Page 45 of Sinful Crimes for the Artistically Inclined
CHAPTER TWENTY
OLD ACQUAINTANCES
Fuck!
Why the fuck had Joe brought Percy along on this trip? Stupid sexy Percy with his stupid sexy… everything! The man was wholly irresistible. Too gorgeous to be true. Too everything to be true.
So this was infatuation. Or love. What’s the difference, anyway? Doesn’t one have to be infatuated to be in love? Really in love? Love that conquers everything. Love that you sacrifice everything for. Love that you would die for in a heartbeat.
And he was insane. Percy was insane. He must be. Maybe.
Sweet, loving, wonderful, charming, stupidly beautiful Percy. Why did it have to be Percy, of all people?
Joe made his way in just such an emotional frenzy towards the cathedral. He had taken a very cool shower, changed and transformed back into a priest, and he tried to ignore the oppressive heat of the harsh sun beating down on his black clothing.
He worried over the sheath. Everyone knew the powers of the Holy Lance—the Spear of Destiny. Anything from healingto human mind control, from invincibility to the ability to raise and captivate the dead. All were rumoured and more. But what most people didn’t know was that the holy lance was useless without its restorative sheath. After piercing Jesus’ skin, freshly dead from his crucifixion, the lance was returned to the sheath and there went half the sacred energy. The lance may still have held some power alone, certainly, but not the full power. Not the kind of power Percy wanted, for whatever reason.
As he walked the hot streets, Joe lost himself remembering the crisp winter evening he first laid eyes on Percy. That was the very night they discovered their mutual fascination for powerful ancient artefacts. Dashingly handsome, he was too. Dashingly handsome and appallingly dangerous, as Eve had told him in no uncertain terms the second he saw Percy’s interest in Joe. Eve was protective of Joe from the first, and Joe trusted every word he said, which was the main reason it had taken him months to let himself fall for Percy.
Of course, Joe would not, could not, admit his feelings for Eve. He couldn’t even understand his feelings for Eve. Percy’s younger brother. What a stupid mess.
But it didn’t matter in the least. Since the day they met, Eve had been hopelessly in love with Anna, and that would never change, which was fine… So long as Anna remained devoted to Eve…
As ungenerous as it was, Joe didn’t trust Anna to not mess everything up with Eve. Through no fault of her own, the woman was a wreck, and Joe winced at the thought that she would almost certainly drag Eve down with her when she inevitably sank. And that’s exactly when she would reach out for a lifeline. And how would Percy react when Anna turned up on his doorstep in tears again?
Joe bought a bottle of water from a small shop and leaned against the wall of an alleyway in the shade. It didn’t help.The hazy, wavering heat bounced off the pavement in front of him and assaulted his eyes and his face, regardless. He tipped a little water into his palm and let it trickle down his neck.
It was only a few months earlier that Percy had murdered Eve, then watched on as Anna resurrected him right then and there. What that does to a man, Joe couldn’t say, but barely three weeks ago, Anna was all Percy could think about. He waxed lyrical about how clever and fierce she was, about her very fine eyes and her wild hair and her exceptionally beautiful fingers.
But since that night—the night Joe admitted his feelings for Percy—there was never one more word spoken about Anna between them than was necessary for simple communication. No more reflections on her lips or her hips or her wit or all the rest of it. If Percy still loved her, Joe would have had no idea. He hid it completely, and if Joe hadn’t said her name aloud on occasion, neither would Percy.
Was that better or worse? Had he moved on? Or was it all bottled up inside, waiting to come out as soon as they returned to home? Which they would have to do, one of these days.
Was Joe, he wondered, second prize? Was he simply available, whereas she was not? Was that kiss and that spark of jealousy any sort of grounds for a relationship?
Joe squeezed the plastic bottle flat between his strong fingers and threw it from there into a nearby bin with perfect aim. Unwillingly, he pushed off the wall and started again up the street in the blistering sun.
It wasn’t fair to think any of these thoughts. The past was a mess, but they were all moving on. Joe would believe in Percy, despite their strange history. Joe would believe that Percy had the best heart of all men deep down. That Percy was worth everything. That Percy was the best thing that had ever happened to him and that he was unfathomably lucky to havefound him. He was going to hold on tight with both hands… should he not die of lust this week.
Stupid, sexy Percy with his sexy everything.
Joe walked through the tall cathedral doors. The cool air settled down around him and the sweet, pungent scent of church incense hit him. His shoes echoed gently from the stone floors, off the cold, pale walls, and he looked around.
This church was not like his own. The interior was white and yellow, bright murals on every wall. His church was dark and gothic. This one had small, golden chandeliers lining two aisles on either side of the central pews, unlike his, which was hung over by one gigantic bronze beauty, hundreds of years old, antique, and exquisite. The differences were stark, but the candles and the altar, the crosses and the imagery, the smell and the atmosphere were close enough to almost make him homesick.
Joe slid into a pew at the back. It was quiet inside, as he expected it would be.
There was the bishop at the front, who smiled disdainfully through his golden teeth when he noticed Joe, before he returned to his conversation with a woman in a tight, stylish, white skirt suit. Joe had hoped to avoid seeing him at all, and he could tell the feeling was mutual. Something about the man set him on edge. There was an odd malignancy about him. For whatever reason, he seemed to hate Joe from the start, but Joe had a job to do, so he hoped it wasn’t too out of place for a priest to visit the only Catholic church in the city on his own time.
The woman at the front stood right by the fake corpse of Saint Martin, waving a pair of expensive sunglasses around dramatically as she spoke in a loud, indecipherable whisper to the bishop. There was also a younger woman, maybe even a teenager, silently looking at the artworks that lined the walls.And then two men, wearing black, watching the scene more intently than Joe was.
Really quite intently.
Joe’s stomach kicked into action. They were security. Why shouldn’t the Church have hired professional security by now? It made far more sense than depending on necromancy. But then, it was the Catholic Church…
Their guns were barely concealed, and Joe wondered what other weapons they might have. The men weren’t any bigger than he and Percy, and given what he had witnessed a few days earlier, he was pretty confident Percy could take them out by himself… But, for one, he didn’t want to slaughter innocent living humans that day, and furthermore, these men were clearly professionals. They had ear pieces and were presumably in communication with others of their ilk not too far off.
The whole thing was sunk. Joe realised it with full and crushing certainty. Percy was going to be bitterly disappointed. He’d been searching for the sheath for so long, and who knew when they would get another chance?
