18
“Whoa.”
“Impressive, isn’t it?” Ally said cheerily from beside her.
“Big.” Maggie craned her head back in an attempt to see it all. “It’s certainly big.” And that it was. Everywhere they went in the Vatican just seemed…huge. Huge, expensive, old, and shiny. There were things to see everywhere—paintings and artifacts in all the corners. Even the hallways, used by the staff, seemed pointlessly fancy.
She was honestly afraid to touch anything and everything. It was probably for the best. The last thing she needed was to be on the hook for poking some ancient holy something-or-other and breaking it.
“Y’know, you’d have a lower heating bill if you didn’t have such high ceilings,” Maggie said to Ally with a smirk.
The young woman—demoness—grinned back at her. She was friendly and light like a bunch of butterflies flitting around the spring air, but now and then she showed a glint of something that made Maggie believe her claim that she was a demoness, even if Ally hadn’t shown her the freaky eye trick she could do. There was just something a little too sharp in her smile now and then. “But if they cared about the heating bill, you wouldn’t feel small in the presence of God, would you?”
Maggie shrugged. She guessed she never really thought about it. “I thought Jesus preached humility.”
“He did. And against idolatry,” Rinaldo said from her other side, pausing to gaze up at a large marble statue of some saint or another. “Veneration of things over people, and all that…”
“So…what happened?” Maggie raised her eyebrow at him.
He shrugged. “People happened.” With that, he began walking again, leading her and Ally down the hallways away from the more public areas. A few guards nodded to him as they passed through what must be security checkpoints.
“What do you mean?” She shouldered her bag higher up, keeping a hand on the strap. Algernon was peacefully snoozing in a pile of clothes that Ally had given her. But she didn’t know if he—and she, for that matter—was going to burst into flames. So far, so good. But magic was real. Undead things were real.
She was one of them.
Who’s to say God wasn’t going to strike her down for setting foot inside his Holy House of Expensive Stuff?
“People want to feel connected to something bigger than themselves. Sometimes that can be a person. The Disciples and their devotion to Christ. But in the absence of someone that powerful and charismatic, we resort to organizations. And organizations need to impart a sense of…” He gestured aimlessly at an enormous painting on the wall. It depicted something important, she was sure. She just saw people getting stabbed with spears. “Grandiosity to inspire and intimidate.”
“Not true. Mobsters are powerful. But they aren’t like this.” Maggie couldn’t help but stare at all the huge marble statues, gold things, and just the hugeness of it all. Everything was big. Big and overwhelming.
“You haven’t met many mobsters, have you?” Ally chuckled. “They’re plenty grandiose, trust me. Extremely so.”
“I can’t say that I have.”
“Gideon is basically a mobster.” Rinaldo snorted. “He works in the shadows. Has a fancy house—houses.Stomps around with an over-dramatic name. Acts important. Pulls strings. Dresses like a pompous fuck—”
“Rin,” Ally scolded him. “Not here.”
The older priest sighed. “Sorry. I know, I know.” He crossed himself and, kissing his fingers, lifted them up toward the ceiling. “Forgive me, Father. You know I’ve said worse.”
Maggie had to laugh quietly at that. She couldn’t trust Rinaldo and Ally. She knew she couldn’t. I can’t trust anybody. Not even my own head. But she liked them anyway. She wondered how long she had to travel with them before she could take Ally aside and ask if there was a thing going on between her and Rinaldo. It certainly seemed like it. Something in the way they looked at each other. Something in the way they smiled at each other.
She wanted someone to smile at her like that.
More importantly, she wanted to smile at someone else like that.
Loneliness stabbed at her unexpectedly, and she sighed drearily. She forced herself to think about something else. “Is there a God?”
Rinaldo and Ally winced in unison. Ally looked away, clearly ditching Rinaldo with what was obviously going to be an awkward conversation. “We…don’t know.” He shoved his hands into his pockets.
“Wait.” She glanced at Ally. “You don’t know? But…demons exist. Do angels exist?”
“Oh, yeah, they do,” the demoness-turned-holy-sister grumbled. “Pains in the—” She cut herself off before she joined Rinaldo in a sin. “They exist.”
Nobody talked for a long pause. “And archdemons and archangels?” Maggie prompted slowly.
“They’re real.” Rinaldo was glaring at the floor in front of him like he wanted it to open up to a pit to Hell and swallow him whole. Maybe it could happen. It was all the same to her at the moment.