The Secret Stead is the pen name of a UK-based writer and
This chapter contains scenes of extreme violence, profanity, sexual and drug abuse, which may cause some readers distress. Please be warned. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental. It is a work of cautionary fiction.
Calix Sanguinis Mei | (This is my blood of the covenant — Matthew 26:28)
  Chapt 9 | Contents | Chapt 1  
End of Book 1 | Book 2 >> |
t was a bright Spring day. The rain had made a brief visit, but their tears dried quickly in a sunlight that shone as the hope for a new beginning comes to shine and renew the soul.
Baba Mamba and Dante stood face to face. Dante felt he was seeing the young man clearly for the first time. There was something different about him, but he could not account for the difference.
"What do you want? Why did you call me out? Are you not afraid to be seen speaking to me?"
Baba Mamba took Angelo's crucifix from around his neck. He placed it in his palm, gently, as though it were going to disappear like rain drops in sunshine.
"I lied about Angelo being my boyfriend," he said.
Dante nodded. "I know. But I did not want to offend you."
Despite himself, Baba Mamba asked, "How?"
But Dante stayed silent. He had learnt something's were better left unsaid. Too many nails had been hammered into too many hearts already.
"You are a brave man," Dante said, instead.
Baba Mamba raised his head a little higher. "Brother, I didn't realise what bravery was 'til I saw you in action last night."
"Don't mistake stupidity for bravery, Baba. You see bravery every day, yet you are blind to it. See the bravery of your women, and what they must do to survive. To get up afterwards and face the day again. But you are brave because you come to me with the truth."
"Take it, please," Baba Mamba said, indicating the crucifix in his outstretched palm.
Dante shook his head. "Give it back to Angelo. Tell him if he comes to me injured, I will care for him. If he comes to me hungry, I will feed him. It does not matter that he is not the man I once loved. That Angelo, I keep safe in my heart."
"He's left the country. He won't be back."
There was no emotion on Dante's face as he said, "I see."
Baba Mamba looked confused. "You act like you won't miss him."
"You do not, either, yet I think we will both miss him, more than we show. Is that not the way of men?"
"Take it then. He wanted you to have it."
"You keep it. Wear it with my blessing. One of your greatest men said only God's love can drive out hate. Keep His love around you and maybe your children will see it and it will drive out the hate in their hearts."
"For you?"
Dante shook his head. "For themselves. Please keep it. I do not need a token. To forget would be to forget myself. And, I think, in your own way, you love Angelo, too."
"It was his mother's." Baba Mamba didn't know why he had said that, but he knew the crucifix wasn't his to keep. He didn't deserve it.
Dante's eyes softened. He remembered his Mama in her final moments, haloed by the sun, weak and yet the bravest he had ever seen her. "Ah, okay. Then I will take it for his Mama's sake. Maybe I go back to Italy one day, and I find her and give it back to her."
"Good," he said, suddenly. Again, he was not sure why, but he continued, "You should go from here. Go soon."
Dante looked at him. He took the crucifix. Then placed a hand on his arm. "I thank you for the advice and for this. You are not a good man, Baba, but you could be. I have faith in that now."
Baba Mamba tried to stop himself from looking up to Derek's kitchen window. He lowered his voice to a whisper. "Can I give you some advice, brother? Beware your neighbours."
"Why should I do that?"
"Some of your neighbours have access to our resources that mean they can get away with anything."
Dante remembered the night he saw Caleb, flustered and wet, and remembered, too, the banging he had heard from his bedroom. He smiled, then. "Even the truth?"
"They have the power to make the truth anything they want it to be."
"You are wrong, my friend. Only God has the power to do that."
"You don't know what they are capable of, and what they can get away with. Nothing is what it seems around here."
Dante nodded. "This is true. But do you know what the truth is? It is a seed, like the ones out of my Papa's garden. You may bury the truth in the deepest soil you like, but it is not gone, merely growing to come back out of the earth you hid it in, stronger than before. Look at my kitchen window, at my Mama's plant pots with my Papa's seeds growing strong. That is God's truth, my friend. I thank you for your visit. But I think we shall not speak again."
Baba Mamba, despite his large frame, looked small beside Dante. So, he raised his head higher.
Dante added, "Can I ask a favour of you?"
