by Tillie Cole
“I just want what other people have,” Sela said, pulling Joseph’s gaze from Bara. He ran his hands over his closely shaven head. “I like to create.” Joseph frowned, unsure why that would warrant him being in Purgatory. Sela must have seen his confusion, as he added, “I like to create art . . . made from pieces I’ve taken from others.” Joseph blanched. “I took a finger and an ear before Father McCarthy found me.” Sela’s eyes frosted with darkness. “One day I’ll make the perfect piece of art.” By the tightening of his lips and the dropping of his eyes, Joseph knew something else tormented Sela’s mind. He didn’t want to know what. He wasn’t sure he could keep hearing the depraved fantasies of the boys he had come to see as friends.
“I want to strangle. To watch a girl die as I squeeze her neck.” Raphael was focused on the string around his finger. He was wrapping it around and around, the top of his finger turning blue at the act. His fantasy explained the string. Raphael smirked and his cheeks flushed. Not with embarrassment, but with what looked like want. “And ideally I’d be fucking her as I did it.”
Joseph coughed, and Raphael went back to tying the string around his finger. “I tied the church bell’s rope around a boy’s neck until he passed out. I didn’t get to finish the job. Father Quinn interrupted me.” Joseph’s head was too full, circling with disbelief and horror at what his roommates were saying.
“I can’t stop myself.” Diel’s voice was tired and weak. Joseph felt a bolt of sadness stab his chest at the defeated expression on Diel’s face. He lifted the chain that kept him restrained. “I get lost in my head, and before I know it I’ve hurt people.”
“You don’t like it?” Joseph asked softly, pained by his friend’s plight.
Diel’s eyes sparked to life. “That’s the problem, Gabriel. I love it.” Diel leaned forward, his chain pulling tight against the bolt on the far side of the room. “I live for it. And I long for the moment when the impulse becomes too much. I want to kill, one after the other. Again and again, each more deadly than the last.” Sela reached out and put his hand on his friend’s arm. Diel closed his eyes and breathed deeply. After a few seconds he seemed to calm. Looking into Gabriel’s eyes again, making sure he had his rapt attention, Diel said, “I can’t wait for the day when my control completely snaps and I give myself over to who I know I really am inside.” A flicker of a smile edged on his lips. “I’m not good, Gabe. And I have no intention of ever being that way.”
Joseph swallowed the lump that had clogged his throat. Because he could see it in Diel’s eyes. See the hunger for death, feel his need for murder.
Joseph had always known there was evil in the world. To be around such venomous disregard for life was overwhelming. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to hate the boys. Hate their desires, yes. But not them.
The boys all looked to Michael. He was staring at Luke’s vial of blood. Joseph wasn’t even sure he had heard any of the conversations, until Michael’s head tipped to the side and he said, “I want to drain a body of blood.” Michael’s tongue snaked out and licked his lips. “And I’d drink it all.” His eyes raised and pierced Joseph’s stare. “It’s all I think about.” Joseph stopped breathing, his chest like a lead weight, crushing any hope he had for his little brother. Hearing the truth of Michael’s inner desires was as suffocating as Raphael’s string around his finger.
It was the stark realization that his brother was a murderer. The only difference was, Michael hadn’t managed to kill yet. But a tight pulling in Joseph’s gut told him he would, given the chance. They all would. Every one of them.
Joseph wondered if the Brethren were right. If demons truly existed in their souls. The Bible talked of possession, and Father Quinn’s belief in the Spanish Inquisition’s mission rang in his conscience.
“I’m not like you.” Joseph’s attention darted to Michael. His little brother didn’t say anything else. But it had already been enough. It was the most he had gotten out of his brother in their lives.
And he was right. Joseph was nothing like him . . . like any of them. The thought of harming anyone was repulsive to Joseph. It hurt his heart. Yet he knew he wouldn’t be able to walk away from any of them. Jesus walked with the sinners. The righteous path would be to walk alongside these boys . . . his brothers.
He wouldn’t abandon them.
“No one has ever tried to save us before.” Joseph followed the sound of the voice across to Diel.
“You’ve made it worse for yourself. They don’t like anyone challenging them,” Sela added.
Joseph’s hands fisted in the sheet that covered the thin, uncomfortable mattress. “I don’t care. I will fight against them every day that we’re in here. All of them. Even the ones I never knew existed until tonight.”
