast’s eyes squarely as he ostentatiously made the sign of the cross. Saliva dripped from Rosa’s mouth, which she couldn’t seem to close. Unable to do anything with her bound body, she thrashed and panted as if she were about to die. From that sight, Tadeo recalled an event from over a decade ago.

That night, lurid with the blazing bonfire. The night the whole village had surrounded the girl tied to the stake.

“Pitiful, so pitiful!”

Rosa, who had been writhing, snapped her head up.

“Losing your one and only mother! With only three to rely on in the whole world!”

The teeth that occasionally showed in her large, moving mouth were as sharp as if they had been honed.

“One of them is dead! And another will die in the distant land of Joseon!”

“Shut that mouth…!”

“And the last one is a demon.”

Tadeo’s lips twitched. His eyelids trembled, and he fumbled with his unclosed mouth. Looking at him, a unpleasant arc formed on Rosa’s lips.

“Now you feel like listening a little?”

She asked, letting her head drop to one side with a thud. As she closed her eyes and flared her nostrils like a beast sniffing, a sniffling sound, keung keung, was heard intermittently. Her face, savoring the scent, transformed into one of satisfaction, and she looked at Tadeo again with her eyes shining brightly.

“Do you know who put me inside this stupid nun’s body?”

“…”

“And who was it that told Manila to stab that pig bastard!”

Tadeo could not say anything. He just stood there with a vacant face. The hand holding the rosary dropped, and the cross with Jesus hanging on it fell into the air.

“We can now say the name of your master!”

The bound body kicked out once more. Rosa pushed off the ground and stood up with all her might. The tough wood made a sound of cracking, eudeudeuk, and her body, with the chair attached to her buttocks, stood on two feet on the ground. Her belly swelled and her chest swelled with the breath she inhaled. The tightly bound rope was pulled taut, and thudook, a strand popped out and one of the rope strands loosened.

Her bloodshot eyes, with burst capillaries, rolled back and she lifted her chin toward the ceiling. Then, a thunderous roar shook the entire interrogation room.

“Beeeeell!”

Tadeo clamped his hands over his ears. The rosary, caught on his palm, dangled all the way to his elbow, swinging wildly. As his hunched and curled back and shoulders hit the door with a kung, there was a loud pounding on the door from outside. He heard voices calling his name, but he could not even open his mouth. No matter how much he pressed his hands to block it, the barrage of roars swallowed his eardrums.

As the roar subsided, there was a sound like a chicken’s neck being wrung. When he lifted his head and looked, he saw Rosa’s form, twisting her stiffly hardened neck this way and that.

“Go and tell your master….”

Rosa sat down again and opened her mouth,

“That I will be waiting in Joseon.”

As soon as her words ended, she bit off her own tongue.

🦇

1895, a day before Christmas Eve. St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican, Rome.

This place, which restrained its splendor with powerful straight lines while simultaneously giving a solid impression, drew out its ultimate grandeur with its stacked dome. The interior view was dazzling with marble that shone like flames, and the thousands of mosaic pictures that adorned the coffered ceiling presented the pinnacle of architectural art.

As the doors of St. Peter’s Basilica, which boasted an overwhelming majesty that made one’s hair stand on end, opened, there was one person passing through it quickly. He passed the baldacchino covering the altar of this basilica, a place that boasted a long and storied history. The short, stout priest began to run, holding the hem of his garment that he kept stepping on.

“Your Holiness! Your Holiness!”

He had no time to calm the breath that rose from climbing the stairs. As soon as he opened the pure white door embossed with the papal seal, he urgently called for the Pope.

“What is the matter, Monsignor.”

Leo XIII, who was dipping the sharp tip of his pen in ink, asked as he pushed up his small-lensed glasses.

“Y-you must see this…!”

As he swallowed his dry saliva with a gulping breath, a tchak sound was made. He approached the work desk and held out a document.

“Do you remember Father Peter, who recently requested the dispatch of an exorcist priest from Hanseong, Joseon?”

“I remember. Didn’t everyone consider it absurd, Monsignor?”

“I think we must accept that request now.”

