by Hunter Blain
I gasped slightly as I looked at the roofline and saw the stone statues back in their original places. The catlike gargoyle stared down at me, while the angel continued to stoically gaze to the horizon.
Being me, I flipped them off, which might have been a mistake. I wasn’t aware of movement, but the angel was now regarding me with assumed disdain.
“Hey!” I cried out while aggressively pointing a finger. “I didn’t blink! You can’t move unless I blink!”
Maybe the statues didn’t understand my reference because they both returned their gazes to the world outside the churchyard, perpetually at the ready to defend the holy grounds. Their leisurely movements gave me shudders, like watching an alligator slowly glide through the water before bursting through the surface to latch onto its prey with incredible speed and ferocity. I knew those statues to be dangerous.
The shudder that ran up my spine concluded its journey, and I flailed my arms out to my sides to dispel the awkward energy before moving to the freshly cemented steps. There was a sign that warned of the wet concrete, and I took full advantage.
“John...On...!” I drawled with my tongue sticking out the side of my mouth as I wrote the words using my index finger. It was important to note the O was capitalized in On. Not sure why it was worth observing, as I was confident it wasn’t grammatically accurate, but that was also kind of the point.
Standing up, I wiped my finger against the stone wall while figuring out how I was going to get inside without getting my boots dirty, or—you know—ruining the work done.
I went with the first instinctual idea that came to me. Manifesting a celestial construct, I lashed out at the door handle with an ivory rope. I, um, missed the first try, and the rope dropped to the wet concrete.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I muttered to myself as I quickly pulled the rope back, leaving behind a trail of shame that would be forever etched into the landing of the church.
Lifting my hand, I let the white rope etched in gold dangle while scowling with disgust at the chunks of concrete that clung to my manifestation.
I let the rope vanish, forcing the noncelestial concrete to drop in a pile by my feet.
“Lilith damn it,” I whined as I stared down at the wet pile sitting atop the dry, paved walkway.
Looking around to see if anyone was watching, I noted the coast was clear and proceeded to just, you know, nudge the pile of wet stuff into the grass with the toe of my black boot. I may have clasped my hands innocently behind my back while pretending to stare up at the pretty sky and whistling as I did the deed. Two stone faces peered down, judging me with their gray faces.
“What?” I asked, throwing my hands up, knowing I had been caught.
I couldn’t be sure, but I could swear the angel’s fist tightened a tad as it stared daggers at me.
“That’s what I thought,” I called out as I returned to the task at hand. I took a step closer to the door, and a large stone the size of a watermelon crashed to the pavement where I had just been a moment prior.
Sometimes, the impressive octave range I can create with my voice astounds even me. There have been times when I have sung Barry White songs at karaoke in perfect key, while other times...only dogs can hear the pitch with which my vocal cords vibrate. This was one of those times.
Shrieking like a manly man with bulging muscles, I spun around and started to fall backward with cartwheeling limbs, knowing the wet concrete would welcome me with open arms and coat my trench.
“No!” I barked between gritted teeth as I squeezed my eyes shut...and felt something slide over me before I landed on hard ground.
I immediately noted that the air smelled and felt different, and I was no longer aware of the sun on my skin.
Opening my eyes, I saw I was in the cathedral of the church, wooden pews lining either side of the central walkway in which I now lay.
“What the Barbie Girl was that?!” I barked out.
A sharp cry of surprise from somewhere nearby made me repeat my earlier dog call of supreme manliness, and I shot to my feet to see Father Thomes holding his chest and breathing deeply. At his feet lay a paper plate and the leftovers of what appeared to be a ham sandwich.
“Oh, sorry about that, Papa T. Don’t, ah, know how I got here...” I admitted, checking my backside for wet pavement residue.
“You could have given me a heart attack, my son,” Father Thomes said with his eyes still closed as he continued to catch his breath.
Walking over to where he stood with his hand still on his heart, I bent down and scooped up his sandwich, trying my best to put it back in its original positioning. There may or may not have been a tad of gray concrete where a particular finger might have touched.
Father Thomes eyed the bread and then me, arching an eyebrow after a moment.
“Right...so...where’s the trash again?”
“In the kitchen,” he said flatly before turning to go back the way he had just come from. I followed behind.
“Do you, ah, want me to make you another one?”
“Have you ever made a ham sandwich before?”
“Um...” I thought for a moment as I dropped the plate in the foot-operated trash can. “Oh! Yes, actually. In Faerie. Though I don’t know if it was specifically ham,” I thought out loud as I removed my foot from the pedal and the trash lid slowly hissed closed. “Never thought to ask. It could have been a unicorn or something. Wouldn’t surprise me.”
“If I wasn’t already hungry, I would delight in watching you attempt to make such a rudimentary meal. But seeing as how I am, in fact, famished, I will instead politely beg you to not make me a sandwich.”
“Well, that works for the both of us,” I said over a chuckle.
