We speak of greatness that we have never been (Peter, Dragonetti, Templar)

[father-peter.livejournal.com]

Time had absolutely no meaning in a cavern so far underground that surface sounds were completely muffled by bedrock and stone. Peter was closed away from the world above, including the light, the smells, the noise...he was left with nothing but the constant, slow dripping of water in the corner of the oddly-shaped room and the dim light of two very crude lamps on either side of the locked door. The rules which governed the world above him had no meaning here. There was no day or night. No time. He had nothing, nor did he have any idea how long he had been here. It felt like forever.

When his door opened, the scraping sound echoed off the walls so loudly in Peter's ears that he jumped. It was the first loud noise he had heard since Dragonetti had left him two days ago, and it hurt. When Dragonetti re-entered his cell, Peter found himself grateful, despite knowing what the man was here for. Just being around someone meant something. It meant he wasn't alone. He hadn't simply been abandoned in this hole in the ground. Not yet.

"Dragonetti," Peter mumbled. He was weak and he felt ill with hunger, but he managed to stand. He watched more Templar file in behind Dragonetti with dull eyes, even as the men huddled away from him, watching him in fear. The door was closed and locked behind them and Peter felt his heart seize up. He tried to hide it behind a general sense of Peterness, which he still possessed despite this situation under the ground. "Hi." He waved at them all in a rather anti-Antichrist way. "Thanks for visiting my hole." Peter closed his eyes in horror at what he had just said, and he let his head fall into his hands. "Oh...boy. Really, Peter? Heh."

Dragonetti ignored Peter's inane muttering and he responded only to what he considered to be an insult to his character. "That's Father Dragonetti, Kemp."

Peter lifted his head and he narrowed his eyes at the thinly veiled insult. It was really the least of his worries, however, and he didn't dwell on it. These people were here now to watch him die in order to prove he was the son of the devil. Joy of encapsulating joys. "I assume you're here to make me your show pony, Father Dragonetti."

"You are not required to speak." Dragonetti gestured towards one of his men who stepped forward. He was followed by yet another crony, and both of them took hold of Peter. Peter struggled, but he was far too weak to have any effect. They managed to both bind his arms behind his back and gag him so he couldn't speak. Finally, he was relieved of his sight as well.

With his sight stolen from him, he experienced the horror with the rest of his senses. He heard the door unlock, he shifting of the Templar as they situated themselves around his cell. The ominous rumbling of the guillotine as it was rolled into his room. He could taste the dry bitterness of the cloth in his mouth, restricting the movement of his tongue. The air smelled musty, expectant and stale. His arms ached from being stretched behind his back. He felt himself pushed forward until he was kneeling on the rough floor, his chest resting on a crude bench. He was tied to it and then no one else touched him.

This was it. They were going to 'prove' their delusions by attempting to cut off his head. And when he lived through the debacle, somehow that would be enough for these mislead men to sentence him to whatever torment they decided worthy of the Antichrist. The defiant part of Peter wanted to let them kill him, just to prove he wasn't what they thought he was. That plan did, of course, have some rather obvious drawbacks. If he died, he would never hear the end of it from his wife...

Time, which still had no meaning here, seemed to slow to a near standstill. Peter could hear the rustling of robes and the murmur of low voices. He braced his body for the pain, muscles tightened and teeth gritted. His eyes were closed as tightly as possible even under the blindfold; his hands balled into fists behind his back.

God, please. Please. Let me wake up. Let them wake up. Help. Help me-

Peter heard the soft 'zing' sound as the blade of the guillotine sliced through the air towards his neck. There was now only one way this was going to go, and of course it transpired exactly has it had that day, two years ago, when Bishop Terrence Holden had tried to kill him and failed miserably.

The blade met Peter's neck and continued on through barely slowing down as it sliced neatly through his skin. Peter's immortal body allowed the blade to pass through, but the would-be-fatal wound simply closed up as it happened, hardly even spilling any blood in the process. Peter had let out a muffled yelp which the blade had silenced as it passed through and now that the blade rested beneath him, Peter started breathing heavily. His body shook and the blade below him, attached to the guillotine by thin metal strands on either side, rattled along with him. Peter let out a woeful whimper and Dragonetti turned to his fellow Templar, who had been stunned to silence.

"This, my brothers, has proven it. His Grace, the Bishop Terrence Holden, was correct in his assessment of this pitiful creature in front of you. He has was to be put to death for committing the sin of blasphemy time and time again, and he survived. Today, he has survived again in front of your very eyes. The measures Bishop Holden went to to contain this creature, burying him in consecrated ground run through by seven silver stakes, were not adequate. He will remain here for the rest of his tenure on Earth."

"He..." Bishop Ramsey was stunned to silence. "Father Dragonetti..."

