futile, this entire enterprise.
  My heart was hurting me in my chest. I was sweating all over. This was a waste of time. 
"Give me absolution, then," I said.
  "I want to ask something of you," he said. He touched my hand. He was trembling. He 
looked more dazed and perplexed than even before, and very concerned, for my state of 
mind, I assumed.
  "What is that?" I said coldly. I wanted to get away. I had to find a monastery! Or a 
damned alchemist. There were alchemists in this town. I could find someone, someone who 
had read the old works, the works of Hermes Trismegistus or Lactantius or St. Augustine, 
somebody who knew about demons.
  "Have you read St. Thomas Aquinas?" I asked, choosing the most obvious demonologist of 
whom I could think. "Father, he talks all about demons. Look, you think I would have 
believed all this myself last year at this time? I thought all sorcery was for backdoor 
swindlers. These were demons!" I could not be deterred. I went at him.
  "Father, in the Summa Theologica, the first book, St. Thomas talks of the fallen 
angels, that some of them are allowed to be here on earth, so that all of these fallen 
angels don't just fall out of the natural scheme of things. They are here, allowed to be 
useful, to tempt men, and Father, they carry the fire of Hell about with them! It's in 
St. Thomas. They are here. They have... have... bodies we can't understand. The Summa 
says so. It says that angels have bodies which are beyond our understanding! That's what 
this woman possesses." I struggled to remember the actual argument. I struggled in Latin. 
"This is what she does, this being! It's a form, it's a limited form, but one that I 
can't understand, but she was there, and I know it on account of her actions." He put up 
his hand for my patience.
  "Son, please," he said. "Allow me to confide what you have confessed to me to the 
Pastor," he asked me. "You understand, if I do this, he too will be bound by the same 
Seal of Confession as I am bound. But let me ask him to come in and let me tell him what 
you have said, and let me ask that he speak to you. You understand, I cannot do any of 
this without your solemn permission."
  "Yes, I know all that," I said. "What good will this do? Let me see this Pastor."
  Now I was being too haughty entirely, too impertinent. I was exhausted. I was doing the 
old Signore trick of treating a country priest like he was a servant. This was a man of 
God, and I had to get a grip on myself. Maybe the Pastor had read more, understood more. 
Oh, but who would understand who had not seen? There came back to me a fleeting yet vivid 
and searing memory of my father's anxious face on the night before the demons had struck. 
The pain was inexpressible.
  "I'm sorry, Father," I said to the priest. I winced, trying to contain this memory, 
this awful drench of misery and hopelessness. I wondered why any of us were alive, ever, 
for any reason!
  And then the words of my exquisite tormentor came back, her own tortured voice of the 
last night saying that she had been young too, and such a paragon. What had she meant, 
speaking of herself with such sorrow?
  My study of Aquinas came back to haunt me. Were not demons supposed to remain 
absolutely confirmed in their hatred of us? In the pride which had made them sin?
  That was not the sinuous luscious creature who had come to me. But this was folly. I 
was feeling for her, which is what she had wanted me to do. I had only so many hours of 
daylight to plan her destruction and must be on with it.
  "Please, yes, Father, as you wish," I said. "But bless me first."
  This drew him out of his troubled ruminations. He looked at me as if I'd startled him. 
At once he gave his blessing and his absolution.
  "You can do what you wish with the Pastor," I said. "Yes, please, ask the Pastor if he 
will see me. And here, for the church." I gave him several ducats.
  He stared at the money. But he didn't touch it. He stared at this gold as if it were 
hot coals.
  "Father, take it. This is a tidy little fortune. Take it."
  "No, you wait here - or I tell you what, you come out into the garden."
  The garden was lovely, a little old grotto, from which you could see the town sneaking 
up on the right all the way to the castle, and then you could see over the walls far out 
over the mountains. There was an antique statue of St. Dominic there, a fountain and a 
bench, and some old words carved into the stone about a miracle.
  I sat down on the bench. I looked up at the healthy blue sky and the virgin white 
clouds, and I tried to catch my breath inside of myself. Could I be mad? I wondered. That 
was ridiculous.
  The Pastor startled me. He came plunging out of the low arched doorway of the rectory, 
an elderly man with almost no hair at all, and a small bulging nose and ferocious large 
eyes. The younger priest was running to keep up with him.
  "Get out of here," the Pastor said to me in a whisper. "Get out of our town. Get clear 
away from it, and don't tell your stories to anybody in it, you hear me?"
  "What?" I asked. "What sort of solace is this!" He was steaming. "I'm warning you."
  "Warning me of what?" I demanded. I didn't bother to get up from the bench. He glowered 
over me. "You're under the Seal of Confession. What are you going to do if I don't 
leave?" I asked.
  "I don't have to do anything, that's just it!" he said. "Go away and take your misery 
with you." He stopped, clearly at a loss, embarrassed perhaps, as if he'd said something 
he regretted. He ground his teeth and looked off and then back at me.
  "For your own sake, leave," he said in a whisper. He looked at the other priest. "You 
go," he said, "and let me talk to him."
  The young priest was in a total fright. He left immediately. I looked up at the Pastor.
  "Leave," he said to me in his low, mean voice, his lower lip drawing back to reveal his 
lower teeth. "Get out of our town. Get out of Santa Maddalana."
  I looked at him with cold contempt. "You know about them, don't you?" I said in a low 
voice.
  "You're mad. Mad!" he said. "If you speak of demons to people here you'll end up burnt 
at the stake yourself for a sorcerer. You think it can't happen?" It was hatred in his 
eyes, shameless hatred.
  "Oh, poor damned priest," I said, "you're in league with the Devil."
  "Get out!" he growled.
  I got up and looked down into his swelling eyes, his pouting, overworked mouth.
  "Don't you dare break the Seal of my Confession, Father," I said. "If you do, I'll kill 
you." He stood stock-still, staring at me.
  I smiled very coldly and went to pass on through the rectory and away.
  He ran after me, whispering like a steaming kettle. "You misunderstand everything. 
You're crazy, you're imagining things. I'm trying to save you from persecution and 
villainization."
  I turned around at the door to the church and glared him into utter silence.
  "You've tipped your hand," I said. "You're too merciless. Remember what I said. Break 
the Seal and I'll kill you."
  He was as frightened now as the young priest had been.
  I stood looking at the altar for a long while, ignoring him, forgetting him utterly, my 
mind pretending to have thoughts in it, to be construing and planning when all I could do