Author: Tiffany Reisz

But the trees offered little protection. As Kingsley raced down untrodden paths, the green-leafed branches whipped at him, stinging his skin, his face. But he couldn’t stop. Behind him he heard footsteps. Kingsley could only force his legs to carry on faster, despite the pain of the branches beating him, despite the fear that nearly felled him.

He entered a clearing. The sky above had turned red with the setting sun. Darkness was coming and he would be lost here in the woods. Alone…or worse. Not alone.

He jumped and spun around as the sound of a twig cracking alerted him to the presence of another. Kingsley didn’t hesitate. He took off again, racing deeper into the forest. The canopy of trees closed in on him. Dropping to his hands and knees, Kingsley crawled through a small opening, crying out when the thorns of a bush cut into his forehead. His vision turned red with blood. But he pushed on, pushed through, stood up and started running again. Or tried. But a hand came out of nowhere, grasped him by his shirt and pushed him into a tree. The bark bit into his back. In the shadows, Kingsley could barely see. He groped in the darkness, felt fabric under his hands and tore. His fingers touched something cool. He pulled and it came off in his hand. The grip on him loosened a moment, long enough for Kingsley to get his footing and flee again.

Sweat and blood poured down his face. Kingsley wiped at his eyes. As his vision cleared he discovered he held a small silver cross on a thin chain. Kingsley carried it high up the side of the mountain, the footsteps still following behind him.

In another clearing, he stopped and dropped to his knees. He could run no farther.

As he gasped for air, he heard the sound of shoes sliding over a blanket of leaves. Kingsley’s fingers tightened around the cross. No matter what happened to him, he wouldn’t let it go.

Neither of them spoke. Kingsley put up one last fight as Stearns stripped him naked and forced him onto his stomach. But he didn’t have the strength for anything but surrender. He groaned from the pain every small movement caused him. This wasn’t how he wanted it…not here on the forest floor, broken and bloodied and terrified. But he would take this pain, this humiliation. For the communion he’d prayed for, he would take it all.

Stearns caressed Kingsley from his neck to his hip. Yes, Kingsley decided, this was exactly how he wanted it.

One arm stretched out to the east. The other to the west. He kept his fingers clenched around the cross. When Stearns pushed inside him, Kingsley cried out. Stearns covered his mouth with his hand. Kingsley bit down and nodded, thankful for the fingers against his teeth.

The pain of the penetration was beyond anything he’d ever felt in his life. The knife wound to his chest had been nothing. Nothing had hurt like this, nothing outside or in, nothing in his body or soul.

In the midst of his agony he felt Stearns’s mouth on the back of his shoulder. Kingsley melted into the ground. Whether or not he survived tonight ceased to be a concern. The touch of Stearns’s lips on his skin was all he’d ever needed. Complete now, he could die happy, if that was his destiny.

Time passed, but Kingsley couldn’t count it. After a minute, an hour, the blood began to ease Stearns’s movements into him. The pain turned not to pleasure, but something more than pleasure. A kind of ecstasy that threatened to raze him, cut him down and leave nothing left of him. But it didn’t matter.

Stearns was inside him.

As the red evening turned into the black night, Kingsley rejoiced in this truth. He heard Stearns’s ragged breathing…or was it his own? He didn’t know, didn’t care. He inhaled deeply and smelled pine in the air. A beautiful scent. He inhaled again for another lungful.

On the merciless ground, Kingsley came with a shudder that racked his entire body.

Stearns was inside him.

His prayers had been answered. Perhaps. Or perhaps his prayers were being punished. Heaven and hell became meaningless words to Kingsley. Heaven was now, this moment underneath Stearns. Hell had been every moment before and would be every moment after.

Stearns was inside him.

He repeated those words in his mind until they became the only ones he knew in any language.

It ended, finally, after an hour perhaps. Maybe two. Or perhaps only minutes. He felt a weight lift off of him, felt his body empty.

Slowly, Kingsley pulled his arms to his sides and rolled onto his back. Above him the sky screamed with stars. Beneath him the fallen leaves stroked his skin like a blanket of living silk.

He heard the rustle of fabric, of clothing righting itself. But he would lie here under the heavens forever, naked and bleeding and unashamed. He’d died underneath Stearns. Died and been born again.

Something touched his face. A hand? No, a pair of perfect lips. The lips moved from his forehead to his cheek and settled onto his mouth. The kiss lasted an eternity and ended all too soon.

“My name is Søren.”

Kingsley nodded and prepared words of his own. “Je t’aime,” he replied in the language God spoke.

I love you.

NORTH

The Present

Nothing had changed. Kingsley couldn’t quite believe that after thirty years, absolutely nothing had changed. The road to Saint Ignatius still wound through the most desolate, dangerous countryside he’d ever encountered outside of Europe. The trees still swaddled the school like an evergreen blanket. And every last building looked like a church.

“How long has it been, mon ami?” Kingsley asked Søren as they exited the back of the car Kingsley had hired to drive them to their alma mater.

“Five years, perhaps.” Søren stood in the middle of the quad and looked around. “I came when they buried Father Henry.”

