CONFESSIONAL
by Becky Durden
A note: This BS was written in reply to a challenge to have a vamp posing as a priest to hear people's sins, and basically getting off on it. Wait, stay with me! It's far different to how I usually perceive Lestat, but it allows me to explore a little of his crueller side.
That said, there is a rather nasty undertone to this, plus slight hints of his blasphemy, so if it offends you, please do not read. Thank you.
Spoilers: MW4
***
"The search for God is insane?"
"It is if everyone dies alone."
-- Donnie Darko
***
The man, I don't care to learn his name, is shivering as he attempts to make out my features in the near-darkness of the Confessional box. Separated as we are by that sturdy iron grid, he can only make out a vague shape, hidden as I am by the shadows. Perhaps he sees a lock of my blond hair, or a vague hint of a steely blue eye, but nothing more.
I clear my throat, and in as dignified and as kindly a voice as I can muster, I begin. "Welcome, my child."
He relaxes a little at the sound of my smooth voice. "Forgive me father," he murmurs, "for I have sinned."
A brief wave of tenderness overwhelms me, from the memory of reading those words printed on some page many years ago, and the sadness that crushed me to learn he had been suffering like that. But these thoughts are no use, now. Time to concentrate on this, the game.
I regard him from the shadows, and take in his unkempt appearance, his scruffy jacket, his stubble, the sharp smell of whiskey on his breath. "Then confess your sins." I whisper, marvelling at how the words of the Confession trip off his tongue without meaning anything to him. Usually, these ones, the truly cruel, the killers, confess just to be able to tell someone. They no more believe in these teachings than I do. This one is slightly different; fuelled by drink, he wants to boast of what he has done. I push myself up against the wall and moan softly in appreciation.
Sublime.
"You can't... you won't tell the police, will you?"
I smile piously. "No. Nobody will ever hear these sins but us."
"Good."
"Tell me."
He hesitates, like he is withholding a piece of tantalising gossip. "You are sure?"
He needs a little telepathic prompting. I am only too happy to oblige. "Yes."
"Even if it involves murder?"
Godammit, yes! I clear my throat. "I am listening, child." I murmur sagely.
Get on with it!
"She was twenty." He whispers.
Bingo! "Go on."
"She was my girlfriend's younger sister. You should have seen her, no offence, Mr. Priest, but, damn..."
I scowl. I don't want to hear about his wet dreams, just the good part. "So you liked her. Go on."
He is a little taken aback by my brusque tone, but he continues after a short pause. "Whenever she was alone with me, she got scared, just because I was bein' friendly, is all. She led me on, I swear. I just wanted... one day, I tried to touch her. And she started...just yelling, I guess. Just yelling and screamin' that she was gonna tell my girl. I couldn't...let her--she would have ruined everything..."
Here we go. I tense with anticipation. "Go on."
"If she'd just stayed quiet!" he snaps, "...If she'd just acted like the way a bitch oughta... if she'd...I had to stop her, you understand."
Mmm. "How did you do it?"
"Excuse me?"
"You killed her, didn't you?"
He looks down. "I did. I had to, you understand. I just wanted some fun, but she was all sobbin' about it and crying. I just...wanted her to shut up!"
Looking into his thoughts, the malice he feels, the wretched look on the young woman's face, her pleas, "...Don't, please don't..." I laugh softly. He is insane, absolutely insane, and I love him for it, I love his cold malice, his stupidity.
"Did you strangle her?"
"No. A knife. Right in her back."
"Did she die straight away?" I ask.
Another hot wave of malice. His voice rises slightly with excitement. "N...no. I slammed it once in her back, 'Die, bitch!' and when she was on the floor...I just...I dragged it out, and again and again in her back and bitch wasn't moaning any more, she wasn't doing nothing."
"You had your fun, didn't you?" I laugh softly.
He is too excited, too far gone to note that a priest should not talk in this manner, that one wouldn't. He laughs softly. "I guess I did."
"And the body?"
"A secret, father." he smiles knowingly.
"Ahh," I whisper, tapping my nose as if it were a minor secret between friends.
He laughs excitedly. "But listen, you won't tell, will you, father? Will you?"
"It's between you and me... I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die." I laugh softly.
"You're not like other priests."
"No, I guess I'm not. Anything more to confess?"
"I feel awful about it."
Damn! Not the crocodile tears! This part always ruins it. "I'm sure you do," I say hurriedly, "How did you feel when you did it?" I press, hoping he will take the bait.
