Tiny Fandoms Flash

Title: Unholy Nest
Author: timegoesby 
Fandom: Ghost Wax (Podcast)
Rating: Mature
Category: Gen
Character(s): Luca Eso, Owen Voncid, Original Characters
Word Count: 6,520
Summary: The account of a reclamation performed by Owen Voncid and Luca Eso concerning a man locally known as Father Cole, who has been missing for around three weeks. He has been found in the basement of the Our Lady of Grace Church, and the initial cause of death appears to be several dozen snake bites.Notes/Warnings: Contains graphic descriptions of corpses, animal death, religious themes, horror themes

“Oh, it stinks down there,” Luca brings a hand up to cover the lower half of his face and tries not to gag as the stench of the old church’s basement hits his nose.

“That shouldn’t…” Reverend Iglesias, the man who let them into the church and opened the heavy basement door for them, frowns at the discovery, fiddling with the keys as he turns to Voncid. “It hasn’t been that long since Father Cole was reported missing, Mr. Voncid, you don’t think…?”

“I’m afraid I can’t be certain,” Voncid gives the man an apologetic smile. “Which is why we must go down there and take a look.”

“Right, of course,” Reverend Iglesias nods and takes a step back. “Please go ahead, call for me if you need anything.”

“Thank you, Reverend.” Voncid motions for Luca to start heading down. “We will let you know as soon as we discover anything.”

Luca only makes it a few steps down the old wooden staircase before Voncid catches up to him and closes the door behind him.

With the flow of air from the entryway blocked it feels as though the stench permeating the air intensifies a hundred fold, to the point where it has an almost physical weight on the air around them. It’s a mixture of damp, rotting wood and a thick musk that seems to coat the back of their throats with every breath they take like sticky tar, though the worst part is the underlying stench of decay that seems to get stronger the deeper they descend—the unmistakeable smell of death.

“He’s dead down there, isn’t he?” Luca turns back to ask, not bothering to hide the dread from his face.

Instead of answering, Voncid reaches out to grab Luca by the shoulder and pulls him backwards. “Watch out.”

Luca stumbles slightly before taking a step back up the stairs, only to look down at where Voncid is pointing and seeing a snake about as thick as his wrist coiled into an ‘S’ shape, staring warily back up at him from the spot he was just about to put his foot down on, almost as if daring him to try his luck.

An uncomfortable shiver crawls up his spine, and Luca goes upwards a few more steps just to be on the safe side. “Thanks.”

“I’ll go first.” Voncid nods at the snake as if apologising for disturbing it, then steps down right next to it while the reptile watches, unmoving. “Watch your feet, Luca. Follow in my footsteps.”

It isn’t until he says those words that Luca notices the floor around him. He couldn’t see very clearly in the dim light of the naked bulb overhanging the stairs, but now that his eyes are more used to the darkness he can see the outlines of long scaly bodies resting and slithering on the steps below him, following them down with his sight until realising that what he’d previously assumed was the dirt floor of the basement was actually a constantly moving surface.

“Are those…” his voice falls to a whisper.

“Snakes, yes,” Voncid takes another careful step down the stairs. “It seems as though we’re intruding in their home.”

“And you think the vicar is down there?” Luca takes a tentative step, nerves on high alert as he stares at the still snake right next to his foot.

“I’m afraid so,” Voncid continues the climb downwards, moving in slow, measured steps as the snakes beneath him either still to let him pass or slither out of the way just enough to make space for his feet.

Luca mimics his movements as much as possible, watching the various snakes with slightly morbid fascination. There are several whose species he recognises —the rattlesnakes by their distinctive sound and diamond patterns, the coral snakes by their iconic tri-coloured bands— but there are several more that he doesn’t, ranging in size from as small as his pointer finger to about as thick as his calf and several times as long.

“This isn’t normal, right?” Luca whispers again as he moves. “Seeing so many of them together?”

“No, it is not.” Voncid finally reaches the base of the stairs, standing in what seems to be the only spot on the floor that isn’t covered by a writhing mass of scaly bodies. “It’s a good thing that we came.”

As much as Luca wants to disagree, he simply swallows his words and nods.

Voncid stops for a moment to survey the area around them, squinting in the faint light as he searches for something hidden underneath the layer of cold-blooded bodies.

Soon enough, he finds it.

“There,” he points to a corner of the room next to a few wooden boxes. “I believe that is the missing vicar.”

