Saints and Soldiers
“Hey!” Sinrik yanked on the odd restraints that held him snugly in the pitch dark. Whatever it was made of he was sure he didn’t want to know. Felt like he was on a bed. His brain oddly calm with a useless recalling of absolutely nothing regarding his current predicament.
“Help!”
Quick footsteps sounded as a door opened. “I’m here, I’m here,” a female voice whispered.
He squinted at the light coming his way. A lantern?
Her white form took shape in the low illumination. Not a nurse. A nun.
“Sister Beatrice, at your service,” she confirmed with a small nod, greeting him like a guest. “I was asked to watch over you and provide for any needs you may have. Are you ready for the lavatory?”
Before he could wonder what she meant, his bladder clued him in. “Yes,” he said, eager to be free of the odd prison encasing him.
Beatrice. Did he know her?
“I will see to it,” she said, setting the lantern on a small table and turning up the flame.
The shadows shrunk, revealing gray cement walls in a square room the size of a king’s closet.
“Where am I?”
“You’re in The Bishop’s Hatch,” she said, heading out of the room, the name registering and yet not.
The Bishop.
“Is that your superior?” he called, his mind giving more blanks.
A minute later, she returned with, “God is my only superior, but Mr. Bishop is in the position of authority here and therefore my superior of sorts.”
She stood next to him, her eyes big and round right on his. The white head wear caused the blue in her gaze to shimmer like stormy waters.
She raised a mason jar and a pair of scissors. Both puzzled his brain as she snapped the shears. Shink-shink.
The sound unlocked something strategic in his brain. “Are you cutting me loose?”
Her eyes swerved to his midsection. “I am.” She looked back at him with a breezy smile. “At least the part that allows you to relieve yourself.”
He tensed as she set the mason jar on the bed next to his body then worked the sheers under the thick mystery net covering him from neck to ankles.
His breath stilled in his chest as one name rose in his mind. “Beth,” he said, looking at the nun as every memory of her rushed in. “Where is she?”
“I would assume she’s with her husband who is also the Bishop,” she muttered, sawing the scissors against the net.
“You can thank her for your life. I don’t believe you’d have one if she hadn’t given him strict orders not to harm you.
And clearly my physical strength had laughable impact on both of you, standing there trying to choke one another of all things,” she fussed while waging a tug-of-war with the binding on his dick.
She huffed and drew back, out of breath. “What on earth is that smelly thing made of,” she marveled while he fought to piece together the puzzle her words conjured.
“We fought?” he asked.
She turned, her eyes narrowed and sharp. “You don’t remember?”
He considered his answer carefully. “I don’t.”
Her brow furrowed and she regarded his mid-section again, as if torn over which problem to tackle. “Well… it started off civilly enough,” she mumbled, her gaze landing on him in earnest curiosity.
“You said Beth instructed him not to hurt me.” She was the key to his memories. The key to everything that needed remembering.
“Yes, she did,” she nodded, slowly, then a lot. “The Belle Eveque was emphatic about it. Which is why I did what I did.”
He grunted as she got back to her job, shoving aside the severed binding then undoing his pants.
“Don’t worry, I’m a nurse,” she said boldly, working at his underwear now. “You have nothing I haven’t seen before a million times.”
He suddenly remembered more. About himself.
“Oh my God!” she cried, both hands covering her shocked mouth. Her wide eyes moved from his cock to his face then back to his cock.
“It’s a defense mechanism,” he said. “Like… an armor.”
She slowly leaned closer, head angling. “Why’s it… is it… burnt?”
Burnt. He wanted to laugh at the accurate description. “It’s a skin graft. Made of a titanium polymer. It engages when there’s a threat.”
She snapped a confused look at him. “A threat?”
“Well, I am bound in this noxious mystery weave.”
She regarded the net with resurrected disgust. “It is dreadful,” she agreed, slowly returning her attention to his midsection. “Why would you… have a need for such a thing? There?” the war-time nurse in her wondered.
“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “Whoever put it there apparently thought I needed it.”
