Chapter 2
Eleni
As I completed my descent and landed my Galadia in front of the tall gates of Willow Grove’s Inquisition Sanctum, I couldn’t help crinkling my nose with disgust. I remained seated on my flying mount—a special breed of hippogriffs with dragon DNA—as the gates parted before me.
Why in the world did they need to be gold plated?
Pasha—my Galadia—trotted gracefully up the path leading to the large front courtyard of the old manor turned into the Sanctum.
The sheer opulence felt obscene with professional landscaping, highly ornate forged iron railing, marble pavers, and a giant statue of Saint Peter of Verona, the patron saint of the Inquisitors.
Before I even set foot inside the building, I already knew what fancy decorations and adornments would greet me.
So much money ill-spent on vanity... Far too often, I had borne witness to donations and fines being spent on useless luxury instead of providing reparations to victims or appeasing the pain left behind by the monsters we hunted.
I dismounted, gave Pasha a treat, and instructed her to stay.
Before I could even set foot on the first of five steps of the large staircase, the heavy, sculpted, wooden doors of the Sanctum opened quietly, revealing a young cleric.
She wore similar tight leather pants as I did.
But her top was a sleeveless leather tunic with the hood drawn up over her head.
The light-brown color of her outfit indicated she was still a novice.
Senior Inquisitors like me wore darker shades of brown, black, or deep burgundy.
I frowned at the sight of her curly brown hair spilling freely over her shoulders from under her hood. Even though she wasn’t dressed to head out on a mission that might involve combat, she was expected to maintain her hair tightly bound while on duty to prevent it being used against her.
“Hello, Sister,” the young cleric said. “Welcome to the Sanctum. My name is Shauna.”
“Hello, Shauna,” I replied, hopping up the stairs and continuing inside without waiting to be invited. “I am Eleni Stavros, Senior Inquisitor of the Curia. I have been sent by the Holy Office.”
“The Holy Office?” Shauna echoed with a slight hesitation.
I waved a dismissive hand. “Right, it has recently been renamed the Dicastery for Doctrine of the Faith. Some habits die hard for us old timers.”
Judging by the discreet assessing look she cast my way, she disagreed with my insinuation that I was old.
At thirty-two years of age, I would indeed not qualify as ancient.
However, as I spent the majority of my life raised by one of the most secret departments of the Holy Office, I struggled to think of it under any other name.
“I’m assuming you wish to see the Prefect?” Shauna asked while half-jogging to keep up with my fast pace.
“Yes,” I replied without slowing down.
“This way, please,” she said, gesturing towards the direction I was already headed.
Despite the ostentatious display that greeted me within, the layout was proper and pretty standard for a Sanctum.
It would have been perfect with the eggshell-colored walls, arched doorways, and dark wooden panels adorning the walls and exposed beams. However, the various statues, weapons, and other artifacts on full display throughout the greeting hall made it look more like a museum than the holy shelter of the Roman Curia’s warriors.
There was no question many of those items were worth a fortune, likely taken as payment or punishment from the people found guilty of occult crimes.
A part of me almost felt guilty watching the young cleric slightly out of breath as she hastened to knock on the door of the Prefect’s office.
But the other part felt even more displeased that this would suffice to strain her.
It spoke of a lack of proper training. Granted, she was still a novice, and I wanted to believe this wasn’t a sign of a generalized issue.
Considering the reason for my presence here, I feared that might precisely be the case.
“Come in,” a male voice called out.
Shauna opened the door and stepped in with a sheepish expression.
“Brother Ewan, the Senior Inquisitor Eleni Stavros is here to see you on behalf of the Dicastery,” she said, waving in my direction as I entered the room.
“Thank you,” I said politely to Shauna. “Please make sure no one disturbs my Galadia.”
She nodded and quietly exited the room.
The Prefect rose from his seat behind a large wooden desk, decorated with gold leaf plating. I was beginning to suspect he was behind such extravagant misuse of the funds gained through their services to the community.
He was a handsome man. At a glance, he seemed to be in his early forties, with brown hair and eyes, clean-shaven, approximately 5’10, and on the slender side, almost androgynous.
