Cryptic Apocalyptic

Within a few hours of the meeting it became clear that there were only three serious churches left in Las Vegas. Most predominantly there was St. Peter and Paul's Cathedral, which removed from the city and surrounded by suburbs. It had both money and a semi-devoted following, which made it a rather formidable foe, as far as churches went. After that there was the Presbyterian church of Las Vegas, which was just about as run down as any church could get, but which was extremely adamant about helping those whose souls were in mortal danger.

Interestingly they were the only one's which bothered about things like soup kitchens and new socks for those in need. Lastly, and most defiantly least, there was Little Elvis' Hall of Holy Matrimony, conveniently located just off the strip. Little Elvis was a devout Christian, but really did nothing that could have been considered threatening to the boys. The A7X crew was so pleased with how well their city had been scourged of religion, and how well sin was thriving that they decided to hold a bon fire not unlike Burning Man where all their followers could come together and party. Out in the desert bibles, crosses, and statues were all torched while demons, and fallen angels danced with the sinners around it.

They blared Slayer, The Doors, and Blondie, among others, and broke all the laws that they could think of. Evil priests replaced the good ones, changing Holy Water into Unholy water and cursing all that had been blessed. Crime went up like a rocket- as did the overall economy of Vegas. Instead of the concentrated burst of evil destroying the city, it acted like Miracle Grow. So potent was the take over that the Viagra of wickedness effect became noticeable to the normally complacent suburbians.

"Father Rappa, we need to do something. There just aren't enough police and there's too much corruption. I'm not prepared to move away from my home just because some godless hoodlums are acting up around the neighborhood."

"What would you like me to do, Chris?" Father Rappa had known Christopher Walsh since he had taught him in Sunday school. To say they had become close over the years was just unnecessary. Walsh was one of St. Pete's best patrons and most dedicated members.

"I don't know Father, but there must be something we can do. We can't just let the city continue to rot like this." Walsh was getting more and more frustrated as he went on. "I caught Sara, my oldest, sneaking out last night, She's always been so honest; I followed her to see what she was keeping from me. Her and a few of her little friends met up out in the desert. I had to stay so they wouldn't bolt, but I saw a fire, father, and they were howling like coyotes. I would have confronted her but she would have just run away when she saw me coming. I'm scared father, I think she might be into something foul."

Father Rappa sighed deeply and rubbed his wrinkled eyes with his hand.

"Chris, were there any men present?" he asked in a strangled voice.

"Well, Father it looked like half the county was present," Walsh seemed miffed by the implication.

"This may be worse than I have feared." He breathed deeply. "I only ask because there is worse going on in Las Vegas than you know. I may only pray that she is not in the sort of mortal danger I fear. We must question her thoroughly, and have her blessed just incase. You must beware for her my son- evil is very attractive to those who do not know better. Should you see any men around her do not hesitate to call me.”

"What is this about Father? I know your concerns about wedlock, but I don't think I've raised any of my children to be quite that promiscuous-"

"No Christopher, you are misunderstanding." He gave his protégé an appraising glance. "If there was one man I thought I could trust it would be you. Can I trust you Christopher?"

"You can trust me with anything, Father! Please, tell me what's going on. I'm afraid for my children." The pleading expression was enough to convince the priest.

"I will take you into a secret confidence. You must swear never to reaveal what I am about to show and tell you. Unless I specifically say so, no one must know."
"I swear!"

"You may not want to believe all I will tell you, but you must if you wish to save young Sara's immortal soul." Walsh nodded eagerly, willing to put mass amounts of faith into the priest. Rappa lead him into the innards of the cathedral, down to the cellar where he had never been before.

The electricity in the stone walled basement was minimal and the stairs were steep. The air was cold a clammy. Walsh, a Nevada native was extremely unsettled by this. The hallway held only thick wooden doors and nothing else.

"You must promise that you will not overreact to what I will show you. Listen, the judge, that's all I ask."

Walsh was a little annoyed at all the conditions but kept his cool and responded in one of his more devoted voices.

