By Jon Croft
Rome, 2025AD
The blinding glare of a Roman sunset floods the inside of his Mercedes Benz, despite its tinted windows. As he speeds down the Viale dei Parioli, trees lining the exclusive district splinter the suns’ rays into sequential bursts of blazing, miniature supernovas. It’s a cruel strobe effect that triggers nausea and motion sickness in people who habitually forget their Ray-Bans.
Longinus has fond memories of Parioli – but not the Parioli Quartieri of today. In the days of Emperor Tiberius, it was little more than a run-down river district, populated by laborers and shady merchants. In the time of Christ and for centuries thereafter, the Tiber was the main highway of Rome. Food, hides, vegetables, grain, crafts – anything that the countryside could provide found its way on a skiff or barge on its way to the Capital. There, eager buyers would pay premium prices, stocking their businesses to supply the Roman Patrician class with comforts and delicacies. Close to the banks of the Tiber in Rome, the Quartieri – or Quarter – of Parioli was nothing then like it is today. It was just a grimy waterway then…
Modern Parioli today is the choicest and most exclusive real estate in Rome. It is an island of repose, amidst tree-lined streets, iconic villas, elegant small palaces and lush gardens. All this luxury is nestled behind imposing wrought-iron gates that prevent entry from the Viali dei Parioli – it’s main throughfare, a winding road that bisects the entire elite neighborhood.
Longinus calmly addresses his driver in Italian from the back seat.
“Keep going – then head to Luchese’s Ristaurante in Ungheria Square – we’ll dine there and move in after dark”.
His Mercedes slows as it passes a particularly large black wrought iron gate with an elaborate gleaming gold shield affixed to its bars. The shield depicts a Medusa’s head from which extend three legs. The “Trinacria” or Coat of Arms of Sicily. Under the shield is a gold plaque engraved with elaborate script: diMoscallo. There are cameras at the tops of the gate pillars, obviously watching that point of entry.
Longinus has surveilled this location before. The cameras don’t concern him. They’ll find another way in once darkness falls. A wealthy Frenchman named Foucald constructed this villa almost two hundred years ago. At great expense, he created for himself a smaller version of Versailles’s gardens and fountains on its back hectare of land.
Focauld’s renowned Grande Jardin – or Grand Garden – required extensive earthworks and installations of cisterns – all draining into underground catacombs and sluices ultimately connecting to the Tiber River. Even the Ministry of Land Development and Permits in Rome have no records of this ancient water infrastructure maze lurking in the dark corners of historical oblivion.
The imposing Villa is a Swiss cheese of access and exit points.
Longinus and his Gurkha driver – adjutant in military parlance – make their way to Luchese’s Ristaurante where their usual table awaits. Dinner is a two-hour feast and every minute of it is outstanding. Wearing a formal turban, his Sikh companion, Sahib Arjan Singh, eats sparingly and strictly observes his dietary constraints. Not Longinus. He indulges his Epicurean tastes to the fullest. He’s a soldier and he unapologetically eats like one.
As the Centurion attacks his meal, he marvels at how Italian food has evolved from the days of Nero’s Rome to present days. How enterprising and creative Roman chefs combined their basic ingredients of cheeses, tomatoes, spices, veal, beef, pork and grains into gastronomic works of art that conquered the world as entirely as the Roman Legions did.
The legacy of Rome is all around us. Everything we take for granted such as representative government, the Senate, Judicial Codes, finance, aqueducts, roads and cement comes from the Roman Empire and make possible the world we live in today. And the Catholic Church was the midwife for most of it. The Vatican, even today, is a force to be reckoned with.
Longinus knows that it all started with the man whose side he pierced with his spear that black day two centuries ago. The one who restored his sight and redeemed his cursed soul. Jesus.
