Mical crawled under the bed, the place she always went when she needed to feel safe. There she could finally breathe in peace, far from the frightening world full of sins, demons, terrible monsters, addictions, cruelty, and even far from twisted virtues, things that she, at only eight years old, should not even know existed. Even so, she knew.
To help protect herself, she covered her eyes with the patchwork quilt her grandmother had made. It still carried her scent. It was as if Dona Maria returned from heaven just to hug her and say that all the nightmares were far away.
"My daughter is not a witch!" That was her father's voice.
The bedroom door was locked, an attempt to keep the fears as far away as possible, but the voice crossed the wood and reached the frightened ears of the little girl. Despite everything, there was a certain tenderness in it.
"You have no way of knowing that, Daniel! She is my daughter too! She grew inside me! Only I know what I felt when I brought that girl into the world!" That was her mother's voice, Dona Ester. It carried sadness.
Father and mother were arguing in the living room. They did not know that Mical was listening with tearful eyes, wrapped in the old patchwork quilt under the bed.
"My daughter is a blessing from God! I already said that! There is no doubt about it! The apostle prophesied that I would have two daughters blessed by God and that they would be a source of joy!"
"And what about Jéssica, huh? She is the one who truly follows what the Bible says! She is the one who seems to have the Lord's light!" her mother shot back. "Besides, Daniel, the prophecy did not say that all your daughters would be blessed! My womb is good! I can still have another daughter!"
"What are you saying, Ester? How dare you suggest that my seed would bring something bad into the world?"
"You heard the questions she asked! You heard them!" Ester raised her voice. "That was doubt! You know very well, Daniel, that doubt does not come from God! Faith means certainty! The girl's questions… those questions… they scared me! I am afraid too! She came from me as well! It hurts my pride to say this, but I am tired of denying the obvious."
"The girl was just curious, Ester! For God's sake! You are losing your mind! Curiosity at that age is normal!"
"And the mark on her skin? Did you hear what the apostle said! Girls destined for evil are born with marks on their skin! The marks are a warning from God!"
"The apostle prophesied…" Daniel clenched his teeth.
"We just need to have another daughter! It does not have to be the first and the second! It could be the first and the third! Or the first and the fourth!"
Then Mical heard the slap, followed by her mother's scream.
"Do not dare suggest that my daughter is anything but good! Do not dare imply that we could replace her! My daughter is a gift from God! You had better understand that, woman!"
Ester looked at her husband with frightened eyes. She ran her fingers across the cheek that was burning.
At that moment, someone knocked on the door.
"Mr. Daniel! Mrs. Ester!" It was the voice of one of the temple's acolytes.
The two of them put beautiful smiles on their faces before going to answer the visitor. When they opened the door, they showed all the signs of a perfect, happy family.
"I came on behalf of the Father to inform you that the mass will begin earlier today. We expect you there at five thirty," said the young acolyte.
"We will be there," said Daniel. "Our entire family will."
Mical woke up. The cold air from the air conditioner touched her face. It took her a moment to realize she was sitting in a hospital chair. Jéssica was sitting in the chair beside her and Clara Lilithu was standing.
Renato was still lying in the bed, covered in bandages and dressings over the burned areas, his face bruised from the many punches he had taken. He was still asleep.
"Is he going to be okay?" Mical asked timidly.
"Yes," Clara answered without looking at the girl.
Mical stood up.
"I'm going to the bathroom."
"Don't go too far."
The girl did not answer. She left the hospital room and stepped into the corridor. She still had not gotten used to the constant movement of people coming and going, the pushing and crowding. Every now and then she saw someone crying, someone shouting. Orderlies hurried past pushing stretchers with injured patients.
She passed in front of a room full of burned children, many with wounds far worse than Renato's. A mother was quietly crying, sitting on a chair and leaning over her child's bed. Mical wanted to comfort her. She tried to think of something to say. She took a tentative step and entered the room.
The woman looked at her, confused. Her little eyes shining. Sadness on her face.
"Do not worry. God knows all things. He is watching over your boy."
The woman lowered her head and could no longer hold back her tears.
"Do you really think he can get better?"
"For God, nothing is impossible. Of course the boy can get better. You need to have faith."
The woman turned away and silently leaned back over the child's bed. Mical decided to leave her alone. She continued down the corridor.
When she entered the bathroom, she felt a chill. It was the only empty place in the hospital. It was far too silent.
Mical saw her reflection in the wall mirror. She looked tired, with heavy dark circles under her eyes, and there was a bandage on her face. She had not been burned very badly. When she woke up lying on the grass, she learned that Renato had saved her life. The lives of all three of them, in fact. Clara had seemed perplexed when she explained what happened.
She opened a faucet and filled her hand with water. She noticed how cold it was. A little colder and it would have turned into ice.
When she breathed out, the air came out white.
The girl shivered.
She noticed her reflection becoming blurry. She ran her finger across the mirror. Droplets of condensed water fogged the glass, giving her reflection a smoky appearance.
Then the mirror creaked and cracked.
A second later it exploded, throwing shards everywhere. Mical screamed and jumped back. The bathroom had turned into a freezer.
She ran out and returned to the corridor, frightened and confused. She thought it might have been just a defective mirror along with an air conditioning problem.
As she returned to Renato's room, she passed by a window where she could see the street. She saw the movement outside, the stores, the street vendors, and became curious. The clothing store directly across from the hospital caught her attention.
