Innocent Blood

AND THEN…

Far beneath the ruins of Cumae, Leopold floated in and out of dark consciousness. For the past handful of days, he had ridden waves of blackness and pain, rising only to fall, over and over again.

Rhun’s blade had cut deep enough to kill him, but he did not die. Every time he felt certain that he would sink into that final blackness, ready to accept the eternal suffering for his failure — he woke again. He would force himself to drag his body and feed on the corpses left in the cavern with him, along with an occasional unlucky rat.

Such frantic beasts offered little sustenance, but they gave him hope.

He had thought himself sealed down here following the quakes, with no chance of escape. But where a rat crawled, he could dig. He just needed his strength back.

But how?

Beneath him, he heard stones rumble far below, gnashing together like giant teeth, as if calling him to duty. He dragged open his heavy eyelids. The torches had long since sputtered out, leaving the smell of smoke. But it was barely noticeable against the stench of sulfur and the rot of bodies.

He reached to a pocket and removed a small flashlight. Leopold’s numb fingers fumbled with it for long agonizing seconds before he clicked it on.

The light dazzled. He closed his eyelids against it and waited until its brightness no longer cut at his eyes. Then he opened them again.

He searched the floor around the black altar stone. The net that had held an angel was still there. The cracks that had been opened by that same angel’s blood had closed again. The writhing darkness was also gone, bottled back up.

All signs of my failure.

Weak as a kitten, he rolled to his back and reached to the inner pocket of his robe, to what lay heavily there. The Damnatus had charged him with this second task. The first was to grab the sibyl and imprison her here.

That duty had to be done before the sacrifice.

His second responsibility had to be done after.

He did not know if it mattered now, but he had sworn an oath, and he would not forsake it even now. From his pocket, he pulled out a cloudy green stone, a little larger than a deck of cards. It was a prized possession of the Damnatus, discovered in the Egyptian desert, traded by many hands, hidden and uncovered over and over until it ended up in the palms of the Betrayer of Christ.

And now into mine.

He lifted the stone to the light. He watched the darkness inside shiver and shrink from the brightness. When he moved the beam away, the blight inside grew, shimmering with dread force.

It was a thing of darkness.

Like myself.

He knew the rumors about this stone, how it was said to hold a single drop of Lucifer’s blood. He did not know if that was true. He only knew what he had been commanded to do with the stone.

But do I have the strength to accomplish it?

Over the past days, he had abided the darkness and pain, fed to sustain himself, growing incrementally stronger, hoping for the might of muscle and bone to fulfill the last task asked of him by the Damnatus. The necessity for such an act had never been revealed to him, but he knew that if he did not attempt it now, he would grow weaker from here on, starving slowly in the darkness.

He turned the stone to study the strange etching on one side, inscribed faintly into the crystal.

It was in the shape of a cup — or perhaps a chalice. But this was no cup from which Leopold had so often consumed the blood of Christ. He knew the cup depicted here was far older than even Christ Himself, and that this stone was but a sliver of that greater mystery, the key to its truth.

He lifted the stone high and brought his arm down hard, slamming the crystal to the rock floor. He succeeded in chipping it, but that was not enough.

Please, Lord, give me the strength.

Leopold repeated the action over and over again, weeping from frustration. He must not fail again. He raised his arm and crashed it down. This time, he felt the crystal break within his hand, splitting into rough halves.

Thank you…

He twisted his head enough to see. He turned his hand. The crystal had been broken through its heart. Black oil flowed across the emerald glass and found his skin.

He screamed as it touched him.

Not in pain, but in utter and complete rapture.

In that glorious moment, he knew the rumors were true.

He watched the drop of Lucifer’s blood sink into his flesh, claiming him, consuming him fully with its darkness, leaving behind only purpose.

And a new name.

He stood, full of dread strength now, his pale skin as black as ebony. He lifted his face and howled his new name at the world, shattering stones around him with his voice alone.

I am Legion, destroyer of worlds.