The foul tunnels and crumbling cisterns are mired in filth and the discarded detritus of centuries past. Some objects are recognizable, and others are not in the cool blue tint of their night-vision eyewear. From rare and iridescent fungi to prosaic empty beer bottles and discarded car parts, it’s a journey through years of Italian urban archaeology. The rancid smell is overwhelming. Their trek leads to a void – and then a broad opening inside a cistern that obviously supplies water to a pump reservoir and overflow for Focauld’s Grande Jardin fountains.
Before long, Longinus and Sahib Arjan Singh are making their way towards the back portico of a magnificent villa, complete with marble walkways and intricately carved balustrades and balconies in the Venetian style. A cluster of feeble, flickering lights from inside the imposing mansion betray a sole location of human activity inside. As Longinus expects – it’s obviously a main hall illuminated by candles in observance of some obscene ritual or right. A low hum of singsong murmuring can barely be heard – the chanting of benighted denizens therein, calling to the “Watchers” – Fallen Angels who joined Lucifer in his rebellion against God and were written of in the Book of Enoch. Longinus knows that these misbegotten souls tonight are raising their voices to Azazel, a Fallen Angel – now Demon. He is beloved of Vampires and has dominion over them.
This is the residence of Dr. Armand diMoscallo, Director of National Hospitals in Italy – and an avowed Satanist. This night is the pagan Holiday of Lupercalia – a violent and sexually charged festival of blood celebrating Satan. According to the forbidden Grimoires, sacrifices of a male goat and an eleven-year-old girl with an intact hymen – are required to complete the blasphemous process. The Codex Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis, a compendium of Satanic rites for all who practice the Vampiric Dark Arts sets forth the ritual in Latin. Longinus himself has studied this book inside the Vatican Library during his training so that he, too, might know the nature of the beast. The mind of his enemy.
According to the Rite, after all participants drink of the eleven-year-old female’s warm blood – it must be warm and fresh – and anoint themselves with the blood of the goat, the Fallen Angel Azazel will present himself to his faithful. And Longinus knows when a Fallen Angel – now Demon – is summoned, a Vampire Khagan or “Elder” must be there to welcome him. He must offer a cup of warm child’s blood to the Master Demon in thanks for his favor. But Longinus wants to confront this Vampire Khagan before any slaying of innocents occurs. His consecrated Gladius will swiftly settle the matter.
The Centurian and Gurkha trudge forward, edging their way along outcroppings and walls of the exquisite building to minimize their exposure to the cameras. Suddenly a sound nearby them causes them to freeze. A security detail sentry is slowly heading their way – obviously doing his rounds. Sahib Arjan draws his Kukri – a traditional Sikh edged weapon about eighteen inches long and bent at its middle – and plows into the sentry like a football linebacker. It is the Sikh way: destroy attackers before they can prepare themselves. Within a minute it’s over. Longinus steps over the sentry’s bleeding corpse and continues towards the growing timbre of chanting voices inside the house.
As they creep towards what appears to be an entry point near the base of the mansion, another sentry emerges from out of the darkness. Longinus leaps into his path and pirouettes into a classic Gladiator’s crouch – then slashes through both of the man’s Achilles tendons. The sentry falls to the ground; his leg muscles fatally severed. His arms flap like a beached fish. The Centurion plunges his Gladius through the sentry’s chest, pinning him to the earth below like an insect on a display card. Longinus’ Gladiator swordplay and the Sikh’s Kukri mastery are a well-rehearsed, deadly ballet dance – silent, fluid and precise. They waste no forward momentum or energy. Each man compliments the other. Blades are the only weapons they carry. Lethal speed is their decisive advantage: strike first, strike fast and strike to kill. As a wise groundskeeper in Scotland once said: Sometimes the old ways are best.
They force their way into the lavish villa through a side service entrance – ripping the lock out by its tumblers with a slide hammer – and silently follow a narrow hallway to a cavernous center Ampitheater that’s lit throughout by red candles. About fifty feet away from them, Longinus and Sahib Arjan see five dark, hooded figures in robes, chanting their maleficent invocation over and over, swaying as if in the throes of religious ecstasy.
“Lucifer Deus – Nos Evocamus Azazel! Lucifer Deus – Nos Evocamus Azazel!”
