Opening my eyes took more effort than it should have. The lights were bright and stung my vision. My throat felt dry and painfully stuck to itself when I attempted to swallow. I made little pained sounds when I tried to speak. Water, I need water, I tried to say. My noises and minor movements brought about a commotion around me. I could hear voices and feet running to and fro. The air smelled of chemicals but under that was the smell of sickness and death.

One arm seemed to be nonfunctional so I used the other to shield my eyes. More footsteps. Then all around me shutters closed and the dimness soothed my eyes. Someone held my head and pressed a cup of cold water to my lips. I choked and spit and it was taken away to be replaced by a cup of warm broth. This went down much more easily. I was suddenly aware that I was ravenous. I would have gulped down the whole bowl but someone removed it from my lips. An unfamiliar female voice said, “There, there. Slowly.”

Looking up, her features came into focus. She spoke again, “We thought we’d lost you. The doctor will be pleased you’re back.” With the mention of the doctor, I saw her uniform for what it was: that of a nurse. I tried to sit up but couldn’t. Looking down I could see that my arm was strapped to the gurney. Strapped. Trapped.

I was trapped in a hospital.

“No. No,” I began muttering. Not again. I wouldn’t live in an asylum! I struggled but strong arms held me down. Lots of arms. Men. Touching me. Nothing good would come of this. “No. No. No! No!” My objections became increasingly loud. I’d rather die. I was so weak; they must have drugged me.

Shouting filled the air around me. Someone close said my name repeatedly. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t move. I had to get out. I was strong and I would be free. Jo joined me up front; she took the helm. Gasps all around. Jo said, “Get your damn hands off us.”

They did. Jo’s arms were smaller, like they were when I was a young girl. She easily wriggled out of the straps holding our arm. A tearing feeling burned in the hollow of the inside of my arm opposite my elbow. Sitting up brought pain and Sally replaced Jo. Again the room filled with gasps.

A man’s voice, somewhat familiar, said, “Get it out of her now.”

That set a new panic. They were taking my baby from my womb without consent. “No! No! Do not touch her!” said Mary Martha as she roared to the front, replacing Sally. Murmuring rather than gasps followed but the effect was the same.

“Ramillia, Ramillia, it is us.” Mary Martha’s eyes shot to the face of the man speaking. His eyes were obstructed with some sort of goggles covered in gears. I recognized Ed. He continued talking. “Please let the nurse remove the needle from your arm. You are hurting yourself.”

We looked down at my arm and saw blood. We also could see that the gown had become tousled in my struggles and more skin showed than was proper. Effie shot to the front and Mary Martha went back to the meadow. We were young and thin again and the gown could be adjusted to cover more. Now I knew what the gasping was about.

Each time an other came to the front, I physically changed. It must have been incredibly shocking. I was thankful Marge hadn’t come to the rescue. I would have ended up in a circus sideshow. “Thanks a lot,” she said sarcastically through my mouth. Her American accent came through. “That is not what she meant and you know it,” Effie chastised.

I pushed them back. Perhaps nudged them was a better fitting word. I gestured the nurse forward. She hesitated for a second and then came and removed the needle connected to a tube and hanging container of water. When she left I told Ed, “I cannot have hospital gossip.”

He replied, “Your nurse and doctor are very rich people now. They would not do anything to jeopardize that.”

Auley jumped in. “We also used more traditional threats. They know what would happen to them should the new hospital owner’s secrets get around.”

They had purchased the entire hospital in my name, bought my attendants’ silence, and threatened their lives. “What were they doing to me?” I asked suspiciously.

Ed’s face lit up. “It is a new technique. They put fluids directly into a person’s veins. When you would not wake up, I offered a small fortune to any doctor who suggested a treatment to keep you alive. It worked.”

“Barely,” I muttered. Or maybe it was one of the others. “Wait, how long have I been…” I could not think of a more appropriate word than, “under?”

“Nearing a month now,” answered Auley.

