Page 53 of Sinful Crimes for the Artistically Inclined
He lay there, breathing hard. He knew they must have somehow fallen down, but he dare not look at the carnage, and he dare not acknowledge what he believed to be true: that Percy was part of that carnage.
A voice said, “Joe Bruno. I had a bad feeling about you.”
At that, Joe did open his eyes. The bishop stood in the full light of a well-lit passage, lanterns on fire, all doors flung wide, all razor-wire presumably retracted somehow, and six bodies on the floor. Six. Joe cast his eyes around cautiously. He didn’t want to look, yet he forced himself to.
Going by the heads, there were six bodies of six dead soul eaters. And no sign of Percy.
His heart leapt, yet he could give that hope little fire. Percy would never abandon him. He was sure of that. If he had become victim to an oubliette, Joe would have heard; no one dies quietly in an oubliette. There was no body sliced and diced in the passage. There simply was no Percy.
“Stand.”
Joe eyed the bishop, and climbed slowly to his feet, disentangling himself from the bodies. “Thank you,” he murmured.
The bishop let out a low, rumbling laugh. “One hour from now, you will not be thanking me.”
It was a gun. Plain and simple. No magic, no supernatural anything, just a regular gun that would see Joe dead on the floor in one second should the bishop squeeze his finger.
Joe stood tall and readied himself. It had been about eight months since he was last tortured, and though his friends still felt terrible about having done it, it wasn’t the worst bout by far. And Percy would come. If he wasn’t dead. He might be dead. Or dying. And then…
“You stay by the wall, and you walk.”
Joe would need to get closer if he were going to take the gun. “That was very impressive. ‘Dormio.’ I’ll have to remember it for next time.”
“I very much doubt there will be a next time.” The bishop didn’t move from his position, only waited for Joe, out of arm’s reach, to trace across the wall.
“Then torture is next?” Joe asked, walking as slowly as he could without, he hoped, getting himself shot.
He could hear the sickening pleasure in the bishop’s voice. “I believe they have been experimenting with… spiders.”
Joe stopped as his stomach revolted. Fuck, he hated spiders. He turned back to the bishop. “I could save you a lot of trouble and just tell you what I’m doing down here.”
“Walk.” Joe assessed the distance between them. Still too far. He recommenced his slow exit, as directed by a flick of the gun, and the bishop continued, “There are only two reasons you would come down here. You have either betrayed the Church for money, or for power. I’m curious. Which is it?”
“Maybe I’m working for the Church,” Joe tried.
“We will know as soon as I report you.”
Of course they would have a system for checking that sort of thing. There would be a system for everything. After all, they’d had two-thousand years to organise themselves into the nearly unstoppable Goliath they had become.
The bishop kept a sensible distance from Joe, even as he slowed his pace, so Joe decided to push him a little. “I know you took the sheath.”
There was no pause at all. “I didn’t take the sheath.”
Joe smiled at what was as good as an admission of guilt. “Yet you don’t seem surprised it’s not there.”
“The sheath has been missing for some time,” the bishop corrected. “I only know?—”
“No, it hasn’t,” Joe bluffed.
He heard the bishop’s footsteps fall silent, so he turned again, slowly. The bishop studied him, clearly thinking his options over, and Joe, hoping to beat him to a plan, began, “I’m not paid very well, as I’m sure you know.”
The bishop smiled as Joe’s none-too-subtle suggestion sunk in, and Joe followed with the even-less-subtle, “I’ll take money, art or artefacts. Whatever you can pay. We’ll go upstairs and think up a story together right now. But this is a one time only offer. Put the gun down, or I’ll tell them I know it was you.”
The bishop grinned through his gold and black teeth. “Or I can just kill you right now, and you’ll make no report.”
“And who do you think they will assume killed me?”
The bishop’s evil smile widened as he nodded towards the bodies of the soul eaters.
