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CHAPTER 7

  ST. AUGUSTINE’S CHURCH was old and beautiful, constructed from limestone out of the local quarries. Stained glass adorned the front of the building and looked bright belying the dingy gray sky. The heavy wooden doors at the entrance were well worn by the many hands that had entered over the past two plus centuries and Kane crossed the vestibule and pulled one open to enter.

  Finding the Priest and tracking him would be simple enough. He planned to attend mass and follow him home, or wherever he went. Kane got the feeling the devil’s luck would be on his side but was somewhat nervous about what he might see. What could a priest do that would attract the dark lord? It could be any crime against God.

  The sermon droned on in Latin, not something he was familiar with. He recognized parts and spoke the doxology following the Lord’s Prayer along with the rest of the congregation. It made him uncomfortable and a knot formed in his belly—no doubt Harry's doing. Kane wondered how long he might be able to stand inside a church.

  Father Hogan led the service. He was a short man, round and unimpressive. His hair was red, his face freckled in a childlike way and when he spoke, he gestured with his hands.

  “What sort of horrific things have you done?” Kane mumbled under his breath.

  Hours passed before the priest dismissed the people sitting on the wooden pews, and Kane stood to follow Hogan as he left the pulpit. The priest approached the sacristy where a young girl of maybe fourteen years waited.

  When Hogan exited the chamber she cleared her throat politely. Kane stood off to one side. He could not clearly hear their conversation, but he saw the interaction. The priest’s mouth moved and then the girl’s, alternating turns as the conversation progressed. There was some concern on the young female’s face, but a smile on Hogan’s. He seemed to know what advice she needed and patted her on the shoulder.

  Kane noted nothing suspicious in the priest’s actions, but still had that knot in his belly. It remained even after he left the church and he began to think it was related to Hogan, and not the cathedral. He found a good vantage point across the road from St. Augustine’s and waited for the priest to exit. Thirty minutes went by when finally a shadow appeared, only it was in the alley instead of the front as he had expected.

  With the shadow stood a smaller figure. It had to be the girl, the one who was so upset. The knot grew in Kane's gut. He knew the girl had come to Hogan with a problem, and he knew Hogan was going to make it worse.

  The pair left the alley and continued behind the buildings that lined the street. Kane followed. He watched the couple walk and talk as they made their way, passing the rectory and turning at the end of the path. They stopped outside the door of a small apartment.

  Kane reckoned it an office or a counseling facility as they passed the rectory just outside of the church. He found a back window where he could just see through a slit in the drapes from a standing position. Unless someone else walked down that alley, he would be hidden from view.

  The young girl removed her coat and handed it to Hogan who appeared hospitable and courteous as he hung it by the door. He gestured, offering her a seat and sat across from her at the small wooden table. The pair talked, amicably at first, then the girl became agitated.

  After several more minutes of conversation, the priest produced a wine bottle, pouring two glasses and taking one himself. Kane couldn’t see her face. She continued to speak and Hogan listened and responded. Whenever Hogan spoke, the girl shook her head in an up and down motion, agreeing with whatever the priest said. A moment later, he stood and went to the bottle of wine again. He filled the glasses a second time and stood and watched as she took a drink. Kane's gut tightened, the knot again, growing larger, angrier, now causing him physical pain.

  The girl leaned forward to set her wine glass down and the bottle crashed across the back of her head. It shattered and sent two different dark red liquids splattering about the room. Kane looked on in horror, and he was speechless, unable to move. His boots were cemented to the earth as if mired in muck. Hogan looked over her sprawled body with no reaction and took a drink from his wine glass. Kane prayed.

  “Forgive me, Father, but I must send this priest to hell.”

  With great effort he willed his feet to move. Kane turned to find an entrance to the building, to take out the priest, Hogan, before he finished whatever task he was planning, but Harry stopped him in his tracks.

  “No, no Mr. Kane. You must stay and watch. The show is just starting,” he said.

  Harry became his beast-self and with a flourish had Kane's head in his giant, clawed hand. He thrust Kane’s face against the window.

  “Watch, Mr. Kane.”

  Hogan was binding the girl's wrists and ankles with his ceremonial stole. The work took mere seconds, something the bastard had done many times. Kane tried to look away as the priest stripped the child bare from the waist down, but his eyes were held open by the demon’s dark magic so that he could not even blink. He smelled the beast's animal scent, like that of the wolf. He tried to yell and perhaps startle the clergyman from his prey, but his throat closed up and only a rasping wheeze escaped. Watching in disgust, Kane began to cry. He never condoned cruelty and beyond what was happening to the girl, being forced to watch was worse than he imagined.