She decided to go out and take a look. It would be quick. She wanted to see what a city like this looked like when it was alive and running, what the beating heart of a metropolis felt like. More importantly, she wanted to see the kind of clothes that store sold.
She placed her hand on the cold door handle and tried to open it, but she could not. The door was stuck. She forced it again, with no success.
"Need help, little miss?" a woman beside her asked.
"I'm just trying to open the door, but it won't work."
"Let me try."
The woman tried as well, but she could not open it either. It was as if it were locked.
"That's strange. I think it jammed," the woman said. "Wait a minute and I'll call someone."
Mical did not wait. She suddenly had the strange feeling of being watched and, with a shiver, ran back to the room. As soon as she entered, she ran into Clara. The succubus had a calm expression that was still somehow frightening.
"What is it, Mical? You look like your face froze in fear."
The girl answered with an annoyed growl and sat down without saying a word.
She looked at Renato, still unconscious in the bed, burns all over his body, hair burned, scars forming.
"I don't like this place," Mical said quietly to her sister. "There is too much pain here."
Clara walked to the window. The sunlight touched her face and the wind stirred her hair.
"I have something to take care of now. Do not try to leave the hospital."
"Do you think we are your prisoners?" Jéssica stood up.
"I don't think that. I don't need to. If you try to leave, you will freeze to death. Besides, I don't think you will want to leave this boy alone, will you?"
Without taking her eyes off the two of them, Clara simply let gravity pull her outward through the window and disappeared.
"One day we will exorcise her," said Jéssica.
"There is a presence here," said Mical.
"A presence? What kind of presence?"
"I felt it following me through the hospital. It is cold. But it is strange because I do not know if it is truly evil."
Jéssica frowned.
Mical looked at Renato with concern.
"Do you think the succubus is trying something evil against him?"
"I think she is worried about him just like we are."
"How could that be?" Mical raised an eyebrow.
"She did not take her eyes off him for a moment. Every time he moved in the bed, she looked with interest. I saw her looking at the monitors that show his vital signs several times. I do not know why and, to be honest, I did not even know it was possible, but I think that demon feels some kind of gratitude toward him as well. After all, he was the one who saved the three of us from that fire, wasn't he? He could have run away, but he did not. He ran into the flames and pulled each of us out, and because of that he is lying in that hospital bed, burned and covered in wounds. I do not know what the succubus thinks about it, but I feel that she wants to help him."
"That confuses me, sister. My whole life I was taught that demons are beings who live only for evil, that they care about no one, and that things like gratitude, kindness, and goodness are beyond their reach."
"But there is also that hostility. The gratitude she feels for him does not extend to us. The way she looks at us is starting to scare me. It feels like the game of the last few days is over."
"Maybe we will have to fight her soon."
"If that day comes, we will face her with everything we have. But for now…"
Jéssica looked at Renato.
"Shall we pray together?"
"Yes. No matter what happens, I do not feel that he is our enemy."
The two stood up. One on each side of the bed, they placed their right hands over Renato and joined their left hands together. They raised a prayer to heaven, asking for the boy's recovery.
Clara entered the laboratory.
It was a well lit place, but the white walls were stained with grease, dust, and mathematical equations written with pen, and it was hard to find any order in the way the shelves and tables full of junk were arranged. There were wires, metal pieces of many shapes, stones with suspicious shine, and many glass jars filled with powders, liquids, and solids. Some had clearly not been opened for a long time.
At the end of the narrow corridor, sitting at a table, was a man working on a lead object with a screwdriver. Around him on the table were several tools and parts. One of them Clara recognized as a Geiger counter, used to measure radiation levels.
The succubus walked toward him.
"You took your time," the man said without looking away from the lead object.
"True. I stopped on the way to buy sweets."
He set the screwdriver and the object down and looked at Clara.
"You know I do not understand your jokes, Clara." His speech carried a subtle French accent.
"But it was not a joke."
"I see. I heard you were attacked by that mercenary. What was his name again?"
"Possessed Mercenary. You are well informed as always, Flamel."
"Being well informed is part of my profession, my dear." The word dear sounded like dearr, as if pronounced with two r's.
"Who told you?" Clara stared at him with sharp eyes.
"Calm down. Save that terrifying look of yours for people who are afraid of ghosts, d'accord? This is a very lively city. Things bubble. News spreads with the wind. For an experienced alchemist like me, hearing the whispers is not difficult."
Clara sighed. Weird guy, she thought.
"Did you build the antenna?"
"Yes, succubus. I will get it."
Flamel left through a small shutter door. Clara picked up the lead object from the table and examined it curiously. It looked like a box with symbols carved into its sides and several spikes projecting from the edges like thorns. One of the symbols resembled the drawing of a crystal.
When she lost interest in the box, she began looking at the whiteboard on one of the walls. There were more symbols and many complex mathematical equations. Some of them she recognized as part of the theoretical basis for certain spells.
Flamel returned carrying a long, thin antenna about a meter and a half tall, attached to two smaller dish-shaped antennas whose concave sides faced opposite directions. The three antennas were fixed onto a rectangular base the size of a construction concrete block, from which a USB cable extended.
"Here it is."
"Wonderful!" Clara's eyes widened. "It has been a long time since I saw one of these. What is the range?"
Flamel puffed out his chest proudly.
"Fifteen kilometers in radius."
"Wow. That is quite a lot."
"Almost seven hundred and seven square kilometers. Ignoring a few farms, that covers the entire city. And a good part of the neighboring one as well."
"That will do. One more thing. Do you still have any phoenix feather lying around?"