Leo XIII, adjusting the arm of his glasses, accepted the proffered document.

“This is part of a prophecy that the Vatican scholars have been studying since last year.”

“Haha. Monsignor, the fact that our Roman Catholicism must now also keep pace with the times and pursue what is practical….”

His eyelids, with even the eyelashes turned white, trembled. Leo pressed his lips together and adjusted his glasses once more. As he rose from his seat, the hem of his pure white cassock fell to his feet. The hand examining the document trembled, and beyond the transparent lenses, his grey-tinged blue eyes stared straight ahead.

“Summon the cardinals, Monsignor.”

🦇

Tabak, tabak. The sound of footsteps climbing the stairs is endearing. A gait that is light but not entirely so, upright. Bell, who had been resting his chin on his hand, smiled faintly.

Today, he was in a slightly excited state. He, who had seemed to take in the whole world at a glance through a single window that was inadequate to contain it, was for some reason sitting in front of the fireplace. Vitality had bloomed in his empty eyes, which had always been busy searching for amusement. In that place where only the lit flames danced, the time waiting for Tadeo today was not at all boring.

“Hello, Bell.”

It was the first thing Tadeo said as the door opened and he entered the living room. Bell just turned his head, composing the rising corners of his mouth.

“You said you’d be late.”

Contrary to the fact that even the sound of his footsteps made him smile, his voice was endlessly indifferent. The blue eyes, which turned back to the fireplace, reflected the flames that soared up to the chimney flue. But Bell was concentrating all his attention on the one who would be looking at the back of his head.

“…”

Tadeo stood there without saying anything. The air, which had settled in an instant, was still. Bell, who was tapping the armrest of the sofa, turned his head once more.

“Why are you standing there like that.”

His face, which had a certain wistful quality, looked just like a fox cub that had lost its mother. The dark irises, peeking through his parted black hair like a sliver of sunlight, contained nothing.

“Bell.”

“Don’t call me so eagerly with that face.”

Bell replied with a light laugh. Tadeo was also different somehow today. But Bell didn’t think much of it. No, he wanted to think that way. Because the sound of his own heart beating in his ears was not uncomfortable, but pleasant. He wanted to enjoy it for a little longer if possible. Right now, that gentle voice was enough for him.

“…Why?”

“Because I don’t know what I’ll do either.”

As Bell replied and tilted his head back, his prominent Adam’s apple was clearly revealed. His golden hair, stuck to the indigo robe that fell to the floor, was beautiful. It was like the color of the Big Ben tower flowing on the lead-colored riverbank.

Tadeo slowly walked closer. A slender hand, emerging from the pure white sleeve, reached for Bell’s cheek. At the soft touch that gently caressed him, Bell closed his eyes languidly.

“Are you seducing me now?”

“No. Of course not.”

The voice that answered immediately was dry. Bell closed both eyes and tilted his head to one shoulder.

“Then you’re playing with me.”

“Like you did?”

The retort was strange. Bell frowned with his dark eyebrows and opened his eyes. Then the hand that had been caressing his cheek moved away. Not wanting to lose that hand, he grabbed it and pulled. The body that was pulled easily without even being surprised was docile, and the face he met still had no emotion.

“Say that again.”

“It’s nothing, nothing.”

Only then did a face with a faint smile speak gently. The eyes like a beetle’s carapace were still cool. Bell stared at Tadeo with eyes in which a livid moon had risen. The gesture of holding a smile without speaking and trying to pull his hand away was unfamiliar. The action of taking it away and hiding it as if he had been waiting for him to let go of the hand he had been holding tightly was also unfamiliar.

Now, what is this act?

Bell, whose mood was soured, couldn’t overcome his quick temper and sharply raised his eyebrows. At that moment, Tadeo knelt down in front of him. The crimson flames, backlit, flashed on the clear lines of his upturned face. He took Bell’s hands, which were on the armrests, with both of his hands. Bell glanced at those hands. The silver ring on his left hand shimmered in the firelight.

“Bell. If the world were to end tomorrow, what would you want to do with me?”

