Page 11 of The Sinner and the Gunslinger
Wesley’s brows raise above his spectacles.
“Don’t say it,”I warn as we continue toward the church. I used to hate pets... Anything I had to look after was too much responsibility.
He shuts his mouth, but I can feel him smiling at me. As we arrive, the large double doors open, and out walk two resident nuns dressed in habits. The Sinners affectionately call them Magpies. Wes and I stand aside, giving them plenty of room to pass while offering friendly smiles.
The Hildegard Nuns keep a vow of silence and only speak during mass. Then they let loose. Sometimes they’re so loud I hear them singing from the abbey. Before I was healed, I tried to get them to break their vow and spill Sisterhood secrets. I figured, at least one of them must think the work these Sinners do is evil. But the most I’ve ever received was a warm smile and a dishcloth slapped in my hand so I would help in the kitchen.
Before heading inside the church, I watch the nuns meander back toward the monolith limestone abbey with ivy creeping over the facade. This place isn’t what I expected. When Wes told me about an organization of assassin nuns, I had insane Hollywood notions involving corruption and evil. But the nuns who live here are the kindest, smartest, and most generous women I’ve met. And the Sinners, they’re not nuns. I know they’ve made some kind of vows to the Sisterhood and to God, and they often assume the identities of nuns out and about, but they’re not nuns. They’re... interesting.
Wesley no longer believes they’re evil, but I’m sure Cisco and Dom still have reservations. Me? I’ve done worse things than these Sinners. I rest my palm on my pistol and think about my own wild country—the urban jungle I tamed after I thought Leila was dead, and how, for a time, I was its god. My apostles were drug runners and arms dealers. My gospel was the word out of my mouth.
If evil and disgust are afforded to these women who kill for honorable reasons, then what am I owed? That was a part of my life when I lost all reason.
Movement in the distance catches my eye, and I squint to see better. Two Sinners jog around the estate. I’ve not seen the girls take a day off. If they’re not working out and training, they’re in the archives researching and preparing. I squint harder and recognize a familiar lithe frame and dark bob framing a pale face. Leila. She attacks the path with single-minded ferocity. It’s like she wants to carve grooves in the ground with her feet. The curvy redhead behind her is almost the same, but when I look closer, it seems like something is chasing her. Like maybe this is a distraction for her too.
I smile—Leila runs headfirst into a challenge while others are chased by it.
Jinx flexes her claws on my shoulder, urging me to keep walking. A placating pat on her head calms her down.
“Come on,” Wesley says.
Inside the church, incense wafts from the modest wooden altar at the front. Arched stained windows are bright and cast a turquoise light. A single column of pews with red velvet kneeling pads takes up the nave. A gothic fan-vaulted ceiling makes me feel small and inconsequential... as I’m sure was the purpose.
Cisco’s black shirt sleeves are rolled up, and he fusses about the inside of the wooden tabernacle in the sanctuary. Something must have spilled.
Dom’s hulking figure kneels behind the front pew. His bald and cross-branded head is bowed in silent prayer. He prays more than the priest.
Wesley stops to dip his hand in holy water by the door and then makes the sign of the cross. I always forget this part but mimic his movements. Maybe I should have left the ex-demon outside.
Jinx wakes briefly, as if she heard my thoughts, and grumbles.
“Behave,” I warn as I walk the left aisle and then slide onto the front pew Dom kneels behind. Wesley genuflects at the crucifix behind the altar and then quietly sits beside me. Guilt flushes my cheeks. I forgot that part too. I’m not a very good Catholic.
This probably isn’t the best place to break the news of our subterfuge, but I have to admit the atmosphere is calming.
No one else is in the church except us four.
While we wait for Cisco and Dom to finish, I gaze around the gothic architecture in awe. Arcades of marble columns lead to a triforium on either side of the nave. One has a pipe organ, and the other holds a confessional. To the right of the sanctuary, a half-open door leads to a shadowed room. I glimpse more twisted clues that this paradise has teeth—a rack of weapons on the wall, a vintage wooden confessional, and perhaps the kneeling pad from a pew... only there’s no padding like that out here. It’s hard and worn. The words,The Sin Binare carved into the door.
On the opposite side of the sanctuary, another door is open. The room beyond is filled with priestly robes and supplies. Cisco has accepted the Reverend Mother’s offer to be the abbey’s priest until another is sourced from the local diocese. The priest who’d been here upon our arrival—Father McBride—didn’t last long.
My brow furrows as I wonder what kept these priests from confessing Sisterhood secrets to the Vatican all these years. They were probably threatened. Or maybe they really did hold to their vows of silence.
Just as well Father McBride didn’t last long. He could have ended up like the poor Monsignor, crucified. Asmodeus painted a bloody message on the wall beside the body:Ezekiel 18:4.
The actual Bible verse is:
Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.
Wes thinks it’s Asmodeus’s promise of a little payback to the ancestors of the woman who locked him in a stone prison, but I fear it’s much simpler than that.
My name is Ezekiel. Eighteen is the number of people I’ve killed, and four is the number of years I spent doing it.
Eight
Zeke
“Ciao,” Cisco greets softly as he walks down the sanctuary steps, wiping his oily hands on a cloth.
