Agnus Dei

“Heavenly Father,” a man’s voice rumbles, his sunken eyes rejecting the light. A glint bounces off the cold, hard steel around his neck. “Help the people of this earth by purging the sin from these demon’s minds.”

I watch the cross’s glint, its ephemeral figure carving around the symbol’s four edges before wafting away as the man steps out of the window’s light. There is a clattering in the distance before he can carry on with his words. The man turns slowly, his eyes landing on a felled candelabrum. It lays helplessly on its side, wax pooling at all the wicks’ glistening feet.

He reaches up and adjusts the cross around his neck, the symbol sinking into the junction between his ribs. As his hands clasp behind his back, the dark sleeves of his cloak tug to display spindly, translucent skin. Beneath the brittle surface, webs of green flow with blood that pushes against his earthly flesh.

“Who disturbs this sacred church?” the man asks, his voice echoing between the rows and darting into every dark corner. His eyes narrow, clouded by cataracts that flicker like shallow ghosts. A figure in the corner shifts, darting away from the light as if it is painful. “Make yourself known.”

The figure steps into the light. A small child, her clothes hanging loosely from her emaciated frame. The old man’s gaze softens as she steps around the candle wax, her dark eyes trembling like wet leaves.

“Hello little one,” he says. “I’m afraid Sunday mass is long over.”

The girl bunches fistfuls of her rags into her palms, which tremble now under his gaze. How odd, I find myself thinking, that her hands look similar to his—bony and ragged, with prominent, spindly veins that prod against the surface. Her eyes, rather than clouded with cataracts, are heavily laden with fresh tears.

“Please, Father,” she whispers, her voice cracking, “you mustn’t make me turn to the door. It is so cold out there but in here…” She can barely go on, and the priest’s eyes fall to the collapsed candelabrum.

“No wonder you knocked it over,” he says, a small smile cracking his pale skin. “Like a moth to a flame, aren’t you?” he asks softly. He takes short, heavy steps until he can bend down and lift the structure. The edge of his shoe dips into the molten wax, and it dries there, a thick fog over the shadowy leather. A tired rasp leaves his lips as he attempts to rise from the floor, candelabrum in hand. The girl watches, worrying her lower lip as he struggles to stand, causing her to step forward and lift one of his arms over her head. The priest chuckles at the motion, for it does little but support his one arm. He grabs a chair and hoists himself up before patting the girl’s head. The motion disturbs her inky hair, tousling it into her eyes.

“Come pray with me,” he says, and the girl’s tears dry. She knows he should be sending her out to close the church—the townspeople may not like the decision, but it is best when night falls, considering the recent attacks. Yet here he is, offering her an angle in. He takes her frail hand in his own, walking along the pews until they reach the front. They sit side by side, the girl following his lead as he shuts his tired eyes and lifts his head. She squeezes her eyes shut and lifts her chin until she can feel the strain in her neck.He

“Evening prayer is for protection and rest,” he rumbles. The girl peeks out through one eye and watches his hands fold in his lap. “I was going to ask God for His shield from evil, but I think I shall give that protection to you.” He peeks out through an eye as well, giving her a small smile before shutting it again. The girl shuts her eye. “Heavenly Father,” he says, “I humbly ask that you watch over this child and protect her from sin. Let no creature of the night lay a finger on her, let no demon harm a hair on her head.”

“Father?” the girl asks, and he halts his prayer.

“Hm?”

“What makes a demon a demon?”

He opens his eyes now, leaning back as his gaze lands on the sugary glass windows high above them, their colors like molten candy. “Well,” he begins, “demons are children of the devil. Wicked creatures with no desires except to sin. Many of them were human, like you or me.” He looks away suddenly, one hand flying up to his cross. “But their minds and hearts are poisoned by a demon after being bitten, taking their humanity—” as he speaks, his voice wavers and his fist tightens around the cross “—until there’s nothing left but a vessel for the devil to control.”

The girl sees his hand finally loosen after a few silent moments. Her eyes widen at the sight of tiny drops of crimson blood staining his palm, coaxed out by the cross’s whetted edges. She does not speak as he pulls out a white handkerchief and soaks it in his blood. His body is old, so the blood flows steadily, a damn breaking as the crimson leeches to every fine crevice and river embedded in his palm.

They sit in silence as the minutes bleed into hours. When the priest finally stands, the girl knows it is time to go. He leads her by the hand to the door, and she steps out into the cold. But just before, she hurls herself into his legs, wrapping her arms around the long fabric covering him. Then she darts into the street, vanishing almost instantly. The priest chuckles as he shuts the door and returns to his quarters.