As Father Thomes gingerly reached up to a cabinet to retrieve another paper plate, I grimaced at his slow, methodical movements. I even grew concerned as I watched his gnarled, arthritic hands weakly grip the thin plate. At that moment, I think I understood why he chose the light paper over the heavy glass; he simply didn’t have the strength to pull them down at that angle.
“Do you, ah, need some help there, Papa T?” I asked, trying my absolute best not to sound concerned but failing.
“I am quite capable, thank you,” he said with a grunt as he reached across the counter to grab the half-empty container of what appeared to be artisanal bread. I appreciated how he stored the package with the twirl and tuck method rather than reusing the twist tie.
Reality once again flicked me in the balls as I thought about the fact that maybe he didn’t have the dexterity to simply retie the twisty.
“Why the long face?” Father Thomes asked, drawing my attention to meet his gaze.
“Huh?” I asked, leaning my head forward and bouncing my brow up before I caught on that he had been staring at my face. I’d always had the flaw of wearing my emotions on my sleeve. “Oh, just...um...”
“You were staring at my hands.”
I was caught red-handed (Oooh! A pun! Totes on purpose).
“I’m...I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, John,” Father Thomes said, lifting his deformed hands to regard them, turning them over at chest level. Thin skin covered veins that looked like black worms rather than the healthy green of a fully functioning vascular system. Liver spots almost clasped hands in an effort to completely change his skin tone to that of someone from a sun-kissed country. “These are the gifts that are only bestowed to those who have enjoyed a long life on God’s Earth.”
He genuinely smiled as he gently glided bony fingers over the back of one hand. The skin pulled and crinkled like an old square of food-covered cellophane that had been used and discarded between the stove and cabinet, drying out as the months passed. It made my heart ache.
“Remember our agreement,” I said without being able to look him in the eyes. “Five years.”
“I remember,” he said quickly, turning to open the fridge to retrieve the yellow plastic container of mustard and slices of ham wrapped i
n butcher paper. “Am I to take it that you standing here means the mission against Ulric this morning was a success? Please tell me he is already locked away below in his renovated room.”
“It was...and it wasn’t...Father.”
My friend took in a deep breath and slightly shook his head before continuing.
“Go ahead, then. Tell me what happened.”
“The good news is, I got my ar—”
“Start with the bad, please,” Father Thomes Philseep interrupted, his tone bordering on aggression.
“Um...” I stumbled, gathering my reeling thoughts like snatching dollar bills in one of those hurricane machines that used to litter malls. “...Jo...Joey...” my throat constricted, refusing to speak the words for fear that they would somehow make it more of a reality. “Joey...”
“I see,” Father Thomes said, resting his palms on the counter and dropping his head. “May God have mercy on his soul.”
“I think he’s in Hell,” I whispered barely loud enough to be heard. I couldn’t force my vocal cords to cooperate, so I sent a hiss of air around the lump in my throat which my lips could manipulate into some semblance of language.
Mentioning Joey made something slam into my brain like a hammer to an egg. “Oh God...” I drawled, covering my mouth.
“What is it?” Father Thomes asked, sensing my pain violating the air around us.
“Dawson didn’t make it, Father. I saved his soul and he...and he was fucking floating up to Heaven when a freaking demon tore a hole through his chest big enough to fit a damn bus.” As I spoke, I leaned against the counter opposite the father and crossed one hand over my chest while the other tightly gripped my temples. My palm served to hide the quivering space between my eyebrows as I relived the scene.
“Where will I go?” he had asked before ripping my heart in half with the final two words that I dared not think right now. Not now, when the loss of both the twins was crashing over me like unforgiving, relentless waves trying to drown a man lost at sea.
Father Thomes lifted his head as if realizing something.
“What will you do?”
His question could have meant a few things; what was I going to do about Ulric, about Joey, or about Dawson. But I knew he was asking all three at once.
“I don’t know where Ulric is, but I know where the twins are,” I answered, saying more with the structure of my statement than the words themselves could convey on their own.
“You mean to go after them,” my friend stated with a cold tone that flirted on the edge of frustration. Well, flirted might not be the best verb; more like, prison-fucked.
I didn’t answer, which was, in itself, an answer.
He whirled on me after a few seconds, his eyes blazing with anger. “You dare risk all of creation for them? They are but two souls amongst billions!”
Without telling my body to do so, my arms dropped to my sides and I stood straight up, no longer leaning on the countertop.
“I do.” My voice was a dense stone that no hammer and chisel comprised of common sense or reason could crack.
Father Thomes stared at me for several long breaths, his eyes steadily flicking between mine like a pendulum on an agitated metronome.
My face remained unmoving as I fought the urge to shift my eyes crimson in warning.
“It’s not just for them, is it?” he asked, his tone nearing conversational but his face conveying skepticism, his eyes looking at me like he was trying to peer into my soul.
“I...” Words faltered as his question impacted me. I knew there was a truth to the question, but couldn’t place my finger on it.
“Depweg...” Thomes breathed out, slowly nodding his head.
His meaning solidified in an instant, and I understood what he meant.
“I...yes.”
“But why? Are you afraid he will go feral again?” he asked, taking a step forward as he stared through my eyes in search of something. “Or is it something else?”
