2
“He came when Sundbourg needed him most. Unrest had reached its zenith, deaths from the Bloodrot had doubled, and a diabolist stalked the streets. The people appealed to the Regiment in droves only to find its response lacking—that is, until him.”
The Prophet’s home is the perfect representation of the man himself.
Everything is sleek and shiny, from the polished wood floors to the stairwell’s gilded banisters.
The ceilings are high, vaulting toward crystal chandeliers and covered in antique tin tiles.
Art lines the walls, most of it set within expensive antique frames.
Gabriel has always loved art, from realistic landscapes to impressionist pastels to eerie, incomprehensible scenes that might be some artist’s interpretation of hell.
Everything about the place makes my skin crawl.
It’s less of a home and more of a Regiment building—of which there are many around Valestadt, all with the shared goal of upholding security and maintaining the status quo.
A cavernous room down from the entrance holds a collection of beautiful sculptures, most of them taller than me.
Given my stature, this isn’t much of a feat, but up on their marble pedestals they loom larger than life.
The figures wear flowing robes so painstakingly carved that the fabric looks soft to the touch.
Each one is anatomically perfect in their various poses, but the realism is spoiled by their vacant expressions.
Even engaged in false battle, they’re too perfect, made inhuman by their impassivity.
I halt amid the inert congregation, scowling when I realize I’m not alone.
Yannick and Darva, Gabriel’s other hired sinners, are already here.
They stand an uncomfortable distance apart, arms crossed, as motionless as the sculptures.
They don’t agree on anything, save their mutual dislike of me.
We’re technically all competing for the Prophet’s most lucrative jobs, although he doesn’t compensate me the same way he does them.
Still, it’s been well-established that I’m Gabriel’s favorite.
His feral little ghost. The girl he loves and destroys in equal measure.
Yannick, a small man in his thirties, has been working for Gabriel since long before I arrived.
He couldn’t find another job after being released from prison—a common problem—which is why it’s not unusual for ex-cons to be taken on as hired sinners.
The wealthy, powerful, and devout are known to snatch up competent criminals to do their dirty work.
With his narrow shoulders and boyish face, Yannick doesn’t look like much, but he’s a master extortionist with a penchant for torture.
When Gabriel wants someone disposed of quickly and quietly, he uses me. When he needs information first, he uses Yannick.
I don’t know much about Darva, who’s less forthcoming than Yannick.
I can’t even tell how old she is. She’s a tall woman with straight, chin-length black hair, and her arms are mottled with the same markings as mine.
Unlike most sinners, however, she seems to wear the affliction with pride.
A couple of her fingertips are grotesquely discolored, skeins of deep purple diffusing out from beneath the nails and over the tendons in her hands.
They’ll eventually turn black, which signifies that her time is almost up.
That’s what the Bloodrot does. It comes for you when you commit the sin of violence—most specifically, murder—by stealing your life and poisoning your veins.
The other five sins—deceit, covetousness, egotism, carnality, and impiety—have a negligible impact in comparison.
If you look closely enough, almost everyone has some evidence of the Bloodrot imprinted on their skin, but those of us who sin for a living are easy to identify.
“What are you two doing here?” I demand. Rarely do Yannick, Darva, and I find ourselves in the same place at the same time. Gabriel prefers to treat us like wild animals, keeping us separate in order to avoid the inevitable altercations.
Darva fidgets with the pendant at her throat. Like me, she wears a thin chain bearing the Markovich crest—the symbol associated with Gabriel’s family name. Unlike me, she seems to touch the five-petaled flower in subconscious anxiety. “The Prophet summoned us. We’ve been here for an hour.”
“Waiting for you, I expect,” Yannick says. His shrewd eyes take in my disheveled appearance. “What was the assignment?”
Of course they know I’ve been carrying out a job for Gabriel.
At the reminder, my frustration is back in full force.
I wonder if Regiment agents are already at the scene.
Whether Pietersen has already been carted out in a body bag, and if Gabriel has already ordered evidence destroyed.
For priding itself on righteousness, the Regiment is as corrupt as it gets.
