SINNERS AND SAINTS OF MONTE CUERVO

Annet Lucil …

25 years old … present day.

From the jagged crest of the northern ridge, Monte Cuervo always looked like a massive stone altar someone had set on fire and then simply walked away from.

If I stood long enough at the very edge of the highest peak right where the ancient, crumbling granite wall of the monastery yard gave way to a sheer, dizzying three hundred foot drop the city down in the basin didn't look like a place where human beings actually lived. It looked like a breathing, festering ulcer trapped between the sharp teeth of the mountains and the black, stagnant mirrors of the low lying lakes. In the early morning hours, long before the harsh alpine sun could burn through the heavy, suffocating veil of mountain mist, the basin below was nothing but a chaotic grid of trembling neon veins. There was a sulfur yellow glow bleeding from the brothels of the lower docks, a bruised, toxic violet radiating from the late night drug dens, and the occasional flashing crimson of an emergency vehicle that no one had actually called. Down there, the police didn’t bother to move unless someone paid for their petrol upfront.

It was a beautiful city, I suppose, if you were completely blind.

The natural topography of the ridge was breathtaking—all sharp stone arches, deep, pine choked ravines, and narrow gaps where the mountain water ran ice cold and crystal clear. But the second that water hit the basin, it turned a greasy, heavy grey, choked with industrial waste and the unwashed sins of eighty thousand desperate souls. It was a poor city, chronically starved for space, its architecture stacked high and tight like rotting, crowded teeth because the land greed down there was absolute. The wealthy barons, the politicians, and the gang heads owned the flat, profitable ground near the water; the church owned the steep slopes; and the dead belonged entirely to me.

I liked the dead. They never talked back, they never tried to negotiate.

My battered grey minivan gave a pathetic, metal on metal shudder as I finally turned it off the unpaved mountain road and onto the private gravel pass. The vehicle was a dented, miserable box that smelled permanently of rust, dried lavender, and stale incense. I hadn't used the headlights since I passed the abandoned toll house three miles down the ridge. Up here, you learned to rely on the pale, watery silver of a full June moon and the sheer, muscle deep memory of every single pothole along the pass. If I turned on the lights, the glare would bounce off the low hanging fog and blind me anyway. It was safer to drive by feel. The engine gave one last, wet, rattling wheeze before dying completely behind the high, iron gated walls of the monastery backyard.

It was long past lights out. The sanctuary was completely dark, its sharp stone spires cutting into the midnight sky like black fingers raised in a perpetual, silent mea culpa. The only real light in the yard came from a single, low wattage solar lamp I had staked near the greenhouse three summers ago—a weak, green tinged smudge of illumination that barely reached the edge of the grass, casting long, distorted shadows across the lawn.

I sat perfectly still for a slow, deliberate three second count, my fingers remaining loose and wrapped around the worn leather of the steering wheel. The skin was damp and hot beneath the heavy, restrictive layers of the habit. The black wool feels like a second skin to me by now, but on nights like this, when the mountain air is thick with humidity right before a summer storm, it feels less like a holy garment and more like a premature shroud. I listened to the steady, rhythmic sound of my own breath. The heart wasn't hammering. The hands weren't shaking. I was entirely unbothered by the fact that the trunk of the minivan was riding a full three inches lower than usual because of the immense deadweight shifting behind the seat.

I reached down, pulling the veil tighter around the hairline, pinning it securely to keep the loose, wild strands of my hair from falling into the eyes while I worked. Then, I unlatched the door.

The metal latch made a small, sharp click that was immediately swallowed by the loud wind rushing through the pines. I moved around to the back of the van with a slow, deliberate grace—the kind of patience you develop when you spend fourteen hours a day kneeling in the dirt, waiting for things to grow. When I popped the trunk, the smell hit me first. It wasn't the smell of rot yet; he was far too fresh for that. Instead, it was the heavy, chemical musk of cheap, overapplied cologne, expensive bourbon, and the distinct, sour trace of panic.