It takes a few seconds for Luca to be able to see beyond the mass of reptiles, but when he notices the lump propped up at an odd angle next to the boxes and realises it has limbs, the outline of the human figure becomes immediately apparent even with the snakes curled all over it.

“They didn’t eat him?” It feels strange to see such an obviously dead and rotting man surrounded by so many carnivores that haven’t so much as attempted to eat his body.

“You watch too many movies, Luca,” Voncid tries to stifle the chuckle in his voice as he turns to look at him. “A snake would have to be at least six metres long to be able to consume a man his size, and I haven’t seen a single specimen large enough since we got down here.”

“Okay,” that answer doesn’t put him at ease in the slightest. “But what if there is one that big hiding in here somewhere?”

“Then we will have other things to worry about more important than why the man wasn’t eaten.” Voncid answers completely seriously.

“Great.” Not great. “So, how do we get to him?”

“I suppose we ask for permission.”

Before Luca can ask what he means by that, Voncid is already taking a tentative step forward, muttering something that sounds an awful lot like ‘excuse me, coming through’ as the snakes begin to part in front of him and he brings his foot down on a newly-vacated space.

“Of course we do.” Luca sighs, steels himself, and begins following Voncid’s footsteps exactly, careful to not catch any stray tails or curious tongues under his sole as the two of them make their way through the basement.

When they are finally standing in front of the source of the stench, Luca pulls his shirt up to his nose and tries to breathe as shallowly as possible while setting up the recording equipment.

Voncid, for his part, half kneels next to the oozing corpse and addresses the snakes perched over his shoulders, “I need to talk to him for a few minutes, if you don’t mind.”

The reptiles stare at him with unblinking eyes, tongues flickering in and out of mouths that hide some of nature’s most lethal venom, before slowly uncoiling their bodies from their resting positions and making their way down the man’s remains until they reach the floor and rejoin the mass of their brethren.

“You speak snake?” Luca can’t help but ask.

“I speak the language of common courtesy,” Voncid shoots him a smile before busying himself with preparing the body for reclamation.

Father Cole has clearly been dead for as long as he’s been missing—which is probably around a month, given the level of decomposition of his body. His sloughing skin clings off his frame in much the same way his damp clothes do, and, though it’s a little hard to tell for sure given the severe discolouration of his flesh, there are several injuries all over his body that look suspiciously like snake bites.

Once everything is ready, Luca takes a moment to look at the remains of the man before him, wincing as he imagines what a painful death that must have been. “Do you think something… made the snakes do this?”

“Only one way to know for sure.” Voncid’s face is set in grim determination as he begins the process. “Commencing the reclamation process of Father Oscar Cole, Vicar here at the Our Lady of Grace Church —where his body was found— who was reported missing by his congregation three weeks ago.”

Voncid closes his eyes and begins the necromantic ritual as whispers from beyond the grave seem to slither into their ears with the same droning frequency as the snake’s hissing.

It’s not long before these relatively quiet sounds are interrupted by a scream that tears through the remainders of Father Cole’s vocal chords.

“Help*, help!*” The man begins writhing on the floor where he is seated, liquefying limbs swaying with his movements like morbid pendulums. “They bit me! It burns, my blood burns!”

“Take a deep breath, Father,” Voncid is still kneeling next to him, keeping his voice slow and level. “Try to remain calm, tell me what happened to you.”

Voncid’s magic begins taking effect, and Father Cole’s jerking movements slow down until they come to a stop and he leans back against the boxes, seemingly tired from the effort.

“Did…” he hesitates for a second, then completes the thought. “Did I die?”

“I’m afraid so,” Voncid confirms.

Father Cole seems to look around the place before asking, “Is this hell?”

“No,” Voncid shakes his head. “This is the world of the living. I have summoned you back to ask a few questions about your passing, after which I will send you on your way to the beyond once again. That being said, I know not what awaits you after we are done here.”

“I see.”

“Aren’t you a priest?” Luca can’t help but think aloud. “What makes you think you’d be in hell?”

Instead of taking offence, Father Cole seems to find the question amusing. “It’s precisely because I’m a priest that I know what my eternal fate will be.”

“Please, elaborate,” Voncid prompts him to speak more.

