by Tillie Cole
“You can’t kill an innocent, Raphe. I won’t allow it.”
“She’s not an innocent.” Uriel stepped forward from his place against the wall. His arms were folded over his chest. “She’s with the Brethren. She’s anything but innocent.”
Something pulled in Gabriel’s gut. Something that wanted to agree with Uriel. But Gabriel had looked into the woman’s eyes. He’d seen her confusion when she discovered the Fallen. The fear. He’d seen her staring at Raphael’s back, at the scars they all shared. There was shock and sadness in her eyes, not recognition of the Brethren’s punishments. He didn’t know how they did it, but he was sure the woman had been deceived by the Brethren. The way he had been as a child. Fooled by their masks of good. She’d had no idea about the predators she would be facing in the Fallen. She couldn’t have. No one would willingly put themselves into a killer’s path.
“The Brethren don’t allow women into their fold. They’re a modern extension of the Spanish Inquisition. They see women as temptresses and weak, as witches susceptible to sin. They wouldn’t take one into their employ. They may be a modern version, but their ideology isn’t.”
“She can’t be allowed to leave, Gabe.” Sela came to stand next to Uriel. He knew the Brethren more intimately than the rest. He had ties to them none of the other Fallen did. “She’s seen where we live. She’s seen us all. She’ll leave this place and go running back to Father Quinn and tell him everything. Believe me. I know first hand. She’ll betray us, and they’ll come for us. You know this.”
Gabriel’s brothers nodded in agreement with Sela. Gabriel faced Raphael, who was watching him just as closely as the stained-glass window of Mary had always done in Holy Innocents Church. He knew they were right. But the thought of allowing the death of an innocent . . . Gabriel couldn’t breathe. Phantom hands wrapped around his heart and squeezed.
But what was his choice? When he had plunged himself into Purgatory years ago, following the dangerous path of his little brother, he had unknowingly signed himself up to being who he was now—the Fallen’s leader. His allegiance lay with them. Their protection was everything.
Gabriel felt a flicker of the light he held dear dim into darkness. A candle snuffed out in a thunderstorm of immorality.
“You get no Revelations for six months,” Gabriel heard himself saying. He felt detached from his body, as though it wasn’t him giving the order to Raphael. His mouth was speaking words he didn’t want to serve. Gabriel could practically feel the uncontainable excitement pulsing from Raphael in his cell. “She isn’t to be allowed out of the manor . . . ever again.” Gabriel felt a spear pierce his side and cut right through his heart. “You keep to your rooms. And when it’s over, you never betray us again.”
“I won’t,” Raphael said. “I promise.” Gabriel finally let himself meet Raphael’s eyes. They were dilated. Uncontained excitement beamed from his brother’s face, Raphael’s cheeks were flushed and his eyes were bright—Gabriel had never seen him so happy. Ever. Gabriel felt physically sick. Raphael was elated at being permitted to take another’s life. Gabriel couldn’t stand it. Couldn’t stand in the vicinity of Raphael’s triumph. Gabriel turned to Bara. “Make him stay for another few hours, then take him to his rooms. I’ll see she is brought there afterward.”
“Maria,” Raphael said as Gabriel turned to leave. Gabriel stilled. “Her name is Maria.” Gabriel closed his eyes. Knowing her name made it exponentially worse. Maria. Gabriel had just signed the death warrant of a young woman named Maria.
Gabriel climbed the first few steps of the staircase, following the wall’s bend until he was out of sight. The minute he was hidden from view, his legs gave way and his back hit the wall. He slid down the cold stone and sat down on a hard step. Gabriel’s head fell into his hands. He had just given a murderer permission to kill an innocent. Something he had vowed never to do.
He focused on breathing through the burning fire of guilt in his chest. But as he concentrated on not falling apart, he heard, “Yes, brother!” Bara’s unmistakable voice sailed to Gabriel’s ears. “You’re getting it. Getting the kill. What we all dream of. You’ve won the damn lottery!”
