Page 127 of The Sinner and the Priest: Part 1

She looks down at the sword. They all do. Thank fuck it’s smoldering with a hellish red because I don’t have time to explain other than to swing the sword toward Jasmine’s room and say, “It’s filled with demonic flies. Jasmine’s gone after Cisco.”

Then I run, praying to God, begging him.

Cisco better be breathing when I get there. Because if he’s not, I’ll burn the fucking church down myself.

Forty-Two

Cisco

The rain started again not long after Mercy left. Wind howls through the cracks. Right now, the nave is an ocean. Black, bottomless, and dead.

Dead air. Dead wood. Dead silence.

My feet are slow to cross the floor as if I am wading against a violent, invisible undertow. I walk past the sanctuary and pause at the altar. The crucifix drifts overhead like a dead buoy. I turn, walk around the altar, and then continue down the aisle to the entrance.

Should I go after her?

No.

Yes.

She’s an adult. She’ll hate me checking on her. She’ll work it out.

Lascia dormire la notte, my father always said after he upset my mother—sleep on it. But the night never sleeps here. The crucifix is silent. And I keep walking, ribs aching, head splitting with want.

I am a priest sworn to celibacy, yet my cock is hard enough to break stone. I am the Vatican’s finest exorcist, yet the devil is curled up, purring beneath my ribs. I’m supposed to be praying for Mercy’s soul, but all I can think about is the taste of her skin, the slick, intoxicating heat of her mouth.

“Fanculo.” I strip off the cassock, toss the holy vestment onto the floor, and I wade deeper, past the front door with the key still in the lock. Just how she left it.

Icy wind cuts through the gaps in the old wooden door, tickling my bare torso.

It’s late.

How many hours ago was I in the archives? How long until dawn?

I try to count, but my brain’s a glitching radio. It’s static on every channel. I don’t see rows of wooden pews; I see the ribcage of a ship, sunk beneath water. Lightning flashes, bleeding through the stained windows to paint the room in a sickly, bruised purple—the color of the sky the day Maria drowned.

I close my eyes and summon her. Not my sister.

Mercy.

The way she looked at me beneath the water in the pool. The way she looked that first time we met, on the abbey front steps, her pink silk robe slipping off her shoulder and flashing lacy underwear.

She knows how to get under your skin. Knows how to make you want.

No. Not her. Not Mercy.

Hand shaking, I run it through my hair again, and again, like maybe if I rub hard enough, I’ll massage sense back into my brain.

I’m at the front of the church again, staring into the chancel, across the altar, and up at the crucifix. Hand slipping into my pants, I grip the rosary until the beads bite into my flesh.

It’s supposed to be my anchor, but now all I remember is the slick terror of the sea. Reaching for my little angel. I grab nothing but this rosary, and the fragile chain snaps.

Exhaustion threatens to take me under. The ground sways beneath my feet.

“Mea culpa.”

My prayer comes back to me threefold, and I can’t stand it, so I return to the oratory and collapse onto the red velvet couch.