Layin’ Some Pipe
Hyne pulls Franchetti out of the back of the car – and knees him in the balls as he emerges from the vehicle. He crab-walks Franchetti through the front door of his Palazzo – which is already open because Hyne as a key and all the security codes – and throws him on the main living room floor. The place is furnished in neo-modernist steel and glass furniture. Shining tubular frames craadling deep, luxurious cushions are everywhere.
Against a wall is a curio table – also glass and steel – about three feet wide and waist-high.
It’s perfect.
Hyne starts issuing orders. Time is ticking.
“Xen Chen – get me bedding from the main bedroom and four pillows. L’Enfant – undress our guest – we’ll need him buck naked”.
Hyne drags the table to the center of the room and re-positions some stanchions lights nearby to flood his table with light. Franchetti is still groaning from being slammed in his balls – and writhing and twisting – fighting L’Enfant’s efforts to strip his clothes off. Finally, L’Enfant gets him bare assed. He and Hyne lift the Cardinal up and – not gently – deposit him face down on the table.
“Fremd – hand me some kitchen towels and the roll of duct tape.”
Hyne wraps kitchen towels around Franchetti’s wrists and ankles – and then wraps them in Duct Tape. The bindings are not tight enough to stop blood circulation to Franchetti’s limbs – but firm enough to support what’s coming next. Hyne gets under the table and Fremd hands him the handcuffs. Franchetti’s eyes are as wide as saucers. He can’t figure out what’s happening to him.
By the time Hyne stands back up, Franchetti is belly-down on the padded table with his arms and legs splayed apart and cuffed to the steel tubular legs of the furniture frame. His face is in a pillow – and two pillows are positioned under his stomach, raising his butt up towards the ceiling. His eyes are straining to see Hyne, opened to their panic-stricken maximum diameter. He’s given up yelling – and now only listens – his sagging, terrified body shaking with tremors and profusely sweating.
Hyne, Dirk Fremd, Xen Chen and Per L’Enfant arrange chairs around this “Prince of the Church” who is pinned to a table with his ass facing the stars. Hyne speaks first to his men, then delivers his words to Cardinal Franchetti in a monologue.
“L’Enfant – please ignite that gas wall fireplace on the far wall and put two of those pokers deep in the flames”.
Xen Chen– please get me the butter out of the refrigerator. Place it by the fireplace…let it soften a bit…
Dirk Fremd – sorry, my friend. You’ve drawn the short straw….”
HYNE:
Cardinal Franchetti – I want something you possess.
It’s a Scroll.
It’s a Scroll signed in your own blood and sealed with your own bloody thumbprint. You executed it in the presence of a Vampyre Scribe named “Aldus”.
The Scroll referenced other signatories – Rebbe Zvi-Mordechai Schnoorbrun of Brooklyn, New York and Pistorius, The Chief Achon of all the Vampyres. This Scroll is a Contract between the parties who executed it. It provides for the abduction, torture and murder of Catholic schoolchildren. They are to be harvested of their precious Adrenochrome and then bled out into the waiting, gaping maws of Vampyres.
This Scroll is a pathway to incalculable wealth for each of its signers – it is also a one-way ticket to unspeakable suffering for the Catholic schoolchildren who will be sacrificed pursuant to its terms. It bears the “Benedictus” or blessing of the Vatican because you – as a Cardinal and “Prince of the Faith” – has the legal authority to bind in contract the Holy See and Roman Church to its hideous provisions.
As the Senators would say in Ancient Rome: Pacta Sunt Servanda. Contracts must be honored.
I will ask you only once, Cardinal.
Please, give me the Scroll.”
Cardinal Franchetti yells into the pillow that’s pushed up against his face.
FRANCHETTI:
“GO TO HELL!!! I WAS TOLD ABOUT YOU!! YOU ARE THE HEIR OF SIMON MAGUS. YOU ARE THE AMERICAN – THE FREAK!!! THE INFAMIA!!! YES, PISTORIUS HIMSELF TOLD ME OF YOU…
YOU CAN GO TO HELL!!! NEITHER YOU OR ANY OTHER VATICAN STOOGE CAN FORCE ME TO DIVULGE WHERE THE SCROLL IS!!!”
HYNE:
Your response is indeed unfortunate.
And – I am not from the Vatican.
Perhaps we should start our session together with a History lesson.
I do so love History – don’t you, Cardinal?
