killer sinner whore
I. killer
(I'm a monster...I'm a monster.). He stumbles, trips, falls away from the alley. Scrapes his hands on the cobblestones, but doesn't feel it. Little shots of pain up his arm but what does it matter to him? (I'm a monster.) The streets stink of horses and people and trash, and it's the people that make the monster inside him roar and rattle against the bars of its cage. His mind, his soul, his body are the cage and every second, there's a battle raging. He's a bystander in the fight between good and evil, and it's inside him. The scent of human flesh, the sound of heartbeats and blood rushing if he gets just a little close to one of them...it's maddening. (I need...want. Blood. Kill. Hurt...)
When he isn't fighting the demon, he remembers. Little children, women, men; a young, devout girl with raven hair and eyes that see evil, unholy things when she closes them; a beautiful poet with sandy hair and a shy smile, high society accent that's now a little more Cheapside than anything else; He's killed them, made them monsters. Made them his. (You'd think...I wouldn't remember them all...all of them, all of them, all of them)
Perhaps his own insanity is his penance for what he has done, for the way he's stolen lives, broken minds, torn flesh and drawn blood. Someone shouts at him and Angel suddenly realizes he has lingered in the street and the men from the alley have recovered. He runs, and with every foot fall: (I'm a monster)
He reaches a building, and unseeingly places a hand against it to push it open, to hid within. When his hand begins to burn, he yanks back, the face of the demon springing forth. A cross is burnt into the flesh of his palm and Angelus finally notices where he is. The engraving reads "Antim Monastery", and the face of Christ stares woeful from a crucifix. Angelus turns and flees.
II. sinner
"I'm bad!" She screams over the rain (punch) "Fight back!" (kick). She sobs "I'm evil! I'm bad! I'm evil! Do you hear me? I'm bad! Angel, I'm bad!"
...Faith's grandmother had been a devout Catholic. Up until she was 10, Faith would go with her to mass. Every Sunday she left her mother in a drunken heap on the couch, went to church. She knew all the prayers, sang the hymns, shot dirty looks at anyone who so much as glanced at her dirty jeans and tattered sweatshirt. "God won't care whether you're in your best dress or a potato sack." Gran had told her. "As long as you're a good girl." And Faith was. A very good girl...
"Please. Angel, please, just do it. Angel please, just do it. Just do it. Just kill me. Just kill me." She's bad, and she knows it. She's murdered and now she'll go to hell.
What was it Father Michael had said on that last Sunday morning before Gran had her stroke and Faith found her watcher (or had it been the other way around?)...he had said that the good would be spared when the Lord came again, and the evil would be punished.
He said--his voice echoing off those stone church walls, inset with beautiful glass depicting the Visitation, the Immaculate conception, Saint Patrick driving the snakes from Ireland--he said "See, the day of the LORD is coming -a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger- to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it." Faith's spine had shivered with delicious fear and the domed church ceiling seemed to become heavy with the clouds of her own future sins and the saints frowned down on her. But of course she was too young to know or notice; she was still pure.
(Punish me, hurt me, kill me, I've sinned. I've sinned and I can't, can't take it back.)
...And the first bible verse Gran taught her was "Praise the Lord, I tell myself, and never forget the good things he does for me. He forgives all my sins." ...
III. whore
"I want a priest."
"I've told you already, we've not been able to reach Father Gale. Besides, you won't be needing your last rites. Not yet."
She coughs, curling into herself, hand clasped over her mouth. "I'm dying."
"Yes, you are."
(I deserve to die. I am nothing but a whore. Filth. Dirty. I'm tainted.) She welcomes it; the dark quiet of death. She knows it's sinful to think this way, but what good has God done her? She holds no illusion of being made a saint. She asks for a priest at least once a day, but it's only going through the motions. With every leech they place upon her neck, she hopes the worm sucks the last of her blood from her veins so she can just die, with or without her Last Rites. She believes that it wouldn't matter anyway, seeing as she hasn't set foot in the house of God in years. How could she? She shouldn't be allowed to cross the threshold of the cathedral. God does not tolerate trash in his house. Mother always said that, her mouth twisted in disgust as they passed the harlots in the streets on the way to service.
(Sometimes I have nightmares of monsters and blood. Sometimes I want them to be real so they can come and end my disgusting existence.) She has been raised to believe that what she has become is lower than horse manure. She who catches the disease of the promiscuous deserves to die here in her own sick, tended to by nuns who are outwardly kind but whom she knows are damning her with every kindly look.
(Let the monsters carry me to hell. Burning in the Abyss is a greater comfort than this place. This is Hell. This is my punishment.)
She hungers for darkness. And one day she gets her wish. Her first real kill is in a cathedral, and the blood stains the altar a deep red. Three centuries later, she is still what she was. A whore; harlot; jezebel, and nothing will change that. She can't bare to look at crosses. And leeches make her nervous.