Blasphemia II: Deus Vult Pt. 01

Filia planted her feet, pivoted, and hurled Judith across the clearing like a baseball. Judith saw a tree screaming towards her and closed her eyes just before the impact.

She bolted upright in bed a moment later, breathing heavily and covered in sweat. With a flicker of will Celerity screeched free of its sheath and slapped into her hand. She held the blade in one hand, looking around the room in a panic.

Minutes ticked by before she finally began to relax. The sword slipped from her trembling fingers as she hugged her knees to her chest and rocked back and forth, her heart going a million miles an hour. A quick glance at the clock told her she'd slept for almost twelve hours. Judith sighed and flopped back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. "Just a dream..." she sighed. "Just another dream..."

A knock sounded at her door. "Paladin Magdalena, are you in there?"

It took her a moment to place the voice. "Luca?" she asked.

"Aye, it's me."

Judith tugged on a pair of pants quickly to make herself decent, then opened the door. Luca stood there wearing a fresh-pressed shirt and slacks. Somehow he managed to make such a scholarly getup look incredibly sexy. "What is it?" she asked.

"Something's happening. The Archbishop sent me to fetch you." He blinked and looked past her at the disheveled sheets and her sword lying on the bed. "Is... something wrong?"

Judith bit her lip to muffle her sigh. "Bad dream," she said. "I'll be right there."

Luca hesitated for a moment before hurrying away down the hall. Judith turned and looked at Celerity for a moment before her eyes flicked up to the cross on the wall. "Maybe not just a dream after all," she muttered.

She was armed and armored in under five minutes, leaving her small quarters behind her as she ran down the hall the same direction Luca had gone. Where the halls had been empty upon her late-night return, now they were full of all those who served the Templar order. Knights moved with purpose in the same direction she did, while scribes and other priests congregated in the halls and spoke in hushed tones. They gave her a wide berth as she approached, parting like the Red Sea. It didn't bother her. Not at all.

The Sanctum Centri was the command hub of the Templar base, located hundreds of feet below the wide expanse of Saint Peter's Square. It was almost a cathedral unto itself, with high-vaulted ceilings and a massive crucifix dominating the wall opposite from where Judith entered. Statues of Archangel Michael and Saint Sebastian flanked the cross, both of them wielding weapons against teeming hordes of demons laid in bas-relief. However, the equipment in it was modern. Rows of computer banks ran from wall to wall, reminding Judith of pictures she'd seen of NASA's command center. The wall space not taken up by iconography was occupied by massive plasma monitors controlled from the Archbishop's lectern that could display critical information.

A host of all the Knights currently in the Sanctum stood at attention in front of the lectern, all of them gazing up at the biggest screen. Judith followed their gaze. The display showed a map of Rome and the surrounding countryside, all of the demonic incursions in recent weeks marked on it with red dots, and someone had drawn lines connecting them. The pit of Judith's stomach dropped out.

"Paladin."

The Archbishop strode next to her, gazing up at the map himself. Luca lurked behind him, trepidation written across his face. "I take it you've seen what we're dealing with?"

Judith nodded. The lines on the map formed most of a pentagram, with Rome, the Vatican, and the surrounding countryside all encompassed in it's expanse. Though the shape was lopsided, with no two spokes of the infernal star the same length, it's shape was unmistakable. "How did nobody catch this before now?"

"Such infernal designs are usually symmetrical in the lengths of the lines," the Archbishop said, tracing lines through the air with his finger. "If they had been, we likely would have noticed by the third point."

Judith looked again. "Wait. The star isn't complete. Not unless they manage to make a bloodbath at sea happen."

The Archbishop's jaw tightened. He pointed to another monitor on the wall. It was displaying a news feed from one of the American networks. The images were a bit blurry, but Judith could see a a large spire of some kind jutting from the Tyrrhenian Sea several miles off the coast of Italy. Some large military ships were already floating close to it. "That appeared an hour ago. And if we put it on the map..."

He didn't need to. Judith already got the picture. "What are my orders, Archbishop?"

