Page 27 of The Sinner and the Gunslinger
Watch your back around her, my instincts scream.
“This can’t go on.” Leila paces alongside the table and restlessly flips her dagger.
“I agree.” Thea returns to the table and collects books and papers from the floor.
Wesley helps, and they arrange the papers into something only they understand.
When Thea meets Raven’s eyes, I catch a kernel of excitement before she carefully shutters it.
“We found something...” she says. “And Raven’s vision backs it up.”
“Should I call everyone back?” Leila takes a step toward the exit.
“No. The Rev knows,” Thea says.
“Francisco?” Dom rumbles.
Wes shakes his head. “We’ll let Father know after he’s finished with Sister Agnes.”
Thea slides her finger across the lost gospel’s discolored parchment. She clears her throat and reads Mary Magdalene’s words.
“Lo, a vision hath come upon me, Mary Magdalene, after a blessed communion with our Savior and the Holy Spirit that dwelleth within me—”
Leila snorts.
“Be serious,” Thea warns, but a smile tugs her lips. I’m not sure what they’re referring to and then Leila gives a derisive reply.
“How can you not chuckle atblessedcommunion with her savior? The Holy Spirit inside her?”
I chuckle. “She fucked him. I get it.”
Dom mumbles some kind of prayer for my soul. Leila shoots me daggers—as if I have the gall to laugh at her joke—but I brush it off with a smirk. I kind of like this side of Leila. It’s not the first time she’s made inappropriate comments. Wes told me he caught her making rude hand gestures to Thea once in his class. This makes me think that at least some of me rubbed off on her during our childhood. Fun Leila is still in there somewhere.
“Continue, Thea.” Wesley taps the table.
“Okay... where was I...”
For a trial hath been ordained by the Lord our God, a test that shall be undertaken by sinners and saints alike. That which was the tool of the greatest sin in passion shall be forged by saintly fire into a chamber of forgiveness against the greatest of sinners.
She turns a page and points at another passage of ink on parchment. “There is a passage we can’t quite translate properly. We’re working on it. But then here she recounts a conversation about a prophecy with another Apostle...”
“And I saw a rider, with a mouth of flames and a heart full of vengeance, riding forth upon a black steed. His name was War, and he sought to spread his flames and burn all in his path.”
But then a voice spoke to me, saying, "Do not be afraid. For like all who repent, he who rides upon the black steed shall be forgiven, for he shall take unto himself the helmetand bridle of passion."
Peter said to me, “Surely you do not speak of forgiving a dark one such as this?”
And I replied to him, “These objects hold a deeper significance, for they represent the dual nature of man, the gentle and the fierce, the sinner and the saint. It is not until he takes this gift unto himself that war becomes peace, forgiveness becomes absolution, and the final crack is closed.”
And I knew then that even the darkest of sinners would be given a test, a trial of temptation and revelation, a means to sink or swim.
“It sounds like gibberish to me,” I grumble, but nevertheless, a chill runs down my spine.
Thea lifts her gaze. “It’s clearly about Asmodeus. It talks about forgiving him, which is weird. But it also mentions two important objects—a bridle and a helmet.”
“You think one is the relic?” Leila hardens her stance.
Thea nods. “Here, where it talks about a ‘tool of the greatest sin,’ I think she’s referring to the nails used to crucify Jesus. And here, where she says a helmet and bridle of passion—she must be talking aboutThe Passion... the final moments of Jesus’s life before he was crucified... and here, it says—”
