Those words ricocheted inside Raphaniè's mind like a hammer. His chest tightened, a dry knot rose in his throat, and his vision blurred behind his eyelids. For a moment, the church—the stones, the stained glass, the altar—vanished, leaving only the raw memory of that fatal second. The woman remained upright in the chair, a slender and tense figure, and at the corner of her lips lingered a smile as cold as a blade. The weapon in her hand had gleamed; the sound of the shot still pulsed in the priest's ears.
He swallowed hard, cleared his throat, and muttered a short prayer that sounded more like a command to himself than to any divinity. His eyes welled up, not only from physical pain but from the vivid memory of the victim's face—pale skin, empty eyes—now reduced to eternal silence. For seconds that felt like hours, he allowed himself to bear the weight of disbelief.
When his vision cleared, Raphaniè reacted. With a trembling hand, he raised the small silver crucifix and pressed it against the woman's forehead in a mixture of anger and ritual. The metal brushed her skin with a dry sound. There was hatred in that force: it was not just a religious gesture, but contained vengeance and despair.
— What is your name, unclean spirit? — His voice came out low, tense, forced to maintain the public composure of a priest, though his inner voice trembled.
She smiled with scorn, spitting in his face as if the sacrament held no power against her provocation. Raphaniè did not step back; he remained still, as though faith were a rock beneath his feet. The woman, however, seemed disturbingly alive—her eyes gleamed with a perverse intelligence.
— You could do this another way with me — she said, her voice drawn out, almost mocking. — You have a particular taste, priest. A very particular one.
— Answer my question — He tightened his grip on the crucifix until his knuckles turned white.
She tilted her head, as if evaluating a fly. There was an ancient insolence in her tone.
— What was the name of the poor child who sought help, Raphaniè? — she asked, as though presenting a challenge, dripping with mockery.
Raphaniè felt a spark of dread: the question was not innocent. It was a blade threatening to reopen wounds that should have been healed. He tried to steady his voice.
— You should know, after all—you were there too.
— Of course I was. I saw everything. I know your secrets.
The crucifix trembled for a moment in the priest's hand, but he held his posture. Before him, the woman seemed to breathe a theatrical tension and, suddenly, made a gesture that disgusted him: she raised her leg and, in a deliberate act of profanation and defiance, insinuated contact with the man's private parts—a mocking movement that shattered any semblance of prayer.
Raphaniè recoiled, a sound—almost a growl—escaping his throat, half hatred, half revulsion.
— Be silent and tell me where you come from — he ordered, authority returning to his tone.
She whispered, in distorted and fragmented Latin, as though translating a corrupted oracle.
— Ave… — she began. Then, as if inspired by a riddle, she continued in an altered voice: — The omnipresent eyes of the queen reveal the key of Armon.
The phrase fell into the nave like an enigma. Raphaniè narrowed his eyes; something in the construction of that sentence sounded ritualistic, as if reopening doors he had sworn to keep closed. Doubt tightened its grip on his chest.
— Return to hell, unclean spirit! — he shouted, forcing out the words of exorcism. The crucifix scraped across the right side of her face in a final gesture.
— You may cast me out now, murderer — the spirit replied coldly, — but I will return to settle the score. No one will save you when God reveals your true face.
The accusation struck like a blow. Raphaniè felt the ground give way beneath his convictions. He did what any man of faith would do at that moment: he pronounced the sacred formula with all the weight he had left.
— This is the face of God — he exclaimed, pressing the crucifix against the woman's disfigured face. — Recéde ergo in nómine Patris, et Fílii, et Spíritus Sancti. Amen.
The sound that followed was a scream—a drawn-out wail that emerged from the possessed woman's throat as if it came from far away. For the last time, a male voice, weak and fading, echoed:
— You can keep this ruined body…
It was the final sentence. The woman's head slumped lifelessly to the left. Her face, swollen and covered in bruises, no longer bore that threatening gleam; life had drained away. Only the shell remained—the cruel proof of violence.
Raphaniè placed two fingers on her carotid artery, felt the cold skin, the absence of a pulse beneath the tendons. The confirmation was methodical and brutal.
She had no pulse.
He pulled his phone from his pocket with hands that no longer felt like his own and dialed with slow, mechanical movements.
— She's dead — he said, his voice hollow, and hung up.
He remained there, alone, between the whisper of wind through the stained glass and the echo of interrupted prayers, knowing that nothing from that moment on would ever be the same.