Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 106107 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106107 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
But the last thing he’d want is for my obsession to turn to something physical.
At that thought, my skin prickles anxiously. I quickly walk down the aisle and shut the doors to the cold wind, hoping everyone is done with God for the day. I know I am.
My gaze sweeps over the church, making sure everything is in its orderly place, and then I unlock the back room and step inside.
She’s where I left her, strapped to the cross. Her eyes are closed, and she looks listless, her tail even paler than earlier.
Pitiful, I can’t help but think. The longer I keep her here, the less of a vibrant, ferocious predator she is.
I know I’ll have to refill the bucket from the well and wet her down again, but first, I need to take off my cassock robes so I don’t get them wet. Things take forever to dry out here.
“Father Aragon,” the Syren says in a low voice as I place my robes on the chair. The sound of my name snaps my gaze to hers.
I frown, about to ask how she knew my name when she adds, “I have especially good hearing.”
Figures that her senses are better than most. If she’s like me in that way, she also has a superior sense of taste, sight, and smell.
“Do you actually believe what you’re telling those people?” she asks. Her voice is rough, and she licks her parched lips.
“I tell them what they want to hear,” I say, walking toward her while adjusting the collar of the black shirt I wear under the robes. “What they need to hear. It’s not easy to be a settler in these parts. All these people and those who came before them moved from a land much more hospitable than this one. They need God to give them faith, to remind them that everything they’re doing is for a reason.”
“Is that so? What is the reason?”
I tilt my head as I look at her. Despite how sallow she looks, those eyes of her spark with antagonism. “For their country.”
“And what country is that? Is that a kingdom?”
“Yes, the kingdom of Spain.”
“Is that where you are from?”
I pause. “Yes. And what kingdom are you from?”
I don’t expect her to answer me, so it’s surprising when she says, “Limonos, but it doesn’t exist anymore.”
Interesting. “What happened to it?”
She just stares at me for a moment and then raises her chin. “You deflected my question.”
“Just as you’re deflecting mine?”
“I asked you first. Do you believe in what you were telling those people? Do you believe in this God you say speaks through you? Does he speak through you? Do you hear him?”
Her questions give me much to ponder. I walk toward her, stopping a foot away. “I recite the words I have learned,” I admit. “I know what the Bible says, and I know what people expect to hear. God doesn’t speak through me. I don’t hear him. I don’t even think he exists half the time.”
“You question his existence, and yet you are a priest? Even I know that is preposterous.”
I squint at her in wonder. “How did you learn so much?”
“Why are you pretending to be God’s messenger?” she asks instead.
“Because I must,” I tell her.
“Why? Is it something you are forced to do in this world?”
“For some, yes,” I say carefully.
“For you?”
I sigh and run my hand through my hair. “For me as well. I don’t have to do this; I need to do this. It’s the structure of religion and God that keeps me on the path I need to be on. It keeps me from…”
Her eyes flash curiously. “From what?”
“I’ve told you before: it keeps me from becoming a monster, something worse than how I stand before you now. I know you think I’m cruel and immoral, but you really have no idea the lengths I have gone to make sure I hurt as few people in this world as possible.” I wait a beat. “I realize that’s something you may never understand.”
She frowns. “If you’re trying to guilt me, it won’t work. I don’t feel guilt. I kill men not only because they taste good but because they deserve it. I have seen what men to do creatures, to women, to Syrens. One less man is doing this world a favor.”
“Then you should realize I am worse than the worst men you’ve ever heard about or come across. I was turned into a beast by the Devil himself. If there’s anything you should be ridding the world of, it’s me.”
She grins at me with sharp teeth. “Then step a little closer.”
I stare at her for a moment, trying to find some sort of plan in all this chaos.
Then, I reach down for her tail, and I pluck out one of the dried scales.