Read Online Walk among us by Vivien Dean - Free Book Online

several seconds, Calvin exhaled and shook his head. “I don’t even know where to start.”
    “Take your time.”
    Matthew didn’t press and Calvin didn’t rush. His mind raced through everything he had seen and felt and heard over the past thirty-six hours, and still, it muddled too much to find anything coherent to ask. He finally settled for something basic.
    “Did you stop believing in God?”
    The sadness was back in his eyes, barren and hollow. “No, I still believe.”
    WalkAmongUs:ACallingofSoulsstory
    “So why leave the priesthood?” Actually, now that he thought about it, a priest matched perfectly with how he’d characterized him at Krauss’s. Someone who had listened to a lot of woes. Someone in the service of helping others. “You implied you weren’t out. There wasn’t any reason for you to really give it all up, was there?”
    “You mean, other than the fact that I hate Him for giving me this sight? The church tends to frown on its followers despising the Lord as violently as I do.” The kettle began to whistle, and he turned away to pour the steaming water over the coffee grounds. “Besides, demons thrive on grief. You’d be surprised how many show up at services, ready to prey on those who come seeking solace. It’s hard enough to see them elsewhere. I couldn’t deal with it there too.”
    Rather than wait for Matthew to serve him, Calvin stood and plucked two mugs from the tree on the counter. “But you didn’t grow up like this. This is something recent?”
    “Six years ago. I was officiating at a funeral, and there was a demon standing over the widow. I didn’t think about it too much. The weather was awful, and I was tired, and I convinced myself I was seeing things.” He poured out one cup and then hesitated over the second. “Do you take milk? How full do you want this?”
    “Black is fine.”
    Matthew finished with the coffees and went to the fridge. “The widow had a heart attack that night.
    Everybody blamed it on the grief. Including me.”
    Calvin watched the muscles dance along his bare back. They were tense again, in spite of sleep, in spite of the release from their coupling. Knowing this topic was the cause—that, ultimately, he was the reason since he’d brought it up—made him wish he’d chosen the crawling-back-into-bed option instead.
    “I saw another one following someone out of confessional two days later.” Matthew continued the story, either unaware of Calvin’s regret or uncaring. “They found him with his wrists slit.”
    “It could have been coincidence.”
    “Maybe. Until the third time ended in another death. And the fourth.” Matthew was silent as he poured milk in his cup, adding enough to make the coffee a very pale tan. “I saw the fifth talking to Father Abraham. I panicked. Lashed out and hit him over the head with one of the candlesticks on the altar.” His thumb picked at a chip in the rim of his mug. “It would’ve been better if I’d killed him. Father Abraham insisted on going with the thing in the ambulance when it showed. Told me to wait and that we’d talk when he returned. Except he didn’t, of course. And when they finally got the ambulance pried open like a tin can after the crash, they only found his and the EMTs’ bodies.”
    Calvin pushed his coffee aside. He didn’t want it anyway, and he suspected Matthew didn’t really want his. Taking the other man’s hands, he held them out in order to slip inside the circle of his arms, wrapping his own around Matthew’s waist.
    Matthew hesitated to return the embrace. “Don’t feel sorry for me.”
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    “I don’t.” He smiled. “I like the way you feel.”
    He hoped the honest answer and attempt at levity would be enough to batter his reluctance. He nearly sighed in relief when Matthew pulled him into his chest.
    “Why do you think you see these things?” he asked gently.
    He felt Matthew’s shrug. “I’ve never been able to figure