Page 131 of The Sinner and the Priest: Part 1

Show her what real hunger means, what the true son is made of.

The flies suddenly stop swarming. The path is clear. I’m standing before the double trap doors of the church’s basement, and they’re both flung open.

The crypt.

They’re inside.

I run forward, slipping down the wet steps, barely holding my balance. It’s a pit. A hole in the world. The air inside is dank and smells like death.

The holy presence in the church doesn’t reach down here. If anything, the void is worse, more eager. The hunger inside me screams, battering against my rib cage, driving me forward.

I know what it wants. I’m past the point of caring. I just need to get to Mercy first, to make sure she’s safe.

I descend the final steps, horrified as ritualistic occult items come into view. Candles gutter, melting down to the wick. They’re on top of nearby sarcophagi, surrounded by chicken carcasses, blood, and maggots. Slowly, I inch the crucifix and holy water from my rear pockets. My beads clatter against the glass bottle.

The further I walk in, the more horrified I am. Flies coat the crypt’s ceiling, the windowless walls, and the floor. But mostly, they’re drawn to the chalked pentagram at the center of the room. They crawl along the outside curve, unable to get inside where Mercy and Jasmine are locked, rolling, neither willing to let the other go. But then Jasmine knocks the sword from Mercy’s hand. It spins across the vast stone, clearing the chalk circle and hitting the wall. The glow dies.

Ribbons of shadow surface on Jasmine’s skin, swarming like the flies on the walls. With a feral baring of her teeth, she grabs Mercy’s neck and chokes.

Dread squeezes my heart.

I have a second to decide who lives and who dies. The one who feels like family, or the one I can’t live without?

I drop the kit. Holy water, wood, and rosary beads scatter.

Then I open the cage for my devil. The hungry void rips out. Violence threads through my veins. My vision tunnels and color drains.

There is no priest, no divine, no humanity. All that I am is the hunger, the starvation, the ravenous, trembling rage.

“You dare…” My voice sounds foreign, deep, and hollow. It’s older. Hungrier.

Jasmine looks up. Her lips pull back, slick with spit.

“Father—” she manages, but I don’t let her finish.

I grab her by the throat, lifting her off Mercy like a frog. She thrashes, legs kicking, but I slam her against the nearest wall. Flies spill from the impact. My fist squeezes, and I grind her spine against the swarm returning like a crashing wave, crawling over her face.

“You dare!” I slam her again. Hear a wet crunch. “You think you can feast here?” Slam. “In my domain?” Slam. “On my Mercy?”

“Stop,” she gurgles. “St⁠—”

Slam.

Jasmine claws at my wrist, tries to spit in my face, to kick and bite. I slam her harder against the wall and hear something else crack. I see it in her eyes, the moment she realizes she’s lost, and then flies crawl over her neck in a line like soldiers, swirling around her jaw.

Whatever she is, my devil is older, ancestral. And it’s been deprived of sustenance for twenty years.

Taste her sin.

The buzzing in my head bellows.

Hunt it down in Spain. It’s there, bloody and bitter.

“Please—”

The buzzing of flies reaches a fever pitch, vibrating through my teeth. The marks hiding beneath my tattoos slither out. Spiked ribbons of empty shadow peel off my skin and wrap around her like a python, smothering and squeezing every inch of her body.

Her scream is shrill, inhuman as the spiked ribbons start to pulse, rapidly thickening as I feed. Oily sin draws out of Jasmine and into me.