Once upon a time – specifically in 1327 – there was a King of England named Edward II, who was very naughty boy, indeed. He spent his days is licentious, unspeakable orgies with little boys. He also spent the Privy Chancellor’s coin of the Realm freely over a period of years. Soon, the Kingdom was feeling the pinch of insolvency.
Edward II had his private guard hide whatever gold the Kingdom had left and dared his Privy Council of Dukes and Barons to bring him to heel.
One day, they had enough.
The Privy Council arrested Edward II, King of England, and spirited him away to Berkeley Castle. There they intended to force the King to reveal where he hid thousands of gold ducats he ordered his co-conspirators to steal from the government.
While at Berkeley Castle, the Privy Council interviewed the best practitioners of torture in the land. Their goal was simple – get him to revel where the gold was BUT do it in a way that caused no visible wound, injury or other sign of abuse. If he died afterwards, at least he could be laid “In State” at Buckingham Palace in full regalia, looking hale and hearty. They wanted all his subjects to believe that “the King died of natural causes”.
Finally, a famous Italian named Vincenzo Cagliostro – the so-called “Maestro of Torture” from Milan – hit upon a diabolical idea. If they couldn’t torture him from the outside – torture him from the inside!
Cagliostro introduced a round cylinder into Edward II’s rectum – liberally swathed in pork fat – up about twelve inches. Through this pathway, Cagliostro inserted red-hot fireplace pokers up into Edwards’ guts until he – shall we say – “got the point”?
The red-hot pokers cauterized their interior rampage and destruction of Edward’s organs and kept bleeding to a minimum. But they maximized pain. Soon, Edward revealed where the gold was being hidden as well as the names of all those who helped him plunder the Realm.
Edward II was laid to rest in Buckingham Palace in 1327, succeeded by Edward III, who didn’t learn of his father’s treachery until later in his life.
What can I say?
I dedicate our next few moments together to that great Italian, Vincenzo Cagliostro – the Maestro of Torture!
Mr. Fremd – Please use the butter liberally and insert the PVC pipe that Xen Chen has been safeguarding into the Cardinal’s asshole. Cagliostro suggested a depth of at least one foot.
Happy drilling.”
It barely takes an hour.
Hyne takes a picture of the Scroll with his IPhone and sends it to Lee and Peter Xiang-Li for their authentication – an AI analysis and comparison with the digital picture of the Scroll from Rebbe Zvi-Mordechai Schnoorbrun.
The wall safe Franchetti had stored it in was child’s play to blow open.
Soon Lee and Xiang-Li text him back.
“All good. Finish the job. Let’s go home.”
They place Franchetti’s body in peaceful repose on his bed and cover his nakedness. His heart obviously couldn’t stand the ordeal. In some weird way they’re glad they didn’t have to smother him – violating his ass was bad enough. But he sang like a songbird long before he spasmed and died. Vincenzo Cagliostro’s methodology worked like a charm. It will look to the world like “Death from Natural Causes”. Cardinal Franchetti will be buried with full pomp and honors in Saint Peters’ Basilica, wearing his beautiful red robes – and no one will ever know that he’d been tortured, except – perhaps – Vatican physicians. And the Vatican won’t reveal their findings. They have been keeping such secrets for centuries. Sleeping dogs will remain sleeping – and the Holy See will remain unsullied, free of all scandal. As powerful and influential as ever in our world.
What did Kincaid say in Skyfall? “Sometimes the Old Ways are Best”.
Hyne has the Palazzo furniture returned to its original placement. They reclaim their handcuffs and put the soiled bedding, PVC pipe and other items used to truss the Cardinal up into plastic bags. An incinerator on the way to the airport will quietly handle that bundle for a handsome fee. The place smells like a sewer, but it’s high-end temperature and air filtration system should clear that up soon enough.
Hyne and La Confrerie des Paladins – his faithful Brotherhood of Vampyre slayers – stand silently in front of the Palazzo fireplace and watch the Scroll burn into atoms. Nobody says anything. Words can only lessen the moment.
They leave the Palazzo while Rome is still in darkness.
The flight back to New Jersey takes almost ten hours.
They all sleep well.
*NO PART OF THIS WORK PRODUCT IS AI GENERATED*
Copyright, 2026 – Jon & Jedeiah Croft
www.bogironfoundry.com
Email: vlchek1@gmail.com
