Page 144 of Violent Possession

I stop two meters from him.

“Not today, Father,” I say. “I need a favor. I need to deliver a message.”

He drops the pamphlet he was holding. “The doors of God’s house are always open.”

“It’s for the man who was with my friend. Cain. The angel who protects this place.”

The priest’s face shuts down. He turns to me completely. “The man you speak of carries a heavy burden. He doesn’t need more trouble.”

“I didn’t come to cause trouble,” I say. I pull the Saint Michael chain from my pocket. The cold metal feels heavier now that I’ve swapped it for Alexei’s gold chain. I place it on the polished wood of the altar, pushing it toward him. “He’ll recognize this.”

The priest looks at the chain and doesn’t touch it. “You don’t understand what you’re asking.”

“Yes, I do. I know him better than anyone.He’sthe one who gave me this chain. I just want to help him.”

Time stretches; behind me, the old man in the pew starts muttering a rosary, and I imagine Seraphim listening to this conversation from some hole in the wall, laughing at the theatrics.

“What makes you think your help is the kind of help he needs? Or that hewantsit?”

My head aches. His calmness, that trained tranquility, makes me want to make him swallow the chain. I grew up surrounded by religion—nuns at the orphanage and street-corner priests. I recognize the techniques and, worse, I recognize the genuine fear of someone protecting a dangerous person.

“Look, Father, I don’t have time for a sermon.” My blood boils, and my voice comes out threatening without me meaning it to. “His life is at stake. Just give him the fucking chain and tell him Myrddin needs to talk to him now.”

The priest takes a step back. Behind me, the old man in the pew raises his head, his eyes glazed, and returns to his prayerful trance. I retreat, give the priest room to breathe, but I don’t let up. He looks at my metal arm, my posture, and decides it’s not worth arguing. He stops me with a raised hand, a sign to pause.

“I don’t know if that would be wise?—“

“Just—fuck, tell me where he is,” I interrupt, stepping a little closer, as if it were possible to intimidate someone who believes in resurrection.

And the moment he opens his mouth,thatvoice comes. From the shadows, incisive, cutting through the stone ribs of the church.

“I’m here, Myrddin.”

I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that name again. And with Seraphim, you can’t get used to anything.

The blood drains from my fingertips; my biological hand clenches into a fist, the other, metallic one, just grinds.

The priest turns his head, recognizing him immediately as Seraphim slowly emerges, with his usual elegance, a charcoal-gray overcoat, turtleneck, black boots, clean hands—always clean, even after dirty work. A Renaissance saint.

The priest tries to regain control. His voice comes out as barely a thread. “Seraphim,” he whispers. “I thought you were out of town.” He makes the sign of the cross, first for himself, then for us. The gesture is automatic, old, and insufficient to protect anyone from what’s coming.

Seraphim walks to the first pew. He doesn’t even look at the priest. His blue eyes are glued to me.

“I wassupposedto be,” he says with an empty smile. “But I heard an old friend was causing trouble for me.”

The priest understands that he wasn’t invited to this conversation. He retreats, quickly, with a respectful nod of his head to Seraphim. The devil in the church.

“You never change, do you?” I say. I don’t know where the metallic taste in my mouth comes from, the bitterness that bends my half-smile. “Always have to be the last one to enter the room.”

Seraphim comes closer, observing the prosthesis on my arm, the way I put all my weight on it to bear the pain. “I see you got my message,” he says.

“I did. I took it as an invitation to make peace.”

He points to a side door with a quick jut of his chin. “Not here.”

I follow him without hesitation, feeling the cold of the stone floor through my soles, then the dull thud of the door closing behind us. We enter a hallway with damp walls, smelling of melted candles and cheap incense, but Seraphim is so familiar with the place that he walks without looking around. He climbs iron steps, passes through a faded door, and only then leads us outside—to the walled garden at the back of the church, forgotten in the middle of the city.

The garden is a quadrangle of sparse grass, crooked trees, and a stone bench toppled on its side. The city seems far away, even though police sirens echo every minute. Seraphim stops a few meters from me, his back to the buildings, looking directly at the moss-covered wall. He only speaks when he feels there’s no one else listening.