Page 36 of Illuminated

“What’ll it be?” said the server at my right shoulder. The two guys were already eyeing me.

“Gin and tonic,” I said. I forced myself to smile at her and pushed my hair back behind my ears.

With my hands on the table, I looked out to the dark windows behind which the ocean was churning away while at the same time trying to take in everything that was happening in the bar. I hoped I looked brainwashed enough for the two of them to approach me.

The service was fast, and the cocktail with the mint green umbrella gave me something to hold on to. I’d never been served a G&T with an umbrella in it, but I was fine trying the local concoction. I sipped some, and just then the two priests were sitting down at my table.

“Excuse me, would you mind if we joined you?” Blondie said. “This is Father Richards, and I’m Father Morgan.” He tapped his priest’s collar.

I really wanted to make a joke about this being a terrible pick-up line if they were looking to enjoy an unholy trinity. I resisted the urge. “Please,” I said. “Company is good.”

“So, are you from around here?” Blondie, Father Morgan, asked.

“I’m from around,” I said. I hoped this was Stepford wife speak enough for them.

By the way Father Morgan looked at his colleague, something was sure falling into place in their heads. They had the look of two sharks who’d smelled blood in the water.

“Have you maybe seen this man?” Father Richards slid a photograph of Auris toward me. It had been taken in a city -- I assumed Cromere -- and he was walking along a street, wearing one of his nice suits. I could see his dark eyes and his hair flowing out behind him.

I decided to go with what seemed simplest. “He’s out there,” I said, and looked back to the ocean-facing windows.

The two of them exchanged another look. “Would you show us?” Father Morgan asked.

I looked back at the cocktail, twirled the green umbrella. There were pink flowers on it. “I think I need to have some of this first,” I said. I figured pretending I had a reason for actually being here would make them less suspicious and pretending I had been entranced was probably less suspicious than giving them what they wanted right off the bat.

Another look passed between them. “Why don’t you go ahead and do that, then?” Father Richards suggested.

I nodded and drank. It was actually a decent cocktail, but there was no way I was downing a G&T. I worked my way through half of it and left the bill Auris had given me on the table before I got up.

“I can go now,” I told them and just walked out the door I had come in through, hoping this was enough to lure them after me.

There was a terrible moment when I heard nothing, but then chairs scraped, and footfalls echoed behind me. The skin on the back on my neck pricked, but I was also relieved they’d fallen for my spiel. For a moment, their footfalls closing in on me, I was scared they might just grab me, but they didn’t and simply followed a few steps behind.

“He’s by the water,” I informed them without looking back when I started down to the beach, one hand on the thick rope as I took the sand-covered steps one after the other.

I was almost back at the beach when the animal part of my brain made me want to run. I didn’t.

“That was nicely done.” Auris. Close to me, his voice a beautiful whisper.

I looked around, but couldn’t see him. The two men were standing on the stairs, maybe three steps up from where I was, frozen in their tracks and with their arms hanging slack.

“Here,” Auris said and put a hand on my shoulder. It made me jump a little.

“Whoa! You entranced them?”

“I did,” he said. “I’ll have a longer conversation with them now. It will be easier back at the house. Let’s walk back.”

The two of them were already walking down to the beach as if they were just going for a stroll. I shivered when they passed me, when I smelled their musk and the traces of their aftershave.

“You’re taking them back to the house?”

“To the porch at any rate. I am selfish enough not to want their smell lingering near you any more than it already does. Come along, my sweet.”

He took my hand, and we walked back through the sand. Father Richards and Father Morgan followed us like maids follow a bride, like tamed dogs follow their master.

“Are you also, I mean, will you…”

“Suck them dry while I lounge in a deck chair?” Auris laughed. “Nothing of the kind, if that is what has you upset. They will leave Brightam tonight or tomorrow at the latest, will maybe check in with their clerical colleagues before they try the next town and the next only to find not a thing. Before they meet again with their superiors, they will shoot themselves in the head.”

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