Demon Blood

five-year-old Vin to her door, wounded by the loss of his mother, then the “care” of one of his mother’s boyfriends in whose home he’d landed, Rosalia had been unable to forgive anyone—priest or otherwise—who abused a child in such a way.
    “Who?”
    He turned from the sink, wiping his hands on a towel. He regarded her gravely. “If you find out, Rosa, I will accept that it was God’s will for you to know.”
    Because he knew she would find out, and put the fear of God into the man. She did not know what to think of Father Wojcinski’s easy acceptance, however. Always before, he had urged her to reconsider her role in the lives of mankind before using her abilities against them.
    And despite his acceptance, she felt no easing of the emotional turmoil within him. “Is this all that has kept you awake so late? Was this man a friend?”
    “I have never met him.” With a sigh, he sat again at the table. “The first time I heard such an accusation, I thought it could not be true. I believed that a mistake had been made, that a simple rumor had gained teeth, and he would be found innocent of the charges. I believed in his innocence until I could believe it no longer.”
    “You heard the evidence against him?” When he nodded, she said, “I have seen too many men and women condemned by mere rumor to fault you for that belief.”
    “Yes, Rosa. But this time . . . my first thought was not of his innocence. I assumed his guilt, instead. I felt resigned to it.” Removing his glasses, he rubbed his hand over his eyes. “All men are capable of sin, but only a few are capable of doing that to a child. Yet my first response is condemnation.”
    Ah. “So the depth of your cynicism has shaken you.”
    “Perhaps given me a good rattle.”
    His weary smile aged him, and a feeling akin to panic suddenly roiled through her belly. How long before she lost yet another friend? Fifteen years?
    No time at all.
    He slipped on his glasses again with another sigh. “But that is my burden, Rosa. I should not lay it on you.”
    A burden she recognized, from centuries of conversations in this room. She pulled her thoughts together and expelled the fear. “Nonsense. You haven’t been the only one to bear it—though you held out against it far longer than the others.”
    Now his smile lightened his face. “How many before me?”
    “All but three.”
    “And what comfort did you offer my predecessors?”
    “To be glad they are not burdened as I am with eternal optimism, because disappointment often follows it. At least a cynic is happily surprised now and then.”
    “Yet you still possess that optimism.”
    “And I remain eternally hopeful that I will lose it.”
    He laughed quietly. Rosalia sipped at her coffee, smiling, and a comfortable silence fell between them.
    After a moment, he leaned back in his chair. “Now, tell me why you are here.”
    Deacon . She looked through the window, out into the dark. “I’ve developed a plan to slay many demons.”
    “It is a dangerous path?”
    “Yes. But fear is not why I . . .” She couldn’t bear her reflection in the glass. She faced him. “I’ve forced a good man onto that path with me. I can’t win without his help. But he hasn’t offered it. I’m using him.”
    “So you are no better than the demons.”
    Precise in eating and in words. These sliced like a razor into her heart. “I like to think that I have better intentions—”
    “I imagine you do like to think that.” His solemn gaze didn’t waver. “But if the suffering of even one good man is needed to gain victory, it is not a true victory.”
    She knew that. She knew that.
    Tears burned her eyes. Though she wanted to turn and run into the shadows, this was why she had come to him. He would open her up and expose her, so that she could see herself.
    It formed a grotesque picture.
    His face softened as he studied her. “And I suspect, Rosa, that it is not just the suffering of one man, but a woman, as well.”
    Now he was kind, and that hurt almost as much. Her breath shuddered. “It is only that since I have come back, I feel as if every purpose I’ve had was stripped away.” And though she’d been missing for over a year, it had been but a moment to her. A moment in which everything had changed. “Lorenzo is gone. Svetlana and Christina and Giacomo—everyone at the abbey—they are all gone. Vin has returned but is almost unreachable. And the Church has . . . I am nothing to them. Only