Page 10 of The Sinner and the Gunslinger
“You all right, mate?” Wesley’s British accent is thick today. It happens when he’s tired.
“Better than ever,” I drawl. Since Thea healed me, I feel like a new man... health-wise. I’m eating like a horse. Packing muscle on like I’m a teenager. All my old fighting injuries no longer ache when I work out. If only that relic could heal what’s inside my head.
Wesley looks at me as though he’s not convinced. I consider confessing about Leila, about how we used to be so close I considered her family. How in the end, when she started blossoming into maturity, I started developing confusing and deep feelings for her. Then, how I failed to recognize her as an adult but still acted like a dick and tried to fuck her.
He’s the only person I’ve come near to revealing everything, but I chicken out every time. I haven’t even told Cisco during confession, and he’s the only team member who can relate to what I’m going through. He knows about my old criminal lifestyle... but nothing about Lei Ling.
She was a precious secret I held in my heart.
If it weren’t for Wes, I’d have died in the gutter, in a prison cell, or by the bullet of an old enemy. Either way, I would have been alone and miserable.
I suppose, at least, I’m not alone now.
“Right, well,” Wes says, “I think it’s time we sat down with the lads and have a little heart-to-heart.”
I groan. “I know. Let’s get this done with.”
He nods and runs his hand through his short blond hair. “And there’s something else.”
“More bad news?”
“That’s a matter of perspective.” He sighs. “But you should all know. No more secrets, yeah?”
A sick feeling churns in my stomach. Consequences suck. I never thought I’d be around to deal with them. Being diagnosed with a terminal illness was poetic justice—my penance for all the shitty things I’ve done, including those people I’ve killed. I never truly believed Wes would come through for me with this holy relic business, but he did. That morning I got his text message, my view of the world started to claw its way back to hopeful. But it wasn’t just Wes. Thea’s a Sinner—a supposed evil-doer and bad person—but she came through for me too.
Maybe there’s hope for Leila. Maybe there’s hope for me.
Now... now I have to start facing the consequences of my actions. I look down at my hands and swallow a lump in my throat.
“Lead the way,” I say.
Wesley claps me on the back, and we head down the stairs, exit the abbey, and take the long path to the small church at the back of the estate. Dom and Cisco seem to be spending a lot of time hiding out there lately, and I don’t blame them. Their world has been turned upside down with Mary’s gospel. We should have had this conversation a week ago, but we’ve all been preoccupied with damage control after Asmodeus. Nuns keep slipping back into chaos. We monitor them around the clock to ensure they don’t kill each other.
The time never seemed right to say, “Oh hey, you didn’t know about those holy relics, but we did. We just never told you in case the relic only worked once, and we had to betray these women to get first dibs.”
The walk down the winding path beside the large lake is beautiful. I must admit the estate scenery is second to none. If I lived here, I would have a hard time leaving. Sweet-smelling nature is on both sides. A babbling brook flows down a hill, under the path we cross, and into the lake on the other side. Further up the hill behind the abbey is an enormous walled garden where they grow much of the vegetables and fruit used in the cooking. It’s also where the chickens are kept.
Forests and trees are everywhere else.
It’s a nice simple life. Peaceful. Free. The kind of life people crossed oceans and wild country to claim. The kind where death was around every corner, but they fought tooth and nail to live in freedom.
It’s paradise until I see the twisted clues sprinkled around. A rope hangs from a tree where the Sinners take turns hanging from a noose to strengthen their necks. Then there’s the bark on trees worn down from shins repetitively meeting it—training to toughen their skin. Let’s not forget the garden of beautiful, deadly plants waiting to strike, just like their mistresses. This paradise has fangs.
We’re silent as we walk, but I sense Wesley has something to say. Normally, I’d love the challenge of teasing words out of him. But this past week, the air has been as thick as water, and I have no illness as an excuse.
At the sound of scampering behind us, I reach for the Colt Lightning holstered at my hip. Since Asmodeus, I’ve worn two pistols everywhere. Cisco blessed the cartridges, and I’ve engraved them with the Enochian sigils from an occult spell. While I can’t kill demons, I can sure as shit slow them down.
My pistol is aimed and cocked before I register the small dark, iridescent ex-demon galloping toward me on all fours. I put the gun away. Jinx arrived at the abbey with Thea and Wes from London but has spent more time with me in the past week than her saviors.
I open my hands, and the scaled animal half scampers up my legs, half jumps, until she crawls around my neck, burrows under my hair, and settles like a stole. Thea said Jinx’s demon form appeared like a grotesque fish with fangs and legs, but after Thea healed her, she morphed into what looks like a tiny mythological serpent.
Definitely not evil.
Something about her appeals to me. I think it’s the redemption... the second chance she’s been given. I like to believe she’s drawn to me because we’ve both been on the receiving end of angelic healing, and we’re both equally stumped as to what made us worthy of this miracle, but maybe she’s just after me because I keep treats in my pocket.
I interpret the tiny dolphin sounds in her throat as a scolding for leaving the main building without her.
“Sorry,” I mumble and pat her warm body. “No treats today.”