  Taking another piece of his ceremonial garb, Hogan gagged the child just as she awakened. The priest was still stone-faced as he carried on with his preparation, stopping only briefly to pour himself a third glass of red wine from another bottle.

  “As I said,” Harry said, “he came to my attention years ago. He’s had dozens of victims. Many younger than this one...although this young girl is no saint.”

  Kane couldn’t speak.

  “No. You cannot afford to miss this. I want your rage as pure as that girl’s fear when you dispatch the priest to me.”

  All Kane wanted was to save the girl. He was willing, at that moment, to kill the bastard if he could only save the girl.

  Tears streaked her face. They mixed with blood from the gash in her head and dripped down her cheeks. Hogan wiped one and placed the finger in his mouth to taste it. That’s when his dead expression finally changed from thoughtful and composed to the face of a maniac—a frothing madman—with one blink. He raised his hand high and struck a heavy blow slapping the left buttock of the girl and leaving a raised crimson hand print. She winced in pain and screamed through the gag loud enough that Kane heard it through the window.

  Kane shuddered and screamed again into the pane of glass. The devil allowed no such warning, no such relief. Again, whispers were all that escaped.

  “Please,” Kane said. “Dear God, please.”

  “God will allow this to happen until Hogan's day of judgment, Mr. Kane. He hasn't time nor inclination to stop evil until then. You can prevent it from happening in the future. But for this girl, it is too late,” Harry said.

  Hogan looked around the room in a crazed frenzy, desperately searching for something. His eyes settled on an object that sat on a writing desk in the corner. It was a statuette of the Virgin Mary standing a foot tall. The priest pounced on it, looking at it with wide-eyed lunatic-longing. Sweat beaded on his upper lip as he held the artifact. He gripped it in both hands and turned slowly toward the girl. It was a blessing she didn’t see his gleeful expression as he approached.

  Hogan knelt down behind the girl and rubbed his hand up the inside of her thigh. His eyes closed and his mouth moved as he spoke to her.

  “Watch, Mr. Kane…and learn. He prays because he doesn’t want to hurt her. He doesn't want to, but can’t help himself. I find it all quite fascinating.”

  The demon’s voice enraged him even more as he witnessed the vile act. Soon the devil would release his grip and then Kane would move with such speed and wreak such havoc on the priest that no one would ever be able to identify which piece was which. The girl screamed again and Kane saw her agony as the man in the collar vaginally and anally raped her with a statue of t
he Virgin Mother, a most despicable breach of trust. Hogan masturbated as he thrust the relic into and out of the girl. To add insult, the bastard used his own pathetic member to finish the job.

  He clasped his hands around the girl’s throat and the harder he thrusted, the tighter his grip became. At some point during his convulsing orgasm, the girl expired, lying limp, arms loosed from their bindings and flopping like a rag doll's with each new blow. Then, red-faced and panting, Hogan spat on her corpse.

  Kane felt it all happen. He despised that soon-to-be dead animal. He longed for any sign of the demon’s grip loosening so that he could attack. Instead, it moved from his head to his shoulders and dragged him away where he couldn’t reach the murderer in the house or the corpse of the girl.

  “Patience,” Harry hissed.

  He was forced to watch from a distance as the priest dragged the body of the girl, who was wrapped in her own coat and no longer bound or gagged, from the building. Hogan looked to make sure there were no witnesses. He looked right at Kane, but didn't see him, as he stuffed the body in a trash pile next to the building where she would be eaten by the rats and stray cats which frequented the alleys.

  “You see, Mr. Kane, this is why I want him.”

  The grip loosened, but was not completely released. When Kane turned, he saw Harry the man, prim and proper and dressed impeccably.

  “Why didn’t you let me stop him?”

  “I needed you to see what you were up against. I need you to have no question when you kill. And, I rather enjoy vulgarity and violence. Hogan is quite the showman, is he not?”

  “You bastard,” Kane said.

  Harry chuckled. “Guilty as charged, I'm afraid.”

  “I would’ve killed him and the girl would still be alive!” Kane bellowed in rage.

  “That’s good. I need this level of anger from you. You will get your chance in due time,” Harry said.

