Raphael (Deadly Virtues #1)(7)

One just like himself. But where Father Murray had succumbed to the exorcisms Father Quinn had performed on him for five years, giving his soul over to serving God instead of the devil, Raphael was resisting.

The evil in this boy was strong.

But he was no match for Father Murray. He would prove to Father Quinn that he was worthy of the Brethren pledge, the brotherhood he had been welcomed into. He would break this boy and the evil that lived within him.

Raphael glared at him, refusal in his strange golden stare. Time on the rack had made his body weak, stretched until he couldn’t take a second longer. Yet Raphael still stood before Father Murray, shoulders slouched in pain and exhaustion . . . but not defeated.

Drawing the baton from the deep pocket of his robes, Father Murray lashed out and rapped Raphael on the back of his knees. The boy’s legs gave out and he crashed to the floor, palms smacking flat on the stone. Raphael tried to scramble to his feet, refusing to submit, but Father Murray wrapped his hand around the boy’s throat, incapacitating him where he kneeled. The priest was aware of the crime that had brought this boy to Purgatory. It had been frighteningly similar to his own.

Raphael stilled, breathing deeply—a rabbit caught in a hunter’s snare. His body relaxed further the harder the priest squeezed, and Father Murray noted the quick release of breath from his parted lips and the enlarging of his pupils.

He liked this. Raphael liked to be strangled.

Father Murray regarded Raphael. He freed himself from his pants and edged closer to the boy. “I will cleanse you, heathen. I will cleanse your blackened soul.”

When the memory cleared, Father Murray cursed; the seats where Raphael and his whore had been sitting were empty. He raced to the bar. “Where did they go? The couple who were here,” Father Murray demanded of the bartender.

The bartender was drying a glass with a white towel but paused to say, “You know the rules. No information is given on members. If you can’t abide by the laws of the club, leave.”

Father Murray wanted nothing more than to snap the sinner’s neck for his insolence, but he refrained. His job was to blend in with the crowd, to be indistinguishable among the clientele.

But that man had been Raphael. After all these years, he had spotted a Fallen. They were still in the Boston area. Must have been.

He had to tell Father Quinn. Father Murray scoured the club, needing another glimpse of the boy he had long ago failed to exorcise. Raphael had been the only evil spirit he had never succeeded in breaking. Father Murray didn’t fail. And he had always had a certain penchant for Raphael. They were too alike for him to forget the pretty boy with the golden stare.

Kindred spirits. But one of them was pure, made with light, and one of them made with the blood of hell.

Father Murray saw a door shutting to the far right, a man in black leading a woman inside. The woman who had been sitting at the bar, enraptured by Raphael’s affection. Father Murray was about to follow when the man who had been Father Murray’s next chosen victim came to the bar beside him. “Have you seen Suzy, Ben? She went to the bathroom and hasn’t come back.”

Father Murray’s ears pricked up at the question.

“Sorry. I haven’t seen her.”

“I’ll keep looking. She may have found another partner for us to play with.” The heathen smiled and disappeared into the crowd.

He had to go. Father Murray couldn’t stay if a victim was being noted as absent. His brain told him to leave, but everything else in him needed him to stay. To find the man with the golden eyes and bring him back into the Brethren’s care.

“You want a drink?”

Father Murray looked at the bartender, who was waiting for him to make an order. He didn’t answer. Instead he rushed out of the front doors and through the liquor store that hid the depraved pit of evil beyond its storage room. The frigid Boston winter slapped him around the face. But it was no competition to the raging inferno that was consuming his flesh from within. The satisfaction of finding one of the worst sinners to ever darken the doors of Purgatory.

The Brethren’s only failure in over four hundred years.

Well, one of seven.

Father Murray jumped into his van and pulled out onto the downtown streets. The sun was beginning to rise. Another day of the Lord. The sound of a body rolling around the cabin filled the van, but the priest paid it no mind. He would dispose of the body, find Father Quinn, and tell him what he had discovered.

It was time to act.

It was time to complete the exorcism that had begun so many years ago.

An hour later, Father Murray pulled into the crematorium outside of the city. He drove the van into the underground parking lot and jumped out. The undertaker came to the back of the van and wordlessly took the body from the cabin and carried her off to the incinerator.

When the undertaker came back, Father Murray smiled as he noticed the rosary he wore, a crucifix with a “B” embossed on the center of Jesus’s chest. The wider church had no idea what greatness walked among them. Knights of Jesus, Warriors of the Lord, keeping the faith safe by eradicating evil they could only imagine in their worst nightmares. And it wasn’t just priests who were part of the Brethren and their mission, but men in both high and low places.

The Pope and the Catholic Church were oblivious to who lived under their banner. It had been that way for over a century. And as the years passed, the Brethren only grew in strength.