Chapter 34 Dorian
The heavy oak door groaned as it shut behind them, sealing the narthex in a dim, suffocating silence. Father Rier stood in the threshold between the narthex and the nave, blocking the path like a gargoyle carved from judgment and ice. His head was tilted back, eyes narrowed, upper lip curled as if Dorian were something he’d scraped off the sole of his shoe.
“I knew it was you,” Rier sneered. The sound was wet and ugly. “You’ve been nothing but trouble since you were a child.”
Dorian’s hands balled into fists at his sides. The urge to snap something back, to tear into the man, was a physical itch under his skin, but he held his tongue. For Callahan. He glanced sideways. Callahan held up a hand—subtle, fingers splayed—a silent command: Wait.
Callahan cleared his throat, the sound echoing in the high ceiling. “Leave him out of it, Rier,” he said. His voice was placid. Too placid. “He’s innocent in all this.”
“Innocent?” Rier barked. His head whipped toward Callahan. “People like him are never innocent.” His gaze slid back to Dorian, heavy and suffocating. “They’ve always led the good astray.”
“What do you mean, people like me?” Dorian asked. The words slipped out before he could stop them. He crossed his arms over his chest, shielding himself, or maybe just holding himself back.
“Heathens. Sodomites,” Rier spat. The words dripped like acid. He nodded toward Dorian’s bare arms. “You bear the serpent, but its meaning is lost to you. You desecrate the very scripture by marking your body with it. A sin in and of itself.”
“It means nothing to me, huh?” Dorian let out a sharp, humorless laugh. It sounded too loud in the empty church. He remembered Arthur saying the same damn thing. “And why is that?”
“Because you embody the very thing the serpent brought to mankind,” Rier seethed, stepping closer. “Putrid sin. You are destined for hellfire.”
“You watch how you fucking talk to me,” Dorian warned. His voice dropped an octave, scraping the bottom of his throat.
“Dorian,” Callahan cautioned. Still calm. Still the priest.
“Or what?” Rier challenged, a cruel glint in his eyes. “You’ll further damn yourself by attacking a servant of Christ?”
Dorian felt a smile tug at his mouth. It wasn’t a nice smile. “Something like that.”
“Dorian,” Callahan repeated. Sharper this time. A command.
“Unsurprising that someone of your nature would resort to violence. After all, your kind is known for it,” Rier said, his voice dropping into a condescending lilt. “Just look at the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.”
Dorian’s jaw set so hard his teeth audibly clicked. Nails bit into his palms. He looked at Callahan. Callahan met his gaze, hesitated for a fraction of a second, and then nodded.
Permission granted.
“Lucky for you,” Dorian said, turning his full attention to Rier. He took a step forward, invading the priest’s personal space. Rier faltered, stepping back into the nave. “I am very familiar with the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. As well as the original translation of every single God-damn verse in the Bible that so-called followers of Christ like to use against my kind.”
He took another step. Rier retreated again.
“If you want to go toe-to-toe about homosexuality in the Bible, let’s go. No one, and I mean fucking no one, is as well versed in the topic as me.” Dorian tapped his chest, hard. “I spent my teenage years pouring over every religious text, researching and studying each and every story or line that alludes to it. So, if you want to use your holy book against me, go ahead. I’m certain that I know it better than you.”
“Watch how you speak in the house of the Lord,” Rier snarled, backing up until his heels hit the carpet of the aisle. “This is a sacred place that you’re defiling with your vulgar speech. And you.” He turned his glare on Callahan. “You invited this into His sanctuary. You call yourself a man of God, yet you fraternize with the very beasts seeking to destroy Him.”
Red washed over Dorian’s vision. A hot, roaring static filled his ears. “I’m going to fucking—”
He lunged.
Callahan’s hand clamped around his bicep before he could cross the threshold, jerking him to a halt a mere three feet from Rier’s throat. “Enough,” Callahan ordered. “Go wait for me outside.”