It was out of the blue, but a rather not bad question. His hands, still cold from not having thawed, were a little small, and they stroked the back of Bell’s hand as if to tickle it. When that hand fumbled its way down, he felt a ticklish sensation somewhere in his chest.

The endearing touch was now fiddling with his fingernails. But Bell just watched with his chin propped on his hand. With eyes like a setting horizon.

The upturned face seemed ready to listen to whatever answer he gave. Thanks to that, Bell indulged in a pleasant fantasy for a very short while. The fantasy of the face, on which the firelight flickered, shaking beneath him. The pitifully lowered eyebrows and the tears clinging to his slender eyes, the red upper lip that wouldn’t close, revealing his tongue, and of course, the lower mouth should not close either.

“What do you want to do.”

Bell asked back, ending the fantasy he had briefly unfolded. The voice, thrown out casually, was so seamless that it was good for hiding the fantasy he had perpetrated.

“Hmm, well. I haven’t thought about it yet.”

The black pupils that had been meeting his gaze roll sideways. They headed for somewhere on the ceiling, then diagonally down toward the table. Tadeo reached out there and picked up a glass. It was the whiskey Bell had left unfinished.

“That’s strong.”

“I know.”

The way he poured it into his mouth without fear was different from usual. The mucous membrane of his mouth, clinging to the transparent glass, was rosy. The tongue that peeked out was getting wet. Seeing that, Bell’s Adam’s apple bobbed once.

“It’s really strong.”

Tadeo grimaced and wiped his lips. Even though the sensation of it going down his esophagus would be completely foreign, he finished the whiskey he had held in several gulps without leaving any. The way he was acting cocky, unlike himself, was certainly different from his usual self.

“Bell.”

Tadeo called out as he put down the glass that had only ice left.

“I’m listening.”

“Father Antonio has passed away.”

Now I get it. The reason he had changed from his usual self while he was out. ‘Aah….’ Bell nodded slowly with a noncommittal sigh.

“Is that so?”

And he asked back, tilting his head. At that face, Tadeo gave a bitter smile. It was a very sad-looking smile. He hadn’t expected comfort, but he had hoped for at least something similar. At least, in a situation where he had lost someone he cared about, he didn’t want to have to confirm his lack of empathy.

You don’t have to have such an indifferent face and look down on your opponent as if they were at your feet even in this moment, Bell.

“So I feel like drinking a little today.”

His eyes, glistening with moisture, forced a smile. Tadeo let out a sigh-laced laugh and stood up from where he was sitting.

“Isn’t it a relief? Our drinking session ended ambiguously too.”

“…”

“I’ll get the liquor.”

When he turned around, he had wiped the smile from his face as if by magic. His expression was frighteningly composed. He walks to the kitchen and looks at the table where traces of their cozy meal remain. The candlestick that had been lit had burned down and gone out. He passed by the messy table where melted wax had accumulated. He picked up a glass tumbler from the shelf. The hand holding the glass was trembling slightly.

“Oh, I just remembered.”

Tadeo said, placing the glass on the edge of the table and taking out a transparent bottle from his bosom. Inside it was a liquid as clear as water. He looked up, and there was the door leading to the living room. Bell’s silhouette was visible on the opaque glass.

When he uncorked the bottle, which was engraved with a cross, a pong sound was made and a small drop of water splattered. Tadeo poured it all into the glass.

“What I want to do with you if the world ends tomorrow, that is.”

He continued speaking as he left the kitchen. Bell, who had been staring only at the flames in the fireplace, turned his head. His eyes, which had been like an evening sky spread with sunset, were deep blue now that they were away from the heat.

“Tell me.”

“For instance….”

With each step, the old wooden floor creaks. The feet, hidden in the pure white garment, soon stopped in front of the sofa where Bell was sitting. The lips that had become less talkative part again.

“This?”

Tadeo tilted his head back and took a sip of the liquid in the glass. His face, which had seemed only sad, regained its vitality anew. Just a slight lift of the corners of his mouth made him look very seductive. Bell narrowed his eyes faintly as he looked at that face.