"I've known you my whole life, Father. No matter how shocking I'm sure whatever it is in the name and interests of the Lord."

Appeased, the old man went on. At the last door Rappa stopped again and produced a key from under the neck of his robes. He slid three bolts aside and then unclipped the key from his necklace and undid the last lock. Walsh followed Rappa into the room, which seemed to be even colder than the hallway. They could see their breath. Whatever he had been expecting, it was certainly not what he got. Sitting on a cot beneath a barred window was a small girl in a plain sleeveless white summer dress. Her skin was a nice tan peachy color, but Walsh could see it ebbing away into an unhealthy pale.

Her eyes were wide and large, a darker blue on the outside with a bright ice blue starburst coming from her pupil. So magnificent were her eyes that Walsh became entranced in them.

"Sophia!" Father Rappa screamed. She blinked and for the first time Walsh could see the wicked little smile on her pouty pink lips. Her round little face was heart-shaped and framed with wavy dark brown hair to her shoulder blades. Her little feet were bare and dangling so her toes touched the stones below.
"What have you done? What is this?" Walsh was still breathless from the child's eyes and could not manage to be as outraged as he should have been.

"This is Sophia, she has been cursed by the devil with sight. She can see things that only God should know. She will not repent for her sins and she laughs at the name of the Lord. You must not feel sorry for her. She has chosen the road of the devil and now she must suffer until she devotes herself to the Lord again."

"You're crazy! She can't ever be eight years old yet! You can't keep her locked up down here like some wild animal! Are you mad?!"

"If there were any other way, my son, I would have chose it. She will run away if we don't keep her safe. She is cursed- evil!" Sophia watched the old man condemn her with interest but said nothing.

"Still, I believe the Lord has sent her to me for a reason. She can tell us of the evil we must fight to save our homes and those we love. She has already told me of the Serpent’s sons, and now she will show you of their evil." Sophia glared as the priest said this. She leaned away from the both of them, clearly disgusted. "You will show this man!" he boomed. Walsh had never known that the priest had a voice like that. He'd never heard him yelling at anyone before. Sophia hissed a bit, but Rappa grabbed her upper arm and yanked her to her feet. She stumbled but caught her balance before Walsh.

She starred in his eyes- he could see the deliverance in the action this time- and the effect was much more unsettling. He felt like hundreds of spiders were crawling all over his skin and even running along his veins, chilling his bones from the inside out.

Rappa pulled her arm again and screamed her name. She blinked, releasing Walsh and held her hand out to him. He looked to Rappa, who nodded, and engulfed it in his own. His vision went black, a dropping sensation in his stomach reminding him of a particularly steep roller coaster drop. He opened his eyes as he felt heat searing the chill from his bones.

He panted for breath but seemed to be constantly suffocating on smoke and fumes of rotten egg and flesh. There were flames all around him He saw Sophia rubbing one of the three heads of a huge black dog-like beast and cringed away. Holding tightly onto the little girl's hand lest she should try to leave him, he began to wander deeper into the forest of flames.

Sophia waved goodbye to the beast, which whined but didn't move to follow her. Turning around a bend Walsh gasped, and immediately choked, falling to his knees as the full force of the putrid air hit him and bleached his tongue. He put a hand on his chest, and felt the dropping sensation again after a minute. He fell onto a sub arctic stone floor, crying and knew the bitch had brought him back.

Father Rappa comforted him until he stopped sobbing. He turned immediately to vomit and then, with his friend's help got back on his feet. Even when pressed he could not tell his life- long mentor what he had seen that had upset him so. All he knew was that he would be praying fully three times a day now and even going to church on Saturday as well as Sunday. Whatever those poor souls had done to deserve.... whatever his own grandfather had done to deserve such treatment couldn't have been that bad. No one should ever have to endure or see what Walsh had in his own opinion.

He looked on the small child with renewed eyes. That cute innocent creature had shown him the very pits of Hell. He was sure she'd merely made it look like his grandfather was one of the damned.

