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Mr. Foster turns toward me, and his eyes widen, taking me in. I’m six-six, and I guess he wasn’t expecting me. Most people don’t. He swings the knife, and my left cheek explodes with a crazy, stinging pain.
“Son of a bitch.” I hold my face and gag at all the blood I see in my hand.
“Get out of here, Lachlan!” Father Eamon is on his knees, cornered next to the fireplace. It’s roaring with perfumed smoke, but mixed with copper in the air from all the blood. This is a smell that will haunt me forever.
Mr. Foster will certainly kill Father Eamon. I’m not going anywhere.
“Give me that.” I grab the knife, the blade slicing into my palm, but I get it away from him.
Michael’s da puts his hands up in a defensive position and has nowhere to run, since I’m blocking the door to the sacristy.
I grab the man by the throat and put the knife to his face. “Don’t like it, do you?”
“Lachlan, don’t,” Father Eamon whines. “We don’t hurt people. Let him go. All of this is a misunderstanding.”
Charles narrows his eyes on me. “Oh God,you’reLachlan O’Rourke? The lunatic son of Fergus O’Rourke.” The look of terror in his eyes that he just dug a knife into O’Rourke flesh kicks up my adrenaline and delicious satisfaction. “Figures, you’re a criminal just like your corrupt old man.” Him bad-mouthing my da flips an evil switch I didn’t know I had.
“Aye, that’s me.” I squeeze harder, watching him turn blue.
“Stop. Please.” Mr. Foster struggles and manages to kick me in the shin.
“Fuck!” I push him, and he stumbles, falling backward.
His head smacks into the stone hearth with a sickening thud. Fueled with rage, I lift the knife, ready to plunge it into his heart, when a bloody hand grabs my wrist.
“No, Lachlan. We don’t strike others who want to do us harm. The Lord judges and punishes.Wedon’t.” He knows I want to serve God and be a priest like him. “We’re here to guide souls.”
Perhaps I’m not cut out to be a priest because I don’t have the same grace in my heart to forgive. I’m shaken to my core, but I push it away. Like my father, I’ll make my own rules when I’m a priest in my own church. Hopefully, far away from here. Back home in Waterford, Ireland maybe.
I look down, ready to cast my first sin. Show God what I’m willing to do to protect and avenge a good man of faith, like Eamon. But blood seeps onto the hearth’s stone and down the side from the man’s head. All that’s left are his cold, lifeless eyes staring at the ceiling.
Bollocks. He’s already dead.
From me. I pushed him. I did this. I wait for remorse to swamp me. But it doesn’t.
“Shite.” I throw the knife down, worried my prints are on it. But Mr. Foster doesn’t have stab wounds. Father Eamon does.
“We’ll say he fell. Look at us. We’re both cut up. Good heavens, Lachlan, your face.” He reaches out to touch me, but instincts make me back away.
My left cheek throbs. “Why did Mr. Foster say you hurt Michael?”
Father Eamon takes off his blood-soaked robe and covers the man. “I don’t know.”
“Did Michael do something wrong?”
“I don’t know what Charles was talking about.”
It hits me what Michael’s da must have meant byhurt. I’m not naïve to the scandals that have been rocking the Catholic church. I just haven’t met a priest who did any of that.
Father Eamon approaches me. “We have to get you to a hospital, Lachlan. You need stitches.” He picks up the phone I dropped. “This is Father Eamon Gallagher from St. Agatha’s in Astoria. A man with a knife attacked me and my altar boy. We’re hurt badly. Please send an ambulance.”
“What do I tell them about Mr. Foster?” It strikes me now that Michael doesn’t have a father. Because of me.
“You’ll say nothing. You did nothing. You protected me. You grabbed him and he cut you. Then he fell on his own.That’show it went down, Lachlan.”
Except, that’s not what happened. I’m surprised he’s asking me to lie. Even if he’s protecting me. I don’t need his protection. Thiswasself-defense. In a way. The man stabbed me. The man was attacking my priest. My mentor. My hero.
You hurt my boy…
