MASSIMO
“The work we do here is groundbreaking, truly. Society doesn’t care about those who are suffering from sin. But their families do. These patients, with the right therapy, could be released to live a normal life again someday. The director believes in the power of holiness and science working together. We are blessed to have him as our patron.”
“And is this an official scientific research arm of the Church?” I asked Father Benedict, one of the most senior officials at Hallow Hall. I knew it wasn’t, of course. It was unsanctioned, a pet project of the powerful. A remnant of a murky past.
He paused, and I sensed his brain frantically working through what to say.
“What did Cristoph say?” he finally asked.
Ah yes, Cristoph, my “in” to Hallow Hall and the one who had made me my fake credentials and letter of recommendation, and vouched for me. Father Benedict had no idea that his colleague was lying dead in a river about ten miles away. All he and the rest of the higher-ups at Hallow Hall knew was that the companythat funded Hallow Hall was sending in a new senior manager for training. Me. It was supposed to be the man called Christoph, now a John Doe in some Torinese morgue.
“I didn’t ask Cristoph that question, as I wasn’t sure how familiar he was with the project. But I assume this work is sanctioned by the Church, yes?”
“Not as such. Because of the delicate nature of the work, we can’t really afford to make it public; you understand.”
“Yes, of course, I understand completely.” Fucked-up old perverts preying on defenseless innocents was a tale as old as time. Yes, I understood exactly what was going on. Luckily for me, I had a job to do here, and once it was done, I was gone. The place made my skin crawl, which took a lot for a man like me.
Father Benedict said good night and invited me to sit in on another session tomorrow, then left me alone finally.
With a bone-rattling sigh, I pulled the fucking dog collar that had been strangling me all day free and dropped it on the bed. The cassock was next. The fabric was suffocating. It joined the rest of my disguise on the covers. Of all the disguises I’d donned to reach important, well-hidden men, this was the worst.
The room they were putting me up in was in the basement and didn’t have a single window. It had stone walls with candles instead of real lights. The space was as spartan as you would expect, with a twin mattress resting on a simple, wooden bed frame and a desk and chair where you could do Bible study.
It was pretty bleak, honestly, but I’d slept in far worse places.
I sat and fished a cigarette out of my pocket, lighting up and inhaling deeply. I’d never needed a cigarette more than today after the shit I’d seen at Hallow Hall.
All these perverts parading under God’s name, carrying out their foul therapies and believing themselves to be holy.
I wished there was a shower in the simple quarters because I needed to wash myself clean of the filth of the day. Not of the patients. No, those poor souls were to be pitied. It was the filth of those in power.
Well, soon enough, there would be one less head of the monster for the patients to deal with.
I took my brief out of my bag and flipped it open.
Michal Vargas. Now Father Michal Vargas, second in charge at Hallow Hall. Apparently he’d had quite the misspent youth. Why someone from his past had taken out a hit on the man I had no idea. I didn’t ask why. I did the job, and I got paid.
I was seventeen when I discovered my calling.
“Alora, bravo, Edoardo!” My high school math teacher, Mrs. Vasco, was the kind of woman who thought a cheerful expression and a few enthusiastic claps could lighten the atmosphere in a room full of juvenile delinquents. She frequently attempted to engage the kids in my class in something approaching learning but never quite managed. Luckily, she hadn’t bothered to bring in her spirit stick again after someone had gotten stabbed with it.
“Edoardo wants to be a doctor—that’s amazing!” she enthused. She looked around the class and smiled warmly. “So, between all of us in here, we have just about everything covered. From detectives to doctors to chefs! You kids are the future, and don’t let anyone tell you different.”
It was really quite admirable how she managed to say such blatantly false statements with a straight face.
“Now, have we covered everyone?” she mused, countingthe names on her list, and then seemed to falter. “Oh, there’s one left.”
Her gaze dragged across the room toward me. I sat in the back corner, a no-man’s-land of empty chairs where not a soul dared venture. Even in a school for troubled kids, no one wanted to sit with me.
“That leaves just you, Massimo. What do you want to do when you grow up?”
My desk was a pitted mess of knife points pressed into the shiny wood. What could I say? I was a fidgeter. I twirled the small knife I always carried between my scarred fingers and used the flat of it to scratch my neck. She’d confiscated it once, but after I took out my restless energy by beating one of my male classmates, she never made that mistake again.
“I don’t know, Signora Vasco, maybe you have a suggestion for me?”
I gave her a lazy grin that only sent her shoulders higher.
“Something especially suited to my talents... something I could excel at,” I added.