My feet took a step back of their own accord as I leaned back at my waist, palms up in a gesture that begged him to stop advancing.
“He...doesn’t know...does he?” Eyes that had the faint white veil of cataracts narrowed at me.
“About what?” I asked over a nervous laugh as my butt touched the counter again, halting my retreat from the painful truth that was moving closer to me like a bull to a red cape.
Father Thomes continued moving forward as he scanned my features. My head lightly smacked against the row of cabinets hanging on the wall with a dull thud. There was nowhere left for me to run.
“He clearly must know about Joey, so it has to be Dawson. He doesn’t know...that you didn’t save him.”
“I...” my voice caught in my throat as my brain froze in panic. I was a diabetic with his hand caught in the cookie jar and out of life-saving insulin.
“But he thinks you did, doesn’t he?” A tone verging on that of a judge ready to drop the gavel after deciding on a verdict made the hairs on my neck stand on end. “Oh, John,” Father Thomes breathed in disappointment as he took two steps back away from me, shaking his head with dismay filling his eyes.
“What choice did I have?” I barked out, straightening my stance and throwing my hands up. “You saw what happened last time, man!”
Father Thomes spoke, then, like a true man of the cloth who cared immensely for his flock.
“The lie you carry in your heart is a poison that will rot it from the inside, pumping your veins with a necrosis that will eat away at your very soul.” His message was slow and purposeful, and I hung on to every word as if I were clinging for dear life to the bridge in Hell with the River Styx below, hungry for its meal.
“I know, Padre, but if it means saving my best friend from further hurt and potential damnation, then it’s not really a choice. Know what I mean?”
Father Thomes took in a deep breath as he rested a hand on the counter next to him.
“You have a good heart, John. I only pray the love you carry for your friends is enough to shine through the shadow of deceit.”
“It has to be,” I answered, lowering my head as I rested my palms on my hips.
The silence stretched out as we both contemplated each other’s words.
“If I may ask, what are your plans with Dawson? You said his soul was extinguished.”
“That’s a polite way of saying murdered. And he’s in Sheol, along with Da.”
“Sheol? You’re sure?”
“I’m pretty sure.”
“How odd.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, Sheol is a place in the Hebrew Bible. It has also been called Hades. I...I honestly didn’t think it truly existed.”
“Well, it does.” Something bothered me and I had to ask, “Um—if I’m not being a dick over here—how did you not know about it?”
“I have trouble comprehending such a place of absolute, maddening nothingness.”
“You’re saying...you’re saying Hell, where people are tortured in horrible ways by fallen angels, makes sense, but a place of nothingness is hard to believe?” I scrunched up my face in confusion as I tilted my head and crossed my arms.
“John, I am a Catholic. We were not directly taught about other pantheons’ constructs that were loosely translated over and over during the course of millennia. Hades, for example, was not only the name for Hell, but also that of the Devil for the Greeks. It was sometime before Christ when the Alexandrians translated Sheol into Hades. But you get my point, yes?”
“Ah, yeah, I’m with ya. Though you seem to know a lot about other religions for not having been taught about them in Catholic school.”
“I am a curious man who craves knowledge. Hence my predicament with the Church in which I refuse to lie to a congregation after learning the truths behind the curtain. Had I been content with what was taught to me alone, you and I would never have met, John. I would have ended up like any other priest.”
I shuddered at the though
t, knowing full well how much Father Thomes had bleached my soul since 1990. It was a sobering thought to dwell on that if he hadn’t been hungry for more knowledge than that provided by the Church...
A slow head nod and silence projected my acquiescence to his point.
“Are you able to share with me how you will both get to and out of Sheol? I’d already thought it an impossible task to get to just Hell, much less the place beyond death.”
“I, ah, don’t really know...yet. But has that ever stopped me before?”
“I suppose it hasn’t.”
“Oh, plus I got my armor back from Ulric.” At my thought, the celestial ivory shimmered to life around me, the gold etchings reflecting in the light spilling in from the kitchen window.
“Oh my!” Father Thomes called out as he quickly gripped the counter behind him with both hands to prevent a loss of balance.
“Oops. Sorry about that, Papa T. Been scarin’ ya all day, haven’t I?”
“It does seem to be a habit as of late, yes,” he lightly jested, straightening his stance before lifting his thick reading glasses off of his neck and holding them up for him to see through. I didn’t know why, but I’d only just noticed they were affixed around his neck with a small chain. It also dawned on me that the glasses were no longer for just reading, judging by their thickness. I wanted to ask him about them, but it didn’t seem right at that moment.
“Marvelous,” Father Thomes breathed as he moved his face up one of my arms and to my chest plate. He reached out with his other hand to touch the cross painted in the center, and I very lightly grabbed his wrist.
“Don’t,” I whispered, unable to look him in the eyes. I hated telling my friend no. It felt like I was diminishing our friendship by not letting him do as he wished, especially for something so insignificant as a painted cross. Then again, it was only insignificant to an outsider who didn’t know what it was made of and the meaning behind it.
