Epilogue - Tone #3
For one frozen second, she was only a shape against the storm. Then the lightning flashed behind her, and I saw the blood.
It ran down the side of her face, dark through her hair, bright at her mouth. Her dress was torn at the shoulder and soaked through. One sleeve hung loose. Her feet were bare, filthy, cut open from stone or glass or God knew what else. Bruises in the shape of fingers marked her throat.
She took one step in. Then another.
Her eyes found mine.
Terror lived there. It wasn’t fear. It was pure, unadulterated terror.
My body went still.
The church disappeared around me.
There were no saints. No altar. No collar.
“Help me,” she whispered.
Her voice broke on the words.
I moved toward her, but possibly I moved too quickly, because she flinched.
I stopped immediately and lifted my hands where she could see them.
“I won’t hurt you.”
She swallowed, swaying on her feet. Rainwater and blood dripped from her chin onto the stone.
“They’re coming,” she breathed.
The words slid under my skin and found something old sleeping there. Something that opened its eyes.
I listened. Beyond the rain, faint but growing, came the sound of an engine.
It travelled too fast and too recklessly on the gravelly road outside the church.
The woman heard it too. Her face crumpled.
“Please.”
I crossed the distance between just us as her knees gave out.
She collapsed into my arms.
She was lighter than I expected. Burning with fever and shock. Her fingers caught in the front of my cassock, clutching the black fabric as though it were the only solid thing she had to hold onto.
I looked down at her face. At the blood on her face and the bruises on her skin. A life hunted to my altar.
The engine grew louder. Headlights swept across the stained-glass windows, cutting the saints into pieces of colour and shadow.
My hand tightened around the woman’s waist.
For one breath, I tried to think like Father Demitri Marco.
Call the police.
Ring the convent.
Hide her and pray.
Then the car stopped outside.
Doors slammed.
Men’s voices cut through the rain.
My gaze lifted to the entrance.
Peace was a fragile thing.
Mine shattered without a sound.
I gathered the woman against my chest and carried her into the dark.
CHAPTER 2: Demitri
The woman sagged against me, her blood soaking through the front of my cassock, warm where the rain had made everything else cold. Her fingers were still caught in the fabric, clutching as if even unconsciousness could not convince her to let go.
Outside, car doors slammed.
Three. I counted them without meaning to.
Three doors. Three men. And an engine left running.
The old part of me gathered those details and placed them neatly into the back of my mind.
I carried her down the centre aisle, past the pews and the watching saints, her bare feet swinging limp above the stone. Blood dripped from her hair onto the floor in small, vivid spots.
There were too many and they were too vivid.
I tightened my hold and moved faster.
The confessional stood in the left transept, its dark wood polished. I pulled the curtain aside with my shoulder and lowered her onto the narrow bench inside. Her head lolled against the wall. Her lips parted around a shallow breath.
She was barely alive.
“Stay quiet,” I whispered, though I didn’t know if she could hear me.
Her lashes fluttered once.
The men’s voices grew louder outside.
I looked at her for half a second too long.
She was young. Not a girl, but too young to have been subjected to such violence.
Something cold and clean slid through me, and it looked a little like rage.
I shut the curtain.
Then I turned.
The blood on the floor looked black in the dim light, scattered from the side doors to where I stood. A trail. An accusation. A map for the wolves to follow.
I crossed to the altar and snatched the white cloth from the side table.
It was used for holy things.
The body and blood of Christ.
I dropped to one knee and dragged it across the stone.
The first smear only widened the stain.
“Damn it,” I breathed.
The curse sounded louder, somehow harsher in the church. I couldn’t stop to cross myself for cursing.
I scrubbed harder.
The cloth drank the blood greedily, white becoming red, then rust, ugly and useless. I wiped the largest marks first. The ones near the aisle. The ones by the altar. The ones under the mouth of the confessional.
Outside, footsteps splashed through the puddles.
I heard the front doors rattle as someone tried the handles. Then came the silence when they refused to give.
I knew, with a cold certainty, that they would try another door next.
I folded the stained altar cloth once and held it against my side, the red hidden against the black of my cassock.
I rose, crossed to the first candle, and pinched out the flame.
Then the next. And the rest. One by one, I killed the light.
The church sank into shadow.
Only the sanctuary lamp remained, red and flat in the dark, flickering like the last weak pulse of a night that refused to end.
I had just turned from the final candle when the side doors opened again.
