Time slowed for Cassandra and Sadie as they crossed through the square. After the last few days of constant vehicle travel and attacks, the holy ground they tread upon somehow seemed safe. For Cassandra, there was maybe a little sense of actual protection felt, for Sadie, it was a trust that the enemy at least had a few principles they'd cling to. At a lighter, calmer pace the two passed through Saint Peter's square, past bustling groups of tourists taking pictures or kneeling in prayer near one of the fountains.
As they walked, Sadie looked around, wide eyed, at the enormous pieces of architecture out of time. "Man, are you seeing all this?" She took one of Cassandra's hands and squeezed it. "It's, like, I dunno. Like a medieval Disneyland. I mean, Disneyland's already kind of a medieval Disneyland, but this. I feel like I've gone through a time warp."
Exhausted, and without much emotion, Cassandra asked, "Is that good?"
Sadie looked up at the towering dome and pillars that formed the basilica. "It's gorgeous. I'm not even all that big of an architecture buff, but it's a work of art by itself. Yeah, if you believed in God, and believed your art was supposed to bring him honor, this is the kind of place you'd build." She shook her head. "It's—it's kinda overwhelming."
From the side of the cathedral, spots of green were visible beyond a stretch of adobe-red administrative buildings and a gate. That bit of green was the color's only showing, so it seemed as good of a place as any to start. As they drew closer, two men dressed in poofy uniforms striped with black and orange came into view, hands behind their backs, stern looks on their faces.
Even at her most determined, Sadie couldn't totally suppress a laugh. "Those guys in the costumes are real? I thought that was just a thing from TV."
Cassandra said, "Costumes are good for lots of things."
"I mean, I know you guys' are," she said. "Just… nevermind. Gotta give a good impression here."
Although Sadie didn't notice it, Cassandra caught sight of a third man standing at a corner at the opposite side of the gate. The third man wore a light blue shirt, a black cap, and stood rigid with a handgun strapped to his belt. From Cassandra's experienced observation the energy that emanated off of police officers was universal.
The guard they approached remained motionless to the untrained eye until Sadie stepped up close enough to force a reaction. "Bonjourno," he said. "I giardini Vaticani—"
"Hold up, before you go on," Sadie said. "We have arrangements with someone inside." When the guard held the blank look on his face, she asked, "Do you speak English?"
He sighed, turned to his similarly-dressed companion, and waved. "Beat, qui."
The other member of the Swiss guard crossed to them and squinted down at the two shorter women before him. "Good morning." He spoke in accented English. "Or afternoon, soon enough. Is there a problem?"
"We're meeting with Father Day, he said he'd be in the gardens," Sadie said.
As she spoke, Cassandra reached into her backpack and produced the herald. Beat's eyes widened a little at the sight but quickly settled. Cassandra had the impression he knew this was important, but did not totally understand why. Beat turned to his companion and spoke a few words in a language neither woman was sure of. He, too, showed surprise and then reached into his uniform. After a second, he produced a ring of keys.
"We were briefed on this," Beat said. "I will lead you."
Both women nodded to him, Sadie added a, "Thank you."
The other guard opened a small door nearest to the adobe-colored building, Beat led them inside. Just a few feet beyond the gate the steps and chatter of the tourists soon gave way mostly to birdsong. Sadie and Cassandra followed Beat through a winding path past marble statues of saints, rows of bright, white, blooming Madonna lilies, and labyrinthine hedge mazes. Out of the corner of her eye, Cassandra watched the officer trail a ways behind them. Sadie leaned closer to Cassandra and said, "Being here for this exorcism or whatever is a complete rip off. I'd give anything to check this out by ourselves."
Cassandra nodded along, but her heart wasn't really in it. Instead, she looked to Beat and said, "Is that a policeman following?"
"He is Gendarmerie," Beat said. "That is to say, military police. We Swiss still have our roles to play, but they have taken up some of our duties these days."