She stared at him, his answer bringing confounding lines to her face. “How could you not know such a thing?”
He stared back at her, then turned his gaze to the ceiling, slowly filling his lungs with a breath. “Maybe my seed is toxic, and they wanted to protect the world.”
Silence stretched, pulling at his full bladder and patience.
“Where is your family? Do you have siblings? A wife? Or children?”
“Fuck me,” he muttered. “Which answer will allow me the privilege of taking a piss, Sister Beatrice?”
She sputtered out nonsensical sounds before blurting, “Well, what do I do, your… member is on lockdown!”
“I can piss,” he assured. “The armor only protects against external threats, although I have no clue how it will react if my bladder is threatening to burst.”
“Fine!” She grabbed his dick and held it in the mason jar, head turning sharply away. “Go on and do your business, soldier.”
His bladder released before she finished her sentence bringing relief and a painful euphoric groan.
“I am very sorry,” she whispered at hearing it. “For taking so long and for… your situation.”
His relief continued filling the jar in the silence.
“I’ve been praying for you—we all have been,” she hurried.
“We know to be cautious in judging because you can never know what another has been through or suffered. All of the sister’s have come from a godly institution governed by wicked men, therefore understand what it is to be subjected to an unplanned fate.
I have always imagined each of us had anticipated various sufferings when taking our vows such as going hungry, being cold and tired or working our bodies and minds and hearts to the bone for the lost and hurting.
But never in our wildest dreams or even nightmares did we foresee that the people meant to educate and protect us in holy ways would do the wicked, wicked things they did. ”
With every word, her grip on his dick and attention had tightened.
He was done but didn’t want to disturb her diabolical confession, finding the need to hear all of it along with a burning sensation along his spine.
It wasn’t new to him and yet was. Understanding his reaction competed with his need to hear it from the mouth of one who’d experienced it. “Why?”
She snapped her face to him, her stormy gaze full of the past’s shadows. She gasped at seeing he was done and she still strangled his cock. “Heavens!”
He watched her remove the jar carefully then hurry it to the side table. “I am cutting you loose,” she announced, grabbing the scissors and moving to his ankles.”
“Why?”
“Because I believe you don’t deserve to be tied here.”
It was the answer to the wrong question, and she gave it like an obvious fact, distracting him. “Why do you believe that?”
“I just do,” she answered.
Her reckless stupidity lit a short fuse. “You would untie the man who tried to kill your leader, and you don’t even know why.”
“Ha! I never said I didn’t know why,” she chided, cutting away. “Of course I know why.”
He weighed which answers he needed to which question more. “Then why?”
“Because I can tell things about people,” she said with a little shoulder shrug, not looking at him.
Sounded like bullshit.
“Is this a new gift? One you developed after you trusted the people who mutilated your innocence?”
“It is a developed gift,” she huffed, unbothered as she worked on the binding. “You do learn things in life and knowledge is one of God’s greatest gifts.”
“From your mistakes?”
“Of course,” she said happily, flashing a look and smile that hid her secrets.
“You learn from everything in life if you’re paying attention.
My mistakes, my pain, my joy, my suffering.
My naivete, my ignorance.” She paused, pressing a serious stormy gaze on him.
“My stupidity,” she whispered, then cracked her biggest smile yet before getting serious with the binding.
“Oh look at that,” she gasped, cutting faster.
“I learned a weak pattern in this weave!”
Her illogical answers scattered his focus and fed his anger. “Good. Cut me loose. I can be the next mistake you learn from.”
Her burst of laughter felt like a slap while she worked on his freedom. “Why is being fearsome so important to you?” she poked with innocent curiosity, moving to the side of the bed as she cut. “Does it make you feel strong to have weaker people fear you?”
She asked it like he was a child with silly thoughts rather than the man who’d dismantled an entire country to rid the world of her kind of stupid. “I have cleansed this nation of evil with no regard for the ignorance or innocence that allowed it to thrive.”
“Oh yes,” she marveled, setting the scissors down and yanking the netting open at his waist. “I know all about what Sir Mayhem did. Let’s get you sitting so you can help finish this.
