by Blake Pierce
Father Mora hadn’t deserved it. Father Mora had been the only righteous one among them. Hadn’t he shown it? Hadn’t he brought pain as a gift?
Now, limping toward his final destination, Luca Vargas could feel his heart quicken. He remembered all the times Father Mora had scourged him, beaten him. All the times he’d been bloodied and bruised. Penitence, atonement… These things were crucial.
He limped again, hissing beneath his breath.
Father Mora had been a mistake…
The man had carried a little statue. Idolatry—or a younger Luca had thought so, at least. He hadn’t meant to drown the man. Hadn’t meant to kill the only father he’d ever known.
No parents of his own, no family, no friends to speak of. Father Mora had taken him in, sheltered him, taught him pain. He’d gone to the school, fortunate enough to be allowed in by Mora. The same man who’d beaten him, who’d dragged him from his bunk in the night to whip him. Mora had been a harsh man, a tasking father—but one who’d made Luca into the person he was today. He would’ve remained weak, pathetic, full of sin and self-loathing if not for Father Mora’s ministrations.
And how had he repaid the man?
He’d drowned him.
Not on purpose. He’d thought the Lord had given him a sign. But the priest hadn’t been engaged in idolatry. He’d simply been confiscating a statue from one of the students. The truth had come out later.
Luca whimpered, taking another step, dragging his right foot behind him now. It was going numb from the pain—he could barely feel it. One step. Another. Another. He focused on the ground, creating imaginary lines in his mind. Just two more steps.
He did it.
Now just two more.
Again he did it.
Just two more.
Like this, he traveled a few hundred feet up the old road under the watchful night.
Father Mora had taught him to be attentive, taught him to keep an eye out for sin. Luca had thought he’d been obedient, even calling Mora out. They’d struggled. The old man had fallen into the well. Luca had thought it a judgment of God, but then he realized his mistake.
He whimpered at the memories, at the desperate cry from the old man as he’d plummeted into the well.
After that, things had only gotten worse. He’d increased the punishments on himself, on the students under him. The only way toward purity was pain. He increased his efforts out of contrition, out of repentance. By doing what Father Mora had done, he thought perhaps he could absolve himself. But he should have known better. He’d killed a good man. Taken a life without permission… And so he had paid the due penalty in his flesh for the hardening of his own heart.
The guilt of what he’d done had eaten at him, nearly consuming him.
He let out a shattered breath, finally reaching the bottom step to the cathedral. So close… so very close.
He stared at the open door of the structure. The burial place of St. James. It all lay before him. Ten long years. Ten years of waiting for the Lord’s permission.
He’d gone through a Job season. Found himself like Jonah in the belly of the whale.
He whimpered, another step, onto the bottom stair now. So smooth, so welcoming. At night, no one watched. A few people further down the road were heading in the other direction. He was alone now, taking the steps toward his destiny.
For a decade he’d suffered. Three years after his horrible sin, he’d been excommunicated. After that, he’d fallen into penance. As he’d continued, he’d felt the call of God louder in his mind, whispering at first, but growing. As a child, he’d enjoyed hurting others. One of the reasons Mora had been so hard on him. Now, of course, he didn’t enjoy it… At least, he would never admit it. Not that there was anything left to admit. He simply fulfilled the Lord’s judgment. Pain… Pain only gave him pleasure because it was how it had to be. A sort of spiritual hedonism.
He knew his path to absolution would require judgment of others.
Three souls he’d already offered. Three unrepentant sinners.
None of them would have made this journey. Not like he had.
“I am here, Lord,” he said, smiling now at the sky, looking toward the clouds reflecting the moon. “I have come… You called and I answered. I am just a humble servant.”
He outstretched his hands for a moment, standing in the middle of the stairs, inhaling in, out, deeper, louder, filling his lungs with air.
The final breaths of a sinful man. The final breaths of a soul unfulfilled. Now… steps away, everything would change. Like the Apostle Paul often said, in the twinkling of an eye, this great mystery, he would become in the likeness of the lamb.
