Page 110 of The Sinner and the Priest: Part Two

Thirty-Nine

Cisco

Aface I once knew is all I see in my crowded vision.

She is my sister, my penance, my worst nightmare, and now my next meal.

“You stole everything from me.” The guttural snarl is ripped from somewhere deep in the void. “And for what . . . nothing?”

I laugh at the bitter irony. She wants the power, but it’s nothing now. It’s emptiness that can never be filled. I’m not even sure what she stole from me, just that it’s all gone.

“You can still have something, Cesco,” she shoots back. “But first, you must give me your half of the curse. Do that, and I’ll give her back to you.”

Lies. All lies.

How can you give emptiness?

Shadows whip out from my body and latch around her throat.

There is only nothing, and it’s all her fault.

The darkness flares around us, pulsing and roaring.

“Can’t you see?” she cries. “I’m only trying to protect you. She won’t love you like this.”

I stare at the face I once knew, but also the one I never knew. A hollow ache echoes inside me, and I wonder if that’s the space “she” used to occupy in my soul. Is that why I can’t summon the will to believe this liar, to feel anything but apathy?

To feel anything at all?

“Give it to me,” she begs. “She won’t trust you like this.”

“Trust?” I laugh. The ribbons of shadow drag my meal toward me. Boots scrape across the cobblestones. “I taste your deception in the air. Why should I trust you?”

It smacks at my wrist, desperate for freedom. It’s then I realize my hand had at some point replaced the shadows circling her neck. I don’t remember moving my arm.

“She’s alive!” she chokes out. “Believe me. He wanted her dead but—” I squeeze hard. “Made it so she could—knew you’d never—give it to me—unless⁠—”

A glimmer of warmth flickers at the edge of my vision. It shines defiantly, begging for my attention, but when I turn, darkness is all I see, and the notion of why I looked in the first place escapes me.

A name, perhaps.

A person.

My mind chases the notion, but it slips away as though taken by the waves.

My meal’s face turns in the same direction. Its mouth moves, but no sound comes. The swarm buzzes and roars until it’s all I hear.

Finish it. Eat her sins. Consume her soul.

But then . . . a warbled sound finds my ears, almost as if we’re in water. It reminds me of . . . I frown as the notion slips away again.

Another flash of color.

Closer this time. Brighter. Hotter.

Red. Copper. Yellow. Gold.

“Cisco!”