“Grab the pen and paper from over there. I need to get some things for her.”
Gabriel was frozen as he heard the sound of feet moving across the stone floor.
It was silent for a few minutes, until, “Nice. Though I take it you need one of us to get all this from our not-so-pure friends.” Sela laughed.
“Yes. And I need it all tonight. But the main piece . . .” Raphael paused; Gabriel knew he would be smiling in excitement. “That only arrives when it’s perfect. It must be perfect. You design it, Sela. You know what I want.”
“On it, Raphe.” Gabriel heard Sela move to the back of the Tomb and place a call to one of the many unsavory men they dealt with. Black-market friends, as John Miller had told him when he had given Gabriel the black book full of contacts.
“So, what’s the play?” Uriel asked.
“Seduce her. Spend days inside her. I’m gonna possess her, consume her, make her need me to live.” Raphael’s voice was low and serious, laced with dark determination. Gabriel’s eyes moved in the direction of the base of the stairs, as if he were looking into Raphael’s golden eyes and watching his face light with excitement. “Then I’ll kill her. Kill her so perfectly I’ll never forget it.” Raphael inhaled a loud stuttered breath. “No kill will ever measure up again. It will be what I’ve waited for all my life.”
Gabriel’s body felt as if he had been swallowed by a bath of ice water. The back of his head hit the stone wall of the manor he had inherited from his serial killer grandfather.
Gabriel was exhausted. He couldn’t move even if he’d wanted to.
The priests had been right. He always knew they had been. It had become more and more obvious over the years. The Brethren had rightly detected something sinister running through the veins of his brothers.
Gabriel thought back to Father Quinn, to the Brethren’s priests, to how they treated the boys in Purgatory. They never gave any of them a chance at redemption. They didn’t try to understand them. Just branded them damned and began their exorcisms in earnest. Gabriel cursed the priests for not helping them when they had been boys. What they did didn’t purge his brothers of their evil thoughts and desires. Instead, the corrupt sect of priests had dragged them further into the darkness, stripping away any hope of salvation. Hurting them, brutalizing them, and humiliating them, until there was no good left in their souls. No flicker of light that could be fostered and aided back onto the path of good. Now, they were all as dark as midnight, not a single star illuminating their godless worlds.
The Brethren had made his brothers believe that people were only out to hurt them. That they didn’t belong among normal society.
Gabriel didn’t know how to heal them, how to cure them. As he sat on the stone step, he was consumed with helplessness.
“You’re an incubus, Raphe,” Diel said, and Gabriel caught the low laughter from his other brothers in the Tomb. “This woman doesn’t stand a chance. She’ll be yours in no time.”
Gabriel exhaled a shaky breath and forced himself to move. He would never show his brothers how much their lifestyles destroyed him. He had agreed to this. He had been the one to adopt his grandfather’s system. This was his idea. Not theirs. They had been made to feel inferior their entire lives. Gabriel wouldn’t be another to cast a stone on their already battered souls.
Gabriel crossed the foyer and went to his office. Retrieving the medical bag from his desk, he made his way on unsteady feet to the day room and knocked on the door. When he walked into the room, Maria was sitting on the couch, arms wrapped around her bent legs. Gabriel swallowed back his shame at what he was about to let happen.
“Father,” Maria said as he approached.
Gabriel stared down at her, at the hair that wrapped around her body like a cocoon. Maria was clearly religious, Catholic. That was nothing new
in Boston. Gabriel understood it must have been how the Brethren tasked her with seeking out Raphael. But he didn’t want to know if she was part of a congregation he knew. He didn’t want to know if she had a strong faith. As he looked at Maria, her blue eyes warily locked on him.
Gabriel dropped to his knees and opened his bag. Silently, he took out the thick elastic band. Maria watched him closely. “Hold out your arm,” he said. Maria only hesitated for a second before she did as he asked. She didn’t ask him why. She just did as he ordered. Gabriel squeezed his eyes closed and took a calming breath. She was perfect for Raphael. He had no idea why she was so submissive, especially when faced with a stranger. With danger. But she obeyed and offered her arm for him to do with what he wanted.