He nodded.
"Feed your people. Don't let them go hungry."
Nothing else was said between them. Dante turned his back to him and walked to his flat.
erek's kitchen light was on.
Thursday had come around again.
Derek had changed. But you wouldn't know it to look at him. He still kept his regular walks outside; he would walk with those gentle shuffled footsteps, and graciously greet a neighbour on the rare occasion he should come across another innkeeper of the night. No drug user ever approached him. Caleb didn't even acknowledge him.
During the day he lived alone. Had no real friends to speak of. Or so you would mistaken for thinking. At least that's what his mother always said.
"My Derek has no friends, really, but to see so many of you here now," she positively beamed at the collection of crack users gathered around her son's kitchen table, "to protect him from that violent peadophile--" She lost her voice momentarily, choked up with emotion, before she added, "It makes a mother's heart swell."
The Queen of Sheba was busy carrying out her usual cleaning chores, but took time out to place a cup of tea in front of the Queen Mother. She gave a little curtsey, before resuming her duties.
"Thank you, my dear."
The loyal knights shuffled their feet, feeling uncomfortable, their pipes hidden in their coat pockets. When was this woman going to leave, so they could smoke and begin their training?
"What're you doing here, Mum?"
It was Caleb, having just dragged himself in through the front door, and looking surprised to see her.
"Hello, my dear boy. Derek and I just wanted to have a word with you about the other night. A family chat."
Caleb looked like he didn't like the sound of that. "Oh, okay." He knew better than to ask why. "Where's Derek?"
"He's sleeping, dear. That violent man has bothered him so much, he's had to take some of his pills, and rest. It's done something to his nerves. Why don't you go and wake him? He'll be pleased to see you."
"Y-y-yeah, sure."
They all listened as Caleb went through into the bedroom. They heard the slaps. But no other sound. No one cried out. No one spoke.
Slap. Thud. Slap. Thud.
The loyal knights stood up, and began to silently leave. The Queen of Sheba started to dry her hands, and gather her things, but Derek's mother smiled at her, and motioned her to stay.
"You stay, my dear. Caleb has shown me this Grimoire of yours. It sounds so interesting. I want you to tell me more about it."
ent was over. Tomorrow, Resurrection Sunday.
Dante sighed, clasping his crucifix. He thought of Christ's walk in the desert with Lucifer.
The forty days and forty nights of temptation were over. Now it was time for the Paschal Vigil.
It started after the hours of sunset, but Dante had been at his local Church all day in contemplation and prayer. Waiting for the opening of the Service of Light.
It never failed to moved him. As a child in Sicily, he remembered how he would hold his breath in anticipation. The service would begin in darkness; the Church drowned in shadows, the icons hooded and hidden, representing a world before the Resurrection.
He would watch as the Paschal candle was lit, the representation of their Saviour; He who overcame the darkness of sin and death. His parents, along with the entire congregation, would light their own candles from that single flame. The Church would come to life, reborn.
His lips, now, silently mouthed the Exsultet, an ancient hymn of praise as the deacon began to sing, and along with the rest of the congregation, he waited patiently to light his own candle from Christ's fire, as his parents had done before him.
Candle upon candle upon candle gradually grew, and like the sunrise against the night, they filled the church with light.
He prayed for Angelo. He prayed for Shantel. He prayed for Luna, worried at him being home alone. He prayed for his parents.
Then, Dante prayed for Downland.
"Forgive them, Father. Forgive us all, for we know not what we do."
He bowed his head, waiting for the Liturgy of the Eucharist.
erek's kitchen light was on. Unusual for a Saturday night.
But then, these were unusual times.
Derek's mother was looking curiously at the paraphenalia on the kitchen table. Six black candles. Six small brown bottles. Tiny pellets of plastic wrapping filled with powder; some were the colour of snow, some the colour of ash. A plastic zip bag with contents that looked like nuts. That was the cannabis, she knew, because she had started taking it for her joint pain. An indoor cat cage. A bottle of red poster paint. Her treasured antique chalice from her mantlepiece. A knife, a very large knife. And, of course, the Devil's Bible Grimoire.
Caleb grinned at his mother-in-law. "That's a big Bowie knife," he said. "Americans use it for hunting."
"How interesting," she replied.
