47. AS FOR ME AND MY HOUSE…
AS FOR ME AND MY HOUSE…
Father Frederick knelt on the floor, his back curved in submission, wrists and ankles chafing against the rough rope.
His breathing was uneven, quick with panic and shame, and impossible to tell which was which.
Still, his eyes clung to the figure before him, hollow with guilt but unable to look away.
He had descended beyond redemption, past anything he once believed himself capable of, and there was no return.
Violet stood over him, now fully clothed, her figure framed in the low light, every movement precise and controlled.
He couldn’t tear his eyes from her, couldn’t muster the will to resist. She was the force behind everything he had once sworn to deny, and now he knelt before her, laid bare, bound, and broken.
The hands that once clutched the cross now shook with the knowledge of what he had become.
I stood in the doorway, my face unreadable, my form swallowed by the darkness curling through the hallway.
I’d witnessed plenty over the years, both within these walls and far beyond them, but this was different.
This was rot. Father Frederick had surrendered himself completely, stripped of conviction and reason.
Violet didn’t need to raise her voice or lift a hand; with little more than a glance, she had unraveled him.
Now he knelt before her, hollowed out and lost, and she barely had to try.
A slow, cold smile tugged at my mouth. I studied the scene before me, refusing to look away.
“Is this what you’ve become, Father?” The words cut through the silence, and I let them hang there, tasting the bitterness in them as well as the satisfaction.
His collapse didn’t surprise me; it confirmed what I’d always suspected.
He opened his mouth to speak, but the words broke apart. “You . . . don’t understand.” He whispered, voice unsteady and thin.
I stepped closer and crouched until my face hovered inches from his. His eyes widened, whether from fear or the sudden clarity of his own corruption, I couldn’t tell. “Oh, I understand perfectly, Father,” I said. “And before the night ends, you will too.”
Anger, disgust, and even a trace of pity burned just beneath the surface.
But underneath it all was something colder: the satisfaction of knowing this was the end he’d earned.
This was justice. He had spent years preying on the vulnerable, twisting faith into something foul.
Now, he was finally going to face what he’d buried for so long.
I stared into his eyes as he trembled. He needed to see it, every lie, every mask, every illusion he’d sold to the town.
“The Lord says in Matthew, Chapter Seven, Verse Fifteen: ‘Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.’” I let the words settle between us as I savored the sting of its truth.
“Tell me, Father, do you feel like a wolf now? Do you feel your sins clawing their way through your skin?”
Father Frederick's face tightened with shame and fear. The self-righteous preacher, the man who had once held a position of moral superiority, now knelt before me, exposed.
“Please?” His voice broke as the word slipped out. He lowered his head, shaking. “I was supposed to lead them . . . I was supposed to be pure . . .”
I scoffed and stepped closer, my voice dropping to a whisper. “You were never pure, Father. You preyed on the innocent. You betrayed everyone who trusted you.” Contempt hardening each word. “And now? Look at you, bound, broken, and kneeling like a pathetic shell of a man before me.”
Violet, standing just beyond us, remained still, her expression unreadable. She was watching and waiting, her lips parted slightly as she observed how I held this moment.
I slipped a hand beneath the edge of my skirt and drew a knife from the garter strapped to my upper thigh, the cold steel gleaming under the dim light.
The room seemed to grow darker with the anticipation of what was about to happen.
The silence was charged with violence, yet before I could make my move, something shifted.
I could smell it before I saw it, the biting, acrid scent of smoke creeping into the room.
My eyes snapped to the window, catching the faintest flicker of light in the distance. It grew steadily, spreading slowly at first, then with mounting speed. A fire had started. Flames now licked the sides of the brothel, inching upward.
I muttered under my breath, dread knotting in my chest. “No . . .”
Violet’s voice interrupted me. “What’s going on?”
I said nothing, moving swiftly to the window.
The townsfolk surged forward, torches in hand, fueled by the fury Father Frederick had stoked with his sermons.
They thought they were doing God’s work; they thought they were purging the evil he had convinced them the brothel was.
The inferno spread fast, the town’s wrath finally unleashed.
