Raphael

by Tillie Cole

  “No!” Raphael said, cutting him off. He shook his head and pulled at his hair. He was coming out of his motherfucking skin. In that moment, he was death. He was the evil the priests had accused him of being every single day for years. And he embraced it. Devoured the darkness flooding his veins. “I’m getting her.”

  “Raphe, listen—”

  “No!” Raphael stepped forward and pointed at Gabriel. “I’m sick of hiding from the Brethren. This time they’ve fucked with what’s mine, and I’m going in and getting her. Not your contacts, not the men, not the mercenaries who got us out years ago. Me. I’m going in.” Raphael took a deep breath and felt a vicious smile pull on his face. “And I’m going to kill them. I’m going to kill as many as I can . . . then I’m killing Father Murray, slowly, staring straight into that motherfucker’s eyes.”

  “Raphe—” Gabriel began.

  “He’s right.” Bara came to stand beside Raphael. “They deserve to die. I’m going with him.” He smirked and licked his lips. “You have no idea how many times I’ve envisioned walking into that place with a flame thrower and going to fucking town on those sadistic fuckers. They love all that fire-and-brimstone shit. I’m happy to deliver it.”

  “I’m in too,” Diel said, and looked at Gabriel. “Collar off.” His eyes shone. “I’m about due for some uncontrolled fun.”

  One by one Raphael’s brothers stood beside him, creating an army of killers. Finally, Michael came to stand by his right side, his arm brushing against Raphael’s.

  Raphael’s chin lifted as he looked at Gabriel. “We’re going in.”

  Gabriel inhaled a deep breath, then slowly came to stand beside his brothers. Raphael tracked his every move. When Gabriel was standing beside Uriel, he looked at Miller. “Get transport ready. Extra cars too. If they have kids in there, we need to get them out and take them somewhere safe.”

  “You’re going too?” Miller asked him.

  Gabriel met Raphael’s eyes. “We are the Fallen. A brotherhood. Where one goes, we all go.”

  Raphael felt that unfamiliar tightness in his chest again as he looked at his brothers beside him. They’d been with him in Purgatory. They’d lived side by side in hell. Now they were following him back into the dark.

  Gabriel turned to them. “Get whatever weapons you want. And get plenty. We have no idea what we’re walking into.”

  Bara rubbed his hands together. “This day just got a whole lot more fucking exciting!”

  Before they went to the arsenal in the basement, Gabriel said, “You know there’s a chance we won’t all come back.”

  “We will,” Uriel said with a knowing smirk. “Your God surely wouldn’t deny us the right to fuck these assholes up once and for all. Not after everything they’ve done. He can be wrathful too. Maybe he needs a bit more violence in His life. All that holier-than-thou shit is just boring.”

  “Don’t worry, Angel,” Bara said, smiling. “I’ll have your back if it gets messy.”

  They raced down to the arsenal. As Raphael strapped knives and guns to his body, he kept Maria’s face in his mind. He’d get his little rose. He’d get her and bring her back to their home. And maybe the tightness in his chest would disappear. He didn’t like it. He didn’t understand it. All he knew was that he wanted her back. Needed her back. Had to have her back so he could once again fucking breathe.

  Then he’d kill her. And he’d keep her in his room forever in the coffin that made her look so, so beautiful . . .

  Then she would never ever leave him again.

  *****

  The Fallen waited in the shadows until night was at its darkest. From the cover of the trees, Raphael watched the entrance of Purgatory. There was a strange buzz in his blood. A heady tension in his veins. He felt someone watching him. Turning to his right, he saw it was Gabriel.

  Raphael didn’t understand the strange feelings that were dominating his body. Every time he thought of Maria being with Father Murray, him hurting her and fuck knew what else, the tightness and breathlessness consumed him until he didn’t think he could stand it. Raphael closed his eyes. When he opened them again, just needing to get the fuck going, to storm through the metal door that they’d left through so many years ago, he felt Gabriel still watching him.

  “You good?” Gabriel whispered to Raphael.

  When they’d first left Purgatory, Gabriel had told them that Raphael, Bara, Uriel, Michael, Sela, and Diel didn’t see the world the way everyone else did. The six of them felt things differently—or, most of the time, not at all.