She was certainly learning a lot. She no longer said nothing. She actively participated. Had she thought about it, maybe the family member Derek had taken after, was none other than herself.
She thought of Pixie. A good mother always makes sacrifices for son, she reminded herself.
She asked Caleb, "Will your friends be on time?"
Caleb nodded. He took the wooden cross from around his neck. The Queen of Sheba had showed him the amulet's little quirk. The cross had a loop on both ends, so you could wear it hanging upside down.
You pay your money. You take your choice.
He turned the cross on its head, and hung it around his neck again.
At that moment, the Queen of Sheba walked in through the front door. She looked upset.
"Caleb just told me what you intend to do. A-and it ain't right."
Caleb turned on her. "Shut your fucking mouth. Don't disrespect Mum."
"What do you know about respect?" The Queen of Sheba shouted back. "You forgotten how you used to beat up on all the girls, and rob them of their money to get your fix, before you met your old man?"
Derek walked out of his bedroom then, in only his boxer shorts, and calmly, coldly and very stoically strode towards the Queen of Sheba.
Derek's mother quickly got inbetween them and said, "Come on, my dear. It's time we both went, and let the men get on with it."
"This ain't no place for man or woman," the Queen of Sheba replied. "I gave you that book for protection, not for-- for this!"
"Get out," was all Derek said. If he felt any anger, you wouldn't know it to look at him.
"Gladly," she said, ignoring Derek and his mother, and looking directly at Caleb. Something inside her made her say, "Your boy Caleb says you are a lucky man, sir. Maybe you are. But as my old Da would say, everyone's luck runs out eventually."
She spat at the contents on the table, turned around and left, slamming the door behind her.
he high point of the midnight mass had come, the Liturgy of the Eucharist.
Dante watched as the deacon and his assistants prepared the altar for the gifts of bread and wine.
He thought of the Last Supper. He thought of Shantel's betrayal of his friendship. Of Angelo's betrayal of his love.
He mouthed a prayer of forgiveness, and placed Lorenzo's crucifix around his neck, and took his Mama's rosary beads from his pocket. He kissed them.
Dante held back his tears as he looked at the cherished memento; he had not the heart to unpack the rosary before, to even think of it, let alone hold it. But this was a time of new chapters to be written, new corners to walk around in a person's life.
He had changed during these brief months since his arrival. His nervousness had gone. He was trying to be less honest with people who did not ask for his honesty. But while he had changed, his problems that plagued his past seemed to remain the same.
He thought of Downland. So much had happened. There was so much bad feeling, and over what? To be persecuted for a kiss? Falling in love? Trying to do the right thing by people whom his heart told him were doing wrong?
Do not be a martyr, he scolded himself. Seek the blame at your own door first.
He had been too harsh with Shantel. He could apologise, and maybe they could be friends again. He knew he had been harsh with Caleb, when life had already been its harshest to the boy. God would judge him, he had no right to judge. He could have continued to ignore him, and the boy would have stopped his pestering over time.
And people in time learnt to forgive and forget. He would have to do the same.
Dante closed his eyes. He prayed for Caleb. That the boy would come to know that real strength came from the heart, not the body. That kindness and gentleness were not a weakness. Dante knew through his Saviour, that it took greater courage to turn the other cheek and to forgive, than to pick up the sword of revenge.
He finally prayed for himself. For the strength to turn the other cheek, as he walked though his own valley of shadows and darkness.
He opened his eyes, when he heard the Communion rite begin, with the most universal of Christian prayers.
Dante joined hands with those seated closest to him, to recite the prayer their Saviour had authored.
"Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name..."
Dante's heart whispered the words. Our Father. Amen.
he high point of the midnight mass in Derek's temple had yet to begin.
The bedroom was in shadowed darkness. No candle burned throughout the night.
