Heretics book 3 - The Apocryphile Press

THE KINGDOM :: 229
Dylan picked up his feet, and they started moving towards
the house with Richard walking backward.
That was when Dylan noticed their neighbors sitting on
their front porch, staring open-mouthed at the sight of an
unconscious man being transported by two habited friars
sporting full tonsures.
“Drinking,” Dylan called to them, then tsk-ed. “It’s a terrible
habit, and he’s goin’ right into rehab.”
Richard rolled his eyes, but kept moving, taking the stairs
cautiously as he climbed them backward.
They stopped to rest twice, but eventually got Mikael up
the broad front staircase and into the bathroom. From the
moment they had crossed the threshold, Kat had trailed
them, wringing her hands.
Terry already had started the water going in the tub, and
the others set about undressing him.
The stench was awful, and it wasn’t clear if the excrement
caked into the clothes was Mikael’s or—Richard shuddered—if
it belonged to former occupants of the room in
which they had found him. Using scissors and working rapidly,
they cut away his shirt and pants—his cassock had been
lost before they found him, apparently.
Out of the corner of his eye, Richard saw Kat cringe at
Mikael’s shit-smeared skeletal frame. Then her face registered
more curiosity than horror. “Has he got three nipples?”
she asked no one in particular.
“According to the Pawnee,” Dylan offered, “That’s a sure
sign of a great spiritual nurturer.”
Richard turned Mikael’s body in order to free the last vestiges
of what had once been his shirt, revealing a latticework
of red and white scars on his back. Kat cried out at the sight
of them. “What happened to him?” she asked. “What did he
do to him?”
“Ah don’t think Dane did this, darlin’,” Dylan said in a
soothing voice. “Them’s some old wounds.”