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CHAPTER FIFTEEN

JOE’S MANY AND HARRIED THOUGHTS ABOUT THAT SKULL

“ S he’s not a witch, she’s a vengeful spirit!” Joe railed, pacing back and forth across what would have been a surprisingly grand room had he stopped to consider it. “Four hundred years— Did you hear that? Four hundred years trapped in that skull!”

Percy stretched out a little longer on the gigantic mahogany four-poster bed. “If Cleo’s killed as many girls as Althea suggests, then it shouldn’t be too hard to find a replacement skull over there. It’s awfully white though, isn’t it? We might have to go back into Lerwick to get some peroxide to bleach one.”

Joe didn’t relent his furious striding beneath the low carved-wood ceiling. “Their families are bound to want their skulls back if we find their bodies.”

“A graveyard, then?”

“Yes!” Joe spun around with a finger waggling at Percy. “That’s exactly what we need. Someone dead for long enough that no one will be personally upset about us digging them up—if they find out—but fresh enough that we won’t damage the skull too badly when we boil it.”

“I know the perfect one. It’s about two hundred years old, and has been out of use for the last sixty. We should be able to find some shovels somewhere around the place. We’ll dig up a head tomorrow night.”

“That’s perfect.” Joe came to a satisfied halt in front of the small, cosy, twisting-iron fireplace, decorated with maroon glazed tiles, the flames snapping and cracking heartily in front of him, and finally he noticed it. And he noticed the deep red wallpaper, the thick carpet beneath his feet, the dark red drapes, and the gorgeously polished wood that comprised the ceiling and walls. He saw the adorable window seat, the cute casement windows, the sheep grazing on the grass outside, and the fields beyond dotted with more sheep, and nothing else but that church on the hill. And he noticed, when he eventually turned around, Percy, lying on one arm, his coat and shoes discarded, waiting for him.

“Do you like it, darling?”

Embarrassment, but the nice kind that comes with being very well loved, swept over Joe. His cheeks were pink again, and he took refuge in Percy’s arms, climbing up onto the bed in front of him, resting his head in the nook of Percy’s shoulder. “Sorry. I got carried away.”

Percy dropped a kiss on his cheek with an indulgent smile. “Catholic guilt playing up again?”

“No!” Joe immediately snapped, but then, seeing Percy was only half joking, admitted, “Yes. A bit. But the Protestants were just as bad, obviously.”

“They certainly were,” Percy said in an attempt to mollify Joe, doing the quick mathematical calculations in his head at the same time, and coming up with only more and more dead on either side.

“And it was a long time ago,” Joe meandered.

“It was,” Percy soothed.

“But…” Joe leaned on his arm, a mirror to Percy, who kept the same kind and patient expression. “I know you think it’s weird that I’m a priest.”

The same kind and patient expression.

“You can say it.”

“I hardly need to, since you just said it.”

Joe chuckled, softening enough to open up a little more. “I know there are a lot of assholes in the Church. A lot of them. But it’s… It can be a very powerful position to be in, you know?” He fiddled distractedly with Percy’s shirt buttons. “You’re in these towns, and within a day of arrival, everyone sees you as the voice of reason. Everywhere you go, you have the ability to fit in. They see the outfit, and whether it’s good or bad, it sends a message. And that’s…” He raised his eyes to meet Percy’s. “That’s a kind of magic. That’s gotten my foot in so many doors through the years. Places I could never have made a difference if I didn’t do this. Have you ever seen a severely traumatised autistic kid being exorcised?”

“No,” Percy replied. “And I can’t say I’m sorry to have missed it.”

“I can stop it,” said Joe. “I walk in, I say one word, and the whole thing stops on my direction. There’s no way I could do that without the collar. And it works the other way around equally well. I can get to a possessed kid before he ever gets the chance to murder his family. Whatever issues people have with the Church, they trust us to deal with demons, and they always come straight to us first. Even atheists do.”

Percy’s silence worked effectively as the kind designed to draw people out, like therapists use. The sort that makes a person feel safe but also vulnerable enough to feel the need to keep talking. It wasn’t deliberately that kind, though. Percy didn’t believe in God, but if he did, he hated him. Those were always and resolutely the only two options for him to relate to a Christian faith. Joe knew that. He sensed it as much as he remembered Percy stating it, and that meant this conversation was routinely off the table. Until now. So Percy simply kept his mouth shut lest he plug the flow of Joe’s words.