Don Mancini lay curled completely on his side like a giant, discarded leather jacket. The eyes were wide open, staring blankly at the rusted spare tire with an expression of dull, glassy surprise. It was the exact look a man gets when he realizes all his money and all his muscle can't buy him another breath of air.

I reached deep into the dark cavity of the trunk, my fingers finding the thick, stiff collar of his wool coat. I didn't hesitate. I didn't whisper a prayer for his passing soul, nor did I feel that frantic, electric spike of adrenaline that usually plagues amateur thieves or green soldiers. There was no fear here. There was only the work. I braced the boots against the damp gravel, leaned the weight backward, and pulled.

Mancini was a heavy man…bloated by decades of stolen wealth, fine meats, and the lazy, arrogant security of a man who honestly believed his family name alone could stop a bullet. But I was used to handling heavy things. Clay is heavy. Wet topsoil is heavy. The marble slabs I routinely have to shift when cleaning the older crypts are heavier still. I let the immense weight drop heavily against the shoulder, pacing my breath as I dragged him clear of the metal bumper. The polished leather dress shoes made a dull, dragging sound against the gravel until I managed to hoist him completely onto the old cobblestone walkway that skirted the back wall of the monastery.

I left him there for a moment, propped up against the cold stone like a drunkard sleeping off a long night at the docks, his chin tucked deeply into his chest.

Moving with practiced, quiet efficiency, I walked over to the small wooden garden shed nestled beneath the deep shadow of the bell tower. The lock is old, its iron gears oiled so perfectly that it didn't make a single sound as I slid the heavy bolt back. Inside, the darkness was absolute, but I didn't need a torch to find the way. I knew the handles of the tools by their grain, their weight, and the way the wood smoothed out where the palms rubbed against them. A hand automatically closed around the long ash wood shaft of the trench spade…the one with the narrow, pointed iron blade I specifically use for digging out deep taproots. I grabbed a small hand trowel, a pair of iron shears, and a linen sack of bone meal from the lower shelf before stepping back out into the moonlight.

When I walked back into the yard, I passed right by Mancini without looking down at him. He was a non entity now. A chore waiting to be finished. Right now, my eyes were only looking for the perfect spot.

I found it near the northern border of the graveyard, right where the old stone wall met the massive, sprawling roots of an ancient weeping willow. There, under the low, hanging canopy of branches, a fresh bed of orange marigolds had just reached full bloom. In the pale moonlight, the blossoms looked like small, dark clots of velvet against the black earth. They were beautiful. They had taken me nearly three months to cultivate from seed, meticulously balancing the pH of the soil with crushed limestone to ensure the color was rich enough to mimic a heavy sunrise.

"Forgive me, little ones," I whispered, the voice nothing more than a dry, quiet rustle against the grass.

I knelt down, the heavy black habit bunching tightly around the knees as I took the small hand trowel and began to carefully loosen the earth around the perimeter of the flowerbed. I didn't just rip them out; I lifted them in thick, healthy clusters, keeping the root balls entirely intact. The dark soil clung to the pale, hairy filaments like wet velvet. I set them aside gently on a plastic tarp, one by one, ensuring they would survive the harsh morning sun if I didn't finish the entire process before dawn.

Once the clearing was made, I stood up, braced myself, and took the long spade.

The earth on this peak is rich…richer than anywhere else in Monte Cuervo. For nearly two hundred years, this hill has been where the city sends its dead, and the soil has digested every single one of them, turning bone into calcium and flesh into rich nitrogen. Every time I drove the iron blade down into the dirt with the heel of the boot, I felt the satisfying, clean crunch of old roots and soft clay yielding to strength.

Crunch.

With every spadeful of earth I tossed onto the growing pile, the mind drifted lazily back to the courthouse steps hours ago.

