The Demon

Fire cleanses everything, It melts flesh from bones, and evaporates falsehoods so only truth is left standing amongst the ashes.

"Your Holiness? Cardinal Diavolo?" The gruff voice snapped Diavolo's focus back to reality. The good Cardinal, eyes now open, saw his own beady eyed, double chinned reflection staring back at him in a beautifully ornate cuirass. He looked up to meet eyes with his giant muscle bound captain, Revan.

"Yes my son? Have you found anything?" Revan's face twisted into a grimace, he nodded his head yes.

The Cardinal's heart rate quickened, sweat permeated across his forehead, his fist balled to stop it from shaking. He again locked eyes with his Inquisitor General and nodded back.

Revan whirled on his heels and marched down the street back into the heart of Maidenfaire, followed by the Cardinal and his bodyguard. Maidenfaire was a beautiful seaside village, Maidenfaire harbor made it a hub of trade and culture and, as of late, a den of heretics and apostates.

Like a pack of vicious dogs escorting a fat baby pig the Cardinal's retinue moved through the village, down side streets and alleyways, passing the faithful soldiers sent ahead to clear the way. The villagers scurried like cockroaches at the sight of them shutting doors behind them and closing blinds in windows as they passed.

"Heathens and heretics all." Revan muttered under his breath.

"Now, now Revan…... it is no trifling thing to condemn a whole village of heresy (cough) the punishment for that would be excommunication and purification." The Cardinal managed between haggard breaths and coughs.

"Everything is pure in the light of the lord, Your Holiness." Replied Revan, slowing his pace so the Cardinal would survive to their destination.

The Cardinal thought of all poor souls here and what the devil rot would do if it managed to germinate in this town, how the townsfolk would be twisted and broken into new monstrous forms, how the buildings would be taken over by creeping flesh like moss on the trees and forest floor, if the rot was here the only answer was the torch.

They approached a large concentration of soldiers of faith, the Cardinal knew they were close. Revan stopped abruptly in front of a tavern, he turned toward the Cardinal waving his hand toward the double doors of the tavern.

"The Whispering Eye, your Holiness. A place of very ill repute around here we're told, after you." Revan extended a hand to the Cardinal helping him up the stairs to the tavern door.

"My God the smell, I forgot how bad it was." The Cardinal cautiously approached the door, his heart pounding and his mouth going dry, his body flooded with a mixture of anticipation and excitement, he slowly pushed the door open and walked into a waking nightmare.

Most of the floor and walls had been covered in what looked like living tissue, there were body parts of various people and animals strewn around the place in some sort of incomprehensible pattern. The only part of the tavern not covered in pulsating flesh was the center of the main dining room; the chairs and tables were moved and the center of the floor bore a huge pentagram drawn in blood and adorned with many candles.

"Oh my god…." Whispered the Cardinal clutching his rosary he began to whisper prayers.

He stepped into the dining area, his senses were assaulted, he could taste the death, the guilt, the pleasure, the pain, all of it. He stepped further into the room, out onto the pentagram, his bodyguards exchanged worried uncomfortable glances back and forth wishing the Cardinal wouldn't get so close.

"Very curious." The Cardinal said aloud.

"By curious do you mean heinous and disgusting?" retorted Revan.

A small pedestal sat in the middle of the pentagram, struggling to see what was on it the Cardinal crept closer and closer, he picked up a candle off the floor and brought it close so he could see.

A young woman's head sat impaled on a pair of antlers, the antlers wrapped around the head almost like a bloodstained crown, the woman's face was frozen in a smile so sincere you'd have thought she was staring at a newborn babe, a smashed heart shaped locket was around her neck the chain bent and distorted like it had been the weapon used to decapitate her.

The Cardinal bent down and retrieved the poor girls head breathing deep, filling his lungs to capacity. He wanted to savor this moment, the pain of her death and the pleasure her soul must've been feeling right now filled him with strength. The Cardinal felt his muscles tense and get more rigid, his bones felt more dense, a tingling was felt in his back where his wings used to be, he wanted more, he had to have more.

