IX
IX
Pointing his gun, which was still belching smoke, at Philippo, Abel quietly asked, "Won't you tell the guards to lay down their weapons quietly, brother?" The massacre in the cathedral was nearly over. The priest s blue eyes were filled with pain as he gazed down at the attendants engulfed in a pool of blood. "And please move away from Their Holinesses. I won't let you butcher anymore."
"Bwah hah hah! You say such naive things," Philippo smiled as he gestured to the soldiers who had turned their guns on the new intruder. "Whether they survive or die here, all the people in this city are going to die eventually. You’d better run away at once, agent, if you don't want to get involved. Go on!"
A high-pitched echo split the air, overlapping the tail end of the inquisitor's speech. Unexpectedly, the wire pick, thrown with only a simple snap of the wrist, caught the priest's face dead on. It was such a brilliant blow that the sound of the bone being gouged was audible—but what was thought to be the crackling sound of bone really was the sound of marble breaking. The pick had thrust deeply between the eyebrows of a marble statue of the baby Jesus, and the silver-haired priest who had been in front of it disappeared like an illusionist's trick.
"Bwah! Where is he?" Philippo said, gasping.
"Won't you be quiet, brother?" Abel's voice echoed like the sound of a gun hammer flustering inside the inquisitor s ear, and he peered at the back of the inquisitor's head with eyes as cold as a winter lake. "What do you mean all the people in this city will die?"
"Th-that missile," Philippo replied. With an ominous smile, he snuck a peek at the gun pressed to his temple. "It means that by using that missile, we'll kill all the people in this city. Heh heh!"
"What do you mean? Aren't you planning to dismantle that and let the army invade?" asked Abel.
Abel received the dreadful response he had feared. "Dismantle? Invade? Ha! We won't do anything so troublesome," Philippo scoffed. "We're not going to dismantle it—we're going to blow it up in this city!" At the same time that his tone of voice had drastically changed, Philippe's hand moved with a deftness that was uncharacteristic of him, and he forcefully threw the wire pick he'd kept hidden. The pick's destination was the still-unconscious Alessandro and Alfonso, who was using Alessandro as a shield.
"D-damn!" shouted Abel.
The percussion revolver spat out bullets with a roar. The next instant, the wire pick that was launched toward the boy Pope's heart burst apart with a high-pitched sound. But by that time, Philippe's round fingers were clutching Abel's arm with terrifying strength. "Bwah hah hah hah! Hey, hey, naive agent!" Philippo shouted.
Suddenly, Abel's hair began to stand on end as three hundred thousand volts of electric current assaulted his entire body. Receiving a voltage that was four hundred times that of the Energizer bunny's power, his six-foot-plus-tall body flew backward.
"Bwah hah hah hah! Critical hit!" Philippo laughed.
Abel's body fell and convulsed erratically as smoke danced off it. The small man ran over and mercilessly trod on the priests face, although the agent still couldn't breathe. "Isn't it a pity, agent? You shouldn't underestimate . . . Now, what were we talking about? Ah, yes, yes. We were talking about that missile."
Abel moved only his eyeballs and made his mouth quiver as if he wanted to say something.
As he dug his fingernail into Abel's temple, Philippo dramatically threw back his head. "We'll blow up the missile in this city as soon as we've evacuated. After we wipe out the maggots with poisonous gas, we've arranged for our troops outside to enter the castle at their leisure. We should've done that from the beginning."
"There are also regular citizens ... in this city," Abel struggled to articulate as his face was still under Philippe's foot. "I-it's nothing to do with them."
"Nobody will know about the ignorant citizens," Philippo explained. "In the public announcement, we'll say that the heretics accidentally leaked the poisonous gas they made, and that it ended up killing them and the citizens. Ah, that face. Are you chagrined? You are chagrined, aren't you?" Philippo snickered, revealing a new pick between his fingers. After he deliberately turned Abel's face upward so he could face his next fate, Philippo grinned as if gloating. "Well, I guess I'll put you out of your misery now. Die slowly like a dog while ruminating on your chagrin."
As he was raising the pick to eye height, Philippo suddenly shrieked when he felt something thin stick into the back of his hand. The inquisitor stared hard at the chakram with the delicate carving — the circular blade that was stuck deep into his skin. When he saw the bright red blood gush from his hand, he lost all control and bent backward in agony. "Aieeeeee! My hand! My haaannnddd!"
"Hey, that's a cool accessory for you, round eel. But, speaking frankly, it really doesn't suit you," Leon mocked cheerfully. The large man whose swarthy face was grinning appeared beside the altar before anyone had noticed.
Several soldiers abruptly pointed their guns toward Leon's dauntlessly smiling face, but they were forced to drop their arms after being struck by bullets fired just before they pulled their triggers.
