The healer knelt down before Verchiel. He placed the satchel upon the ground, undid the tie, and rolled it open to expose the instruments contained within. His hands hovered over the wide variety of scalpels, blades, and saws—tools of healing used by his predecessor and hundreds of others before him.
By touch he found what was needed, a twelve-inch blade that glinted sharply in the beams of sunlight that streamed in through openings in the boarded-up windows.
“Shall we proceed?” the human monkey asked, the sourness of his breath offensive to Verchiel’s heightened senses.
The quicker he was treated, the quicker he could be away from the offensive animal. “Do as you must,” Verchiel responded. He lifted one of his arms and presented it to the healer, a sound like dry leaves rustling in the wind filled the air.
The healer leaned forward, and with great skill, began to cut away the burned, dead flesh.
The pain was unbearable, but Verchiel did not cry out, for it was part of the price he must pay. What was it when the monkeys begged forgiveness for their indiscretions?
Doing penance, he believed it was called.
It was obvious that he had disappointed his Holy Master, for why else would he have been punished so? The pain was his penance. For failing to slay the false prophet he had to suffer, to show that he was truly sorry.
Kraus carefully peeled away a swath of dead skin to expose the raw, moist flesh beneath. If he was to eventually heal, this would need to be done to his entire body; all the burned, dead skin would need to be removed. It would be a long, painful process, but it was something Verchiel was willing to endure—the penance he would pay to receive the Creator’s forgiveness.
The sound of a child’s moan distracted him from his agony.
The Nephilim’s brother, the imperfect one called Stevie, sat on the far side of the altar and rocked from side to side, staring wide-eyed at what had been placed before him.
It was a helmet the rich color of blood, cast in the forges of Heaven—a gift to the child from his new master.
The child groaned again, his eyes transfixed upon it, almost as if he were somehow cognizant of the fate he, and it, would eventually share.
“I shall change you, my pet,” Verchiel said with a hiss, his body trembling with torment as more of his skin was cut away. A pile of dead flesh grew at his feet as the healer continued his gruesome task.
“Transforming you into my hunter of false prophets—”
The child rocked from side to side, his repetitive cries of “no” echoing through the once holy place.
“A tool of absolution,” Verchiel said as he leaned his head back against the chair and again looked to the church ceiling and the all too human images of Paradise. A place that, if he were to have his way, only the truly worthy would ever be allowed to enter.
“My instrument of redemption.”