The Vampire's Angel (24 page)

13 July 1789 Evening

RIOTS.

BREAD RIOTS. Political riots. Military riots. All riots, all threats of violence.

What had become of this revolution, Xavier wondered, to elicit such savagery?

He tried to cope by focusing on daily activities but could not escape the fact that a peaceful solution had failed.

He tried to forget other things, too, though even less successfully. Just the other day, he had seen Marcel drugging Catherine again. He had become a curse on the family, and according to Anne, a literal one. “Those markings you discovered etched under Catherine’s desk aren’t good. Get rid of them,” she had instructed Xavier the other night. When he pressed her for an explanation, she just said “black magic” and refused to say anymore.

He desperately wanted to forget about his longings for Thomas. The night before, when Thomas kissed him, Xavier nearly fell into Thomas’s arms forever. He almost pleaded for Thomas to sweep him away to America or some exotic locale, but the church scolded him for these wrong emotions. The people needed him, and he could only fulfill his mission if he refused to act on these sinful emotions, so he futilely tried to forget this pining.

Reality haunted Xavier. Revolutionary violence and Thomas plagued him, but losing himself in chores with Maria eased the pain.

This evening, he and Maria completed a mundane task. While they preferred interacting with people, tonight they spent hours cleaning the sanctuary. Hired women usually did this, but they missed so much and Xavier liked everything immaculate. Plus, the church forbade touching certain elements. While Xavier did not care, the women who cleaned had superstitions that prohibited it. So he and Maria occasionally tidied up.

However, Maria increasingly talked about sex with him and still prodded him to forget Thomas.

“Abbé, tell me, do you think my girls and I are doomed to hell?”

“Of course not,” Xavier said.

“Even if we lay naked together, our fingers in unseemly places?”

“I really don’t want that image in my head.”

“At least you admit that it happens.”

“I never denied it,” he responded, rubbing furiously at a spot on a pew.

“You avoided it. You wanted to think that the convent housed pure, innocent, virtuous women who sat around all day worshipping God. We do, but there’s plenty of worshipping each other, too.” She giggled.

“Maria, for heaven’s sake, stop it. I know that you and the other nuns love each other in a variety of ways. Isn’t that enough?”

Maria laughed and Xavier knew his cheeks were flaming red. “Speaking of forbidden love, I’d best get going before your nightly visitor arrives,” she said coyly.

“I don’t want to hear this.”

Maria threw her hands in the air. “Only speaking the truth. I won’t say a word. Just remember that I know a couple of handsome young priests that might be interesting. And a little safer, too.”

“He’s not a danger,” Xavier said, huffy.

Maria shrugged. “Just be careful. Anyway, before I go, help me load these things. They’re the hocus pocus we need for tomorrow.”

“The sacraments?” He cocked an eyebrow at her.

“Oh, enough. God hasn’t struck me down yet.”

Maria headed out, box in tow. The minute she stepped around the corner, Xavier whirled around and raced to the other end of the sanctuary. He had seen Thomas enter as he said goodbye, and his arrival sent a thrill through him. He even repressed yesterday’s events enough to alleviate the horrid ache in his stomach.

“Thomas,” he said, tone colored with urgency, “I worried—”

“You don’t have to talk about it. Just forget it.” Thomas reached over and ruffled Xavier’s hair and smiled warmly, having apparently read his mind before Xavier even got his words out.

And so they slighted their love at Xavier’s request. Yet his best efforts did little to force his mind to forget it. They said nothing about it but the turmoil hung in the air, and it would come up later. Thomas always yielded at the beginning of the evening, but as the time to separate came closer, Thomas became bolder and bolder. Xavier anticipated such a scene tonight, Thomas hinting, Xavier wanting him to do so, and then, at the breaking point, Xavier would run to the shelter of his religion. Why did he always do that? And was his faith a prison?

Xavier brushed past Thomas and led him into the garden, where they had to be discreet. Xavier launched into a comment about the revolution to further move them away from personal matters. He outlined the riots, then explained what he and Maria had done and intended to do the next day. “It’s harder and harder to do our secret services,” he finished, and he knew Thomas sensed his anxiety.