"Point thirty-three seconds late," Tres, the short shadow standing next to the large man, muttered unemotionally as a heavy machine gun for use on tanks spewed fiendish gunpowder from his hip.
"Leon! Tres!" Abel exclaimed.
"Sorry to keep you waiting, Bungler," replied Father Leon Garcia, waving his fingers. "The truth is, we intended to come sooner, but it took a little time to dry my clothes."
"I recommend saving unnecessary conversation for later, Dandelion," interrupted Tres in a hardened voice. As he intimidated the soldiers with his machine gun, the short priest stared unemotionally at the giant. "In the current situation, His Holiness' security and rescue are our first priority."
"I know that. Really—interfering with a person being cool..." Leon glared sideways at Father Tres Iqus' masklike face, but he obeyed what Tres had said. Haphazardly picking up his comrade from the floor, Leon jutted his jaw at the boy Pope, who was still unconscious. "Abel, you take care of His Holiness. Escape outside the city before us. The gunman and I somehow will take care of the missile."
As he struggled to stand, Abel spoke desperately: "P-please wait a minute. That . . . I'll get that... Vaclav."
"You're no use in that shape. Regardless of whether you say you're okay, I won't listen," said Leon. He tried to reject his comrade's request, but Leon couldn't help but notice that Abel's eyes beneath his glasses were unusually serious. Shrugging, Leon said, "All right. You can return to the castle. The gunman and I—"
"I'm your opponent, hairball!" shouted Philippe like a deep, dark voice echoing from hell. His lips twisted in anger as he finally pulled the chakram out of his hand. "Interfering with me, not once but twice! I'm infuriated!"
Addressing his comrade, who'd hefted his gun, Dandelion broke out in an unholy smile. "Hey, Tres, don't interfere. I'll be this idiot's opponent," said Leon. "This time won't go like yesterday. Get ready, because I'm going to broil you, you round eel!"
"You can't move from here!" Havel scolded the officers trying to leave the underground hall in a sharp voice. Softening his tone slightly, he expounded on his explanation. "As long as the Vatican doesn't dispose of this missile, they can't move their army. Because of that, they're trying to lure you to the surface and attack underground when we're short-handed. Therefore—"
"Get out of the way, Havel!" bellowed an irritated officer who also held the title of baron. "Our relatives are going to the cathedral. Are you telling us to allow our families to be killed before our eyes?"
"I'm not saying that—I'm simply telling you to avoid doing anything stupid that might help them with their plan," Havel replied.
"Stupid? Are you, with the social standing of a commoner, calling us stupid?" the baron shouted angrily, his face turning bright red.
The officers of the Neue Vatican army chiefly consisted of second and third sons of common lords in the area around Bohemia. To them, it was an unpleasant experience to be ordered around by anyone, but there was nothing worse than being ordered around by an unknown priest of doubtful origin.
"No matter what you say, we're going to the cathedral! Cowards can stay here!" proclaimed the officer. After the baron rebuked Havel, he led the officers out of the underground hall.
Watching them leave, Havel's shoulders slumped powerlessly. "It's over . . ."
The missile's ominous silhouette towered overhead toward the dark ceiling. Havel was certain that as long as he had the missile, the Vatican wouldn't be able to lay a hand on Brno. No matter how bad the situation got, if they just protected this abominable thing, they couldn't be beaten. If they bought time above ground and kept the alignment of the surrounding lords, they could amass enough strength in this castle to hold out against Rome. Where those of true faith gathered was the real dwelling of God—but that notion already seemed to be fading like a dream.
"Aren't you going?" asked Havel, dropping his eyes to the ground. He noticed there were people other than himself in the hall. Dozens of boy soldiers wearing shabby clothing glared at the priest as if they wanted to complain.
"Why are you lingering? The Bureau of Inquisition will attack here soon. Escape quickly!" urged Havel.
"I-if you're staying behind, Father, we'll stay, too," announced the boy carrying a machine gun, speaking on behalf of his companions.
"Father, we're staying with you. We won't lose—even without those nobles," said a boy.
"Yeah. We didn't come with the nobles. We came here because you were here, Father," said another boy.
"We can't run away and abandon you now, Father," said another.
Surveying the boys talking to one another in strong rustic accents, Havel sighed. In the end, he hadn't been able to do anything for them. On the contrary, he'd dragged the beloved children into a predicament. He knew he'd be the first one to be judged for this incident. "Everybody, please listen . . ." Suppressing what was swelling up in his heart, Havel stopped speaking. He regarded each of the boy's faces and said solemnly, "We will lose."
The sound of gasps reverberated throughout the dark hall.