The crotch of his legs, which he had approached closely in front of the legs that were sitting apart by shoulder width, opened. Tadeo, sitting on his knees, wrapped an arm around Bell’s neck while holding the glass.

“This seems like a seduction.”

Bell said with a smile. The hand that had been propping up his chin fiddled with his slender waist. He leaned his head against the backrest and stared silently with languidly open eyes. In that state, the wet lips approached without fear. When they were so close that their breaths, in and out through their noses, mixed, he grabbed Tadeo’s chin.

“You.”

“…”

The silent eyes were terribly still.

Why do you have such eyes? Right before we kiss, can your eyes be so free of any blemish, you? If we are in a passionate relationship where we would kiss until the very last moment before the world ends, at least they should be more alive than those fireplace flames.

Bell, who had been looking into those eyes for a long time, gave a bitter smile.

“Can you handle it?”

Tadeo did not answer. Bell spoke as if he knew about the blade in his own mouth. The identity of the blade that would carve out his stomach. Tadeo closed his eyes instead of answering. Bracing himself for his own not-so-distant future, where he would be mercilessly hacked to pieces in retaliation for his impudent act.

Contrary to his expectation, Bell pulled the slender chin and kissed him just like that. Tadeo’s lips parted slightly, and Bell’s lips opened with them. While Bell closed his eyes languidly, Tadeo looked on with his eyes wide open.

Before the tongues that would grope and indulge in each other could come and go, the liquid held in his mouth is passed over. The lukewarm liquid, which would have been warmed by the red inner flesh, flowed down Bell’s throat.

“Keuk…!”

Bell’s eyelids flipped back. He roughly pushed Tadeo away and stood up, bracing himself on the chair. But soon his legs gave way and he collapsed to the floor. His body, which had been trying to get up by scratching the dirty carpet so hard that his fingernails broke, slumped over again.

“…Why did you kiss me when you knew?”

Bell looked at Tadeo, swallowing the metallic taste that was flowing profusely. The overwhelming feeling of nausea stabbed his cheeks.

“Why, when you knew full well that what was in my mouth was holy water….”

“Keup, uk, keoheuk…!”

He now began to retch to the point of spilling out the organs in his body. His flowing golden hair swept the dirty wooden floor where dust was rolling around. Watching this, Tadeo asked in a calm, subdued voice. But the corners of his eyes were wet and red.

“Huh? Why did you do it!”

The voice that asked again was slightly agitated. Bell, unable to breathe, choked and crawled forward. His well-built legs slipped several times and he writhed in pain, but he did not stop. The sound of dry heaving gradually changed to a sound of wet coughing. Bell was vomiting a blackish liquid from his mouth.

“Ta, de…!”

Tadeo’s hands trembled like an aspen leaf. When he dropped the glass he was holding, it hit the floor and shattered into pieces. The scattered glass fragments flashed crimson in the red flames. Bell tried to speak but then clamped his mouth shut again. A thick black liquid gushed out from between his long fingers.

“Get, here, now….”

With that, Bell lost consciousness and collapsed.

Tadeo hurriedly ran through the living room and into his room. He took out a large leather bag from the closet and swept all of his few clothes into it. He did not forget to pack the necessary items. The buttons on the bag wouldn’t close because he had just shoved everything in haphazardly, but he paid it no mind and slung it over his shoulder.

He left the room with quick steps and passed by the collapsed Bell. He was about to open the door leading to the stairwell corridor when he looked back once more. His blackened lips were pitiful. Tadeo’s cheeks were already wet with flowing tears. But he had to take his heavy steps.

The door closed. The figure visible through the small stained-glass window moved away.

You were my angel, Bell.

Even if you were a demon, that fact does not change.

I must be a follower of good, and you must be pure evil.

Can we, who are like that, meet at the end of the parallel lines?

I don’t think so.

When we meet again, it will probably be… the moment when I must eliminate you, who tempts humans and employs deceit, with all my mission. Funnily enough, I wish such a moment would never come.

So I want to let you go.

Because I will remember you as an angel.

Goodbye, Bell.

