Chapter 24
We are back at Jacob's, and we have the Lance, Asmodeus and Mara are both on the ground, Asmodeus is weak and can barely move as he is winching on Jacob's carpet, but Mara is passed out on the carpet, she is still alive, her pulse still moving, heartbeat normal, the only difference is her temperature gets hotter by the minute, she is having a fever I have never noticed before.
"What happened?" Jacob asked
I explained everything to him "when we got there, we didn't notice a crucifix on the wall and it started taking Asmodeus' powers leaving him and us defenceless, Mara noticed the crucifix and turned it upside down, which bought Asmodeus enough time to get us out" I replied.
"Mara knew better than to disturb a holy relic when it was fighting a spirit from hell," Jacob said while rummaging through the room looking for something
"What happened to her?" I asked
"She has been cursed" He replied
"Do what do we do now?" I was troubled too.
"Let me think," Jacob said to me rather angrily.
He brought down a box from the top of the shelf, opened it and in it was a dagger crafted to look like a cross.
Jacob knelt over Mara chanting some spells, then all of a sudden. Her forehead began bulging, and the thing in her head started moving all around her body, Jacob kept changing the spell then in a swift move he stabbed her hands the same moment the bulge was at the same spot and from the injury black blood that smelt like it was heated over a fire and black smoke came out of Mara, as the smoke evaporated into the air it left with loud scream which broke the glasses and bottles of beer on the table because of the Echo.
Soon after Mara coughed and turned, still asleep but her fever was subsiding, and you could see the visible relief on Jacob's face.
As Jacob lifted her to lay her on the bed, I asked
"How about my uncle, are we leaving him in this state?"
Jacob replied over his shoulders " get a bag of blood from the fridge downstairs and feed it to him".
I went down to grab the bag for Asmodeus, as I opened the fridge, it was stuck with a lot of frozen abnormalities, bags of blood, dead, bats and other birds, even the doves we had just used for the two sacrifices, the head of a lamb, a cat, a dog and goat could be found there.
I remembered Asmodeus and took a bag of blood, close the fridge and ran up the stairs back to him, still in pain on the floor.
I held him up as he grabbed my shirt, and tugged at it, I tore open the blood bag and squeezed it into his mouth, she screamed in pain and I felt darkness run through his veins, moments later he felt relief too and fell asleep in my arms, I lifted him on my shoulder and dropped him to rest on the couch.
Morning came soon enough and I had people I need to check on, I called Mom and figured she was fine I told her I would come to visit soon, I tried to reach Tete but her number wasn't connecting.
So while the whole house was asleep, Asmodeus on the couch, Mara on the bed, Jacob on the chair beside her, I slipped out to check up on Tete at School.
I met her in a lecture hall doing her presentations, she had told me about it but I totally forgot, well I sat at the back and heard her talk.
THE INQUISITION
The inquisition was a judicial procedure and later an institution that was established by the papacy and, sometimes, by secular governments to combat heresy. Derived from the Latin verb inquiro (“inquire into”), the name was applied to commissions in the 13th century and subsequently to similar structures in early modern Europe.
History
In 1184 Pope Lucius III required bishops to make a judicial inquiry, or inquisition, for heresy in their dioceses, a provision renewed by the fourth Lateran Council in 1215. Episcopal inquisitions, however, proved ineffective because of the regional nature of the bishop’s power and because not all bishops introduced inquisitions in their dioceses; the papacy gradually assumed authority over the process, though bishops never lost the right to lead inquisitions. In 1227 Pope Gregory IX appointed the first judges to delegate as inquisitors for heretical depravity—many, though not all, of whom were Dominican and Franciscan friars. Papal inquisitors had authority over everyone except bishops and their officials. There was no central authority to coordinate their activities, but after 1248 or 1249, when the first handbook of inquisitorial practice was written, inquisitors adopted common procedures.
In 1252 Pope Innocent IV licensed inquisitors to allow obdurate heretics to be tortured by lay henchmen. It is difficult to determine how common this practice was in the 13th century, but the inquisition certainly acquiesced in the use of torture in the trial of the Knights Templar, a military-religious order, in 1307. Persecution by the inquisition also contributed to the collapse of Catharism, a dualist heresy that had great influence in southern France and northern Italy, by about 1325; although established to defeat that heresy, the inquisition was assisted by the pastoral work of the mendicant orders in its triumph over the Cathars.
The inquisition declined in importance in the late Middle Ages, though it continued to try cases of heresy—e.g., the Waldenses, the Spiritual Franciscans, and the alleged heresy of the Free Spirit, a supposed sect of mystics who advocated antinomianism—and cases of sorcery. The most vigorous dissenting movements of the 15th century, Lollardy in England and Hussitism in Bohemia, were not subject to its jurisdiction.
Procedures and organization
When instituting an inquiry in a district, an inquisitor would normally declare a period of grace during which those who voluntarily confessed their own involvement in heresy and that of others would be given only light penances. The inquisitor used these confessions to compile a list of suspects whom he summoned to his tribunal. Failure to appear was considered evidence of guilt. The trial was often a battle of wits between the inquisitor and the accused. The only other people present were a notary, who kept a record of the proceedings and sworn witnesses, who attested to the record’s accuracy. No lawyer would defend a suspect for fear of being accused of abetting heresy, and suspects were not normally told what charges had been made against them or by whom. The accused might appeal to the pope before proceedings began, but this involved considerable expense.
After consulting with canon lawyers, the inquisitor would sentence those found guilty at a sermo generalis, or public homily. Judicial penances were imposed on those who had been convicted of heresy and had recanted. The most common punishments were penitential pilgrimages, the wearing of yellow crosses on clothing (which was feared because it led to ostracism), and imprisonment.
The inquisition employed two kinds of prisons, both staffed by laymen. One type was the murus largus, or open prison, which consisted of cells built around a courtyard in which the inmates enjoyed considerable freedom. The other type was the murus strictus, a high-security prison, where inmates were kept in solitary confinement, often in chains. Heretics who admitted their errors but refused to recant were handed over to the secular authorities and burned at the stake. There were usually not many cases of this kind because the chief aim of the inquisitors was to reconcile heretics to the church. On rare occasions, however, large public executions did take place, as at Verona in 1278, when some 200 Cathars were burned.
Although heresy was a capital offence in virtually all the states of western Europe, some rulers—for example, the kings of Castile and England—refused to license the inquisition. Even where it did operate—in much of Italy and in kingdoms such as France and Aragon—the inquisition relied entirely on the secular authorities to arrest and execute those whom it named and to defray all its expenses. The money came partly from the sale of the confiscated property of convicted heretics.
Although some scholars have denied that the medieval inquisition was an institution, others maintain that it is the best way to describe a group of men who enjoyed the same powers, were directly responsible to the pope, employed servants and officials, and had absolute control over a number of large prisons and their inmates. Nevertheless, its pain power was very limited, and, arguably, it was important chiefly because it established a tradition of religious coercion in the late medieval Western church that was inherited by both Catholics and Protestants in the 16th century.