  Kane wept for the child, still in disbelief of what he had just witnessed.

  “What happens to the girl? Do you get her as well?”

  “No. No, sadly, she belongs to Him. I merely used her as an example to entice you to do your job. So in the end, she wins, no? I trust you will need no such encouragement in the future?”

  “Damn you,” Kane growled.

  “Too late for that,” Harry said with a smirk. “Consider it training.”

  “You dastardly, vile bastard,” he managed, exhausted with emotion.

  The devil’s grip finally released and Kane sunk to his knees. Had Hogan been in that same alley, Kane would have ripped his throat open and drank the black blood, but through some wicked sort of spell, he found himself back in his own home, and it was again daylight.

  Kane would have to wait. The sun brought out too many witnesses.

  ..ooOOoo..

  AT SUNSET, KANE wandered back into town, still seething and ready to finish his first mission. His faith was torn apart and he wanted nothing more than to destroy Father Hogan, to end the life of a supposed man of God without prejudice or hesitation. A liar. A killer. The more he walked, the more he thought. More thoughts led to rage until he no longer cared who saw Hogan die...and damn any consequences. They couldn't send him to hell.

  He made his way inside St. Augustine's and went directly to the confessional and knelt down, glad to find it was empty. His heart drummed inside his chest as he waited there with the curtain drawn closed to conceal his presence. He knew Hogan was on his way and would soon be telling him how to lead his life. That slimy sonofawhore was going to judge him in the name of God and tell him he could repent.

  Child raping and murdering bastard of a priest would pay for what he did.

  The other curtain opened.

  “May God who has enlightened every heart, help you to know your sins and trust in His mercy,” said the voice.

  Kane’s eyes burned with fury. It was Hogan. He smelled the blood and sex and wine and death on him. He smelled the stink of adrenaline and knew Hogan enjoyed his games. How could this monster sound as if nothing had happened. He took a breath to calm his nerves, but his voice fluttered when he spoke.

  “Amen. Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It has been many years since my last confession,” he said through clenched teeth.

  It was the only way he could hold back the violent urges his heart felt. He continued without waiting for a response from the diseased madman.

  “I unwillingly made a deal with Satan and because of that I have seen some terrible things. Last evening, I witnessed the murder of a young girl and I did nothing to stop it.”

  Kane's eyes spilled tears. He heard shifting in the seat on the other side of the screen. There was no more containing his emotions. He stood and moved to where Father Hogan sat.

  “I have come for you, and the devil awaits your soul,” Kane said.

  Hogan didn’t flinch. He showed neither remorse nor surprise. He didn’t even close his eyes as the undead Kane placed his hands on the priests head and twisted until he heard the satisfying crunch of the separating vertebrae.

  Once the neck swiveled easily, Kane let go of the head and grabbed the man by his shoulders, pulling him up to a standing position. Hogan's head rocked and swiveled.

  “Damn you,” he said, still crying. “Damn you for making me into this.”

  He stared at Hogan's lifeless face, but when he spoke, the words were for Harry.

  “I am no killer. I am no bounty hunter.”

  He dropped the worthless bag of meat to the floor, then leaned down and tore out the white tab from his collar and tossed it to the side. He drug the body face down from the confessional to the center of the church and then between the rows of pews, through the front door and out into the street. A few people moved about from place to place, but none seemed to notice or care. None except Thurgood Harrison who stood on the opposite street corner, dressed in his finest.

  Harry wore a disgusting grin, his eyes round and glowing with joy over the fresh kill. He pranced to the corpse lying in the street, face in the dirt as the bastard should be. The proper-looking and proper-sounding man then plunged his hand into the back of the dead body, prying its way between the ribs and finding its goal at the black heart of Father Hogan. He pulled gently at first, as if testing a rope before climbing, but then yanked, tearing the arteries and veins from the tough muscle. When it came loose from the hole in Hogan's chest, Harry held up his prize. His eyes danced.

  “Thank you, Mr. Kane. You have been most helpful and I shall call on you again soon.”

  Harry then tucked the organ into the same blood-stained satchel in which he had placed Caitlin’s heart. Kane watched with a strange satisfaction as his blood cooled. His hell wasn’t living without Caitlin Delaney, but witnessing man’s darkest moments and taking revenge after the fact, rather than preventing harm to the innocent.

  He found a local pub where he could spend the evening getting drunk and calming his nerves. He didn’t care where the devil went, or if he ever returned.