Andrew confirmed, “Since the day the Pope came to see you.”

Theodore! “What about the…?” I could not bring myself to say body but they knew what I asked.

“Taken care of,” was the answer.

The discussion in the meadow grew intense and required my attention. Each other had an opinion about how long we’d been unconscious, Theodore’s death, owning a hospital, needles delivering liquids, and doctors taking liberties with our unconscious body. They all talked at once. “Quiet!” I yelled.

Ed pulled a chair close to my bed. “It is not just you and Sally in there anymore, is it?” He nodded to my head.

I said nothing but he looked as if I had.

“Some of us suspected as much. Is there anything we need to know?”

I liked the way he’d phrased it. He wasn’t intruding. This wasn’t about gossip. He asked if there was anything they needed to know. My men were still my men; concerned for my well-being and safety. I shook my head no.

“Do you need our help…dealing with any of them?”

I blinked at him for a moment. Every other had fallen eerily silent, as if awaiting my answer. “I often may want to kill them but no. The others hold parts of me without which I would cease to be myself.”

Some of the men took me at my word. Others looked at each other and I knew they thought I was insane. It mattered not. None of them could do any harm to my others, not from out here. And I wasn’t completely certain that I was fully sane either. Was that the reason for so few female Incola? I had tried to commit suicide via the legal system and my others had stopped me.

I looked around and noticed the room. It was massive, one that might be used to house hundreds of people during an epidemic, but I was the only patient. There were just as many beds as normal but they were occupied by my men. They had moved in with me, surrounding me with protection. Not all of the beds were occupied. I started to ask, “Where is everyone?” but I did not make it to the last word.

Andrew scrunched up his face in disgust. “Paetus fled. He abandoned you as soon as you fell.”

At first I was angry too. Then I remembered that without me, Paetus had little protection from the men he had used so harshly as Carriers. “He had little choice. Are the rest of the men lodging elsewhere? What of Theodore’s men?”

Auley spoke then, keeping his face neutral. “Theodore’s men fell sick with the illness as soon as he was dead. It was more severe and many of them died.”

Ed elaborated, “We believe it was because he was unaffected by it and the contagion built up in their systems. As soon as his hold on them released, the illness exploded.”

“The few who survived were allowed to leave with any of our men who felt the same way.”

I sat up straight at that. My arm hurt and so I favored the other. Andrew assisted me and added a pillow behind my back for support. Sally spoke to me internally but when I did not echo her thoughts, she jumped to the top. She said, “They could have families and birth new Incola. They could undo all we are trying to do.”

No gasps this time. Most of the men did not notice the small differences between Sally and I. The scant centimeters difference in height was negated by our seated position. Our eye color too was a fluctuation of shade, nothing noticeable with the shutters closed as they were. The ones that did notice knew Sally and made no sign.

Ed, the most versed in medicine, explained. “We gave each man a choice. Any could leave if they so desired but would have to submit to a medical procedure that assures they never become fathers. At first only a handful chose to undergo the surgery but then the longer you were in the coma, the more men got the surgery. It helped that they could see the success stories of the men before them. They accept that they will never have families.”

I shied away from thinking about what such a procedure would entail. That solution satisfied Sally. I was not so sure.

 

Spain would be our next location and then we would go straight to Rome.

Dawn had sailed to India but these other places had ancient Incola, both of which knew of me. We needed to visit and infect before they knew the extent of my methods of freeing Carriers. Spain was closer to New York than Rome and so we went there first. Same as before, I traveled with Ed in the skyship, Precious Lady, and the rest of the men traveled by boat below.

We dropped down for supplies but mainly enjoyed the solitude. Ed showed me his notebooks where he jotted down ideas and sketches for inventions he’d been thinking of. We discussed them and he made little changes and I made suggestions about things I might need for our travels. It was great fun. I felt as close to Ed as I had ever felt with anyone in my life.