“I’ve retired from my prayer rather late,” he says to his servant—a young girl with pale hair and soft eyes—as he enters the kitchen. “I apologize.” The young girl shakes her head.

“Not to worry, Father Bennot. There is a meal waiting for you in your room.” She pauses before rubbing the back of her neck. “I’m afraid it’s likely gotten cold.”

“A small price to pay for my timing,” he says. “It is late—or, rather, early. You should sleep.”

The girl smiles but looks away. She has always been rather meek, her eyes avoiding anyone else’s, her clothes simple and her hair long and relaxed. Her shoulders are drawn around herself, her hands clasped on the opposite forearm.

“I’m afraid I’m feeling sickly,” she confesses. “My breath is short, and my stomach is in knots. Winter is a cold, cold season, is it not?”

For once, her eyes land on his. They are tinged red, blushed with sorrow. He flinches.

“I will pray for you, then,” he says. She gives him a painful smile, and he looks away.

“Always praying,” she says. “It’s what makes you such a dedicated priest, Father Bennot.” Her eyes pierce through the window to survey the damp snowfall. “The people who should be praying night and day are people buried under the weight of their sins.”

“What a unique perspective. I might teach that at my next homily.” He pauses for a moment, but she doesn’t say anything else, so he continues. “Goodnight. I pray your health improves soon.”

He returns to his room, tugs his uniform off, then looks out across the room. With the curtains drawn, the room has dropped an octave, the only light drifting from a few sparse candles. He sees a silver platter resting at his desk and approaches, lifting the lid.

The lid clatters to the ground, rolling a few feet away until it hits a leg on the bed and collapses. Father Bennot’s pulse quickens, fat beads of sweat building in his tenuous hair.

“W-what is this foul display?” he demands, speaking to the air as his head jerks in every direction. “What kind of trickery—deceit—has found its sorry way into my quarters?”

The air does not answer. His eyes fall back to the plate. This wretched display sits on this plate, a leg of lamb resting atop a bed of yellow daffodils.

He sweeps the plate off his desk, the hard floor catching the scattered food. The flowers scatter at his feet, and Father Bennot lifts his foot, crushing it down on the bloom.

“That sinful servant girl, she dares slander the word of God, of his will!” he roars, a vein bursting to life atop his head as he paces back and forth, pinning the flowers underfoot.

“Slander the word of God?” I ask. He freezes, and I relish in the sweet satisfaction of his cataract-filled eyes turning to me perched in the light of the window, his eyes shuddering open. “Does one not hear the phrase, hate the sin, love the sinner?” I implore. His expression warps into what one can only describe as disdain, a gaze befitting lowly filth.

“You,” he hisses, “you wicked creature. Why must you haunt and torment me so?” He curls his fingers into fists, the dried blood flowing anew as his nails scrape the negligible wounds. “You are not real; you are simply a chimera born of my weakened mind’s folly!”

“Maybe so,” I reply, “but what, pray tell, does that say about your mind?”

“Do not lecture me on mortality when yours was stripped from you,” he snarls, marching forth. “The blame does not fall upon me for your transformation. I followed His word and will not be bedeviled for it!”

I remain quiet for a moment, my gaze settling on his.

“You’ve grown old, my love.”

He stiffens.

“It happens to us all.”

“When you say all,” I drawl, “you refer to humans—that is, those of them that survive. That little girl should fail to make it through the winter, it is almost certain.”

“It is a pity.”

“Hm.”

“I prayed for her.”

“So you did.”

His eyes narrow as his teeth clench.

“Did that servant do this?” he demands, gesturing to the scattered meal and the flowers. “Did you put her up to it?”

“It is as you said, my love. I am a hallucination. I cannot interact with her.” My eyes soften as they fall to the yellow daffodils—my favorite. “It appears she uncovered the truth. You knew you could not hide it forever.”

“You’ll burn eternally for this,” he utters. My eyes cut sharply to him, my lids dropping like scythes.

“It would not be the first time I have been burned. You made certain of that.”

There is a knock at the door. I turn to look as he does. My lips carve into a smile.

“The time of judgment has come,” I say, vanishing before he can look upon me again.

“Father Bennot,” a voice calls, “there was a hunt. They found two creatures, but one of them is still alive.”

He stares at where I had been moments before, shaking his head. As he turns and pushes the door aside, he regards the deacon who came to fetch him.