“In his garden?”

Søren smiled. “Where else?”

“Five years…a long time.”

Nodding, Søren slowly turned around and gazed up into the forest that surrounded them. “I try not to come too often. It’s…uncomfortable to be here now, considering.”

“Je comprende.” Kingsley did understand. When his father died, Søren had inherited nearly a half a billion dollars from him. The inheritance had been his father’s last chance to turn Søren away from the priesthood, knowing his son couldn’t keep that kind of money and still be a Jesuit. So Søren gave it away. Every last penny. And Saint Ignatius benefited hugely, to the tune of nearly twenty-five million dollars. “With so much wealth, you think the school would look like a palace now.”

“Father Henry put most of the money into a trust to take care of the boys who were wards of the state. There have been improvements to the facilities—subtle ones. But Father Henry never wanted the school to look ostentatious. Conspicuous displays of wealth offended him.”

“Interesting opinion for a Catholic.”

Søren glared at him. “We’re not having the Saint Peter’s Basilica argument again.”

“I’m getting you a pair of red leather shoes for Christmas. Why should the Pope have all the fun?”

“I miss beating you sometimes, Kingsley. I truly do.”

The two of them walked toward the main building that housed the offices of the monsignor, Father Thomas, and the other priests. Kingsley kept his eyes on the door and his mind away from the past. He’d indulged far too much in memories on the plane trip here. It was in the woods surrounding this school that the boy, Kingsley Boissonneault, had died, and the man who would become Kingsley Edge had been resurrected.

And it was here that his sister, Marie-Laure, had died, never to be reborn.

“Try not to think of her, Kingsley,” Søren cautioned. Kingsley would have killed him on the spot for that bit of advice but for the almost tender concern in his voice.

“It’s impossible not to. She was all I had after my parents died. The day they took me from her…”

Kingsley forced the memory back and away.

“I had bruises for weeks,” Kingsley said, his fingers twisting into fists.

“From Marie-Laure or from me?”

Kingsley looked sharply at Søren. The priest tried everything to avoid talking about that night they’d become lovers. And yet now, suddenly…Kingsley composed his features. “From Marie-Laure the wounds took three weeks to heal. From you…”

“From me?”

Kingsley gave him a grim grin. “I shall tell you when they do.”

Søren exhaled heavily and opened his mouth to speak. But the door of the main building opened and a man in a full cassock came bustling out toward them.

“Father Stearns,” the priest said breathlessly as he shook Søren’s hand. “I had no idea you were coming.”

“So nice to see you again, Father Marczak. We’re only here for a short visit. This is Kingsley Edge, a friend and another former Saint Ignatius student.”

“Very nice to meet you, Mister Edge.”

Kingsley shook Father Marczak’s hand and nodded. He was in no mood to mask his French accent today and had no patience for all the questions his accent inspired. Better to keep silent. He’d learned in his days as a spy that the less he said, the more others said to him.

“What brings you both here today? Father Thomas is at a conference and I’m afraid I’m a poor substitute.”

“We’re here for reasons of nostalgia only. Please don’t trouble yourself. We simply wanted to see the school again.”

“Of course. We’ve made some improvements recently, thanks to your generosity. New plumbing. New heating units. The roofs have been replaced on all the buildings…you can’t imagine how much we appreciate—”

Søren raised his hand to silence the thanks. Kingsley knew Søren would come to the school much more often if it wasn’t for all the effusive gratitude he had to deal with every time he visited.

“I’m only happy that I could help the school carry on its work. This place saved my life.”

“And you saved the school.”

“Then we should call it even,” Søren said, and Father Marczak smiled in acquiescence.

“Of course. I’ll be in Father Henry—I mean, Father Thomas’s office. If you require anything, don’t hesitate to find me. Feel free to roam the school. The boys love having their classes interrupted by visitors.”

“Thank you, Father. Speaking of visitors, have there been any of note lately?”

Father Marczak gave them each a curious look but didn’t ask for clarification. “No. Not really. A few students have visited in the last few weeks. And, of course, parents of prospective students wanting to see the school.”

“None of them seemed unusual at all? Suspicious? I only ask because I received an unsigned note on Saint Ignatius stationery asking about the school.”

Kingsley glanced at Søren. For a priest sworn to keep the Ten Commandments, the man could lie with the best of them.

Father Marczak shrugged. “Really, no. We did have a single mother a week ago. Asked many questions about the school—more than any of the other parents combined. Many questions about the history of the school and the students who’d graduated—what they did now, what they’d accomplished.”

“Did she speak with an accent?” Søren asked, and Kingsley furrowed his brow. Where had that question come from?

“No accent that I noticed,” Father Marczak said. “Lovely woman, really, if you’ll forgive me for saying that.”

Søren glanced at Kingsley.

“Thank you, Father. We’ll be sure to see you before we leave.”

Father Marczak shook their hands again and returned to his office.

“We should ask him more,” Kingsley said. “What she looked like, where she said she was from…”

Søren shook his head. “Too dangerous. Either the woman he spoke to is not involved in this—and likely she isn’t—or she is and would have told him enough lies that his answers would be useless.”