"Excited, I guess. And...and...happy, but scared, and..."
I lean against the wall as he talks, drinking in his cruelty, his stupidity, loving each and every twisted syllable that he utters from that drink-befuddled mind.
"Go on..." I breathe.
I think upon how I will do it. Will it be in a rush of fangs and malice, my teeth ripping through his throat and biting deep into the skin to tear at it, releasing his life in a fount of hot stinking blood? I can imagine it dripping down my face, the look of horror on his eyes as they roll back in death. That is the best, for the truly evil, for the ones who touch me with their darkness.
Or will it be in a gentle embrace, the hypnotic dance where he feels loved and blessed and only in that last instant, that one split-second flash where his eyes light up in horror that such things can exist and such evil can be finite, he looks into my eyes and knows the truth...Mmm...
"Tell me more!" I moan.
"Uh...father?"
"Do you have more to confess!"
"...No."
Trying to compose myself, I whisper, "And how do you think you can be forgiven, my child?"
He is perplexed. He is holding the back of his head nervously. He tries to peer through the grate, but can barely see me in the darkness. I can make out each bead of sweat on his forehead, can catch that little nervous blink he gives, and it thrills me.
"Well? Please do not keep me waiting, Monsieur. Your sins must be absolved quickly."
He laughs nervously, but when I do not reply, he frowns. "I was...y'know...thinking...well, all that church stuff. To say the rosary and stuff." He shrugs, puzzled.
He jumps when I drown him out with as sinister a laugh as I can muster. "Ah, my friend," I say, infusing my voice with mocking sorrow, "if only it were that simple."
"How do you mean?" He asks, a touch of anger igniting his voice. Ah, there is the old aggression, the slight touch of madness and cruelty that gave him the will to smash her head in. I wonder for a moment what he looked like when he saw the dark blood oozing across the floor.
I laugh harshly. "Do you really think that your great and powerful god will forgive you what you did because you sit in a little confessional and say sorry? You really think that this girl's life, her suffering and pain, becomes nothing because you whisper a prayer to ease what little conscience you have?"
"I don't need to listen to this!" he snarls, furious.
"Don't you?" I laugh.
He leans forward, pressing his face up against the grate, and sneers at me. "I'll kill you," he growls, "I'll smash your fucking head in like I did that bitch!"
"Will you?" I ask, my face coming out of the shadows to sneer at him. I pull make my lips, to let him see the fangs curled against my mouth. "...Will you?"
He falls backwards in fright, scrabbling towards the door. I have only a moment before he starts screaming for help, so I head for his booth as quickly as possible. He is already at the door, trying to escape, but with one small shove I throw him back against the wall. I glance back out at the church; empty.
Perfect.
I turn with deliberate slowness and regard him there, pressed up against the wall as if it might afford him some means of escape. I stand there in the failing light of the doorway, knowing that he is awed by the glimmer it affords my blond hair, hypnotised as he is by my glittering blue eyes.
"What are you?" he asks in awe, "...an angel?"
I laugh, closing the door firmly behind me.
Something quickens in him. "A devil, then!" He trembles. "You have to forgive me! You have to let God know--"
I shake my head. "I'm afraid I'm none of those things. Just a killer, like yourself." I shrug. "Whoops, there goes redemption!"
Lovely despair on his face. "You're not sent from heaven?"
I shake my head, smile at him.
"What are you, then!" he cries, desperate.
"Vampire." I whisper, and I feel the satisfaction ooze over me as the myths, the stories he has heard, play through his mind. Dracula and the Lost Boys and--amusing-- Buffy, and tales in South America of blood-sucking monsters, and...
"You're from hell!" he whispers, clutching at his neck as I move closer to him, in for the kill. "You're evil! Devil's work!"
"Oh, come now," I laugh, "you don't really believe in all those old myths, do you?"
And there we go. In that one instant before my he is engulfed in my shadow, a lifetime's wondering about is it real, is it not comes full circle. Never mind that I myself am unsure; the fact is, I represent to him the closest he has ever gotten to the old myths, and if I don't believe in them, then what was the point of it all, anyway? No retribution, but no forgiveness, just nothing... and it all unfolds in his mind the way it has with countless others.
"Yes," I hiss, grabbing him by the lapels of his coat, and then I sink my fangs into his neck.
*
Why do I do this?
Good question.
