“He finds the cracks in our virtue.” There was no doubt now—amusement threaded through Heinrich’s voice. “The places where we’re already broken, alreadywanting. And there, in that sacred wound between desire and duty, he makes his home.”
The shadows’ rhythm quickened, and I could taste iron where I’d bitten my lip to keep silent. I pressed my thighs together, trying to suppress what was building inside me, but the shadows merely tightened their grip. They knew my body better than I knew it myself. They knew exactly where to touch, how muchpressure to apply, when to advance and when to retreat until I trembled on the edge of something catastrophic.
But just as every time before, I yielded to him, my hips moving with the same blasphemous pattern. I ground against the edge of the pew, not resisting temptation, but begging for it. Just as he’d said. And God help me, I did not want him to stop.
“And here is the terrible truth,” Heinrich declared, his eyes boring into mine. “Sometimes we don’t want to be saved, for the fall is sweeter than grace. Sometimes we find God not in the light, but in the exquisite darkness of our own undoing.”
He began a call-and-response hymn. The crowd repeated his Latin words, most not knowing their meaning, only feeling the devotion in them and the power of the cathedral’s organ. But he’d taught me well, and I understood every verse. I felt the vibration of the music and how it echoed through my shaking legs.
Deity here in hiding, whom I do adore,
Masked by these shadows, shape and nothing more,
See, Lord, at thy service I give my heart,
For it is lost in wonder at the God thou art.?1
Lord, whom I look at shrouded here below,
I beseech thee, send me what I thirst for so,
Some day to gaze on thee face to face in light
And be blest for ever with thy glory’ssight.?2
Amen.
In the darkness behind my closed eyes, the shadows finished what they had started.
I came apart silently, teeth buried in my lip, fingernails digging into the wooden pew hard enough to leave marks. The pleasure crashed through me in waves, holy and profane all at once. And through it all, I heard Heinrich’s voice leading the faithful in prayer, asking God’s blessing on this congregation, on this city, on all who sought the light.
When I opened my eyes, he was beaming.
“Let us pray,” Heinrich said, and the congregation bowed their heads.
The shadows retreated as if they had never existed, leaving me shaking in the sudden absence of their touch. My thighs trembled and my shift clung to my sweat-dampened skin. I looked like what I was—a woman thoroughly debauched in the middle of Sunday Mass.
When the congregation lifted their heads, Heinrich’s gaze found mine one last time. He grinned, victorious.
“Go in peace,” he murmured to his flock, “to love and serve the Lord.”
But his eyes, fixed on me, said something else entirely.
You have always known.
I waited until the cathedral had emptied, until the last of Bamberg’s faithful had finished their pious small talk with Heinrich. I waited until the heavy doors swung shut and we were alone again, then I walked down the center aisle toward the altar where he stood.
He watched me approach with an expression of patient satisfaction, a cat that had cornered something small and frightened. But I was not frightened. Terror had burned away during that unholy Mass, replaced by something hotter and more dangerous.
Clarity.
“What are you?” I asked. My voice was steady. I was proud of that.
“You know what I am.” He did not deny it. “You have known for some time now, I think. You simply chose not to see.”
“A demon.”
“Such an ugly word.” He descended the altar steps, closing the distance between us. “I prefer to think of myself as liberated. Unbound by the petty rules that constrain my brethren. Free to love where I choose.”
