Precious Blood

  “Sebastian,” Cecilia whispered.

  They were all nervous about approaching him. He seemed in a trance. Weak, breathing shallow and unsteady. Like a resistant captive in the midst of a hunger strike.

  “Is he all right?” Agnes asked, wanting to run to him to find out.

  Lucy shrugged, uncertain. “He’s alive. I think.”

  Finally, he spoke.

  “I have no idea what will happen, or in which places the pain will come,” he mumbled, before opening his eyes to see them. They were cemented into a stare that left them to wonder whether he’d gone completely mad.

  Agnes walked slowly toward him and fell to her knees.

  “Sebastian, we’re here.”

  He smiled and brushed his hand against her cheek.

  “Agnes.”

  Lucy and Cecilia came and kneeled as well. He met each of their eyes with his.

  “You came back,” he said.

  “Of our own free will,” Lucy said.

  “I think we are being watched. You’ve got to leave here,” Cecilia said.

  “Why? There isn’t anywhere to go.”

  He was having trouble responding fully, almost seeming to hear and answer different questions than the ones they were asking.

  They looked around in awe and trepidation, their memories of a few days earlier still raw and visible, bloodstains still on the floor. Their chaplets resting in the reliquary.

  “What happened to us down here?” Lucy asked. “We need to know.”

  He did his best to explain and reassure them all at once. “I would never hurt any of you.”

  They wanted to be skeptical, to fight what they were feeling inside, but he was so beautiful, so genuine, so real, and now so vulnerable that it was almost impossible not to get lost in him.

  “We want to understand,” Cecilia added. “We want to believe you.”

  Sebastian was heartened by their trust.

  “I will tell you everything I know,” he said, gesturing then toward the bone-legged altar. It was surrounded by four pillar candles, one at each corner, and covered with the chasubles they modeled. A patchwork tablecloth of green, red, and white fabric with elaborately woven images of young men and women crowned with halos and clothed in glory. Atop it sat magnificent place settings, gold plates and long-stemmed silver cups glimmering. At the center, the Legenda Aurea Agnes had flipped through on the lectern.

  The girls joined him at the altar and sat on the antique short benches he’d arranged around it. They felt like royalty.

  “What is this?” Cecilia asked.

  Sebastian took a brass candle lighter that had been leaning against the altar and struck a match. He lit one candle and passed the rod around, asking each girl to do likewise.

  It was a ritual, but unlike the ones they had experienced before. This was only for them.

  When the last candle had been lit, Sebastian took the case holding the chaplets and placed it on the altar before them.

  “We’re getting them back?”

  “Yes.”

  “But Sebastian, they don’t belong to you,” Agnes said.

  “That’s true.”

  “Jesse said you stole them,” Lucy reminded him.

  “I didn’t steal them. I took them,” he admitted.

  “I don’t understand. You took them but you didn’t steal them?” CeCe asked.

  “I took them,” he explained. “So I could return them to their rightful owners.”

  “Us?” Lucy asked.

  “These chaplets were made from holy relics, from the bones of St. Lucy, St. Cecilia, and St. Agnes, as proof of their existence through the ages and held closely by generation after generation of men and women who worshipped them, were devoted to them, and prayed for their return when the world was most in need of them.”

  “Now?” Lucy asked.

  “Now,” Sebastian said. “This legacy, these chaplets are your inheritance. I had to get them to you before Frey stopped me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he knows who we are and will try to stop us however he can.”

  “How can he do that?” Cecilia said. “He has no control over us.”

  “You said you thought you were being watched, followed. He is using you to find me. So he can get all of us.”

  Sebastian turned suddenly grim.

  “You aren’t just being followed. You are being hunted.”

  The corrections officer strolled down the cement-floored hallway of the Brooklyn House of Detention. Even to a seasoned veteran of the system, it was a scary place. But then, it was meant to be. In earlier days, it might be considered the kind of place where one might be sent to “loosen the tongue,” and it still had that effect. It was a snitch factory, especially for guys like Jesse, but he didn’t break. He was proud of that.

