Natalie Yacobson - Bloody Dawn. Daughter of Dawn

He left, went into darkness as an imperceptible shadow. The clock was purely gold, but it seemed that all the darkness of the universe was accumulated within it. It had no eye, nor lips, but Ferdinand felt that they were laughing at him.

It was a fair laughter. They left him just one moment for victory or defeat. Here is really a devilish trick. Ferdinand wanted to move away from it and could not. It seemed to measure the term of his own life. And this term approached the end. But then, how can he be able to defeat the evil, if he will not live.

«Stupid, just one moment,» the clock stated. «To wait for a single moment, you do not have to live for a long time.»

«Why not now?» said James.

«Let the clock are not in a hurry, and we hurry,» it was the moral of three scouts. Bob, James and Renault hurried to him with news. Father Donatello naturally did not know anything. He would not allow anything like that. Ferdinand also had doubts. He himself would not be ahead of the events, but three young people kept their principles. For a long time they collected information about a certain sect that worshiped the living embodiment of Dennitsa. They even had to pretend that they would like to join it. They said that it was risky, because the head of the sect can read thoughts. But so far everyone has been intact, which gave them a lot of courage.

Only Tonio doubted.

«What if it’s just heretics or is it easier swindlers? Suddenly they are not connected with her, and we will only spend time in vain?»

His claims almost did not hear.

«We will pretend that you also want to join their ranks,» said James. «You are both…» He measured Tonio and Ferdinand with quick glance. «Fully fit, there welcome only young and beautiful. This is the sect of the devil. Physical beauty for them is in the first place. In addition to loyalty, this is the only criterion.»

«Loyalty?» Ferdinand frowned. He already gave his loyalty to God.

«Rather, obsession,» James suggested. «Everyone becomes some kind of crazy and cold as statues.»

Statues! The word caused unacceptable associations. They can not know how he belongs to the statues. More precisely, to only one of them. He did not tell anyone about it yet. And not going. It was his secret. No one should know it. His feeling to marble sculpture was too sacred.

Ferdinand reached for a dagger with a graceful gilded handle in the form of the dragon. Here is his new sacred relic. The dragon will be defeated, said Donatello, when he gave him the blade.

«It’s too early to see the enemy territory,» Ferdinand concluded reasonably. «We are now vulnerable, not an enemy. We must wait.»

His argument was supposed to sound weighty. Now he takes the post of head, although temporarily, only until the evil is not destroyed by his hand. He had to feel strong, and all the order’s brothers secretly obey him. However, James and Renault began to objected. Usually they behaved more restrained, but now they burned to rush into battle, track, destroy.

«We must at least look at,» meanwhile claimed Bob. «You need to know with what we are dealing with.»

«We know,» Ferdinand assured. «The evil will be destroyed.»

«But you can do it today.»

But the clock? Ferdinand again remembered it as a creature that laughed at him.

«Do you remember the residence of Cardinal Lisandro?»

The cardinal did not drink wine and did not go to the harlot, but for some reason he had a terribly negative reputation. It was all the case in his sermons. In his hints and open calls. Someone considered him a prophet.

The false prophet, so called him to himself Ferdinand. Many shared his opinion. But there were followers. A small society gathered around Lisandro. Order of communion! They tried to scare the devil with blood. Lily and blood are their symbols. Both were initially devilish symbols. But Lisandro held beautiful rites and assured that the Fallen Archangel Dennitsa is not so terrible as it seems. He stated even that he could call him and destroy. Obviously, today was the one night when he was going to take it.

Ferdinand would not put a penny on the fact that his intention would succeed. Not everything is as simple as it seems. Lisandro and his Order is really just heretics, blessed by Pope. It is unlikely that their prayers reach the ears of God, and the threats are afraid of the devil. Although it would be so easy to attach the fallen angel on lilies, which once in paradise were considered his flowers, blood, spilled like a bribe for him, and then kill. All weaklings dream of a simple decision of the question. Ferdinand knew that his path would be more complicated. He squeezed the handle of the dagger tightly.

True, now he had to prove himself that he had a determination.

«Not yet time…» It was his last objection. But not already decisive.

«It’s time now,» Bob objected. «They will gather for midnight, as during Christmas and Easter, only it will be a terrible sacrament.»

«Rather, Mysteria,» Ferdinand has long appointed the price to such events and on the experience remaining from his lush secular life, decided that they differ little from theatrical performances. The only thing that are designed to approve in the spiritual authority one specific person who spends them. In this case, Cardinal Lisandro. Probably he believes that the throne of Pope is already secured by him. In any case, hardly enviable place will be free, everyone whose mind he embarrassed, will support him.

Behind meditations, Ferdinand himself did not notice how congregates pulled him on the night of a cozy cell. He firmly pressed the handle of the dagger, hiding it under the cape. Consciousness said that it is still early, but something militant inside himt has already rushed into battle.

The dagger with the dragon on the handle was alarmed only at the beginning.

«You need to kill evil with evil,» said Donatello. The conclusion is too abstract and unreasonable. We need to beat the enemy by his own weapon. Kill the devil with the help of his – a dragon. It is bold, ambiguous and controversial. But it can work.

Ferdinand did not doubt his power. He forbade himself to be afraid. Will’s effort was able to suppress weakness and fear. He was aware that he was elected to die, but to win. His hand in the decisive moment will not tremble.

And what if the decisive moment is still today and the prophecy that there is everything only one moment to strike this just a legend?

Ferdinand did not want to return to the gloomy palace of cardinal Lysandro, but today, as Bob said, the members of the Devil’s Order will be present there. And their lord always comes as shadow with them. We just need to look around and learn him in the face. Ferdinand was well prepared. His companions were also.

When they came, the sacrament with blood and lily petals was in the night assembly over. Through the dark arches of high windows stood an unbearable smell of the same flowers. Garden lilies! Such light flowers were in such a gloomy place, among the black arches and ghostly burning candles. White petals as if symbolized something dead and unnatural.

Lysandro himself reminded the royal person. But pride is a sin.

Ferdinand looked at the gloomy hall. It seemed to him that there was no unity in the Order. The gathered kept in groups. Rather, some of them were collected in groups, leaving the communion, someone as if hid behind the backs of those who stood ahead.

Bob leaned toward Ferdinand and explained in the whisper:

«A conspiracy is preparing against him. He inspired so long to them that the fallen archangel is the essence of everything that they believed in this a little more sincerely than he wanted, and moved to the Order of Darkness.»