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"He's all yours, Father."
With a small kiss planted on the back of her son's head and a faint shove towards the perron of the orphanage, the last visit made to Ferdinand Luke's for the day strutted off, back to her limousine.
Father Alexander Anderson watched in silent contempt as her chauffeur opened the backseat door of her luxury vehicle, the fur of her shimmering mink coat shielding her nape from the seething rage shooting through his eyes. At that moment, a small gust of wind shyly yet suddenly threw her sleek silver hair into confusion; revealing the youth of her face for a split second: clear, fair, unsullied skin shining forth from behind her voluminous bangs like rays of morning light behind a thick curtain. She appeared to be in her early-thirties, or perhaps even younger, and with all the beauty and wealth she possessed, it would be reasonable for anyone to assume that she was someone in a world far above our own.
Someone important. Someone influential. Someone great.
Someone that wasn’t the mistress of a hotel tycoon.
The gentle breeze continued to blow against her angular features for slightly longer than expected, as if it were begging her to reconsider; almost as though it knew about the irreversible consequences her decision would one day have on the world. But with one foot in the limousine, then two, and with a final nod to her driver, the wind’s efforts were proven futile.
And from that moment on, it had all been set in stone.
Carefully hidden streaks of reserved anger fired through his synapses as he watched the black limousine drive off into the Roman sunset; suppressing the urge to hurl something at the blasted vehicle as some means to return the world to its natural balance of right. He was cautious enough to not let what he felt to be zealous rage pour out of his mouth when he had spoken with her a few minutes earlier; though not enough to keep himself from shooting the nastiest glare he could ever muster up at her as she handed over her child’s legal documents. In opposition to what most people might’ve thought, it was not her supposedly scandalous affair that irked him; nor was her gait; nor her attitude as she demanded to be a given a full three-hour tour of the four-story, 30-acre plot that the orphanage sat on as to thoroughly scrutinize the grounds in which the child she obviously did not care about would be spending the rest of his youth in. It was not even her excessive and flamboyant displays of wealth, which on any other day would have greatly miffed Father Anderson, himself a former penniless orphan.
Rather, it was the painful realization that she was not giving her child away out of necessity or some kind of dire legal situation. As far as Anderson knew from the daily gossip shared among the lay sisters of the building, the young woman who today graced their presence was known to be one of the most wealthy women in Rome – albeit as a result of her ‘sugar daddy’. Even so, with all of the assets she possessed herself and the potential millions that she could simply access with a single call, she chose to kindly hand over her child to one of the most obscure houses in all of the city, and run by an "impressive" staff of three priests and five nuns, no less.
It was no doubt, therefore, that she simply wanted to sweep the dear child under the rug for publicity’s sake. Ferdinand Luke’s was the ideal place for that, anyway: it sat on a private plot of land owned by the Holy See and lay on the outskirts of the metropolis. The fact that everything from its yearly budgeting to its occasional renovations was managed directly by the Church resulted in the complex functioning near-autonomously. In short, it meant that no one, save for Anderson and the poor civil servant who had to process their paperwork, had to know anything about the affair.
The already-humble orphanage had seen much better days, especially before their funding was taken off the Diocese’s monthly budget to, in their words: "compensate for financial deficits incurred by the 1970 Jubilee Year," despite it having already been three years since then.
Just another Curia corruption case that Section XIII will get to deal with soon enough.
The middle-aged priest sighed, letting those streaks of anger fade into gentle ripples of reason as he forced himself to calm down. He knew what a state the world was in; after all, was it not he who spent most of his adult life hunting down the most wretched creatures - human or otherwise - to walk the Earth? Was it not he who watched the years go by and see how the crowd that gathered for Mass depleted with each passing decade? He noticed how things had been getting worse since the war, both for the Church and the globe at large.