Someone pushed them open carefully.
Three men stepped inside, bringing the storm with them. Rain blew across the threshold. The wind stirred the old incense trapped in the stone and carried in the scent of the night.
They stopped when they saw me. For one perfect second, shame moved across all three faces.
It was almost beautiful.
The tallest crossed himself first. Then the man beside him. The third, younger and broader through the shoulders, hesitated before dragging two fingers from forehead to chest, left shoulder to right.
His knuckles were split.
I noticed the bulge beneath the tall man’s jacket. He had a right side shoulder holster.
“Father,” the tall one said.
His voice was rough, but he tried to soften it.
I let my face settle into confusion. The harmless expression people expected from a priest disturbed at night.
“Can I help you, my sons?”
My sons.
Let God put His hand on the back of their necks for a moment. Let them remember where they were so they could feel watched by something larger than me.
The tall man glanced past me, scanning the pews, the altar and the shadows. “Forgive us for entering so late.”
“There is no hour at which a church refuses the troubled.”
The younger one looked at the floor.
My gaze followed his.
A smear of blood remained near the end of the third pew.
It was thin, dark, half-hidden in the uneven stone.
But visible to a man looking for it.
He stared. Too long.
My heart did not change pace. I had trained it better than that.
The tall man noticed his companion staring and gave him a sharp look.
The younger man lifted his eyes.
“What brings you to this house of God?” I asked.
The second man stepped forward.
His face was wide and scarred across one cheek. A fresh scar which had healed badly. His eyes were the colour of dirty glass.
“We are looking for a woman.”
“A woman?”
“Yes, Father.”
“In a church? At this hour?”
“She is confused,” the tall one said quickly. “Unwell.”
The lie arrived like it was rehearsed, but too obvious to me.
“Unwell?” I repeated.
The tall man nodded. “She ran from a private clinic. We are trying to return her before she harms herself.”
“How charitable of you.”
The words were mild, but they caused his eyes to sharpen.
I smiled gently, as if I had not meant anything by it.
The younger one shifted his weight. His shoes squeaked on the stone. It was Italian leather, the expensive kind. There was mud on the soles. A small ring on his right hand caught the red glow from the sanctuary lamp.
My attention fixed there.
A black onyx set into gold.
A serpent coiled around a cross.
I would know that insignia anywhere.
Coccico. Old Roman cutthroats.
The Coccicos were not the strongest family, nor the richest, but they had survived because they knew how to strong-arm their way through life.
They funded church repairs.
They gave money to orphanages.
They carried statues of saints through village streets during feast days.
Then they sold girls behind port gates, slit throats over debt, and made widows sign property away with guns to their heads.
Pious wolves. The worst of their kind.
I looked from the ring to his face and kept my expression blank.
Coccico men. Here. In my church.
Hunting a beaten woman who had crawled through my doors, knocking on death’s door.
The tall man looked toward the confessional.
It stood in shadow, closed and silent.
My body remained relaxed.
My hand found the brass candle snuffer on the small table beside me and rested there casually.
A priest tidying his altar. Nothing more.
“What does she look like?” I asked.
The scarred man’s mouth twitched. “You would know if you saw her.”
“That may be, but I see many people. God sends all kinds to this door.”
The young one laughed under his breath.
“She is dark-haired,” he said. “Mid-twenties. Wearing a blue dress.”
Blue.
Under the blood and rain, I had not noticed the colour.
“Is she dangerous?” I asked.
The scarred man smiled.
“No, Father.”
“Then perhaps you do not need three men to retrieve her.”
A brief silence followed, tight and uncomfortable.
The tall man stepped forward.
“I understand your concern,” he said. “But this is a family matter.”
Family.
Men used that word to justify everything.
Murder. Possession. Cruelty. A woman’s fear.
I took one step toward them, drawing their attention with me, away from the confessional.
“Would you like me to call the carabinieri?” I asked. “If a woman is missing and unwell, they should be notified.”
“No,” the tall man said too quickly.
The young one glanced at him.
“No?” I asked, all gentle surprise.
“We have people already searching,” the tall man said. “There is no need to make this official.”
“Of course.”
The scarred man’s gaze slid past me again.
To the pews. Then the confessional.
He took a step toward it.
My hand closed around the candle snuffer. The brass was cool against my palm. Heavy enough. Solid enough.
There were three of them, and only one of me.
The scarred one took another step.