“Then maybe you need to stop,” Thomas said.

Xavier nodded slowly. Strangely, if Michel exhorted him in this manner, or even Catherine, he would bristle. With Thomas, the suggestion comforted him. “But they need me,” he muttered, though he didn’t feel as convinced as he should have.

“If they need you, then make them come to the church.”

“You don’t understand. Many of them can’t, and no one else will come to them. I appreciate your concern, but I’ve told you a million times that I’m protected. Besides, I won’t stop helping them, no matter what you say. I can’t.”

Thomas’s protectiveness in wanting him to stop made Xavier feel loved. Yet he could never follow through with this request, no matter how much comfort Thomas gave to him. It was a calling, a duty of a profound magnitude.

“Haven’t you heard what’s happening to other priests? I’m not talking about curés in distant regions of France. I’m talking about your colleagues right in this city, some of them mere blocks from your church. They’re attacked by their own parishioners. People hate the church. Louis and his armies no longer protect you. It’s a practical matter, Xavier.”

“But I am cautious.”

Thomas dropped his voice, becoming even more serious. “Today, another priest went into his neighborhood and the people attacked him. They stripped him, raided the church, and left him for dead. Does that sound like rational behavior? Things are changing for the worse.”

Xavier had heard about that incident. Denys Girard and others had run to find him immediately after. Of course, he already had two men protecting him when the rest arrived. He understood what was going on, probably better than Thomas and his American sensibilities. People lashed out at priests as a symbol of oppression, but none of the people around Xavier’s church felt like that. None of those curés had organized patrols of parishioners that followed them.

“I’m careful, Thomas.”

“Can’t you stop this until things settle down?”

“No.”

“Your devotion to these people baffles me. With your family and wealth, you could do anything that you want. I know that you feel an obligation, but what drives this?”

Thomas had asked him a question with implications that Xavier hardly wanted to contemplate. Was he ready to tell more about himself? It was a risk that he decided he wanted to take with the man that he had come to love.

13 July 1789

THOMAS RELAXED AS Xavier sat back in the bench outside the church. He had not known what to expect after last night’s agony and crying but should have guessed that Xavier would typically ignore it, which he did after Thomas gave him an opening when they first met tonight. Thomas played this game, not because it solved anything, but because Anthony told him to allow Xavier to move their relationship at his pace. Even his concern about Xavier’s safety led to a dead end. Thankfully, Xavier hit upon something that acutely interested Thomas: Xavier’s theology. He knew that Xavier only believed half of the church’s teachings and interpreted them situationally, and that Xavier expected more of himself than others. But why?

“You won’t believe me. Everyone thinks there’s some hidden meaning to what I feel, but this is the truth.” Xavier leaned forward excitedly. “First, Rome has nothing to do with it. I’m Catholic because I was raised Catholic. I entered the priesthood because it offered the best opportunity to serve people, more than the government or military. I admit a faith in God. I believe that He exists and sent His son to die for us. It’s such a profound notion of love and sacrifice. I think that a Supreme Being must have done this for us or we’d have destroyed ourselves even more. The priesthood is merely the vehicle that allows me to act upon the way I think that people should treat each other. I love seeing people smile when they feel safe in their mortality because of religion.”

“You’re unlike any priest, pastor, or religious leader I’ve ever met. Most do it for power,” Thomas said.

“I think people are better than that. But that’s all there is to know about my beliefs. It’s very simple.” Xavier smiled innocently. “I comfort those in need. When hurt by others or saddened by the reality that surrounds them, their faith offers solace and guides them. They want the church’s authority, as if only that authority proclaimed God’s will, but if I weren’t here, someone else would do this and probably not care as much. My father always told us that our vocation, regardless of wealth or position, was to make this world better.”

If anyone else had made these grand proclamations, Thomas would have laughed out loud. But from Xavier’s expression and fervent words, it was clear he really believed this sentiment.

“Do you understand?” Xavier asked.

“I see what you believe, but you didn’t expect me to convert?”