  But Raphael was feeling things now. When he thought of Maria’s smile, of her touching him, warmth spread in his chest. And when he thought of her being hurt, a wave of such evil came over him he felt like the devil himself.

  Raphael nodded at Gabriel. Gabriel sighed, then said to his brothers, “We won’t know how many are in there until we get inside.” Gabriel was dressed in black. They all were. But Raphael found it strange not to see his older brother in his usual dog collar and slacks. “From what I remember, there could be up to thirty, thirty-five members in the different rooms.” Raphael’s mind took him back to the candle room. The one where they were lined up and forced to suck Brethren cock, where they were pinned down and raped over and over until it became part of their everyday life. His lip curled in disgust, and the thick black tar of revenge clogged his every cell.

  “I’ll go for the dorms,” Gabriel said. “If there are any boys in there, we need to get them out. Miller will have men waiting for them at the entrance once we’re inside. We’ll need to get them far away from this place.” The Fallen all nodded. Gabriel’s stare was steel as he met each of his brothers’ eyes. “No one goes anywhere alone. We don’t know what we’ll face, and we’ll need numbers. Understand? We’re not losing anyone tonight. Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” the brothers answered.

  One of Miller’s contacts moved across the lawn and to the door of Purgatory. Raphael’s muscles twitched as the ex-military guy Gabriel had paid off silently opened the door. The Brethren wouldn’t even see them coming. Tonight, the Fallen would become the demons they had accused them of being.

  “I’ve been waiting for this for years.” Bara got to his feet. He arranged his gun and flame thrower over his chest and shoulder. One by one the Fallen got to their feet, following suit.

  Diel cricked his neck slowly from side to side. He turned to Gabriel. “Turn the collar off.” Gabriel hesitated, but he reached into his pocket and switched the power down to zero. Diel closed his eyes and took a deep breath at the sudden freedom. “Don’t turn it back on until it’s finished.” Diel smirked, and his eyes opened, lit with uncontained excitement for the kills he was about to make. He hissed in ecstasy as he shed his control. “Mmm . . . that feels fucking good.”

  Gabriel stepped forward, still under the cover of the trees, and faced his brothers. “We don’t leave anyone alive. If we do, the repercussions could be dire.”

  “No one will survive.” Michael spoke from beside Raphael. His brother was laden with knives and a belt of spare vials for the collection of his victims’ blood. These kills would award him a feast.

  “No one lives,” Raphael echoed his best friend. Michael looked at Raphael, and in a rare occurrence he smiled, showing his pristine, sharp white fangs.

  Fangs that wouldn’t stay white for long.

  Miller’s contact moved away from the door and signaled to Gabriel and the others that the door was unlocked.

  Raphael took in a long inhale and forced his breathing to calm. His heart was spurring him on, the beat fast and erratic with the promise of death.

  “Ready?” Gabriel said. Raphael clutched the guns in his hands, knives ready in the waist of his pants.

  Following Gabriel, they cut over the grass as one unit. Gabriel paused at the door, his eyes closed and his head bowed. Raphael knew he’d be saying a prayer to his God who never gave a fuck about them. Raphael’s eyes landed on that familiar metal door. Even with the
heat of fury consuming his body, he felt as though he were being plunged into a vat of ice-cold water, knowing what was beyond it. The scars on his back pulsed, and he felt Father Murray’s phantom hands rubbing over his skin. Pinning him down and crowding his back. He shook. He shook with such a need for revenge that it was all he became.

  Open the door. Open the motherfucking door!

  When Gabriel’s head lifted, he opened the door. The burning smell of Purgatory, one that Raphael smelled each night in his sleep, assaulted him. Vomit crawled up his throat, but Raphael pushed it down and kept Maria’s face in his head. The bulbs flickered, and Raphael used the distraction to remind himself that death awaited them inside. Not their own, but that of their tormentors. The burning smell quickly changed from an offense to his fuel.

  Raphael rocked on anxious feet as adrenaline soared through his body. His hand tightened around his gun. In the suspended silence, the Fallen met one another’s eyes. They were back. In a place they vowed to never return to. Energy pulsed between them as they gathered in a loose circle. Seven sinners ready to wreak havoc on the godly pretenders.

  Bara smirked and readied his flame thrower, signaling that they were ready. That the Brethren’s day of judgment had come.

