The rosary bites through my wool gloves—cold and unyielding—as I stare at the silver Savior nailed to mankind's cross.
Maybe love—like salvation—wasn't free.
Maybe if I bled enough, served well enough, obeyed perfectly enough…
They'd stop seeing the curse and start seeing a soul worth saving.
Funny how they raise you to serve God, then treat your amen like a threat.
"Noelia."
The voice pulls me from the thought. I turn.
Henrietta Zatorska, my handler, drives the '99 Volvo to our destination. A standard issue vehicle from back when the Vatican still used consecrated shortwave radios. Sturdy. Silent. Catholic as hell.
Her hair's short and pale like powder snow. Her skin, winter-white. Her expression, colder. Behind thin-rimmed glasses, her sharp, unforgiving eyes reflect the color of clear skies. Black leather gloves sheath her fingers—clean and impersonal, like altar veils.
Like me, she wears boots and the War Cloth of the Church: a habit spiritually reinforced through Christian mysteries. Beneath it, layer upon layer for warmth. The War Cloth marks us as Holy Agents: executioners who walk in shadows, carrying out the Vatican's will.
"Are you prepared for this mission? There is no room for error."
"Come on. It's just some mágos in the woods."
I glance out the window at snow-covered trees and endless dirt roads.
"Dirt, dirt, and—oh yeah!—more dirt. Not exactly how I pictured my first mission."
"Isolation. That's exactly why a mágos would hide out here."
Her voice doesn't rise, but it sharpens. Like stepping on ice just thin enough to crack.
"Shadow science heretics either rot in society's cracks...or dig their own. This one chose the latter. A previous agent went MIA executing this same mission last summer."
Her words come slow. Measured. Something flickers across her face.
Worry? Fear? Not sure.
"Who even is this guy? Some backwoods heretic? I was hoping for someone important. A real target. Something that'll show the Vatican what I'm made of."
I recline my seat with a squeak and kick my feet onto the dashboard—earning a swift side-eye from Henrietta.
She doesn't say anything. Just taps the rosary hanging from the rearview mirror. Once.
I lower my feet and look away.
She didn't need to say it.
Just that look. That little tap.
Like I'm a kid acting out during Mass.
"Erasmus Velladine," she says. "He stole thaumaturgical secrets from his peers, not that they care. Once, he was a darling of Babylon's inner circles. In that nest of vipers, betrayal is expected. But getting caught? That's the true sin. They didn't exile him for what he did. They exiled him because he lost. Babylon's favor once shielded him under the Treaty of Iscariot. But that centuries-old accord protects him no longer. The Church can do as it pleases with him now."
Suddenly, the car jerks to a halt.
"Don't tell me, forgot to gas up?"
"No." Henrietta's already unbuckling.
She twists the key in the ignition once, twice. Not even a click.
She taps the dashboard. Still nothing.
"Dead," she mutters. "It's the mágos."
She pops the trunk and steps into the cold without hesitation.
I follow—and the world goes quiet.
No crunch underfoot. No wind in the trees. Just...silence.
Not the peaceful kind. The kind that feels like something's listening.
The colors aren't right, either. Like old church murals losing their paint.
Like a memory pretending to be real.
The sky looks wrong. Too smooth.
Like a fresco peeled from a cathedral dome and nailed across heaven.
The cold doesn't bite.
It clings—like it knows your name.
I tell myself I'm imagining it.
I don't buy it. Not even from me.
My stomach quivers, but I keep my pace steady as I join Henrietta behind the car.
"He curse our wheels or something?"
"No. We drove into his Sacred Space. A mystical habitat where the laws of mystery overrule the laws of man. The Magic Seal creating it is well-hidden, given its size. It covers the outskirts of Saint Valentine. Everything unnatural becomes law here. Even silence. Electronics die."
She checks her watch.
"Vatican protocol prefers analog, ideally wind-up. Most of our watches, you had to shake every morning. Anything smarter? Exorcised."
Henrietta unzips the duffle bag.
Two Beretta pistols gleam—sleek, stainless, deadly.
Their companion magazines bristle with silver 9mm rounds, likely laced with occult powder and sanctified in through Latin rites.
Standard Vatican issue.
Among the field gear—a vellum scroll, a thurible, a grenade, a wooden animal carving—rests a gun I've never seen before.
Etched into its barrel: Ut in inferno taceas in aeternum.
May you be silent in hell forever.
Goosebumps creep down my neck.
Henrietta holsters the weapon beneath her coat.
"What's that old thing?"
"A Howdah pistol. One of the Church's Dogmas. Holy weapons forged to devour the unnatural. It fires .577 Snider rounds with occult powder instead of black powder. Both the weapon and the ammo are Dogmas. I only have four rounds—one for each barrel."
Dogmas.
Rare as miracles.
Rarer still are the ones who can use them.
The Dogmas purify through something called the Laws of Humanity—truth, reason, order. Civilization's promise. They say it's proof of mankind's duty as stewards of God's creation.
Everything else?
Just rot to be scraped clean.
I carved that truth into my bones.
Still, they kept their distance.
Like belief made me useful. Not human.
I'd never seen a real one up close. Only the experimental, unholy ones rigged for my use given my…circumstances.
The Church doesn't trust what I am.
They just trust what I can kill.
To use a Dogma, you need something in you.
Something not entirely…human.
"Wait. You've got a Magic Processing Unit? That's mágos territory, right?"
I've heard of some Holy Agents possessing MPUs—a mystical, circuitry-like nervous system that refines life energy into magical energy—but never met one before.
"Not exactly."
Her voice tightens. Like soda shaken in silence.
She slams the trunk shut and slings the bag over her shoulder.
"Mágoi are magicians who bow to the Noble Society. I don't. I'm a magician in service to the Church."
Not a mágos, huh?
That's like saying you're a wolf in God's flock, not the devil's kennel. But who am I to judge?
Henrietta glances back.
"Are you armed?"
With a grin, I wave the sleeves of my habit.
"Obviously."
She nods.
"We need Velladine's Grimoire intact. The Vatican hierophants will archive it. We walk the rest of the way. Let's move."
As we trudge toward town, something itches at the base of my skull.
Like the last note of a hymn gone wrong.
I feel it.
Something knows we're here.
And whatever it is—
It doesn't pray.