I had been standing completely still in the deep shadow of the building’s pillars across the square, the hands tucked neatly into wide sleeves, the head bowed low as if I were in the middle of a deep, holy meditation. But I hadn't been praying. I had been watching the brass trimmed doors of the high court swing open. I had watched Don Mancini walk out into the bright afternoon sun, surrounded by three high priced lawyers whose tailored suits cost more than the entire annual budget of the monastery's orphanage. He had been laughing. A large, greasy, arrogant man with a thick gold chain nestled deep in his chest hair, waving aggressively to the news cameras after a judge whose son had just mysteriously received a fully paid scholarship to an overseas university declared that the state lacked the fundamental evidence to prosecute him for the systematic abuse and trafficking of twelve young girls from the lower basin.

I remembered the way the crowd had roared…some in pure, helpless anger, some in bought for celebration. I remembered the exact way Mancini had spat on the clean marble steps before climbing into his sleek black car. He thought he was a king. He thought he was untouchable.

Crunch.

The hole was eighteen inches deep now. The sweat was running in thick, cold beads down the center of the chest, soaking through the linen of the chemise and making the wool habit stick to the spine. I didn't stop to rest. I didn't feel tired. The anger inside wasn't hot; it wasn't the wild, screaming rage that makes a person's hands shake and their vision go blurry. It was cold, crystalline, and perfectly focused. It was the exact same clinical annoyance I feel when I find a parasite infesting the tomato vines—a dull, quiet recognition of something that exists solely to destroy what is good, something that needs to be cut out at the absolute root before it rots the entire garden.

By two in the morning, the trench was four feet deep and six feet long. In the limestone heavy soil of the peak, four feet was plenty. The decomposition would be swift; the high lime content would accelerate the breakdown of the soft tissue, and the willow roots would take care of the rest within eighteen months.

I dropped the shovel. The iron blade struck a hidden pebble with a sharp, metallic ping.

I walked back to the cobblestone path where Mancini’s body sat waiting. I took him under the armpits again, my fingers sinking into the expensive wool of his coat, and dragged the weight across the wet grass. He left a dark, flattened trail in the dew soaked clover. When I got him to the lip of the trench, I stood directly over him for a moment, the breath coming in short, steady plumes in the chilly night air.

Then, I began to strip him.

It’s a necessary part of the process, though it’s the part of the job I like least. Clothes don't rot; synthetic fibers stay in the dirt for decades, waiting for a careless spade to catch on them in the future. Jewelry was even worse…gold doesn't tarnish, and a single diamond ring could easily turn an anonymous skull into a full scale police investigation if the city's land greed ever brought bulldozers up the mountain.

I unbuttoned his heavy coat first, pulling the wool off his thick, unresisting shoulders. I unbuckled the leather belt, sliding it through the belt loops with a rhythmic, sharp zip zip. I pulled off his trousers, then the silk shirt, until he lay completely bare in the pale moonlight—a massive, pale lump of coarse hair and soft white fat that looked less like a criminal kingpin and more like a slaughtered hog waiting for the salt barrel.

I took his gold watch—a heavy, ticking Rolex that felt ridiculously loud in the absolute silence of the graveyard—and dropped it into a small plastic ziplock bag I pulled from the habit pocket. The thick gold chain with the diamond-encrusted crucifix followed it. The contrast made the lips twitch into a faint, bitter line. A crucifix on a beast. The hypocrisy of men down there never ceased to amaze me.

With the edge of my boot, I nudged him over the edge.

Mancini’s body hit the bottom of the trench with a heavy, wet, structural thud. He landed flat on his back, his face tilted slightly toward the open sky. I jumped down into the hole with him, the boots landing heavily on either side of his ribs. I knelt in the narrow, cramped space, the knees pressing into the cold, damp clay as I adjusted his limbs. I straightened his legs, folding his thick, hairy arms neatly across his chest in the traditional posture of the dead. I closed his mouth, forcing the heavy jaw up until the teeth clicked, then used two fingers to push his eyelids down one last time.

"Dust to dust," I murmured, the voice completely devoid of inflection. "And the weeds to the fire."

I climbed out of the grave and took up the spade again.

