Page 14 of The Sinner and the Priest: Part 1

“How so?”

My lips flatten. My team knows a little about my family curse, but not the full extent of it. They know I sense evil, but not why, or what happens if I lose control of my hunger.

“It feels unlike a usual demonic entity,” I reply. “Incomplete.”

That’s the truth, because I don’t understand yet what this evil sensing ability is, only that it feels halfway between home and Hell.

Famine is not here, but it has left its mark. Whatever crawled from this garden could still be somewhere on the grounds. As the last of the flies sizzle to a crisp, the sense of black, crawling ants fades from my skin and disappears altogether.

“Let’s finish the sweep,” I suggest. “Stay close.”

Zeke trains his sharp gaze on the areas I do not look.

He may be a needle in my side, may be a little too optimistic about the romance of this prophecy, but when it’s time to face evil, there is no one else I would rather have at my back. The same goes for the rest of my team, Wesley and Dominic. We are more than soldiers fighting together in the same holy war. They are the only famiglia I care about … and the only ones who care about me.

We move along the perimeter, checking the greenhouse, the water barrels, and inside the compost heaps. They crawl with beetles but not flies. At first glance, every inch of the garden screams health, but beneath the surface, it’s dying. The leaves are brittle, the roots spongy. The air is now thick with the stench of impending decay.

The Garden of Eden, rotting from the inside out.

The sense of buzzing surrounds me, growing loud and then quiet as if oscillating between near and far. For a moment, I’m reminded of hot Italian summers at the beach, scalding sand, sunburnt skin, and my little sister complaining about melted ice cream. Then it’s all darkness and ants, crawling inside my veins.

I catch Zeke watching me, a frown creasing his forehead.

“You okay?” he mutters.

How can I explain to him what it means to feel the world decay before my eyes, to know that every living thing is a ticking clock and yet still hunger for its demise? That I felt this same storm once, ignored it, and someone close to me drowned. Worse, for a long time afterward, I did not repent. I consumed. I gorged myself on every ravenous, violent desire until I was swimming in blood.

I thieved, I fucked, and I murdered. Oh, how I murdered.

Back home, they called me Il Giudice—the Judge—because I took life as though I was God Himself. But I know the truth. I was not an instrument of Heaven, using my dark gift to righteously smite those who deserved it, no matter what the Vatican tells me. I was simply trying to fill the void inside my soul.

It was never enough. The emptiness grew, yawned wider, until by the time I landed in prison, it was a good thing. I would have eaten the world.

So when Zeke teases me about cake and “all you can eat buffets,” he does not understand who he truly tempts. Not me, Father Francisco Angelotti, the priest and shepherd he has come to know. Not Cisco, his friend, his brother in arms. He is speaking directly to the hunger, to the devil that my holy vows and collar keep locked away.

And he is playing with forces he does not understand.

No one does. Not even me.

“We’re done here,” I clip. “We must warn the others.”

We head back toward the abbey, and the air behind us feels different, as if the garden itself exhales. Zeke grows restless beside me, and I give him leave so he can go to his woman, take her in his arms, and know she is safe.

He claps me on the shoulder. No innuendo this time, just a wordless look that tells me everything I need to know. Then he jogs down the path.

I stare after him and try not to let that aching void travel too high beneath my ribs.

In his eagerness, Zeke is already halfway to the abbey, which gives me time to do the thing I’ve avoided. As I walk, I ease my phone from my pocket and prepare to update my superiors, but then I hesitate.

Considering the recent dead fish fiasco, I should probably message my team about what we found in the garden first. Zeke will likely rush straight to Leila and warn Wesley and Dominic of nothing. I can’t really blame him.

I think about what waits for me—an empty cot and a cold monastic cell.

Before I can stop myself, I decide to message the Vatican. It takes me three attempts to unlock my cell phone, and I very nearly throw it in frustration. After spending a decade in prison, then living modestly as a priest, the technology I must navigate now is impossible to understand. Eventually, I fumble through typing and send:

Garden compromised. Infestation confirmed. Postpone visit.

And then, after a moment’s hesitation, I add: