Chapter 22 #2
Gathering my willpower and concentration, I focused on the darkness, determined to see what had pulled two nuns into the attic of the church well past midnight.
After a moment, I almost called them both crazy, but then something moved.
The tiniest little tremor of movement in the dark, just enough to reflect a beam of moonlight.
“What is…” I peered closer, and the long, dark thing ruffled its wing. “Is that… no… is that a…”
“Bat,” Delilyx answered lowly, in almost a comical way that proved her feeling of triumph and vindication. “And look what he’s holding.”
“There’s no possible way,” I said, glancing over at Lilith.
She only offered a small smile and lifted a shoulder in response.
God, her eyes were so blue in the light of the moon.
Seeing her without her traditional garb…
no covering, no yards of fabric, just a woman in her nightdress and messy hair…
I think it rivaled her being naked in my mind.
Of course, I’d prefer the beauty of a woman wearing nothing to most any natural wonder in the world, however…
there was something about the way she looked, hugging her knees, smiling slightly in the dark, looking like…
just looking like an ordinary girl for a moment.
No vows, no black, no white… just Lilith.
Something flashed across her gaze, shifting it slightly, and her stare fell from my eyes to my lips.
Demon lips, right, angel eyes?
“He just opened one eye at me,” Delilyx said. “Did you see that? This stupid bat is taunting me now.”
Shaking my head in disbelief, I asked, “So, how do we get this thieving bat to drop your bible?”
Lilith whispered softly in answer, “That’s what we’ve been up here trying to figure out. The little guy has it in a death grip.”
“Any ideas?” Delilyx asked.
I looked around the attic, holding my lantern up.
“Maybe there’s something up here we can use.
” In the corner of the room was a bookshelf, covered in dust and aged books.
Shining my lantern across the bindings of a book stack, I swiped dust off the cover of the top book, surprised at the title.
Not a bible or theology book, nothing about saints—but something named, “Anomalas Phytology.” With no idea what that even meant, I cracked it open and thumbed through brown pages with tiny text alongside illustrations of plants.
The next book, titled “Astromancy,” was similarly filled with illustrations but only of the stars instead of plants.
Another book in the stack was called “Syncretism,” the next was “Omnism.” No mention of god, no highlighted thin pages of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
These were not books I’d expect to find in a church steeple.
“Find anything?” Delilyx whispered-yelled. “He’s ruffling his wings, I’m afraid he’s getting wise to our motives.”
Propped next to the bookshelf was an old, rusted garden rake. Grabbing it, I made my way back to the crouching nuns.
Sister Lilith shook her head. “We are not killing it.”
Delilyx, in her innocent yet determined tone, comically replied, “For his sins he deserves death.”
“We’re not killing the bat, wow, you two are so violent.”
Sister Lilith rolled her eyes, but the corner of her mouth lifted slightly. “Then what’s the master plan? Garden it into giving her bible back?”
“I don’t know, Lilith, have you tried asking him nicely?” I jokingly snapped.
Delilyx answered, incensed. “Of course I did.”
At that, Lilith and I shook with laughter. The kind of laughing that becomes worse because you’re trying to be quiet. After shushing us for a few fruitless moments, Delilyx giggled as well.
Three nuns, in a church steeple, fighting a bat with a bible. There had never been anything more absurd.
Once my ribs ached from our wheezing fit of hushed laughs, I wiped tears from my eyes and noticed Lilith staring at me.
Her cheeks pink, blue gaze glimmering in the lantern light.
She held her knees, watching me with a soft gaze.
It occurred to me that wasn’t a glance of someone who wanted nothing to do with me. It couldn’t be.
Something held her back.
Hell, what wasn’t holding us back? Our faith, vows, god, religion, society, expectations… all of it said we shouldn’t, we couldn’t, we must not… though despite all of it, I wanted her… and I think she wanted me, too.
Maybe the wanting was enough.
