Chapter 8
Eight
Mercy
The last offering I expect from a priest in a dim, tiny room is his unlocked cell phone. But there it is, hovering between us, the luminous screen with what appears to be a text message.
I take it. Glance down. Shove the phone back. “I can’t read this.”
He frowns and checks the screen, then mutters something about being too old for secret codes.
It’s almost endearing to see this fit, attractive, and only three years older than me man fumble and bluster over his phone’s settings.
He inputs a password he doesn’t even try to hide—0 9 0 9 9 0—knowing full well that I’m watching.
Cataloging. It’s almost as if this is a genuine white flag … or a trap.
This time, when he shows me his phone, the encryption is gone.
I read the message thread between him and a contact labeled “Friend.” The most recent is something that stirs an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach: Garden compromised.
Infestation confirmed. Postpone visit. Will monitor. Further updates soon.
The friend’s reply: Noted.
I narrow my eyes on him. “You called it off last night?”
“I tried to cancel,” he confesses. “A week ago.”
“You did?”
Another reluctant nod. “Check.”
I scroll through his messages, and sure enough, he’s telling the truth.
The message is short and clipped: “Signs of infestation sighted.” Cancel visit.
It’s timestamped after the dinner … after he found out about the prophecy pairing a Sinner with a Saint.
The problem is that his superiors didn’t seem so happy, but as I scroll through the thread, it’s clear to see that Cisco did not seemingly encourage an impending visit.
In fact, he ignored many requests for updates.
“Why are you showing me this now?” I ask. “Why not a week ago?”
Annoyance flashes in his eyes. “Last week I had just discovered—”
He bites off his words and shakes his head, almost to himself. Eventually, he grits his teeth and says, “I’m telling you now because I want you to trust me.” A pause. “Please.”
An unwanted flush of something soft and … good … unfurls through me. I want to believe him. I really do. It would make saving my Sisterhood and the world thing much easier. But trust is for girls with less rot in their souls. It took him a week to share that he’d delayed the visit.
I glance down at the messages again, scrutinizing them to see if I can read between the lines. The only new detail I pick up is the date.
“That was sent last night.” Alarm spikes my pulse. “Jinx found the rotten fish yesterday.”
“Your team didn’t mention what I found in the garden?”
They probably did, but I’d assumed the reason for Leila’s missed calls was because of my recent theft from her room. I stopped checking my phone early in the night.
“I’ve been … busy here.” To hide the shame coloring my cheeks, I look down and point at the message. “What does that mean, infestation?”
A darkness comes over him, and he grows still.
Pained. He studies his hands as if they belong to someone else, perhaps reliving a memory that makes him uncomfortable.
Whatever it is, I’ve never seen him so openly conflicted.
The notion that I’m privy to such vulnerability does something to me I can’t name.
Usually, my body only knows two languages—pain and pleasure.
This is neither. I shift my weight to the other foot and fidget, rub the phone down my thigh, trying to scratch the sensation off with it.
Eventually, Cisco lifts his shadowed eyes to meet mine and says, “Last night I felt evil.”
Well, shit.
“You can really sense evil?”
He nods once. Like it cost him. I have the sense that if I push the topic, he’ll shut down, so I shift to the threat.
“Demonic?” I ask.
Relief drops his shoulders. “Sì. Something old and … I’m not sure, but it’s gone.”
“You told them it was an infestation, but do you think it’s Famine?”
Another short nod. “Abnormal decay in the garden. Pest activity. Nothing remains. Ezekiel and I purged the infestation.”
At face value, it seems Cisco is sharing more information with the Sinners than with the Vatican. My fingers twitch to scroll back through his text conversation and verify his implied evidence that we’re on the same side. For a moment, it feels like he’ll let me. Like the world stops turning.
That’s when I realize what the fucked-up tug in my chest is, the one giving me the warm and fuzzies. I feel it when one of my babes leans on me, and I let myself believe, for half a second, that I’m part of a family. That’s when I finally get to Hell, at least I’ll have company.
A wave of hot, prickling panic rises across my skin, quickening my breath.
Wanting to fuck a hot priest as a dirty rebellion against everything Catholic and clean is one thing.
But this … this soft, stupid, gooey feeling inside me because he showed me his phone is another.
It’s not me. It’s the thing my mother dressed up in a swimsuit and called Jezebel.
It’s the prophecy reaching into my chest, rearranging my organs and telling me I was always going to fall, that nothing has ever been by choice.
Not what was done to me. Not what I did to take back that power.
It’s saying Mercy isn’t real.
They can’t help themselves around you, Joan.
And it’s not even just the prophecy. It’s him. The blush. The “please.” The way he doesn’t deny being Entity or try to spin me. He just stands there, holding eye contact like a man who knows he doesn’t deserve to look away.
Cisco’s supposed to be the hypocritical judgment I sneer at, the wolf I poke with my stick. Instead, he’s kind, tortured, and coming apart at the seams. He’s a walking contradiction in a tight black shirt, and he’s exactly the kind of thing that gets girls like me killed. I know what comes next.
Little Jezebel. Don’t come crying to me when you get it.
If I keep dropping these walls of mine, if I let myself believe a man can stay … and I finally get “It,” then death is around the corner. Love only ever gets people buried. I learned that at eleven.