We had no trouble at port this time for there was no reason to quarantine the ship. We were greeted by Incola Juan’s men and taken to him straight away. We dined and I pretended to entertain his marriage proposal. He showered me with gifts, even giving me a beautiful Spanish castle. He was a perfectly gracious host and had he and I been normal, well as normal as ultra-rich nobles can be, it would have been a reasonable match.

We left and headed across water for Rome before he and his men fell ill. It must seem odd to a modern person that I was able to travel faster than the news about me. This was a time before modern advancements. The world now is so much smaller than the one I was born into. Additionally, people had a tendency not to spread word of me. I killed almost as often as I left Incola alive. I believe they feared my retribution should they gossip and hinder the spread of my blight. They were right, for in the end, I have returned and killed every one, even those I loved.

Rome was as beautiful as you might imagine. Opulent, grandiose, gilded; these are the words that come to mind when remembering that place. It all paled in comparison to St. Peter’s Square, St. Peter’s Basilica, and the Apostolic Palace. Here there was a display of wealth at a disgusting level. To think of all the good that could have been done with the money all of this had cost. A charitable organization, if that truly was at its core, would have put the wealth to better use.

The piazza and colonnade, four columns deep, in front of St. Peter’s were a great waste of precious space. There were and are fountains and statues, all honoring past Popes and apostles and saints. The Basilica is the largest church in the world and a complete flaunting of wealth. It took one hundred and twenty years to construct and the dome dominates the skyline of Rome, even to this day. As we watched people approach, they appeared to shrink, being dwarfed by the scale of this building.

Inside was even more impressive and worrisome. I always lived in fine houses, but I never built myself a palace nor set my home up to be revered as sacred. Inside were a number of sculptures in niches depicting popes and founders of religious orders, all hailing them as great and holy men, and a variety of elaborately decorated chapels. Every surface was covered with sculptures, paintings, or was gilded with gold. The baldachin, a giant sculpted bronze canopy over the high altar meant to intimidate, did its job.

No one would listen to me and indeed many tried to show me the exit. I made a scene. Not enough of one to cause us to be arrested, but enough that a group of bishops took note. As they approached me I noticed that my antics amused a cardinal standing in one of the alcoves with his acolytes. His smirk was momentary and only when the men around him looked away did he smile at me. He was lovely, so unlike the other high ranking church officials. Young, having just reached his prime, to be so advanced in career. His hair was dark, shiny, and full. His eyes, clear and sparkling brown. His teeth were straight and stain-free, and his long, lean body was kept fit with exercise.

I felt my budding wrinkles smooth themselves. I was growing younger by the second as Effie floated to the top. I looked away from the man who attracted me. As my lust faded so did Effie. When I looked, the cardinal and his group had left me at the mercy of a group of bishops and lower priests.

The Pope was too busy to see me, I was told. I assured them that, if they would only pass word to him that Lady Ramillia had come, he would see me. The bishops refused; most had a look as if I were less than an insect. I could practically hear them thinking about the audacity of a foreign, non-Catholic woman demanding audience with His High Holiness. With uncovered legs no less!

It wasn’t until an inquisitive younger bishop’s attention caught on Ed’s mysterious goggles that we got anyone to pay attention. He was an inventor as well and spoke with Ed, through me as an interpreter in Italian, at great length about the goggles that could allow the eyeless man to see. We told him about our blunderbuss and catalog and how it worked, though Ed said it was for the detection of men “possessed by evil and in need of exorcism.” It was a stroke of genius. We convinced him this was the reason for our visit. He too was interested in the marriage of scientific technology and religion.

He managed to do what the others had not. He had me exit the church. The Pope did not reside in the basilica, after all. He certainly would not hold audience there. We went to this young bishop’s workshop. He spoke mostly of science and technological advances. He and Ed fed off each other’s energy and intellect. I knew he was one of these religious men who chose this life, not for zealous belief, but for the time and access to education it afforded. He was likely from a lower-class family. Without the church the world would have lost this genius. I planned to use my power to make sure the church did what good it could by elevating this tinkerer.