They’re standing at the points of a large pentagram that’s been cut into the marble floor and outlined with golden inlays at least a foot wide. They evoke the Fallen Angel Azazel with their chants. In the center of the pentagram burns a large brazier. A sacrificial Athame or bloodletting dagger is thrust into the hot embers, consecrating it in flames of Hell to slice the little girl’s throat. She is somewhere nearby but hidden, probably drugged – waiting for the worshippers to ritually slaughter her and gorge on her warm blood. By the smell of the place, the goat has already been slain.
There is no time to waste. The blasphemous ritual is well underway.
Longinus and Arjan charge full-bore and dive into them, slashing and cutting the standing bodies like they’re butchering meat in an abattoir. The Sikh’s Kukri blade deeply hooks two throats before the tall, hooded figure stationed at the northernmost point of the pentagram can react. Longinus immediately sees that pride of place at the top of the pentagram is reserved for the Vampire Khagan. He wastes no time bobbing and weaving, hacking his way through the flesh and bones of the two “inferior” worshippers before confronting the tall Vampire face to face.
The Khagan Vampire howls in outrage and claws onto Longinus. The Centurion meets his impact with his own momentum and instinctively plunges his Gladius deep into the Vampire’s guts. It screams and writhes as Longinus carves his blade ever deeper, mercilessly sawing it back and forth. A sour, sulphureous stench fills the air. Longinus withdraws his sword and steps back – leveraging his legs into a pivot and then jumps upward – and chops his steel downward on the Vampire’s neck.
His forceful impact obliterates the Vampire’s clavicle and causes the hellish sacrilege to scream even louder. It lunges at him in blind frenzy, its reeking mouth and fangs puking blood from the gaping wound in its guts. Longinus draws his Gladius back once more and brings it straight down, severing the things’ other clavicle. The Vampire’s arms are now as limp as rubber – but its eyes remain defiant, red with rage as it heaves death-rattled, wet screams through a blood-clogged windpipe.
Longinus calmly reaches over the dying obscenity and saws off its head. The rest of the thing collapses into its own footprint. Sahib Arjan hands him a Kevlar organ transplant sack – with a red cross on its flap – and Longinus seals the cursed head inside.
He has what he came for.
Without speaking they turn and leave the way they came. They encounter two more sentries the moment they exit the house but slice them to ribbons before the guards can fire their weapons.
Once safely outside the property perimeter Longinus calls the Rome police and reports a disturbance at diMoscallo’s villa. The infamously thorough Carabinieri will soon access the mansion and rescue the little girl – and discover the oozing remains of Dr. Armand diMoscallo, Italy’s erstwhile Director of Hospitals.
Pure evil and politics have once more joined forces in our world. Dr. Armand DiMoscallo’s much-touted brainstorm to “Privatize” Orphanages and Childcare facilities, allegedly “to reduce the national budget” will have to wait – thanks be to God. And the Vampire Elder interested in capitalizing on that deal to ensure an uninterrupted source of fresh, adolescent blood is now missing his head.
Longinus has his prize. Soon Vatican scientists will complete DNA and blood analysis of the Khagan’s head – and ten more just like it. In one week, Longinus will attend a meeting at St. Peter’s Basilica with three Cardinals and Simon Magus. He looks forward to seeing his friend – and learning the secret that Simon and the Vatican experts are hastening to confirm. For now, Longinus is told to wait.
As always, he is but a soldier. If his orders are to wait, he and his Gurkha adjutant will stand down. But something big is happening. Deus Vult.
END OF PART ONE
Copyright, 2025 Jon Croft
Email: vlchek1@gmail.com
NOTE TO READERS: THIS CONCLUDES THE FIRST PART OF THE NOVEL. SEND AN EMAIL – WEIGH IN WITH YOUR THOUGHTS ON FUTURE EPISODES OF VAMPIRE SLAYERS SIMON MAGUS AND LONGINUS. THANK YOU.
