Chapter 10
Ten
Cisco
Ineed a drink.
Before I take the whiskey bottle out, I force myself to do a quick sweep of the belfry.
An old single-sized mattress is shoved in a corner, out of danger from the elements.
Several empty, dusty bottles are scattered around.
A plastic soda bottle has a cut-off garden hose stuck into it, along with a metal funnel—a crude bong.
Either the priest smoked weed, or the Sinners actually do use this place on the odd occasion.
I check the corners, the rafters holding up the ceiling, and the little alcove where a spider has been weaving the same web since I first came up here.
It seems to watch me as I pull the flask from my pocket.
“Un momento, my friend.” I dip my chin toward it. “Before we share a toast to your—what is the word in English?” In Italy, it is called grinta. “Oh yes, grit. But first, I have one more check to make.”
I cross to the southern louvers and peer through the gaps.
It’s misty here on a good night. When it storms, I can barely make out the barbed wire fence marking the boundary.
The rain is slowing now, though, so I can see the blurry shapes of security cameras over the wrought iron gates.
The little red blinking light is a beacon.
I sharpen my gaze until I detect the occult symbols painted on the limestone wall.
The rain hasn’t washed them away, but I can’t be sure how much is intact from this distance.
I must remember to send Wesley to check tomorrow.
My gaze follows the gravel driveway around the lake and to the mausoleum hidden beneath a copse of trees.
No movement there except for a few branches whipping.
Turning, I look through the belfry’s east louvers and track the long, winding path uphill to the walled garden.
A shudder runs through me when I recall the flies, the sense of them watching me.
There’s nothing to the north except dense woods and a glimpse of barbed wire fencing. By the time I check through the east louvers, the rain has slowed to a drizzle, and vision has cleared enough for me to count the vines crawling over the abbey’s facade a mere twenty-second walk from here.
The behemoth building is more like a castle than a monastery. Three floors of windows are dark. It’s late, or early, rather. Maybe two or three a.m., and so everyone’s asleep. All looks quiet.
Good.
Before I settle in with the whiskey, I look with that other part of me. The one that doesn’t need to peer out of any side of the belfry. Without my collar, it feels more alive. Agitated.
I let it call out to the wild darkness and wait for an answer.
The wind howls.
Water drips.
But nothing calls back.
Exhaling with relief, I move again to the southern louvers.
I always like to circle back to the beginning to double-check before lowering my inhibitions.
I didn’t really give this side of the abbey a good look at first, with the rain.
But as expected, all the windows are dark.
Nothing else has changed. Satisfied, I unscrew the bottle cap.
“Okay, my friend. It’s time for—”
The bottle halts an inch before my lips. Third row up, second from the right, a light flicks on inside the abbey. Backlit by the cheap lamp on her desk, Mercy walks into view, hair wet from the shower, a towel wrapped around her body.
My pulse quickens. My arm drops. Whiskey sloshes over my hand, and I curse, flick my fingers, and try to wipe the mess on my sweatpants. What am I doing? When I look up next, everything inside me clenches.
The towel has fallen, and she’s now approaching the window, her arms up, fingers tousling her hair.
Naked.
Mercy is naked.
Pale skin. Wet hair. Curvaceous, hourglass figure. She moves like liquid grace.
When she reaches the window, I see everything from her thighs to the top of her head.
The light in her room, the break in the rain, and the darkness here make the view clear enough that I see her perfect, round, and generous breasts.
I’m almost certain her pink nipples are taut, and are those freckles on one shoulder?
Narrowing my eyes, I press my forehead against the louvers and sharpen my gaze. Yes, they’re freckles.
There’s a coppery tint to her hair where it’s drier. Same color pubic hair. On her skin, darker, irregular patterns are too hard to distinguish, but are probably random old scars from the line of duty.
A long, shuddering breath whooshes from my lungs. Dio, Mercy is stunning. She is beautiful. She is ruin. And she is my kind of woman.
Which is why I should not be looking.
I lift the bottle to my lips and force a mouthful of whiskey down. One, two, three burning gulps. I rub my eyes to clear my focus, then return to the louvers.
Mercy pouts at her reflection in the rain-spattered glass pane and shakes her damp hair out.