He did not have the ear of the Pope, though he would speak to his superior. This new man—his higher station and ranking of cardinal shown in the ridiculousness of garb, hat, and adornment—agreed to mention me to His Holiness if he got the chance. I knew at first glance that this man also did not join the church for belief. He was greedy. Glutenous. Gross. He joined for the food. The power. This was the type of man I wanted to see laid low.

I told him that the Pope would recognize my name and asked him to say that Lady Ramillia and her tinkerer were here and would like to discuss a spiritual discovery. He warned me that I would never be granted an audience dressed as I was. I would be required to cover up and dress more appropriately. I smiled. He did not know but I had all the power. If someone would just tell the Pope I was here, I felt certain I could dictate his dress in order to meet me in person. I did not say such a thing, as it would be too shocking and might hurt my chances rather than improve them.

We sat in the bishop’s workshop, having left the rest of my men in the public area, and had refreshments and some of the best wine I had ever smelled. Sally knocked the goblet out of my hand before I could take a drink. I couldn’t believe I’d been so foolish. Julian had laced wine with his own blood and fed it to me as a means of riding. I already suspected the Pope used communion in much the same way. Communion consisted of two parts and could be every bit as much about the wine as the wafer. The scientific pontiff scurried about, cleaning my spill, and apologizing.

The pompous cardinal returned in a huff. His face was red and glistening with sweat. He was not alone but had returned with an impressive escort of holy men and brightly colored guards. I leaned back in my chair, enjoying the pontiff’s discomfort at my exposed stockinged legs. He bumbled along not making any sense and then blurted out, “You cannot keep His Holiness waiting.”

“I thought he was too busy to see me.”

“No. No. His schedule opened up and he can receive you now.”

The torture had gone on almost long enough. “But what of my inappropriate attire? Surely I should go away and come again another day, when I am properly covered.”

This buffoon was clearly unaccustomed to apologizing but I would settle for no less. We stood as he stuttered. Sally commented that I might give the man a heart attack and so I ended his suffering. “Please lead the way.” I insisted that the young bishop accompany us as well. The cardinal did not like that but knew he was to do whatever I wanted.

We went directly to the Pope’s quarters. He could have played power games with me, leading me all over the palace, showing who was really in control. He did not because he did not have to. Not toying with me was a power move all its own.

The quarters were large. An office, parlor, and sitting room all in one. There were both more and fewer social rules for this Incola. He did not meet with women and could be more informal, but he had a religious facade to retain. The Pope sat on a throne of sorts. Three young boys, dressed in white robes with gold embroidery, sat on footstools around it. Their pose should have read as relaxed but I could see its forced nature. The rest of the room narrowed until I could see only them.

“Please pour our guest some wine,” he said in that odd accent. His ring-laden, sausage-fingered hand reached toward the boy on his left, whose cringe at the touch was minuscule but noticeable. The Pope saw me notice and anger welled inside. I knew him, his nature. He was like my father. A lover of children. I knew he would punish the boy. He liked pain when the hurting belonged to someone else.

Mary Martha threatened an appearance. Then for a second, when I thought of how it was my fault, Ruth did as well. Sally did her best to keep them placated in our meadow. This was too important a meeting to shift as I almost had in the cathedral.

“None for me,” I said a bit more crassly than necessary. The swift intake of breath by the cardinal at my side said I had breached some rule of etiquette. I knew how I should act but just did not want to. I might be small when compared to this Incola’s religious world but maybe he did not know I was the most important person he would ever encounter. I threw that thought away abruptly when I felt Marge move. That shift simply wouldn’t do, not when it meant that drastic of a physical change.