The smile he flashed me gave me an icky feeling.
He understood too well how pleasing his appearance undoubtedly was to many women.
But what he believed to be seductive struck me more as tacky and desperate.
“Sister Stavros, welcome to Willow Grove,” he said with an excess of enthusiasm while waving at one of the two empty guest chairs across the desk from him. “I was surprised by the message of your imminent arrival. To what do we owe the pleasure of such an illustrious visitor?”
I barely managed to repress the urge to roll my eyes at the obsequious way in which he addressed me. I had no time for a suck up.
“The Roman Curia is disturbed by the news emanating from Willow Grove,” I said, going straight to the point as I sat down in the chair despite my desire to remain standing. “What’s going on?”
“I’m… not sure specifically what news you are referring to,” he said carefully.
I gave him a disbelieving look before my eyes narrowed in suspicion. He swallowed hard as he settled back into his own chair.
“You’re not sure?” I repeated sternly. “We’re hearing about countless cases of possession in the area. By the last report I perused, you had more than triple the normal numbers.”
The Prefect’s shoulders slouched, and a deep air of defeat settled on his face. The genuine distress emanating from him made my suspicions that he might be in on it waver a little.
“You’re correct. There has been an explosion of cases, none of which seem to be related,” Ewan said, running his fingers through his medium length hair.
“We had been able to handle them without too much difficulty except over the last ten months. Of all the cases, a single one goes completely haywire every month.”
“What does that mean exactly?” I insisted.
He shifted uneasily in his cushioned leather chair before answering. “The inquisitor or exorcist assigned to that victim never returns.”
I gasped, stunned that such vital information had not been included in the file Father Paulus gave me.
“The most confusing part is that the possession victim is freed, but they remember absolutely nothing about what happened during the exorcism or after. They lose consciousness at one point and awaken with no memory of anything that occurred from the first day of their possession until that moment.”
“What about the Inquisitor’s companion? Surely they have some information as to what happened to their missing partner?” I asked, baffled.
The Prefect averted his eyes, shame and guilt settling on his features.
“They didn’t have a companion,” he confessed in a small voice.
“Tell me I didn’t hear you correctly,” I said in an icy tone.
His back stiffened, and he looked at me with the strangest mix of guilt and self-righteous outrage. “Our numbers are too few and our cases are too many,” he countered defensively. “From the inception of this Sanctum, our members have performed solo missions without any problems.”
“Clearly, there is a problem,” I argued in a self-evident manner.
“Only beginning this year,” he retorted. “We’ve been here for a little over thirty-four years. None of this was ever a problem until recently. Now we’re dealing with a greater entity.”
“Which demon is possessing them?” I asked.
“I have no clue,” Ewan said in a tired and discouraged voice.
“What are the common threads between the victims?”
He shook his head apologetically. “None that we can identify.”
“Their location?” I insisted.
“The victims whose exorcisms led to a cleric’s disappearance are quite literally scattered all over Willow Grove and the neighboring suburbs.
We tried to establish some sort of pattern between them that could maybe give us a clue as to who the next victim would be, but it generally appears to be random. ”
“What about their social status?” I asked, stunned but also thrilled by the challenge.
“That also failed to provide any connection between the victims. They come from every possible walk of life, from the poorest to the highest nobility of Willow Grove.”
I pursed my lips as I reflected on the matter, trying to think about what other trail might be followed before I went to meet with each of the cured victims whose exorcist went missing.
“What of the missing clerics? Do they have anything in common?” I inquired.
He hesitated before nodding. “They’re all young women between the ages of twenty-two and thirty-five.”
My jaw dropped. “You sent a twenty-two-year-old to perform an exorcism alone?!” I exclaimed, flabbergasted.
He instantly stiffened, his face taking on a stubborn and defensive expression. “They’re all very strong and powerful clerics!”
“What they are is gone, you fool! What in the Nine Hells kind of circus are you running here?” I demanded, fuming.
“This is not a circus!” he countered, outraged. “We’ve been operating like this for over three decades, and everything was just fine until this year.”
Despite the anger burning in my gut at his carelessness, he still had a point—not that it made any of this okay. There was a reason we always sent our people out in pairs.