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  ASH

  Luke Romyn

  Copyright © 2020 Luke Romyn

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Cover design by: Luke Romyn

  If you are interested in more writing by Luke Romyn, be sure to visit http://www.lukeromyn.com

  For Italia Gandolfo.

  A rose among thorns.

  "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”

  ― Friedrich Nietzsche

  CHAPTER 1

  “This world is not the only world.”

  The booming voice echoed from cold granite walls. A smattering of agreement rippled through the two dozen or so parishioners. Incense smoke drifted through the air, pungent and distinct, which, combined with the scent of wooden pews and burning candles, made the air smell identical to every other Catholic church in the world.

  Powerfully built for a man of the clergy—indeed, for one of any calling—Father Perditus bore a crown of silver hair. Square jaw clenching, he stood straight-backed before those who sought redemption in the eyes of the Lord. Marble-white eyes gazed sightlessly toward those seated beneath him, but the priest’s face remained impassive. His close-cropped silver beard twitched slightly, the only indication of the impulse surging through him to bellow at his congregation, to warn them of what lurked beyond their fragile senses.

  How could they know what he meant?

  He did not blame his flock for their obliviousness. A decade prior, Father Perditus had walked through the same cloud of ignorance. A lot could happen in a decade, though. Whole lives can dismantle or rearrange. The foundation of reality, even self-perceived reality, can shift and alter in the briefest of time spans.

  Forty-one today, he mused silently. Where did the time go?

  A short cough snapped the priest back to the moment. His hands fell to the braille Bible resting open on the dais, and he began to finger the lines of bumpy text.

  “Read with me, Luke 5:31.” He paused and traced the line, despite knowing the verse intimately, its words resting close to his heart. “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” Once more, Father Perditus paused. When he spoke again, his words were barely above a whisper. “We are all sinners.”

  The church service wound down with its usual lack of enlightenment. The congregation prayed for their eternal souls, protection from the inevitable finality looming on their horizons. If he could have, the priest would have wept for their ignorance. Gradually, the parishioners rose and filed toward the door. Father Perditus stood by the exit, smiling in acknowledgment of the vocal pleasantries directed his way, occasionally shaking a hand when it thrust itself into his. Some grips were limp-fish weak, others pumped his hand as though they expected coins to start spewing from his mouth if they levered his arm with enough conviction.

  Once everyone had departed, the church doors boomed closed. The young altar boy, Alphonse, padded down the central red carpet, his footfalls soft but still reverberating from the walls of the empty cathedral. At the altar, the priest stood and placed the holy sacrament into a small silver box. He then collected the wine and prepared to return the consecrated items to the ambry in the rear of the church.

  “Do you need me anymore, Father?” the boy asked.

  “No, thank you, Alphonse. You may leave.”

  The young man had learned long ago not to treat Father Perditus as one with a disability. Cold words, lacking malice, but still as sharp as talons, had torn into the boy the first time he had offered to lead the priest by the arm. Since that initial rebuke, the youth had proven a worthy assistant.

  The soft scuffing of his feet retreated until the priest heard the door to the back room close. Moments later, the rear exit banged loudly, leaving the priest alone.

  Well…almost alone.

  “You can come out now,” he sighed.

  Timber groaned as weight strained against one of the pews. The priest pictured a body pulling itself out from beneath one of the long wooden benches. A pause, accompanied by heavy breathing. Nervous breathing. Footsteps whispered against the marble floor, approaching slowly, cautiously.

  “I know who you are,” a gravelly voice declared.

  The priest recognized the accent if not the speaker. The man sounded like one from Herat, Afghanistan, a part of the world Father Perditus had long tried to forget. His heart sank.

  “I’m sure you think you know who I am, my son. But things are not always as they seem.”

  “I know you, butcher. Your hair might be white now and your eyes blind, but I will never forget what you did to my home. You will never wash the stink from your soul.” The man spat the words. A soft hiss of steel on leather indicated a knife dragging from its scabbard. “You will pay for your sins.”

  The priest held up a single warding hand. “Do not do this, I beg you.”

  “My child begged. Farahnaz pleaded for life as she lay dying in my arms. I could not save her…but I can avenge her.”

  Rubber-soled shoes squeaked on the marble floor as the man launched himself forward, screaming a tribal curse. The knife plunged down, its tip piercing the skin of the priest’s outstretched palm.

  The blind man closed his eyes…and saw.

  * * * *

  Alphonse let the heavy timber rear door slam, then paused, shook his head, and turned back. Softly, so as not to disturb the priest, he crept back into the rear room. He had almost left without his phone, which sat charging in the power socket over by the small stainless steel sink.

  The church was over a hundred years old, whereas the back room, despite its peeling sunflower-yellow paint, showed little evidence of great age. Maybe a decade old, two at the most, the rear room was constructed from timber, contrasting with the slabs of ashen granite the builders had blocked together to build the church, each undoubtedly weighing more than Alphonse. He sometimes wondered who had erected the extension, and had contemplated asking Father Perditus on more than one occasion, but the ghostly-eyed priest still intimidated him. Not because of anything he’d done, simply because something lurked beneath his genial surface, something cold and uncompromising; Alphonse sensed the man was not entirely as he appeared.