Derek's bed frame and cabinets had been moved from the bedroom to the living room. Devices of all kinds, listening devices, scramblers and wireless blockers were working as usual, but placed out of the way in a corner of the room. Derek stood in the same corner, behind a makeshift altar that used to be a tallboy. On it sat his mother's chalice, a black candle, the bowie knife and the Devil's Bible. You wouldn't know it to look at him, but he was excited, so much so, that the evidence was peeping through his boxers. In front of him, five loyal knights were preparing the floor. The poppers, and other drugs, had been shared out between them. Glass pipes had been loaded. Joints had been rolled. A few had already lit up. The burning smell of crack and cannabis filled the air, as, fully naked, with their flaccid penises swinging like a Foucault pendulum, they worked. On the floor, a pentacle, taken from the Grimoire, had been drawn, with the remaining five black candles placed on each point. One knight moved the bed's mattress into the centre of their artwork, while another started to light the candles, but Derek tapped on the altar, staying the hand with the clipper lighter.
There was still one more thing they needed.
The cat cage.
aleb knocked on Dante's door.
But this time with his foot.
He knocked once, he knocked twice. The door gave way on his third kick.
Caleb knew Dante wasn't home. The religious freak was getting bummed by his priest in a late night orgy.
It wasn't Dante he was looking for. He crept in, and placed the cat cage on the kitchen floor. He forgot to shut the door back on it shattered frame.
"Here, kitty, kitty. Where are you, kitty?" He whispered, looking around in the gloom. He didn't want to put the lights on, for some reason. He preferred to do this in the dark.
But he didn't hear any hissing. Or any spitting. Caleb was confused. He had expected the black fucker to greet him with its usual warm welcome.
Dante's bedroom.
Caleb tiptoed to the bedroom door, and opened it, slowly.
He ducked, thinking the cat would jump out at him. But Luna was no where to be seen.
Something caught his eye. A sliver of moonlight shone in through a gap in the drawn curtains, hitting an opposite wall. It illuminated a photograph of Dante's mother, bathed in the white, translucent light of a near full moon. The portrait he and his old man overheard Dante speaking to every morning and night.
Momentarily forgetting why Derek had sent him there in the first place, he strode in and took the picture off the wall and threw it on the floor. He grinned his Cheshire cat grin, as he unzipped his flies.
"Hey faggot," he said out aloud to no one in particular, "watch me piss in your mother's mouth."
Before Caleb could commence with his own form of baptism, Luna jumped out from beneath Dante's bed, and clawed at his penis.
"Ow! You little fuck--" Caleb squealed, clutching at his flies. The fucker had drawn blood. He could still feel pain, apparently.
Luna arched his back, hissed and spat, treading backwards as if to lead Dante's intruder away from the picture and out of the room. Then, it did a strange thing. Instead of bolting out of the open front door, the cat went silent, and sat by the cage in the kitchen.
Without giving it too much thought, Caleb grabbed Luna, threw him in the cage, and ran out of the door, bounding up the steps to his old man's flat.
He raised the cat cage in the air and showed them all Luna.
"Our Father. Amen," he said, breathless and with unbridled glee.
n the nights either side of the full moon, the Queen of Sheba had told Caleb, is when the pentacles in the Grimoire must be drawn.
Then you had to cleanse yourself. Derek had pissed on him and his brother knights. Check.
Then you had to burn the incense. Well, they had the incense of crack and weed. Check.
Then trace the pentacle. His brothers had dipped their dicks in red paint and drew it out on Derek's floor. It was gonna be a fucker to get out, but anyway. Check.
But hang on, Caleb thought. That isn't the pentacle we chose.
"What gives?" Caleb asked, handing the cage over to his old man. Luna did not make a sound. "You will. Now undress," Derek said, "and put on the seal." "I am wearing it," Caleb said, showing his old man the inverted cross. The element of wood. Check. As he took off his clothes, one of his brothers lit the black candle on the altar. Shadows and flickering light caressed the walls. Then each brother took a candle they'd placed on each of the five points of the pentacle, and lit it from the altar candle's single flame, before putting the candle back in its place on the floor. Light the candles. Check. Caleb stood naked, still bleeding from his scratched penis. He couldn't help but ask, "We're still cutting up his cat, right? Look at what that black fucker did to me." Derek looked at him. Hard. "The cat's blood will be used to bring another deserving brother to our flock. Dante." At the sound of that, one of the five knights began to harden. He'd always had a secret crush on Dante. Some started to suck on their pipes and inhale its heat, imagining what it would feel like to fuck a devil. A few opened the tops of their small bottles and started to sniff its contents, wondering what it would feel like if a devil fucked them. "Come again?" Caleb said, his eyes glazing over. Seeing so many cocks at one time always got him wet.