Dorian vibrated with the force of his adrenaline. He ground his teeth until they ached. “Fine,” he growled, ripping his arm free from Callahan’s grip.
He turned on his heel and stalked toward the heavy doors, blood pounding a frantic rhythm against his temples.
“May God be with you, you wretched soul,” Rier called after him.
Dorian stopped.
“Motherfucker,” he hissed.
He spun around, barging past Callahan. Callahan tried to grab him again, but Dorian shoved past the hand, fueled by a lifetime of swallowing this exact poison.
“You don’t know when to fucking stop, do you?” Dorian shouted, his voice cracking like a whip in the sanctuary. “With your holier-than-thou stupid fucking attitude and a stick so far up your ass you don’t realize just how much of a Grade-A dick you are. I am so sick and fucking tired of people like you, acting like you’re hot fucking shit all because you believe in God.”
He advanced on Rier, backing the older man deeper into the nave, past the pews.
“Well guess what, dipshit? You’re not better than any-fucking-body, and you are absolutely fucking nothing without that stupid ass collar around your neck. You’re not even half the priest—actually, you’re not even a quarter of the man Callahan is. You’re nothing more than a dick with a superiority complex.”
Rier’s face was pale, his composure cracking. “Callahan,” his voice wavered, high and thin. “Control your dog.”
Dorian’s lip curled into a snarl. “I’ll show you a fucking dog.”
“Dorian.”
The name boomed through the nave, deep and resonating, vibrating in the floorboards. It wasn’t a request. It was the Voice.
Dorian froze in the middle of the aisle, shoulders locking up. The instinct to obey slammed into the instinct to kill, leaving him paralyzed.
“Outside. Now.”
Dorian trembled. He glared at Rier one last time. “Eat shit, asshole.”
He turned and marched out of the nave. Callahan intercepted him in the narthex, blocking the exit.
“What?” Dorian snapped, adrenaline still spiking.
Callahan stepped into his space, looming, voice dropping to a low rumble. “Watch your fucking attitude. Don’t get short with me because you’re pissed at him.”
The scolding hit Dorian like a bucket of ice water. The fight drained out of him, replaced by the familiar, grounding weight of submission. He looked away, shame heating his neck. “Sorry,” he mumbled.
“Go outside and wait for me. I’ll be there in a moment.”
Dorian nodded. He pushed through the heavy doors, pausing only when he heard the click of footsteps on marble behind him. He dared a glance over his shoulder. Callahan and Rier were walking toward the stairs that led to the offices on the second floor. Rier looked small. Callahan looked... inevitable.
Dorian blew a breath out through his nose, shook his head, and stepped out into the crushing summer heat.
The sun was blinding after the gloom of the church. Dorian sat on the concrete steps, twisting his rings until the skin of his fingers felt raw and tender. Minutes stretched. A car passed. A bird sang, indifferent to the fact that Dorian’s entire world was being rewritten inside that building.
Then, the door creaked.
A shadow fell over him, shielding him from the harsh rays. Dorian looked up.
Callahan stood there. He was holding a cardboard box filled with miscellaneous office clutter. But that wasn’t what made Dorian’s breath hitch.
His neck was bare. No white square. No plastic insert. Just skin.
“Well,” Callahan sighed, shifting the box in his arms. He looked tired, but lighter. Younger. “I’ve been unofficially laicized. But Rier has agreed not to investigate the reasoning for me leaving. I’m not certain how things will play out from here.”
Dorian stood up. His legs felt shaky, but his heart was hammering a new, steady rhythm. “There’s one thing I know for certain.”
He took the box from Callahan’s hands and set it down on the concrete steps.
“I can finally do this.”
He grabbed Callahan by the front of his black shirt, fisting the fabric, and pulled him down. He kissed him hard, right there on the church steps, open and unashamed beneath the bright, burning gaze of God.