Just a twinkle. A flash of achievement.
So very close.
He swallowed, licking his parched lips, his eyes too dry to tear up now, his body too dehydrated to sweat.
As he moved up the final few steps toward the entrance into the ancient cathedral, a voice suddenly called from the shadows behind a pillar.
“Stop,” the voice said, simply.
He hesitated, frowning.
“Lord?” he murmured.
“No,” the voice replied. “Not your God. DGSI. Don’t move, Luca Vargas. Keep your hands where I can see them.”
He turned, frowning, as a woman stepped from behind the incredible tan, contoured columns, and moved in front of the shadowy door, only paces away from him. She stood at the top of the stairs, glaring down at him, her chin jutting out in defiance, her hands at her side. One hand rested on a firearm.
He stared, swallowing. “You know my name?”
She scowled at him, nodding once. “Yes, Luca. I know where you’ve been. I know what you’ve done. Stop where you are.”
He whimpered now, staring over her shoulder into the cathedral. The door was so large around her, swallowing the woman’s slight frame. She was taller than most—only barely shorter than him. She had long blonde hair, pulled back, and her face was like granite, fixed in a foreboding expression.
“I—I can speak in a moment, child,” he said softly. “I must first enter this place.”
She crossed her arms, though, fixating him with an unyielding expression. “No. That’s not going to happen. You’re not going in.”
He blinked, stunned, and looked at her, his mouth forming a small circle. “I—excuse me?”
“You’re not going in,” she said, firmly, shaking her head. “Keep your hands up—or this is going to go poorly for you.”
He began to raise his hands slowly. His expression fluttered, the pain along his side flaring again. What did she mean he wasn’t allowed in?
“Who—who are you?” he whispered.
“My name is Agent Sharp. I work with the DGSI and Interpol. And I’m telling you, I won’t let you in.”
“You can’t stop me!” he said, scandalized and stunned more than angry. “Please—please!” His voice became a screech and he raised his extended hands imploringly in her direction. “Please—you have to let me in. You have to!” His voice became a howl now.
But the woman in the doorway didn’t budge. He tried to limp forward, but her gun pulled from her holster. She kept it facing the stairs between them. But the threat was obvious. “Not another step,” she snapped.
He licked his lips, judging the distance between them. Maybe if he could get a hand over the doorway—even the edge of his pinky… perhaps that would be enough. He stared into the doorway, stared past the woman as if she wasn’t even there. The darkness called to him, invited him. The night around them cradled him, comforting him.
Hadn’t it been night when Mora had fallen into the well? Fallen—yes… he’d fallen, hadn’t he? Just a sad accident. Of course… Just an accident.
He had never intended to hurt anyone. It wasn’t his fault. The Lord told him.
“I don’t enjoy it,” he said, breathlessly, louder now. “I—I don’t. I swear.”
“You swear?” the woman said, shaking her head. “I thought you weren’t su
pposed to swear.”
“I—it… Let me through!” he snarled, taking a lunging step forward.
But the gun snapped up, pointing toward his chest.
“Get back, now!” she snarled. “I will drop you where you stand.”
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
Adele stood with her feet shoulder width, gun raised, fixed on the man three steps lower. He looked in a bad way, as if he’d been in a fight or an accident. Blood trickled down the side of his face, scrape marks that hadn’t been bandaged in hours, by the looks of them. His leg dragged with his motion, suggesting he was limping. His eyes were bloodshot, wide. His hair was half combed to the side, held by gel, but the other half was disheveled and wild, jutting every which way. In one hand, he gripped at his pocket, holding onto something she couldn’t see, hidden in the folds of his fabric.
She stared at Luca Vargas, stared at the excommunicated priest. The church had gotten it right this time. They’d kicked this man from their ranks. She wondered if they’d known just how good of a call that had been.
Now this fellow stood before her, one hand groping at his pocket, his lips parted as a soft, whimpering mewl echoed into the night. His eyes darted about wildly, shooting looks of longing through the doorway behind her.
