Miller’s head dropped, but he then gave him a solemn nod. Gabriel stayed in the room as Miller opened the black book and made the contact. Gabriel was amazed at how straightforward it was.
“Sit down, son. We have a lot to discuss if this is the life you’re going to dive into.” So Gabriel did. He and Miller sat at the desk, and Miller told him how it was all done and the people he had access to. When Miller finally closed the black book, ending the conversation, he pulled out a whiskey decanter and two crystal glasses. He poured a measure for himself and one for Gabriel.
“I don’t drink,” Gabriel whispered. He was raw from the level of depravity a role like this would require of him.
“You want some advice, son?” Miller said. He pushed the glass of whiskey Gabriel’s way. “Start. Today is nothing to the trials and tribulations you’ll face. You need to be aware of that going in.”
Gabriel closed his eyes, blew out a breath, and reached out for the glass. He downed the whiskey in one, gasping as the burning liquid ignited inside his chest. He coughed, trying to clear his throat. Miller didn’t laugh. There was no humor to be found right now. Instead he got to his feet and checked his watch. “We need to leave if we’re going to make the meeting.”
Two hours later, two men turned up at Miller’s offices downtown. Gabriel drew them a layout of Purgatory. Told them where the dorm was, and where his brothers were to be brought after the retrieval. Not the manor. But a safe neutral site where Miller would arrange for Winston, the driver, to escort them home in a van. Gabriel didn’t know who the men were and what they did in life. He didn’t need to know anything, other than how they would rescue his brothers. Gabriel gave them a time when the priests would be at Holy Innocents Church. It was the best time to get into Purgatory.
“And any priests still in the building? Should they be disposed of?” one of the men asked.
Gabriel felt the upturned cross on his chest ache with the question. This was it. The moment he stood on the precipice of salvation or damnation. A life of devotion, or that of selfish gain. But when he pictured the Fallen’s faces in his head, the disbelief that Gabriel would actually return for them, save them . . . he willingly jumped into the abyss. “Leave not one of them alive.”
Gabriel and Miller drove back to the manor in silence. Miller said nothing as Gabriel got out of the car and went through the front doors. As he walked, Gabriel thought of the time he had spent studying Miller’s framework of how to mentor the Fallen, as the lawyer had done his grandfather. Gabriel thought of their lives at Holy Innocents. Their time in Purgatory. The systematic institutionalization that had controlled their lives since they were tiny children. Using it as a springboard, Gabriel designed the rules and regulations in a way that the Fallen would understand. Familiarity. Structure and commandments. Ceremonies, rituals.
Gabriel began to run. He ran down and down the staircases until he reached the small hidden chapel his grandfather had built when the house was constructed.
He darted down the short stone aisle and dropped to his knees. As he stared up at the crucifix, tears fell from his eyes. His palms slapped down on the cold stone. Gabriel cried. He expelled all the shame and repulsion he felt toward himself for what he had just done. For the souls he’d had no right to condemn. Gabriel lifted his head, a prayer on his lips, a prayer for forgiveness.
Something black in the corner of the chapel caught his eye. A whip of some kind lay discarded on the floor. No, not a whip. It was a Roman scourge. Gabriel crawled toward the tool and took the wooden handle in his hands. Seven thongs of leather hung from the whip, each laced with bone and balls of metal. Gabriel looked up at Christ’s face and slid off his shirt. Kneeling at the altar, he closed his eyes and whipped the scourge along his back. Gabriel hissed, clenching his teeth so he didn’t cry out. But as the bone-and-metal-clad thongs sliced into his flesh, he felt God’s punishment purge his sins from his body. Felt years and years of sin and lies drain from him. Gabriel’s eyes rolled back in pleasure as he let all seven of the whip’s leather laces extract their revenge. Seven, one for each of the Fallen and the mortal sins Gabriel knew they would one day commit. Seven for the deadly sins, and seven for the heavenly virtues that would aid in his redemption.