“I… didn’t originally set out to be a priest, you know?” Father Cole begins his life’s tale. “I went to university to study… what was it again? I don’t remember now. I flunked out halfway through my second year anyway, so I suppose it doesn’t matter. Studying was the very last thing on my mind back then,” he smiles as he reminisces, though the mangled flesh on his face makes it seem more like a grimace instead.

“I did nothing with my life for almost five years until my father, who at that point had been a deacon for almost thirty years, told me I might as well dedicate my pitiful existence to Christ and see if He could make something out of it. So I did, and that was that.

“I won’t bore either of you with the tale about my path to ordainment and how I got to my post at Our Lady of Grace, it was long and tedious and not worth telling. All I’ll leave you with is that my father was right: the job did give me purpose, in a way. I liked being admired for the path I had taken up, and I liked becoming someone people went to for advice—someone with influence. In the same vein, I only accepted the job here because it meant I would have my own parish, and I liked the idea of having someplace where I could be in charge. If it weren’t for that I never would’ve willingly come to this Podunk town in the middle of bumfuck nowhere.” Father Cole laughs, a wet, rattling sound that squeezes out of his throat.

“It also didn’t hurt that they were really desperate for someone to come fill the position, so I was able to negotiate a few terms and even come out looking like a saint for agreeing to take on the job.” He pauses for a second, as if a thought has just occurred to him, and tilts his rotting head almost wistfully up at the ceiling. “Looking back now, that desperation should probably have been more of a concern, but by the time I started suspecting that something might be wrong it was already too late to do much about it.

“When I got here, Reverend Iglesias helped me both get settled into the position and break the ice with the locals. They were… a cagey lot. Closed off. Superstitious. Not that I blame them, I know what small towns can be like, but it felt a little excessive in this case. Especially considering I had come here to be their spiritual shepherd, but they were treating me like a leper instead—at least until I learned to play by their rules.”

“Their rules?” Luca speaks up for the first time since Father Cole started his tale. “Why does that sound really ominous?”

“Because it was ominous.” Another rattling laugh escapes Father Cole’s throat. “Although, trust me, it's much easier to see in hindsight. Back then I just thought it was another one of those… rural quirks abundant in places like these.”

“What kind of rules?” Voncid interjects before the conversation can veer too much. “Did any of them appear to be ritualistic in nature?”

“Not at first,” the dead man gets back on track. “Just odd things like places in town no one was allowed to go —mainly the weird earthen mounds on the outskirts of town— or curfews that had to be followed. Those were mostly for safety, I think, with coyotes and mountain lions being abundant in these parts and all. Some were a little more questionable, but still understandable, like their insistence that I couldn’t put poison or glue traps out for the rats in case their free-roaming cats or chickens or what-have-yous got caught up by accident. Actually, its funny—” he looks around the room at the various snakes that he’s been sharing the basement with for the last few weeks, “—I used to think it was strange that I never saw a single rat around. I mean, this place should be crawling with them given its proximity to the livestock and the granaries, but I guess these guys have been keeping busy.”

“There’s no need for rat traps when you have some of nature’s best rat hunters at your disposal,” Voncid agrees.

“What about the cats and the chickens, though?” Luca asks, though he dreads the answer.

“That’s another funny thing,” Father Cole tilts his head. “They said they had cats and chickens, but I never saw any. Might just have been an excuse to stop me from killing the rats.”

“Or… they were also getting eaten.” Luca grimaces.

“Maybe,” Father Cole nods. “Did see a lot of farm dogs, though, with the big spike collars. Very barky at first, but they warm up to you after a tasty bribe or two.”

“You were telling us about the towns strange customs?” Voncid clears his throat.

“Right, now where was I…” he brings a hand up to scratch at the side of his head in thought, and as he does so one of his nails detaches from its rotting nailbed and remains embedded in the soft flesh of his scalp. “I was fine with their so-called rules up to that point, but it was barely my second week in town when things started getting weird.

“I’d spotted a rattlesnake in my shower one morning, so I ran to the groundskeeper’s shed looking for a shovel or a machete or something to kill the damn thing with, but when I ran into the man himself and explained my plight I could’ve sworn I’d just said I wanted to kill his children with the way he reacted. I mean, the man went off on me, just completely blew up with rage at the mere mention of me wanting to harm that scaly fucker. I was so taken aback all I could suggest was that the man go remove it himself, which he did, but obviously things didn’t end there.

