The Vatican clergy was already up and about, walking briskly in the frosty grey dawn of St. Peter’s Square. Sunrise was coming, and the morning snow began to melt almost as soon as it touched the paving stones. Some hardy parishioners had already arrived for the morning blessing, and were milling about in small groups. Most of them knew each other from the surrounding neighborhoods and had been coming each morning for years. The first fleet of tour buses would be arriving soon, and despite the inclement weather of late winter, they relished the early morning. It was the only time they could have the Square to themselves.
The pigeons were swarming around the faithful for breadcrumbs, and some of them were prepared to indulge the pests. The two little girls who sold their roses at the foot of the steps had no use for the pigeons, and shooed them away as they laid out their blanket on a dry spot and arranged their roses for sale. To their way of thinking, pigeons were nothing more than rats with wings. They’d eat your lunch if you weren’t looking.
Several parishioners brought their day-old bread in plastic bags and crushed it by the handful before tossing it high in the air. It was more fun to watch the birds scramble in mid-flight than to see them jostle each other on the ground. As crowded as their aerial feeding frenzies could be, the birds never collided with each other while they were on the wing. Their gyrations were cheap entertainment and amazing to behold, especially up close.
Signor Berlucci tossed a handful of crumbs up toward the Basilica’s dome to watch the acrobatics against the gathering light, and suddenly paused, tilting his head. There was something up on the roof that he’d never seen before, and a flock of enormous black birds were descending upon it. Perhaps they were crows. In any case, he had never seen such a thing on the roof of the basilica. His eyes weren’t what they used to be, and he asked his neighbor Paolo what he thought it was.
Paolo had no idea, and soon the entire clutch of people they were with stood still and tilted their heads back, squinting up at the lip of the roof above the portico.
A passing priest paused and joined them out of curiosity. He was younger than all of them, so his eyes were better and he saw what it was at once. His horrified gasp distracted a group nearby. They followed his lead, looking up as well.
Then a young woman standing with them shrieked in horror, and that brought the entire Square to an abrupt halt. Within moments every voice was silenced, and every eye present was focused on the roof. In the sudden quiet of St. Peter’s Square, they heard the wavering cry of a Hebrew prayer, and realized that as out of place as it was, the prayer must be coming down to them from the roof of the basilica itself.
No one noticed Zamba emerging from the basilica through the Filarete doors. He strode out of the portico, beneath Nano’s family crest and Papal ancestor’s chiseled name, and walked down the steps, grinning at the frozen, horrified faces arrayed in the Square below.
He paused on the second landing and turned back to look up at his handiwork. He was quite pleased with what he had wrought. The screams erupting from the people in the Square behind him were a pat on the back for a job well done.
He turned and continued down the last section of thirteen steps, striding through the stunned, frozen people in the Square as he planned his day, walking toward the brilliance of the rising sun.
As long as he was in Europe, he thought that he really should visit Napoleon’s tomb. He wanted to piss on it, just like he pissed on the statue of Christ. He wasn’t leaving for Haiti until the next morning, so he would have plenty of time to take a commuter jet to Paris and pay his respects, such as they were, and be back at Fiumicino Airport in Rome in time for his flight to Haiti.
The people in the Square were fleeing in horror, rushing past him toward the eastern entrance. The two little girls abandoned their blanket of roses and joined the panicking throng.
Zamba ignored them as they scurried around him. His work was done here. He had made his point, and they would spread the word far and wide.
He suddenly slowed his pace and squinted ahead into the sunlight. The people were gone, but he thought he had just seen something else. What was it? he wondered.
Before he could react, two long iron nails came streaking out of the sun, hurtling directly toward him. The first nail pierced the back of his right hand, forcing his arm to swing behind him and rotating his upper torso to the right. That swung his left arm forward, and an instant later the second nail punched into the back of his left hand, violently rotating him back again.
His palms slapped together behind his lower back, and the point of each nail pierced the palm of the other hand. Then the tips of the nails bent at right angles, stitching his hands together.
He winced in utter surprise, erupting in fury as it dawned on him that his hands had just been firmly pinned behind his back.
Michael the Archangel approached him out of the dazzling sunlight, walking on air above the shiny wet paving stones. His shadow fell on Zamba. The voodoo priest looked up and saw instantly who it was. He glowered and took a defiant step toward the archangel.
A third nail pierced his foot, pinning it to the cold wet stone. Zamba stared down at it, more surprised than in pain, and then looked back at Michael and growled at him, taking another step forward.
A fourth nail pierced that foot as well, stopping him dead in his tracks. He stared down at it, and then looked up and smiled menacingly at the archangel.
“Nails...” he hissed at Michael. “When in Rome, eh?”
Michael didn’t reply. Zamba willed the loa of his iron necklace to come to life, but with a simple wave of his hand, Michael caused Zamba’s necklace to break.
Zamba gasped in dismay as the iron links fell separately to the paving stones all around him, each one transforming into a small black asp. The serpents were attracted by all the blood he was losing. They gathered at his feet, their curious forked tongues tasting the air. For the first time in hundreds of years, Zamba knew real fear.
As his strength left him and his knees grew weak, the asps slithered away in all directions of the compass. Zamba was helpless without them, crying tears of blood as his body began to rapidly shrivel and age.
“Return to dust,” Michael commanded, and so it was.
The dust that had once been Zamba’s frail, ancient body blew across St. Peter’s Square. It mingled in the morning sunshine with a handful of rose petals the wind had picked up from an abandoned blanket, fluttering on the pavement at the base of the thirty-nine steps.