~~~
In a few months Julien had another appointment in the rectory besides the office hours he kept. Sundays were long, busy days for the pastor of St. Michael’s, but even this far into the evening his work wasn’t yet done. Instead he came here for his standing engagement late on Sunday nights.
Julien took his place inside the confessional and waited. It was appropriate to allow the suggestion of anonymity with the divider between them, but this particular penitent never entered through the door as the priest did. Often Julien never saw him at all. Instead he preferred to climb his way down from the ceiling and take his place behind that opaque screen to make his weekly reconciliation.
Quiet and closed-off as he was at most times, the priest found him to be shockingly frank and straightforward in the confessional. It was as if his guilt made it almost a compulsion, one that made him crave the structure of the sacrament. Julien did his best to accommodate this in what ways he could, offering all the strict formalities that Gabriel seemed accustomed to.
When he was sure of the creature’s arrival, he cleared his throat to begin. “Good evening, my son.”
“Good evening, Father.” It was always remarkable to hear him speak from the other side of the screen. Gabriel had a fine voice; that never ceased to strike him. But for some indefinable, alien quality, he could have been confessing a human.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” Gabriel went on. “It’s been seven days since my last confession.” It was always seven days; Gabriel came to him once a week, every week, with strict reliability. They had established a routine, the two of them; it was always here, and it was always now.
It had been some time in coming, this arrangement. Julien found he had a great deal to learn about his new penitent before he could minister to him. Cortes already knew him, Gabriel had said. Julien had been resistant to the notion on the grounds that the confessor himself was to be the conduit, not the source, of Christ’s forgiveness. Often the penitent took comfort from the particular priest they spoke to, and of course some were better at counseling than others. But there was no such bond there— instead it was that Cortes had been familiar with Gabriel’s history, had seen the falls and the shadows and the questions that everyone had asked all his life. It was not that Cortes had particular empathy for him. It was that Gabriel would not have to speak of shames that were already understood.
It was all of those things that Julien had to learn. The violence in him, or the potential for it, was terrible, it seemed, and the very idea of it welling up from him left many in frank terror. The incidents of real harm were thankfully few, and not since he’d been quite young, but still they served to prove that when that violence was roused, it was terrible to behold. The Ministers did their best to direct it toward the fight against hell, but the danger always lurked that he might lose himself to it, and if it happened, no one would be able to control him. Gabriel’s own awareness of it was razor-keen, and it did not require Julien’s insight to see how deeply the knowledge cut him.
As for the impression the came from the demon, slowly but surely he was learning to interpret them. They did not come as simple flashes of truth as they frequently did with normal people; instead he had to reach through the thick heaviness that constantly enveloped him. After just a few months at St. Michael’s, Julien was coming to know that feeling very well. It came sheeting off Goran with the fury of rain in a downpour, while in Gabriel’s soul it hung like a heavy, pervasive fog. It had taken some time and study, but he had come to understand that Gabriel’s may have looked different, but it meant the same thing.
Still, at these times he did his best to shut off his perceptions that way. While some things simply came to him, he preferred not to probe in the confessional. It was more right, in such a vulnerable position, to take only what they offered of their own free will. Gabriel in particular he wanted to allow to speak his mind.
And Gariel spoke. “It happened again.”
Julien chose his words carefully. “The… the violent thoughts?”
“Killing thoughts.”
“That is serious.”
“It’s what I am.”
Julien sighed. “Who this time?”
“Amalia Van Doren.”
“Why?”
“She was afraid.”
“I… I’m sorry?”
“She’s terrified of me.”
“That— that isn’t very fair of you—”
Gabriel’s voice grew hard. “She’s never said a word to me. Not in my life. I hate her.”
“She is weak and doesn’t know. You must learn to forgive—”
“I hate her because she’s right!”
“Child—”
“You don’t know what it does. Her pupils dilate. Her heart starts pounding. I can… I can smell it on her. It… it wakes the urge.”
“Child—”
The edge of outrage flattened from his voice, and he sank back into that familiar self-loathing. “I am the monster she thinks I am.”
Julien raked his hair back with his fingers. “Is it growing worse?”
“It’s always like this.”
“I’m sorry,” Julien sighed. “But, child… you have not done it.”
“What?”
“You never hurt Amalia, for all that you wanted to.”
“No,” he concede, his voice almost a growl. “But I would have. If I’d stayed there a little longer.”
“Gabriel, the world is full of things we’re tempted to do.”
“Not like this.”
“When you are overcoming that temptation, you are doing God’s word. What more can any of us do?”
“Most people don’t have this… this thing inside them.”
“What inside them, child?”
“You know, Father.”
“Tell me.” He had to make Gabriel say it.
“The… need for it.”
“There’s violence in everyone. Man is a predator, too.”
“Not like this!” he cried again, snarled it, fiercely enough to make Julien freeze. “Predators are hungry, Father! This is not hunger! I just want to…”
He trailed off, and Julien could hear his teeth gnash, a habit he had often when he was frustrated. Frustrated, or trying to control himself.
The priest swallowed hard. “You haven’t done what you want to do.”
“But I have. Braden still has the scars.”
“You were a child then!”
“Everyone still remembers! If I’d been a dog, they would have put me down.”
“A dog wouldn’t have been able to stop himself.”
Gabriel said nothing, and Julien heaved a sigh, listening to the leathery rustle of his wings. There would be no more discussion through this moment of malaise. They would have to pick this up when Gabriel unburied himself. There was no reaching him now. “Pray with me now.”
He complied, his voice low and tired-sounding. “Lord Jesus Christ, you are the Lamb of God; you take away the sins of the world... Through the grace of the Holy Spirit restore me to friendship with your Father, cleanse me from every stain of sin in the blood you shed for me, and raise me to new life for the glory of your name.”
“Amen,” said Julien. He assigned Gabriel his usual penance, some Bible verses to study and the appropriate passages in the catechesis, with a handful of chores around the grounds that felt spectacularly inadequate to calming a murderous rage. He made the sign of the cross before himself in the air. “The Lord has remembered his mercy, and you are forgiven. Go forth and sin no more.”
“Thank you. Amen.” He heard the deep breath flow through that cavernous chest, hissing through his fangs and growling through his throat. “I wanted to kill you too, Father.”
The young priest’s eyes went wide.
“When I watched you in the rectory. You were afraid of me then, too.”
Before Julien could decide how to respond, he heard the demon climb out of the confessional and begin making his way up the wall. He sat there, listening to the scrape of claws on wood and stone and struggling to think of something to say. Finally he threw open the door and leaped out to catch Gabriel before he disappeared, craning his head back to search the rafters for a glimpse. But it was no use. Julien still had nothing, and he was already gone.
The priest exhaled heavily and pressed his forehead against the dark cool wood of the doorway to the confessional. The sacrament was meant to cleanse and release the penitent, but not so for Gabriel. Despite his best intentions, Julien could not seem to puzzle out what he needed, this tangled tortured spirit, this Gordian knot of a creature. There was no peace to be found in that soul.
Julien collapsed back onto his seat in the confessional. He bowed his head and begged, the heartfelt prayer of a man who knew only heartfelt prayer.
I want to help him, but I don’t know how. Show me the way, Lord, and I will do it.
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