My hands are done for!” She gently moved his legs off the side of the bed and struggled to pull him upright.
“Everybody here knows what you did. Here, take this,” she said, putting the scissors in his right hand.
He eyed her, feeling his curiosity getting hostile. “And what do you think of what I did?”
She stood exactly before him and crossed her arms with a grounding breath.
Her head tilted with a digging stare as if the answer was in his eyes.
He held the scissors and her gaze, analyzing the erratic race in his mind.
“I think you’re a crazy genius,” she blurted emphatically and right to his face. Daring him to fight her about it.
He was no closer to understanding her particular brand of delusion but found himself oddly unbothered with it. What did crazy mean to somebody like her? He realized he didn’t care about that puzzle.
She gestured quickly at him with a tiny hand then tucked it back against her chest, reminding him of a little bird with too much energy and no wings to fly it out. “You clearly put a genius amount of thought into what you’ve done and then you backed it up with enough crazy to actually do it.”
Her head cocked the other way, arms crossing in the opposite direction.
There it was. In her digging nosy gaze. Wings. A mind that never rested, flitting over everything it encountered. Everything.
Sinrik looked down at the binding and began cutting himself out before his little bird friend changed her flitting mind. “Thank you, Sister Beatrice,” he said, standing and letting the prison fall to the floor.
She looked up at him, staring with open awe before taking a full step back.
“Tending to the downtrodden is my vocation,” she said quietly, eyes clear and honest to a huge, huge fault.
They suddenly lowered to his midsection where he fastened his opened pants.
“My… passion,” she added, clearing her throat with the drop of her head.
Sinrik eyed the tiny woman before him, his tactical tools locking in. “I need to find my soldier, Sister. They’ve taken him somewhere and if I don’t service him, he could become unstable. Can you help me?”
Her blue eyes leveled right on him, lit up with that reckless bravery. “You mean Mr. Morgue?” She gave a curt nod. “I am so happy to take you to him. He did refuse to talk but Mr. Bishop said he just needed the right persuasion.”
“He’s programmed not to talk,” he informed her. “As I’m sure Mr. Bishop has learned.”
She shook her head briskly, eyes severe with warning. “You surely do underestimate the Marsh King, Mr. Sinrik.”
He considered his little leverage before him. “I feel as though I should thank God for your friendship, Sister.”
Her smile was like the crack of the very first dawn. Light fulfilling its purpose. Scattering the dark. Not aware that at the end of the day, a darkness just as stubborn would consume it. And create a very fucked up eternal love affair.
“Yes, you should, Mr. Sinrik,” she assured with firm nods. “Let us pray before we set out.” She snatched his hands in hers and lowered her head.
Sinrik’s muscles locked up at the circuit of power suddenly moving through him as she entered a strange warfare against powers he was very intimate with. His hands slowly closed around hers, feeling her hostile energy in his blood and the air in his lungs.
He recognized it immediately. Mayhem. The little birdie was stirring it. Taunting it. Stomping her tiny foot on its head. A gnat full of hot, hurried whispers.
Sinrik stood on the very edge of this strange affair with her. Watching this tiny flame refuse to be snuffed out. Fully aware she held hands with the one who’d used all his power to heal the derangement she suffered with.
He stared at her mouth, allowing his mind to stand in the exact center of her warfare. He slowly closed his eyes, feeling the mad beating of her tiny wings against the storm she charged into. Alone. Innocent hands holding desperately to his guilty ones.
He opened his eyes, finding all her warfare aimed right at him in the form of a smile. “Ah-men,” she finished on a triumphant whisper.
Something hot and sharp sliced right through him as he stared at her. She’d declared war against him. And for him. Against the darkness he belonged to and for the light he never knew.
She attempted to leave the battlefield and he held on to her hands.
She looked up and he stared into that crystal clear purity.
“You sure about all that Sister?” It was part warning, part challenge, he realized.
Her nod was factual, curt and… something else he couldn’t identify. “Follow me,” she said, spinning and heading for the door.