“You’ve always collected strays, the more mangled, the better. You can’t make every monster a pet, Bea. I’ll admit, you haven’t been bitten yet, but that doesn’t mean you won’t. Priest isn’t broken just because he needs a home. Priest is broken in a way that truly, I don’t think you can fix.”
“I don’t want to fix him,” I told her honestly. “I just want to love him.”
Lou winced slightly then sighed, the long ribbon of it falling onto the bed between us, a kind of white flag. “It’s hard to watch the best woman I’ll ever know make a decision I honestly believe will break her heart or, worse, steal her life. I won’t lie. I don’t trust Priest with your heart, and I wish you wouldn’t either. But, you’re right, I’m not your mother, and I’m not your keeper.” Her smile was small, twisted, and broken as she recalled her past. “I would never want to keep you from what makes your heart sing. Phillipa and Benjamin tried to keep me from Zeus, and sometimes, on bad nights, I think about how hollow my life would be without him, without the family he gave me and the kids we made together. I guess, if there is even a slim chance you could have something like that with the killer of The Fallen, I won’t stand in your way.”
A flash fire or irritation prickled the back of my neck, but I bit back my retort. I wanted to tell her that she was wise, but in this, she was so wrong. So wrong it physically hurt me to hear her speak of Priest like that.
I wanted to tell her what I’d long believed.
That even Death had a heart.
He just didn’t have anyone who might accept it, so it went ungiven.
I didn’t say any of that.
We were sisters, but we were not the same. For a long time, I’d believed we were because people always told me I was so much like my sister. It was only implied, sometimes blatantly, that I was the pale imitation. But I’d learned the hard way to strip our relationship of comparison.
We did not have to be contrary traits. We could both be beautiful, smart, happy.
In our different ways.
I decided to take a page out of Priest’s book and show her through actions, not words. They were so much more powerful.
So, I only smiled slightly, wrapping my sister’s love around my aching heart, and leaned forward to tug her into a hug. She fell into it as if she had been poised and ready, exhaling into our embrace the way one did when they’d held their breath. I giggled slightly as she nuzzled into my hair, then sobered slightly to get in just one parting shot.
“If you stopped thinking about who Priest is and focused on who I might be, I think you’d have an easier time…You know, he calls me his ‘Little Shadow’,” I confessed into the soft cloud of her hair the way I might have in confession at First Light Church. “If it helps you, think of it like that. I may be your sunshine girl, but everything has a shadow. Priest is mine.”
* * *
* * *
“What is faith?”
First Light Church was quiet, the echoing, almost resonant silence of a holy place that felt like velvet against your skin and soft stuffing in your ears. The faces of the eight-to-ten-year-old boys and girls in the semi-circle curving out from either side of my chair were placid with thoughtfulness. They considered my softly worded question as if it was scripture itself.
They were good kids—the boys with tidy hair and pressed button-ups that made them look like somewhat silly and adorable caricatures of older men, while the girls all seemed molded immaculately after their mothers just as I had once been.
Not a rebel among them.
Except…
“Faith is the belief in something you can’t see, hear, or touch,” Sammy Radcliff declared, his voice petulant, his chin at an angle of defiance. “Faith is for people who don’t care about getting real answers to their questions.”
I blinked at the red-headed ten-year-old boy who was one of my sister’s greatest friends. He was autistic but highly functioning, especially after working for years with his therapists and Loulou at the Autism Center. I didn’t know him that well. I tended to avoid close relationships with people Loulou had already bonded with to avoid the inevitable comparison.
“Don’t say that, dummy,” Ethan Mannix snapped, leaning forward in his seat to frown. “You want God to strike you down?”
“Hey, hey,” I soothed. “How do we treat each other? With compassion and kindness, even if someone doesn’t share the same views as us. Sammy, maybe you can explain why you feel that way?”
I wanted him to explain so that the children could have a true discourse on the subject, but also because I agreed with him to a certain extent.
Faith was not about receiving answers.
Sammy blinked his wide eyes. “If you want answers, why do you ask someone who will not give you answers?”
There was logic in that, at once simple and profound. I studied Sammy, with his unruly mop of hair and the stain of something on his shirt contrasted to the keen purpose in his gaze. He was a contradiction, and I found myself smiling.
I liked contradictions.
“Faith isn’t about concrete answers, though, Sammy,” I explained, leaning forward to increase the intimacy of our conversation. I remembered vaguely that Lou had once said Sammy liked to be touched and cuddled. My fingers twitched to push back a springy lock of that fiery hair only a few shades lighter than Priest’s. “Faith is about sensation. You say you cannot believe in something you can’t see or touch, but have you ever heard of a sixth sense? The sense of the spirit. You can feel faith in your body the way you feel sadness or guilt, happiness or wistfulness. When I think of those things I believe in, not just God, but my family, my friends and my faith in their love for me, I feel it radiate in my chest.”
I thumped my hand over my heart, then splayed my fingers wide, watching as Sammy tracked the movement, as he cocked his head slightly in another faint mimicry of Priest’s more robotic movement.