Sensing the opportunity, Joe rushed out a long, winding, and slightly guarded explanation of his concerns. “But for all that, there’s a weight that comes with the cloth. I know it well because… Well, you know I’ve associated with terrible people in this organisation. Awful, awful people. But those people, they need to be taken down from the inside, one way or another. And the people who are good, the decent, kind people who are just trying to make a difference using this… framework the Church has provided… they’re doing their best. Like me. The sheath, for example—I really think we did the right thing by stealing it, but if I wasn’t in the Church, we never could have done it. But then if the Church wasn’t sometimes evil we wouldn’t have needed to steal it… But then it keeps it out of the hands of someone like Cleo… But, then, other times…” He gave a long sigh, and got to the meat of the matter. “There are things like Molly. Molly, and how many other women did they burn? Men too, but mostly women. It makes me sick to even think about it. And I know I’m part of that. Even if Protestants did it here, I know the Church did it elsewhere, and that history becomes my history. And it makes me absolutely sick.”

It was on Percy’s lips to ask Joe to leave the Church. To keep doing crimes, and the pair would split all their ill-gotten gains straight down the middle. Because, after all, they hadn’t yet discussed what life would look like when they got home. When Joe would be expected to shove stupid wafers down people’s throats and spew bullshit at them from his pulpit every weekend. When Percy would still, likely, be jetting off to steal things, traffic things, give the occasional lecture at an elite university. When they would no longer be joined at the hip, inseparable, and so perfectly happy together.

But Joe’s admissions quietened him. There was purpose and meaning in the life, for Joe, that Percy had never quite realised the extent of before. As far as he was concerned, Joe could have done just as much good and more by letting the blood of his enemies then profiting from their fall… But Joe’s way was gentler. Subtler. Possibly smarter. For certain things. And to Joe, it was the right thing. Which made it harder for Percy to say what he wanted to say, though it didn’t do a thing to drown out the idea. “You could just steal the outfit.”

Joe’s laugh warmed Percy’s chest from the inside out. “You’re as ridiculous as you are beautiful.”

“I’m not that ridiculous,” Percy protested.

“No.” The tip of Joe’s finger, feather-light, touched the pronounced dip of Percy’s upper lip, and slid down, parting his mouth, slowly, compellingly. “No one’s that ridiculous.”

Percy caught Joe by the wrist, kissing his knuckles one by one, staring deep into his eyes. “Leave the Church.”

“No.” The smile remained in Joe’s gaze, in perfect synergy with the one on his lips, but both had a touch of melancholy about them now.

“Then listen to me.” Percy placed a final kiss on Joe’s fingers, then pressed those fingers against his own heart. “You’re the best man on earth. I haven’t doubted that for a second since the day I met you. You’re not responsible for, or tarnished by, anything they’ve done. We all have an inheritance from parents and past lives, and it’s rarely golden for any of us. The main thing is that you’re going to make it right. You’re going to continue to make it right. And I’ll help you.”

Joe’s heart swelled with his words. “You didn’t think twice, did you? About stealing that skull.”

“What is there to think about?”

Joe shifted forward, his hips against Percy’s, and kissed his beautiful fiancé. “Don’t buy a pub over it.”

Percy pulled back with a good-humoured frown. “I think I’d like to own a pub. We haven’t discussed retirement yet.”

“I am not retiring to Twatt.”

“Why not?” Percy brushed a curl of Joe’s thick hazelnut hair back from his too-beautiful brown eyes, a single strand threading itself through his long black lashes, allowing him a moment longer to linger on the gorgeous vision as he righted it. “You and me and the sheep? I’ll cook and you’ll be the bar wench.”

Joe chuckled. “I can see it now. You half naked out the back, swearing at your pots and pans, a cigarette hanging out of your mouth the whole time.” Joe kissed him again. “Come to think of it, for all I’ve heard about your cooking prowess, I’m yet to see any evidence of it.”

“You will. When the pub closes tonight, come downstairs, and I’ll take over the kitchen. I’ll make you something you’ll never forget.”

Joe groaned softly, seeing the excitement on Percy’s face, but starving after several whiskies and ales and nothing to eat since Lerwick. “I don’t know how I’m going to wait that long.”

“I’ll find a way to keep you busy.” Percy’s thumb and forefinger were already working Joe’s belt loose from its clasp. “But it will almost definitely involve me half naked, and a whole lot of swearing…”