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Twenty-Six

Aidan

I hate that I scare Maddie. I thought that even though it’s still early in our arrangement that I was starting to build trust with her. But me being gone so long and then coming back so erratic seems to have reset the clock on trust-building and intimacy.

I wave off Vinny’s offer to drive me and get in a black SUV. I neither need nor want anybody with me right now. Once I get in and close the door, I slam my hands on the steering wheel.

“Fuck!”

Why does everything feel like it’s falling apart?

It’s all slowly unraveling along with my sanity.

I tried to do the ritual like I wasn’t fucking it all up.

I lied to myself the whole way home tonight that I would complete the ritual and everything would be fine.

It would go back to normal. The order of it all would return and… I. Would. Be. Fine.

But I am not fine.

It was always… one kill, one disposal, the secret underground level, the incinerator, the shower, a red X through the photo, a line through the name, put away the weapons, fresh clothes, confession. In that order. Always.

But days passed. It was one kill and disposal, two, three…

By the time we got to the fourth one Brian could tell something was very wrong with me.

But I shrugged it off and said I was worried about leaving Maddie for so long and what she could be getting up to in my absence.

Brian seemed to accept my explanation, but I’m not sure he really did.

So when I finally did get home, I didn’t know how to salvage the ritual. It felt broken, cobbled together, wrong somehow.

Everything inside me felt like it was vibrating and buzzing.

This was worse than Van Alen’s brains on the wall.

I did my best, but everything felt like “not enough” somehow, and the catharsis I usually feel when marking out a name on my list was dampened even though I got to mark off four names this time.

It should feel good, satisfying, but it’s just… wrong.

If only I could have kept my ritual exactly the same…

I know it would have felt different, better…

somehow. Complete. Satisfying. Practically orgasmic.

I just want to get back to the afterglow of the kill.

The peace. The sense that everything is going to be okay.

Why didn’t I just go to confession while we were out there? But I know why. Brian would have known.

I should have gone straight to confession as soon as I got back to reset everything, but I really needed to see Maddie, and now I just hope I can somehow get everything back on track.

I drive into the city, several miles past Our Lady of Hope.

I’ve already decided with Father Rossi gone I can no longer make my confessions there.

Instead I go to The Sacred Heart of Divine Mercy.

It’s a bit less traditional—at least the architecture is—but still serves a primarily Italian community so at least it feels like home in that way.

I could never go to a church that looks more like a modern art museum than a cathedral for Mass.

I need to attend a place that looks otherworldly… a place big enough to contain all that I am. I just don’t think Sacred Heart has enough mystery for me, but hopefully it will do for confession.

Fingers crossed.

I’m reassured that the inside looks far more traditional, with stained glass and old carved dark wood pews.

The scent of faded incense fills the room as though it cloaks the place in magic, making it both in this world but not in it at the same time.

There are several tealight candles lit in red votives at the front where people have lit candles to represent petitions or just for family members or general devotion.

No one but the petitioner and God knows what the candle is for.

There are statues of saints and the Mother Mary around the altar, and a giant crucifix behind everything in a place of central focus. I genuflect and make the sign of the cross then go into the confessional booth.

The priest hearing confessions tonight is Father Moretti. He’s in his late sixties and clearly of Italian ancestry. This should do.

“Forgive me father for I have sinned. It’s been about a week since my last confession.”

“You may begin when you’re ready.”

And suddenly words fail me. I’m so used to doing this with Father Rossi, That’s one of the problems with killing my confessor.

I was comfortable with Rossi and his understanding about the life I live.

Despite how much I hated him for what he did to my mother and the fact that I was thinking about the day I would murder him from the moment I knew he’d been a part of it, at least he understood my devotion is no less just because I’m killing people.

I do take other sins seriously. Like, I would never harm Maddie.

I would never be unfaithful. But the killing is different.

Part of it is just business and part of it is for my mother, but the Church doesn’t see it that way.

And I can’t be an active practicing Catholic without confession for these deeds.

“I did… a less than ideal thing… a bad thing. Several of them in fact,” I say. I can practically hear the priest’s eyebrows raise.

“Could you perhaps be a bit more specific?”

“I’d really rather not.” Brian thinks it’s insane to incriminate myself to a priest. He doesn’t understand the seal of confession or trust it.

As if to echo my thoughts, the priest says, “The seal of confession is higher than any law, no matter what the sin is. I am bound by my oath to the Church not to reveal anything said in the confessional booth. Even the most heinous of crimes.”

