Chapter 3 Maria exorcise pope
1379 Words
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*Chapter 3: Maria Exorcises the Pope*
Silence thickened the air. The Pope stood still at the altar, his arms outstretched, his voice low and guttural, chanting in a language no living soul could recognize.
The incense turned black.
The chandeliers flickered until each candle hissed out, one by one.
Lucia grabbed Maria and pulled her back, shielding her with her own body. Gabriella and Uriel stood paralyzed—unable to believe what they were witnessing.
Maria’s eyes, however, were locked on the Pope. She tilted her head, confused. Her heartbeat slowed. The whispers that usually haunted her mind had grown… quiet.
“I know that voice,” she whispered.
The Pope turned to face her.
A strange smile tugged at his lips. “Daughter,” the voice rasped. “The world rejected you. But I never did.”
Lucia tried to move her back again, but Maria took a step forward.
The flames from the melted crosses re-ignited, flickering around her tiny frame. But they didn’t burn her.
She kept walking.
“You’ve always been mine,” the voice said through the Pope’s mouth.
“I’m not yours,” Maria said. Her voice was still soft… but steady.
Something in her chest burned—like light pressing outward from inside her ribs.
Gabriella finally screamed. “Stop her! She’ll be damned!”
But Ruth grabbed her arm. “Look.”
Maria raised her hand toward the Pope.
His body trembled.
The boy Ed—now awake again—crawled into Lucia’s lap, sobbing. “It’s him,” he whispered. “The shadow… he said she was his queen.”
Maria’s fingers curled. Her eyes flashed—red as blood.
And for the first time, she spoke in the *demon’s tongue*. But it wasn’t invocation. It was *command*.
The Pope collapsed to his knees.
The cathedral trembled as the voice screamed from within him. “*No!* You were mine! You were promised!”
But Maria didn’t flinch.
She spoke again—and light exploded from her palm, striking the Pope’s chest.
The spirit ripped out of him like smoke pulled from a chimney, shrieking, twisting in mid-air, until it burst into flame—and was *gone*.
The Pope crumpled, unconscious but alive.
The candles re-lit themselves. The melted metal turned to ash. The air smelled like roses… then nothing.
Maria collapsed.
Lucia caught her.
“She’s breathing,” Ruth whispered, touching her wrist.
Gabriella knelt beside them, crying for the first time.
“She’s not evil,” she said. “She’s… not evil.”
Lucia’s hands trembled as she brushed Maria’s hairless head.
“No,” she said softly. “But she’s not just a child either.”
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*Chapter 3: Maria Exorcises the Pope
The Vatican bells tolled low and slow, echoing through the marble chambers and vaulted ceilings of the basilica. Though the air had settled, tension still gripped every corner of the sacred space. Maria lay unconscious in Lucia’s arms, her skin pale but glowing faintly—almost angelic, though her red eyes, now closed, reminded the onlookers of something unexplainable.
Whispers filled the basilica like wind rustling through dry leaves.
“She cast it out…”
“That child faced the Devil…”
“Is she a vessel?”
“No, she’s something… else.”
The exorcists, clad in their dark cassocks, arrived moments after the light cleared. Six in total, flanked by Vatican guards. They carried prayer books, silver flasks of holy water, and crucifixes. But they came too late.
The demon was gone—exorcised not by trained clergy, but by a child.
By Maria.
: The lead exorcist, Father Lionel, approached the Pope who was still unconscious, his body now stable, but marked by deep claw-like welts across his chest. A sign of spiritual warfare. The boy, Ed, sat huddled nearby, clutching Lucia’s robes, eyes glassy with lingering fear.
“She did this?” Father Lionel asked.
Lucia nodded slowly.
“It was inside the Pope. Possessed him after manifesting through the boy. Maria… stood before it. She spoke its language. Commanded it. And it obeyed.”
The other priests exchanged glances.
Father Lionel’s gaze shifted to Maria. “This is… impossible.”
Gabriella, still trembling, snapped. “She’s a child! She should be protected, not feared!”
“She’s no ordinary child,” he said.
Uriel stepped forward. “No. She’s more. And you people have used children before… but never have you seen one so powerful.”
“Careful, Sister,” one of the younger exorcists said coldly. “Power is not always a blessing.”
Ruth tightened her arms around Maria’s limp form. “She saved your Pope. Without her, he’d be burning in hell. And all of you with him.”
***
Three days later, a formal summons was issued from the Holy See.
: Maria’s case was to be reviewed in front of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith—a rare tribunal, usually reserved for heresy, miracles, or extreme exorcism phenomena.
Lucia, Ruth, Gabriella, and Uriel were escorted with Maria—now barely speaking—to the Apostolic Palace. Rome stretched around them like a ghost city. Every priest, nun, bishop and cardinal who heard of the child called her by different names:
*La Figlia Rossa* — the Red Daughter.
*La Vergine Maledetta* — the Cursed Virgin.
Or simply…
*Maria Posa*.
The tribunal chamber was intimidating—red velvet drapes, high ceilings, golden murals of saints and martyrs… and twenty-two men in robes of scarlet and black. Among them sat the recovered Pope, pale and humbled, but alive.
Maria sat quietly at the center of the circular room, her feet not touching the floor, her hands folded.
Lucia, standing behind her, was forbidden from speaking.
The questioning began.
“How did she learn the language of demons?”
“She was never taught,” answered Uriel. “It came to her.”
“Is she possessed?”
“No,” Ruth said sharply. “She banished the spirit, not hosted it.”
“Why did the Holy Water boil?”
“Because it was rejecting her,” said Gabriella, though her voice faltered. “Or… maybe, reacting to something within her.”
: The Pope, eyes heavy, finally spoke. “That child… I saw something in her… older than this world.”
The chamber fell silent.
“She looked into my soul,” he said. “And she did not flinch.”
A cardinal raised his voice. “Then the Church must decide. Is this girl a miracle—or a weapon?”
Father Lionel stood. “We propose Maria Posa be placed in protective custody—within Church walls. Studied. Watched. Trained if possible. Her power is immense, and dangerous in the wrong hands.”
Lucia’s voice rose before she could stop herself. “She is not an object!”
“Silence, Sister!” the tribunal president barked.
Lucia stepped forward anyway. “She’s a child. She plays with dolls. She cries when she has nightmares. She’s not some cursed artifact! You want to cage her—because you fear her!”
The room bristled.
“She is the Church’s concern now,” another bishop said. “For the good of the world.”
Maria finally lifted her head.
Her red eyes, glowing faintly again, stared into the heart of every man in the room.
“If I stay here,” she said softly, “will I see the stars?”
The room fell completely quiet.
“No,” the Pope replied with sadness. “You will not.”
***
That night, Lucia wept as Maria was taken to the Basilica’s inner sanctum—a section of the Vatican few ever entered. A room designed to contain relics… or threats.
Her room had no windows.
No mirrors.
Only a single iron crucifix above her bed, and a locked door.
She said nothing as she sat on the cot. But her eyes stayed open the entire night.
In her dreams, smoke poured through the cracks of the ancient walls, and a familiar voice whispered:
*“Daughter… they fear you because they know you are mine.”*
*“But you are more than mine. You are the future.”*
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- Writer
