CHAPTER 2:Demitri
The woman sagged against me, her blood soaking through the front of my cassock, warm where the rain had made everything else cold.Her fingers were still caught in the fabric, clutching as if even unconsciousness could not convince her to let go.
Outside, car doors slammed.
Three.I counted them without meaning to.
Three doors.Three men.And an engine left running.
The old part of me gathered those details and placed them neatly into the back of my mind.
I carried her down the centre aisle, past the pews and the watching saints, her bare feet swinging limp above the stone.Blood dripped from her hair onto the floor in small, vivid spots.
There were too many and they were too vivid.
I tightened my hold and moved faster.
The confessional stood in the left transept, its dark wood polished.I pulled the curtain aside with my shoulder and lowered her onto the narrow bench inside.Her head lolled against the wall.Her lips parted around a shallow breath.
She was barely alive.
“Stay quiet,” I whispered, though I didn’t know if she could hear me.
Her lashes fluttered once.
The men’s voices grew louder outside.
I looked at her for half a second too long.
She was young.Not a girl, but too young to have been subjected to such violence.
Something cold and clean slid through me, and it looked a little like rage.
I shut the curtain.
Then I turned.
The blood on the floor looked black in the dim light, scattered from the side doors to where I stood.A trail.An accusation.A map for the wolves to follow.
I crossed to the altar and snatched the white cloth from the side table.
It was used for holy things.
The body and blood of Christ.
I dropped to one knee and dragged it across the stone.
The first smear only widened the stain.
“Damn it,” I breathed.
The curse sounded louder, somehow harsher in the church.I couldn’t stop to cross myself for cursing.
I scrubbed harder.
The cloth drank the blood greedily, white becoming red, then rust, ugly and useless.I wiped the largest marks first.The ones near the aisle.The ones by the altar.The ones under the mouth of the confessional.
Outside, footsteps splashed through the puddles.