What else do you call an institution that condemns any advancements not devised by its own scholars?
Progress doesn’t happen in Sundbourg until it’s deemed to align with Regiment values, which means progress rarely happens here at all.
“Execution of an ex-agent,” I tell Yannick, the words sharp and clipped. We aren’t in the business of discussing our assignments with one another, and I’m not keen to start now. “What exactly are we meant to be waiting for?”
I only came here intending to make a quick report to Gabriel. No matter the hour, it’s expected that we let him know when we complete an assignment.
Yannick runs a hand over his buzzed head. “I expect the Prophet has a job that requires all three of us.”
“He would never ask us to work together,” Darva snaps before I can say the same.
Neither sinner meets my gaze, and I understand what Darva really means: that Gabriel would never ask either of them to work with me.
They don’t like the way I appeared seemingly from nowhere at nineteen years old, brought here by the Prophet himself.
They resent how I get away with small acts of defiance.
What they don’t realize is this: Where I came from, you either conformed, or you committed to rebelling with everything you had. I chose the latter at a very young age.
And once you choose rebellion, it’s not an easy habit to break.
“What about you, Keller?” Yannick asks, affecting a mocking nonchalance I know he doesn’t feel. Like Darva, he’s wary of Gabriel in a way I’ve never quite managed. “Think you could keep up with me on a job? Not everything’s as simple as a quick bullet to the head, you know.”
I only shrug, tracing the outline of my gun at my waist. “If you don’t shut up, Yannick, I’ll prove a bullet to the head does the trick just fine.”
It sounds like posturing even to my own ears, but part of me means it.
I can’t stop hearing the wails of Pietersen’s baby.
Generally I’m not too fussed about murder, and refusal would mean losing everything.
But this… It’s different, somehow. Pietersen left his position with the Regiment willingly, which makes me wonder if he saw the militarized theocracy for what it is.
Maybe he even left because of his young child.
And although I pulled the trigger, his death feels like Gabriel’s fault.
Since there’s no way I can take my anger out on Gabriel, perhaps Yannick will do.
Or maybe I just want to watch someone bleed who deserves it.
Before I can dwell on that foolish idea any longer, an impatient voice summons our attention. An agent stands at the far side of the room, one arm propping open the door behind him. Darva’s head shoots up, and both she and Yannick dutifully wind their way through the maze of sculptures.
I trail behind them, trying to get my temper under control. The agent at the entrance to Gabriel’s office gives me a too-curious look as I clench my fists and step across the threshold.
The Prophet’s office is larger than my entire apartment.
Plush burgundy rugs carpet the floor, and heavy silk drapes shroud the single arched window.
An enormous desk dominates the space, strewn with a variety of documents I know I’m not allowed to look at.
A throne-like chair sits behind it. This is where Gabriel usually waits, his long, pale fingers resting atop the gilded armrests, his posture tense and impeccable.
Tonight, however, the Prophet stands at the window, his hands clasped behind his back as he peers out into the dark streets. Darva and Yannick hover just inside the door, their combined apprehension thick in the air. Only once all three of us are inside does Gabriel Markovich turn around.
He’s taller than average, but he looks positively gargantuan now, cast into stark relief by the feeble moonlight.
His suit is immaculate despite the late hour.
I’ve always wondered if the way he presents himself is intended to distract from his youth.
Only a decade ago he was a young Regiment chaplain keen to devote himself to the Savior, which means it was even more recently that he killed the last surviving diabolist—the sole act of violence the Prophet has ever committed.
Assuming you believe the stories, diabolists were powerful creatures that looked human but fed on sin by coaxing confessions from their victims. Gabriel supposedly managed to destroy the last one, sparing Sundbourg from a reign of terror and emerging with neither injury nor any sign of the Bloodrot.
Rumors were quick to attribute this triumph to the Savior’s divine interference, and this, along with Gabriel’s inexplicable charisma, led to the rise of the Prophet.
I don’t believe diabolists ever existed in the first place, let alone that Gabriel managed to kill one. But no one cares what I believe, and at this point the story might as well be written into the holy book itself.