He knew the world was changing drastically; he knew enough from watching the economy fall and the housing rates skyrocket in Rome during the past year. Times are getting hard, and people have to make a living somehow. He shouldn’t have been surprised, not him. After all, not everyone could afford to reflect on how their actions have consequences; sometimes you just have to do what you have to do and tie up the loose ends when you’re done. A small wave of compassion dampened his fiery heart as he reminded himself that he had no knowledge of this woman’s history, what she had gone through to have gotten to this point – only God knows the heart of man, after all. For all he knew, she could have been born into abject poverty and this was her only way of making ends meet; it was not his place to pass judgement. There was no way of telling if, behind her unapologetic looks and empty courtesies, had lain the crippling guilt and pain of a mother giving up her only child.
So why did Father Alexander Anderson; the infamous God's Assassin; the vindictive Bayonet Priest; the dreaded Angel Dust; Saint Guillotine himself; feel so revolted at this moment?
"Sir?" asked a voice.
The answer was because now the consequences of her actions were now looking at him with the eyes of an orphaned child.
Anderson looked down at the boy standing to the side of the perron, his face desperately looking up to whatever hospitality the priest could muster up behind his round glasses.
The child looked to be about seven years old, with stark violet eyes gazing up at the cassock-clad giant standing before him. Delicate strands of argent-white hair lay combed all the way back from the front of his head and stood jutting out from behind his pale neck; with his neatly-tailored purple jacket and white schoolboy's stockings, the seven year-old resembled a little porcelain doll. Surrounding him was that tangible air of youthful innocence and curiosity which seeped through his wide eyes and fair complexion, existing independently of the evident anxiety and confusion plaguing his expression that would have activated the parental instincts in any adult. Anderson could see it, clear as day.
And he knew what it was.
It was the look of a child who would never see his parents again.
"Yes, ma' son?" Anderson replied.
"Why am I here?"
Anderson gulped before answering. Although he had had this same conversation with a multitude of different children a hundred times over the eleven years since he had been tasked with managing the orphanage, the question never failed to send a cold chill running down his spine. It was somewhat comical, that the man who had a long list of dead ghouls, vampires and terrorists attributed to his name was now cowering to a little boy’s honest and, rather natural, question.
"You're here," he began in the most approachable tone he could assume, "because your mama loves ya' very much, but can't keep takin' care of you. But, because she loves you, she’s decided to give you to me for now."
"For now?"
He swallowed in hesitation, preparing his heart as he repeated the age-old white lie. 'Can't wait to take this to confession,’ he muttered to himself.
"Yes, for now. 'Till she can take ya' back."
Anderson looked on as the child nodded, letting his own eyes wander down and around the tresses of carefully-trimmed grass. He noticed a tinge of genuine confusion crossing his face, which made the middle-aged priest stiffen in preparation for another difficult question. However, whatever remained of his worries seemed to quickly evaporate as the boy's eyes caught the sight of the orphanage's grand doors.
"This is a very big building, mister."
Anderson smiled in relief, at the knowledge the conversation took a turn. "Oh, yes it is. All the little boys and girls like you whose parents can't take care of 'em come here."
"How many live here?"
"About thirty. We're small, but hey, we're all family."
"Family?"
"Yes." Anderson said sincerely, a warm smile gracing his lips. "We're all family here. In the morning, we learn together; in the afternoon we eat and play in these 'ere fields together. Before bed, we read together and recite our prayers together. We're all one big family. We are all taught to love each other here, just as Christ loves us."
"Family..." the boy muttered, letting his speech drift off into silence.
"You're going to love it here, ma' son. I can promise ya' that."
He spoke up again, looking back up at the priest. "And you're going to look after me, mister..."
"Anderson," he interjected. "Call me Father Anderson, or just Father. And yes, Maxwell – I'm looking after ya' now."
The boy nodded at the priest, communicating that he understood. There was still that solemn hint of lingering confusion ingrained in his expression however, as if there was still something he needed to ask; some unanswerable strain of doubt that encompassed his mind like a swarm of wasps yet could not explain itself enough to be spoken aloud. His lips parted for half a second - preparing to voice his lingering uncertainties to his new caretaker, but no words left his mouth.
Anderson noticed this and, fearing the possibility of him having to deliver another half-lie for the sake of his happiness, proceeded to pat the seven year-old on the shoulder before turning around and walking towards the entrance of the orphanage.
"Come, now. Let me show ya' yer' room. While we're at it, Reverend Mother Kris is going to fix you up a nice bowl of—"
"Wait, Father."