So no. Not today, Padre.
“Fine.” I slap the phone into his palm. “Let’s say I believe you. Don’t think for a fucking second that I’ll be your prophecy scapegoat. If you’re looking for the holiest of holes to poke your virginal stick into, you’re looking at the wrong Sinner.”
He stiffens. “Speak plainly.”
“You want me to say it in Italian, to spell it out?” I switch to his native language.
“I’m certain your saintly boy, Dom, is destined for Raven.
I can see their eye-fucking from across the abbey.
And going by how you hid from Tawny, she’s not the one who will make you break your vows.
That leaves only one Sinner.” I point both thumbs at my well-endowed chest. “For one Saint.” I point two finger guns at him and shoot. Pow.
He rubs his chest where the fake bullets hit, eyes narrowing at me with a dare. “You think you will make me break my vows?”
I cock my hip and toss my hair. “What, like it’s hard?”
“I am a priest!”
“You won’t be my first.”
He blinks. “I just had you against the door.”
“Exactly.” I gesture at my body. Even in dusty gym clothes, I look amazing. It’s a curse. “You had this pressed hard against the door, nice and close.”
“That was not my meaning.” His brows slam down. He gestures between us and then at the door. “I am the one who dominated you.”
His competitive streak is kind of cute. But he’s wrong.
“Oh, honey,” I purr, sidling up to him. I smooth my palms over his chest until I reach his Roman collar. Not plastic. Cotton. Old-school. “If you thought that was submission, you really haven’t been paying attention.”
He grips my wrist, halting it just shy of pulling his collar free.
“That’s mine to remove,” he growls, flinging my hand away as if it were dirt.
“So we’re in agreement,” I conclude and step back. “Neither of us wants to be a part of this prophecy.”
“Sì.”
“Then I propose we make a truce.”
“A truce.” His words are slow, wary.
“Yes. We start over. Pretend we’re not enemies.”
“We’re not.”
“Sure, Padre. We’re friends.” My smile is empty, my voice flat. “Special ones. Just like your friends in Rome.” He bristles but doesn’t respond, so I continue. “We both know this can’t happen between us.”
“It’s not.”
“Exactly. We get on with our job of stopping Lilith.” I gesture at his clerics and occult tattoos. “We focus on finding the next divine relic and ignore the falling in love part of the prophecy.” I make a gagging sound. “God, even saying that word out loud makes me cringe.”
Monogamy—one dick for the rest of my life? No thanks. Even if it’s as forbidden as a priest’s.
Cisco slides a hand into his trouser pocket, gripping something unseen. Not the phone; that’s on the other side. Not the cock, either. This is something else.
An image flashes in my mind: him kneeling in a church pew after my one and only confession. His broad shoulders hunched, fingers sliding over the blood-slick rosary beads. It reminds me that he was nice to me during my little confessional moment. Kind. Understanding.
A stab of guilt hits me. I hate that there might be a good man inside him—a good priest, which makes this charade even more important.
I sigh. “I’m not saying we hold hands and sing kumbaya, but we can’t try to kill each other like Raven and Dom.”
“Dominic has not tried to kill Raven.”
“That you know of.”
“No, I am certain—”
“The point is that neither of us wants this. Right?”
He clears his throat. “Right.”
“Attention, whether good or bad, is still attention. If we work together to make any compromising situation”—I give a pointed glance around the dark room, gesturing between us—“seem innocent, then pressure from our teams about the prophecy should all blow over quickly.”
“This is innocent.”
“Maybe. Or maybe you and I are in here because it’s the only private place in the abbey.” I step closer. “Maybe we’re in here to—”
“Okay.” A muscle ticks in his jaw. “I understand.”
As much as it pains me to hear my mother’s voice come out of my mouth, I have to say it.
“It’s not what happens that matters. It’s what people think happens that becomes the truth.
If we have to talk, meet up, or do … whatever this is …
we should lie if anyone asks, and say we haven’t seen each other.
Then no one is getting ideas in their head about the”—I shudder—“prophecy.”
“More lies add to more sin.”
“Blah blah, sin.” I dismiss him with a wave. “No need to get your rosary beads in a twist. Fine. Let me do the lying for us. I’m already going to Hell. What’s one more sin on my tally?”
“You are a smart woman, but in this, you are stupid.”
“Tell me what you really think.” I roll my eyes.
“A man who lets a woman sin so that he remains pure is not a good man.”
My eye twitches. It’s hard to breathe.
“I cannot agree to this,” he insists.
“It’s no big deal.” My finger absently flicks my outer thigh. “I’m used to being seen as dirty. It just means I know my place … and how to use it.”
A flicker of something dark and ancient appears in his eyes, and he takes a single, deliberate step closer. His voice drops to a low growl, barely audible over the silence. “No woman is a tool for another’s penance. Especially not mine. My sins are my own to carry, Mercy.”
With that, he reaches for the doorknob but then stops. For a second, I think he’s glitched. He just stands there frozen, tattooed fingers hovering. And then, with a knuckle-cracking pop, he says, “Confession is between six and eight tonight. Don’t be late.”
He shoves the door open and storms into the light.