"This is not a pentacle of destruction, but of love," Derek said, with ice in his eyes, but fire in his heart. "We will bring Dante to you. And then you will bring him to us."
"Heh! We gonna get that Devil yo, to fall in love and be my ho, so we can get down-on-the-low," Caleb rapped, indicating a brother to pass him a pipe.
"Or me," Derek said, softly. "Or both of us."
"Oh my days!" Caleb began to giggle.
Now, that was a threesome the whole of Downland would want to see on a Thursday night.
ante felt his spirit rise, as he and the congregation watched the priest offer a prayer of thanks for the gifts of bread and wine.
Washing his hands at the altar, the priest said, "I ask you now to pray that our sacrifice will be acceptable to God."
Dante clutched at his Mama's rosary, as he began to follow along to the Eucharistic prayer.
"Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of hosts. Heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest."
As he prayed, Dante thought of his parents, framed so bright in sunshine, picking their grapes from the vine. He was transported back through an avenue of memory, to a place lost to him in time. He tried to hold back the tears, but they fell just the same. His tears came as the tide, which is bound to no human control, but to the nature of its flow.
The priest raised the host into the air, the bread now consecrated. "Take this and eat of it, for this is my body, which will be given up to you."
Our Father. Amen. Dante's heart whispered.
The priest raised the chalice into the air, the wine now consecrated. "Take this and drink from it, for this is the chalice of my blood, of the new and eternal covenant," he intoned.
Our Father. Amen.
"Through him, with him, in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honour is yours, almighty Father, forever and ever."
"Amen," Dante replied out aloud, as he always did at home.
For though he spoke to himself, he knew it was to the Lord God he spoke.
For the Lord always listened.
aleb felt his cock rise as his old man wiped the bloodied knife on his boxer shorts, and placed it on the cat cage. Luna would never hiss and spit at him again.
He watched as Derek turned to face him and his brother knights, to offer thanks for the gifts of pipe crack and cat's blood from his makeshift altar.
Derek said, "We will now pray so that our sacrifice is accepted."
The sex magick rite began. Derek motioned Caleb to come closer. Dipping his hands in the chalice filled with Luna's blood, Derek wrote Dante's name three times on the Caleb's chest. Caleb did the same to Derek. Then Derek raised the chalice into the air. "Take this and drink from it, for this is the chalice of blood of the new and eternal covenant," he intoned. The chalice was passed from brother to brother, as they drank in silence. No one laughed. No one giggled. They killed their eyes. They stifled their erections. Their focus was intense. Derek had trained them well. With the remaining blood, each brother dipped his finger in the chalice, and drew the symbol of a third eye on another brother's forehead. And for the last of the remaining blood, each brother dipped his paint stained penis in the chalice, held hands in a circle around the pentacle, and began to sway, pendulum cocks swinging side to side. That was Caleb's signal. On his knees, he crawled on to the mattress encircled by his rocking band of brothers, and began in turn to hungrily suck the blood off their drooping, dripping foreskins. This was the signal for the brother knights to unsheath their swords, as each began to harden in Caleb's blood soaked mouth. "Ho's anus to the highest. Ho's anus to the highest." They began their well practiced incantation, breaking their circle of hands, as Caleb clutched at his wooden seal, and lay back on the homemade futon. "Holy Lord of hosts. We are full of your morning glory. Blessed are we who come in the name of the Lord." One brother raised Caleb's head and brought a small brown bottle to his nose. Caleb sniffed deeply. Three times. Another raised Caleb's legs into the air. "Ho's anus to the highest. Ho's anus to the highest." They all incanted again, as Caleb's feet were placed as far back over his head as they would go, to lay his raw hole exposed. The symbol of the third eye was drawn around its darkened, creased edges with the last dregs of blood in the chalice. Derek raised a hand and pointed at Caleb. "Take this and eat of it, for this is the body the Lord gives up to you." The three remaining brothers, one by one, spread Caleb's cheeks wide and placed their mouth over his hole in an exaggerated pluckered kiss, to blow a long plume of crack smoke from their lungs into Caleb's third eye. They kept their mouths over his pulsing, winking slit, as Caleb expertly opened his bowels and blew their smoke back in to them. Crack to crack blowback, Downland style. Smoky inhaled breath became salivic probing