She had been messing with his mind. His grandfather was a good, religious man. That thing sitting on her cot was just smiling at him. How could she be smiling?!

"Do you understand now, my son, when I tell you she is cursed, that I'm not lying?"

"Yes Father. Isn't there some way to cure her though?" With a second look at the little girl Walsh was no longer angry, only half frightened and half saddened. Clearly she was just a product of the devil's work. He chastised himself for having been angry with her. She was just a tainted child, but the priest would fix her somehow.

"No, my son, there is nothing I can do. I have tried, but unless she repents for her sins I cannot save her. She has chosen the Devil's road. But as I have said before, the Lord has plans for even the most wretched. I believe god has sent her to us so that we may be aware of the three sons of the Blasphemer. The child has told us that they have risen from hell to corrupt the innocent and destroy all good among us. I have taken you into this confidence so that you might be able to help me fight this evil and protect your family and home."

"I want to fight Father! I'll do whatever you say is necessary. I'm sorry I doubted you. Just tell me what to do!" The bitter aftertaste of vomit and his rather extreme dehydration from the heat was making Walsh want to puke again. Rappa noticed. He smiled and put his hand on the other man's shoulder.

"Come Chris, we'll get you some water and I'll tell you more of our divine mission." They left the room closing and locking the door behind them. "Father Luke will come to clean that up when he feeds her."

Hours later Sophia sat alone in he cage looking at the stars. She wanted to reach out and touch them, imaging them as glittering diamonds. Friar Talker was late tonight, which meant he probably wasn't coming. Although he had been the one who had found her and diagnosed her with the sight, he was also the only one who was ever kind to her.

Once in a while he would be able to sneak into her cell and bring her cookies or read her bits of poetry or short stories. She didn't understand how he could be so different form the others, but then again she didn't understand why he wouldn't save her either. She couldn't stop the visions from coming. She had tried time and time again and finally accepted that it was impossible. She had prayed all the time before she became a prisoner, but now that she had been so abused she realized that prayers would get her nowhere.

Her own mother wouldn't even visit her- or maybe she wasn't allowed. It was ironic that with all the bad things Sophia did know, something that simple should be kept form her. Her only comfort now was the nighttime sky and the nice black-haired men she saw in her dreams. They lived in the place with all the fire and they were always so happy to see her. They would give her presents and tell her jokes and play games with her. She couldn't go to see them without smiling.

Sometimes they would tell her things, secret things, which they made her promise to never tell the priests. They promised her that they would rescue her from the church and then she could come live with them. She would have to do a few things on earth first, but she was happy to help them. She wanted them to win. They told her how special she was, and called her a prophet.

She smiled just thinking about them. They couldn't come get her, not yet anyway, not when the priests were all there with their holy water and chants. She tried as best as she could to run to the nice men, but she was only a little girl and the mean old priests always caught her and punished her. She was afraid. She didn't like it in the church. She didn't like the horrible food they gave her or the holy water they made her drink. She was all alone and they never let her out of her room anymore.

At first they would take her out to try to exercise and baptize her, hoping they could get rid of her 'affliction'. Now they never took her anywhere. The angels she saw were always telling her to be courageous and that the priests were only trying to help her, but they didn't seem to understand how unfair it was.

She was afraid and confused and the priests kept telling her she was evil and bad. And every time she closed her eyes she saw thing happening that were almost always horrifying. The black-haired men had told her that the people she saw suffering deserved their fates. They were the only ones who made sense. They were punishing the bad men- like the pedophiles Sophia had shown the new guy. The angels were so self-righteous yet they looked down on the black-haired men for doing what the angels themselves should have. Eventually she had been able to make the angels go away with the help of the black-haired men.

In the fireplace she knew the nice men would take really good care of her. The one with the brown eyes and the big ears was always telling her that she was his little princess. She liked him, and asked him if he would come save her. He promised he would as soon as he could. For now all she could do was wait and try to make the priests understand that she wasn't their friend. If they wanted evil, then she would give them evil.