“They were like us once.” Uriel moved to sit on the bed beside him. “They were successfully exorcised, cleansed of their sinful urges and began a new mission—walking the Brethren path.” Joseph exhaled at that revelation. Matthew was right. Some did return to Holy Innocents, but in what state? At what cost? “On your eighteenth birthday, you get to decide whether to join the Brethren or not. Pledge yourself to them and forever live under their watchful eye. Work each day on fighting the evil inside.” Uriel smiled coldly, like he had no intention of ever letting that malevolence go.
“Or what?” Joseph whispered.
“Or die.” Raphael looked up from winding the piece of string around his finger. “Go to the torture room and never come back out.”
“I won’t let that happen.”
“You can’t stop them,” Sela told him.
“I will,” Joseph said, conviction lacing his words. “They won’t kill any of you. I promise.”
Bara drew nearer so he could meet Joseph’s gaze, his green eyes seemingly seeing right through to Joseph’s honest soul. “Gabriel . . .” he mused. “The Fallen’s one and only protector. The one pure angel in a sea of Satan-like sinners.”
“The Fallen?” Joseph asked.
“Angels,” Diel said, gesturing to the six of them gathered around the bed. “All of us. Angels who embrace evil. We are fallen. Just like the original rebel himself, Lucifer, refusing to bow to God, to good—Father Quinn’s words. Not ours.”
“Whoever you were is dead. You’re Gabriel now.” Bara smiled. This time it wasn’t cold; rather there was an odd kind of acceptance from the one whom Joseph deemed perhaps the most viciously complex. “You’re one of us. Our blond-haired, blue-eyed keeper of the holy path.”
Joseph—no . . . Gabriel exhaled a breath and nodded, accepting the truth, that title. Joseph didn’t exist in this place. He was Gabriel now. One of the Fallen. And the one who would save them all. He didn’t know how. But he would. He was determined.
Gabriel curled his knees to his stomach and breathed through the pain. He heard the others return to their beds, so he shut his eyes. But the minute he did, he saw it all. He saw the Fallen on their knees, the naked Brethren closing in. And he felt Father Quinn . . . his breath in his ear . . . on top of him . . . inside him.
Gabriel’s eyes snapped open, escaping the vision just in time to see Michael lowering himself to Gabriel’s bed. It was a small bed, and Michael’s arm brushed against Gabriel’s clasped hands. In this fetal position, Gabriel’s hands looked to be joined in prayer. Maybe they were. He prayed to God nightly that they would be found and helped out of this hell. He had faith. The Brethren were not men of God, that much he knew. He still believed in good. In a benevolent and protective Lord.
Michael lay down beside Gabriel. He stared at the ceiling, not saying a word, but Michael didn’t need to. A lump formed in Gabriel’s throat as he stared at his baby brother. The brother who had come to him when he was hurt. Michael’s jaw was clenched; his body was rigid. But he was there with Gabriel. He was there . . . just like he had been tonight, when Gabriel was robbed of his virtue.
Gabriel didn’t know how much time passed before he whispered, “The night you attacked Luke.” Michael’s expression
didn’t change. “When you choked me . . .” Gabriel cleared the lump in his throat. “Were you going to stop? Tell me the truth. Were you going to stop?”
Michael had the vial’s leather strap wrapped around his hand. Gabriel sighed, knowing Michael wouldn’t answer. Still, he waited. Praying for a miracle, that he would. Gabriel was about to close his eyes, exhaustion pulling him under, all hope abandoned, when Michael said, “I would’ve stopped.” Gabriel stilled, his eyes locked on Michael. Michael’s nostrils flared. “Only for you. For no one else but you.”
Gabriel had held back his tears in the candle room. Refused to give the Brethren the satisfaction of seeing him break in the end. But in that bed, with his brother beside him, showing him after all these years that he cared, he let the tears fall. Michael closed his eyes and fell asleep. But Gabriel didn’t. Instead, he watched his brother, and roved his eyes over the rest of the sleeping Fallen. Boys who wanted to kill. Boys who walked in the dark, not the light. Lost boys. Boys with no hope, and no one, left in this world.