tongues, became bloodied digging fingers, became soiled punching fists. The knights huffed and puffed and blew Caleb's house down. He could accept three of his brothers in his mouth, now, while two entered his prolapsed hole, as he rocked, back and forth, like a baby in a cradle. "Through him, with him, in him, in unity," Derek commanded. "Holy Lord of hosts. Blessed are we who come in the name of the Lord," the brother knights incanted, as they fucked Caleb in unison. "Our Father. Amen." From the distance of the altar, Derek watched this orchestration devised from the Grimoire and his own emptiness. Did he really believe in any of this? Who knew? You couldn't tell just by looking at him. "Now annoint the seal," he barked, when he had seen enough degredation to get him well and truly hard. The five loyal knights came out of Caleb and stood over the wooden seal across his chest, spitting at it, and stroking their stinking wet shafts. Derek entered Caleb with a grunt, and as his hands gripped Caleb's throat, he arched his back higher and higher with each thrust, to finish deep inside his boy. He spat a huge gob of spit into Caleb's open, unsquealing mouth. As the knights came all over Caleb's chest, and Derek's grip tightened, Caleb in his delirium managed to think a final thought. If this doesn't get that faggot off his high horse, then nothing will. And then he blacked out.
ante made his way home from his Church, feeling renewed and full of hope.
The sun was up. The day was new. Spring had arrived in all its glory. He turned his face to the sun, and welcomed its warmth on his skin. It filled him with joy, and he began to sing as he walked. Maybe, he thought, in time, he could change this wave of hatred and animosity that surrounded him, for reasons that escaped him, and which he could not understand. He just had to be patient, and trust in God.
As he came to the intersecting alleyway of his block, he turned the corner to see the grass verge of his flat filled, as usual, with a crowd of Angelo's friends.
It still served as constant reminder of his loss, but it also reminded him that amongst these group of hooded figures there were good people. The Queen of Sheba. Angelo. Even Caleb, free from his poison. They were just, in their own ways, trying to live the life God gave them.
Everyone walked their own path.
They must walk theirs, Dante thought as he neared his home, and I must walk mine.
He stopped walking, suddenly.
He saw something that looked like a rag of bloodied black fur lying at the bottom of the communal steps. Dante stared. What litter had his uninvited guests left for him to tidy up now?
His steps slowly came to life, his eyes widened, as the realisation of what he saw hit him.
Luna. It was Luna.
He did not notice the chatter of the crowd die down as he approached the cat. No one took out their smartphones, but no one left, either. The five loyal knights were amongst the crowd, their foreheads still raw from rubbing Luna's blood off their brow, but they did not smile. They all watched, curious to see if the Devil of Downland could grieve.
Dante gently, very gently, lifted Luna from where he had been thrown, and took him in his arms.
He did not cry. He did not speak. He ignored the people around him, as though they were not there.
He moved over to his kitchen window, and as he did so, the crowd moved away. He laid Luna on the ground, and began to dig at the soil beneath his window, with his bare hands, and did not stop until he had dug a hole deep enough to bury him.
It was a Sicilian tradition to give a loved one a final kiss, it was said that only then would their soul be released to God. So, before he laid Luna to rest, he kissed his forehead, as he had done so many times, one last time. The cat's sweet scent hit his senses, and Dante recognised it. It had been the same with his Mama. Sicilians believed that those departed with this scent were heavenbound. Dante believed it, too. And he was glad.
He lay Luna carefully in the ground, and covered him. When done, he laid his hands on top of the soil.
He whispered to his sleeping friend, "My dear Luna, I would have walked a thousand miles with you. I would have waited a thousand years for you."
He remembered his Church Latin, then.
Exaudi orationem meam.
Hear my prayer.
Father, hear my prayer now. From my arms I send Luna to yours. He likes his morning walks. Tell him to wait for me, as I would wait for him.
Then he stood up and faced the crowd, and spoke to Baba Mamba's children.
"I place my cat here for I do not know the truth of what happened to him. But the truth is not like the dead body of Luna. The truth is a seed that may be hidden deep in the earth today by those that did this, thinking it gone and buried, but the truth does not die with Luna. It grows. Silently, from its buried place, like the flowers that will grow over him, to reach the surface and bloom its existence tomorrow."