The priest continued delivering his speech to the boys who grew stiffer with each incomprehensible word. "The Bureau of Inquisition will come here soon to dismantle this bomb. When that's finished, the siege army will invade. The outcome already is decided."
The boys shouted with beseeching eyes as though they were infuriated that a deal had been broken.
"B-but, Father!" exclaimed a boy.
"Father, didn't you say that the righteous can't lose—that God will be our ally if we do the right thing? Was that a lie?" said another boy.
The one-armed priest, still downcast, bit his lip. "Blessed are the poor" were the words he'd shared with them before. He'd taught them that regardless of whether you're poor or weak, you should do the right thing because God is always watching—and this was the result. What could he say to them now, when it was too late? Should he encourage them—or apologize? There was only one thing he could say now.
"That's a lie," said Havel, ignoring the boys' faces, which looked more stunned with every word he uttered. "There is no God. We will lose—and when we lose, we'll be captured by the church army or killed. If you want to survive, you must run away."
Taking the hand of one of the boys, the priest placed a small metal object into the boy's palm and made a fist around the boy's hand. "This is the key to the storehouse. If you take food and goods and run away, you shouldn't find yourself in trouble for a while. During that time, please find a tranquil place."
"You liar!" jeered one of the boys as hot tears trickled down his face.
"You deceived us, you fake priest! You lied to us and made us do what you said!" shouted another boy.
Havel took their abuse silently without bothering to wipe the spit from his cheek. His eyes devoid of emotion, he fended off stares burning with anger.
"Let's go, everybody. Who wants to die in a place like this?" asked the boy with the machine gun. Taking their cue from the boy leader who'd turned on his heel, the other boys followed, running as fast as they could, hurling slander at Havel on their way out.
"This is good," Havel lamented in a whisper. Now, the boys would escape the city or choose to throw down their weapons and surrender. But it would take at least a few hours for them and the citizens who heard their story to escape safely. If the church army began attacking during that time, everything would be over. Havel had to buy time by any means. But can I buy time now? he wondered to himself. Because there had been a commotion in the cathedral, the Bureau of Inquisition surely had already moved. With my body missing its right arm, and being unable to use the trump card and the invisibility camouflage, how in the world can I buy time? Havel simply had to do it. He was the one who had caused the incident earlier in the day, so it was the only way.
Suddenly, a quiet voice echoed as if speaking out into the nighttime forest. "They say God ordered us thus: 'My people, conquer, attack, and destroy any heretics.'"
Havel hadn't seen the slender woman whose shadow stood in the doorway appear.
Reflecting the illumination in both silver-body-armor-wrapped hands was a moon blade that looked like two crescent moons combined. As she twirled the strangely beautiful but deadly weapon in her hands, the nun — Inquisitor Sister Paula — quietly recited a prayer: "Kill the men. Kill the women. Kill the children. Kill the infants. The cattle, and the sheep, and the camels, and the donkeys, kill, kill, kill. Amen."
Havel's face went blank. Barely tilting his body, he lifted his left arm parallel to his body axis. The moment the priest kicked the floor, the nun's body leapt high. The shock wave produced from her hand blade caused it to graze her feet and then gouge a deep hole in the wall.
In order to evade a kicking attack, Havel threw his thin body backward, but the blades attached to the inquisitor's boots still thrashed his face. If he'd moved backward a half second slower, the top of his head would have undoubtedly been split in two. Meanwhile, the nun's body had landed and was spinning like a top. Her right arm, pliant as a whip, flung the moon blade, which Havel dodged using intricate footwork. Still spinning like a windmill, the nun thrust the left weapon, grasped in her opposite hand, toward her opponent's chest. Havel quickly raised his left sleeve, which ripped loudly—and with unbelievable speed and sharpness, the priest was pinned to the edge of the wall.
Havel's cassock already was torn to shreds and subcutaneous circulation medicine was gushing from everywhere. Regardless of whether the odds moved in his favor, victory would be doubtful. Indeed, the moniker "Lady of Death" wasn't for show.
"However!" Havel proclaimed. He couldn't avoid the moon blade or the rate of its discharge, but by stepping directly in front of its aim, he daringly shortened the distance. At the same time, he thrust his hand blade toward the blade hurtling overhead.
When the high-pitched clang echoed across the hall, the Lady of Death's expression changed. Know Faith's hand blade had successfully broken the moon blade and slashed the nun's throat with the speed of a snake. Deprived of her favorite dark weapon, Paula couldn't thwart the attack.
"What?" exclaimed Havel, whose eyes had widened in shock.
Paula had thrown away her dark weapon and had firmly caught Havel's hand blade, which could pierce an iron plate. "The other day, you said that I was a genius user of dark weapons, but that was half right and half wrong," the Lady of Death coldly pointed out, still restraining Havel with one arm as he struggled with all his might. "I use dark weapons to awaken fear in sinners and in order to make heretics feel fear before they die. I use them for nothing more than making them realize the weight of their sins. The truth is..."
