Not yet. Not yet.
By midnight, a team from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith arrived: two exorcists, a canon lawyer, and a cardiologist (for irony, Alistair suspected). They sealed the chapel. They recorded the finger’s movements. They transcribed its prophecies—a coming civil war within the Church, a false pope, a city of bones rising from the Tiber. relic cardinal
Alistair watched in horror as Dr. Amara’s eyes turned solid red. The mummified finger crumbled to dust. And the thing that wore the doctor’s body smiled with too many teeth. Not yet
“It’s just a relic, Sister,” Alistair said. They sealed the chapel
The convent’s chapel smelled of damp stone and old wax. Sister Bernadette, her face pale as the altar cloth, led him to a reliquary behind the main altar. Inside, resting on frayed velvet, was a mummified hand: the index finger raised in perpetual blessing, attributed to a long-forgotten cardinal from the 14th century.