"Please, call me Constantine." He stopped a few feet away, tilting his head slightly as he studied me. "We needn't stand on ceremony here. After all, we're about to become quite intimately acquainted." He circled me slowly. "Tell me about the assassin. Did you get a good look at him?"
I took a deep breath. “Yes, I did. I could describe him for a sketch artist if you’d like, or identify him in any surveillance photos.”
“That won’t be necessary.” He completed the circle, coming to stand before me again. "Does the name Lorenzo Vasquez mean anything to you?"
I frowned. “What does he have to do with…”
“Ah, so you do recognize the name.”
"I..." I cleared my throat. "When I was eleven. My father took me to a warehouse in Rio. There was a boy there, muzzled and chained. Lorenzo. My father bought him."
"And?" Constantine's voice sharpened with interest.
"He bit me hard enough to leave a scar." Tremors wracked my hands until I pressed them flat against the stone. "He was feral like an animal. And then my father sent him away the next day and I never saw him again.”
“Until tonight,” Constantine said.
I stared at him, trying to make sense of the words with my heart racing in my ears. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand—”
“The assassin who murdered Azevedo has already been identified as Lorenzo Vasquez,” Constantine continued as if this was common knowledge. “He works for The Pantheon. One of your father’s little…Ferrymen.” He spat out the last word with obvious disgust.
“No,” I said and then caught myself. “I mean… Are you certain?”
What were the chances that same feral little boy would suddenly pop back into my life twenty years later? They had to be astronomically small. Impossibly so.
Constantine’s left eye twitched. “I don’t make mistakes, Father Oliviera. The man who murdered your mentor is the very same feral child your father purchased in that Rio warehouse twenty years ago. Of this, I am certain.”
“I…” I swallowed whatever I’d been about to say. No words, however well thought out, could capture the sick feeling churning in my gut. The Church had taught me that there was no such thing as fate or luck, only Divine intervention. Had God put Lorenzo in my path for a reason? If so, what was it?
I thought back to the way he’d fought me with a smile on his face, almost like he’d been enjoying it. Ever since that moment, I hadn’t been able to shake the memory of the way his skin felt under my hands, or the way his scent clung to my clothes.
Maybe it wasn’t God who’d sent Lorenzo at all. Maybe it was the Devil.
Constantine smirked. “I thought that might pique your interest. Well, then, we’d better get on with it. Strip.”
The command came so casually I must have misheard. "I'm sorry?"
"Your clothes. Remove them." He turned back to the altar, running his fingers along the handle of a hammer that had been laid out there. "The Rite requires purity, you see. Nothing between you and God's judgment."
I hesitated until he shot me a look that said he was serious, and that denying Constantine anything might be bad for my health.
My hands shook as I undressed. Cassock first, then collar, then undergarments. Then, shivering, I knelt on the cold stone floor in front of the altar.
Constantine followed, picking up one of the nails and weighing it in his palm. "Azevedo spoke of you often, you know. His protégé. The boy he'd taken under his wing after such terrible tragedy. He was quite proud of you, Father Oliveira."
I tried to swallow, but my throat was suddenly paralyzed.
"I know you cared for him deeply," Constantine continued. "That makes this even more difficult, I'm sure. To have witnessed his murder. To have fought his killer and failed to bring him to justice." He paused. "That must weigh heavily on you."
"It does," I whispered.
"Of course it does," he said gently. "You want vengeance.”
Finally, my throat worked and I swallowed the urge to say yes. “The Lord said, ‘Vengeance is Mine,’.”
“He did indeed.” Constantine crouched before me, bringing himself to eye level. “And then He armed us with sword and spirit and a sense of righteousness. For some, God’s vengeance can wait until the afterlife. But for a servant of Azevedo’s importance, we must turn toExodus and not Deuteronomy, my son. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth… a life for a life.”
He took my left hand in his. His grip was firm, positioning my palm upward.