He searched the faces in the crowd. No one looked away. No one spoke.
"I told your master this. I tell you know. The truth comes to us all in the patience of time. And the truth of Luna's death is that some day someone will pay the price of what they have done. God knows all, sees all, and collects all debts."
With that, Dante went home.
He shut his broken door, and shut up his broken heart.
Coda | (Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord — Exodus 20:12)
oes anyone know what lies in wait for them around the corners of their lives?
And if they did, would they have the courage to walk it?
No, Dante thought, I wish I had not come to this country. Luna would still be alive. A good soul died because of me, of who I am.
I no longer have that kind of courage.
So, he fixed the broken lock on his door, and kept it closed.
He sang less. Cooked less. Exercised less. Talked to himself now and then to reassure himself he was fine.
For the Lord always listened.
But his nervousness returned. His mistrust of people returned. When he lost his only true and loyal friend in Downland, he changed to remain the same.
Then one morning, three weeks after Easter, he woke to trails of bright sunlight reaching out to him through the gaps in his bedroom curtain. He heard his Mama's voice in his head.
Never let go of who you are. Wherever your Papa and I are, we will be proud of you, and we will always be with you.
He knew today was La Festa della Mamma and he felt like cooking again. He would make his Mama's pastries and donate them to his local Church.
He looked at her portrait, its frame mended, but its glass still cracked.
"Good morning, my love. Do you know what day it is today? Mother's Day, my darling. I will cook in celebration of you."
He dressed and entered his kitchen.
For the first time, since Luna's death, he opened his kitchen window, wide.
aleb was choking, but not in the usual way. He was choking with rage.
"I don't get it. I've walked past his kitchen window and his bedroom window, trying to get his attention, but he ain't wantin' what I'm sellin'. It's been weeks now." He pointed to the wooden cross around his neck. "I don't think this seal works."
Derek listened calmly, stoically at the kitchen table. He let Caleb talk these days, to vent out his frustrations. As long as it wasn't directed at him, it was good for Derek to hear his boy voice what was in his mind, too.
He hadn't believed in the farcical ritual he had partly invented. But he had thought losing Luna would have isolated Dante enough to reach out for a friend. Instead, his neighbour had become a recluse who now wouldn't be smoked out so easily.
Caleb suddenly sniffed the air in the kitchen. "You smell that?"
Due to the way the maisonettes had been built, with cheap building materials for its floors and cavity walls, it meant that smoke and odour travelled up and down these thin pathways as easily as sound.
"The weirdo's started cooking again. What gives?"
"It's Italian Mother's Day," Derek said quietly. He had overheard Dante speaking to himself in the bedroom.
Two ideas, two new plans, one short term and one for the duration, slowly took seed and began to grow in his mind.
"Jesus," Caleb said, needing a fix badly, his anger still rising. "She's dead man. These Sicilians sure do have the hots for their Mama. Can't he move on? Move fast, move slow, but go, go, go."
"I have an idea. Two actually," Derek said.
Caleb quietened down to listen.
As Derek talked, Caleb's anger subsided. He began to smile. His wide, Cheshire cat grin.
ante baked.
He thought of his parents. How much they had loved each other. How much they had loved him.
He realised how lucky he had been to have such a foundation of love to fall back on. It truly was like a protective cradle that you never left; it rocked you to sleep, comforted you when you woke, and protected you in times of harm. Like a lullaby to a babe in a mother's arms.
He felt his Mama's loving arms around him, now, as he began to sing.
erek listened to Dante sing.
He had sent Caleb down to carry out his first idea. To trigger Dante into a violent rage against himself, which the police would just happen to witness.
He was lucky that way.
And as for the second idea, he thought, as he picked up his smartphone to dial his mother's number, it was pure genius. Devilish, in fact.
The smell of Dante's cooking filled his kitchen.
What goes up, can go down.
What if what went down to Dante wasn't the harmless smell of Sicilian pastries?
Derek smiled one of his rare, genuine smiles.
Religion had taught him that what you can't convert, you had to kill.
Life had taught him if a person knows they can get away with something, they are capable of anything.
And they would get away with this. It was silent. It could creep. Like a stable animal to an innkeeper's door. And no one would ever know.
