Page 12 of The Sinner and the Priest: Part 1

“It probably got lost in the mail.” I fold the paper and tuck it in my waistband beside the cilices, a little miffed the Rev didn’t come to ask me to translate. “I didn’t realize Hannah spoke Spanish.”

She nods, a slow, deliberate movement. “She originated from that chapter.”

My brows raise. “I didn’t know that.”

“I only just learned too. She was always away on deep cover missions; it’s hard to get to know her.”

“That’s true.” I wasn’t the team leader when she arrived in the States either.

“Why did you choose the name Mercy when you became a Sinner?”

The change in topic throws me.

I have to take a moment to think. One of the first things a girl does when being inducted into Sinner training is to choose a new identity. The Rev has only been at the abbey for a few years, whereas I’ve been here for almost two decades. I guess she wouldn’t know.

“Because it makes me powerful.” I lift my chin despite the furrowing of her brow. But it’s not disapproval, just confusion. So I elaborate. “Only those with the power to punish can give mercy.”

I detect a note of pity when she sighs and says, “Be careful what you punish, Mercy, lest you punish the wrong thing.”

She steps aside, and the shame is now a deafening, throbbing thing in the air. I want to tell her about Raven’s occult bullshit to deflect the attention from me, but that would be obvious. And I’m not catty. Not in the least. So I walk past her, pressing the cilices hidden at my stomach. I have what I came for. The ritual is all that matters.

Just the pain. Just the silence.

Five

Cisco

The iron gate is cold beneath my hand as I push it open, senses alert and primed.

Only days after my sister drowned, I recognized evil for the first time in something other than myself. I still remember it with crystal clarity, as if it’s engraved in my head. It was a sweltering day in Naples, so I ducked into a gelato store. I felt something was wrong the instant the door clicked shut. A chill crawled up my spine like a thousand black ants. The shopkeeper’s eyes glinted oily. His smile stretched too wide. I knew, before he even reached for his scoop, that Hell had already licked the place clean.

I turned around and walked straight out.

That’s what it feels like now.

This garden is empty despite the boxes of herbs, patches of greens, gnarled tomato stakes, and fruit trees standing heavy in the dark. The chicken coop is silent. The cold, damp air smells of mint and compost.

I aim my torch into every shadowed corner, using the beam to purge the mystery. Light sweeps over an explosion of iridescent color—marigolds, foxglove, night-blooming jasmine—but there’s no rustle of feet through the rows, no startled field mouse, no demonic entity waiting to be seen. Just the random buzz of insects on a northern summer evening, the distant calls of frogs, and Zeke’s stilted breath a few paces back.

The peace still feels wrong, like the kind of tranquility after a massacre, not before. I glance up at the sky. Rain is forecast this week, but the storm is holding off.

“Leila just sent a message,” Zeke says, arriving. “Jinx caught some weird fish with flies infesting its body. Wanna see?”

He holds out his phone, displaying a fish carcass. Nothing about it appears untoward, except perhaps the jagged teeth marks and ripping open the darkened flesh.

“That’s it?” I raise my brows.

“Apparently, all these flies burst out of it. Gross, right?”

When we’d noticed Jinx causing mischief and the girls laughing, I thought I’d imagined the flash of evil. The incident happened hours ago. It could be nothing, but if it is…

“Why did they take so long to warn us?” I ask.

“That’s what I’m asking now.” He hits send. Two seconds later, his phone vibrates with the reply. After reading it, he gives me a grim, wry look. “Mercy told them to hold the information until we’re back.”

Grinding my teeth, I continue farther into the garden. My clumsy boots scuffle mulch, disturbing sleeping insects. A burst of iridescent wings swarms in my face until I swat them away. Pests. Summer is the worst for them, even here in the cooler north, where it feels more like an Italian winter.

As I continue along the dirt paths between vegetable patches, my senses tingle. Invisible black ants crawl up my spine but then fade away, teasing me.