Dragonetti turned to face the man who had taken Archbishop Coronati's place as their leader. "Yes, your Grace?"

"Please accept our humble apologies. You have done this order a most impressive service..."

Peter, angered now and filled with lovely adrenaline from being killed, started to bang the bench he was tied to against the ground. This couldn't be happening. It couldn't be. He wasn't going to kneel here and let them lock him underground because they had decided he was something he wasn't. Hungry and weak or no, he wouldn't let them lock that door behind them again without a fight.

"Untie him," Dragonetti said to his men. He truly believed that the man offered no threat now that he was down here, so many meters below Vatican City. "Let him speak his falsehoods. He will only be more proof of what he is."

Peter let them pull him to his feet. They untied him and he pushed away from them once he was free, pulling the gag and blindfold off of himelf. "I have children!" Peter pleaded.

"Yes. And believe me, your spawn will be taken care of, Peter Kemp."

Suddenly Peter wished very much he hadn't said that. Suddenly all of this was far too familiar. He hadn't recognised it in all his trauma. When London had been under seige by the Templar years ago, Peter had had visions of what the future held if the Templar were to succeed. Peter had been confined in an underground room, and the Templar had raised his children according to the church. All except for his little Anna. She was an angel, and they had used his little girl as a gruesome display of their power by strapping her to a cross in St. Peter's Square. She had been cast as a symbol of the Church's power, locked in torment until someone could save her-

"Don't you dare touch them!" he hissed, his eyes flashing angrily. "I'm not what you think I am!" This was all Rolf's fault. He was the one who decided Peter needed to be unkillable, and he had been the one who had done just that without Peter's permission or even knowledge. And now Peter was stuck here in this situation. If Rolf hadn't done it, Peter would now be less one head, but this was all a little bit easier if he had someone to blame. And the 275 year old angel happened to make himself an easy target with the bad decisions he tended to make. "I'm just...argh, I'm just a man!"

"I seem to remember once, on one of your blasphemous tirades, you said Jesus was just a man." Dragonetti raised his eyebrows and he challenged Peter to disagree with him.

"I...yes, I said that, but I didn't mean...just a-" Peter shook his head, his words cut off when his throat constricted in panic. Nothing he said would make a difference. Nothing he did would matter. They were going to close that door and leave him here. It was as bad as being buried under the ground as he had been before. Roomier, yes, but just as bad. He had to try something...

Peter turned cold eyes on Dragonetti and he shook his head in dismay. "And what do you think the Devil would do to you if he knew you had his son in captivity?"

"God will protect us," Dragonetti said, deflecting the question away easily. "How do you think it was possible to imprison you in the first place? He walks beside us."

"I won't be in this room forever," Peter cautioned them. "You have no possible way of knowing what you are bringing down upon you." Peter was being honest then, though they probably had some idea. He didn't mean the Devil's wrath. Nothing of the sort. He simply meant the veritable army of demons who would fight for him simply because he cared about them. Without Peter to calm them...keep them in check...he had no way of knowing what they might do. "You are in danger if you keep me here. Please...I don't want anything bad to happen to you!" That was a lie. Peter wanted tortures of the most terrible kind to happen to every single one of them, but he would never act on it. That was what he meant. "If you keep me here, you're bringing it on yourselves!"

"The threat you pose if you are given access to the world is a far more dangerous and terrifying. You will remain here, our prisoner." Dragonetti had no illusions that it would last forever. But he had faith in his God, and he hoped. He hoped that they could keep the Antichrist in their underground cell long enough to restore order to the world. And if God was very good, perhaps Peter would remain here for the rest of Dragonetti's existence in this world. That would be a wonderful reward, indeed.

"I saved you!" Peter tried then, his voice desperate. "Father Dragonetti, you were dying and I saved your life and this is what you do to me!?" It was true, but Dragonetti showed no signs of knowing what Peter was talking about. Peter could see it was a show, and hot anger broiled away inside him. "I saved your life!"

"We will bid you goodbye now, Peter Kemp. And we will pray for God's mercy, no matter what you are." Bishop Ramsey unlocked the cell door and the Templar bretheren began to file out.

Peter rushed forward in a mad attempt to get to the door. Three of the men stepped forward to stop him, and Peter was easily pushed to the ground. The door slammed home and Peter let out a wail of dismay from his spot on the ground. He crawled over to the door and pressed his hand against it. "Come back!" he yelled, his shouts falling on deaf ears. "Come back, I'm not finished! Don't leave me!"

Peter gasped for breath as the room started to feel very small. And then the lights above him died, swirling Peter into blackness. Peter's scared and shaky breath reverberated in his ears and then, almost without notice, his breath was drowned out by his own screams which were concealed from the world above by meters of cold rock and stone.