“Reverend Iglesias came to me that afternoon —he actually lives in an even smaller town about an hour away from here, so I was extremely surprised that the news had travelled that far that fast— and sat me down for a talk. He said that around a decade ago Our Lady of Grace was actually a Pentecostal church, and that the pastor who ran it was a wildly influential man. Apparently he made a show of doing that creepy snake handling thing during sermons and had the town completely enthralled with his act. It got to the point that everyone was passing snakes around on Sunday morning, I even heard that the few people who did get bit survived miraculously.

“So powerful was that pastor’s belief in the things said in Mark and Luke about having power over serpents and all that jazz that it morphed into a wild superstition among the locals that endures to this day. Basically, the gist of it is that killing a snake demonstrates your lack of faith in God, because if you really believed in Him and His promises, you would trust Him to keep you and those around you safe from even the deadliest of venoms. This escalated to the point that even so much as harming a snake became a huge taboo so, of course, the last person that could be seen committing such a faithless act was the new vicar of the church.” At this point Father Cole’s face morphs into a true grimace, and he rolls what remains of his eyeballs in a clear display of annoyance.

“So you’re not allowed to kill snakes,” Luca summarises. “In the town that has a church with a basement full of snakes.”

“Well, when you say it like that it’s really obvious, but the basement wasn’t full of snakes when I first got here,” Father Cole defends himself.

“Please continue,” Voncid lets out a breath. “I don’t think we have much time.”

“Of course, my bad.” He takes a moment to gather his thoughts. “On top of that, they prayed to what I can only assume was a bastardisation of the patron saint of farmers and agriculture, originally St. Isidore, but known in these parts as St. Adder. There’s actually a display of him by the entrance of the church, you may have noticed it on your way in.”

“Adder like a snake?” Luca can’t help but interrupt, sounding equal parts amused and annoyed.

“Farmers are straightforward people, I wouldn’t expect anything more.” Father Cole shrugs. “Anyway, I turned a blind eye to all the weirdness and let them continue doing their thing for a few months. I figured it would be harmless, I mean, the snake fixation was creepy but as long as they weren’t taking it too far I didn’t really have to do anything about it, and my apparent acceptance of it even earned quite a few brownie points from the locals, so it was a win-win.

“Obviously, my rather naïve opinions would soon come back to bite me—quite literally in this case. One day a lunatic brought a snake to one of my sermons, probably hoping I would do something like that pastor of yore, and I told him to get that thing the fuck away from me—in much nicer terms, of course. I don’t know if it was actually venomous or not but I wasn’t about to risk my life to find out.”

“That must not have gone down well with the people.” Voncid offers in a sympathetic voice.

“No it did not.” Father Cole sighs, though it sounds more like a wheeze. “It was a few weeks after that incident, after nonstop judging stares and whispers from the locals, that I decided I was going to have to do something to set them back on the godly path, or at least one that involved less weird snake worshipping.

“I began my private rebellion by putting up snake traps around my rooms in the rectory, and, lo and behold, almost every single one was filled with those disgusting things by the next morning. Before that point I truly had no idea how bad the snake infestation had gotten around town, but this was something even beyond my wildest nightmares. It was almost like the more I thought about it, the more I started noticing them, and the more they began to haunt me.

“Next, I began laying it on thick with my sermons, quoting things like Matthew 4:7 and Deuteronomy 6:16 to drive the idea that putting God to the test by tempting luck actually really annoys Him—those verses basically boil down to God saying ‘don’t try me’ as part of His law. Hell, I even did a whole series on the life of St. Patrick, you know, the guy who supposedly drove the snakes out of Ireland?” He laughs, seeming to find his own brazenness amusing.

“I’m guessing that didn’t make you any more popular.” Luca feels like he’s starting to understand why the snakes killed him the way they did.

“And you’d be right, but I didn’t care, I was fed up.” Father Cole continues. “Do you know how hard it is to dispose of bucketfuls of dead snakes in a covert manner? Every time I’d put traps down in my room they’d be full by the next day, I even started seeing them out in the open during daylight hours at the church! I swear the bastards were mocking the fact I couldn’t do anything with people watching.

“At some point the fear I had for those animals turned into annoyance. I bought a machete under the pretenses of wanting to do some weeding and took it upon myself to clear out the church. It was actually extremely easy, I’m guessing the snakes got so used to humans not posing a threat at all that they didn’t even register they were in danger until I’d already brought the machete down across their necks. I reckon I killed around thirty snakes a day in just under four hours of work, and I went at it for almost six days, so you can extrapolate from there and imagine just how many there actually were.