It was then that everything became clear. Gabriel’s path, which had been covered with rocks and stones of confusion, suddenly cleared into one of knowing. This was his destiny. This was what God wanted him to do. He felt the calling. Felt a tingling in his hands and feet. Felt God’s warmth wrap around him as he accepted this task. He was the shepherd. And no matter how big the sin, these boys were all God’s children.
Gabriel would protect the Fallen from the Brethren.
He would trust in God to help him find a way.
Chapter Seven
Three years later . . .
Gabriel staggered back down the hallway. His shoulder was hanging low, curved inwards. He had been put on the strappado again. Tied with a rope by one wrist and suspended from the ceiling. The blinding white pain from the dislocated shoulder made it hard to breathe. He’d been here before. Still, it didn’t make the pain any easier to bear.
And in two days, he had a decision to make.
The door to the dorm room closed behind him. He walked to Uriel’s bed, and Uriel got to his feet. Gabriel faced forward as Uriel placed his hand on Gabriel’s shoulder and pushed it back into place. Gabriel breathed through the excruciating pain. But he’d endured worse. Continued daily to endure worse.
“Did he speak to you?” Uriel asked. Gabriel nodded. “And?”
Gabriel inhaled deeply. “I told him I’d pledge.” His gaze drifted to Michael, who was lying on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. “I have to be near you all if I’m to help. It’ll be my only way out . . . the only way any of us will get out.”
Years. Years Gabriel had waited for a chance to save them, to get them out. But no opportunity came, just the same torture, exorcisms, and nights in the candle room, on his knees or pushed to the floor as Father Quinn purified him with his seed. At times, Gabriel tried to remember the boy he was before Purgatory. But that life seemed like it was someone else’s. The altar boy dedicated to his faith and his priests. Priests who had now defiled him.
The room was thick as the others listened. The Brethren were forced to do evil things. Things Gabriel would never do. Even if he pledged, he was on limited time. The minute he refused an order, he would be punished. But if he didn’t pledge . . . they would kill him.
There was no good choice.
Gabriel moved to his bed. He rubbed the heels of his hands over his eyes. In all this time in Purgatory, he had never lost his faith. Believed God had placed him on a path, a journey that he must endure. He knew the Brethren operated outside of the Catholic Church. Father Quinn and the others had admitted as much. Gabriel trusted that if the Pope knew of these atrocities, this sect that had split from the main church, they would be cast aside. Gabriel still prayed nightly, begging for help, begging for the Brethren to be discovered. He still believed that they would all somehow be saved. Even if they were useless, prayer and faith were all he had left. He wouldn’t let the Brethren strip him of that too. They’d already taken his pride, his self-worth, and his body.
They wouldn’t take his soul.
When the morning of his birthday came, he couldn’t stop his hands shaking. Gabriel had no idea what the Brethren’s initiation ceremony entailed. As Gabriel dressed, he heard raised voices outside their room. He turned to face the Fallen, who had gathered around his bed. “I’ll get you free,” Gabriel said as the sound of hurried footsteps grew closer. “Trust me. I’ll get us all free.”
The Fallen didn’t reply. Bara smirked, clearly doubting Gabriel’s promise. Gabriel didn’t blame him. Nothing had ever worked in their favor. The Fallen’s souls were dark. Gabriel knew that. He knew some might argue they should never be released into the world. He was under no illusions. He knew they would all kill the minute they could. But in the three years he’d spent with them, they had become his family. His brothers.
He wasn’t their judge. That wasn’t his place.
The door opened, and Father Quinn came through. Gabriel didn’t let his surprise show on his face. Father Quinn was the high priest. He never collected the Fallen from the room.
For three years, Gabriel had been under his personal administrations.
“Gabriel.” Father Quinn’s voice carried like a whip through the room. He looked flustered. Gabriel had never seen him in such a way. “Now!” he shouted. Gabriel’s eyes narrowed, something in his gut telling him that something was very wrong. Gabriel faced Michael. His brother’s stare was predictably emotionless, but Gabriel still said, “Hold on, Michael. Keep strong.”
Warmth burst in Gabriel’s chest when Michael’s blue eyes focused on him for a few seconds, flaring in understanding. Then Gabriel was walking across the room and away from the boys he had vowed to protect. Father Quinn slammed the door shut behind them, and Joseph knew he was also closing the door on another chapter of his life. Gabriel followed Father Quinn down the hallway. But when they turned left, suspicion and unease seeped into his bones. A door stood in the distance . . . one that was familiar. One he had only walked through once before. When Father Quinn unlocked the door and bright light flooded the hallway, Gabriel slammed his back against the wall, the bright daylight too intense for his eyes. He hadn’t seen the sun for three years. Had only been exposed to darkness.