I turned back toward Father Frederick, my eyes narrowing with a mix of anger and frustration; the man had become the very thing he had once condemned.
I had planned to end this tonight, to rid myself of the man who had caused so much pain and destruction, but there was no time now.
His rabid, frenzied sermons about the sins at my brothel had become the weapon that would destroy him.
“You won’t get away with this,” I hissed, my voice filled with fury. “You’ll burn for your sins, Father, but it won’t be at my hands, it will be at your own. You and your lies, and your so-called purity, hiding the sickness you've spread in this town. You were never the shepherd.”
A shout rang up from the street, unleashing a wave of noise that spilled into the room.
The fire raced ahead, too quickly to stop.
I could hear the voices of the desperate townsfolk, some shouting in righteous fury, others frantic with panic, all driven by a single purpose.
Their eyes were fixed on their target, and nothing would stand in their way.
The room now felt suffocating, the smoke thickening as it seeped through the cracks between the bricks and the floorboards.
I had no time to linger; the fire was getting closer.
There was nothing left for Father Frederick, nothing left for the brothel.
It would all burn, consumed by the very hatred and fear he had ignited.
As I quickly made to leave, I stopped at the door, my back to him, voice cold as I glanced back once more. “Father Frederick, I hope you’ve repented, because this is where your story ends.”
Violet and I stepped out into the hallway, the roar of the fire swelling in my ears, drowning out Father Frederick’s desperate cries behind us.
In the parlor, Emil, Nell, Elona, and Maeve had barricaded the front doors, desperate to keep the unpredictable mob from storming the brothel.
They assumed the plan was to break in and destroy the place, but they didn’t grasp the true threat until the first wisps of smoke filled the air.
Rushing to the windows, they saw the flames already climbing skyward, beginning to swallow the building.
Outside, the townsfolk were frantic, throwing themselves at the doors of the brothel, determined to destroy everything inside.
Emil shouted for everyone to evacuate, guiding them out the back, away from the chaos. The heat from the fire was unbearable, but the danger of the growing mob was even worse.
Violet and I were the last to leave, the smoke stinging our lungs as we reached the alleyway.
I glanced back at the blazing inferno that had once been my sanctuary, my home, and the source of everything I held dear.
The flames roared as the fire devouring everything it touched.
The crackle of burning wood mingled with the angry shouts of the townsfolk in the distance.
The Oily Cat was reduced now to ash and smoke, but the people were even worse than the fire.
The townsfolk—neighbors, customers, familiar faces—stood in clusters near the brothel and across the street.
Some stared with open horror. Others stood gazing at the blazing maelstrom with rapturous smiles pasted on their zealous faces.
A few still held torches, their grips unsteady, flames flickering in the wind.
The destruction, the violence, it had excited them. Given them purpose.
Emil, who had been checking to make sure everyone had made it out safely and now led us toward the mouth of the alley and away from the building, suddenly stopped in his tracks. Then, as if in slow motion, I watched him come undone.
His eyes found a man smiling garishly; his expression making it clear he had no regrets about what he had just done.
He was a short, paunchy fellow named Harlan Miller, who’d once tipped Nell a coin for pouring him a little more than a thumb’s worth of his favorite whiskey.
Harlan’s face was bathed in firelight, his grin wide and sickening.
That was all it took. Emil surged toward him.
“Emil!” Nell shouted, but her voice didn’t reach him.
He grabbed Harlan by the collar and slammed him backward into a hitching post, cracking the wood. Harlan tried to shout, to speak, but Emil’s fist met his mouth, silencing him. Once, twice. By the third strike, blood painted Emil’s knuckles.
“You set it on fire.” He growled, shaking as he continued to beat Harlan in the face.
An older man in a vest and spectacles tried to intervene.
Emil turned on him with such speed and force that his right hook sent the man reeling and shattered his glasses.
Those in the crowd that were now beginning to watch the violence gasped, but no one moved to stop him.
He grabbed a shovel from a nearby stoop and swung it wide, knocking a younger man off his feet with a sickening thud. People began to scatter, but Emil didn’t chase them. He lashed out at anyone who hadn’t already run, his rage indiscriminate and raw.