  “Arens!”

  Jesse lifted himself from the hard cot slowly. The guard pressed the lock button on the side of his cell and the door slid open with an echoing clang. Jesse stepped out, cautiously, wary that this might be some sort of trick.

  “You’re free to go.”

  “I’m sprung? Seriously? Did someone bail me out?”

  His search for a Good Samaritan was unrewarded on a technicality, though he could hardly believe anyone he knew cared enough.

  “You’re not charged with anything. It’s been seventy-two hours. You served your time.”

  “So soon?” he asked snidely. “I was never charged. Time for what?”

  “For being a douche bag,” the officer said dismissively.

  “Oh, well then, guilty,” Jesse said, holding his hands out for cuffs.

  “Pick up your things at the desk and get the hell out of here.”

  “Listen, I run a few nights at Sacrifice during the week. Maybe you might like to stop by with your boys. Let me know. I’ll even comp you.”

  “That’s a bribe, prick.”

  “You’d know.”

  Jesse checked out of his accommodations and reached for his smartphone. He might have developed an instant reputation as a whiny bitch on the inside, but he made sure to play his rap sheet up for street cred on the way out. He threw on his shades, popped his jacket collar up, and put on his swagger as he hit the door. There was a photographer waiting to shoot him, as planned. Before he even got to the corner, the picture was posted, “liked,” and reblogged to every subscriber in the city. The “Free Jesse” slogan he posted across his main page in computer-animated caution tape was replaced by a “Jesse’s Free” headline and power to the people fist icon. “From felon to chillin’ at warp tweet.” He was back.

  He searched his competition as he usually did after a day or two offline, after holidays mostly, just to see what had gone on in his absence. He smiled at a folder of photos and an item about Lucy from Da Ball. He flipped through the JPEGs and captions casually, pissed that she’d even gone without him. When he opened the last photo, his face went completely white and his jaw dropped. It was picture of Lucy and Dr. Frey.

  And then it hit him, all at once. Like a city bus.

  “Oh God. How could I be so stupid?”

  It wasn’t just Sebastian Frey was after. He texted Lucy:

  911. You are not safe.

  He waved his arm in the air like a madman.

  “Taxi!”

  He jumped in the backseat of the first yellow cab that would have him and sped to the church.

  “No,” Lucy said as she began sobbing uncontrollably. Agnes and Cecilia tried to pull away from Sebastian’s grasp to comfort her, but he held them tight. “I don’t want this,” she protested hysterically, pulling at the chaplet.

  “You do,” Sebastian said, a note of sympathy in his voice. “You came back.”

  “I like my life. These girls have nothing to lose!” Lucy screeched, pointing a finger at Agnes and Cecilia. “I worked so hard to have everything I ever wanted.”

  “Then you must be happy. Are you . . . happy?”

  Sebastian waited.

/>   A few sobs later, she gathered herself and looked up at the three of them, standing there, sacred hearts amid sculpted bones, bathed in the corona of candlelight.

  “It’s who you are. Who you have always been.”

  Cecilia and Agnes reached out their hands, inviting her into their exclusive circle.

  “You’re not alone anymore,” Cecilia said. “None of us are.”

  She stepped up to the altar as if to the edge of a precipice and joined them. They stood like high divers about to take the plunge, anxiously awaiting the opportunity to jump. And then the tension eased. Hands clasped, they relaxed.

  Sebastian, Lucy, Cecilia, and Agnes bowed their heads and felt themselves almost disappear into the smoke and fragrant heat, as if their flesh was melting away with the candle wax.

  Revealed.

  Stripped like the bleached bones that adorned the chapel.

  At peace with themselves. At one with the chapel and with each other. A sort of music filled their ears, like the low hum of a generator or the soft chanting of a choir, which vibrated simultaneously through them and the ossuary, transforming it into a giant tuning fork. They channeled the powerful force, exchanging it with one another and with the room until everything was infused with their energy. It made the sudden intrusion of reality, the rumble of a passing subway train, even more startling.