🦇

Antonio’s funeral was held throughout Christmas. People from the Roman Catholic monastery and the Anglican Church all gathered at St. Paul’s Cathedral to pray for Antonio. His face, laid in the coffin, looked peaceful. Everyone was saddened by his absence, having left so suddenly. That day, London was in a state of depression, with a terrible fog mixed with smog enveloping the entire city.

The day after Christmas, Tadeo had a schedule so busy he didn’t have a moment to spare from morning. He woke up earlier than others to ring the bell, heralding the morning at the Roman Catholic monastery, and delivered meals to the owls that carried mail to the Vatican. He lit a candle for Antonio in the small sanctuary, and helped with the mass, skipping his own meal.

“What did you just say, Deacon Tadeo?”

The place he headed to after finishing all his morning duties was St. Paul’s Cathedral. John, who had been sitting at his desk scribbling on yellowed parchment, shot his eyes up.

“I requested permission for Sister Rosa’s exorcism rite.”

“Ha, I really can’t stand this…!”

John shook his head and shot up from his seat.

“Look here, Deacon Tadeo. Are you trying to say that Sister Rosa has no charge of sin?”

“You may find it strange, but yes, that is correct.”

“Fine, fine. I will not grant permission.”

At the firm refusal, Tadeo took a step forward and urgently opened his mouth.

“Your Excellency.”

“I have already left it alone when the Roman Catholic priests crawled in and ran rampant.”

Then John, leaning on the desk, muttered through his clenched teeth. As he held up his wrinkled fingers in front of his nose and whispered sternly, a muscle in his face trembled.

“How dare you not know your place…!”

His angry breath became labored, and he couldn’t finish his sentence. John, who had been glaring with his thin lips pressed together, once again shook his head vigorously and raised his voice.

“Our Church of England is different from your absurd place! We propagate the doctrine and pursue what is practical. A nun openly shot and killed a priest in the cathedral. The whole of England was in an uproar over this! And yet, what?”

“…”

“No sin? An exorcism rite must be performed? You must have completely lost your mind!”

Eventually, John shouted along with pointing his finger. Hoo-ook, hoo-ook. His chest, surrounded by a frilled collar, heaved roughly. While controlling his anger, his aged eyes repeatedly glanced at the door. But he did not stop berating him once more. It was a very low voice, close to a whisper.

“I heard you have sent a request to go to Joseon. Don’t cause any more trouble and stay quiet until you leave.”

Tadeo left the bishop’s office with trudging steps. Here at St. Paul’s, the footsteps of mourners expressing their condolences were still continuing. The sound of his dress shoes leaving the sanctuary echoed emptily in the space that was wide open to the high coffered ceiling. After stepping down the granite stairs, he decided to walk the streets for a bit.

He didn’t even realize his cheeks were frozen from the cold wind. He didn’t even realize the wind that filled the space between his ribs and swept through his lungs was chilling. The hem of his cassock fluttered in the wind stirred up by the carriages and cars coming and going at the intersection.

If he just turned his head, there was the street leading to Kensington Gardens, but he didn’t even glance that way. It was because the last image of Bell, whom he had left so heartlessly, would not disappear from his mind. He was afraid that it would become even more vivid with just one glance.

Bell appeared as a nightmare for two nights. The dream of him vomiting black blood onto his face repeated whenever he closed his eyes. It wasn’t that he was now regretting what he had done. It was just that the empty space left by Bell was too large. That empty space was even larger and sadder than Antonio’s death.

‘I don’t care even if you’re a demon.’

The words I said to you ended up becoming a lie.

What I did to you is no different from what a demon would do.

Tadeo eventually burst into tears in the middle of the street.

“Extra, extra! Extra!”

A young boy wearing a flat cap was running, scattering papers in the air. People passing by on the street began to pick up the fallen papers. Until the small body of the boy, running like an arrow, brushed past him, Tadeo had his wet face buried in his hands.

“A suicide incident at the London Remand Prison! Extra, extra!”

A handful of papers fluttered in the wind. At the words ‘London Remand Prison,’ Tadeo snapped his face up. The papers that had been thrown high were fluttering down. One of them fell at his feet, and his gaze, which immediately plummeted, took in the print announcing a tragic death.