That got a halfhearted nod from Cassandra as well. It felt a little hard for her to explain her disappointment she experienced; it was probably just that she liked the idea it was the people in outlandish costumes still doing the important work. For her, both a sense of pride in being someone like that herself and a wish for ceremony to feel like something more than performance.
A few other priests or members of the Swiss guard could be seen from a distance, and some of them turned strange looks at the two. But Beat's authoritative strut felt like it projected a field of invincibility around them. The three moved through the gardens uninterrupted.
Beat stopped at a row of hedges, at the center stood a sculpture of Christ preaching to children. On a bench against the greenery sat a priest, dressed in the standard clerical blacks. The orange hairs on his head were outnumbered by the grays, and he sat with his face turned down, eyes on a book in his lap.
"The women you informed us of, Father Day," the guard said.
"Gratzi, Beat." The priest didn't look up from his book, but Cassandra and Sadie recognized the Scottish brogue from Arlington's herald. "Leave them here with me, I can handle this."
"Very good." Beat clasped his hands behind his back again and turned to walk away.
"Wait!" Cassandra yelled after him. "The others. Can you do anything?"
"Oh crap, right." Sadie beat a palm into her forehead. "Listen, Day, Beat, whoever, our other two friends—one of them fell into the river, the other—"
"Hold on, settle down," Day said. "What happened now?"
"Ti—I mean—Robin. Robin and Batgirl," Sadie said. "When we were on our way here, Robin threw himself and one of the bad guys off a bridge. The bridge that way." She motioned southward. "Can we do anything to help them?"
Day nodded slowly, as if he was still trying to parse what she said. Then he looked to Beat. "Search for reports of anyone falling into the river, see if you can't follow it and find their missing companions." He looked back toward Sadie and Cassandra. "Did the other woman fall in to?"
"No," Cassandra said. "She left to try finding him."
"See if you can find her too then. What's she look like?"
"Blonde hair, carrying a big backpack, maybe with a staff poking out of the back," Cassandra said.
Day nodded and motion toward Beat. "See what you can find."
Beat gave him a last, "Yes, sir," and departed.
That concern addressed for the moment, Sadie closed the distance between them and leaned to her left to get a look at what he was reading and flinched. "Is that— are you reading Dune?"
"It's a good book. Much to say in times of false prophets and would-be messiahs and such." He dog eared the page he was on and looked up at the two. "I don't know what I was expecting. Which one of you has the stigmata then?" Sadie opened and raised her left hand. Father Day maintained his stern look as he nodded. "You'll be safe now. I'll ensure this is taken care of." Then he looked toward Cassandra. "And the icon wasn't split between you two?"
Cassandra shook her head.
"We'll need to make arrangements for you then," Father Day said. "This part doesn't concern you."
"Like hell it doesn't," Sadie said. "She's saved me repeatedly already. And, respectfully, sir, I only know you as a voice on the radio." Sadie started to point at Cassandra to reiterate her words. "This woman is more than ready to do the whole, 'in sickness and in health' thing with me as soon as you weirdos let us, so yeah, I'm keeping her close."
The priest let out a frustrated huff and seemed to contemplate that for a moment. When Cassandra stood up straighter and took a step closer to Sadie, he eased. "Fine, fine," he said. "Your protection request, at the least, isn't unreasonable."
A few seconds of silence passed between the three before Sadie asked, "So, you're getting this thing out of me then? Can we get this over with?"
"I'm not actually authorized to perform the ceremony," Day said. "He will be with us late tonight or early tomorrow. I'm his second—"
Sadie gawked for a moment before she raised her hands and said, "Wait a second—stop, stop!" When she resumed, she started by enunciating every furious word. "Are—you—kidding—me?!" As she spoke Father Day attempted to get a response in edgewise, but she did not relent. "We just crossed an ocean and crossed half this country getting attacked repeatedly. We've been living off of cafeteria food and sleeping on lumpy beds—her brother threw himself and the bad guy into a river to get us here, we still don't know if he's okay. And you aren't even ready to do the thing you told us we needed to hurry up for?"