Maybe the wanting could help me survive past the inevitability of her leaving and me never getting what I wanted.
With a deep breath, I pulled away from her gaze, ignoring all the unspoken words behind the blue of her eyes. “I’m going to get your bible from the bat, Delilyx.”
I crawled forward on the overhang and lifted myself onto the beam, lying on my stomach.
“Don’t look down,” I told myself, stretching the rake out.
The slate grayish black creature hung upside down, his wings wrapped like a cocoon around the book.
The only evidence the object was even inside his hold was the pointed edges poking through his thin wings and the red satin bookmark poking out from his grip.
“My friend here has asked nicely.” I wiggled the pointed end of the rake at the bat’s ears.
The creature twitched.
“Careful,” Lilith whispered behind me.
Delilyx leaned forward, holding onto my ankles. “Don’t anger him or he’ll target you next.”
I huffed a laugh. “I’ve got nothing of importance for him to steal.
Well, not a physical item, at least. There’s not much I fear to lose.
” My heart pricked at that realization. My vow of poverty left me with no material goods.
I didn’t seek them out in the way Delilyx did, cherishing her bible and collecting colorful fabric scraps and threads.
The lack of world items didn’t bother me much, aside from the dullness of it all.
Though the lack of human connection… the knowledge of what I’d found with Lilith and knowing, if the letter she received earlier was indeed a call for her to return home, my connection, one and only worldly good, would soon be snatched away like a bat with a bible.
Preposterous in all its unlikelihood. Yet poetic in its darkness, clutching something holy.
I wiggled the rake. “Come… on…” I urged the creature, feeling the strain on my triceps from holding the rake out.
Tickling its pointed ears with the rusty prongs, the bat opened its beady eyes, glinting at me through the lantern flame.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me bats are sort of scary looking,” I asked with a wince.
“They’re godless, soulless vermin,” Delilyx hissed. “Don’t let him get in your mind, you’ve got this, Jezebella.”
“Just… let… go…” I wiggled the rake. “He’s going to lunge at me and peck my eyes out at any moment, isn’t he?” I asked over my shoulder.
Sister Lilith’s voice resounded in the dark. “Bats don’t really peck. They do bite, though.”
“Oh, perfect. Thank you, Sister Lilith, for sharing that uplifting piece of information.”
“You’re welcome,” she said with an evident smirk in her voice.
Just then, the bat shuffled.
He opened his mouth in what was either him gearing up to eat my face—or a yawn—I couldn’t be sure, but I did whimper like a frightened baby.
The bat outstretched one leathery wing, revealing the worn book beneath.
“It’s there!” Deliliyx said. “I told you I knew it. He’s got it.”
“This is getting really heavy.” I grunted. “He better drop it soon.”
With one more tiny jostle of the rake, the bat squinted, looking thoroughly irritated with us. He opened his mouth again, only this time, he screeched.
All three of us screamed with him.
He made to move and I tensed, squinting my eyes shut.
Something dropped on the end of the rake, and when I peeked a look, a smile bloomed on my face.
Sister Lilith and Delilyx had retreated to the corner of the steeple.
I shimmied backwards, steadying the rake and its contents. “The bat is gone,” I said.
“I’ll never get my bible and worse than that—Pandorian will never believe me that any of this happened.”
“She will,” I said, landing on my feet with a huff of breath. I grabbed the object nestled in the rake’s prongs. “Because the little devil finally gave up the ghost.”
With a happy yelp, Delilyx lunged forward, taking her bible from my hold. Before I could react, she wrapped me in a hug. Extending an arm, she reached out. “Get in here, Lilith. Group hug. We did it.”
In the attic of The Altar Church of Lost Souls, we hugged, giggling quietly at our midnight adventure.
Though in an instant, as fast as our joy arrived, it devolved, morphing into something far worse. Somewhere in the night, in the not too far distance, echoing through the cracks in the drifty wood, a howl tore across the night.