The Mariner

The rutting Mariner began to strike. One. Twice. Each time flecks of blood would hit his cheek, a snarl of orgasmic joy peppered with red.

Schiff looked at the voyeur Mariner, the real Mariner, whose face was a picture of misery and something else. Something beyond the scream. Was it… was it lust?

A growling behind him made Schiff stop studying the man’s expression and look back into the darkness. Beneath the billowing smoke he saw several of the demon dogs crawling up to meet him, their muzzles caked in blood, but their bellies far from empty.

Unable to make himself move he turned once more to the Mariner.

“My past has conjured monsters to punish me.”

The Mariner nodded. “Mine too.”

Schiff closed his eyes and prayed the visions, the fire and the dogs would go away.

Not a single one did.

18. CONFESSION

MCCONNELL SMELT THE MARINER LONG before he saw him. The reverend was working alone in his spacious church, a large structure clinging to the scent of freshly cut wood, despite its construction fading to memory and the ever present cloying odour of incense. The pews stretched back generously into the shadows, optimistic considering the small population, and it was from these shadows that the smell of smoke and singed clothing announced the Mariner’s arrival. McConnell looked up from his book, a tome he’d busied himself writing during all his time in Sighisoara, and wrinkled his nose.

“Can I help you?” he called into the dark entrance of the church as he rose from his chair, voice echoing back from the rafters.

“There was a sign outside,” came the hesitant reply.

“Ah yes, ‘futures given, demons driven, all your sins forgiven’,” he quoted the charming advert, though his voice faltered in the empty chamber. “You were right to enter when you read it.”

The Mariner stepped out of the dark and into the light cast by McConnell’s candles, exhausted and dazed. Smoke still rose from his clothes, despite them being quite cool.

“Is this a holy place?”

“Yes, yes it is. Do you like it? I built the structure myself. When I arrived in Sighisoara I found all the old churches destroyed and I said to myself, this must change. A place needs a mouthpiece through which to hear God’s word. Build a Church and write the book. So I did and so I am.”

“You are?”

“Writing a book.” McConnell indicated a large transcript laid out on a well-lit table. “It’s called the Shattered Testament.”

“What’s it about?”

“Everything,” McConnell smiled, the earnestness in his face betraying his youth, a vigour well hidden behind clipped beard, glasses and worry lines. Altogether his face seemed far too crowded for the slender skull on which it sat. “God, Jesus, good and evil. Have you heard of Jesus Haych Christ?”

Before an answer could be given, the Mariner swayed on his feet like a nudged bowling pin and crashed to the floor. McConnell ran over to him and after placing a hand under each arm, managed to hoist the larger man onto one of the pews. McConnell collapsed next to him, breathing deeply from the exertion. His visitor was a wreck, clothes stained and singed, dark red stains that could only be blood spread liberally about his body.

“You look like a cooked rat,” said McConnell. “I’ll get some food. Do me a favour and don’t steal anything.”

The Mariner opened a wry slit of an eye. “You think I’m a thief?”

“Bluntly? Yes. I think you’ve been a thief and many worse things. But that’s fine, we’ll get into that. First, do you understand that I can offer you something far more valuable than any object you can lay a finger upon within this church?”

The Mariner nodded.

“Good, I shall be back shortly.”

McConnell left the Mariner sitting alone in the large hall and dashed into his private kitchen. He gathered bread, cheese and a glass of wine. When he returned, the Mariner ate and drank greedily.

“Who are you?” he asked once the Mariner had finished the meagre meal.

“I don’t know. The doctor says I’ve forgotten because of problems in my past.”

“The doctor? You must mean Tetrazzini. You’re a patient of his?”

The Mariner confirmed whilst scooping up crumbs with his fingers and pouring them into his mouth.

“How, may I ask, is your treatment going?”

He thought for a moment, unsure. “I think it’s going well. He’s got some strange ideas.”

“That he has,” McConnell agreed. “I remember talking to him when he and his daughter first arrived. He specialises in addiction doesn’t he? Well I know a few things about addiction myself.”

“Like what?”

“Ginger biscuits,” he confessed, the mirth a tad too defensive. “They’re my sin and I indulge myself whenever I can. Sadly there isn’t much ginger spice left in Sighisoara so I’m having to wean myself off.”

The Mariner looked at the reverend blankly.

“I suppose that’s not funny to a recovering… drug addict?”

“Alcoholic.”

“Ah, of course. I see a lot of people come and go from Tetrazzini’s rehab centre. Do you want to know what they all have in common when they leave?”

“Sure.”