Gabriel tied the band around her arm. Her veins protruded as he held her upturned wrist. He retrieved a needle from the bag and pushed it into her flesh, watching as her red blood burst into the syringe’s clear chamber. Maria didn’t even flinch. When Gabriel looked up, Maria was watching him, her blue eyes studying his face. Maria didn’t once ask why he was taking her blood. She didn’t question if his needle was clean. She simply did as she was told.
Maria clearly had a high tolerance for pain, never once wincing or flinching as the needle pierced her flesh. Gabriel wondered if the devil himself had placed this young woman in Raphael’s hands as a reward. He had never met someone so perfectly crafted for another . . . for his brother.
Pulling the needle from her arm, Gabriel wiped the small wound with an antiseptic wipe and placed a Band-Aid over the needle mark. He put the blood in his bag and got to his feet. His heart beat rapidly as he lifted his head and found Maria watching him again. “I will send someone to get you later.” He could see the hope in Maria’s eyes—hope that she would be freed. Gabriel couldn’t let her hope in vain. He wasn’t cruel. “You . . . you will be taken back to Raphael, Maria.”
Maria kept her chin held high. Her blue eyes briefly dropped, but when they lifted again, she nodded as though a silent internal question had just been answered. He saw nothing but strength and resolution in her gaze. She has resolved herself to die. Gabriel cleared his throat, pushing aside the pain this moment brought. “You are not to leave his rooms again.” It sounded like she was forbidden to leave. But they both knew what the underlying message was—she would never leave his rooms alive.
Gabriel turned, needing to leave. Just before he reached the door, Maria said, “You care for them.” Gabriel’s eyes closed at the lack of judgment in her voice. The lack of censure. Gabriel couldn’t remember the last time he spoke to anyone who wasn’t linked to their abnormal lives in the manor. He turned and met her eyes. It was the least he could do after he had damned her to death. “Those men . . . Raphael . . . you love them. Despite their natures. You try to redeem them.”
“I thought so once . . .” Gabriel went to say, but then stopped. “There’s no redemption for them. I know this now.”
Maria smiled. It was the final death blow to Gabriel’s guilty conscience. “I . . . I believe everyone can be redeemed. Even those we fear are most unsalvageable.” Maria hugged her arms around her chest as if she had been struck by a blast of cold. “I suppose as long as the people who love them don’t give up on them. As long as people push aside their fears and prejudices and endeavor to bring out the good in them, no matter how vain the effort may seem. Someone, someday, may get through to them and show them a new path, a better path. Or bring them the light they never realized they needed in their days of perpetual darkness. Wouldn’t you say, Father?”
Gabriel stared at this woman, looking so small and frail on the couch. “Why were you working for them?”
He could tell by Maria’s reaction—locked muscles and flared eyes—that she knew exactly who he meant. Father Quinn. The Brethren.
Maria straightened her shoulders. “We all do what we must,” she said, the slight shake in her voice betraying her lack of conviction. “I know you understand.”
Gabriel felt his chest pull. Because he did. He understood it fully. Though he was curious as to what his old priests had on Maria to make her so compliant. He wouldn’t ask. Her breaths were limited. Whatever demons plagued her mind were hers to bear. He had no right to intrude when he had sentenced her to death.
With a simple nod of farewell, Gabriel left the room, locking it behind him. Allowing the insufferable guilt to eat away at his soul, he rushed to his rooms. The minute he was inside, he crossed the carpet and slid his bookcase to the side. Gabriel entered the secret room he’d had built not long after they had moved in, and swiftly rid himself of his clothes. Disgust and shame ran thickly through his body. He took Maria’s blood from his bag and poured it into a vial. From the fridge, he took out another vial marked “Raphael.” He paused as he ran his fingers over each of his brothers’ names. Vials and vials of blood sat waiting for him, blood he drew weekly from his brothers. They believed it was for medical checks. They had no idea of the truth.