“That last day, something different happened. I came across a rattlesnake with a very distinctive crescent moon-shaped marking on its forehead—I actually remember it because it was an albino, and I think the yellow of its scales made the white marking seem almost like it was glowing. Anyway, I walked up to the snake like I had all the others and it wasn’t fazed, didn’t even rattle at me, and got ready to kill it, but then…

“Then the snake turned and looked me in the eyes. I swear to God it looked at me and it saw me. And I don’t even know how I knew this, but in that moment when we made I contact I just knew I was being judged. Its unblinking eyes just pierced straight into my soul and they could see every sinful deed I had ever done or thought of, it was like being vivisected in a room full of spectators, like being slowly flayed open to show the world my blackened, rotting insides. I was being judged for every lie I ever told, every poor decision I knowingly made, every abuse of power, every malicious deception, every vicious word said with the intent to hurt, every fight I ever started, every death I had indirectly caused, just… everything.

“I needed it to stop. At that point I knew killing the snake was a bad idea, but how else was I going to get it to stop? It didn’t even try to flee, it just lay there, staring at me, until its head was no longer attached to its body. I didn’t even realise it had bit me until I went to put its body in the bucket with the rest of the night’s kills. After that I panicked for a good minute before realising that the bite didn’t actually hurt that much, and it didn’t look, well, poisoned? I mean it was bleeding and a little swollen, but that was it. I’d read about dry bites before and figured that was the case, you know, that the snake didn’t have a chance to inject any venom before it died. At least that’s what I prayed to God had happened, because I was almost certain the local hospital had no antivenom on hand given the townspeople's particular beliefs.

“I went to bed that night hoping I wouldn’t just die in my sleep from the bite, and I had a strange dream. I dreamt that all my hair fell off, then my nails, then my limbs atrophied and shrivelled in mere seconds until they detached from my body. Then, as I struggled to crawl out of bed to get help, my body stretched out like it was made of plasticine until my chest was flat on the floor and the stump where my legs used to be was still on the bed. I was still processing the horror of the situation when my skin started to itch, and I noticed scales sprouting up from my pores until my whole body was covered. Before I knew it, I was looking down the body of a massive snake spread out across my bed and the floor beside it… I woke up screaming in the early hours of the morning and couldn’t go back to sleep.

“The next morning, the dead snakes that had accumulated in the traps inside my room made me want to puke. I couldn’t stand the sight of them. I went about my day as usual except for a stop I made to buy a shotgun and several shells, I figured I could shoot snakes faster than I could decapitate them, and it meant I wouldn’t have to get so close.

“That night I headed straight for the basement of the church. The snakes had begun to wise up to what I was doing, so had taken to slithering around in more out-of-the-way places. I figured the basement was where they would head to, and I was right. I started shooting as soon as I reached the bottom of the stairs and saw the first snake. They did try to flee this time, but I was faster than before. I remember everything so clearly, the bam, bam, bam of the shotgun, the sound of wood shattering, the splattering of meat as snakes exploded in front of me, a hissing so shrill it sounded almost like screams. I took my eyes off them for one second while I reloaded, and that was the end for me.” Father Cole pauses, as if remembering the events causes him to relive the pain of death all over again.

“Do you think you can tell me more about how exactly that happened?” Voncid probes gently, clearly trying to get more information but still mindful of the dead man’s emotional state.

“There’s not much to tell, to be honest,” he shakes his head. “Dozens of them lunged at me all at once, too many for me to fend off with the machete I was still carrying. I felt their fangs sink into my flesh over and over again, and this time I could actually feel their venom burning its way through my veins, eating away at my insides. I think I was dead before I even hit the ground.”

“I see,” Voncid nods, brows furrowed faintly as he thinks of something. “Thank you for telling me your story.”

“Wait, I have one more question,” Luca interrupts. “When we found you, you said something about knowing you were headed to hell. How can you be so sure of that? Isn’t the point of the god thing to forgive mankind’s transgressions or something?”

Father Cole pauses as if considering his words, then turns to Luca with his glassy, dead-eyed stare. “When that rattlesnake looked me in the eyes, I looked back at it and saw something as well. Something that felt ancient and powerful and extremely dangerous. I saw God—its God. And They were not happy with me. It was in that moment that I knew that, even if the God I worship is the forgiving type, the one I wronged is not, and I doubt the blood of Christ can do much to staunch the flood of primordial rage that is surely heading my way once I finally shed this mortal coil.”