Havel's eyes bulged out as his fist was crushed by the nun's slender hand.
"My specialty is empty-handed combat," Paula continued.
Subcutaneous circulation drug spouted up and splattered the floor like rain. The priest, whose fist had crumbled under the nun's uncanny strength, arced backward.
"God's punishment," Paula mumbled as she thrust both fists into the pit of Havel's stomach and rotated them so the force inflicted a horrible blow to the priest's core.
Hakkei was a fighting technique that concentrated the strength produced by the whole body's muscular motion into one spot. After being propelled more than thirty feet to a corner of the hall and hitting the wall, Havel's cassock burst open as if it had taken a direct hit from a tank cannon. His shape-memory plastic muscles were shredded and were exposed by cracks in his snakelike skin that had cruelly split.
"I've finished disposing of Vaclav Havel. The only thing left is to deal with the missile," Paula said. Without giving a second glance toward the priest, whose body wasn't moving but was trailing with smoke, Paula walked toward the center of the hall. She slid her fingers along the machinery and tools on the control console as though she were very familiar with them, and after a few moments, lamps that had been turned off began to light up one after the other.
"P-please, sister," Havel pleaded, directing his words toward Paula's turned back. His main output lines already had been destroyed, and his life-support subcircuits were being depleted merely by talking, but the priest couldn't stop. "A while... Won't you wait a while to disarm it? Our defeat already is certain. Please, give us the chance to surrender before the army invades."
As her fingers danced over the console, the Lady of Death's long, slitted eyes peered at the dying priest. "I don't understand what you're saying. Our army won't invade—there's no need for that."
"No need? What do you mean?" Havel asked suspiciously.
"Because we won't leave one heretic alive. We'll explode this missile here," Paula replied curtly.
Havel's face went flush, twisting in shock and fear.
The evening sun shone down through the hall's ceiling, which opened with a noise. Looking up at the hole, which was supposed to serve as the missile's firing port, Paula matter-of-factly added, "If we explode this missile, the hydrocyanic acid gas will spread throughout the castle and the entire city. In a half an hour, the extermination of the heretics will be complete."
"Th-that's . . ." Havel's blood-smeared mouth trembled in despair. He gathered his strength to entreat the nun who was adjusting the gauges. "P-please wait, sister. There are ordinary citizens here! Those—
"Heretics have no right to live," Paula said calmly as she continued to concentrate on the console. "There is a rule that God and faith move this world. We of the Vatican are wardens to make that system function smoothly. Therefore, those who oppose us are traitors."
Paula's demeanor revealed her indifference and signaled neither feelings of guilt nor a guilty conscience. She didn't even seem bloodthirsty. Acting as though she had merely drawn an equation on a blackboard, Paula sentenced tens of thousands of people to death. "They who hinder the normal application of the rule are trash, and you have to clean up trash quickly," she said.
"That's . . . trash . . . ?" said the dying priest collapsed in a pool of blood. "Y-you call them trash? And God and faith are no more than rules?"
"That's right, God is order—He is law. And He is this real world itself because God is omniscient and omnipotent. This world, which is Gods creation, always should be managed correctly," Paula explained.
"Order . . . law . . ." muttered Havel. Still prostrate, he asked himself, Then what is God? If God approves of the strong eating the weak, what happened to justice? Is she saying that faith ignores ideals being defeated by reality? Actually, wasn't what was happening before his eyes proof of that? Those who sincerely believed in God would be cruelly destroyed. If the God Havel used to believe in really existed, why didn't a miracle happen here? Why did he helplessly watch weak but righteous people being slaughtered? There was only one answer: There was no such thing as God.
"God, God, why hast thou forsaken us?" Tears of blood leaked from the corner of the priest's open eye. It could've been backflow of subcutaneous circulation fluid, but even though it had been a long time since his body had lost its tear ducts, there was little doubt that Havel was crying. After all, God wasn't anywhere. Neither ideals nor justice held any meaning whatsoever in this world. There was only reality and power. Powerless people were cruelly downtrodden and would receive no justice. That was the divine providence of this world.
"I finished setting the timer. If I destroy this console, nobody will be able to stop the self-destruct function," Paula said.
The priest digested the inquisitor's eerily calm words with deep despair and watched blankly as Paula brandished the hand blade that would destroy the control console. It already was over. The hand blade that would result in the death of tens of thousands of people and the God Havel believed in quietly swung down toward the control console.
Suddenly, a shadow in a flapping cassock fluttered down above the nun's head as if guided by the evening sun shining in. "Are you all right, Vaclav?" Abel asked.