If Angels Burn (Darkyn #1) 5

She frowned. "And God told you this."

"No." How did he explain what had always been? "There is no other explanation, Alexandra. We—all of us—lived in dark times. Our human lives were violent and reprehensible. What else could we be but damned for our sins?"

"Okay, so how do you explain me?" At his blank look, she added, "In case you haven't noticed, I'm a surgeon who lives in a pretty enlightened time. I help people. I'm not perfect, but I've never been violent and I'm only occasionally reprehensible. So why do I get the curse? As an even trade for not having my period anymore?"

Period? Michael shook his head. "I don't know. It is one of the reasons I always questioned our origins. Many who we turned in the beginning were innocents, like you."

"I want you to consider making a big leap here," she said. "Maybe you're not cursed. Maybe you're just infected with something extraordinary. Say two or even three pathogens that together altered your physiology on the molecular level. Something that has made you evolve into another kind of human. If you carry that in your blood, then you can infect anyone. Genetics aren't my field, but you can find plenty to read about it at the library or on the Internet."

"I have Internet access," he assured her. "It is how I found you. Time dot com."

She ran a hand over her face. "Okay, so maybe the Internet isn't such a great idea. I'll need to use it, by the way. I'm going to search Harvard's medical database and see if there's any sort of new reconstruction techniques that I can use for Thierry and Jamys."

Michael had not been Jamys's godfather—Thierry had given that honor to Gabriel—but he had stood in the church when the village priest had baptized the boy. He had watched him learn to walk, and then run. Jamys had always been full of life, even after his human death. "What can you do for him and the others?"

"Liliette's arm is fine. Marcel's eye can't be replaced, but I can straighten his foot and maybe get rid of his limp. I can fix Jamys's hands and back, but unless I can figure out how to rebuild his tongue, he'll never speak again. Thierry…" She shook her head. "I don't know. I can try to repair his body, is all."

"Will you help them, Alexandra?"

Her expression became resentful. "You knew if I saw them, if I examined their injuries and found out how much pain they were in, I would."

"You are under no obligation to me or the Durands." Not precisely the truth, but if she stayed, Michael wanted it to be of her own volition. Unwilling, Alexandra could prove dangerous to herself and the Kyn. "You can leave at any time. You owe me nothing."

"If I do, then you'll want me to stay. Be this sygkenis thing you keep saying. What does that mean? I have to stalk blood donors?"

"Ah, no." He cleared his throat. "We see to our own needs, as you do."

"Yeah, when you're not getting the crap beaten out of you." She grimaced. "What do you people do besides that?"

Michael smiled. She still had no idea of what it meant, to be Kyn. She thought it all bloodletting and pain and torture. "Why don't I show you?"

A week after Brother Tacassi tried to smother him with a pillow, John Keller was sent from Rome back to Chicago. He did not talk to anyone on the plane, and was so silent at customs that a gate guard pulled him into a private room where the police searched him for contraband.

"Sorry about this, Father," one of the officers said as he handed John his shirt. "Next time, just answer the questions you're asked and no one will think you're running drugs." He glanced at the mottled bruises and scrapes on John's torso. "Somebody jump you over in Italy?"

John looked down at himself and saw the long, thin scrapes that ran over the old injuries. He wondered what the cop would say if he told him he was pretty sure that he had, in fact, killed a vampire and raped a woman.

It was all a dream, John.

"Yes. I was mugged."

He had not believed it a dream at first. When John had finally shaken off the drugs, he demanded to see Cardinal Stoss. The cardinal came to his room, and heard John's confession. He then astonished John by assuring him that Tacassi's attack and the sick, twisted aftermath was but a terrible reaction to the mental and physical stress of his training and some painkillers he had been given.

"The doctor warned us that you might have hallucinations, Brother Keller."

"I saw Tacassi being garroted," John insisted flatly, "and I raped Sister Gelina."

Stoss drew back. "Who is this Sister Gelina?"

"My nurse."

The cardinal summoned the monk who had brought the breakfast tray, and consulted with him before turning to John again. "Forgive me, I wanted to be sure of this. We do not allow women in La Lucemaria, Brother Keller, and according to my staff, no female has been permitted to visit you. Only the brothers have been attending to your care."

John gave the cardinal a complete description of the nurse, down to the palm-size birthmark on her left thigh.

