Presence
Contacts
Patience is ten. Her Daddy holds her hands in the dark of her bedroom, the familiar space made scary and strange by the events of the day. The blood has been washed from her face.
“Sometimes the Lord blesses us and it feels like pain, Patience. Sometimes His gifts seem like a curse. But they are still His gifts and we cannot fear them or deny them…”
God has her Daddy’s face. She trusts him.
Patience is 23. Her Daddy again. This time in the birthing room. Patience lays in the bed, an empty rind. She has been here for days. Everything that matters has been pulled from her and carted away to the little graveyard at the edge of camp. Daddy is holding her bandaged hands, looking at them with awe and a touch of fear. Speaking.
“You cannot give up, girl. You have suffered so much, I know. And it breaks my heart. Your Momma’s heart too.” And where is Momma? “But you cannot give up. God chose you. He is testing you, and you have to see it through.”
Of course she does. What choice does she have? She stares at him. Blank. Hollow. His words echo inside her and fade.
Patience is 25. Her Father—her True Father stands over her in the dark. She lies on the floor where he’s dropped her. His Blood is coursing through her veins. Changing her, twisting her. Damning her. And damnation is sweet. So sweet. She struggles to her feet unassisted. Two hands, filled with unimaginable strength, clamp onto her shoulders. Hold her in place. She can feel him close. Smell him. He smells like the grave. Like the end of all things.
“It is time Patience. To come into your birthright. It is time to truly understand the Divine Suffering the Lord has inflicted upon you. Its purpose. To take that suffering and to teach them with it. To teach all of them, the living and the dead, his Truth.”
And in her Father’s voice she can hear the echoes of the Lord’s own voice. It is a horrifying and wordless sound. And she trembles like the Israelites did before the ‘thunders and lightnings…the voice of the shofar exceeding loud.’
Patience has been dead for 25 years. She is leaving her Father. She is going out into the world. It is the night of her departure. He cradles her head in his hands, his fingers probing the back of her skull. It is not affectionate. It is a reminder that he could reduce her to ash without difficulty. A reminder that she would allow him to.
“Go out, daughter. Into the night. Find your place. A place where you can truly serve the Faith, as a proper example of the Lord’s miraculous Will. You are the painful Truth. Inflict upon the Kine those wounds from which flow Faith. And show the Damned those wounds so that they may Believe. So that they may know their Divine Purpose.”
She does. She goes out among them. For the next 25 years, Patience travels. First West along I-70, staying in a series of mid-sized and decaying metropolises: Pittsburgh, Columbus, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Kansas City, Denver. Then South on I-15: Las Vegas, Los Angeles. North again to San Francisco. Everywhere, the Church greets her. They trust or distrust her. She never reveals the gift of her Blood.
And finally: Sacramento. Where she finds the place her Father sent her to search for. Sacramento, where she dreams of Thomas Boyle, now gone from the city, piercing her side with a spear in non-place of complete darkness and despair.
God sends signs. Even in the figure of a Heretic. It is her duty to read them.
Just as the centurion had pierced the side of Christ, the Son of the Lord. Damning himself forever and awakening himself to the Lord’s purpose. Losing all chance of redemption but gaining a Holy Duty.
It is that act Patience contemplates now, kneeling in her haven. As usual, the tiny studio apartment is pitch black. There are no furnishings. Clasped between her hands as she prays is one of her Bowie knives, wickedly sharp. Hilt up, blade down.
She prays, her voice a fervent whisper:
“Lord, having gone out among them—the heretics and unbelievers—having found a place from which to serve you properly, to torment the Kine and reveal the truth to the Damned, I beg you for strength.”
Her hands, clasped around the hilt of the knife, slowly begin to rise.
“The strength to serve you, to do what must be done, to fulfill the duty of the Damned and the destiny of my Blood.”
A pause, everything in the balance. The silence so strained it’s like to snap.
And then it does.
The knife arcs down, finding the spot lanced by Thomas in her dream. Where the Centurion left his wound on the Son of God. It enters cleanly, up to the hilt.
2 successes
Patience does not make a sound. Does not cry out, only sways on her knees. The wound does not bleed. Her hands release the blade to clasp before her again. The knife stays where she thrust it, sheathed in her side.
“Lord, please, hear my prayer.”
Ecstasy of Divine Purpose. Agony of the Lord’s own Holy Mandate. Joy of the implement awakened to its proper use.
And in her Blood: the miracle, the gift, the promise. It stirs.
Patience spends one dot of willpower to join the Gethsemani Bloodline.
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