Conquest Of The Fallen: Dark Dominions

OF ALL THE FAITHFUL in the lands of Eldoria, no one really knew whom, or what the [Martyr] was.

For any devout you asked, the simple answer was that they had been worshipping the cowled saviour since they could remember, their fathers before them. And their father's fathers even before. Who were they to question their God's truth. He, manifested miracles.

No one could say if the Martyr was male or female.

They figured the creator was too supreme to be of a single gender. Omnipotent. And omniscient. So when they made statues of the Martyr, it was with a cowl. An immaculate androgynous veil that hid out their God's divine face. The same saintly, shrouded figure of opal marble—with benevolent arms stretched out—now loomed in front of Rafel by the darkly enchanted corridor of the quiet church.

The Martyr's eyes no one could boast they had seen. Not even the most servile monk.

Priests of the Martyr across the dark ages leading up to the [Faerie Era] were named the Templars, and at the head of the church, serving to lead the faithful at the Pontificate seat was the one chosen among a conclave of elect Cardinals, the first above all.

The paterfamilias. Or as known by the devout and heathen alike; Highfather.

But if someone told Rafel that he would find, on a witched island, in an empty cathedral, passing a soporific archway, that same Head of the Church, buggering a teenage hand?

Whew!

—that one would be fucking crazy.

Or at least asinine enough risk being stoned to death by the kingdom's believers for blasphemous uterrance. If Rafel didn't see it with his eyes, he wouldn't believe it. He heard Cora breathing at his side as the Highfather struggled to pull down his black cassock over his thin legs. The altar boy hid behind the clergyman's robes and dragged up his own trousers.

Rafel whispered his annoyance for Cora's ears alone.

"This will hurt Rosamunde."

It was true. Rafel's islandic girlie whom he had the hots for, was as believing in the Martyr as Eusebius in Lilith. He knew this news would break her heart.

"Then we don't tell her," Cora whispered back.

The Highfather had a face only a mother could love, if that mother cared not for wrinkles and tub spot. It was like someone had taken a cigar's butt to the man's face. He was positively unattractive. And he was also old. The years showed on him. The image of his droopy ass ramming into the young boy behind entered Rafel's head and he scrunched his nose.

He didn't know what to say that wouldn't end with him slapping off the priest's head clean off his neck.

The bloodspray was a nice enough image; it made him grin.

Like the Highfather could see clearly his evil mind, the old priest gulped and cleared his throat. He passed a hand down his rumpled robes.

Cora stepped forward.

"Your Holiness."

Her greeting was an obvious mockery to his holy office. "We didn't expect to find anyone here. The chapel was lonely, so we assumed the entire church to be so. But clearly, our assumption was very wrong." The Highfather opened his mouth, but Cora held up a dismissive hand. "Don't! I wouldn't say a word in your situation.

Just shut the fuck up while I try to forget seeing this."

She moved her hand between the old priest and the young boy still hiding at his back.

Rafel, in his rigid stance could hear two hearts thundering. One pounded faster, and Rafel feared the red organ might burst into a fury of blood within. Surely, it had to be the Highfather's. At the risk of the old man having a cardiac arrest, Rafel touched the small of Cora's back lightly to ease her imposing poise.

"Let him speak. We might as well hear him blame the devil for it."

Cora sighed. "Uh, Rafel, we all know your uncle had nothing to do with this."

The Highfather was stricken into silence for a while. He looked between the both of them. Rafel was exactly sure what the old man was thinking. Wait, his uncle's the devil? Rafel's silent smile was prove enough. The Highfather stuttered.

"I-I h-have got no excuse. I have forsaken holiness, fallen into my own lusts, seduced by the sickening taste for young flesh," the boy behind the priest was quivering at his quaking acceptance, "I have sinned against the Martyr—"

Cora interrupted hotly. "Oh, fuck you! You sick bastard. I forget how many times I've seen posters with your face all over the realm. You stand there and call fire and brimstone upon this very thing. A fucking hypocrite you are!

Don't try to play naive. You know exactly what the fuck you were doing.

It didn't stop you from preaching against it; from hailing down thunder upon the sodomites. And you didn't quit your job either. So spare me the empty contrition. You, Your fucking Holiness command your believers to attack all who are caught. You make the gays into a pariah. Yet, here you are, ramming up a he against the walls when you thought the church empty.