  As he approached the power socket, the youth heard the air vibrate with conversation. Alphonse frowned. Perhaps Father Perditus had changed his mind and had called out to him.

  Opening the interior door a fraction, Alphonse paused as he heard a second voice, this one heavily accented. The conversation was soft, the words indistinct. Peering out through the partially opened crack, he saw an olive-skinned man wearing a white business shirt and brown pants confronting Father Perditus. The stranger gripped a long, curve-bladed knife tightly in his right hand.

  Alphonse’s eyes flared wide in panic. What should he do? Should he call the police? The memory of his phone charging by the small sink flashed through the boy’s mind, but his feet remained frozen to the spot, his legs rooted like tree trunks despite the slight trembling running through them.

  The stranger bore several scars on his face, and he appeared to cower in spite of the weapon in his hand. Father Perditus waited, emanating an unusual sense of calm. His right arm stretched out casually, like a man waving to an old friend, palm facing forward, toward his antagonist.

  “Do not do this, I
beg you.”

  Alphonse could not hear the stranger’s mumbled response. He gaped as the man leaped forward, his knife plunging toward the priest’s heart.

  Alphonse had heard of time standing still but had never before experienced it. At that moment, however, the world slowed. Dust motes, seemingly frozen in the air, twinkled in the colored light of the stained glass windows. The attacker’s face, tears glistening on his cheeks, appeared not only angry but also somehow sorrowful.

  Then an odd thing happened, something Alphonse would never understand and of which he would never speak. As the knife thrust into Father Perditus’s hand, the air around the priest seemed to bend. Alphonse felt as if he were looking through the bottom of a glass bottle. A hole opened in the space behind Father Perditus, a ragged tear in the empty air through which the silver-haired priest stepped. His left hand snaked forward, viper swift, snatching at the sleeve of the knifeman’s immaculate white shirt, hauling him through the aperture. The vortex snapped shut, and both men vanished.

  Alphonse’s heart banged against his ribs like a gorilla trapped within a cage.

  Moments later, Father Perditus flashed back into view. The priest’s head hung low, his expression thunderous. To Alphonse, it appeared as if a mixture of grief and rage wrestled for control over the blind man. He stood this way for several moments, heaving in choked breaths. Eventually, some semblance of calm settled upon the man like a palliative cloth, and Father Perditus pulled himself together, the wrath so evident only moments before vanishing beneath his aura of smooth composure. He held up his right hand. The pierced palm was now miraculously whole, and he flexed it into a tight fist.

  With a swiftness that caught Alphonse off guard, the silver-haired priest spun around. His white eyes seemed to stare directly at the youth, but the priest neither spoke nor moved.

  Alphonse slammed the door and ran. His phone remained forgotten beside the small sink, still plugged in and charging.

  He never set foot in a church again for the rest of his life.

  CHAPTER 2

  “Is it time?”

  Father Perditus pondered the question. “I’m not sure. If one person found me, more are certain to follow.” Slowly, cautiously, the priest groped for the steaming cup of tea sitting on the glass coffee table in front of him. Finding it, he traced around the outside of the ceramic with the tip of his forefinger until he identified the handle. Lifting the tea to his lips, he took a sip and then placed the cup back down on the saucer with a soft clatter. His left hand confirmed the cup sat within the center of the saucer before he released its handle, and then he leaned back in his seat and appeared to reflect for a moment.

  Bishop Washington sighed heavily, the sound like wind through dry leaves. “I am so sorry, my friend.”

  “I shouldn’t be surprised,” Father Perditus replied. “A person can run from their past, can try to rewrite the future God has planned for them, but in the end, destiny always wins.” Pausing again, he contemplated taking a second sip of tea but decided against it. It would be a reflexive action, not something created by thirst. “Perhaps I should have let the man kill me. I never intended to defend myself the way I did, but when the moment arrived, when I felt his blade pierce my hand, my instincts kicked in.” With his left hand, Father Perditus rubbed the palm of his right. The skin had sealed without leaving a mark, but an echo of pain lingered. Such wounds, ones born of torment and suffering, never left him entirely.

  “Perhaps I should move you to another diocese. Would that ease your mind?”

  Father Perditus shook his head. “That will only put the church in danger. Worse things haunt me from my past than wrathful villagers, believe me.” The scents of the bishop’s personal apartment danced by his nostrils, revealing more than words ever could. A faint hint of diluted vinegar hung in the air. A simple man, the bishop likely used it to clean. Above that, however, was the stench of the cheap cigars the elderly priest tended to smoke. The cloying odor tarred everything, from his curtains to the cushions. “Besides, I never truly fit in as a priest. I have tried to atone for my past, but it haunts me every day, no matter what I do.” He gritted his teeth, forcing aside dark memories. “Some stains can never wash away.”