Anderson stopped in his tracks, before turning around to see the boy shyly tugging on the tail of his cassock; that same look of fearful doubt plaguing the lines of his face.
"Yes, ma' son?"
"Why can't Mama look after me anymore?"
At that moment, Anderson had never prayed harder for the Second Coming to have initiated, there and then. Moreover, there had never been a moment of his life until now that he actually visualized it happening before him; angels sweetly singing choruses of celestial praise, mighty cherubim and ophanim hoisting him up with eye-covered, feathery pinions and the foul, wicked earth that had imprisoned him in this current situation crumbling beneath him into a fiery abyss. Not only that, but just to gratify himself, he imagined Christ Himself too, descending from His lofty throne to bestow a crown of victory on his blonde, weary head. He imagined His gentle countenance and lovely voice, muttering the words he longed to hear for the last thirty years of his life: "Well done, My dear Alexander. Now, come into the reward prepared for you since the beginning of time, since you have so faithfully served My Church, both on the battlefield and in the understaffed, high-maintenance orphanage that My bishops were too "busy" to even spare a moment’s thought about. O, how hard you have worked!"
Anderson sighed dreamily, knowing that he would not see any such rest for another few decades.
Letting his hefty gaze fall once more on the pale youth behind him, the middle-aged priest’s dusty heartstrings felt a strong tug as the latter’s crystalline orbs peered back at his own. Fear, anxiety, nervousness and a slight color of dread painted the indigo canvas of his eyes – if they were windows to the soul, as the saying goes, then they were rather transparent ones indeed.
Anderson stood frozen in his boots, one foot already on the first step of the perron as he silently cursed his dilemma. On one hand, it was clear that he couldn’t simply shrug off the boy’s inquiry and pretend to have not heard it; Maxwell was already at the ripe age where he was instilled with the ever-persistent urge to know the reason behind everything in the known world and his question proved that he could tell there was more to the story than what he was being told. Furthermore, a good number of the other orphans had originated from impoverished families who were truly unable to raise them and who would even visit from time to time. In deep contrast, Maxwell hailed from a family that had more than enough wealth to raise him in luxury – the clothes on his back serving as evidence – and he would definitely realize one day that everyone who had living relatives had them visit the orphanage, save for him. Thus, if Anderson didn’t answer him now, the topic would be certain to reappear at a later date.
On the other hand, exactly what could he say to someone in such a vulnerable situation? Was it within his capacity to tell the poor boy that his parents simply didn’t want him? True enough, he could be brutal, but that was reserved for heathens and monsters. Imagine if he simply forwent all restraint and said: "Ma’ son, it’s because your mother is a million-dollar whore and your father is an exploitative, lecherous fatcat who couldn’t give a damn about ya’."
It was imperative that he conjure up some cunning way to deliver it to him, carefully. The slightest mistake in wording or the use of a bad analogy could send the boy straight into a hellmouth of depression for the rest of his life. Lying was out of the question; he had already given him the vague implication that his mother would return one day, he didn’t plan to go any further than that. He had to tell him some measure of the truth, just enough to mollify his doubts about why his parents had essentially abandoned him but not so much as that would allow him to think that it was his fault. A nice compromise, he thought, would be to say that his parents were ‘imperfect people’, but they loved him enough to give him over to the care of Holy Mother Church. Yes, a great idea! By that way, he would adequately pacify the situation and not suggest that he was necessarily unloved albeit at the cost of sugarcoating his parents’ apathy, which was a preferable alternative to implying that –
"Is it because I’m a burden?"
The proverbial train of thought in Anderson’s head came to a screeching halt.
"Who told ya’ that?" Anderson quickly replied. Maxwell may be older than the other children, and seemingly sharper too, but no seven-year old should be able to think like that. Someone, something rather, must have told him. Some miserable excuse of a human being must have suggested it to him.
"Pa…Papa did."