“Oh.” At those words, Luca feels a shiver run down his spine, and can’t help but eye the slithering creatures still around him with renewed caution.

“Is that all?” Father Cole turns to Voncid as he asks.

“Yes, that is all.” Voncid bows his head with solemnity. “Be on your way.”

Whispers from beyond the grave swell around them once again for a few seconds, then recede like the tide, carrying with them the soul of the man on the floor in front of them.

Luca watches as a couple of snakes slither back up the corpse to resume their positions, then turns to look at Voncid, who clearly has something on his mind, seeing as he hasn’t moved an inch in the past twenty or so seconds.

“What is it?” his voice comes out in a whisper barely heard above the constant drone of hissing.

“This is…” Voncid takes a breath. “Disturbingly familiar. I think I know the identity of the pastor who brought the snakes into town.”

“You mean the pentecostal guy?” Luca thinks back to the story Father Cole told them. “He brought the snakes? All of them? Didn’t he just handle them?”

“If my theory is correct, no.”

“What theory?” Sometimes Luca wishes he didn’t have to feel so utterly lost when it comes to matters of this job.

“That the Father of Serpents was here in town,” Voncid says like the name is supposed to mean something.

“Who is—” Luca begins asking, but is immediately interrupted by a familiar voice suddenly coming from behind.

“Almost spot on, just one correction, necromancer,” the man makes his way down the last few steps, the snakes parting around him like the Red Sea before Moses. “The Father of Serpents is here in town.”

Voncid stands up to greet him. “Reverent Iglesias, or should I call you Y—”

“’Father’ is fine, thank you,” the reverend nods his head. “I’ve grown rather fond of that nomenclature.”

“Very well,” Voncid accepts this, then gets straight to business. “Did you kill Father Cole?”

Reverend Iglesias laughs. “Would you blame me if I did? He massacred my children.”

“Are you saying you had nothing to do with his death?” Voncid frowns.

“Not directly, at least,” the reverend shrugs. “I simply didn’t stop my children from exacting revenge on behalf of their brethren. You understand what that’s like, don’t you, Mr. Voncid? That need for revenge?”

“Are the rest of the townsfolk in any danger?” Voncid ignores the question, though Luca is sure he notices the faint clenching of his jaw for just a second.

“Not if they behave.” Reverend Iglesias’ expression turns sharp, his pupils momentarily narrowing into vertical slits. “We’ve been peacefully cohabitating for decades, after all.”

Suddenly, a question bubbles up in Luca’s mind, and though he knows it’s best he remains quiet in moments like these, it comes out of his mouth before he has a chance to think better of it. “What happened to the last priest, the one Father Cole came to replace?”

Reverend Iglesias levels his sharp gaze at Luca for the first time in that exchange, as if having just noticed his presence, and smiles. “He also disrespected my children, so I had no choice but to teach him a lesson he would never forget. You must understand that my duty as a father is to lead by example.”

“You didn’t kill him?” Voncid seems to have understood something in those words.

“Oh my, no.” The reverend shakes his head like the mere idea is preposterous. “He’s alive and well, in fact, let me call him over.”

As Reverend Iglesias begins moving, Voncid takes a step to place himself between him and Luca, then stares fixedly at the scene in front of him.

The reverend kneels on the ground and stretches a hand out, then calls out in a hissing, almost whistling voice. In front of him, the sea of snakes writhes in circles around him until a single one breaks off from the group and slithers towards his hand, then up along it before coming to a stop and coiling around his wrist.

A knot forms in Luca’s stomach as he suddenly pieces together what he is seeing, though his rational mind doesn’t want to understand it. “That’s him?”

“Yes, isn’t he beautiful?” Reverend Iglesias runs a careful finger along the creature’s back. The snake wrapped around his arm can’t be more than half a metre long, with an earthy brown colour, dark spots running along its back, and its little beady eyes with golden irises fixed on the man talking. “His temper is much better now as well.”

Voncid stares at the snake for a moment, then turns his attention back to the reverend. “Am I correct in assuming this would have been Father Cole’s fate as well had your children not gotten to him first?”