No one, except Caleb and his brother knights, would know of the poison they planned to enter Dante's home and his mind. He would keep his mother's connections out of this one.
The call was answered.
Hello, Mum," Derek said.
ante had finished in the kitchen. He thought he would lie down as he waited for the pastries to bake.
A noise suddenly awoke him. It came from the kitchen. He had forgotten to close the window.
He rushed in to see the window sill empty, the window closed in on itself, and his Mama's planters gone.
Stolen. But who would want to steal pots with tomatoes and peppers?
Without thinking too much about it, he ran outside, barefoot.
He noticed Caleb run around the corner of an intersecting alleyway. He ran after him, but stopped at the corner, and turned back on himself.
He waited and watched, as Caleb, who had simply run around the block, came around the corner of the alleyway at the other end. The wooden cross around his neck swung side to side like a pendulum.
Dante did not move, but watched as Caleb stopped running, and started his way back to Dante's communal steps. He spat at Dante's bathroom window, and then began the walk up the steps to his neighbour. His Mama's pots in his swollen, red hands.
"They are my Mama's pots," Dante shouted. "Give them back."
Caleb froze at the sound of Dante's voice. He spun around.
"Pay me for them," he said.
"You do not need money," Dante said, walking up to him. "You have a husband to provide for you."
Caleb's face turned a russet red. A sudden truth spoken out loud sometimes hits harder than a slap in the face. "What the fuck you on about?"
"Is not the man who lives above me your husband? The one who rapes you nightly?"
"I am not gay," Caleb spat back, still in denial, still hating Dante's outspoken honesty.
"You are as gay as I am," Dante remarked. "Give me back my Mama's pots."
"What? Your mother, the ghost? Fuck your mother," Caleb said, and threw them on the steps, around the same place he had thrown Luna's exsanguinated body.
The pots smashed, and the sound rang out to shatter the eerie silence of the street. No resident opened their door. No window opened, even out of curiosity. But the unnatural silence felt as though Downland was holding its collective breath.
Before Dante could react, Caleb ran in through Derek's open front door. Derek came out. Calmly walked to where Caleb had stood, and stood himself, his hands in his jean pockets, staring at Dante with an icy stare.
Dante stared back.
Neither moved.
Ah, Dante thought, a little of the truth blooms at last.
Dante's temper began to flare, finally. The pact he made to keep that Sicilian temper hidden, now lay in pieces with his Mama's planters.
But before Dante even had time to speak, two police officers came around the corner.
Derek pointed at Dante. As he spoke, his voice ranged from weak to strong, as though he wasn't sure what tone the performance required. "That's him there. The crack head who lives below me. He tried to smash my door in with those. The psycho needs locking up."
The police officers, as if on cue, ran over and grabbed Dante. They began to search him for drugs.
Dante fought.
Two officers became four.
And in Derek's flat, the real drug addict, laughed with glee, safe and sound.
aba Mamba stood with one of his knights, a boy still loyal to him. They watched as Dante was handcuffed by four officers and escorted into the police car.
"What are we doing exactly?" The boy asked in a lilting Irish accent. "When did we go over to the side of the pigs? Are we the good guys now, or are they the bad guys?"
Baba Mamba sighed. "We're all on the same side, Danny boy. That's what you never figured. There's no right or wrong, only who you don't like. Today it's Dante, tomorrow it could be--"
"Us?" The boy asked, finishing his sentence, but Baba Mamba did not reply.
hen the wheels of a large machine are set into motion, no one can predict where it will go, not even those carrying the keys. But the evil that had come creeping to Downland Street, and spoke to the residents in the shadows of the night, had come to stay under the guise of a protection racket, and as regulator and owner of the street.
Things changed, and people were married to those changes, for better or worse.
For one of Downland's residents, however, back home after ten hours in a holding cell, in time he would come to understand that evil does not change.
Evil does not sleep. It lies awake, in waiting.
For soon, very soon, while Dante slept, the infernal duo above him, and their legion of hooded knights on bike back below, were going to poison the very air he breathed.
For Dante, like evil, this truth would not change. But like change, everyone is married to the truth of what they do. However deep it may be buried, the truth does die.
It grows.
Published 29 April, 2026