To Adele, it was just an old cathedral. She understood the history, the culture, the faith. She respected it. But she didn’t believe walking a few hundred miles would save someone from their past. She’d experienced too much pain to think any human effort could do that.
But to this man…
What lay behind her was absolution.
Was a way to rewind time.
A way to erase his memory.
“Rosa Alvarez,” she murmured. “Gabriel Fernando,” she said, louder. “Matthew Icardi.”
He blinked, shaking his head. “I—please…”
He tried to step forward again, but again she pointed her gun at him, snapping, “Don’t!”
“Please,” he whimpered again, mewling like a kitten without milk. His hand at his side kept twisting and turning in his pocket, tracing the counters of some item hidden in the fabric.
“Why did you kill them?” she said, slowly. “What did they do to you?”
He stared at her. “Killed?”
“Yes—you wouldn’t lie to me, would you? Like you lied to the lady back at the hostel. You lied about your name, Mr. Vargas.”
“Father Vargas!” he snapped, looking at her for the first time as if just realizing who she was. “Father Vargas, child!”
The man had dark hair tinged with gray and his face was streaked with lines of age and worry. He looked as if he might be in his forties, but around his eyes he looked sixty.
“You were excommunicated, weren’t you?” Adele said softly. “For violence against those in your charge.”
“I didn’t mean to lie to that lady,” he said. “I apologized. I told her the truth.”
“You did—didn’t you. That’s important to you, hmm?” Adele said, carefully, her eyes flicking along the man’s countenance, trying to read an indeterminable page. “Truth is important.”
“It is.”
“So why did you kill them?”
“Who?”
“Rosa Alvarez,” Adele said, through gritted teeth, speaking more firmly. “Matthew Icardi. Gabriel Fernando.”
“I don’t know those names… I—wait, yes, Matthew. The glutton? Hmm? I think I know the name Matthew. The others I don’t know.”
Adele stared at him. “You don’t even know their names?”
“The sinners?” he said, surprised all of a sudden. “Are you asking about the sinners I punished?”
She wet her lips, swallowing slowly. “Yes. Yes, them. Why did you kill them?”
“I didn’t—the Lord did. I was just his vessel, see,” he said quickly, his tone relieved now as if certain this explanation would clear everything up. He gave a good-natured chuckle. “Dear Lord, you had me worried there for a moment. I’m afraid you’re mistaken. Here, just let me step past you and we can discuss whatever you’d like, child.”
“I’m not your child. You’re not a priest. You killed them. Why?”
His jaw set and Adele could tell he was growing angry. “The glutton? The whore? The homosexual?” He waved a hand beneath his chin as if to say, hurry up.
“So they hurt you in some way?”
“It’s not about harm, child. No-harm morality is a secular invention. I don’t believe in no-harm morality. The Lord doesn’t.” He jammed a finger at the night sky. “No-harm means nothing. Sin always harms. Eventually. Even over time. Sometimes hundreds of years later. If you could trace the path of a lie, a theft, a broken promise—if you could trace the effect through the centuries, you would turn paradise to hell. There is no harmless sin. None!”
“What about murder? Is that a sin?”
“Judgment!” he crowed, arms spreading wide again. “Not murder! Not murder!” His one hand went back to his pocket, twisting furiously. “I didn’t murder anyone. Is it not the Lord’s will to judge? I simply fulfilled his commands.”
“You’re not God. You don’t get to kill people because you enjoy it.”
He spat. “I don’t enjoy it! I never have. Never!”
“I think you’re lying to yourself.” Adele could feel the way her gun went cold in her fingers. The way the steel pressed against her hand. She could feel the wind ushering up the steps, over the killer’s shoulders, ruffling her hair.
She also could feel the certainty in her bones.
She wouldn’t move. She wasn’t going to allow him into the cathedral.
She thought of her mother, of Robert Henry. She thought of the small monster with the dull eye and the limp. She thought of the tortures he’d inflicted, of the horrors he’d wrought. Of the way he’d taunted her, stalked her, taken a shot at her father. The way he’d nearly killed John once. She thought of how systematically he’d gone out of his way to dismantle every moment of joy and beauty in her life.