Covering him up was significantly faster than digging him out. I tossed the first three layers of soil directly over his face and torso, watching the black earth fill the hollows of his eyes and mouth until the pale skin was completely gone. I tamped the dirt down firmly with the flat of the blade every few inches, ensuring there would be no air pockets to cause the ground to sink as the abdomen naturally collapsed over the coming weeks.

When the trench was entirely full, a significant mound of displaced earth remained—the literal volume of a man's body translated into dirt. I didn't leave it. A mound in a flat bed of marigolds was an open invitation for questions. Taking two large terracotta pots and several shallow plastic pans from behind the willow tree, I carefully shoveled the excess topsoil into them until the ground above Mancini was perfectly level with the surrounding lawn. The extra soil would be perfect for the new cuttings in the greenhouse tomorrow; it was rich, full of nutrients, and it would make the ferns grow beautifully.

Once the surface was flat, I lowered my knees back down onto the plastic tarp. With steady, delicate movements, I replanted the marigolds, pressing the root balls back into the fresh earth, ensuring the leaves were turned toward the east so they would catch the first rays of the morning sun. Reaching into the apron pocket, I pulled out a small handful of fresh seeds and scattered them between the existing plants, smoothing the soil over them with a bare palm until the skin was stained black to the knuckles.

By the time I returned the tools to the shed and wiped down the ash wood handles with an oily rag, the sky in the east was beginning to turn the color of an old bruise—a pale, dirty violet that signaled the approach of five o'clock.

I had one last chore before mass. I carried Mancini’s clothes—the silk shirt, the expensive trousers, the wool coat—down into the damp basement of the monastery, where the old coal fired furnace sat like a rusted iron monster in the dark. I threw the bundles into the firebox, watching the silk flare white hot before turning to grey ash, the wool smoking thick and greasy before the draft drew the scent up through the chimney and out into the mountain wind where it would blend with the smell of woodsmoke from the valley.

The Rolex and the gold chain remained in the ziplock bag, tucked safely beneath the mattress. Tomorrow, or the day after, I would drive the van down to the deep side of the southern lake—the one where the old copper mine had flooded thirty years ago—and drop them into two hundred feet of black water.

I hurried up the stone stairs to my room, checking the small iron clock on the desk. 4:45 AM. Lights on was at five. Mass at six.

I stripped off the dirt caked habit, letting the heavy wool fall to the floor in a dark heap. My shoulder blades ached slightly from the repetitive lift of the spade, a dull pressure throbbing right over the dark ink etched into the skin. Reaching back, my fingers traced the familiar, raised lines on the back left shoulder. It was a stark, black tattoo—a tangled, skeletal willow tree with a cluster of heavy crows perched silently in the dead branches, while three more broke away, their wings spread wide as they flew up toward the neck. I had gotten it years ago, a permanent reminder of what happens to things that linger too long in the dark.

Grabbing the soap and a clean towel, I moved down the stone corridor to the shared bathroom with the silent, ghost-like gait I had perfected over years of living in a house with five other women. I turned the shower tap just enough to get a steady, lukewarm stream, avoiding the full pressure that would make the old copper pipes groan through the walls.

I washed with the rough, unscented soap, scrubbing my hands until the skin was raw and pink, ensuring not a single speck of Mancini’s grave remained beneath the fingernails. When I returned to the room, I sat down at the small wooden desk in front of the mirror, a towel wrapped around wet hair.

As I pulled the comb through the long, wet strands of my hair which as black and lustrous as a crow’s feather, falling past the shoulder blades when loose—my eyes in the glass stared ahead. My mind automatically recapped the previous night, replaying the sequence like a ledger being balanced. I had followed him for six hours. I had seen him leave the courthouse; I had tracked his car to The pub, where he had spent three hours drinking with two city councilmen who had voted to reduce the budget for the local orphanage the week before. I had followed him to the Blue Ridge Motel—a squalid, neon-lit hourly palace where he had gone to meet a girl who didn't look a day over sixteen, a girl whose eyes had been so dead with heroin that she barely noticed when Mancini pushed her into the room.