  With a slow nod of Gabriel’s head, they began to walk through the hallway as one brotherhood. Careful walks turned into impulsive jogs, the jogs morphing into flat-out runs. And with every step, Raphael felt the lost screams he had left in this place track him down and join his crusade. Gabriel followed the hallway to where the old dorm used to be. The hallway to the dorm always felt colder than the rest. When goosebumps devoured his skin, Raphael felt thirteen again, staggering back after being stuffed with Father Murray’s cock. The image was almost his undoing. It was only Maria’s face in his mind’s eye that kept him focused. Kept him centered. Raphael’s eyes were wide and assessing as Gabriel opened the door. He heard Gabriel’s quick inhale.

  “Move,” Gabriel ordered. Raphael peered over his shoulder. Nine sets of dead eyes stared back at him. Raphael’s stomach began to boil. His limbs shook at the sight of the half-starved, gaunt boys, sunken eyes staring at them from blank, untrusting faces. The boys were them ten years ago. Raphael felt his brothers around him, pulsing with uncontained hatred for the Brethren too. But Raphael couldn’t take his eyes off the boys. Was that what they had looked like when they were here? Sela rushed forward and carried one who had collapsed on the bed, who looked like he couldn’t walk. He had blood staining his white pants at his rear . . . Raphael felt the vibrating surge of fury begin at his feet and travel through his body when the boy’s vacant eyes latched on him as he passed.

  “Move!” Gabriel repeated and charged into the room. He dragged each boy to his feet. Each one was a living ghost of the Fallen from the past. He heard his brothers hissing and cursing around him. They must have been thinking the same thing.

  “Die,” he heard savagely snarled from the back. It was Diel. “Die. They will all die.” Raphael was paralyzed, watching Gabriel lead the boys to the entrance. The boys ran outside. The minute the last one had fled, Raphael came back into his body and let the fire consume him.

  Just as Gabriel closed the door, a gunshot rang out down the hallway. Raphael spun, gun out. But Diel pushed past him, a dark smile covering his face. “Finally,” he growled. Diel charged, a twenty-inch knife in each hand. Raphael caught a glimpse of the red and black Brethren colors the priest wore. It was a flag to a bull. The priest who had fired didn’t even get a chance to re-aim at Diel; Raphael’s brother stabbed a blade straight through his forehead. Diel pulled the blade out of the priest’s head, and the priest’s body dropped to the floor, eyes wide open. Diel hissed in pleasure, then took off.

  “Diel!” Gabriel hushed out. But the red mist he treasured descended over Raphael’s eyes, and Gabriel’s hissed orders became a distant hum as he gave himself over to his urge to kill. Blood rushing through his ears, Raphael ran in the direction Diel had gone. He didn’t feel anything. The fire inside him burned through any recognition of anything but the search for Maria and the Brethren. A blanket of gunfire sounded. Bara was beside him in seconds, flame thrower at the ready and a maniacal smile on his face. As they rounded the corner, Raphael fired as a line of priests dressed in black with red dog collars came at them. Diel attacked one after the other in quick succession. Michael followed Diel, stabbing and slitting throats as he went. Sprays of blood spattered Michael’s face—his best friend licked at the crimson-coated knives and the drops that ran onto his lips.

  Another group of priests ran at them from the left. Bara turned and laughed as his flame thrower doused them all in fire. The priests screamed, the smell of burned flesh filtering through the stagnant hallways. The screams were a blissful symphony to Raphael’s ears, a salve to some of the gaping wounds that had never healed. Torn fibers in his chest began knitting together as priest after priest hit the ground. Finally, it was them prostrate at the Fallen’s feet.

  Uriel ran through to the burning priests, stabbing and crowbarring their knees. Even through the cacophony, the sound of bodies hitting the ground was better than any hymn he’d ever heard sung at church. “Let them die slowly,” Uriel snarled as the priests began to beg for a quick death.

  Raphael watched them screaming and begging for mercy. Their pain energized him, made him reborn. Raphael gave himself over to darkness. Bullets rained from his gun, and Raphael grew harder and harder as priest after priest dropped to the floor. It was carnage, and Raphael was a savage as he shot through skulls and hearts and heads, blood spraying his face—the most addictive warmth. Sela dropped down to the falling bodies, stripping them of ears and tongues and fingers with his sharp blades.