"Dear Brother Keller, I can now assure you with the utmost confidence that there is no such woman here. I would have noticed her." Stoss's chuckle dissolved into a sympathetic look. "The self-denial involved in training can play tricks on the mind, as can facing an evil such as the demons we battle. You must put this aside now, for you will be leaving in a few days for America."

John had even accepted what the cardinal claimed for a few hours, until he had gone to wash himself and found the long, painful streaks across his chest. The traces of dried semen under his foreskin. All of that could be explained away—he had torn at himself with his own fingernails, and ejaculated in his sleep—but there was some last, damning evidence. He found crescent-shaped cuts on his shaft, along with several short scrapes. The cuts and scrapes were almost identical to the ones the girl in Rio had left on him, so he knew precisely what they were.

Fingernail marks. Teeth marks.

One of the deacons from St. Luke's picked John up at the airport and drove him to the rectory. He was a friendly man who droned on and on about raising orchids, his personal hobby, so John wasn't required to make much conversation. He knew who was waiting for him at the rectory.

"Your Grace." John sank down on one knee and kissed August Hightower's ring.

"I took the liberty of sending Mrs. Murphy home for the day," Hightower said. "Sit, sit." He poured a cup of tea and handed it to John. "First and foremost, congratulations on your success in Rome. I am proud to have you in our order."

"I will not be for long." John's eyes burned as he held the tea in numb hands. "I have to turn myself in to the police. I have committed sins, terrible crimes. Cardinal Stoss believes I imagined them, but I have proof." He bowed his head. "I would confess to you now, Your Grace, before I go to the authorities."

Hightower's smile vanished, and he murmured a short Latin prayer. "Very well, my son. Tell me everything."

It poured out of him: the training, the deprivation, the horror of killing the vampire. The temptation of Sister Gelina, the murder attempt by Tacassi. Being attacked by a woman who had appeared both as Sister Gelina and the young whore from Rio. The release of rage, the brutal rape. Even the pleasure he had taken in the act. By the time John was finished confessing, his voice had become a tight, whispery thread.

"You have these marks on your body now?" Hightower asked.

Would he have to show the bishop? That would be the final humiliation. Here, Your Grace, check out the bite marks on my penis. "Yes."

"That is proof enough for me and God, John." Hightower templed his fingers. "But if I may make a suggestion, if this was not a delusion brought on by stress and drugs, then I believe you were the one who was raped."

John flinched. His elbow caught the cup of tea he had put down, and knocked it to the floor. The cup shattered and lukewarm liquid splashed the cuffs of his pants.

"A man cannot be raped." Was that his voice, growling like a dog's?

"Go to any prison in America, and you will find that is not true." Hightower put his hand on John's shoulder. "You told me that this woman came to you. She drugged you. She mounted you like you were a mindless animal. She hurt you. She intended to force you into her body. Have you considered that what you did to her was a form of self-defense? Did you not strike back in such ways when you and Alexandra were homeless?"

"I was a boy then." He closed his eyes, thinking of the prostitutes he had watched, the alleyway sex he had listened to. The needs that had disgusted and shamed him to his core. "I am a priest now."

"I can enter into a debate about whether those states are mutually exclusive or not," the bishop told him, "but that will not settle this. Come now, tell me, what causes you the most consternation? Killing a monster, or forcing yourself on a woman?"

John was still not sure he had ever faced the monster. Everything had taken on a dreamlike quality. "The woman. How it felt. I liked it." No, God forgive me, I loved it.

"Lightning will not strike you for saying so, John. You took a vow of celibacy with humility and joy, and yes, the church expects you to keep that vow. But you are also human, and the fact of the matter is, sex does feel good. You are also no longer subject to the exacting rules governing the Catholic priesthood." He moved his hand to rest it on John's head. "I pardon you these faults, in the name of God, and of our Lady, and of Saint Peter, and of Saint Paul. For your penance, you will say a Rosary to the Blessed Virgin each night for forty days and ask her intercession on your behalf with God."

He stared up at the bishop in disbelief. "Didn't you hear a word I said? I can't pray about this. I have to do the right thing, go to the police. I killed that man and I raped that woman."

"The maledicti are not men. They are demons, and you have seen their powers with your own eyes." The bishop's expression turned harsh. "You cannot report this matter to the authorities, John. They will find no body, and no Sister Gelina. Oh, I have no doubt what you say is true, but have you considered what will happen if the police believe you? The cardinal and his staff could be charged as accessories to your crimes."