Heaven (new version)

chapter 10: alone

Father Cal thought about the time he once saw a pair of doves fight. The birds had been pecking at each other making their once-white feathers scarlet. Blood stained their wings like stigmata and dripped down their crowns. When one succumbed to its wounds, the other began to coo and circle it as though it had accomplished some grand victory.

The house was silent. As silent as that questionable moment before a lie is uttered. Turning on the bathroom light, Cal saw himself in the mirror. He looked the way he had for the past fifty years. Only little changes were obvious; a couple of strands of gray hair by his temples, a few thin wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. But no one would ever be able to guess his real age. Caleb Hill was not content living a lie – that he was far from mortal – but it was all he could do.

 Very few people had ever known anything about his kind – the Kadisin, the bastard angels banished to Earth by a God who had turned His back on them when they betrayed Him by falling in love with the humans they were merely to observe. Punished not only by being cast away, but the Kadisin also possessed a constant hunger for blood. And the only creatures that could truly satisfy their hunger were the mortals they so dearly loved and the demons they had been told to hate. Every Kadisin became a blood-drinker; a vampiric angel who had their wings torn off and were given a full century of suffering.

Caleb reached for the faucet and turned the shower on. Smoke plumed from the cubicle. Heat extended towards him. As he removed his clothes, the mirror caught twin sword tattoos decorating both of his inner arms. Just below his belly button, in a spot no one had seen in decades, a nearly finished tattoo of a vine of thorns was inked from hip bone to hip bone. 

Caleb ran a palm over his stomach as he looked down. All of his inkings had been done long ago, in a time when he hovered between being a killer and being a priest, and they brought back memories he did not want to remember. 

When he turned to enter the shower, two large scars on Cal's shoulder blades screamed at the peeking mirror. They were red and angry and were there to remind every Kadisin of their shame.

When Father Caleb reached up to touch the scars, he cried out and paused under the steamy stream of water. "Has my faith never been enough?" Tilting his head up to the water, he choked back a sob. "You welcome all into Your church yet cast every Kadisin away from Your Heaven." The water ran down Cal's skin. It slithered down the black-inked tattoos and over the angry red wounds. "Tomorrow, we will sing in Your glory," he murmured, "has that ever been enough?" Shaking his head, he replied, "No. The door of Your church is as far in as I am welcomed."

Through the semi-opened bathroom door, the steam from the shower escaped and floated phantom-like into the hall. Tendrils of warmth lingered for a moment, then most of them quickly died. Outside the house, a breeze tapped at the window. It blew along a patch of fallen leaves then rolled up and coiled around the pane. When the wind touched a sliver of heat, it hushed down and went to sleep alone.

Purgatory roared with life. Saturday night brought in all the hardcore sinners – those with an insatiable itch, deep pockets, and a desperate urge to forget their life outside the club. Saturday had once been Sina's night, but ever since that bitch with the beautiful mermaid hair had started stripping there, Sina found himself working weekdays when the clientele was scarce and the tips were even more scarce.

Weaving through drunk patrons, Sina made his way to the bar and found a spot at the end of the counter.

"Sinful!" Spotting him, Cody rushed over and grabbed him by his wrist. "I need your assistance with a few things in the back room. Help a pal?"

Before Sina could tell him he wasn't interested in carrying or cleaning anything, Cody pulled him towards a small storage room and locked the door behind them. "Look." With a huge grin on his face, Cody slipped out a small baggie and waved it in front of Sina's face.