When she went quiet for a few seconds, Day looked between her and Cassandra's disapproving glare. Eventually, he asked, "Have you aired all your grievances?"
"That's going to depend on the next thing you say to me, I guess," Sadie said.
"I empathize with your frustration," the priest said. "But there are forces at work here you can barely comprehend. Forces that need to be respected. Forces that, if not respected, could bring all of us to a decisive end." He paused, neither woman said anything in reply, but their faces remained hardened with barely contained fury. "Within these walls you are safe. And I will see to it you are even safer than that. Follow me, I did not ask you to come here for mere aesthetics."
After a few seconds of frustrated hesitation, Cassandra took a first step after him and pulled on Sadie's hand, she too followed. Quick on his heels, the two women followed Day on a twisting path through the center of the gardens and, eventually, one of the hedge mazes.
Sadie asked, "You sure you know where you're going?"
"I have it written here." Day, with his back still turned, raised, and waved a slip of paper between two of his fingers.
Under her breath, Sadie grumbled, "Should have just used that as a bookmark then. Books weren't meant to be folded over like that."
If Day heard her, he did not acknowledge it. After a series of twists and turns, he came to a stop at what looked to be a dead end and knelt. Before him sat a wide, stone effigy of a full-bearded man with a cross in one hand, and a book in the other.
Sadie blew a breath up at her face. "Oh great, are we lost? Are we praying we get out of this maze now? Are we—"
Day stooped and lifted the effigy. The creak of stone against metal reverberated as he revealed a dark shaft beneath the image, it looked like the sewer beneath a manhole cover. Too stunned at the sight, Sadie trailed off, and Cassandra finally found a tiny giggle to let out.
"Saint Benedict is a protector." Day reached into his vestments and produced a flashlight. "Follow me, there is one last bit of preparation that needs doing."
One careful step at a time, the three descended into the darkness. The deep roots of trees and flowers across the gardens meant the passageway needed to run deep to prevent from damaging the wildlife. Eventually though, everyone's feet were on solid ground again, Cassandra and Sadie followed Father Day through a narrow passageway. Neither woman noticed a transition from old infostructure to new when the ground beneath them started to make metallic clanks. Day's flashlight soon reflected off of a metal door, the priest paused, turned to his right, and pressed on a panel on the wall with the tips of his fingers. After a moment of doing so, he pressed his hand to it fully. A green light shimmered off the spot where his palm pressed into the wall. Seconds after, the metal wall before them slipped open.
Sadie gawked as they stepped through into a chamber. A set of florescent lights picked up their motions and illuminated the room thereafter. The walls were made of the same sterile metal, but nearly every inch covered in ancient bookcases lined with tattered volumes, the dusty smell of old books permeated the space. And, in the center of the room stood an elevated platform—or, maybe more thematically, an altar.
As Cassandra squeezed Sadie's hand again, Sadie said, "I think I'm getting whiplash from all the clashing aesthetics I'm seeing here."
"We've been forced to revise some security measures over the last few decades," Day said. "Stolen artifacts and icons are part of how those damned Nephilim got to be such a pain in the first place." He stepped up to the altar and placed his hand on an unseen panel again. The top portion of the altar slipped away. Within laid two swords, one that blazed with the familiar orange fire as Nijah's daggers, the other that burned with the ethereal blues and whites of a far hotter flame. "Your psychological examination was completed aboard the Saint Christopher. But to complete the ritual, we must be sure you understand what lies ahead, so you may grant us permission to do it."
When Day raised the orange blade, Cassandra's body tensed, she unknowingly held Sadie's hand just a little tighter.