In your office, you prey on the pure souls like this, who are either too innocent to know better, or too scared to fight back. I am not so concerned for the act as much as the child in it."

Cora backed him up and poked his chest with her hard finger.

"So fuck you, Highfather. And fuck this church too! Shriveled ball cunt!"

To Rafel's utter disgust, the old man crumbled to his knees and began to cry. His shoulders turned inward and he sobbed. Cora stared him down as he clutched his folded arms to his chest, muttering, "forgive me, Martyr, forgive my sin."

Rafel growled. "Shut up, holy man. You sicken me. The only ones you have sinned against are I and my colleague here, whom you have shamed with this vile act. And it didn't even turn me on. I have seen better perverts in Hel.

Highfather? What a fucking joke!"

As for perverts, Rafel was talking about Eusebius: one who loved to suck on his Auntie's toes like Jack and his cow's udder. And Moloch the Destroyer: no one got the ache for young flesh more than that mad Titan. Moloch didn't touch a soul over ten years of age. But less than ten summers old, boy or girl, it didn't matter.

And so Rafel ignored the weeping old priest at his feet, the greatest symbol of the church, discovered in his own profane vice. A flaccid pink penis showing under his cassock. Rafel looked to the victim. The boy.

Rafel got the attraction. The kid looked like a girl upon firsf glance. But then they all did at that age.

The boy raised his eyes to meet Rafel. Rafel was to him a giant with golden demon iris.

[I smell fear, Lord Apollyon.] Peitho whispered in his head.

Rafel said to the child, "do not be alarmed. How old are you?"

"F-Fourteen."

"Shit. A minor, really?" Cora kicked at the old priest below. "Fucko!" The man grabbed his shins and whimpered.

Rafel's hand vanished into the air for a bit, as he dipped into his Hel pocket dimension with his [Crimson Torch] ability and withdrew a hefty bag of gold. He was loaded enough since the auction. Rafel held the bag out to the boy once his fingers stopped glowing deathly red. He instructed the young lad on what to do.

"Oi, laddie. Take this, yeah? And make better fucking life choices. Now bugger off!"

Once the teenage boytoy of the Highfather was gone, Rafel turned back to the kneeling old man. He delivered his version of a blackmail, coercing from the crying clergyman information of note. Yes, he didn't expect to stumble on a juicy scene, but he was sure as shit going to exploit the situation.

Rafel squatted to the old man's height.

"Now listen here, Your Holiness, we have found ourselves in a bit of a pickle on what to do with you. My partner and I have other engagements, and would just love to scrub our mind clean of what we've seen here. So this is what's going to happen:

You may have heard of a recent matter with the sewage pipes bursting at the school mess hall, given that you're the college's chaplain. But I don't care about any of that. What I really want to know is, Who sent Basilisk?

Surely, with your connections on the school board you must've heard something...know something. I hear the Highfather has a permanent seat on the board. So tell me, who is the monster's sure? Who is sending out giant serpents to gorge teen kids alive. Speak!"

The old priest shivered. "I know nothing of this, I swear. But there's a woman on the board. A highborn lady. She's the Countess of Avila D'aqua. She joked about it in a meeting, but I could read more into it.

And my cross always burns whenever I sit near her. She might have what you're looking for."

The Highfather clutched to the crucifix dangling down his neck. Rafel rubbed his gray head.

"Good. Good, old man." He looked around the high pillars of the temple. "I will find this Countess, Your Holiness. But for now, say a word to anyone about this, and your small cock will be the least of your worries. Now, what's the name of this church?"

"Uh, it's a church, but the entire parsonage is called Vallon-de-Grâce."

Rafel said nothing else. He rose, turned with Cora and began walking back down the cathedral's silent archway. The Highfather yelled after them.

"Wait. Are we done?"

Cora and Rafel laughed without turning. On his knees, blue-balled and frightened, the most powerful holy man of the Empire heard a demon's cackle rise from the back of the redhaired boy. It rumbled in dark words, echoing like a grim orchestra playing in the courts. Rafel's cold baritone said, "Oh, Your Holiness, we are far from done.

You belong to me now, Vicar of Vallon-de-Grâce."