The rest of the kids listened raptly, even Billy Huxley, wane and red-eyed from lack of sleep because his poor dad was dying of a heart condition, seemed animated by my words.
“Can you feel it, Sammy?” I asked softly. “Can you feel it when you think of someone you believe in?”
“Yes.” His response was immediate. “My mum. My best friend, Loulou. My friend Zeus.” He paused, looked out the stained-glass window across from him and gave a pained little shrug. “Loulou said my best friend, Mute, is an angel now and he watches over us. I believe in him.”
My voice box had fallen out of my throat, plummeting to the floor like a broken elevator careening down the shaft. I swallowed compulsively to get it back in working order so I could respond to the boy and his lovely words. “That’s how faith works, Sammy. Exactly like that. ‘Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,’” I quoted from Hebrews 11:1. “It’s having an inexplicable connection with someone or thing other than yourself. For a lot of people, they feel that way about God. He might not always be benevolent, but in the end, He cares about those who believe in him.”
Sammy’s lips twisted up as he considered this, one leg kicking back and forth through the legs of the chair compulsively. “Okay.”
How that one word could feel like a benediction was beyond me, but when I smiled at him, it was an expression of gratitude.
This was how I felt about faith too.
Faith in some higher power.
Faith in Loulou to come around to my point of view.
Faith in The Fallen to keep me safe from the serial killer with an eye for me.
Faith in Priest.
Always faith in him.
In fact, if anyone had taught me about devotion, it was the redheaded enforcer.
For years, I’d loved him from afar, investing myself in an idea more than the man just hoping that he might be who I believed him to be.
Now, my faith was being rewarded in ways I never could have known. Because he was not just the man in my shadowed fantasies. He was more. He was better than
anything my brain had the capacity to conjure. Infinitely complex and mysterious, much like God.
I snorted under my breath and amended my statement.
Much like the God of the Old Testament: cruel and ruthless, a God who smote and struck nonbelievers down with unparalleled savagery and rewarded only a precious few with priceless recompenses.
This was also the God the serial killer seemed to follow. He was killing his victims, it occurred to me, the way God had killed sinners in the Bible.
The concubine was raped and consumed by a pack of dogs.
Jezebel murdered and was divided into twelve pieces.
I frowned, staring off into space as I followed the trail of the thought, wondering if I should give Lion and Officer Hutchinson a call to discuss it even though they probably knew.
“If I may?”
I startled as Tabitha appeared beside me with a soft smile, and then waved at her to continue.
She trained that lovely smile on my group, her own Bible clutched to her chest. “To add some debate to this conversation. I have a different theory on faith I would love to discuss. In James 2:20, it is written, ‘But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?’ What do you think this means?”
Billy stirred, his heavy lids widening with eagerness to prove his worth to pretty Tabitha Linely. “It means you have to prove your faith to God.”
She smiled warmly at him. “Exactly.”
“Why do we have to prove our faith in Him when He doesn’t have to do the same?” Sammy interjected with a frown. “That doesn’t make sense.”
Something flickered across Tabby’s face, a hesitation chased by something darker. I frowned at her, wondering for the first time if those placid waters hid something deeper. “You cannot maintain faith unless it is rewarded. God rewards us with His love, and in return, we show Him our love through action. Why do we pray? Why do we punish sinners?”
Sammy’s eyes went wide as twin coins. “We don’t punish sinners here, do we?”
“We should,” Billy declared, somewhat fiercely.
I wondered if it was Tabby’s good looks or his own association with his father’s condition that made him vehement.
“We don’t punish sinners here,” I agreed, sliding Tabby a side eye to slow her roll. “First Light Church is about acceptance and guidance, not rigorously following a set of rules.”
“Not all people who attend Church will go to Heaven,” Tabby announced. “Prayer is not enough to ensure passage to Heaven. You must pay tribute.”
“Tabby,” I said with a cautionary saccharine smile. She had always been a zealot, a topic we clashed on explosively though respectfully. This was not respect.
“How do you pay tribute?” Billy mused.
“In ancient Greece, they made sacrifices,” Sammy said helpfully.
“We do not sacrifice now,” I said firmly.
But they were young and unruly, puppies let loose in the yard of theological discussion. I’d lost the reins, and the conversation turned over to them.
“My mum told me someone’s killing sinners,” Ethan announced. “Is he paying tribute, Mrs. Linley?”
“No, that’s murder,” Cassie Aston argued. “You can’t murder people for God, that doesn’t even make sense.”
“It doesn’t,” Sammy agreed. “Death is bad.”
“Death is your reward for a life well-lived,” Tabby explained. “You get to go to Heaven.”
“Okay, enough,” I declared, standing up so suddenly my chair scraped against the stone floor in a way that made us all wince. “Mrs. Linley, thank you for your interesting theories, but the Bible group is done for the evening. If you have any questions or concerns about what we discussed today, please stay after to talk to me or seek out Pastor Lafayette, okay?”
The group looked at me for a moment with indecision. They had stumbled upon a sensational topic in an otherwise docile discussion group, and they didn’t want to drop it. Happily, Tabby took my lead and smiled at the group before saying goodbye and leaving our antechamber for the main chapel. After that, the kids dispersed readily.