“More or less,” Reverend Iglesias shrugs. “However, I think he would have been a tiny garter snake instead, to show him what it’s like to live in fear of those bigger than you.” Then, he adds in an almost sheepish manner, “Some of my children have, ahem, slightly cannibalistic tendencies, you see.”

As if to demonstrate his point, one of the larger snakes moving on the floor around them hisses and snaps at a much smaller one, which quickly slithers away and hides up the cuff of Reverend Iglesias’ trouser leg.

“Now now, children.” He clicks his tongue. “Not in front of our guests.”

“You understand that you and your children cannot be allowed to remain here,” Voncid warns him with a slight frown.

“Naturally,” Reverend Iglesias sighs. “I figured it wouldn’t be long before the Order became aware of our presence. Shame. I liked this place.”

“Does that mean you’re letting us leave, just like that?” Luca asks somewhat incredulously, feeling a sliver of hope amidst the rotting horror of the place for the first time since he arrived.

“I won’t stop you.”

“Will your children?” Voncid adds.

Reverend Iglesias laughs, still stroking the back of the snake curled around his arm. “They won’t, either. We snakes prefer to hide if possible, and only strike when left with no other options. While the Order chasing us away is vexing, it is of no real threat to me, so you can leave this place in peace and report back to your little group.”

“Very well then, in that case,” Voncid nods, then motions for Luca to follow after him, “we’ll be taking our leave.”

“Farewell, necromancer.” Reverend Iglesias makes no move to follow and waves with his free hand. “May we never run into each other again.”

“The feeling is mutual,” he mutters as he walks with large strides back towards the stairs and out of the basement, with Luca following close behind.

Once they are out of that musty basement and making their way across the main part of the church, Luca remembers something and looks around the place before heading out. There, surrounded by candles near the entrance where Father Cole said it would be, is a stained-glass display of a man wearing a dark green robe with a bright halo around his head, holding a farming hoe in one hand and stretching the other in supplication towards the heavens. Upon closer inspection, what he assumed was a rope belt to cinch the robe at the man’s waist turns out to be a thin brown snake, and the halo around his head seems to have patterns that look eerily like scales. Luca also can’t help but notice the stark resemblance between the man in the stained-glass piece and the so-called Reverend Iglesias they had just left behind.

When they are finally outside, Luca takes a deep breath and fills his lungs with the dry, dusty air of the countryside. “I never thought I would be so glad for the smell of cow dung.”

“I apologise for putting you in danger like that, Luca.” Voncid turns to him. “I should have known better than to lead us right into the nest of that thing.”

“It’s okay,” he waves the apology away, knowing it really wasn’t on purpose. “But what is he?”

“An old god—not quite forgotten, but not quite memorialised either.” Voncid glances back at the church, then makes his way towards their car.

“Oh.” Luca gulps, feeling more and more like they had gotten exceedingly lucky just now. “Will the Hamsa do anything about him?”

“Hard to tell,” Voncid frowns for a second. “He really hasn’t done much to merit a move against him as of now, but then again, letting something so old and powerful roam the world freely is not exactly a good idea either.”

“At least we won’t be the ones having to deal with that…” Luca hopes he’s not jinxing things by speaking out loud.

“No we won’t,” Voncid smiles reassuringly. “Still, it’s best we get out of here before ‘Father’ changes his mind.”

“Right, yes.” Luca fishes the car keys out of his pocket and unlocks the vehicle. “I don’t want to stay here a second longer than necessary.”

As he opens the car door, he takes a step back in fright as a small grey snake falls out to the ground in front of his feet.

“Shit!”

Before he even finishes jumping, Voncid rushes up to him, looks at the snake, and relaxes. “It’s a harmless rat snake.”

“Was it inside my car?!” Luca is torn between wanting to stick his head inside to check and running away as far as possible.

Voncid takes a second to lean inside the car to take a look, then comes back out shaking his head. “Doesn’t seem like it. It was probably perched on the roof of the car without you noticing it.”

The snake seems to give them a curious glance before scurrying away.

“Let’s get out of here now.” With that reassurance, Luca jumps inside the car and starts it up.

“Agreed.” Voncid takes his place in the passenger seat and closes the door behind him with a last glance around.

As they drive away from the small town leaving clouds of dust in their wake, for a second it feels like the sound of the rubber tires driving over the unkempt, winding dirt road is the hissing of a snake just underneath the car.

Luca decides he’s going to take several showers first thing after he gets home.