"This is bad Revan, purification is the only answer. Gather everyone to the square, put this place and everything else to the torch." The Cardinal breathed deep one more time, sucking up all the hatred, death, and fear the room could give.

"Are you sure, your Holiness? I think we could just burn this out." Quiered Revan while poking a disembodied torso with his sword.

"No….. there is no way this won't spread, if we let this go it'll be Hosterhome all over again." The Cardinal placed the head back on the pedestal and stared deep into Revan's eyes.

"You heard his Holiness, get to work boys, God has decided there is no hope for this place." Men hopped to in every direction going about their work, rousting people from houses, beating those who wouldn't listen, killing those who fought back, putting everything to the torch.

The Cardinal exited the tavern, his fat little legs not being the hindrance they were before, his heart not wanting to explode from exertion. He was drunk on power, Drunk on death. The Cardinal walked through the city absorbing everything supping deep from the fear and death his order just caused. No longer was the town peaceful and idyllic. He could feel all of it on the tips of his fingers.

The Cardinal and his bodyguard approached the villagers gathered in the square. Large gallows were off to one side of the square the Cardinal pointed to them and his bodyguard parted the crowd. The Cardinal ascended the steps not needing any assistance this time. He stepped out onto the platform raising his hands to the sky, a hush fell over the crowd hoping the Cardinal would explain this was all a big misunderstanding and they would be allowed to resume their lives they had started that morning.

"Good people of Maidenfaire, I am Cardinal Diavolo, I have come here because there is a blight….. a rot in this village and it can not be allowed to spread. I was there when we lost everything, I was there when the Messiah was lost….. was betrayed on the battlefield, and I was powerless to stop it. But now me and the other Cardinals are tasked with ensuring mankind's future. This town is full of sin, you are full of sin, and we have to come to cleanse you from this earth. You chose to condemn yourselves when you decided to live outside the protection of the Cathedral Cities now it is time to pay your petence. Men you know what to do." The Cardinal was so angry he was spitting with every word.

At the end of the Cardinal's speech men in the crowd charged the lines of soldiers, with no weapons or armor it was hopeless. The soldiers cut them all down, the crowd stopped fighting after that, there was nothing they could do.

The Cardinal again breathed in their anguish and hopelessness, his body started to shed weight, his joints and spine straightened. He needed more.

The Cardinal raised both his hands to the sky and began chanting. Soldiers started to file into the square two by two carrying large crosses on their backs, at the sight of this the villagers surged and crashed back into the soldiers but again they were repelled men, women, children, all dying. The Cardinal breathed them in too.

Slowly one by one the villagers who didn't throw themselves against the wall of soldiers were hauled onto the crosses and crucified, the stench of it was intoxicating now, the Cardinal walked between the crosses drinking in the pain and suffering their screams were music, their tears sustenance.

The Cardinal stopped at the feet of a pregnant woman and placed his hand on her leg, she recoiled, he didn't care he could feel the heartbeat of the baby in her womb, innocent and full of love.

"Here, this one has the Demon seed in her too." The Cardinal said stone faced and absolute.

"Nooooo!!, not me, I've done nothing, not my baby! Please it's not me."

"She lies with her serpent tongue, she has lain with Satan, now cut that baby out and let her watch the fruit of her deeds." The Cardinal turned away from her, put his hands to the sky and basked in his good work, a torrent of death and pleasure flowed into him from every corner of the city.

"Let the fire cleanse your souls!" The Cardinal's voice rang out super naturally loud echoing for many miles. The soldiers blindly followed the leaders commands and lit the crosses and all the villagers burned. The Cardinal had sat on the ground in the middle of the blaze, in absolute ecstasy.

"Sir it is done, we combed through the town and there is no one left….. God bless them sir. Now they can be free with god." Revan put his hand on the Cardinal's back.

"Yes my son, now I think I've earned my wings."