For the first time in a decade, Anderson failed to keep the smile he had learnt to so flawlessly plaster onto his face whilst in the presence of the orphans. Eyebrows furrowed and teeth grinded as he regretted not actually decimating the damned limousine as it left. He bemoaned the fact that he couldn’t hunt down the boy’s father unless he was tasked to do so, the chances of which were very slim; a shame, he thought, since it was people like this who were the worst breed of demon – the ones that live with us. The ones who, above all, deserved the righteous judgement of God were those who trod down the innocent. Christ Himself said so, and commanded that they ought to have a millstone tied around their neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea, so what would be so bad if he took a little "excursion?"
"He…he said," Maxwell shuddered as he tried to speak. "Papa said I’m just a burden that he doesn't wanna carry.
Eyes began to twitch now as the menacing Monster of God found the same anger from before flooding his bones until it felt like fire wanted to jump out of his skull. ‘What kind of psychopath would say that to a child, no less their own?!’ he raved internally. A thousand expletives, none of which he could utter in a ten kilometer radius of the orphanage, ran up and down his psyche as he attempted to compose himself. He swore he could feel a vein appearing on his forehead as he took off his glasses and wiped the lenses with a handkerchief. It was a coping mechanism of his whenever he felt anger beseeching him to say something he shouldn’t, and at that moment, it was failing spectacularly.
"Mama – Mama said that…I make him look bad. ‘Cause I’m a bastard."
Anderson’s left fist was clenched so hard that his fingernails were tearing into the lining of his clerical gloves. With whatever restraint that remained in his heart, he tried to remind himself of what he initially planned to say; to stop the dam of wrath from overflowing.
But all proved futile when Maxwell, with a face that beheld epitome of childlike innocence, asked a question that pierced Anderson’s heart with a lance of pity.
"What’s a bastard, Father?"
At that moment, the dam broke.
The towering cleric slowly sat his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose and knelt down to the boy’s height.
"Maxwell…" he began, putting a hand on his shoulder. "You are not a burden."
"Then why did Papa –"
"Because your parents are fools!"
Maxwell jumped from the sudden rise in the priest’s volume. The cleric cursed under his breath; this was definitely not what he intended to say in the beginning, but his heart could not bear justifying the actions of the creatures Maxwell had the displeasure of calling his parents for even a second. Children are impressionable, and if his parents told him to his face that he was a living inconvenience, it’s not long before he truly believes it. His conscience would not allow an innocent to believe that he was a burden.
He could hear his guardian angel screaming in his ear but he couldn’t care less.
"Because…yer’ parents are fools. Blind fools. If they weren’t blind, they would look at ya’ and see a delightful, precious young lad…but no. They see a bloody ‘burden.’ Idiots. You are so, so much more than that, ma’ son. You could never be a burden."
The argent-haired boy stared back into Anderson’s bespectacled eyes, looking past his attempt at consoling him and began to tremble in his place. Anderson could see, where the crystalline transparency of his eyes used to be was now a misty tempest circling round and round. Tears welled down below and began to roll down his flushing cheeks. He looked down for a moment, as if trying to swallow down the question that he was about to ask. But, like an insect that just would not go down the drain, it crawled up his throat no matter how hard he tried.
Anderson knew exactly what he was going to ask next.
"Papa and Mama…"
"Here it comes…" Anderson muttered to himself.
"Papa and Mama…won’t come back for me…won’t they?"
Anderson looked to the side, his glasses catching the sunlight as he confirmed the hard truth.
"They don’t love me…don’t they?" Maxwell pressed. “Just tell me, please.”
The truth, after all, sets one free.
"…I’m afraid not."
A tear ran down the boy’s cheek. Then two. Then three. In a matter of seconds, Anderson took him into his arms and Maxwell sobbed like he had never done before. The blonde-haired priest could feel his own eyes start to water as well and trickle down his rough stubble like morning dew on trimmed grass. Picking him up with one arm, he meandered to the perron of the orphanage and sat down on the steps as the newly-orphaned Maxwell bawled into the crook of his shoulder. Cradling him softly, he decided not to say anything until the boy was ready to talk, whenever that would be. He would need a lot of time to recover, after all, and it would have to begin on his terms, not Anderson’s. The only words that were exchanged were the gentle affirmations and comforts that the priest was virtually programmed to repeat whenever confronted with a child in distress:
“It’s okay. I’m here, ma’ child.”