The Pope had the boy fill his ornate golden goblet, which he quickly drained. I watched him. He was fat, grotesque even, under his beautiful robes. Wispy white hair, yellowed against his mottled, liver-spotted skin. Just under the edge of the gold and jewel encrusted hem of his gown peeked a foot, or at least I guessed it was a foot. The wrapping showed both old, dried pus and fresh seepage. The size and shape spoke to a swollen, misshapen appendage, probably due to gout or maybe leprosy.

He must have seen me looking because he said, “I care not for this mortal flesh. For I will live forever in God’s holy embrace.” His smile was another study in disgust.

He meant that he would ruin this body just as he had all the ones before it. Then he would jump to a new body, probably the young attractive cardinal who had smiled at me earlier, and do it all over again. As old as he was, pain was likely even less of an issue for him than it was for Paetus. Who knows how old he was?

“How many Popes have there been?” I asked him.

He knew that I was really asking how many times he had stolen a Carrier body. “That depends on how it is counted and who is included. I am the two hundred fifty-sixth Bishop of Rome.”

I wondered if they all had been him, in a different body. Had he invented Christianity? Did it even matter? To those that followed the teachings of Christ, the Pope was a symbol. The man mattered little. They did not know that he was truly evil. I felt certain that my escorts had no idea what sat at the head of their religious governing body.

“May we speak in private?” I asked.

“You may certainly not!” declared the torpid cardinal. He huffed, “His High Holiness has given you too much freedom and too much of his precious time.” He turned to the Pope. “Surely she should be censored.”

“Leave us,” was all the Pope said. Everyone except the altar boys turned to go. They knew their place.

“Wait,” I commanded. “I think you should offer me a gift.”

“What did you have in mind, my child?”

“This bishop has a strong mind and, if given the proper support, could invent world-changing things. I would see the cardinal’s living quarters, holdings, and possessions given to the bishop to fund his research.”

The cardinal grew red faced but said nothing, sure the Pope would refuse such an indignity.

“Done,” the Pope agreed. “Anything else?”

“Yes,” I added. “I would like very much that the church stops taking young children into service. They should be old enough to choose for themselves if a life of service is what they want.”

The Pope frowned. I had found his weakness. “That I cannot do. You see, Christ himself said, ‘Let the little children come unto me, and hinder them not, for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these.’ Having them near me is Heaven. And even if it were not, I could not cast them out. These had nothing, nowhere to go, and would have died on the street.”

“Then, please promise me that they will be educated. The next great mind could be among them and I would have them learn of the whole world, not just the Kingdom of Heaven.”

The Pope did not know where I was headed and that scared him. He nodded and I continued. “I request that the bishop be given control over their education.”

He could not see my goal and so he granted my second request. My others worried what the Pope would ask in return.

The bishop took a moment to thank me during the mass exodus. I did not know if proximity infected, so I leaned in close and breathed on his face as I instructed him to never give up his inquisitive nature and open-mindedness. I would not have the Incola Pope take this man over and ruin the genius. Whispering, I told him to give the children a safe place and make an excuse that they must all spend the nights together and in his careful watch. I did not tell him that his pontiff was evil. He’d had enough change and revelations for a day. His head spun and he was too useful to confuse further.

When they were all gone, Ed included, the boys went to a lounge and lay together. The movements were so in unison that I knew this was not a spur of the moment choice but a common nightly practice. I tried to remember that their protection approached and ignored them.

The Pope did the same. When I addressed him formally he said, “Please, call me Peter.”

I froze. Was he saying that he had jumped from Pope to Pope since the Peter of Christ’s time? He mistook my pause.

“Or John, if you prefer. I will take any familiarity you choose.” He laughed nervously and for whatever reason it reminded me of Paetus. I missed that man and wished he was here to help me navigate this new world I’d woken up to. He was not one of my great loves but he had a place in my heart. I wondered how many new people would be able to say that. My capacity for making space in my life dimmed with every other born. I could only protect myself. He spoke and broke my concentration, “It has been many years since I took audience with a woman. It is an unintentional effect of my religion. There were no female Incola so I created a religion that focused on men. Now I do not know how to relate to you. I cannot take a wife.”

