Ravenous

Chapter 13 Comm With the Devil

Communion With the Devil

RIPLEY

To my surprise, Preacher’s been letting me wander around the house— all under his watchful eye, of course. He was quick to show me the tracking software on his phone.

I’m just a little red dot.

I peruse his living room, trying to ignore the tightness around my neck from the collar as his eyes follow me from the kitchen door.

There’s a bar cart packed with expensive booze and fancy glassware, sketches of horses, and some abstract paintings, but what really draws my attention are the books that are lining his shelves.

Poetry, Shakespeare, Jane Austen, anatomy, and even legal textbooks.

I guess if you’re going to break the law, you might as well study it.

He’s also clean— almost too clean. The house feels like a museum, and I’m here standing behind some imaginary velvet rope.

“Were you in the military?” I ask, dragging my finger along the bookshelf.

Not a speck of dirt.

“No,” Preacher chuckles, glancing back to the stove. “Why do you ask?”

He’s sipping a drink, eyes gleaming as that sizzling sound from the pan grows more intense.

“Because you’re a neat freak. Most military dudes are neat freaks. They also kill a lot of people.”

“No military, just a strict religious prick of a father.”

I snort. We have something else in common.

“How long have you owned this house?”

“Inherited it after my mama died.”

“You got siblings?” I ask.

“Yep. A brother. You?”

“I’ve got a sister.”

“Younger?”

I nod.

Gabriel was my first ticket out of that fucking house, and I didn’t look back.

I pull one of his books off the shelf, flipping through it until my eye lands on a poem called The Drowned Lover by Percy Shelley.

Oh! dark lowered the clouds on that horrible eve,

And the moon dimly gleamed through the tempested air;

Oh! how could fond visions such softness deceive?

Oh! how could false hope rend, a bosom so fair?

Thy love's pallid corse the wild surges are laving—

“That’s one of my favorite collections.”

The book tumbles from my hand in surprise, but he catches it, grinning at me.

“Jesus, warn a gal, would you?”

Preacher’s smile grows wider as he slides the book back onto the shelf. There’s a fine dusting of flour on his hands, a bit of it messing up his otherwise pristine shirt.

“Come and eat. I made pasta and meatballs.”

The table is fully set, with wine glasses, shiny plates, and cutlery, all accented by a crimson tablecloth, with his two rottweilers guarding the meal like gargoyles.

I’m a little nervous, not quite sure how they feel about me, but as we approach, one of them takes a step forward and gives me the opportunity to hold out my hand to him.

“Charon,” Preacher warns. “You be gentle.”

Charon sniffs at my fingers before gently licking them. I like dogs. I always have. They’re loyal and protective. Easy to trust.

“How do you tell them apart?”

“If you look carefully you can see Charon has a smudge on his nose, and Hades… well, he’s just an asshole.”

“I mean, you know what they say. Some dogs take after their owners.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I swear I see him grin. But then his hand wraps around my waist and he pulls me in close, lips pressed right up to my ear as warm breath fans against my skin.

“Don’t forget who saved you, little rabbit.” He releases me just as quickly as he grabbed me, pulling out a chair. “Sit.”

Charon lets me give him one little scratch on the top of his head and I slide into the chair, looking down at a beautiful plate of pasta with a single large meatball resting on top. My mouth waters and it’s a struggle to stop myself from grabbing my fork and digging in immediately.

This is all so strangely civil for a man who has a collection of missing person’s IDs. I really can’t figure him out. He’s rugged, dangerous, and certainly deadly, and yet this meal looks like something you’d find on a curated Pinterest board.

“Here.” He pulls a small green pill bottle fom his pocket and taps out two white tablets, dropping them right next to my fork. “Take those.”

“Ooh, is it cyanide! You really shouldn’t have.”

“It’s Percocet, you smartass. You need something for the pain, right?”

I look down at the pills, shining like little gems against the blood red cloth.

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

Preacher stares at me before tapping out a pill and popping it into his mouth, following it up with a big sip of wine before showing me his tongue.

“Satisfied?”

Maybe he really does want to help.

I snatch up the pills, staring at them for a moment.

“You’d better not be bullshitting me.”

I wash them down with some wine, grimacing at that obnoxious phantom-feeling, like the pills are still lodged in my throat despite knowing they’re long gone.

“Atta girl. Now, eat up.”

I go right for the meatball, choosing to ignore the way the atta girl made my cheeks warm.

I need to be on my toes, and that shit isn’t helping.

A little bit of the juice seeps onto pasta sauce when I cut into it, and my mouth waters involuntarily.

The groan that leaves my body along with the first bite probably sounds inhuman.

It’s a struggle to eat like a civilized human being when this is the first real food you’ve had in months. Suddenly, another meatball is dropped onto my plate and I look up at Preacher.

