THEO
BUD STUDIED THE ENVELOPE from Hansel’s note. “Sounds biblical . . . Garments of darkness? Your day is nearly here? What’s it mean?”
“Well, it’s a distortion of the actual passage from Romans . . . It’s really more of a threat to me, or who he thinks I am, anyway.”
“A threat?”
“Remember I told you about the pen, that first time I met him. He called me a ‘murderer priest.’ He’d read the newspaper article about all the hero crap and came to some interesting conclusions. But then I came to some conclusions myself, and ultimately when he got around to asking for exoneration, in a way, well . . . I denied him absolution.”
“Yeah, well, who wouldn’t,” Bud said. “But absolution . . . Is that a big deal?”
“To a damaged religious fanatic it is. Or if it wasn’t before that day, then when I withheld forgiveness he turned his venom on me.”
“Bit two hunded times,” Bud smirked. “He’s got plenty of it.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Well, he thinks he’s a religious man who’s been betrayed by religious men, most likely his father. He wants revenge and I’m his mark, which makes everyone I come into contact with, his target. And then, he wants it all to end. He’s called me the ‘gatekeeper to his salvation,’ which means he has to get past me first. Whatever that means.”
“We back to that silver bullet vampire thing?” Bud asked.
“Looks like.”