“Do we have any clues as to where the creature has fled to?” he asks, turning back to his room to swiftly tug his uniform back on. The deacon’s eyes flicker and widen.

“I’m afraid that’s not the pressing matter, Father,” he utters. Father Bennot’s eyes narrow.

“Speak as you lead me,” he demands, both setting off down the hall.

“There was a creature…it was turned, its conscience chipped away by the devil’s chisel. It is dead.”

“Good.”

“But it bit its child before its final breath.”

Father Bennot inhales sharply.

“Father…we do not know what to do.”

“How do you mean?” Father Bennot asks.

“It…it is a child!” the deacon cries.

“Not a child,” Father Bennot corrects. “What you see is the devil in a child’s empty husk. Do not be fooled by its deceit; we must carry out God’s will.”

They cross the threshold of the courtyard, their steps in line. Father Bennot reaches the double doors, flinging them open as the church’s glow bleeds into the courtyard, coating the foliage with simmering ember colors.

At the front of the pews, a group of priests are circled around a child. I watch Father Bennot’s reaction to the girl, her familiar dark hair and rags striking him through the heart and wrenching the breath from his lungs. 

The men turn to him, their gazes artless and expectant. I settle over one’s shoulder, peering down at the child at their feet and her transformation. Her white scleras have gone obsidian black, her hair inkier than before, and her skin translucent. She looks up as Father Bennot approaches, relief flooding her quivering limbs. She lifts her head with a shaky smile.

“Father,” she says, her voice a weakened stream filled with rocks. I lean down, resting my hands beside her head as Father Bennot’s gaze befalls her expression.

“Here,” I say, “is judgment.” I raise my hands to his face. He is not looking at me; he cannot see me when his mind is so clouded by perplexity and anguish.

“I am not a demon,” the girl pleads. “You said it yourself, Father—they are wicked creatures with no desires except for sin. I do not wish for sin, Father, only to live.”

The men around us warily steal glances amongst themselves, the maelstrom of thoughts evident on their juvenile visages.

Father Bennot’s jaw is set, his eyes wide and broader still, peeled apart like a pomegranate. He looks up, his eyes landing on me. For a moment, I watch the cataracts in his pale eyes vanish, fog lifting. Then his eyes continue their path upward, higher still, to the ceiling. Then he grips his cross and sets his spare hand atop her head.

“A monster wishing to live is sin enough,” he rumbles. His words fall like a guillotine over the empty pews. My hands lower from his face, falling instead to the blood on his palm, hidden beneath his curled fist.

“Show them,” I say, my words salted bitterly on my tongue. “Show them!” I roar, knowing it falls on deaf ears. “Show them your sin! You hide it in your closed palm while your open one commands death like a dog, but I know! I know sin laps at your blood behind closed doors. That cross demands it—yours, hers, mine. When does it end?”

The flow of my wrath doesn’t stop, not when they haul the girl away, not when they erect a pyre to tie her to. I continue to shout in his ear, even as he looks away at the toss of the struck ember.

“Does it end when we die?” I whisper in his ear, wrapping my presence around him like a vice. I am on his arm, his heel, I am lying across his collarbone. “Here I am, a conjuring of your guilt, of your shame! I am a mockery drawn of your greatest love, and even that is not enough to command mercy from your blackened heart.”

My breathing slows as the fire spreads. Its glow is an oasis shimmering in his cataract-filled eyes. I watch silently, my anger staved, if only by anguish. The silence amongst the men is sharp and carving, even with the girl’s ragged screams wrenching from her raw throat. As they disperse when the fire dies, I can see it follow, nipping at Father Bennot’s heels as he retreats to his room. He kneels atop the crushed yellow daffodils, pressing his arms to the floor.

“Heavenly Father,” he begins, his voice shaking as grief overcomes him, “help the people of this earth by purging the sin from these demon’s minds.”

The leg of lamb is still on the floor, cold and forgotten. My eyes grate against the scene.

“You may have taken my life,” I utter, “but it is you who will suffer. I will drive you mad, twist your mind from the inside out. I will strip you of your humanity until you are as empty as you claim us creatures of the night are. You will see.” I step past him, staring at a yellow daffodil before shutting my eyes and inhaling long and slow. His mind is unraveling by the day. The whispers of my presence, the daffodils, the fear in his eyes upon hearing a startling sound—it will be his reckoning. “Like a tree,” I whisper. “Like a tree, I will root myself so deeply into this place that you cannot stomach the sight of it. I will ruin you—that is my revenge.”

I vanish knowing I will return again, and again, however many times it takes.