Skeletons in the Rain

PROLOGUE | NOW

The priest is afraid to pass out from the pain.

I'm going to die down here, he thinks, feeling his grip on the gun slip slightly from his bloody fingers. No, I can't die. Not again.

Then, everything blurs. Black spots appear in front of his eyes, blacker than the night itself, forcing him to stop. He can't hear anything over the storm raging above, and the priest glances over his shoulder to make sure the chief of police is still chasing him through the maze of dim, underground corridors. Come on! Where are you, compadre? A deafening clap of thunder shakes the wall where he's leaning, as if to remind him to keep running. If he doesn't hurry, the person responsible for the death of dozens of people in San Isidro will get away—the one responsible for his own personal hell over the last few months will slip through his grasp. And all will be for naught.

"There's no lawgiver," the priest mutters, teeth gritted as he ignores the pulsing stigmata-like wound in his hand. "No judge. No God."

And even if there is a God, He doesn't care about anything but himself. An arrogant bastard much like—There you are! The priest sees the masked figure before him, and in spite of himself, he freezes for an instant, wondering one last time how it came to this. How is it possible that mere weeks ago he was officiating mass at the smallest church in town, and now he was ready to kill a person? He knows the answer to that, and the irony does not escape him. After all, this all started when he failed to answer a simple question that two Skulls asked him the night of the fire: Who?