“I have a matter I’d like to discuss with you.”
Belial hesitated. Normally, the man’s presence would be of no consequence to him, but he wasn’t in his usual fighting shape. Given his weakness, he wasn’t sure if he could keep his human cover intact.
And if it failed before the friar…
That could be awkward.
While the little bastard wasn’t exactly godly anymore, the friar still bore enough divine benediction to weaken him further. And even from his current distance, he was causing Belial’s belly to burn and twist, his head to throb and ache.
The friar stepped forward.
Sweat trickled down Belial’s face, making his cheek itch. “Brother Edred,” he said quickly, stopping the friar before he came too close. “I beg you stand back before my illness taints you as well.”
“Illness, you say?”
“Aye. Could be plague.”
Eyes wide, the friar returned to the opening of the stall and darted his gaze over Belial’s body. “A jest?”
Not really. He’d like to unleash it all over them, but he knew better than to say that out loud. “Of course. ’Tis just a cold. But still, I’d hate for you to catch it.”
Instead of making the friar happy, those words only seemed to darkenhis mood. “Mayhap ’tis the evilness that resides in this hall that taints you more.”
Now this was interesting, given thathewas the evil in the hall. He couldn’t wait to hear what idiocy the friar came up with. “What’s that?”
Edred stroked the wooden cross that dangled about his neck and cast his gaze around as if seeking something or someone. “Can you not feel it? ’Tis like a serpent crawling in the bowels of the earth beneath our feet, waiting for just the right moment before it burrows its way up and bites our ankles when we least expect it. Since first I came here, I have felt Lucifer’s presence.”
How quaint of them to think Lucifer was the scariest thing in their little universe to fear. He would laugh in the man’s face, except for the fact that the little ape wouldn’t get the joke. “Lucifer’s presence, you say?”
“Aye, and Lord Valteri is his servant.”
Belial had to bite his tongue to stifle the laughter. What a pitiful fool. He couldn’t resist toying with him. “Aye, indeed. Lord Valteri is surely damned, and can no doubt benefit from your grace. What do you intend to do?”
“First, I must make your lady sister understand the beast that she has married. Mayhap I’m not too late to save her precious soul.”
If only he knew.
The bald little man was too late to save even his own.That,the Lucifer he feared would one day lay claim to, and no one would stop him or the demon he sent for it. The little backbiting hypocrite deserved it and more. Belial wished he would be there to see the little monk’s face once he realized that all his investment of thumping his Bible and dutifully making his prayers was wasted because his heart was blacker than that of any of the pretend demons he lectured about.
That his tongue and deeds damned him more than all his “faithful” prayers could undo.
How could the little bastard not read his own holy book?
Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness.
For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers. They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach. One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, not devoting themselves to myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth. To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled. They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.
Here the friar stood, breaking every one of the commandments he was supposed to protect. Every covenant he was charged with keeping. Proud, while spreading lies about his own innocent overlord and scheming against that innocent man and inciting others to attack him for no reason.
Trying to get him, a demon, to help him convince Valteri’s own wife to turn against him so that they could kill that innocent man.
And for what?
The friar’s fear?
His personal gain and vanity?
Others would look to the friar as a legend and authority. See him as something more than the pathetic little maggot he actually was.
