IGMS Issue 50 Read Free Page B

understood. I hated Siface for what he'd done to me, but at least he'd felt the same burning tongs I'd endured. Not Cardinal Battista.
    "Should we also pray for your sins, Cardinal Battista?" I ask.
    "What do you mean?" the cardinal asks, his smile disappearing. Ferri rests her hand upon my knee and squeezes gently. She's warning me to be careful with my words, but I no longer care and press on.
    "I have heard many priests speak about God's commandments. Isn't one of them
Thou shall not kill
? Yet that's what you did to Siface."
    Cardinal Battista is silent but there are flames behind his eyes. The same flames I saw when the tongs reached down to burn my flesh.
    But I'm unable to stop, as if the tongs have finally cut so deep into my voice that I can no longer keep the words inside. "And I've seen what you force Ferri to do. Is that truly God's will? If creating castrati is evil, what about vampires?"
    Cardinal Battista flinches, looking like an altar boy caught drinking the church's holy wine. "I didn't create Ferri . . . one of my predecessors did that . . ."
    "No, but you use her." I'm now yelling, causing Nicolini to pause in his singing. The choir director starts to walk over to see if Cardinal Battista needs assistance, but the cardinal waves him off.
    Ferri sits silently, her hand still resting on my knee but no longer squeezing, no longer trying to stop my words. Cardinal Battista leans forward, his composure returned and his anger as bright as God's wrath. "Do you know how to create a vampire?" he asks softly. Even this question doesn't elicit a response from Ferri.
    I shake my head--No, I don't know.
    "The peasants believe a vampire must bite you, or that the dead return if you don't stake their heart. Nonsense. We create a vampire the same way someone created you, my little castrato. But instead of gelding a young boy, we neuter the emotions. We use ritual and magic and cut a man's spirit instead of his body. The procedure is described in the apocryphal
Visio sancti Pauli
, but until I became cardinal legato I didn't know the church could truly do it. Not until I was introduced to your friend here."
    Cardinal Battista shivers as he glances at Ferri, as if he dislikes what she is. Ferri still hasn't responded to Cardinal Battist's words. She simply stares at Nicolini as the famed singer again slides into song.
    "But the problem of vampires is the problem of castrati," Cardinal Battista continues. "Just because you cut someone doesn't mean they'll turn. How many castrati are cut each year? Thousands, at least, but so few become a Siface. It's the same with vampires. One of my predecessors two centuries ago cut Ferri, but since then all the church's attempts to replicate her have failed. The Lord alone knows which person will become a castrati opera star or a vampire."
    The cardinal glances up at Nicolini, whose large lungs are holding the same note as tens of seconds, then a half minute, flow by. The cardinal shakes his head.
    "So Siface called what he did a performance?" The cardinal clasps both of my shoulders with his hands and squeezes hard. "Well, you are my performance now, little castrato. I will order that if you're seen away from Ferri's side you are to be imprisoned and tortured. You will continue living with this vampire. Until, that is, the day I finally tell her to kill you."
    Cardinal Battista leans over and whispers in my ear. "Or perhaps I should try cutting your emotions too. Perhaps you could be the first person to become both castrato and vampire."
    I shiver. I curse myself for speaking the truth to this man without the power to protect myself. "Ad Dei gloriam," I whisper.
    "Ad Dei gloriam," Cardinal Battista echoes.
    With that the cardinal stands and walks to the front of the cathedral. Nicolini stops singing as the cardinal steps up and hugs him. I hear the cardinal say Nicolini's voice is even better than the late Siface's, may he rest in peace.
    I run from the cathedral, hating myself for crying