Chapter 18: The Island's Shield
The morning air in Bev Keane’s spare room was thick with the scent of Jud on the sheets. Paul dressed in silence, watching the man sleep—the tousled hair, the peace on his face that was so hard-won. He bent, kissed his forehead, felt Jud stir and mumble something that sounded like “demonic rooster.” Paul smiled, a sharp pain in his chest. He tucked the plush lion closer against Jud’s side and slipped out.
Downstairs, Bev was already at her ancient fax machine, her posture rigid. The mechanical whir and beep sliced through the quiet house. She fed a page through. Paul read the upside-down text as it crept into the machine: …concern for the safety and moral well-being of Father Duplenticy…recent unsanctioned and invasive pastoral visits from mainland clergy…traumatizing encounters requiring peace and isolation…
“They’ll read between the lines,” Bev said quietly, not looking at him. “The ones who matter will understand it was an assault. It’ll slow down any official paperwork. Create doubts.”
“Thank you, Beverly.”
“Don’t thank me. Just bring him home safe.” Her eyes met his, flinty. “Or don’t come back at all.”
He took the first ferry, the damp wind cutting through his coat. His body still hummed with the memory of the night before—Jud’s warmth, his gasps, the terrifying, profound rightness of it. It felt like a confession and an absolution in one. That feeling curdled into a cold knot of dread as the mainland grew larger.
The diocesan office was all polished wood and faded carpet, smelling of lemon disinfectant and ambition. The two bishops, Monsignor Gaines and Bishop Hartley, received him in a conference room. They looked like kindly uncles, all soft hands and sympathetic tilts of the head. The performance made Paul’s skin crawl.
“Father Paul, we’re so glad you came,” Gaines began, his voice oozing concern. “We’ve been worried. Your messages were… frantic.”
“Jud was assaulted. Here. By men wearing clerical collars,” Paul said, his voice flat, leaving no room for debate. “You tried to buy him. You’re trafficking human beings. I know about the farm. I’m here to tell you it ends. Now.”
The bishops exchanged a glance of profound, practiced sadness. Hartley sighed. “My son, this is a deeply troubling fantasy. Father Duplenticy is a troubled individual. His… physiological condition creates profound psychological distress. He spins tales. He invites certain attentions.”
“What we see,” Gaines cut in, his tone turning firmer, “is a pastor who has become unhealthily fixated on a disturbed member of his flock. Perhaps sexually. It’s a sickness. We think it best if you both return to the mainland for evaluation and… care.”
The walls seemed to close in. Paul leaned forward, his palms flat on the cool table. “I will stand down from my role this second. Strip me of my collar. Do it. But if any of you, or anyone you’ve sold him to, lays a hand on Jud again, I will know.” His voice dropped, a low tremor of something ancient and unforgiving threading through it. “And I will bring down a vengeance upon you that will make your god seem like a merciful child. I swear this to you. I will rain hell."
Silence hung for a beat. Then Hartley chuckled, a dry, dismissive sound. “You see? This is the sickness talking. Violent delusions.”
Gaines stood, his face now cold administrative stone. “Father Paul Hill, for the good of the Church and your own soul, your facility is hereby closed. Your priestly faculties are revoked. You are no longer a reverend in the eyes of this diocese. You will leave these premises.”
They ushered him out, not to the main hall, but through a back corridor lined with storage rooms. As they neared a fire exit, Hartley pushed him firmly against a stacked pile of old hymnals. Gaines’ hand slipped between Paul’s legs, groping him with clinical brutality, a grin stretching his pious face. Paul went rigid, a snarl freezing in his throat. To react was to reveal what he was.
“Lucky for you, you’re not a sweet little whore like your Judah,” Gaines breathed into his ear, his breath smelling of mint and decay. “Otherwise, we might have to keep you, too. Now get out. We have a collection to arrange.”
They shoved him through the steel door into a dirty alley.
Paul stood there, trembling not with fear, but with a rage so pure it whitened his vision. The indignity of their touch was nothing. The stripped title was nothing. The knowledge was everything: they were coming for Jud. Today.
He moved.
The countryside blurred past the windows of a stolen sedan. He drove with a preternatural focus, scouring the peripheral areas mentioned in the fragmented, terrified prayers he’d heard from Jud’s dreams. Abandoned silos. Long, low buildings set back from dirt roads. Places of concrete and silence.
He found it just past dusk. A long, windowless poultry barn at the end of a disused farm lane. The air didn’t smell of chickens. It smelled of unwashed bodies, fear, and antiseptic. A plain white van was parked near a side door. A man in a cheap suit stood smoking by it, talking on a phone.
“—got the green light for pickup on the island subject. Yeah, the special one. After midnight. Just secure the others for transport.”
Paul parked the car deep in a copse of woods two miles away and came back on foot, a shadow among shadows. He scaled the roof of a neighboring shed, his body clinging to the corrugated metal with an unnerving stillness. He watched. He listened.
The side door opened. A man in scrubs led a figure out into the fading light—a young person, moving with a shuffling, drugged gait, their shape ambiguous beneath a hospital gown. They were guided into the van. The suit nodded, finished his cigarette.
This was the place.
Paul didn’t move. He folded himself into the dark space beneath the shed’s eaves, his ancient body becoming just another part of the gloom. The cold night air settled. Stars prickled overhead. On the island, Jud would be worrying, or gardening, or clutching that stupid, wonderful lion. Bev’s conspiracy of islanders would be watching the docks with shotguns and sour expressions. They were buying him time with their loyalty.
He had until the white van returned from its island run. Until they came back with their cargo empty, ready to fill it with the others.
He watched the barn. The single bulb above the door buzzed, attracting moths. His hunger, both for blood and for violence, was a live wire in his gut. But he waited. The world narrowed to the rectangle of light on the gravel, the chirp of crickets, the slow, measured beat of a heart that had no business still loving anything in this rotten world.
It was a matter of waiting.