Page 35 of Illuminated

“Right. And then what?”

He lowered his head, and the light from the bar threw brightness on half his face. “If you want to, you can try luring them out. Act surprised, tell them I told you to get a drink to calm your nerves and then come back to me with liquor in your blood. Or really whatever you like.”

“And you are going to do what to them?”

He shrugged. “One thing the church knows and sticks to is the immersing in water trick. When they send people out, it is one of the first things they do once they return. In fact, they are trained to take baths every night when they are on the road. I’ll entrance them and get information out of them. I might try to make them feed information back to their network. What I cannot do is let them live out the rest of their days in peace, because they will never leave me or my kind in peace either.”

“So that means… You’re going to kill them, that’s what you are saying.”

“Yes,” he said, not hesitating.

I nodded. “But they would kill you as well, I mean, they want to murder you, right?”

“Oh, very much so. You can just go back to the house, that really would be fine. You don’t have to have any part in this at all.”

I considered this, considered also that crucifying someone in a church was wrong. And since I had met him in that church, Auris had had more than enough opportunity to do a million wicked things to me, and he had shown me nothing but kindness. And love. And Gloria seemed to honestly like him and care about him, even if she was entranced. I didn’t think Auris had entranced her to wink and hint as hard as she did about how great she thought me and Auris getting together was.

All of which made my decision easy.

“I’ll go in,” I said.

He nodded. “You don’t have to be afraid. I can hear what goes on in there quite well now that it’s dark, and I can get to you fast. But,” he took my hand, “don’t let them know you are helping me of your own free will. And don’t let them get too close to you, because they are definitely armed.”

I nodded as I took the words in. They had weapons. I could do this. They wanted to hurt Auris. “What happens if they figure out I’m helping you?”

“Nothing that you want to think about. Friends -- good people -- have been murdered for refusing to tell them what they wanted to know.”

That still didn’t sound real, because it was priests and murder. Not that I was religious, but they were mostly old people, and from what you saw in the news, when they picked victims, those were children. This was something else entirely, and those two guys up there, they didn’t look geriatric at all.

“Okay. This is basically just like a gala opening. I can do this.”

“What sort of gala openings have you been to, my sweet? Anyway, I know you can do this, but you don’t have to. Are you really sure?”

I nodded again, straightened. “I’ll help you with this. I helped you in the church, I’ll do it again now.”

Auris kissed my forehead briefly, then pulled back. “You are brave, my Ethan. The way up is over there, do you see it?”

He pointed. I could barely make out a path in the darkness, but if I concentrated, I saw the rope handhold, the outline of wooden steps. “Yeah. You’re staying right here?”

“I’ll be wherever you can get them to follow you to, don’t worry about that. And if they don’t come over to you at all, I’ll come in and have a chat with them there. Don’t approach them. They’ll think it suspicious.” He put something in the front pocket of my jeans. I heard the rustling of a bill. “For your drink.”

“Okay,” I said, and walked up toward the bar.

It was slow going because the steps were uneven and winding, and I had to squint my eyes shut against the sea breeze while also looking where I stepped.

But I did arrive on the back patio of the bar, a big, hand-drawn sign telling me to pull the door open.

As I walked toward the door, I thought how nice it would be to walk from the house to this bar, have a drink while Auris watched me having a drink, while I watched his eyes turn black with sunset. But it was really too cold for this now, winter riding in fast on the ocean.

“Maybe next summer,” I mumbled, pumped my fists once, and put my hand on the door. “Okay, you can do this,” I whispered to myself before I walked into the Seafront.

* * *

For someone used to the more metropolitan concept of a bar, the Seafront was a tame affair. The music was generic pop, and the cocktail selection was limited.

I chose a table in the middle of the room, which wasn’t an issue because there were just a few locals here, eating fries and drinking beer. There was a pool table off to one corner, and two women who looked like their husbands were back home with the kids were playing and laughing while they gossiped. Polaroids lined the wall behind the bar, smiling locals and tourists, and a ship’s wheel was mounted above them.

The two priests had a corner table. Unlike the locals, they spoke quietly, and clearly were not here to have fun. They looked in their thirties, definitely not the type of person you’d normally run into at a cocktail bar.

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