  But Raphael broke from the pack and ran down the hallway that led to the staircase. He descended the steps. The familiar route caused images to flash through his head like a movie reel—candles, the smell of burning, sweat from the priests, cum and screams . . . Raphael ran to the candle room, the need to kill guiding his feet. As he slammed through the door, his feet ground to a halt.

  Kids. Kids on the ground, naked priests above them. He saw red. Raphael raised his gun, about to shoot each of the priests, when he heard, “Let me, brother. These fuckers deserve to burn.”

  Bara came from behind him, stalking toward the priests trying to escape. Before they could even take a step, Bara sprayed their naked bodies with fire, the flesh instantly starting to boil. Raphael heard Gabriel ushering the naked boys to their feet and rushing them from the room too. This time his eyes stayed on the priests. They screamed as they were set ablaze. They hit the walls and the ground, trying to put out the flames, but Bara doused them and doused them until their bodies were charred and unable to do anything but be eaten alive by Bara’s flames.

  Uriel picked up a can of the gasoline Gabriel’s mercenaries had begun bringing inside. He uncapped the can and poured it on the ground. Raphael’s eyes stayed on the priests. He couldn’t tear himself away from their hair burning away and the flames ravaging their skin. His muscles twitched in satisfaction when he saw their cocks begin to burn. Their rapist, sinful cocks.

  A flash of Maria’s face in his mind snapped Raphael back to the here and now. He raced back up the stairs and headed to the room he knew all too well—that they all knew far too well. The door was shut. He didn’t glance behind him to see whether any of his brothers followed. He didn’t care.

  Adrenaline and anger leading the way, Raphael burst through the door. At the sight of the devices and torture machines, his skin went ice cold, but his blood was still scalding hot. He clutched his gun, ready to fire. But the door slammed shut behind him, and Raphael spun around.

  Raphael felt bumps break out over his skin. He knew exactly who was behind him. His lip curled when he turned and met the eyes of the priest who had barricaded him in. But instead of rage, Raphael’s feet ground still on the spot and his heart began to beat too fast.

  He was here. Father Murray was before him
. Raphael began to drown in the memories of the past. As he stared at the face that was the star of his every nightmare, his body began to shut down. He couldn’t move. Could only stare at the man who had been his torturer. Who had pinned him down and fucked him over and over again. The priest’s brown eyes were locked on his. Raphael’s breathing came faster and faster, making him light-headed as Father Murray slowly bolted the door.

  “You came,” Father Murray said. Daggers stabbed down Raphael’s spine at the sound of his deep voice.

  “Take my cock.” Raphael flinched as the memories devoured his mind. “Beg, heathen. Repent, and I’ll stop.” But Raphael didn’t. Father Murray threw him on the ground and flipped Raphael over to his stomach, the priest’s hard cock scraping over the back of Raphael’s thighs . . . Raphael wouldn’t cry out even though his jaw clenched. As the pain of Father Murray thrusting inside him threatened to tear him apart, Raphael vowed he would never submit to this man.

  Never.

  Raphael blinked, tearing himself from the memory and back into the room. His chest heaved at the flashback. Hand shaking, he began to raise his gun, keeping Father Murray in sight. But as he went to fire the bullet that would finally rid him of his life, Father Murray said, “You came for her.”

  Raphael froze, his finger stalling on the trigger. Raphael’s eyes narrowed. Father Murray smiled. “I knew you would. She’s your greatest fantasy come true.” He moved from the door and across the room, sticking close to the walls filled with knives and hammers and a thousand other weapons of torture. Raphael knew each one all too well. Knew how each one felt on his skin and stabbing into his flesh.

  “When I saw her in the monastery, I knew she was the one for you.” Father Murray stopped beside a closed iron coffin. “You told me, remember?” Raphael felt the blood drain from his face at the coffin . . . at what Maria had told him about William Bridge. “After I fucked you for the fourth time. After . . .” Father Murray pulled the metal baton off the wall and held it out to Raphael. Raphael sucked in a shuddered breath. “After I fucked you with this.” Father Murray tilted his head. “Do you remember, Raphael? Do you remember how you told me who you wanted to kill and why?” He smiled. “Because that’s how your mommy died.”