I suppose, if you want, you could take a deep look into it and subscribe all manner of theories about it being about my own search for redemption or me taking that step closer to God or blah blah blah...
The simple fact, dear reader, is that I like it.
I get a kick out of it.
And, as I am overcome with glee dumping his body a matter of metres from the church, round back where the little stagnant pond reflects the dark green trees, I know that this was the first, excellent kill of the night, that I am hungry for more, and that I call them towards me, the dark ones, the killers, even as others instinctively stay away. His strong, angry soul is pounding in my blood now, and I watch in that little church, and I wait.
*
Half an hour passes, too slowly.
I perch myself on one of the little benches, listening. An old woman arrives at one point, and I glare at her.
Go away.
She does.
Another few minutes, and someone approaches. I know the game is silly, cruel, ridiculous--whatever you want to call it, but if nothing else, it passes the nights. And hey, I'm doing a service.
This, my gift to the world.
Forgive me father, for I have sinned, but I did your dirty work for you.
The little light is still on in the Confessional booth. My side is still in darkness, and I mask my presence as best as I can. I make human sounds, clear my throat like a human, wait.
A soft footfall sounds at the entrance to the church, slipping past the partially opened door. Another willing victim to my call. I listen as slow, deliberate footsteps sound down the aisle, taking a turn to the right, towards me, and I smile wickedly. This one will be a slow, agonising death now that I have fulfilled this night's initial bloodlust.
The door opens on the other side. A young man steps in, turning off the light straight away. I am gleeful as he moves about a little, adjusting his seat, moving away a little. I do not pay much attention to him, not bothering to look at him or listen to the sound of his heartbeat because I am already imagining leaving the blood splattered across the booth, and what they would make of it.
I clear my throat, a signal for him to begin.
"Forgive me, father, for I have sinned."
I freeze at the words.
What the hell is he doing here? No, no, no...!
"I don't believe in God, you should know, and I don't believe that there is redemption for me. But I would like to talk. I would like to just confess the minor things, anything to ease the burden."
The words catch in my throat. I manage a small "Mm-hmm," disguising my voice as much as possible. He doesn't believe in this nonsense! Why is he here? What does he want?
He takes a deep breath, exhales. "I just killed someone. Understand, this is not what bothers me."
I turn and rub my eyes. Why does he need to come here? Surely he's not that lost. Surely this is a macabre joke.
"A young girl," he is saying, "I could not help it. I was... not myself, father. I killed someone who was barely a teenager. If you knew what this meant to me, if you knew what life and its sanctity meant to me..."
I'm notlisteningnotlisteningnotlistening... I try to think of anything, to block it out. He'll be furious with me if he knows I am listening to this, if this is sincere. And maybe he is already angry with me, and is deliberately teasing me, baiting me to stop it. I don't want to hear this!
His breathing becomes laboured. "...and at times like this, I wonder if it would be so hard to just end it all."
"Stop it." I whisper dully, in my usual voice.
There is a long pause, in which I feel nauseous, as if the blood of that man was churning inside my stomach.
"What you're doing is wrong, Lestat." He says finally.
"Forgive me, Louis," I snap back, "but I don't recall being the first vampire to kill inside a church."
He moves forward quickly, and leaves the confessional. I open the little door and come to stand in front of him, watching his dark green eyes seethe with barely suppressed anger. "Sometimes you're despicable." He hisses.
"Thank you."
"People turn to that place for absolution, for reasoning..."
"Did you know I was in there?" I ask suddenly.
"What?"
"When you started that silly confession-- you must have been playing with me, surely-- did you know it was me? You did, yes?" I smile mockingly, but there is a dull ache in my heart; my throat feels heavy, suddenly, and I swallow the painful lump of misery.
"What does it matter to you?" he asks, a note of challenge in his voice.
"Tell me, Louis." I repeat, this time in a softer tone.
He smiles at me, then, but the smile is tinged with bitterness. For the thousandth time, I curse the fact that I cannot read his thoughts, or that I cannot really understand the quick and subtle changes in his expression, his eyes. "Like you say, it would be a silly thing to do."
"Did you or didn't you?" I press.
"You know the answer to that." He whispers.
"I...of course I do." I whisper.
But I don't; I can't decide on it at all, and as he hooks an elbow through mine and as I lead him from the church out into the blessed night, I feel both anger and misery gnaw at me for the absolution I was not able to give, for the dark angel at my side whom I always fear is going to fall.
The End