Not helpful. I ignored him, returning my attention to Rick. “I know I’m being selfish, wanting you to stay. If you really want to be a priest and go have a crusade, I know I should be happy for you. But you need to know how much you’ll be missed.” If he still insisted that he had to do a wild pilgrimage, I wasn’t above crying and begging.
Columban began to lecture. “This is just one city. For a thousand years, through the Crusades, the Inquisition, through centuries of warfare that engulfed the whole of Europe, when the enemies of light would lay waste to civilization, the Order of Saint Lazarus of the Shadows has stood against the darkness because we understand it. Because who else could oppose it as we have? Rick understands. He was born for this, and he came into this life for this.”
Destiny? Was that what this came down to? “Don’t you think Rick should decide that?”
“He’ll choose the path of righteousness.”
“Yeah, and who gets to define righteousness?”
Not the thing to say to a Catholic priest, vampire or otherwise. He actually pointed at me as he drew breath to launch into another spiel.
Rick had been standing to one side. Now, he stepped between us. “Father, Kitty, please. I know all the arguments already. I must make this decision on my own.” My stomach dropped, and I held my breath. Then he turned to Father Columban. “Father, I’m sorry. I’m going to stay.”
I was sure I had heard him wrong, but no.
The priest stared at him, expression slack. “What are you saying?”
“You’ve gotten along well without me all this time,” Rick said. “You and the order will still be here for centuries. But I’ve only been Master of this city for a few years, and I’m not ready to give it up just yet.”
He was staying. I almost jumped up and down, cheering.
The priest looked at Rick, apparently unable to speak. Rick went on, “I’m grateful to you. I’ve been alone with my faith for so long, and now I feel like I have a family again. Not just my own Family. But I’m not a priest. I’m not a crusader. I never have been. I can hold to my faith without joining your order. I hope you’ll understand.”
“I do not understand. You turn your back on God—”
“No, of course not. But I think my calling is here.”
Columban folded his hands so they were hidden in his sleeves and regarded his wayward student. “I suppose I should be grateful that you feel you have a calling.”
“I always have. And now I can even believe I’m not crazy.”
“You will change your mind someday, when you see what it truly is that we face.”
“Something I’ve learned about our condition, Father—we usually have time to change course if we’ve made a mistake. So maybe you’re right. I hope you’ll let me keep in touch with you.”
Columban nodded in acknowledgment. “Ricardo, will you pray with me? One more time?”
Rick said to me, “Kitty, I’ll join you outside in a moment.”
“Okay. I’ll be there.”
I went outside, carefully closing the door behind me so it wouldn’t make any noise.
According to some people, vampires were supposed to be servants of Satan, minions of hell. That was what some of the stories—urban legends, really—said, and it was a belief that many people clung to. Some people said the same thing about werewolves, and I had a ready answer for them: if I was a minion of Satan don’t you think I’d know about it? Prayers were supposed to be poison to vampires, and maybe they were, to some of them. But obviously not to Father Columban. Or Rick, who’d probably been praying by himself for five hundred years. To me, it was proof that vampires and hell had nothing to do with each other. But the stories about hell—what a great way to mark a group of people that you wanted to keep at a distance.
I supposed a lot of vampires found it easier to match the expectations of those stories. Werewolves, too—and yeah, some days I wanted nothing more than to run to the wilderness and be an agent of chaos. But civilization was worth fighting for. Worth a prayer or two, if you believed in prayer.
I sat on a step about halfway down the staircase and waited for Rick.
Fifteen minutes later, Cormac, arm in a sling, came walking around from the west side of the church.
He was sprinkling something on the ground, from a pouch nestled in his sling. Creating a circle, for some nefarious purpose. He even looked sinister, in his leather jacket, wearing sunglasses at night, no matter that they must have wreaked havoc on his vision.
“Hey,” I called, holding back offended annoyance.
He stopped and looked. “What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you that.”