All but Billy Huxley.
He lingered over the extra candles beside the votive candle stand, flipping a matchstick through his fingers clumsily as he waited for everyone to leave. I went to stand by him, placing a gentle hand on his bony shoulder as we stared at the many flickering flames on the staggered display of candles.
“I light candles for my dad,” he confessed, his voice cracking down the middle. “I know he’s still alive, but…I know it’s not for long.”
My heart trembled for him. “If it makes you feel better to do so, then do it, Billy. Mourning doesn’t have to begin after death. It begins when you start to accept it may be inevitable for someone you love.”
Billy shivered slightly and took a little side step closer to me so our hips brushed. He looked so wane and lonely in the orange candlelight against the dark wall of the church, like a boy anxious for sainthood.
When he looked up at me, it was with dark eyes glazed with exhaustion, both spiritual and physical. “Do you think he’s dying because he didn’t show God he loved Him enough?”
A little whimper of sympathy caught in my throat, but I didn’t release it. Instead, I crouched down so I could be closer to eye level with him, then took his hands in my own, the matchstick caught between our fingers.
“No, Billy,” I said, silk over iron. “That’s not how God works, okay. In fact, that’s not how science works. Sometimes, we just get sick because of defects in our body.”
“Defects God put there?” The words were both a question and a statement, a crisis of faith expressed in one sentence.
Anger with Tabitha for confusing him with her extreme devotion burned through me like a lit wick. “No. Listen to me when I say this, okay, Billy? Good people get sick all the time. Good people have bad luck, bad days, and terrible, unfair ends. The truth is, everyone has misfortunes. Everyone dies. It doesn’t matter what kind of person you are. That’s how it works.”
Billy’s jaw worked as he chewed that over. “Then I don’t get it. What Mrs. Linley said made more sense.”
I bit my lip. It was true, Tabby’s view of religion was so much easier to distill into organized, succinct soundbites. But it was also much more horrifying, especially for a ten-year-old boy.
I smoothed his dark hair back from his forehead as I collected my thoughts. “Sometimes words aren’t powerful enough to describe the complexities of what we feel inside. Can you tell me exactly how much you love your dad?” Billy hesitated, then shook his head. “No, just like I can’t tell you how much I love my family. Some things are just inexplicable. You need to have faith in death just as much as you do in life. You love your dad and you know he’s a good man, so you have to believe when he dies, he’s only moving on to a good place.”
Billy sighed, his body deflating, sagging into my side as he did so. I hugged him tightly, wishing my affection was a physical thing I could use to shield him from pain.
He turned his gaze back to the candles and whispered, “Will you light a candle with me for him?”
“Of course,” I agreed, standing up to grab a tealight. I noticed Tabitha and Eric at the door to the room, discussing something quietly but watching us with intense stares. I rolled my shoulders back to dispel the trickle of eeriness I felt, and struck my match.
Priest
No one outside of the club knew where I lived. Even then, only Zeus, Axe-Man because he was our Treasurer, and Bat because he was Sergeant at Arms had visited my house. Any place of residence I needed to provide was the clubhouse.
That was how they got me. Before. So many years ago when I was just a lad.
They knew where I lived.
So, I stayed off the grid.
And far, far away from the nearest church.
My apartment was a converted loft in the heart of the industrial district north of town, the entire second level of a warehouse that had o
nce been used to store imports from China, but now housed The Fallen arsenal. Technically, Bat was in charge of munitions and weaponry for the club as Sergeant at Arms, but he’d outsourced the more illegal items to me to be hidden in the way only I knew how to hide.
I’d bought the warehouse with cash from an old man before he kicked the bucket, converted it myself over the span of two years. It kept my nineteen and twenty-year-old self out of trouble, and in the end, I had a home that suited my needs.
There were no windows.
I didn’t need light.
There was no television, no computer, no comfy lounge area.
A bed, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a massive gym.
The only indulgence I allowed was my library.
Floor-to-ceiling shelves in the area that should have been the living room. One deep, slouchy leather armchair and a side table where I sat at night under the dim light of the reading lamp in the otherwise pitch-dark apartment to read.
I didn’t read fiction.
Mostly, I read religious texts and science tombs. Technology, too, when it came to weapons, and history, if it was about warfare.
Yeah, religious texts.
The staunch fucking atheist reading about God.
Fucked up, but then again, I never claimed to be otherwise.
I read everything I could get my hands on about God, about faith, about why people subscribed to such nonsense. I read about the Catholic culture in Ireland, and happily, of its decline in the twenty-first century.
I read so I could understand.
I understood so that I could harness the demons of my past in thick rope and chains at the back of my mind and hope they never got loose.
Why can’t I touch you?
Bea had said last night after I’d thoroughly ravaged her sweet body and made it intractably mine.
I didn’t want her hands on my body. Honest as fuck, I didn’t want her sweet words in my ear either, but I couldn’t control that so well. Bea was everything light and good, of course, she wanted to lavish that on me. I could ignore those words, mostly, turn my head so they blew unheard past my year like a shout into the wind.
Dead Man Walking (The Fallen Men, #6) Page 16