This time, I let him.
Massimo was coming.
20
MASSIMO
The director had barely left, taking his heavily armed escorts and incriminating evidence with him, when Sister Vera hurried over to me. I’d been looking for Katarina, wandering from the cafeteria to the art room to the office.
She hadn’t appeared.
“Father Lucciano!” Sister Vera rushed toward me, her pinched face revealing her panic. “Father Benedict requires you, immediately. He’s in the infirmary wing. Operating room two.”
What the fuck?
I nodded to Sister Vera and took off toward the infirmary wing. What would Benedict possibly be in an operating room for? If he was going to ask me to step in for Father Vargas to help him steal some poor girl’s baby, or her fucking organs, he was about to be sorely disappointed. If I delivered a cool box of organs to anyone, they would be his.
I reached the operating room and pushed inside, coming to a stop immediately.
It took a moment for my brain to process what I was seeing.
Katarina, lying on the operating table, strapped down. Her head turned toward me as soon as I walked in, her eyes wide. She was terrified.
Father Benedict stood by the window on the other side of the room, a fucking mask and gown on like he was a surgeon prepped and ready to perform an operation.
He swung toward me when I came in, and I knew there was something wrong. His skin was mottled, and his eyes portrayed madness. Hmm, it seemed a combination of the recent stress and high doses of what they’d been giving Katarina had fucked him up.
What a shame.
Silence fell as all three of us looked at one another. It was absurd, really. I almost felt like laughing.
“You asked for me?” I raised an eyebrow in Benedict’s direction.
“Yes, I did. Aren’t you supposed to be helping around here? Are you reporting back all the goings-on to Sergei? Or are you here for someone else? Tell me the truth!”
I narrowed my eyes at Benedict. The man had lost the plot.
“Exactly what are you implying, Father?”
Benedict licked his bottom lip, then quickly killed the macabre humor coiling in my chest at the surreal tableau he’d made of the operating room.
He put his hand into his pocket and brought out a gun.
“I’m saying that if you are who you pretend to be, you should be helping with the other business of Hallow Hall, starting now.” He gestured me forward with the gun. “Take that syringe off the tray and fill it to fifty ccs from the bottle.”
“What is it?” I asked, delaying complying.
“It’s a little something I’ve been working on for years. Sergei’stired of waiting for it.” Benedict glared at Katarina. “She can test it. She might as well be good for something around here. Do it now.” Benedict cocked the gun at me. It was an older-model revolver with a hammer to draw back. The sound was sobering. He was serious, apparently.
I stepped up to the tray that was set up close to Katarina’s side. Her eyes were wild, and now they fixed on mine. A gag filled her mouth so she couldn’t speak. Her eyes were wet with tears.
Benedict just moved up his order on my killing schedule.
“And... what are we looking for in terms of effects? I know the director is eager to see progress,” I bluffed.
Benedict nodded. “Increased memory loss, confusion, painkilling function, and addiction forming. Better control over patients, the ability to perform surgery when and if required with less medical intervention needed afterward. Aftercare is expensive,” he said, his gaze falling to the tray.
On it was a perfectly arranged mix of surgical implements. I cataloged the instruments while slowly filling the syringe.