  Bishop Washington reached across the kitchen table and gripped his hand. Thick calluses marred the old man’s palm, the scars of a life spent in service to his community. The bishop was a virtuous man, warring within a world of people whose desires he couldn’t possibly understand, yet he did not judge. Father Perditus did not pull away from the grip.

  “Ash,” said Bishop Washington. Father Perditus smiled wryly. It had been a long time since anyone had called him by his real name. “You are not alone in this thing.”

  The smile collapsed. “I am always alone.”

  Bishop Washington released his hand. “Where will you go?”

  “Even if I knew, I wouldn’t tell you.”

  “Do you think so little of our friendship?” The bishop’s voice took on an aggrieved tone.

  “It’s because you are my friend that I do not tell you. You know part of my life, but there are shades of my past that would scorch your immortal soul.”

  “God forgives all who ask. You know that.”

  “He cannot forgive me,” Father Perditus replied with a curt shake of his head. “For I cannot forgive myself.”

  Bishop Washington sighed heavily. “What can I do to help you? I have some money and a car. Both are yours.”

  “Thank you, my friend. I could not ask for more.” Father Perditus paused, frowning. “Though there is one more request I have of you.”

  “Name it.”

  “I would ask that you release me from my vows.”

  Silence descended on the apartment. Several moments ticked by, but Father Perditus refused to break the tension. Eventually, Bishop Washington sighed once more.

  “I will not dissolve your vows, my friend, but I will laicize you. You will remain a priest, but the bindings of the priesthood will no longer apply to you. Perhaps, in this way, you will still manage to walk with God and not return to your previous nature.”

  Father Perditus nodded slowly, though a storm shadowed his brow. “Let’s hope He will still want to walk with me.”

  CHAPTER 3

  “Stupid mongrel.”

  Samuel O’Bannon made to kick the old steel-gray dog. With surprising speed, the wolfhound spun around and chomped into his swinging shin through his denim jeans. The Irishman howled in agony, the sound bouncing off the walls of the musty alley. Wrenching his leg loose, Samuel swung an off-balance punch toward the dog’s head. The beast was too canny, though, darting out of reach at the last moment. It backed away, ears flat against its skull, coarse fur bristling. A sound similar to two stone slabs grinding together rumbled deep in its throat.

  Sam crumpled to the concrete, clutching his lower leg, yowling in pain. Guffaws echoed, taunting his misfortune, and he snarled curses at his two companions.

  “Don’t just stand there. Go get the handgun outta your truck and shoot the bastard!”

  The skinnier of the men, Marcus Murphy, shook his head in disappointment. “Dog shows more fight now than in the ring. Maybe we should have pitted the mutt against you in there, Sammy. We might have actually won some cash instead of losing a wad.”

  The man’s brother, James Murphy, spoke up. “That’s right. I mean, how much money did you convince us to front for this mutt? And now you want us to just shoot it? I reckon our dough would be best recovered by shooting you, laddie.”

  Sam swore at them both and rose to his feet, hobbling over to lean against a wall. “Get me the gun. I’ll gladly shoot the beast.”

  “And what about our money?”

  “To hell with your money; ‘twas a sound investment. ‘Tis not my fault you both lost out. Blame the goddam mongrel; he’s the one who didn’t fight.”

  The gray-haired wolfhound continued to growl, its dark eyes snapping left and right, sneering lips exposing the beast’s y
ellow-stained teeth. Sam knew it was only a matter of time before his reluctant business partners gave in and collected the gun. It wasn’t like the mongrel would let them load it into the bed of the rusted pickup. The two brothers were merely dissatisfied with him for suggesting they invest in the stupid fighting dog—a fighting dog that ended up refusing to fight. The three stood contemplating the beast for several moments.

  The fight had been decidedly one-sided from the opening bell. The wolfhound preferred to snarl at the spectators, denying them their sport. The opposing dog, a cream-colored half-breed pit bull, had nearly torn old gray’s left ear completely off. Blood matted the fur of the wolfhound’s neck, and he limped heavily on his front right foot. Sam was amazed the hound had managed to survive until the final bell. Something in the beast had refused to give up.

  A cold voice cut through the air. “Who hurt my dog?”

  All three men snapped around. A hunched old man stood at the head of the alleyway, his frame rigid. The dark overcoat he wore seemed to weigh him down as if it were made of chainmail. The stranger’s leaden hair hung thickly on his head, entirely covering his scalp despite his aged appearance. Gray stubble spread like turf in folds of skin across his cheeks, and his dark gray eyes glowered at the three Irishmen.

  Sam snorted derisively. “Fuck off, ya old geezer.”

  “I asked ya dumb Micks who hurt my dog. Answer me. Now!”

  Something in the old man’s voice sent a chill down Samuel’s spine, but he ignored the sensation. The pain in his leg upset him to the point where he might have ignored almost anything. Turning back toward the mutt, he searched through the shadows near the building wall, finally spotting a moss-encrusted brick.

  “Aha,” he mumbled.

  Hobbling over, Sam stooped to pick up the brick. The hound growled louder, baring its bloody yellow teeth. Sam leered at the beast.