I clear my throat. “It was a violent thing.”

“Did someone get hurt?”

“Oh yes.” And I think I might sound just a bit too gleeful when I say this, if the priest’s sharp intake of breath is anything to go by.

“And do you regret this thing you did?”

“Not even a little,” I say. I know I should lie but lying to a priest won’t exactly help me reach the goal of absolution.

“I can’t offer absolution if you aren’t sorry.”

“That’s not how it worked with Father Rossi.”

The priest goes still. By now word has probably spread about Father Rossi’s mysterious disappearance. Does this guy suspect I’m confessing to Rossi’s murder? He wouldn’t be completely wrong. But Rossi is only a small fraction of the whole.

“Why are you at confession if you don’t feel guilt?”

“I’m Catholic ,” I say as if this needs explaining. “I can’t partake of the body and blood with mortal sins on my soul.”

“But you don’t see them as sins in your heart, do you?”

“Fuck no, I don’t. Excuse me, Father.”

“It’s quite all right. I’ve heard worse.”

I take a deep breath. “No, I don’t see what I did as wrong, but it doesn’t matter what I think. They’re officially mortal sins. Look, I understand that there are rules and ways things are done. But if you knew what they did to her, you would have handed me the knife and cheered me on.”

By this point, I think the priest is beginning to understand that we’re talking about killing with multiple victims, though the men I’ve killed are not by anyone’s definition… victims.

“I… I don’t think I would…” he stammers.

“Do you have a soul?” I ask.

“I… yes of course…”

“Then you would. I’m not sorry. End of discussion.”

“The bible tells us that vengeance belongs to the Lord.”

“That’s fine, but he needs a weapon, and that’s me.”

I worry for a second the priest might pass out from this level of sacrilege. But he’s more steady and tough than I expect.

“Is there anything you’ve done that you consider truly wrong?” he asks gently, and I’m not sure if his tone is because he thinks I’m dangerous and unstable or if he’s genuinely trying to empathize with me.

“I try not to do anything I find truly wrong. I take my faith seriously, but I just can’t agree to some of its tenants.

Like, I don’t love my enemies, especially when they hurt people I love.

Love is not so cheap that it should be handed around to every random stranger on the street.

And I would never turn the other cheek. It’s just not in me. But I don’t harm the innocent.”

He sighs. “That’s something to build on, I suppose.”

There is a long pause and the priest finally says, “Jesus tells us to follow his example to love everyone.”

“I think we’ve pretty strongly established by this point that I’m not Jesus. Are you going to offer me penance and absolution?”

Another hesitant pause.

“I’m really not supposed to if you aren’t sorry.”

“So you think most Catholic members of crime families are sorry when they confess, even though they go right back to it the next day? You think it’s just a slip of the wrist when they kill?

You know it’s not. It’s business. That’s how they see it.

They’re there for the formality. Most of them aren’t even devout. ”

“And are you… devout?”

“I’m devoted.”

He sighs. “Ten Hail Marys, and I want you to donate ten percent of your income to a women’s shelter for the next six months. If you can’t be truly penitent for what you did, you can at least find a more acceptable form of helping .”

I agree to these terms and he says the prayer of absolution.

Just before I leave the booth he says, “Do you think you’ll be back here again?”

I’m not sure if he’s asking if I’m planning to make him my regular confessor or if he’s asking if I’m intending to do a lot more things that require my confession.

“Until I decide Catholicism isn’t for me, yes.”

I leave the booth and approach the table with all the candles.

The tealights are all beeswax. It’s more expensive, but it reflects the affluent nature of this parish as well as my own.

Beeswax candles are more pure and more appropriate for these holy matters than cheap paraffin.

I strike one of the long matches and realize they’re Frankincense and Myrrh incense matches.

Nice touch. I light the candle and say a prayer for my mother.

By the time I get home, Maddie is already in bed. I strip down and get under the blankets with her, pulling her body against me. She stirs beside me, and I trail kisses along her neck, down to her shoulder. She came to bed naked. And she came to my bed.

I half-expected her to be in her own room despite my rules, and that I’d have to wake her up to move her in here.

She makes a small contented sound and snuggles into me.

I’m not sure if she’s awake enough to know what she’s doing and to know who she’s cuddling up with.

I could wake her and finally consummate this, but I’m not sure she’s truly ready yet…

besides… she hasn’t begged me, and I believe those were my terms.

I move her hair out of my way and press a kiss to her shoulder. I pull her against me and fall into an easy, untroubled sleep for the first time this week.