Minotaur: A Wholly Superior Creature

Part IV - The God

We rolled out of Roger's neck of the woods and I set the wheels back toward the center of the city. My heart was in my throat and I wasn't sure why. I needed to get my mind off Roger and what he'd done.

"So what got you kicked out of the fold, Padre?"

I didn't actually expect him to answer, but he opened right up.

"The Church made the same damn mistake they've been making since the Christianity first got started," he said.

"What's that?"

"They forced a priest to decide between doing right, or being orthodox.."

"Didn't go over well, I take it."

"It's my happiest sin, the one that got me excommunicated."

I had to know. "You officiate a gay wedding or something?"

"I performed an unsanctioned exorcism on an unbaptized child despite receiving direct orders from the Vatican not to do so."

"Shit," I said.

He nodded. "Indeed."

"So you pulled a demon out of a little kid," the words sounded just as stupid coming out of my mouth.

"I did."

"So that's what you do. That's what you're in a rush to get to Chicago over, right? Some true believer has problems with the supernatural and you take a flight, smash the problem like King Kong, then head back to San Cicaro for a fresh cup of Joe and some esoteric reading."

I could see out of my peripheral vision that he was just staring ahead, his bone pale skin flashing like a ghost haunting the passing street lamps on Ellison Street.

"If I owned my own life," he said grimly. "I'd probably choose another line of work--but I don't, so here I am." He turned his head to look at me, I was pretty sure that he was done with my flippant probing. "It has to be hard hearing what Roger had to say about what he did with the Mueller case."

"If you're trying to turn this car into a confessional, Father, I can go ahead and pump those brakes for you." He had opened up about his professional tragedies, that didn't mean I had to do the same. "I can't blame Roger for what he did. I won't. Can't say I'd have made the same decision, hell, I'd like to think that I would have stuck it out."

"Isn't that what we're about to do, Detective?"

I gave my eyebrows an elevator ride. "Maybe we hear something, maybe we don't. Maybe we find these Faceless Children or maybe we come out of the sewer in a few hours smelling like shit, holding nothing but our dicks in our hand. Either way, I intend to find some answers."

"If you're so matter of fact about all this, Sam, if you're so calm about it, do you want to tell me why your knuckles are white around the wheel?"

He was right, I was on edge. I had a hold on the wheel like it had taken my lunch money in the fifth grade. I eased up. "My dad wasn't a religious man, but there was a kind of genuineness to him that I never really appreciated until after he was gone. He used to say, 'Son, the only thing that matters in this life are the promises we keep to the people we love.' That stuck with me and hearing Roger tonight reminded me of it."

Father Daniel nodded. "You think he was keeping a promise to Carol."

"I do," I said, as I wheeled the car to the curb of the intersection of Bass and Ellison. "I also think he broke a promise to the people he swore to protect."

"That's a tall ladder of piety to climb for any person, Sam."

I shifted the car into park and looked at him. "Well, Dan, it's hard to deal with the fact that my mentor, the man who helped shape everything about who I am as a police officer, allowed a couple of spooky echoes to convince him to destroy evidence and give up on a case that, if he'd solved it, might mean that Courtney Davidson would be at home tonight with her family instead of being prepared for a closed casket funeral."