Lighting the church candles that decorated the wooden altar, Gabriel glanced down at the marked wooden surface, stained by years of spilled blood. He reached for the loaf of bread that sat to the side, dropped to his knees, and ripped off a chunk. Taking Maria’s vial of blood, he uncorked the lid and poured three drops onto the bread, the crimson quickly smothering the white as it sank deep. Three drops for the trinity. Gabriel closed his eyes and whispered his familiar prayer. “My soul for hers. May Maria’s transgressions transfer to me. May she enter the kingdom of heaven pure and without sin.”
Gabriel chewed the bread and, as he swallowed, felt the heaviness of the burden weigh down his chest. With a shaky breath, Gabriel took Raphael’s vial and repeated the same action on a new chunk of bread. “My soul for his. May Raphael’s transgressions transfer to me. May he enter the kingdom of heaven pure and without sin.” The copper taste of blood coated Gabriel’s mouth, trickling down his throat when he swallowed Raphael’s bread. He sat back on his haunches and stared up at the crucifix hanging on the wall. He focused on the agony on Jesus’s face as he was crucified. He focused on the nails in his palms and feet and the spear wound in his side.
Gabriel reached for the barbed wire crown in the trunk behind him and forced it onto his head. He gritted his teeth as the barely healed wounds from a few days ago reopened and began to trickle with blood. Gabriel knew his blond curls would be stained and sullied. He picked up his scourge and ran all seven thongs of rope and blades over his palm. The bladed scorpions were designed to tear into his flesh. Gabriel looked down at his thighs, at the spiked cilice that bit into his leg. Gabriel let the anger he warred with build in his heart, the darkness that had begun to possess him over the years. His thigh muscles tightened and blood seeped from his wounds. He took the seven-thonged scourge, each thong representing a deadly sin and also, to Gabriel, a brother, and he used the sinful anger heating his blood to whip the scourge behind him and across his back. The pain was blinding as the lashes whipped his already tender skin and the scorpions bit into his flesh. “Raphael,” Gabriel whispered, then brought the scourge back, only to whip himself again. “Uriel . . .” Gabriel whipped and whipped, a brother’s name falling from his lips with each blow as he purged the sins he had eaten and the wrath he had accumulated from his body. “Selaphiel . . . Barachiel . . . Jegudiel . . . Michael . . .” Gathering the last of his strength, fighting through the agony that was threatening to overwhelm him, Gabriel struck the hardest blow. “Gabriel!”
Gabriel dropped the scourge and fell forward, palms slamming on the cold ground. He tried to breathe through his nose, tried to calm his body from the pain he had inflicted on himself. But the agony roared louder until Gabriel collapsed to the floor, the cold winter wind creeping in through the cracks in the brick wall and slapping at his nakedness. Gabriel moved his heavy head and focused on Jesus’s face. “Forgive me,” he whispered, his voice drifting away with the breeze. “They know not what they do.” But Gabriel was well aware of what he did. And for it
, he would sacrifice his soul. He had sworn to protect his brothers. And that was exactly what he would do.
He would consume their sins and save their souls.
After everything they had been through, they at least deserved that.
*****
Father Murray pulled at the rack. The boy’s screams echoed around the room. But he kept on turning the wheel, glaring at the dark-haired boy with the brown eyes. They weren’t golden, but they were close enough. The boy screamed again, his limbs beginning to pull from their sockets. But Father Murray needed to see the demon-possessed boy in pain. He needed to hear the crack of bones and the screams of imminent death.
“Please,” the boy whispered. “I’ll repent.” Father Murray paused. He met the boy’s eyes. Months. It had taken Father Murray months to get this boy to break, to repent and hand himself over to the Brethren as a heretic and lover of Satan. But when Father Murray saw the look of fear and begging on the boy’s face, all he felt was disgust. He had broken another one. Every such boy he had broken, but one. Father Murray pictured the boy he never conquered in his mind. The evil boy with golden eyes, olive skin, and face made by the Lord himself.