Final Call for Mercy

3

"Fire?" I asked. 

Jonathan nodded, still not looking at me. "Yeah."

"So, they like fires," Veronica chimed in. "Same thing happened to Barbara Schweihs people. Her warehouses were lit up. And," she blew out a breath. "There was another attack."

"Where?" I asked. How were they acting so fast and so effective?

"Spain," She answered. "So, a good guess would be they're still in Europe, since the attack was this morning."

"This morning?"

"Yes," Nicolas said. "Mateo was speaking with one of the leading gang leaders of Spain. Her name is Samantha Estrada. Her gang was attacked in Seville. She made it out alive, but everyone that was with her died burned. Every single member is dead. Those who were not meeting with her had their houses burned down. Not only the gang members died, the other people in the houses as well. It's all over the news in Spain. They have no leads as of now."

"But," Mateo cut in. "When I was talking to Estrada, she told me the reason why she survived. These people are fucked, Tas. Sick in the head."

I furrowed my eyebrows, not quite understanding. "W-What do you mean?"

"Estrada's people met with her in her mansion. Everything was handled there. She had properties, but didn't take her people there to avoid suspicion of the properties. When her mansion was burnt down, because it was her mansion that was burnt, she was inside. She should have died with the rest, but she didn't. She was telling me that she she passed out and next thing she knew, she woke up in a hospital. The doctors had told her that when they found her, she was on the floor of the hospital and they took her in. She had a piece of paper taped to her chest."

"A note?" I asked.

"More like a mark," he said. Mateo pulled out his phone and showed a picture to me. It was the nine circle drawing that was present in all attacks before, except this one had six of the circles in red while the rest were black. "But this one had something else added to it. A little more... twisted."

"What, Mateo?"

He swiped on his phone and showed it to me, it was a painting. "It's called 'The Simoniac Pope'. It was taped under the nine circle mark. Wicked painting. It's by William Blake. They were his illustrations for none other Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. Which would be irrelevant if it weren't for the fact that our wannabe heroes call themselves the Nine Circles of Hell, also by Dante."

"That painting shows them dipping people in fire," I pointed out uselessly.

Jonathan shook his head, "not just people." 

"Right," my father added. I had forgotten he was here. "I have read the entirety of La commedia. Each person is linked to a sin. So these people are linking us to sins. Maybe their punishments are based on what sins are committed?"

Nicolas stepped up, shaking his head. "I don't think it's just that. I've read those books too and back in high school I took several literature courses. La commedia is something our teacher went very into depth with. She also taught us about the pictures. 'The Simoniac Pope' dips in fire the churchmen who profit off of sacred things. So, like, if you have the Holy Spirit's healing gift and you charged for using it on someone, you'd go to hell for Simony."

"What the fuck does that have to do with Estrada?" I felt my patience thinning. I leaned back into the couch and grabbed a cushion to hold on to. "She's part of the fucking Mafia, not the Catholic Church."

"Well," my father spoke up. "If they're killing people and taking matters into their own hands, they can't really be all that holy. But, it does make sense. Their mark had six of the circles in red, which I'm guessing represents the level. Six is Heresy. Technically, Simonists would go in circle eight, for fraud. Except, circle six would better fit Estrada because she is doing something unorthodox. She is going against the law of Spain. She is a heretic. Heretics were burned in a tomb of fire. Kind of like what they're doing to the ones they attacked. Burning them alive."