  Sebastian opened his eyes, raised his head, and stared at the stained glass windows surrounding them. Scenes of pain. Scenes of sacrifice from the distant past fighting their way into the present.

  “The faithful were not the only ones preparing for our coming,” Sebastian warned.

  “Ciphers?” Cecilia asked.

  “Ciphers are the leaders. They don’t hide. They manipulate, they persuade, they seduce and pursue their agenda right under our noses.”

  “Like Dr. Frey?”

  “Yes, and many faceless others who do their dirty work but are just as dangerous. Vandals, some have called them. Destroyers of bodies and corrupters of souls. They are threatened by our very existence.”

  “What is it that they are so afraid of?”

  “Of the power inside you,” Sebastian explained. “To be a wake-up call. To be living examples that things can be better.”

  “Soul models,” Lucy said.

  “Yes,” Sebastian said. “People are lonely, hurting, empty. You will fill them.”

  He reached for the book on the altar in front of him. He lifted the silk tassel marking a specific page. “You asked me what this was all about. It is all about you.”

  He walked over to the urn and brought it back to the altar as well, first removing a few hot coals and slipping them into the golden censer before him. He reached into the incense boat next to it and sprinkled a few resinous grains onto the coals and watched the smoke rise.

  The air became heavy with the spicy aroma, the scent of cedar and rose. The candles burned brightly around them, almost singing their praise. Lucy, Cecilia, and Agnes felt an invisible pressure upon them, much as Sebastian had. The weight of the world.

  Sebastian rose and stepped away from the table and toward the back of the altar where three linen wraps, secured with rope, enshrouded sculpted figures beneath them. One by one, he removed the ties and the coverings, revealing pristine life-size statues of beautiful young women, painted in the most gorgeous hues of blue, purple, red, green, gold, and silver. Wearing expressions both of joy and sorrow. All holding palm fronds. At the base of each statue a nameplate.

  Saint Lucia.

  Saint Cecilia.

  Saint Agnes.

  Their hearts jumped.

  The girls were awestruck by what they saw. Symbols of faith and of purity worthy of worship. Saint Lucy, a wreath of roses and lighted candles around her head, holding a golden plate before her, her two beautiful blue eyes sitting atop it. Saint Cecilia, in flowing robes, with a violin and bow, a winged angel at her shoulder, eyes turned heavenward. Saint Agnes, long rivulets of curls flowing to her feet, surrounding her, a lamb tucked safely in her arm.

  Sebastian returned to the altar and took his seat and held up the Legenda to his face, so that all they could see were his eyes.

  “These are the long-forgotten legends of your namesakes, martyrs who gave their lives for something greater than themselves. Young girls. Teenagers, like us, who changed their worlds by their example and made the ultimate sacrifice. Human beings but divinely inspired. Subjects of art and architecture, poems and prayers. Their pictures enshrined everywhere. Their names literally on everyone’s lips. They were superstars for nearly two thousand years before the word was ever invented. Eternal icons.”

  “It is hard to believe,” Lucy whispered, speaking for them all.

  Sebastian ripped the illuminated parchment pages from the old book and handed one to each. They were amazed. The sense of empowerment they felt was palpable. Something in the stories, in his words, resonated with them to their very cores.

  “You share their spirit. Their bravery. Their passion. Their purpose,” Sebastian proclaimed. “Still yourselves. But something more.”

  “You have sought attention. Adoration. Affection,” Sebastian went on. “All aspects of love. Now you will find them. Not just for your own sake, but for the sake of all you touch.”

  Sebastian removed his shirt. He looked deep into their eyes and reached in the reliquary box and removed Cecilia’s chaplet. He detached the milagro, dropped it into the urn. “Cecilia, the Messenger.”