"This is the Sword of Sin," Day said. "You may well have seen others like it. It is not difficult for one of ours to recreate, given the proper tools and rites. A slash from one of these cuts into one's own soul. It exposes them to what they have done wrong and forces them to endure according to their conscience." He reached onto the altar and raised the ghostly sword next to it. "And this is the Sword of Salvation, still the only one of its kind. It forces one cut by it to endure the truths they are holding within, be it their doubts, their failures, their inequities, anything."
"Sounds like pretty much the same effect," Sadie said.
"They can have similar results, no doubt," Day said. "But it's the difference between punishing an impudent child by sending them to bed without supper, versus putting them in timeout and then speaking to them about why."
"All right, whatever you say, padre," Sadie said. "How's your Sword of Shannara supposed to help me though?"
"Sword of—" the priest paused and stared at her. "That's— that reference is a bit before your time, isn't it?"
"I read the Word and Void books back in high school. Terry Brooks's early stuff is kinda dry and lame in comparison." Sadie shrugged and patted Cassandra on the shoulder. "Sorry, Cassie, I know you're probably totally lost about now."
"Regardless, those effects are secondary warnings compared to the swords' primary function in this ritual," Day said. "The power within you, the icon, it shares the same point of origin with the power that flows through these blades."
It was Cassandra who spoke up to ask, "Which is?"
"Irrelevant to this conversation," Day said. After Cassandra rolled her eyes and Sadie groaned, he pressed on. "Because all three are shaped from the same force, the icon shouldn't resist being pulled if both are carefully used in tandem. Not a simple matter, perhaps, you understand, but the right tools in the right hands for a successful surgery."
"You should have used that surgeon analogy earlier." Sadie sighed. "All right, fine. What are we supposed to do in the meantime?"
"There are rooms adjacent to the basilica," Day said. "The Domus Sanctae Marthae is a short walk away back on the surface. The Swiss guard will be surrounding your spaces at all times, and will escort you back here when Father Marcus arrives for the ritual."
"And until then? Can we walk the grounds or whatever?"
"No." Father Day sounded firm. "The power of the Vatican's holy ground will keep you much safer than you'd be on the outside, but we can't afford to take any chances. You will both remain in your rooms until it is time to begin."
Sadie folded her arms and glared at the stoic priest. "There's something else that needs to be addressed then, right now."
Next to her, Cassandra swallowed. The word, 'rooms,' may well have been Sadie's breaking point. Another day she might have been more willing to argue about being separated too, but they were so close to being done. Cassandra felt like she'd give anything to avoid another dragged out argument—
"We've been really damn good sports about this. Every place we've been stuck sleeping has been worse than the last, I haven't gotten a single moment to properly enjoy this continent and all its rich history and art—"
It wasn't the direction Cassandra expected, but she still braced for the worst.
"Spare a few of your guards or bring in an errand boy or something, get them out to Rome, and bring me a new sketchpad. And some pencils. And, I don't know, something to read. And maybe a board game or something."
Cassandra's tension broke. She turned toward her girlfriend, who remained stone serious, then to the priest who looked likewise, and had to stifle laughter.
"And Rome is right there. Right—there." Sadie waved a hand toward one of the walls, no idea which cardinal direction she was pointing in. "We had to get out of France before I could get a single crepe, and it's been nothing but boat cafeteria food since. Can you please, please send someone to get us something decent to eat? I've been informed spaghetti and meatballs isn't actually available over here, that's a tragedy, but whatever. But come on. Pizza's authentic, right? Salami sandwiches? Cannoli? Give me something here, man, I'm begging you."
Sadie and Father Day locked glares with one another. Cassandra continued struggling to contain an outburst from just how different the demands were than what she was expecting.
At last, with a scowl on his face and his own arms crossed, the priest said, "I'll see what I can do."
Less than ninety minutes later, Sadie and Cassandra sat in the small common room of the Domus Sanctae Marthae, hot pizza, focaccia sandwiches, a small pyramid of cannoli, and Sadie's art supplies before them.