I had waited until he went down the hall to the public restroom to wash the grease from his face before his "celebration."

The bathroom had smelled of bleach and urine. The lock on the door had been broken for years. I had slipped in behind him, the soft-soled shoes making no sound on the wet linoleum. In the sleeve, I carried the silver glass syringe—three ounces of a concentrated tincture I had spent the winter distilling from the roots of Digitalis purpurea and the dried leaves of Common Tansy. A perfect, organic cocktail of cardiac glycosides.

I didn’t hesitate . I hadn't given him a chance to speak. I had come up behind him as he leaned over the sink, my left hand coming down over his mouth with a thick linen cloth soaked in clove oil to deaden the scream, while my right hand drove the heavy needle straight into the soft, unprotected side of his neck, right into the carotid artery.

He had thrashed once—a massive, clumsy convulsion that nearly threw the weight against the towel dispenser. But I braced the posture, holding him until the plunger was empty. Within ninety seconds, his heart had begun to flutter like a trapped bird. Within three minutes, it had stopped completely.

I held his weight as he collapsed, preventing the massive body from crashing into the partition walls and alerting the two bodyguards who were currently smoking cigarettes in the parking lot thirty feet away. Then, I dragged him out through the broken fire exit at the back of the hallway, straight into the blind spot where the grey minivan was idling.

Two hours of driving through the foggy, crime choked gut of Monte Cuervo. Two hours of listening to his dead weight slide against the metal floorboards during every sharp turn. And now, he was six feet beneath the marigolds.

A sharp, hesitant knock on the door broke the reverie.

"Sister Annet Lucil?"

The voice was thin, slightly shaky, like the sound of a dry leaf scraping across gravel. It was Mariel.

I didn't startle. I laid the comb down quietly on the desk. "Yes, Sister. I am here."

"The... the Mother Superior wishes to know if you will be joining us for the trek to the cathedral this morning. She says the mist is lifting early."

I checked the clock. 5:10 AM. "Tell her I am just putting on my veil, Mariel. I will be down in a minute."

"Yes... yes, Sister. I'll tell her." The sound of Mariel’s soft, uneven footsteps faded down the hall. Mariel was always like that—small, pale, her skin dotted with ginger freckles, her eyes wide and terrified of everything from the wind in the chimneys to her own shadow. She couldn't hold a conversation without stumbling over her vowels, yet she was the only one who always noticed if a meal was missed.

I stood up, pulling the dry, fresh layers of the habit over the head. The linen tunic went first—crisp, white, smelling of the sun-bleached lines in the yard. Then the black scapular, and finally the heavy wool veil, pinning it securely beneath the chin until only the sharp oval of the face remained visible.

When I stepped out into the main corridor, the quiet solemnity of the cells was instantly replaced by the low, echoing hum of female voices from the lower foyer.

Mother Samantha was standing at the foot of the stairs, her large, leather bound breviary tucked under one arm. At seventy two, the Mother Superior should have been frail, but she moved with the broad shouldered permanence of an old oak tree. Her face was a map of deep, sun carved wrinkles, her knuckles swollen with the late stage bone cancer that she refuses to take morphine for, claiming the fog ruins her agility. She was strict but flexible so when it came to the accounting books and the behavior of the girls in town—but she had a dry, wicked sense of humor that kept the coven from souring.

Beside her stood Sister Matilde. Matilde was forty five, but she looked sixty, her mouth permanently set in a thin, sour line as if she had just swallowed vinegar. She had spent years at the monastery, and she wore her self righteousness like an extra layer of armor. But beneath that armor was a heavier, darker weight. Matilde knew exactly what happened in the dark. She knew about the killings, and she hated every single second of it. She didn't support it, but her hands were tied because she was already an accomplice, dragged into the mud of past graves long ago.