  He read out loud:

  “Patron saint of musicians. A daughter of wealth and Roman privilege, but raised secretly among the faithful, she believed herself guarded by an angel. Betrayed by her jealous husband and turned over to the authorities as a heretic, she was to be beheaded but each of three attempts failed. She sang her faith for another three days even as she lay dying. Her body, exhumed centuries after her death, was found in an incorruptible state. In her determination, she found everlasting fame.”

  Sebastian took the scalding hot milagro from the urn and pressed it onto his chest, branding her sword with bow right over his heart. Despite the agony of his burning skin, he did not cry out in pain. The girls winced as his skin sizzled.

  “Your irresistible song will pierce the hearts and minds of others. It will fill their yearning souls, which have been left empty by doubt and false promises, with passion.”

  He placed the chaplet back onto Cecilia’s wrist.

  Likewise he removed Agnes’s chaplet, separating the flaming heart milagro and purifying it in the fire as he spoke: “Agnes, the Lamb.”

  He continued to read:

  “Patron saint of virgins and victims. Sentenced to death for her beliefs, she was stripped and dragged through the streets of Rome and sent to a brothel to be abused and humiliated. The men who attacked her were struck blind. Her hair grew and covered her nakedness from head to toe. Tied to a stake to be burned, the flames parted so as not to harm her. Finally beheaded, her precious blood was soaked up from the ground by believers. Dishonored by her adversaries but never defiled. In her refusal to compromise her faith or her body, an eternal testament to the power of love and innocence.”

  He lifted the sacred heart from the fire and pressed it to his chest, internalizing the pain, and then placed it directly over the impression of Cecilia’s sword, making it appear as if the blade was piercing the heart.

  “Your compassionate heart and uncompromising virtue will be an example to all who seek honesty and true love. You will bring comfort and understanding to the troubled, teaching them not only how to love one another but to love themselves.”

  Finally, he removed Lucy’s chaplet and placed her double-eye milagro into the flames: “Lucy, the Light.”

  He read her passage:

  “Patron saint of the blind, in body and soul. She gouged her eyes from their sockets to make herself less attractive to those who defile her, refusing to renounce her faith and remaining fearless in her suffering. She lost her sight and her life to her tor
mentors but never her vision. The way of light shining through the darkness of life.”

  He took Lucy’s milagro and positioned it strategically above the other two. His flesh was now completely raw there, but he did not hesitate. He lowered the charm down onto his skin and pressed it in so that the eyes were now serving as a guard for the sword.

  “You are a beacon that will show the way out of darkness toward hope and a better life. An all-seeing leader whose unbreakable will and steadfast determination is the essence of faith.”

  “The eyes keep watch over the sword that pierces the heart,” Lucy observed.

  “There is no more need for books to tell your story and glass boxes to preserve your legacy. The waiting is over. You are here.”

  Their milagros, the three of them, combined, burned into his body and into his soul, branding him and binding them together, for all eternity.

  No longer merely legend, but living within him. In them.

  A reliquary of the heart.

  Jesse saw a familiar face at the corner. Dr. Frey’s.

  “Take me around the block,” Jesse told the cabbie.

  He jumped out, paid his fare, and walked around the back side of the church, unnoticed by Frey and the small ragtag group of arm-scratching, hollow-eyed guys encircling him. These were definitely not colleagues. Especially the big bald guy accompanying Frey. It was definitely Sicarius. What would Frey be doing taking him for a walk? Nothing good, Jesse was sure.

  As for the others they were meeting, Jesse had never seen a psychiatrist sporting distressed leather and red high-top Chucks that he could remember. He did recall seeing a few rehab types wandering the hallways of Frey’s loony bin, lining up for the daily dose of morphine. How hard would it be for the good doctor to roll them over to the dark side for a few extra hits? Not very.

  “Crackheads,” he mumbled to himself.

  In fact, he might have put it down to a drug deal or even a robbery if Frey didn’t look so calm and in control. In command. The guys looked familiar to him. A local band, always looking for attention and always screwing up whenever they got it. It was almost like they just played music for the drugs. Took gigs to take the edge off the fact that they were waste products.