Some might call it banal. Of course, he said it with all sincerity but he could only hope that it would mean anything to the poor child. For even if it didn’t, he understood that to weep against someone’s empty words was better than to weep into deafening silence.
Yet, even as the perennial Judas Priest’s cassock was getting progressively more damp by the minute, a few comprehensible words did come from the boy’s lips, nearly passing by his newly-instated guardian’s mouth on account of it being so meek. It was a wonder how Anderson had managed to hear it, since, aside from the choking and wailing, Maxwell cried out with a voice so measly and pitiful, so desperate and miserable that if he had been any softer it would have fallen on no one’s ears but his own.
Amidst seeing that there was no one who wanted him in this world, the future Director of Section XIII whimpered so between his sobs:
“H-help me…save me, Father. Please – I’m so alone.”
“Even if a mother,” Anderson softly recited, “forget her own baby, I will never forget you."
Being careful as to not suffocate him, the priest tightened the embrace. He wasn't sure whether Maxwell understood the meaning of the verse, nor was he sure that he had even heard it in his teary plight, but it felt important to recite at that point. Anyhow, he would still resolve to reassuring him that he wasn't going anywhere, repeating his line like a broken record.
"I’m here for you, ma’ son. You’re not alone.”
The two of them sat there, amidst the lime-green Roman grass, weeping and weeping till the sun greeted the horizon and a dim orange decorated the walls of the building. Their bawls echoed off the walls of the building and into the cruel, uncaring world.
Little did Anderson know, this would be the last time Enrico Maxwell cried.
The once-magnificent city of London shone a merciless orange as the orchestra of war devolved into a sonorous cacophony of bloodshed. Soldiers commanded their instruments with crazed bravado: the spectacular cymbal-esque explosions, the apathetic hums of mechanical whirring and the relentless drumming of gunfire from every side. Reaching an evident climax, the symphony of violence marched andante with the staccato of German artillery and the metallic percussion of falling sabatons from the zealous feet of crusading Papal knights. Declarations of war flooded Trafalgar Square like the echoes of a harmonious choir in a performance hall: obscene insanities overflowing with fanatic promises of violence against the other’s faith or Führer, sung across the battlefield to the key of five thousand groaning, undead familiars rampaging the streets. The audience, five million innocent British folk from every race and creed, communed with a continuous applause of tears and bloodcurdling screams as the death toll climbed higher and higher alongside the music.
Yes, the city of London was an orchestra of war – and its mad conductor towered above the concert atop the monstrous Deus Ex Machina, looking on with eccentric glee and macabre fascination. Waving his arms around with a deranged, psychotic enthusiasm, it would be safe to say that the Major’s dream of a war that would rouse Hell itself was fulfilled.
Despite that, the same could not be said for the orchestra’s second-most-important player.
Archbishop Enrico Maxwell, choirmaster of the Iscariot Organization, lay sprawled across the heartless brick road as the sea of ghouls pressed around him. A few minutes ago, he was flying high above the city too – in his own flying pulpit while announcing his gospel to the liturgy of death he presided over. His dream of one day righting the world that had done him so much wrong has been going so well. Sure, he was taking it out on blameless civilians, but that didn’t matter. They were Protestants anyway. Heretics. Mongrels who pervert the gospel to suit their own agendas.
Nothing like him.
But then, as all good things must come to an end, Alucard arrived on the shore and sent out his familiars. Before he knew it, the helicopter from which his lectern of doom was suspended from was successively diced up, shot at, bombed, and he soon found himself on the ground. Not only that, but once he had gained his bearings, he looked up in horror to find that said familiars could see him and, more importantly, were surrounding him.
The silver-haired prelate cowered back in fear as best as he could, bleeding and broken in a few places. His eyes wandered in abject terror, flitting back and forth between the faces of hellspawn, looking for someone from his army. Someone who could fight, at least. Someone to order around and rescue him from his predicament and get him back to safety.
But, to his dismay, there was no henchman. No knight in shining armor. No armored priest willing to sacrifice his life in order to save their great archbishop.
