Hunter's Prayer by Lilith Saintcrow

questioned him far more effectively. You cannot keep information from me and expect me to protect you! ”
    “He’s a Jesuit. He can’t tell you anything.” Rourke spat the words as if they’d personally offended him. “He took a vow.”
    I dropped Guillermo. Fuck. I’m about to beat up a priest. Man, this is getting ridiculous. “If you don’t start talking in fifteen seconds, Gui, I’m going to start searching. I’m going to tear this place apart from altar to graveyard until I find whatever you’re holding. You might as well tell me now. What is it? What are the Sorrows looking for?”
    “It’s nothing of any use to them.” Gui rubbed at his throat. He was still pale, and the smell swirling in the air was beginning to be thick and choking. I was used to smelling death, but he wasn’t. “Merely an artifact—”
    “What. Are. You. Holding?” The scar pulsed in time to each word, and I was close to doing something unforgivable, like hauling off and slugging a priest. Dammit. This disturbed me more than I wanted to admit.
    “The Spear of—” Rourke almost yelled.
    ” No! ” Gui all but screamed.
    “— Saint Anthony! ” Rourke bellowed, his face turning crimson. Gui sagged.
    I turned on my heel, eyed Rourke. Come on, I used to be Catholic. Don’t pull this shit on me. “Saint Anthony didn’t have a spear. He gave his staff to Saint Macarius.”
    “It is the spear he blessed with his blood when the citizens of a small town were overwhelmed with the hordes of Hell. He didn’t use it; Marcus Silvacus used it.” Father Rourke’s flabby cheeks quivered, and he was pale too. I couldn’t tell if I was smelling the stink of a lie on him, or the reek of fear.
    I am going to have to check that out. As far as I knew, Marcus Silvacus never met Saint Anthony, and Saint Anthony didn’t have a fucking spear. I could feel my teeth grind together. I tipped my head back, my jaw working.
    “I’m sorry, Guillermo. But you took a vow.” For once, Rourke’s tone wasn’t blustering.
    “An artifact here, and it somehow slipped your mind to tell me? This isn’t looking good, Gui. Years and years I’ve trusted you, and I’ve done the Church’s dirty work peeling demons out of people before I was even fully trained. This is how you repay me?”
    “The Sorrow said he was fleeing,” Saul’s voice cut across mine. “It might be unrelated.”
    I wasn’t mollified, but he did have a point. “Still, that’s something I needed to know.”
    “Agreed.” His hand curled around my shoulder. “It stinks of death in here. And we have work to do.”
    Damn the man. He was right again.
    I shook out my right hand, my fingers popping as tendons loosened. “All right.” I sounded strange even to myself. “Fine. But I won’t forget this, Guillermo.” I will not ever forget this.
    “I would have told you everything, Jillian. When I was released from my vow.” Gui slumped against the wall, rubbing his throat, though I hadn’t held him by anything than his cassock. “I swear it, I would have. I didn’t think the two were connected, and I can’t speak of it.”
    I waved it away. The charms tinkled in my hair, uneasily. “Get that cleaned up. And give him a decent burial; he was only a kid.”
    “Not in consecra—” Rourke stopped when my eyes rested on him. I felt my face harden. My blue eye began to burn, and I knew it was glowing, a single pinprick of red in the center of my pupil.
    “Give him his last rites,” I said, very softly and distinctly. “If indulgence is required, Father, I’ll pay. But for God’s sake bury him kindly.”
    I left it at that. And for once, so did he.
    Saul drove. I wasn’t in the mood. We didn’t speak on the way home. As soon as I swept the warehouse and determined it was safe I headed for the phone. Which began to ring as soon as I got within three feet of it.
    I hooked it up. “This better be good news.”
    “Hello to you too.” Avery sounded serious, as usual.