"Stand ready. A great threat to our most holy of cities is imminent. I do not know what form it will take, but expect the worst."

She closed her eyes, her fingers rubbing against the pommel of Celerity. "Yes, Archbishop."

"And, Paladin, above all else..."

He trailed off as a low rumble shook the Sanctum Centri. All chatter in the room ceased as the room rocked slightly under their feet, then stopped. Celerity had already snapped into Judith's hand, the hilt warm under her fingers. She looked around slowly, cocking her head to let even the slightest noise filter into her ears. Wherever the attack came from, she would be ready.

"I don't feel so good..." she heard someone mutter.

"Shh," someone else said. "Listen."

At the furthest edge of her hearing, Judith heard it. A faint scratching noise, a susurration of whispers like claws on stone. She turned around in place slowly, trying to pinpoint the origin of the noise, except it was everywhere, all around her. As she did, her eyes flicked to the screen showing the news feed. The spire out in the ocean had begun to glow a dark, bloody red. Crews of sailors scrambled back to their ships as smoke began to billow from the tip of the spire. The camera shook, then spun around back towards the mainland to follow the blackening of the skies, only to show that it wasn't the only source of smoke moving to cover Rome and its surroundings.

"Is this the end?" a voice asked.

"Quiet!" the shusher from before hissed.

"Friends, I really... don't..."

What followed was the most horrifying groaning noise Judith had ever heard. Inhuman shrieks of demonic creatures she could deal with, but the sound coming from the man who wasn't feeling well was made by human lungs. Judith moved towards where he was, behind one of the computer consoles. He was doubled over, his partner resting a comforting hand on his shoulder. "What's going on?" Judith asked.

"I don't know," the second man said. "He's just not feeling-"

His sentence was cut off as the sick priest exploded.

Judith was blasted backwards by the wave of force like the blast from a grenade. The entire area around her was showered with gore, as if the man had been a burst pimple. Cries of terror echoed through the room, along with another bang. Judith whipped around to see the aftermath of another exploding man, then another, and another. Grown men began to panic, all of them running for the exit of the Sanctum Centri.

The blast doors, meant to safeguard the room in case of emergency, slammed shut, turning a Templar who had been standing in their path into paste. Judith kept spinning, trying to figure out what kind of demon was doing this, but there was no threat in front of her, nothing she could see that was making humans burst like balloons. It didn't make sense. These men were devout. The forces of Hell couldn't get to them normally, much less in a holy place like this. What on Earth was happening?

"Paladin!"

Judith spun to see the Archbishop and Luca struggling against the grip of shadowy hands that had emerged from the floor and were dragging them into a black abyss below. She ran forward to try to aid them, only for something to wrap around her ankle and cause her to trip. Celerity tumbled from her grip as she hit the floor. Judith rolled over, striking out at whatever had grabbed with her foot. After one blow, she stopped and stared.

A tendril had burst from the floor, made of fused human body parts. She saw torsos, arms, and even a few heads among the pulsing length, faces stretched wide in grim masks of eternal terror. She grit her teeth and willed Celerity back into her hand, hacking at the disgusting thing with ferocity.

"God damn you," she heard the Archbishop swear, sounding like he was speaking through a pane of thick glass. "God damn you, you demonic filth!"

"Archbishop, hang on!" Judith hacked away harder, but it only seemed to irritate her captor. It reeled back, lifting Judith above the Sanctum Centri with a curse. She hung suspended in the air for a moment, and the full scope of the horror revealed itself to her.

People were still dying, one after another, their bodies swelling wide before bursting and adding another layer of bloody gore to the layers that already caked almost every surface in the room. Those that remained could do nothing but curl up and tremble as their turn came. Judith heard muttered prayers that escalated into high screams just before the moment their lives were snuffed out. It seemed only Luca and the Archbishop had been spared that fate, two swirling pools of darkness on the floor being the only indicator of what had happened to them.

Then the tendril tensed and pulled, dragging Judith into the floor, and her entire world went black.