Just a scared, thirty-three year old boy and a host of murderous spirits.
However, a familiar tinge of confusion flashed across Maxwell’s face when one of the spirits, in an attempt to grasp at their newly-found prey, swiped their bloodied hand in his direction but to no avail. They left an impression of their own ghostly ichor in the air, but nothing more. Another came with a sword, one with a spear, but the crowd of shades seemed unable to advance past a certain point – as it would turn out, Maxwell had forgotten that protecting him was a box of the heftiest reinforced glass that shielded him from the blow of any weapon in this world or the next.
Confusion turned to relief, then relief into smug satisfaction; Maxwell grinned cheekily at the ghouls whilst trying to mask his wheezing with laughter.
“Ha! You fools!” he hollered. “This is hardened, compound-tektite reinforce glass! You brainless ghouls won't even be able to scratch it!”
Maxwell staggered in his place, his crimson stole swaying in the ash-filled air as its golden tassels danced across the dust of the bloodstained ground. The plan was set; wait out the invasion in his transparent foxhole and try to catch the attention of someone from the Knights of Malta or the Swiss Company Executive while he was at it. He wouldn’t yell or cry for help, however: no one should ever see an archbishop conduct himself in such a pitiful and unbecoming matter.
Fiddling with the silver pectoral cross hanging from his neck, he reassured himself. He was God’s anointed. A hierarch of the Church. A ‘Most Right Excellency,’ and someone who is addressed as ‘Most Right Excellency’ doesn’t request. He commands. Besides, he had all the time in the world – as long as the glass wall stood, he was kept from any danger. The fact that he was surrounded, or that the Ninth Crusade was turning out to be a ginormous failure, or that he had to initiate a major regrouping of his forces, or that he would have to soon explain to the Holy Father why Vatican-issued bullets were in civilian chests; all of it didn’t matter. What mattered was that he stayed put, prayed, and an agent of the Armored Priest Vanguard would come soon to his rescue.
Unbeknownst to Maxwell, there was someone from the Vanguard coming.
But not to his rescue.
A sliver of blue light manifested across the black walls and stopped a few inches away from the archbishop’s face. Within seconds, it grew from a small flash into a collage of small cracks and fissures within the glass’ surface. As the undead continued to press around him with increasing frenzy, the small cracks grew into large cracks and the fissures into holes through which he could plainly see that he was no longer safe.
Maxwell looked with morbid terror as he realized the ‘blue light’ was, in fact, a bayonet.
“We are the soldiers of Iscariot,” a voice coldly declared from atop a mountain of debris. “We are the instruments of God’s wrath on earth. Together, we march in long-step to shatter those who twist His will to their wicked and unholy dreams.”
And the one who threw it was the Blue Light of Persecution himself.
“Anderson!” Maxwell cried out, attempting to call to him from his shattered cage.
"Goodbye, my friend."
But it was no use. In less than a minute, a few familiars on horseback had kicked down the glass and it was soon in pieces as little orange glitters across the black pavement. Ghostly visages, crying tears of blood and mumbling incoherently, were gaping around him as their filthy hands reached for his violet cassock. One lifted him up, another grasped his ponytail, another for his collar, and one got a hold of his legs in an attempt to stop him from struggling. Ash and smoke wafted all around like incense and, with time, Anderson’s looming figure was obscured from the scene.
It wouldn’t take an intellectual to say that he was practically dead. He didn’t put up much of a fight either, simply resorting to the instinct of kicking one of the ghouls without much purpose. Yet, amidst the fear of death and the rage of being betrayed by one of his closest subordinates, Maxwell didn’t curse or intimidate Paladin Alexander Anderson, Iscariot’s trump card, with threats of excommunication as one would expect.
But, for the first time in over two decades, he called out to Father Alexander Anderson.
The chaplain of Ferdinand Luke’s.
“Help me! Save me! Father! Please…”
One of the ghouls who had come on horseback delivered the finishing blow and drove a metal spike through his chest. Hung up like a gory human skewer, Enrico Maxwell was left once again to the cruelty of the world he hated so much.
“…I’m so alone.”
The world that he chose to stay in.