Father Vidicon did swallow thickly, and looked down into his hands, where he beheld the back side of the empty face. "Truth," he cried, "I should have thought! Thou hast backward worn thy wear!"
But the Spirit chortled then, "Not so! Behold my buskins!"
Then Father Vidicon looked down and found the Spirit spoke in sooth. The back sides of his shoes were there, and his toes did point away upon the other side. "Alas!" the good Saint cried, "What boots it?" Then up he raised his gaze and did declare, "Thy head's on backwards!"
"In sooth." The Spirit grinned. "Wouldst thou expect aught else?"
"Nay, surely!" Father Vidicon now clamped his haw and folded all his features in a frown. "I should have known! Thou art the jaundiced Janus."
"Two-faced in truth," the Spirit did agree.
"That thou art not! Truth there cannot be in him who's two-faced. Thy hinder face was false!"
"What else?" The Spirit shrugged. "Yet canst thou be sure of the falsehood of that face? Mayhap another countenance doth lie beneath my hair, and I have truly eyes behind, as well as those before."
"Nay, that sight must be seen," the Saint then said, and looking up to Heaven he did pray: "Good Father, now forgive that in my false pride and folly I did think myself so fit for fighting such fell foes. I pray Thee now Thine aid to give, and send me here a weapon to withstand this Worker of our Woe!"
But the Spirit chuckled. "What idle plea is this? What instrument could the Patron place in thy palm, that could reverse the perverse?"
A spark of light did gleam within the good priest's hand, glaring and glowing into glass, and Father Vidicon help up a mirror.
His foe laughed outright. "What! Wilt thou then fight the Spirit of Defeat with so small a service?"
"Aye," quoth Father Vidicon, "if it shows truly."
"Nay—for it is 'darkly,' though a glass. Dost thou not recall?"
But Father Vidicon held up the mirror to reflect the Spirit's face into his eyes.
"Nay, I have another," then it cried. Its arm slipped backward into its inner pocket, and did whisk out another glass, a foot or more in width, and opposed it to the plate the good Saint held, reflecting back reflections into the Reverend's regard.
"It will not serve!" the good priest cried; and even as he spoke, his mirror grew to half against the size of the Spirit's, throwing back into the Spirit's eyes the sight of its own face with a glass beside it, within which was his face within a glass, and within it a smaller image of his face beside a glass, within which was his face beside a smaller glass, and so on until the reflection was too small to see. The Spirit shrieked and yanked his own glass aside away; but his image held within the priest's reflector.
" 'Tis too late to take away!" the good priest cried. "Dost thou not see thou hast begun a feedback uncontrolled?
And so it was.
"It cannot serve!" the Spirit wailed. "No feedback can sustain without a power input!"
"I have the Input of the greatest Power that dost exist," the Saint explained with quiet calm. "All power in the Universe doth flow from this one Source!"
The mirror grew still brighter, within each other's view—brighter then and brighter, white-hot, flaring, burning up the image of the imp, and as his image burned, did he. For, "In truth," quoth Father Vidicon, "he was naught but image."
So, with wailing howl, the Spirit frayed and dwindled, shimmering, burned to tatters, and was gone.
"So, at bottom, he was, at most, a hologram," Father Vidicon mused, "and what was formed by mirrors, can by them be undone."
He laid the glass that had swallowed the Spirit most carefully on its face and, folding his hands, cast his gaze upward. "Good Lord, I give Thee thanks that Thou hast preserved Thine unworthy servant a second time, from such destruction! I pray Thee only that Thou wilt vouchsafe to me the strength of soul and humility that I will need to confront whatever adversary Thou wilt oppose to me."
The mirror winked, and glimmered, and was gone.
Father Vidicon gazed upon the place where it had been, and sighed. "I thank Thee, Lord, that Thou hast heard me. Preserve me, thus, I pray, 'gainst all other hazards that my hover."
So saying, then, he sighed himself with the Cross, and stood, and strode on further down toward Hell.
Long did St. Vidicon stride onward down that darkly ruddy throat, 'til he began to tire—then heard a roar behind him, rising in pitch and loudness as though it approached. Looking back, he saw an airplane approaching, the propeller at its nose a blur. He stared, amazed that so large an object could navigate so small a space, then realized that it was a model. Further, he realized that it swooped directly at him, as shrewdly as though it had been aimed. "Duck and cover!" he cried, and threw himself to the floor, arms clasped over his head. The aircraft snored on past him, whereupon he did look up to remark upon it, but heard the pitch of its propeller drop and slow as the craft did lower, then touch its wheels to the palpitating deck and taxi to a halt, its propeller slowing until it stopped.
Father Vidicon stared in wonder, then frowned; it seemed to much a coincidence, too opportune, that a conveyance should present itself when he was wearied. Still, a machine was a challenge he could not ignore; the thrill of operating a strange device persisted even after life; so he did quicken his steps until he stood beside a fuselage not much longer than himself, with an open cockpit into which he might squeeze himself—and so he did.
Instantly the propeller kicked into motion, in seconds blurring to a scintillating disk, and the aircraft lurched ahead, bouncing and jogging till it roared aloft and shot onward down that darkling throat. St. Vidicon, no stranger to ill chance, searched for a seat belt, but there was none, and shivered with the omission. The plane's arrival might be mere chance, the lack of a seat belt might be only coincidence, but he braced himself for a third unpleasant occurrence.
Sure enough, the engine coughed, then sputtered, then died; he stared in horror at a propeller that slowed to a halt. Galvanized by ill fortune, he seized the wheel, set his feet to the rudder pedals, and glanced at his gauges. No, there was fuel enough, so he dealt with malfunction.
Enough! The plane did tilt downwards, rushing toward that obscene and jellied floor. Father Vidicon did haul back upon the wheel, and the nose tilted upward again. Relying on what little he'd read, he held his wing flaps down, keeping the airplane's nose upward as the craft settled. It struck that fleshly floor with as much impact as though it had hit upon asphalt; it bounced, then struck again, bounced again, and so, by a series of bounces, slowed until at last it came to rest.
Father Vidicon clambered down from that falsely welcoming cockpit, telling himself sternly that never again would he operate a machine that he had not inspected—for once may have been accident and twice coincidence, but this third time was definitely enemy action.
But which enemy?
There was as yet insufficient data for a meaningful conclusion. Staggering for his first few steps, then stabilizing to stride, he made his way onward down that darkling throat, lit only by the luminescence of certain globular growths upon the walls.
An object loomed before him, at first dim and indistinct in the limited light, then becoming clear—and Father Vidicon stared upon a scaled-down Sherman tank, a treaded fortress scarcely higher than his shoulder, that sat in the middle of the tunnel as though waiting for him, though in friendly fashion, for its cannon pointed ahead.
The Blessed One reminded himself that he had but minutes before promised himself never to drive a mechanism unverified, so he examined the treads most carefully, then opened the engine compartment and scrutinized the diesel. Satisfied that nothing was defective—ready but wary—he set foot upon a tread, climbed up, and descended through the hatch.