The last statement was almost an apology. I tasted bile in my throat. This monster thought I wished to wed, and worse bed, him. “It seems you have less need of me than most Incola, having established your kingdom so fully encompassing the world.”

He chuckled at my compliment. “Even though I need it not, taking tithe is necessary. I hope you understand. I liked your nephew and was saddened by his passing.”

I moved closer, slowly, as not to alert him. I wanted to kill him, but to do so now, before he was trapped in this body by the precious blight, was to give him a new body to start with. I wanted him to suffer the consequences of mistreating a Carrier so completely. “I liked him as well as I could for knowing him as little as I did. I killed him for you.”

“I have not required a death in some time.”

“You needed to see how little I value my Carriers. I am different than any you have known for I can easily replace an army of Carriers. My body is the miracle you portray your god as. I can live forever in the body of my own making. I can do that which other Incola can only dream of.”

My approach became too intense. He believed what I was pushing. He turned to pour himself another drink. The alter boys tried to stop me when I sat in his lap. The throne was big and I pulled my feet beside us, getting as comfortable as possible in the Pope’s symbol of power. Careful not to allow him contact with my exposed skin, I leaned back into him. “I will make a child with all of the major Incola. I will belong to no one man.”

“I thought your only son was killed by a rival Incola.”

I breathed all over him, even though his stench gagged me. Do not tell him about Dawn. She would never be safe again, Sally warned. I hadn’t planned on telling him. I said, “I have no rival Incola, only subordinates and suitors.” I wiggled my backside ever so slightly. I had a plan, if only I could keep from vomiting while I executed it.

“My apologies. This body no longer responds to the feminine wiles.”

I jumped down off his lap. Hand on my hips, I turned to face him, as stern a look as I could manage without giving away my disgust at his implication. His body only responded sexually to young boys.

He rushed to explain, “They all respond to women at first but gradually over the first year my own preferences push theirs out.” So they were his own evil preferences. “No need to fret, my child. This body is old. The Pope can die and I can ride a new one of your choice.”

I clapped my hands and bounced. Laying it on a bit thick, aren’t you? Sally mocked. This Pope was so unaccustomed to interacting with women that he did not notice my erratic behavior, or if he did notice, he assumed it was normal female behavior. “How many do I have to choose from?”

“Theoretically, any baptized male Catholic can be Pope, but tradition says it will be one of my cardinals. There are a little over one hundred and fifty.”

“I want to see them all today to choose.” I needed to infect as many as possible so they would all fall ill at the same time.

“I can arrange something. I will have to lie about your identity; my cardinals do not know of my true nature.” They probably did not know about the child rape either. At least they better not. The idea that a group like this would know of such abuses and overlook them was unconscionable. He continued, completely unaware of my growing anger. “Of course, depending on which you choose, it may take some time to maneuver that man into a position where the others will vote for him to be Pope.”

“That is acceptable. I am on a grand tour of the world. Meeting all of the great Incola families has been fruitful thus far and I haven’t ventured into the East at all.”

“Do be careful. There are places in this world much less civilized than mine.”

I waited with Ed, after having seen and assured my men I was whole and safe, for the Pope to arrange an up-close viewing of all of his cardinals. He told them I had graciously donated to the church, having recently converted. I was to be royalty from some far away country choosing an emissary from among their ranks. I had spoken in a variety of languages already, and though the cover story was thin at best, it seemed a passing excuse. I spoke to each one, getting close enough and spreading my disease throughout the Pope’s highest ranking Carriers.

Again, we left town before the illness took hold. The Pope believed my exit was his idea, to give him time to position my choice for his replacement. He told me that he would feign illness. Nothing too abrupt that might be mistaken for poison; just a man getting old. The various bishops and other clergymen spread around the world would gather around him. That worked for me. I knew he wouldn’t be feigning at all and when they all came back to Rome, he would still be contagious. The fall would take care of itself.