“What’s this for?”

“You’re obviously starving, just eat it.”

I stare at my plate, suddenly flooded with shame. Gabriel starved me on purpose, forcing me to exist on nothing but saltines and peanut butter half the time, so this feels positively decadent.

“Where’d you learn to cook?” I ask, tentatively slicing into the second meatball.

I keep expecting him to cruelly yank the plate away, or worse, throw it at me like Gabriel did. I was hoping that fuckwit wouldn't have such an iron grip on my mind after he lost his head, but here we are.

“Well, my mama taught me everything she knew before she passed.” He tops up our wine glasses before digging into his own food. “She always said the way to a woman’s heart is to cook her a good meal. Hasn’t really worked for me before, but—”

“I mean, you’ve got your own unique ‘chain her to your floor’ method, so there’s that.”

I expect him to get angry, but all he does is grin, giving me another good look at that silver canine.

“Let’s just call that plan B.”

Preacher’s demeanor reminds me of an animal’s, his energy bordering on playful yet… aggressive. It’s like he could flip on a dime, and there’s something very compelling about that specific kind of danger.

“So, let’s get this out of the way: you kill people, right? Lots of people? That’s why all the ID’s were down in the cellar.”

His throat bobs as he takes a bite of pasta, chewing for a moment in contemplation.

“It’s not quite that simple, but you’re not wrong.”

Finally, we’re getting somewhere.

“Alright, so what kind of people do you kill? You said no women and children, any other rules?”

“I kill… bad men.”

“But what kind of bad men? Am I gonna find out you’re gutting dudes that run red lights, or are we talking more biblical here?”

“Well, the guy I was working on before I found you was charged with rape and domestic violence.” He takes another bite of his food, his eyes gleaming with pride. “That bad enough for you?”

I’m starting to figure out our dynamic a little more.

He shares, I share, and then there’s some trust. But where does that little bit of trust lead us?

He still has me collared, so of course he feels comfortable enough to start revealing some truths.

There aren’t any real consequences if he says too much.

“What do you do with them after you kill them? You bury the bodies out here?”

He chuckles.

“Did you ever take communion? The blood and body of Christ?”

“When I was a kid, yeah.”

It’s hard not to be enchanted by his smile, soft and boyish with a devilish charm that makes it nearly impossible to tear your eyes away. I kind of hate how attractive he is, it makes this whole being a prisoner thing a little bit harder to handle.

“Well, I have clients who are willing to pay good money for exotic meats. Let’s just call it communion with the devil.”

It’s so quiet, you could hear a pin drop. I glance down at my food, suddenly very aware of the texture in my mouth.

“Exotic…”

“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t feed you something like that without askin’.”

I swallow what’s still in my mouth before dabbing at my cracked lip with a napkin. I don’t know if I believe him, but it’s not like I can do anything about it at this point.

“Okay, so what you’re telling me is… you sell human meat?”

He cocks his head just a bit, leaning back confidently in his chair as he observes me.

“That’s right.”

The room starts spinning, or maybe it’s been spinning for a while now. I can’t tell if it’s the wine, the percs, or the confession I just heard.

Probably all three.

“I— Oh god, do you eat it?”

“Chef’s gotta taste his own cooking, doesn’t he?” He tilts his head the other way, a little playfully. “Does that bother you?”

“Jesus, why not just become a hitman or something? Did you wake up one day and think ‘wow, it sure would be a cool idea to traffic human meat’?”

“I sort of am a hitman, actually. Turns out the money’s just better on this side of the business.”

My nausea slowly gives way to curiosity. I want to dig deeper, but I’m also afraid of what I’ll find when I do. However, it only takes a few more bites of food and sips of wine before the list of questions in my head begin to pile up.

How does he choose his victims? How does he hunt them? How does he kill them?

And where the fuck do you store a whole human body?

But instead I ask…

“How much do you make?”

“More than enough. I keep what sustains me, and this house, and give the rest of it away. Usually my partner funnels it into different charity organizations and shit like that.”

I’m pretty certain that’s money laundering, but then again, I used to think it was when you put your money in the washing machine to clean off that invisible tracking ink, so what the fuck do I know?

“What kind of charity?”

“Women’s and animal shelters, food banks, things that help people.”

I frown.

“I have to admit, I’ve never heard of an altruistic serial killer before.”

“Well, I get something out of it, too.” Preacher leans forward, his piercing eyes locked on mine.

“But I have a feeling you and I share the same darkness. I have something to offer you, a proposal really, but first, I need you to lay all your cards out on the table. So tell me, little rabbit, is the truth something you’re willing to trade? ”

This man has an undeniably powerful presence, and even seated in his chair, it feels like he’s looming over me.

“I… need to know what I’d be getting in return.”

And there’s that smile again.

“How about salvation?”