Xavier laughed. “No.”

“Do you mind, then, if I ask a question?” Thomas quirked an eyebrow, prepared to withdraw if necessary.

“Of course not.”

“Doesn’t this revolution make you question all of your beliefs?”

“Yes,” Xavier answered without hesitation.

“When people attack priests, when they fight each other, when the rich ignore the poor and the poor merely hate everyone above them, and it all leads to violence, doesn’t it make it difficult to continue?”

“What do you mean?” Xavier asked.

“I mean that you can’t save the world. No one can. Things have become too dangerous and I don’t understand why you don’t protect yourself and give up on people.”

Xavier grinned, so sweetly, and still with utter naiveté.

“I’m not trying to save the entire world. I just want to help as many people as possible while I’m here. If I can help one person, then maybe they’ll help someone else, and in the midst of this misery and sorrow make their small part of the world better.”

“I never believed that such things worked. I’m glad you do, though.”

“But I know it works.”

“How?”

“I have a thousand examples,” Xavier answered. “Here’s a recent one. I still weep whenever I think about it. A servant girl, a wonderful person, came to confession. You can’t ever repeat this. I shouldn’t be telling you. Her name is Melisent; she’s pretty and comes from a family in Paris. Her mother works in a textile shop and her father is a blacksmith. They have a lot of children. Melisent always smiles when she sees me and walks around whistling, even while at work. She’s a domestic servant for one of Paris’s wealthy families and my father knew them well.

“But she came to confession this time in tears. She cried and cried without saying a word. Then, almost inaudibly, she asked if it were a sin to kill yourself. She wanted to know if it was possible to go to heaven if that happened because other people said that it meant going to hell. I assumed that she knew someone who had committed suicide and tried to comfort her by saying that I didn’t believe God would forsake them. Then I realized that she wasn’t talking about someone else.” Xavier’s eyes teared. “Against all rules, I got out of the booth, pulled her out of hers, and took her into the back. She collapsed into my arms, a sobbing mess, trembling with fear. ‘Who is it? Who’s killing himself?’ I asked.

“‘Abbé, I’m pregnant and no one can know. I’ve sinned. If I disappear, if I can make it look like an accident in a riot,’ she stopped, and wept as if her heart would surely break.

“I knew why she was in despair. Everyone would condemn her. The church has no sympathy for promiscuity. Her parents would cast her out, if for nothing else than because they didn’t need an extra mouth to feed, and she’d be poison to any family looking for a servant. A bastard child is a death sentence, and she knew it.

“‘Don’t do anything drastic,’ I said. ‘But abbé, God says it’s my fault for not controlling myself. I sinned, I’m not married or even betrothed. No one will listen.’

“Then I asked about the father, hoping he might offer a solution, but this made it worse. She tried desperately not to answer but finally confessed that it was the master of her household. The thug—” Xavier’s voice had an unusual edge to it, “raped her and threatened to fire her if she said anything. He did it all the time, though she stopped resisting because he beat her and it ended more quickly if she gave in. She hadn’t told him about the pregnancy because he’d probably beat her even more. I had seen other women in this predicament, and it was nearly impossible for them to avoid raising an illegitimate child while they worked as a prostitute for food. Of course she thought of suicide. As she continued to cry, I did, too.”

Tears flowed down his cheeks.

“That’s why I serve. No one else would help her. It doesn’t have anything to do with the church, sin, or salvation. It’s simply that I was in the right place and could assist her.”

“What did you do?” Thomas asked, feeling Xavier’s pain.

“I told her to wait while I fetched Maria. We organized a clandestine network of clergy and nuns throughout France, who essentially trade in the destitute. I don’t mean to sound crass, but I can’t think of a better way to say it. We help people in trouble, for whatever reason. We relocate them and give them new identities. So Maria and I spirited Melisent out of Paris.

“She didn’t mind leaving her family or work. They were both miserable situations, and we sent her to a rural village. To everyone there, the priest introduced her as an orphan and widow, her family and husband having been murdered in Paris during the riots. Does this explain why I do all this?”