Wet strands stick to her face and neck, clinging to the curve of her collarbone and around her breasts.
They are perfect. Stupidly, unfairly perfect, and I can’t stop staring, and I can’t even see them clearly.
I have seen thousands of breasts—too many as a young man who thought he could fuck his way out of damnation.
But none were like these. These are alive.
Real. They move with every breath she takes.
I can just imagine how they would feel in my hand. My mouth. Firm but soft.
My hand trembles as I knock back another burning swig of whiskey.
I can’t think when I stare at Mercy.
Everything is a blur except for one, inevitable truth.
If I am not her “Saint,” then someone else is.
Something dark and insidious tightens in my stomach, all hunger and gnashing teeth.
A living thing beneath my skin ripples with the urge to go to Mercy.
My grip tightens on the bottle until a high-pitched crack sounds.
I glance down and find a stress fracture in the glass.
A few deep, controlled breaths, and the tension releases from my posture.
But I don’t look away.
I can’t.
Instead, I sip the whiskey and stare.
She stares back. My breath halts in my lungs, and I count to ten, waiting to see if she notices me in the darkness.
In Rome, they say these Sinners are witches.
Maybe Mercy is. Maybe she feels me watching her from a darkness she can’t penetrate because she decides to put on a show.
Her fingers slide down her neck and linger, tracing the collarbone.
I wait with bated breath until her hand slips down to cup her breast, testing the weight and then pinching the nipple until her lips part.
I swear I hear her throaty moan from here. Or maybe it comes from my own lips.
Mercy drags her nails down the center of her chest. Pink lines appear in her skin, blooming and then fading. She repeats the motion, harder this time, until I see her flinch.
“No,” I gasp.
But there is nothing I can do to stop her from reaching down to brutally squeeze her thigh, right over a dark, blurry circle.
Bruises? The memory of her pulling down her pants in confession hits me squarely in the chest. Those bruises she’s been agitating must be from the chain cilices she told me about.
She rubbed her wounds, then similarly, like a child picking at a scab.
Her voice shook when she told me she needed the pain to stay human.
“Don’t you dare,” I warn as she tenses, no doubt bracing herself for a harder squeeze.
And she does. It’s a flesh-denting, face-crumpling crush.
“No,” I whisper.
Mercy grits her teeth, takes a breath, and presses harder.
“Stop!”
As if hearing me, she freezes. Frowns. Looks out into the night again. I should be concerned that she might know I’m here, but I am only filled with pride that she listened to sense.
“Brava ragazza,” I mumble. Good girl. There is hope for you yet.
But then she does it again, harder, and this time I feel it. The pain. It travels up my leg, burrowing deep. The void inside me snarls and snaps, hungry for more. Demanding she give me more.
I am two steps to the hatch before I see the shadows growing darker in the room and realize it is not me moving my feet.
“Back in your cage,” I growl to the hungry devil.
Before it grows a voice, I return to the louvers in time to see Mercy stepping away from the window, chest heaving, head bowed. For a second, I think she’s about to cry, and a surge of defiance hits me.
“No.” I grip the louver, bottle clinking. “You are not weak. I won’t allow it.”
She paces the room, restless, angry, hips swaying seductively. I want to tell myself this is just biology, that I am a man like any other. This is just the liquor going to my head, but it isn’t true.
She called herself dirty as if it were a badge.
She listed every reason I should hate her, every reason I should never want her, and how she would make me forsake everything.
She said it with relish, as if daring me to try.
Like she needed to win the argument so much that if I surrendered, she’d be left with nothing.
But my hunger has never been satisfied by flesh alone. My craving is for her brokenness. The thing about her that calls to me most is the thing I see when I look in the mirror. Not the thing that calls from me, but the aching and lonely thing trapped beneath it.
Standing here, in the space once occupied by a priest who failed these women, above the church where I hear tales of bravery and selflessness, I see the tragedy laid out before me with crystal clarity.
Mercy has given her life and her eternal soul to protect innocent strangers.
Her organization is on the brink of collapse, and instead of abandoning it and finding freedom, she has only become more dedicated to her cause.
She willingly walks the path to Hell so that others are saved.
She is the good thing I wish I were. Bella figura, in the flesh. She just doesn’t know it yet.