Page 35 of The Sinner and the Priest: Part 1

But I don’t think I really need an answer. The heavy burden of failed responsibility is clear in her eyes, behind the defensive fire. Evil heretics. Annihilation. I’ve seen that look in the mirror before.

“How many are dead?” I ask softly.

She glances at the young girls still huddled by the staircase. “We’re all that remains.”

Three children and a Sinner—two Sinners if you count Hannah.

The Spanish chapter was one of the oldest in the history of the Hildegard Sisterhood.

“The other European chapters?” I ask.

One look. That’s all she gives me. That’s the difference between enemies and allies. I glance at the priest. His stoic facial expression reveals the ugly truth. He’s not surprised.

Ringing grows loud in my ears. White crowds my vision.

I’ve allowed the enemy into our home.

“We trusted you,” I whisper, glaring at him.

I hate that I allowed fears I locked away decades ago to cloud my judgment. I should have known from the moment the priest asked me to trust him that I should have killed him.

For all of our fucked-up family faults, my sisters and I have one thing going for us. Our bond isn’t forged in boardrooms or schoolyards. It’s not knitted together at bake sales or church fundraisers. It’s forged in blood and gouged in muscle and bone with every battle fought together.

Years and continents may divide us, but we are always sisters. We are always soldiers. We are Us.

My hands curl into fists. Knuckles pop. Crack.

My bitches see it and know exactly what to do. A change comes over every single one of them. It’s as though a switch is flipped in some deep, dark, violent place we’re all linked to.

Any doubt I had about Thea’s or Leila’s loyalty vanishes as I sense the change in them, too. It’s for them that I hold back from murder. It’s this loyalty I honor by taking a breath before dealing death.

“Take them to their separate rooms,” I announce. “Confiscate their phones, sharp instruments, and anything that might let them go gently into the night. Then lock the doors.”

When every Sinner springs into action, not a single member of Team Saint protests. Not the Saint. Not Zeke. Not Wesley, and certainly not Father Angelotti.

Bastards.

They all knew.

“Put the abbey on lockdown,” I add, gesturing for Tawny to set the security protocols. “No one goes in or out unless the Rev or I say so.”

Fourteen

Cisco

We are escorted like criminals, like inmates, in a single-file procession. Raven guards the front, Tawny at the side, and Mercy at the rear. I am the last in line, and when my team casts glances over their shoulders, trying to catch my eyes, I look down and stare at the wooden stairs.

I spent decades reshaping this darkness within me, hoping that each good deed paved my path to absolution. Our team’s purpose has always been to eradicate and purge evil, no matter the form. We go into the dark places that others fear to tread. We face perils never seen in generations, things that defy logic and reality.

These things have also affirmed my faith. For if there is true, supernatural evil, then there must be forces of good. If there is a devil within me, a ravenous evil that drives me to sin, then surely it is God who put me on the path to its containment.

“God can use even the devil’s tools to do His work, Francisco.” The Cardinal mispronounced my name from the day I met him. “Your ability to ‘sniff out your own kind’ is not a curse. It is a gift. We will not exorcise your devil. We will aim it.”

A part of me always knew I was saved by an institution that colors outside the lines of what it preaches. They chose me because of the lines I’ve already crossed.

I thought I was okay with that.

But when I look at the new Sinner, Jasmine, when I touch her, that same weapon my collar holds to heel flares to life. The echo of it still vibrates within me, buzzing with excitement. It senses something … familiar.