Across the foyer, near the large arched windows that looked out over the eastern slopes, Nadia and Brenda were whispering to each other, their heads so close their veils brushed. Nadia was twenty six, a dark skinned girl from the southern valleys with a laugh that could be heard across the courtyard; Brenda was twenty four, small and intense, her fingers always stained with ink from the registry books. They thought they were being clever—believing the secret glances during the evening Psalms and the way their hands lingered when passing the bread basket went unnoticed.

I knew better. I had seen Brenda slip into Nadia’s cell during the thunderstorm three weeks ago. It didn't matter. In a city like Monte Cuervo, where love was usually something bought by the hour or taken by force, a little quiet tenderness between two lonely women was the closest thing to a miracle this hill had ever seen.

Mariel stood five feet away from them, her arms crossed over her chest, looking awkwardly at her own boots until she caught sight of me descending the stairs. Her pale face cleared, and she gave a small, fleeting smile that vanished the moment Matilde turned her head.

"I am ready," I announced, the voice carrying clearly through the stone hall.

Brenda and Nadia immediately broke away from each other, turning with sighs of relief.

"Ugh, thank God," Nadia muttered, falling into step as we moved toward the heavy front doors. "Mass is always such a dreadful bore when you aren't there to keep the altar boys from stealing the candle wax."

"And Father Thomas has been in a particularly foul mood this week," Brenda added, her voice dropping to a low, cautious hiss on the gravel path. "He has those nasty, chilling stares. The way he looks at us when we come up for the Eucharist... like he’s trying to figure out how much we weigh before he sends us to the market. It makes my skin crawl."

I let out a low, dry chuckle. "The Father merely has a lot on his mind, Brenda. The parish finances are... complicated."

The truth was obvious to everyone. The Cathedral of Monte Cuervo was a monument to hypocrisy—a massive, golden domed structure built with the protection money of the cartels and the donations of corrupt politicians who wanted their names carved into the stained glass windows. Father Thomas didn't look at us like nuns; he looked at us like a landlord looks at tenants who are three months behind on the rent. He had tried twice in the last four years to have the monastery's graveyard land condemned by the city council so he could sell the peak to a luxury resort developer from the capital. The only thing stopping him was the thick leather ledger Mother Samantha kept in her private safe—a ledger detailing years of "discretionary fund" transfers from the parish accounts into Thomas’s personal offshore holdings.

"Watch your mouths, both of you," Matilde snapped from behind us, her heavy leather boots crunching sharply on the stones. "No matter how flawed the servant is, the cathedral is still the house of God. You will treat the sanctuary with the respect your vows demand."

God isn't in that building, the thought came easily as I tracked the long, grey ribbon of the pavement winding down the mountain slope. God is currently under my marigolds, helping the roots take hold.

"And you, Sister Annet," Matilde added, her stride quickening until she was walking shoulder to shoulder with me. Her sharp, dark eyes bored into the side of my face, cold, hard, and deeply resentful. "You look pale this morning. Your skin has that grey cast it gets when you spend too much time in the greenhouse after dark. You should be careful with your... late night endeavors. The mountain air can be very unwholesome before the dawn."

She was looking directly into my eyes, her jaw tight, waiting for a confirmation of the horror she knew I had committed. She hated carrying the secrets, but she had no choice.

I didn't flinch. Turning the head slowly, I met her bitter stare with a serene, empty sweetness, accompanied by a knowing smile.

"The weeds don't sleep for the sun, Sister Matilde," I said softly. "If one doesn't attend to them in the dark, they take over the whole garden by noon."

Matilde’s mouth twitched, her eyes dropping to my hands. She looked away with a low grunt, falling back to join Mariel at the rear of the procession.

The morning light was breaking fully now, burning through the heavy grey fog that clung to the ravines. As the western wall of the monastery cleared, the massive expanse of the graveyard came into view. From this angle, the garden looked like a brilliant, emerald scar across the grey teeth of the old tombstones. The marigolds I had planted three hours ago were standing straight, their orange heads catching the first rays of the sun like small torches. A sense of satisfaction brought a faint curve to my lips.