“Move,” Father Quinn hissed and grabbed Gabriel by the arm. He threw him into the path of the sun. Gabriel’s feet staggered as he was pulled up the staircase that he had discovered years ago. Blinded by the onslaught of light, he was thrown into the back of an SUV. It was darker in the car, and he blinked, trying to heal his scalded vision. Something was thrown into his lap. “Change.” Father Quinn’s barked order made Gabriel’s body automatically start moving. When he had finished, he looked down and recognized the uniform he used to wear at Holy Innocents. Gabriel couldn’t understand what was happening. Why he was back in his uniform?
He didn’t have to wait long for an explanation.
“Someone is here to see you. A very powerful man. I have no idea why,” Father Quinn said. Gabriel rubbed at his eyes. He was getting a headache. Father Quinn’s eyes narrowed. “You had no family. It was why you were in Holy Innocents. Who the hell is he?”
“I don’t have family.”
Father Quinn leaned over the seat and gripped Gabriel’s arm, hard. “You tell anyone about the Brethren or Purgatory, and every one of your dormmates will perish.” Gabriel’s heart sank, knowing the threat was real. “That’s a promise, Gabriel. And it will be painful and slow. Michael will feel it the most.”
The SUV came to a stop at the back doors of the home he hadn’t seen for so long. Father Quinn opened the door, and Gabriel stepped out. He was led through the vaguely familiar hallways toward Father Quinn’s study. It occurred to Gabriel that while the Fallen were in Purgatory, living in hell, the priests continued to be a beacon of good to the community, to the boys who lived in this place. It was the cruelest of ruses. Good people being led astray by evil men dressed up as agents of God.
When Ga
briel entered the study, a man in an expensive suit, who looked to be in his late forties, was sitting on a chair. “Mr. Miller,” Father Quinn said and shook the man’s hand. The man gave Father Quinn a tight smile, then focused his attention on Gabriel.
“Joseph Kelly?” Gabriel faltered at that name. He barely recognized it anymore. A quick glance at Father Quinn, seeing the priest’s warning in his glare, made Gabriel nod his head.
“Yes, sir.”
Mr. Miller looked at Father Quinn. “If we could use your office, I have something to discuss with Joseph. In private.”
Father Quinn stayed seated for a minute, his stony expression and tight lips showing he was offended by the blatant dismissal. Gabriel was sure he would refuse, challenge the man who had come to visit him. But the priest got to his feet. His hand came down on Gabriel’s shoulder as he passed. His tight squeeze was warning enough for Gabriel to keep quiet. When Father Quinn left, Mr. Miller gestured for Gabriel to sit. Gabriel did, and then he waited.
“Joseph, I’m here representing Jack Murphy. Have you heard of him?” Gabriel shook his head. “That’s okay. I imagine you’re pretty sheltered here at Holy Innocents.” Gabriel gave no response. Mr. Miller regarded Gabriel, then said, “He was the owner and creator of a very well-known tech company.” Mr. Miller waved his hand in dismissal. “That isn’t the important part. What’s important is that you’re his one and only heir.” Gabriel let Mr. Miller’s words wash over him. One by one those words trickled into his brain, but they didn’t make sense. An heir. An heir? Gabriel shook his head, trying to catch up with what Mr. Miller was saying. His brain didn’t function as it once had. He was numb to any rational thought. All he had done for years was mentally disconnect from his everyday life—the torture, the pain, the sexual cleansing of his apparently dark soul. Gabriel and Michael had never had anyone in their life. No one but their mother, who they watched perish, succumb to the illness that stripped her of her energy and happiness. Yet even through his numbed thoughts, an anger took hold. Anger was a strong emotion these days. Gabriel had always had a calm and placid disposition, but anger had consumed it, had been chipping away at his heart for years, eradicating the kindness that was innate. Every time he was taken to the torture room: on the rack, limbs stretched until he broke; the strappado, hoisted, arms bound until he screamed . . . good seemed a distant memory, and contempt and fury took its place.