A man like that didn’t deserve absolution.
She was sure a theologian could argue with her, could tell her the wrong way of her thinking. Didn’t everyone need forgiveness? Didn’t every sinner need saving?
She’d heard it all before.
And she didn’t care.
This man wasn’t going to pass her. He couldn’t murder and get away with it. That wasn’t how life worked. He was trying to pass her to clear his conscience, that was all. But he didn’t deserve a clear conscience. He didn’t even remember the names of the people he’d brutally slain. They were nothing to him. If anything, he seemed proud of what he’d done. He was now watching her as if she were little more than an annoying gnat. If he could, no doubt he would have tried to crush her for the simple crime of intervening in his own desires.
He killed because he wanted to. She knew killers, she could sniff it on them.
This was a murderer. He couched it in holier-than-thou language, he hid among sheep as a wolf, but it didn’t change what he was. It didn’t change the glaring hated behind his eyes.
“You started with Ricardo Mora, didn’t you? Why? Ten years ago. They said he drowned by accident. But you were there at the time. Did you do it?”
It was as if she’d struck him across the face. He gasped, staring up at her, mouth unhinged, his face turning suddenly pale as if he’d seen a ghost.
“What did you say to me?” he murmured.
“Ricardo Mora,” she repeated. “Say his name. Say it with me. Say, I killed Ricardo Mora. Say it! Say it!” She was yelling now, her own anger rising within her, images of her mother’s corpse, of Robert’s… The way they’d been mutilated, choking on their own blood, tortured for hours. The killer had teased her once—the way they’d screamed. He’d laughed about it. He’d enjoyed it, and he’d wanted her to know that her mother’s pain, her surrogate father’s pain, had given him pleasure. Not for any other reason but because he enjoyed the agony it caused her.
“S
ay it,” she growled, her finger trembling against the trigger. “Say his name. Robert Henry. Say it! Say it, dammit!”
“Who?” the man said, still shaking, still pale, his hand still in his pocket. “I don’t know Robert Henry. Father Mora was a mistake—a horrible, horrible error. I’ve repented for it. I have! I flogged myself for years over it. See! See!” he twisted at the waist, lifting up his shirt and displaying a spine crisscrossed with thick, roping scars. His eyes were blazing now, shaking his head. “Do not perform your acts of righteousness before men to be seen by them!” he declared. “I did what I had to. I didn’t mean to hurt him. It was a mistake. I misunderstood the Lord.”
“You killed a man. Why? Was he hurting you? Is that it? Is that your pathetic excuse for all this—for everything you’re doing?”
“Do… hot… perform…” His chest heaved now, his face still white, his lips trembling where he stood on the steps beneath the giant cathedral. Adele could feel the way his eyes kept flicking toward the entrance behind her.
She didn’t budge an inch. She refused to. He was delusional—that much was clear. He truly believed the crazed ravings he muttered. He truly believed all of it justified his actions. The taking of three lives. Perhaps even four.
He lowered his other hand now, speaking softer, quieter, an even tone to his voice all of a sudden. “I understand you’re angry. I understand you don’t see the judgment of God. But child, please, let me explain. They were sinners. The Glutton, the Whore, the Homosexual. They were sinners. They were put in my path for the sake of truth. For the sake of judgment. The Lord did it. I begged him, I really did, I pleaded with the Lord to not make me do it. I asked him to pass the cup… but should I not obey? Is it up to me to decide his will?”
“So that’s it, then?” Adele whispered. “You kill sinners? Hmm? Like some sort of cosmic crap shoot. Some he loves. Some he kills. And you get to decide, is that right? I was just speaking to an old friend of yours. Someone from your commune.” She was careful not to mention Father Paul’s name. “He said the role of priests is to extend mercy. Where was your mercy? Hmm? You don’t like sinners. Well, I’m a sinner. What are you going to do about it?” She wasn’t even sure what she was saying now. She could feel the adrenaline bruiting through her system, could feel the way her nostrils widened as she inhaled rapidly.