"It looks remarkably beautiful this morning, Annet," Mother Samantha said, her voice low as she slowed her pace to let the others pass.

Staying beside her, my hands remained tucked neatly into the wide folds of the black sleeves. "Thank you, Sam. The soil has been very receptive this season."

The other four sisters had gone on ahead, their black habits billowing behind them like the wings of crows as they began the steep descent down The Sinner's Climb, the narrow stone path connecting the peak to the parish church below.

Mother Samantha stopped at the turn of the path, her old, rheumy eyes scanning the neat rows of flowers. Her gaze lingered for a long, quiet moment on the northern corner beneath the willow tree, right where the marigolds were brightest. Her face didn't change, but her fingers tightened slightly around the leather spine of her breviary.

"At least something beautiful will come out of all that ugliness," the old woman whispered into the wind.

I kept my eyes fixed on the distant horizon, where the smoky sprawl of Monte Cuervo was beginning to wake up to another day of violence and heat.

"That’s the most beautiful thing about flowers, Sam," I replied, the tone conversational, almost light. "No matter how corrupt the soil is... no matter what kind of filth is buried beneath them... they always bloom into their best self. They don't care about the sin. They only care about the thriving."

Mother Samantha gave a short, dry bark of a laugh that turned into a wet, rattling cough. She wiped her mouth with a grey linen handkerchief, her eyes watering from the pain in her chest, but when she looked back at me, her expression was dead serious.

"The priest has been talking to those real estate thugs again, child," Sam said, her voice dropping into a register that belonged to a general warning a scout. "Two of those low basin gangsters were hanging around the parish gate yesterday after Vespers. You need to be careful. Tread lightly."

My smile didn't fade. "The basin is full of thieves, Sam. Only a thief like father thomas would dream to sell a grave yard."

"Just remember," the old woman said, her hand reaching out to press my forearm through the heavy wool of the sleeve. "The church has many eyes, and the city has many teeth. If you dig too many holes, eventually the ground becomes unstable."

"The ground is perfectly solid, Mother," I said softly. "It's always tamped down."

We walked in silence for the remaining mile, the path winding down through the pine groves until the grey stone walls of the Cathedral of Monte Cuervo rose like a fortress of limestone and gold leaf. The building sat on a wide, artificial terrace halfway down the mountain, its massive double doors carved from black walnut and bound in brass.

Standing on the marble steps, his white surplice gleaming spotlessly in the morning sun, Father Thomas was welcoming the congregation.

He was a tall man, large framed but soft around the middle from a life spent behind a desk and in front of a well stocked pantry. His hair was slicked back, and his fingers—long, white, and hairless—were heavy with silver rings accepted as 'gifts of devotion' from local tavern owners. As the group approached, he smiled—a wide, professional stretching of the skin that didn't reach his small, black eyes.

He looked at Nadia first, his gaze lingering on the curve of her hip beneath her habit, then his eyes slid to Brenda, then to Mariel, before finally settling on me.

Inside my chest, the calm, mechanical stillness of the night vanished, replaced instantly by a dark, heavy heat. It wasn't fear. It was the feral, electric pulse of a predator spotting a particularly large, particularly toxic weed growing right in the middle of the sanctuary. A deep mixture of disgust and feral anger turned my insides over. Looking at his white collar, looking at the soft, unprotected skin of his throat right above the lace, the heavy ash wood handle of the spade felt practically present in my palm.

One of these days, the thought formed silently, my fingers curling into tight, hard fists inside the sleeves while I bowed my head in a perfect, flawless show of reverence. One of these days, Father, you are going to find yourself being fertilizer for my garden.

"Good morning, Sisters," Thomas called out, his voice smooth and oily as grease on a skillet. "Welcome to the house of the Lord."

Looking up, the black hair shifted slightly under the heavy frame of the veil as my gaze locked onto his. "Good morning, Father," I said, and followed my sisters into the dark.